When he opened it, Lynley found that the odd bits carton appeared to be a hotchpotch display of Robin Sage’s life. It contained everything from pre-Jubilee-Line maps of the London underground to a yellowing collection of the sort of historical pamphlets one can purchase for ten pence in country churches. A stack of book reviews clipped from
He looked through his stack. Explanations of museum exhibits; a guide to the Turner Gallery at the Tate; receipts for lunches, dinners, and teas; manuals explaining the use of an electric saw, the assembly of a bicycle’s basket, the cleaning of a steam iron; advertisements extolling the benefits of joining an exercise club; and handouts one collects when strolling along a London street. These consisted of offers for hairstyling
“The difference between that which is moral — prescribed by law — and that which is right.”
“Yet according to this, the Church seems to feel they’re one in the same.”
“That’s the wonderful way of churches, isn’t it?” St. James unfolded a piece of paper, read it, set it to one side, picked it up again.
Lynley said, “Was it logic chopping on his part, talking about moral versus right? Was it a form of avoidance in which he engaged his fellow clerics in meaningless discussion?”
“That’s certainly what Glennaven’s secretary thought.”
“Or was he himself on the horns of a dilemma?” Lynley gave the prayer a second look. “‘…he shall save his soul alive.’”
“Here’s something,” St. James said. “There’s a date on the top. It says only the eleventh, but the paper looks at least relatively fresh, so it might match up to one of the London visits.” He handed it over.
Lynley read the scrawled words. “Charing Cross to Sevenoaks, High Street left towards…
These appear to be a set of directions, St. James.”
“Does the date match up with one of the London visits?”
Lynley went back to the diary. “The fi rst. The eleventh of October, where the name
“He could have gone to see her. Perhaps that visit set in motion the rest of the trips. To Social Services. Even to…what was that name in December?”
“Yanapapoulis.”
St. James cast a quick look at Polly Yarkin and finished obliquely with, “And any of those visits could have served as instigation.”
It was all conjecture, based upon air, and Lynley knew it. Each interview, fact, conversation, or step in the investigation was taking their thoughts in a new direction. They had no hard evidence, and from what he could tell, unless someone had removed it, there had never been hard evidence in the fi rst place. No weapon left at the scene of the crime, no incriminating fingerprint, no wisp of hair. There was nothing, in fact, to connect the alleged killer and her victim at all save a telephone call overheard by Maggie and inadvertently corroborated by Polly, and a dinner after which both parties became ill.
Lynley knew that he and St. James were engaged in piecing together a tapestry of guilt from the thinnest of threads. He didn’t like it. Nor did he like the indications of interest and curiosity that Polly Yarkin was attempting to hide, shuffling a carton here, moving a second one there, rubbing her sleeve across the base of the lamp to remove spots of dust that didn’t exist.
“Did you go to the inquest?” he asked her.
She withdrew her arm from the vicinity of the lamp, as if caught in an act of misbehaviour. “Me? Yes. Everyone went.”
“Why? Did you have evidence to give?”
“No.”
“Then…?”
“Just…I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to hear.”
“What?”
She lifted her shoulders slightly, allowed them to drop. “What she had to say. Once I knew the vicar had been with her that night. Everyone went,” she repeated.
“Because it was the vicar? And a woman? Or this particular woman, Juliet Spence?”
“Can’t say,” she said.
“About everyone else? Or about yourself?”
She dropped her eyes. The simple action was enough to tell him why she’d brought them the tea and why, after seeing to its pouring, she’d remained in the study shifting cartons and watching them sift through the vicar’s possessions long after it was necessary for her to do so.
WHEN POLLY HAD SHUT THE door behind them, St. James and Lynley got as far as the end of the drive before Lynley stopped and gave his concentration to the silhouette of St. John the Baptist Church. Complete darkness had fallen. Street lamps were lit along the incline that led through the village. They beamed ochreous rays through an evening mist and cast their shadows within the elongated pools of their own light on the damp street below.
Here by the church, however, outside the boundary of the village proper, a full moon— rising past the summit of Cotes Fell — and its companion stars provided the sole illumination.
“I could use a cigarette,” Lynley said absently. “When do you expect I’ll stop feeling the need to light up?”
“Probably never.”
“That’s certainly a comforting reassurance, St. James.”
“It’s merely statistical probability combined with scientifi c and medical likelihood. Tobacco’s a drug. One never completely recovers from addiction.”
“How did you escape it? There we all were, sneaking a smoke after games, lighting up the very instant we crossed the bridge into Windsor, impressing ourselves — and trying like the devil to impress everyone else — with our individual, nicotinic adulthood. What happened to you?”
“Exposure to an early allergic reaction, I suppose.” When Lynley glanced his way, St. James continued. “My mother caught David with a packet of Dunhills when he was twelve. She shut him up in the lavatory and made him smoke them all. She shut the rest of us in there
with him.”
“To smoke?”
“To watch. Mother’s always been a strong believer in the power of an object lesson.”
“It worked.”
“With me, yes. With Andrew as well. Sid and David, however, always found the thrill of displeasing Mother more than equal to whatever discomfort they themselves might incur as a result. Sid smoked like a chimney until she was twenty-three. David still does.”
“But your mother was right. About the tobacco.”
