him? Let’s be honest, Niamh. There’s a limit to what life can ask one boy to endure, and I expect he’s reached his.”
“What, exactly, are you saying?”
“I think you know very well. And with what you’ve been up to — ”
Freddie touched her arm briefly to halt her words. He said reasonably, “Tim might have slipped into the house while you were sleeping. He could be in the garage as well. D’you mind awfully if we have a look? It’ll just take a moment and then we’ll be out of your hair.”
Niamh’s expression said she’d have liked to carry the conversation further, but Manette knew that doing so would lead them in the single direction Niamh would want to go. Ian’s sins against her and against the family constituted the broken record of her life, and she had no wish to repair it. No matter Charlie Wilcox and his Chinese takeaway. Niamh would never get beyond Ian’s betrayal because she had no wish to do so.
She said, “Do as you like, Freddie,” and turned her back to begin putting the kitchen in order.
Searching the house was the business of less than five minutes. It was small, and upstairs there were three bedrooms and a bathroom. Tim would hardly have hidden himself in his mother’s room, since doing so would have risked having to listen to Niamh’s lovemaking, likely to be an acoustically enthusiastic affair. That left his room and Gracie’s room. Manette took these on as Freddie did the honours with Niamh’s garage.
They met back in the sitting room. They shook their heads. Time to move to another location. But Manette felt that she couldn’t do so without a final word with Tim’s mother. Niamh emerged from the kitchen with a cup of coffee. She made no offer of the like to her unwanted visitors. All to the good, Manette thought, as she didn’t want to remain any longer than it would take to say what needed to be said.
This was, “It’s time for the children to come home. You’ve made your point, Niamh, and there’s really no reason to take it further.”
Niamh said, “Oh dear,” and went to a chair, beneath which something had been shoved. She brought it out and shot them a coy smile. “Charlie will have his games,” she said.
Manette saw it was a sex toy, a vibrator by the looks of it, complete with various attachments in various shapes that lay on the floor as well. Niamh scooped these up and placed them along with the vibrator on the coffee table. She said, “What point are you talking about, Manette?”
“You know very well what point I’m talking about. It’s the same point that sent you on your way to the plastic surgeon, and it’s the same point that has that poor stupid bloke sniffing round you every night.”
“Manette,” Freddie murmured.
“No,” Manette said. “It’s time someone took her to task for this nonsense. You have two children and a duty to those children and
“Stop it!” Niamh hissed. “I will not have that name spoken inside this house.”
“Which one? Ian, the father of your children, or Kaveh, the man he left you for? You were hurt. Fine. All right. Everyone knows it. You had a right to be and, believe me, everyone knows that as well. But Ian’s dead and the children need you and if you can’t see that, if you’re so self-absorbed, if you’re so bloody needy, if you have to continue to prove to yourself over and over that some man — any man, for the love of God — wants you… What on earth is the matter with you? Were you ever a mother to Gracie and Tim?”
“Manette,” Freddie murmured. “Really.”
“How
“This isn’t about me.”
“Oh, it never is, is it? You’re perfect, aren’t you, while the rest of us are beneath your contempt. What do you know of what I went through? What do you know of discovering that the man you love has been meeting with other men for
She’d begun to weep as she spoke, and she dashed the tears away from her face. She said, “Get out of here and don’t come back. If you do, Manette, I swear to God I’ll phone the police. I want you out of here and I want you to leave me alone.”
“And Tim? And Gracie? What of them?”
“I can’t have them here.”
It was Freddie who spoke. “What d’you mean?”
“They remind me. Always. I can’t bear it. Them.”
Manette’s lips parted. She took in the meaning behind Niamh’s words. She finally said, “Why on earth did he choose you? Why did he not see?”
“What?” Niamh demanded. “What?
“From the very first, you were totally about yourself. Even now, Niamh. That’s how it is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Niamh said.
“Don’t worry about that,” Manette said. “I finally do.”
LANCASTER
LANCASHIRE
Deborah felt a twinge of guilt about Lynley, but a twinge was all she allowed herself to feel. He would arrive at the Crow and Eagle, and she wouldn’t be there, but he wouldn’t know she’d gone to Lancaster since her hire car would still be sitting in the car park. She reckoned he’d think at first she’d gone for a final walk round Milnthorpe, perhaps over to the town’s market square or beyond it to the church to have a look at the graveyard. Or perhaps, he’d think, she’d gone along the route to Arnside for a stroll to watch the marsh birds. For the tide was out, and the mudflats were thickly populated at the moment with flocks of every sort of bird one could think of, wintering in Britain from harsher climes. There was the bank, as well, just across the road from the hotel. He might think she’d be there. Or perhaps still at breakfast. But in any case, it didn’t matter. What mattered is that she wouldn’t be there for him to cart home to Simon. She could have left him a note, of course. But she knew Tommy. One indication that she was on her way to Lancaster for another go with Lucy Keverne on the subject of Alatea Fairclough and he’d be after her like a hound chasing down a hare.
After her phone call to him, Zed Benjamin arrived in record time. She was waiting for him just inside the doorway of the inn — having booked herself in for at least one more night — so she stepped outside and into his car as soon as he’d made the three-point turn that would put them in the direction of Lancaster.
She didn’t tell him she’d lied to him earlier about why Lucy Keverne and Alatea Fairclough had been together at Lancaster University. The way she reckoned it, she didn’t owe
She made the situation simple for Zed: She reckoned that Lucy Keverne had lied to her on the previous day. Her tale about some kind of female problem needing to be looked into by someone at the university didn’t make sense the more Deborah had thought about it. After all, Lucy had gone to a reproductive centre and why would she need the support of a friend for that? She might want the support of a husband or a partner if she had reproduction on the mind, but a friend …? No, it seemed more likely that there was something more going on between Lucy Keverne and Alatea Fairclough and she — Deborah — needed Zed’s presence in order to find out.
Being orientated towards
