heavenly, Tommy.”
“I’d no idea you were a cyclist,” he said mildly. “Roller derby, tournament darts, cycling . . . You’re full of surprises. Is there more I should know?”
“Yoga, running, and skiing,” she said. “Trekking as well, but not as often as I would like.”
“I’m humbled,” he said. “If I walk to the corner for a newspaper, I feel virtuous.”
“I know you’re lying,” she told him. “I can see it in your eyes.”
He smiled, then. He held up the bottle of champagne he carried. He said, “I’d thought . . . Well, I have to say I expected something . . . a bit different. Sitting on a sofa, perhaps. Or in a pleasant garden. Or even sprawled on a tasteful Persian rug. But in any case, christening the place and welcoming you to London and . . . I daresay, whatever followed.”
Her lips curved. “I don’t see why we can’t do that anyway. I am, as you know, quite a simple girl at heart.”
“Requiring what?” he asked. “I mean, of course, for the christening.”
“Requiring, as it happens, only you.”
BELGRAVIA
LONDON
It was just past midnight when he arrived home. He felt filled with emotions that would take time to sort through. There was, for the first time, a rightness about the life he was leading. Something fragile and previously broken was being reconstructed one extremely careful piece at a time.
The house was dark. Denton had, as always, left a single light burning at the foot of the stairs. He switched it off and climbed upward in the darkness. He made his way to his room, where he felt for the wall and flipped on the light. He stood for a moment, considering all of it: the great mahogany bed, the chest of drawers, the two vast wardrobes. In silence, he crossed to the embroidered stool that stood in front of the dressing table. Across the glass-topped surface of this, Helen’s perfumes and jars still stood untouched as she had left them on the last day of her life.
He picked up her brush. Still it held a few strands of her chestnut hair. For less than a year he’d been able to watch her as she’d brushed it at the end of the day, just a few strokes as she chatted to him.
“Ah, Helen,” he whispered. “Helen.”
He closed his fingers over the hairbrush. He carried it to his chest of drawers. He opened the top one and, deep at the back, he placed the brush like the relic it had become. He closed the drawer carefully upon its contents.
Upstairs, Charlie Denton was asleep as Lynley had expected. He knew that he could leave things until the morning, but he felt that this was the moment and he did have some fear that it wouldn’t come again. So he went to Denton’s bed and touched his shoulder. He said his name, and the younger man was instantly awake.
Denton said quite unusually, “Your brother . . . ?” for the fact of Peter Lynley’s addictions and his battles with them was something they did not generally discuss. But wakened so suddenly, what else would he think? Only that something terrible had occurred to a member of his family.
Lynley said, “No, no. Everything’s fine, Charlie. But I wanted to . . .” How to go on? he wondered.
Denton sat up. He turned on the light on his bedside table. He reached for his glasses and put them on. Awake now and back in the character he so assiduously played, he said, “D’you require something, sir? I’ve left dinner in the fridge for reheating and—”
Lynley smiled. “His lordship requires nothing at all,” he said. “Just your help tomorrow, as it happens. I want to pack Helen’s things in the morning. Can you sort out what we need to do this?”
“In a tick,” Denton said. And when Lynley thanked him and headed for the door, “Are you sure about it, sir?”
Lynley paused, turned, and considered the question. “No,” he admitted. “I’m not at all sure. But there’s no real certainty about anything, is there?”
Acknowledgements
I’m indebted to some wonderful people who helped me with this novel, not only in the United States and in Great Britain, but also in Italy.
In the UK, Detective Superintendent John Sweeney of New Scotland Yard set me on the correct course towards understanding exactly what happens when a British national is kidnapped in a foreign country, as well as what happens when a British national is murdered abroad. It’s a complicated process that involves the British embassy, the Italian police, the victim’s local police from the individual’s hometown in England, and New Scotland Yard, and I’ve attempted to make it a process that the reader is able to follow easily in this novel, and I hope I have been somewhat successful in that endeavour. The indefatigable and always resourceful Swati Gamble assisted in this, making initial arrangements for me and tracking down bits and pieces of information as I needed them. Private Investigator Jason Woodcock was essential to my understanding of what private investigators can and cannot do in the UK. He also was terrific when it came to the art of blagging, and it must be said that he bears absolutely no resemblance to Dwayne Doughty in this novel. Fellow writer John Follain weighed in via email with information about the labyrinthine nature of Italian policing, and his book
With this novel, I bid a very fond farewell to my longtime UK editor at Hodder, Sue Fletcher, who retired in December 2012, and I begin my thanks to my new editor, Nick Sayers, with the hope that I’ll be continuing to thank him for any number of years. It’s also high time for me to thank Karen Geary, Martin Nield, and Tim Hely- Hutchinson for all they do to promote my books in the UK.
In Italy, Maria Lucrezia Felice started me out in Lucca with a detailed tour that took me into churches, piazzas, parks, and shops in order to familiarise me with the medieval centre of the town. She was also helpful in Pisa at the Field of Miracles, and together she and I attempted to work through the parts played by the
In the US, Shannon Manning, PhD, of Michigan State University, was my go-to source for all things relating to
