past.”
“To Mrs. Spence?”
“We think so. He said something about judging…” St. James paused in the act of unbuttoning his shirt. He sought the words as Polly Yarkin had recited them. “‘You can’t judge what happened then.’”
“The boating accident.”
“I think that’s what’s been niggling at me since we left the vicarage. That declaration doesn’t fit in with his interest in Social Services, as far as I can see. But something tells me it needs to fi t somewhere. He’d been praying all that day, Polly said. He wouldn’t take any food.”
“Fasting.”
“Yes. But why?”
“Perhaps he wasn’t hungry.”
St. James considered other options. “Selfdenial, penance.”
“For a sin? What was it?”
He finished with his unbuttoning and sailed the shirt the way of the tie. It too missed its mark and fell to the floor. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m willing to lay whatever odds you’d like that Mrs. Spence does.”
AN EARLY START, INITIATED long before the sun rose above the slopes of Cotes Fell, got Lynley to the outskirts of London by noon. The city’s traffic, which daily seemed to become ever more like a Gordian knot on wheels, added another hour to his travel time. It was just after one when he pulled into Onslow Square and claimed a parking space that was being vacated by a Mercedes-Benz with its driver’s door crumpled like a defeated accordion and a scowling driver harnessed into a neck brace.
He hadn’t phoned her, either from Win-slough or from the Bentley. He’d told himself at first that it was far too early — when, after all, had Helen ever risen before nine in the morning if she wasn’t compelled to do so? — but as the hour grew later, he changed his reasoning to the fact that he didn’t want her to rearrange her schedule just to accommodate him. She wasn’t a woman who liked being at any man’s beck and call, and he wasn’t about to foist that role upon her. Her flat wasn’t that far from his own home, after all. If she’d gone out for the afternoon, he could simply toddle onwards to Eaton Terrace and have lunch there. He flattered himself with thinking how liberated all these considerations were. It was far easier than admitting the more obvious truth: He wanted to see her, but he didn’t want to be disappointed by Helen’s having an engagement that excluded him.
He rang the bell and waited, observing a sky the approximate colour of a ten-pence coin and wondering how long the rain would hold off and if rain in London meant snow in Lancashire. He rang a second time and heard her voice crackle with static from the speaker.
“You’re home,” he said.
“Tommy,” she said and rang him in.
She met him at the door to her fl at. Without makeup, with her hair pulled back from her face and held in place with an ingenious combination of elastic and satin ribbon, she looked like a teenager. Her choice of conversation emphasised the similarity.
“I’ve had the most tremendous row with Daddy this morning,” she said as he kissed her. “I was supposed to meet Sidney and Hortense for lunch — Sid’s discovered an Armenian restaurant in Chiswick that she swears is absolutely heaven on earth, if the combination of Armenian food, Chiswick, and heaven is even possible — but Daddy came to town yesterday on business, spent the night here, and we sank to new depths in our mutual loathing of each other this morning.”
Lynley removed his overcoat. She’d been consoling herself with the rare luxury of a midday fire, he saw. On a coffee table in front of it were spread out the morning’s paper, two cups and saucers, and the remains of a breakfast that appeared to consist mostly of overboiled and half-eaten eggs and deeply charcoaled toast.
“I didn’t know you and your father loathed each other,” he said. “Is this something new? I’d always got the impression you were rather his favourite.”
“Oh, we don’t and I am, how true,” she said. “Which is why it’s so utterly disagreeable of him to have such expectations of me. ‘Now don’t misunderstand me, darling. Your mother and I don’t for a moment begrudge you the use of this flat,’ he says in that sonorous way he has of talking. You know what I mean.”
“Baritone, yes. Does he want you out of the fl at?”
“‘Your grandmother intended it for the family, and as you’re part of the family, we can’t accuse you or ourselves of ignoring her wishes. Nonetheless, when your mother and I reflect upon the manner in which you spend your time,’ and all the etceteras at which he so excels. I hate it when he blackmails me about the fl at.”
“You mean ‘Tell me how uselessly you’ve been spending your days, Helen darling’?” Lynley asked.
“That’s just exactly it.” She went to the coffee table and began folding the newspaper and stacking the dishes. “And it all came about because Caroline wasn’t here to cook his breakfast. She’s back in Cornwall — she’s defi nitely decided to return and isn’t
Lynley weeded through the information for the one point on which he had at least a degree of expertise. He couldn’t comment on the marital choices that two of Helen’s sisters had made — Cybele to an Italian industrialist and Iris to a rancher in the United States — but he felt conversant with at least one area of her life. For the past several years, Caroline had acted the role of maid, companion, housekeeper, cook, dresser, and general angel of mercy for Helen. But she was Cornwall born and Cornwall bred and he’d known London would wear uneasily upon her in the long run. “You couldn’t have hoped to hold on to Caroline forever,” he noted. “Her family’s at Howenstow, after all.”
“I could have done if Denton hadn’t seen fi t to break her heart every month or so. I don’t understand why you can’t do something about your own valet. He’s simply unconscionable when it comes to women.”
Lynley followed her into the kitchen. They set the dishes on the work top, and Helen went to the refrigerator. She brought out a carton of lemon yogurt and prised it open with the end of a spoon.
“I was going to ask you to lunch,” he said hastily as she dipped into it and leaned against the work top.
“Were you? Thank you, darling. I couldn’t possibly. I’m afraid I’m too occupied with trying to decide how to make something of my life in a fashion both Daddy and I can live with.” She knelt and rooted through the refrigerator a second time, bringing forth three more cartons. “Strawberry, banana, another lemon,” she said. “Which would you like?”
“None of them, actually. I had visions of smoked salmon followed by veal. Champagne cocktails fore, claret with, brandy aft.”
“Banana, then,” Helen decided for him and handed him the carton and a spoon. “It’s just the very thing. Quite refreshing. You’ll see. I’ll make some fresh coffee.”
Lynley examined the yogurt with a grimace. “Can I actually eat this without feeling like little Miss Muffet?” He wandered to a circular table of birch and glass that fitted neatly into an alcove in the kitchen. At least three days of post lay unopened upon it, along with two fashion magazines with corners turned down to mark pages of interest. He fl ipped through these as Helen poured coffee beans into a grinder and set it to roar. Her choice of reading material was intriguing. She’d been investigating bridal gowns and weddings. Satin versus silk versus linen versus cotton. Flowers in the hair versus hats versus veils. Receptions and breakfasts. The registry offi ce versus the church.
