Believing the Lie

“Bob,” she said.

Her former husband. How could this, he wondered, possibly be a problem? “And?” he enquired pleasantly.

“Thomas, it’s awkward. Sandra’s with him. The boys as well.”

Bob’s wife. The twin sons that were Isabelle’s own, children of her five-year marriage. They were eight years old and he’d had yet to meet them. As far as he knew, they’d not even been into London to see her.

He said, “This is good, Isabelle. He’s brought them to you, then?”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting — ”

“I know that, obviously. So I’ll meet them, we’ll have dinner, and I’ll leave.”

“He doesn’t know about you.”

“Who?”

“Bob. I’ve not told him. This was all a surprise. He and Sandra have come into town for some sort of dinner. A big affair. They’re dressed to the nines. They’ve brought the boys and they thought we could have a visit — the boys and I — while they’re at this event.”

“They didn’t phone you first? What if you hadn’t even been at home? What would he have done with them then? Have them wait in the car while he went to dinner?”

She looked irritated. “You know, that’s hardly important, Thomas. The fact is, I am at home and they’re here in London. I’ve not seen the boys in weeks, this is the first time he’s actually allowing me to be alone with them, and I have no intention of — ”

“What?” He looked at her more evenly now. She was pinched round the mouth. He knew what this meant. She was wanting a drink and the last thing she’d now be able to do was to have one. “What is it you suppose I’d do, Isabelle? Corrupt them with my dissolute ways?”

“Don’t be difficult. This has nothing to do with you.”

“Tell them I’m your colleague, then.”

“A colleague with the key to my door?”

“For the love of God, if he knows I have the key to your door — ”

“He doesn’t. And he won’t. I told him I thought I heard someone knock and I’ve come to check if anyone’s at the door.”

“Are you aware you’re contradicting yourself?” Again, he looked beyond her shoulder to the door. He said, “Isabelle, is there someone else in there? Not Bob at all? Not his wife? Not the boys?”

She drew herself taller. She was six feet tall, nearly his height, and he knew what it meant when she made the most of that fact. “What are you suggesting?” she demanded. “That I’ve another lover? God in heaven. I cannot believe you’re doing this. You know what this means to me. These are my children. You’ll meet them and Bob and Sandra and God only knows who else when I’m ready and not before. Now I’ve got to get back inside before he comes to see what’s happening, and you’ve got to go. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

“And if I walk in anyway? You leave me out here, I use the key, I come inside? What then?” Even as he spoke the words, he couldn’t believe it of himself. His dignity seemed to have gone the way of his brains, his patience, and his self-control.

She knew it. He could see that in her eyes no matter what else she was able to hide from him so well. She said, “Let’s forget you said that,” and she went inside, leaving him to cope with what looked every moment more like a tantrum thrown by a five-year-old.

God, what had he been thinking? he wondered. Thomas Lynley, detective inspector of New Scotland Yard, titled member of the landed gentry, graduate of Oxford University with a first-class degree in being a fool.

28 OCTOBER

MARYLEBONE LONDON

He managed to avoid her quite successfully for two days although he was able to tell himself that he wasn’t attempting to avoid her at all because he spent those days hanging about the Royal Courts of Justice. There his testimony had been called for in the ongoing trial of a serial killer with whom he’d come into very close and nearly fatal contact the previous February. After those two days, however, his presence being no longer required in the vicinity of Courtroom Number One, he politely refused three requests from journalists for interviews, which he knew would end up touching upon the one subject he could not face touching upon — the death of his wife — and he returned to New Scotland Yard. There Isabelle unsurprisingly asked him if he’d been avoiding her since he’d phoned in his necessary absences not to her but to the departmental secretary. He said of course not and what possible reason had he to avoid her and he’d been at court as had been his longtime partner DS Barbara Havers. Surely Isabelle didn’t think DS Havers was also trying to avoid her?

He shouldn’t have said this last because it gave too much away, and what it gave away was the truth of the matter, which was, naturally, that he hadn’t particularly wished to have a conversation with Isabelle till he’d sorted out in his own head the reasons for his reaction at the door to her flat. Isabelle said that, frankly, avoiding her was precisely what she’d expect DS Havers to be doing as she made a regular habit of that. To which he’d replied, Be that as it may, I’m not trying to do so.

She said, “You’re angry and you’ve a right to be, Tommy. I behaved badly. He turned up with the children and I was completely unnerved. But see it from my position, please. It’s not beyond Bob to phone one of the higher-ups here and drop the word: ‘Are you aware that Acting Detective Superintendent Ardery is having it off with a subordinate officer? Just thought you might want to know.’ And he’d do that, Tommy. He would do that. And you know what would happen if he did.”

He thought she was being overly paranoid, but he didn’t say as much. To do so would lead them into an argument, if not here in her office to which she’d summoned him then somewhere else. He said, “You could be right,” and when she said, “So…?” he knew that it was another way of saying Tonight, then? so that they could see to what they’d had to postpone. Steaks, wine, a shag that would be very energetic and very, very good. Which, he realised, was the hell of it for him. Isabelle in bed was inventive and exciting, and in bed was the only place she allowed him even a moment of control over her.

He was considering her proposition when Dorothea Harriman, the lithesome and well-turned-out departmental secretary, popped into the doorway, which he’d left open. She said, “Detective Inspector Lynley?” and when he turned, “I’ve just had a call. I’m afraid you’re wanted.”

“By whom, Dee?” He assumed he was meant to return to the Old Bailey for some reason.

“Himself.”

“Ah.” Not the Old Bailey, then. Himself would be the assistant commissioner, Sir David Hillier. When Hillier beckoned, one set off to do his bidding. “Now?” he asked.

“That would be the case. And he’s not here. You’re to go straight to his club.”

“At this hour? What’s he doing at his club?”

Harriman shrugged. “Not a clue. But you’re meant to be there as soon as possible. Traffic permitting, he’d like you there in fifteen minutes. His secretary made that clear.”

“That seals it, then, doesn’t it?” He turned back to Isabelle and said, “If you’ll excuse me, guv?” When she gave a curt nod, he went on his way, everything still unresolved between them.

Sir David Hillier’s club was near Portland Place, and it was a ludicrous idea that Lynley would be able to get there from New Scotland Yard within fifteen minutes. But the mention of time suggested urgency, so he took a cab and told the driver to rat-run and, for God’s sake, to do everything possible to avoid Piccadilly Circus, a regular source of congestion. That got him to Twins — Hillier’s club — in twenty-two minutes, something of a record considering the time of day.