her and I never would. She was my baby. I loved her. I
Sitting in the Bentley with the windows steaming and the traffic hissing by on the Lambeth street, Lynley remembered the end of the story of the woman taken in adultery. It was about casting stones: Only the man without sin — and interesting, he thought, that it was men and not women who would do the stoning — could stand in judgement and administer punishment. Anyone whose soul was not unblemished had to move aside.
You go to London if you don’t believe me, she would have said to her husband. You check on the story. You see if she’d be better off living with a woman who fractured her skull.
So he had come. He had met her. And then he had faced the decision. He was not without sin, he would have realised. His inability to help his wife come to terms with her grief when their own child died had been part of what led her to commit this crime. How could he now begin to lift a stone against her when he was responsible, if only in part, for what she had done? How could he begin a process that would destroy her forever at the same time as it ran the risk of also harming the child? Was she, in truth, better for Maggie than this white-haired woman with her rainbow children and their absent fathers? And if she was, could he turn away from a crime by calling its retribution a greater injustice?
He had prayed to know the difference between that which is moral and that which is right. His telephone conversation with his wife on that final day of his life had telegraphed what his decision would be:
Lynley glanced at his pocket watch. It was half past one. He would fly to Manchester and hire a Range Rover. That would get him to Winslough sometime in the evening.
He picked up the car phone and punched in Helen’s number. She heard it all when he said her name.
“Shall I come with you?” she asked.
“No. I’m not fit company now. I won’t be later.”
“That doesn’t matter, Tommy.”
“It does. To me.”
“I want to help in some way.”
“Then be here for me when I get back.”
“How?”
“I want to come home and have home mean you.”
Her hesitation was prolonged. He thought he could hear her breathing but knew it was impossible, considering the connection. He was probably only listening to himself.
“What will we do?” she asked.
“We’ll love each other. Marry. Have children. Hope for the best. God, I don’t know any longer, Helen.”
“You sound horrible.” Her own voice was bereft. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to love you.”
“I don’t mean here. I mean Winslough. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to wish to be Solomon and be Nemesis instead.”
“Oh, Tommy.”
“Say it. You’ve got to say it sometime. It might as well be now.”
“I’ll be here. Always. When it’s over. You know that.”
Slowly, with great care, he replaced the phone.
WAS HE LOOKING FOR HER, Tommy?” Deborah asked. “D’you think he never believed she drowned in the first place? Is that why he moved from parish to parish? Is that why he came to Win-slough?”
St. James stirred another spoonful of sugar into his cup and regarded his wife thoughtfully. She had poured their coffee but added nothing to her own. She was playing the small cream jug between her hands. She didn’t look up as she waited for Lynley’s answer. It was the first time she had spoken.
“I think it was pure chance.” Lynley forked up a portion of his veal. He’d arrived at Crofters Inn as St. James and Deborah were finishing dinner. Although they hadn’t had the dining room to themselves this night, the two other couples who had been enjoying beef Wellington and rack of lamb had moved to the residents’ lounge for their coffee. So between Josie Wragg’s appearances in the dining room to serve one portion of Lynley’s late meal or another, he had told them the story of Sheelah Cotton Yanapapoulis, Katherine Gitterman, and Susanna Sage.
“Consider the facts,” he went on. “She didn’t go to church; she lived in the North while he remained in the South; she kept on the move; she chose isolated locations. When the locations promised to become less isolated, she merely moved on.”
“Except this last time,” St. James noted.
Lynley reached for his wine-glass. “Yes. It’s odd that she didn’t move at the end of her two years here.”
“Perhaps Maggie’s at the root of that,” St. James said. “She’s a teenager now. Her boyfriend’s here and according to what Josie was disclosing last night with her usual passion for detail, that’s a fairly serious relationship. She may have found it difficult — as we all do — to walk away from someone she loves. Perhaps she refused to go.”
“That’s a reasonable possibility. But isolation was still essential to her mother.”
Deborah’s head darted up at that. She began to speak, but she appeared to stop herself.
Lynley was continuing. “It seems odd that Juliet — or Susanna, if you will — didn’t do something to force the issue. After all, their isolation at Cotes Hall was due to end any time. When the renovation was complete, Brendan Power and his wife—” He paused in the act of spearing up a piece of new potato. “Of course,” he said.
“She was the mischief-maker at the Hall,” St. James said.
“She must have been. Once it was occupied, she increased her chances of being seen. Not necessarily by people from the village, who would have seen her occasionally already, but by guests coming to call. And with a new baby, Brendan Power and his wife would have had guests: family, friends, out-of-town visitors.”
“Not to mention the vicar.”
“She wouldn’t have wanted to take the risk.”
“Still, she must have heard the name of the new vicar long before she saw him,” St. James said. “It’s odd that she didn’t invent some sort of crisis and run for it then.”
“Perhaps she tried. But it was autumn when the vicar arrived in Winslough. Maggie was already in school. If indeed her mother had rashly agreed to stay on in the village for Maggie’s happiness, she’d be hard-pressed to come up with an excuse to leave.”
Deborah released her hold on the cream jug and pushed it away. “Tommy,” she said in a voice so carefully controlled that it sounded strung, “I don’t see how you can be sure of all this.” When Lynley looked at her, she went on quickly. “Perhaps she didn’t even need to run. What sort of proof do you actually have that Maggie isn’t her real daughter in the first place? She could be hers, couldn’t she?”
“That’s unlikely, Deborah.”
“But you’re drawing conclusions without having all the facts.”
“What more facts do I need?”
“What if—” Deborah grabbed her spoon and clutched it as if she would use it to strike the table while she made a point. Then she dropped it, saying in a dispirited voice, “I suppose she…I don’t know.”
“My guess is that an X-ray of Maggie’s leg will show it was once broken and that DNA testing will tell the
