In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

happen.”

“They don't happen to me.”

“By which we can take it that you weren't involved with the Maiden girl?”

“That's what I'm saying.” Upman replaced the violin and took up a pencil holder. He began removing those pencils whose lead was too worn, laying them neatly next to his thigh, which continued to rest against the desk. He said, “Andy Maiden would have liked it had Nicola and I become involved. He'd hinted as much on more than one occasion, and whenever I was at the Hall for dinner and Nicola was home from college, he made a point of throwing us together. So I saw what he was hoping for, but I couldn't accommodate him.”

“Why not?” Hanken asked. “Something wrong with the girl?”

“She wasn't my type.”

“What type was she?” Lynley asked.

“I don't know. Look, what does it matter? I'm… Well, I'm rather involved with someone else.”

“‘Rather involved?’” This from Hanken.

“We have an understanding. I mean, we date. I handled her divorce two years ago, and… What does it matter anyway?” He looked flustered. Lynley wondered why.

Hanken appeared to notice this as well. He began to home in. “You found the Maiden girl attractive though.”

“Of course. I'm not blind. She was attractive.”

“And did your divorcee know about her?”

“She's not my divorcee. She's not my anything. We're seeing each other. That's all there is. And there was nothing for Joyce to know-”

“Joyce?” Lynley asked.

“His divorcee,” Hanken said blandly.

“And,” Upman repeated, “there was nothing for Joyce to know because there was nothing between us, between Nicola and me. Finding a woman attractive and becoming caught up in something that can't go anywhere are two different things.”

“Why couldn't it go anywhere?” Lynley asked.

“Because we were both involved elsewhere. I am, and she was. So even if I'd thought about trying my luck- which I hadn't, by the way-I'd have been signing up for a course in frustration.”

“But she'd turned down Julian,” Hanken interposed. “That suggests she wasn't as involved as you supposed, that perhaps she'd set her sights on someone else.”

“If so, they weren't set on me. And as for poor Britton, I'd wager that she turned him down because his income didn't suit her. My guess is that she'd got her eye on someone in London with a hefty bank balance.”

“What gave you that impression?” Lynley asked.

Upman considered the question, but he appeared relieved to be himself let off the hook of a possible involvement with Nicola Maiden. “She had a pager that went off occasionally,” he finally said, “and once when it did, she asked me would I mind if she phoned London to give someone the number here to ring her back. And he did as much after that. Time and again.”

“Why would you conclude this was someone with money?” Lynley asked. “A few long distance phone calls aren't out of the question even for someone strapped for cash.”

“I know that. But Nicola had expensive tastes. Believe me, she couldn't have bought what she wore to work every day on what I was paying her. I'll lay twenty quid on it that if you trace her wardrobe, you'll find it came from Knightsbridge, where some poor sod's paying piles on an account that she was free to use. And that sod's not me.”

Very neat, Lynley thought. Upman had tied all the pieces together with an adroitness that was a credit to his profession. But there was something calculated in his presentation of the facts that made Lynley wary. It was as if he'd known what they would ask him and had already planned his answers, like any good lawyer. From Hanken's expression of mild dislike, it was clear that he'd reached the same conclusion about the solicitor.

“Are we talking about an affair?” Hanken asked. “Is this a married chap doing what he can to keep the mistress content?”

“I have no idea. I can only say that she was involved with someone, and I expect that someone's in London.”

“When was the last time you saw her alive?”

“Friday evening. We had dinner.”

“But you yourself had no personal relationship with her,” Hanken noted.

“I took her to dinner as a farewell, which is fairly common practice between employers and employees in our society, if I'm not mistaken. Why? Does this put me under suspicion? Because if I'd wanted to kill her-for whatever reason you might have in mind-why would I wait from Friday until Tuesday night to do it?”

Hanken pounced. “Ah. You seem to know when she died.”

Upman wasn't rattled. “I did speak to someone at the Hall, Inspector.”

“So you said.” Hanken got to his feet. “You've been most helpful to our enquiries. If you can just give us the name of Friday night's restaurant, we'll be on our way.”

“The Chequers Inn,” Upman said. “In Calver. But look here, why do you need that? Am I under suspicion? Because if I am, I insist on-”

“There's no need for posturing at this point in the investigation,” Hanken said.

There was also no need, Lynley thought, to put the solicitor any more on the defensive. He intervened with, “Everyone who knew the murder victim is a suspect at first, Mr. Upman. DI Hanken and I are in the process of eliminating possibilities. Even as a solicitor, I expect you'd encourage a client to cooperate if he wanted to be crossed off the list.”

Upman didn't embrace the explanation, but he also didn't press the issue.

Lynley and Hanken took themselves out of his office and into the street, where Hanken immediately said, “What a snake,” as they walked to the car. “What a slimy bugger. Did you believe his story?”

“Which part of it?”

“Any of it. All of it. I don't care.”

“As a lawyer, naturally, everything he said was immediately suspect.”

This effected a reluctant smile in Hanken.

“But he gave us some useful information. I'd like to talk to the Maidens again and see if I can get anything out of them that will corroborate Upman's suspicions that Nicola was seeing someone in London. If there's another lover somewhere, there's another motive for murder.”

“For Britton,” Hanken acknowledged. He jerked his head in the direction of Upman's office. “But what about him? D'you plan to list him among your suspects?”

“Till we check him out, definitely.”

Hanken nodded. “I think I'm starting to like you,” he said.

Cilia Thompson was in residence at the studio when Barbara Havers tracked it down, three arches away from the dead end of Portslade Road. She had the two big front doors completely open, and she was in the midst of what looked like a creative fury, slashing at a canvas with paint as what sounded like African drums emanated rhythmically from a dusty CD player. The volume was high. Against her skin and in her sternum, Barbara could feel the pulsations.

“Cilia Thompson?” she shouted, wrestling her identification from her shoulder bag. “Can I have a word?”

Cilia read the warrant card and put her paint brush between her teeth. She punched a button on the CD player, choked off the drums, and returned to her work. She said, “Cyn Cole told me,” and continued to smother the canvas with paint. Barbara sidled round to have a look at her work: It was a gaping mouth out of which rose a motherly looking woman wielding a teapot decorated with snakes. Lovely, Barbara thought. The painter was definitely filling a vacuum in the art world.

“Terry's sister told you that he was murdered?”

“His mum phoned her from the North soon as she saw the body. Cyn phoned me. I thought something was up when she rang last night. Her voice wasn't right. You know what I mean. But I wouldn't have guessed… I mean, like, who would've wanted to snuff Terry Cole? He was a harmless little prick. A bit demented, considering his work, but harmless all the same.”