Believing the Lie

been dislodged had not been tampered with. Had Cresswell been getting out of a different sort of boat, he might have merely stumbled. But getting out of a scull was trickier. The combination of its delicate balance and the dock’s loose stones had done him in. He’d pitched forward, hit his head, gone into the water, and drowned. No foul play had been involved.

In these circumstances, Lynley thought, one would expect a general sigh of relief to go around the room. One would expect something along the lines of “thank goodness” from Valerie Fairclough. But what came next was a long, tense silence in which he finally realised that something more than Ian Cresswell’s death had been the real reason for the investigation. And into this silence the front door opened, and Mignon Fairclough came into the hall.

She pushed her zimmer frame in front of her. She said, “Freddie, can you manage the door, darling? It’s a bit awkward for me,” and as Freddie McGhie rose to do so, Valerie cut in with a sharp, “I expect you can cope quite well on your own, Mignon.”

Mignon tilted her head and managed an arch look at her mother. She said, “Very well, then,” and made something of a minor production out of turning herself and her zimmer and dealing with the door. She said, “There, then,” when it was closed and she’d turned back to them. “Such an excitement of comings and goings today, my darlings. Manette and Freddie a deux. My heart flutters with all the possibilities attendant on that. Then Nick roars up. Then Nick roars away. And now our handsome Scotland Yard detective is back among us, pitter-pattering our collective hearts. Forgive the idle curiosity, Mother and Dad, but I couldn’t bear to be outside looking in another moment with everything that’s going on round here.”

“It’s just as well,” Valerie said to her. “We’re discussing the future.”

“Whose, may I ask?”

“Everyone’s. Including yours. I’ve just learned today that for quite some time you’ve had something of pay rise in your monthly stipend. That’s at an end. As is the entire allowance.”

Mignon looked startled. Clearly, this was a turn of events she hadn’t anticipated. “Mother, darling, well obviously… I’m disabled. I can hardly go out like this and expect to become gainfully employed. So you can’t — ”

“But that’s where you’re wrong, Mignon. I can. And I do.”

Mignon looked round, apparently for the source of this sudden alteration to her circumstances. She settled her gaze on Manette. Her eyes narrowed and she said, “You little bitch. I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”

“I say, Mignon,” Freddie declared.

“I expect you do,” Mignon replied to him. “What else will you say when we begin to talk about her and Ian, Freddie?”

“There is no me and Ian and you know it,” Manette cut in.

“There’s a shoe box crammed with letters, darling, some of them burned but the rest in very good condition. I can easily fetch them. Believe me, I’ve been waiting years to do so.”

“I had an adolescent infatuation with Ian. Make more of it if you like. It won’t get you far.”

“Not even the bits about ‘wanting you more than I’ll ever want anyone’ and ‘darling Ian please be my first’?”

“Oh please,” Manette said in disgust.

“I could go on, you know. I’ve endless bits memorised.”

“And none of us want to hear them,” Valerie snapped. “Enough has been said. We’re finished here.”

“Not nearly as finished as you think.” Mignon made her way to the sofa on which her sister and Freddie McGhie were sitting. She said, “If you don’t mind, darling Freddie…,” and began to lower herself. He had no choice but to have her in his lap or to move. He opted for the second and joined his former father-in-law at the fireplace.

Lynley could see everyone regrouping mentally. All of them seemed to know something was coming, although he reckoned that no one knew what it was. Mignon had obviously been gathering information for years on the members of her family. She’d not had to use it in the past, but now she seemed to be preparing to do so. She cast one look at her sister and another at her father. She kept her eyes on him and, with a smile, said, “You know, I don’t think things are going to change quite so much, Mother. And neither does Dad, I daresay.”

Valerie took this on board easily enough. She said, “Vivienne Tully’s payments are being stopped as well, if that’s what you’re getting at. And it is what you’re getting at, isn’t it, Mignon? You’ve been holding Vivienne Tully over your father’s head for years, I expect. No wonder so much money’s gone out to you.”

“And this is turn-the-other-cheek time?” Mignon asked her mother. “Is that where we are? Where you are? With him?”

“Where I am, as you put it, with your father is none of your business. No one’s marriage is your business.”

“So let me make sure I understand,” Mignon said. “He carries on with Vivienne Tully in London, he buys her flat, he has a bloody second life there with her… and I’m to pay because I had the common decency not to tell you about it?”

“Please don’t paint yourself as the noble character in this situation,” Valerie said.

“Here, here,” murmured Freddie.

Valerie continued. “You know very well why you didn’t tell me about it. The information was useful and you’re a common blackmailer. You ought to get down on your very capable knees and thank God I’m not asking the inspector to arrest you. Beyond that, everything about Vivienne Tully is a matter between your father and me. It doesn’t concern you. She doesn’t concern you. The only thing that ought to concern you is what you intend to do with your life because it’s beginning tomorrow morning and I expect it to look very different from how it looks just now.”

Mignon then turned to her father. She was in that moment every inch the woman holding all the valuable cards in the deck. She said to Fairclough, “Is that how you want it to be, then?”

“Mignon,” he murmured.

“You’ve got to say. Now’s the moment, Dad.”

“Don’t take this further,” Bernard said to her. “It’s not necessary, Mignon.”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“Valerie.” Bernard appealed to his wife. He was, Lynley thought, a man who was watching his life as he’d known it come tumbling down. “I think all points have been touched upon. If we can agree upon — ”

“Upon what?” Valerie broke in sharply.

“Upon showing a modicum of mercy here. That terrible fall all those years ago. Launchy Gill. She’s not been well. She’s never been the same. You know she’s not capable of supporting herself.”

“She’s as capable as I am,” Manette put in. “She’s as capable as anyone in this room. Honestly, Dad, Mum’s right, for God’s sake. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense. That has to be the most expensive fractured skull in history, considering how Mignon’s played it.”

Valerie, however, was watching her husband. Lynley could see that sweat had appeared on Fairclough’s forehead. His wife apparently saw this as well because she turned to Mignon and said quietly, “Let’s have the rest, then.”

“Dad?” Mignon said.

“For God’s sake, Valerie. Give her what she wants.”

“I will not,” she said. “I absolutely will not.”

“Then it’s time we had a chat about Bianca,” Mignon declared. Her father shut his eyes.

“Who’s Bianca?” Manette demanded.

“Our baby sister, as it happens,” Mignon replied. She turned to her father. “Care to talk about this, Dad?”