In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

wasn't altogether sure why. He said, attempting delicacy with the request and knowing how it might be interpreted, “Peter, would you mind if I had a look at the crime scene?”

He needn't have worried. Hanken was hot to get on to other things. “Have at it. I'll have at Upman.” He peeled off his gloves and fished out his Marlboros a final time, saying to Mott, “Don't have a coronary, Constable. I'm not lighting up in here.” And once outside the constable's demesne, he went on happily as he fired up the tobacco. “You know how it looks, with the girl bonking Upman as well as… what've we got so far, two others?”

“Julian Britton and the London lover,” Lynley verified.

“For starters. And Upman'll make a third once I've talked to him.” Hanken inhaled deeply and with some satisfaction. “So how d'you suppose our Upman felt, wanting her, having her, and knowing she was giving it out to two other blokes just as happily as she was giving it to him?”

“You're getting ahead of yourself on that one, Peter.”

“I wouldn't put money on it.”

“More important than Upman,” Lynley pointed out, “how did

Julian Britton feel? He wanted to marry her, not to share her. And if, as her mother claims, she always told the truth, what might his reaction have been when he learned exactly what Nicola was up to?”

Hanken mulled this over. “Britton is easier to tag with an accomplice,” he admitted.

“Isn't he just,” Lynley said.

Samantha McCallin didn't want to think, and when she didn't want to think, she worked. She trundled a wheelbarrow briskly down the Long Gallery's old oak floor, kitted out with a shovel, a broom, and a dust pan. She stopped at the first of the room's three fireplaces and applied herself to removing the grit, grime, coal dust, bird droppings, old nests, and bracken that over time had fallen down the chimney. In an attempt at disciplining her thoughts, she counted her movements: one-shovel, two-lift, three-swing, four-dump, and in this way she emptied the fireplace of what appeared to be fifty years of detritus. She found that as long as she kept up the rhythm, she held her mind in check. It was when she had to move from shovelling to sweeping that her thoughts began to gallop about.

Lunch had been a quiet affair, with the three of them gathered round the table in a nearly unbroken silence. Only Jeremy Britton had spoken during the meal, when Samantha had placed a platter of salmon in the middle of the table. Her uncle had caught her hand unexpectedly and raised it to his lips, announcing, “We're grateful for all you've been doing round here, Sammy We're grateful for everything.” And he'd smiled at her, a long, slow, meaningful smile, as if they shared a secret.

Which they did not, Samantha told herself. No matter the extent to which her uncle had revealed his feelings about Nicola Maiden on the previous day, she'd been successful in keeping hers to herself.

It was necessary, that. With the police crawling about, asking questions and gazing at one with open suspicion, it was absolutely crucial that how she felt about Nicola Maiden be something Samantha held close to her heart.

She hadn't hated her. She'd seen Nicola for what she was, and she'd disliked her for it, but she hadn't hated her. Rather, she'd simply recognised her as an impediment to attaining what Samantha had quickly decided she wanted.

In a culture requiring her to find a man in order to define her world, Samantha hadn't come across a decent prospect in the last two years. With her biological clock ticking away and her brother refusing to have so much as a cup of coffee with a prospective female lest he be asked to commit his life to her, she was beginning to feel that the responsibility to extend the immediate family line was hers alone. But she'd been unable to sniff out a mate despite the humiliation of taking out personal ads, joining a dating agency, and engaging in such maritally conducive activities as singing in the church choir. And as a result, she'd felt a growing desperation to Settle Down, which meant, of course, to Reproduce.

At one level she knew it was ridiculous to be so marriage-and-offspring minded. Women in this day and age had careers and lives beyond husband and children, and sometimes those careers and those lives excluded husband and children altogether. But on another level, she believed that she would be failing, somehow, if she made her life's journey forever alone. Besides, she told herself, she wanted children. And she wanted those children to have a father.

Julian had seemed so likely a candidate. They'd got on from the first. They'd been such pals. They'd achieved a quick intimacy born of a mutual interest in restoring Broughton Manor. And if that interest had been manufactured on her part initially, it had become real quickly enough when she'd understood how passionate her cousin was about his plans. And she could help him with those plans; she could nurse them along. Not only by working at his side, but by infusing the manor with the copious supply of money she'd inherited upon her father's death.

It had all seemed so logical and meant to be. But neither her camaraderie with her cousin, her ample funds, nor her efforts at proving her worthiness to Julian had sparked the slightest degree of interest in him beyond the affectionate interest one might have had for the family dog.

At the thought of dogs, Samantha shuddered. She would not go in that direction, she thought firmly Walking that path would lead her inexorably to a consideration of Nicola Maiden's death. And thinking about her death was as intolerable a prospect as was thinking about her life.

Yet the act of trying not to think about her spurred Samantha to think about her anyway.

“You don't like me much, do you, Sam?” Nicola had asked her, scanning her face to read what was there. “Yes. I see. It's because of Jules. I don't want him, you know. Not the way women generally want men. He's yours. If you can win him, that is.”

So frank, she was. So absolutely up-front with every word she spoke. Hadn't she ever worried about the impression she was making? Hadn't she ever wondered if someday that relentless honesty was going to cost her more than she was willing to pay?

“I could put in a word for you if you'd like. I'm happy to do it. I think you and Jules would be good together. A frightfully proper sort of match, as they used to say.” And she'd laughed, but it hadn't been malicious. Disliking her would have been so much easier if only Nicola had stooped to ridicule.

But she hadn't. She hadn't needed to when Samantha already knew quite well how absurd her desire for Julian was.

“I wish I could make him stop loving you,” she'd said.

“If you find a way, do it,” Nicola had replied. “And there'll be no hard feelings. You can have him with my blessing. It would be for the best.”

And she'd smiled the way she always smiled, so open and engaging and friendly, so completely without the worries of a woman who knew that her looks were nondescript and her talents worthless that smacking her seemed like the only response Samantha could possibly make. Smacking her and shaking her and shouting, “Do you think it's easy being me, Nicola? Do you think I enjoy my situation?”

That contact of flesh on flesh, of flesh on bone, was what Samantha had wanted. Anything to remove from Nicola's clear blue eyes the knowledge that in a battle in which Nicola didn't even bother to fight, Samantha McCallin still could not win.

“Sam. Here you are.”

Samantha swung hastily round from the fireplace and saw Julian coming along the gallery in her direction, the afternoon sunlight striking his hair. Her sudden movement spilled several globs of petrified ashes onto the floor. Miniature clouds of griseous dust rose from them.

“You frightened me,” she said. “How can you walk so quietly on a wooden floor?”

He looked down at his shoes as if in explanation. “Sorry.” He was carrying a tray with cups and plates on it, and he gestured with it. “I thought you'd like a break. I've made us tea.”

She saw that he'd also cut them each a piece of the chocolate cake she'd made for that evening's pudding. She felt a twinge of impatience at this. Surely, he could have seen it hadn't been cut into yet. Surely, he could have known it was meant for something. Surely, just for once, dear God, he could have drawn one or two conclusions from the facts in hand. But she emptied her shovelful of debris into a wheelbarrow and said, “Thanks, Julie. I could do with something.”