Believing the Lie

“But you said you would — ”

“Fuck it, you idiot. What did you really expect? Death on a biscuit? Now go. Go.”

MILNTHORPE CUMBRIA

Deborah drove back to the Crow and Eagle in Milnthorpe as the fog began to billow across the road in a great grey mass like the effluent of a thousand smokestacks somewhere out in the bay. The railway viaduct that took trains into the Arnside station was only a shadowy form that she passed beneath on her way out of the village, and Milnthorpe Sands was entirely lost to view with only the wading birds closest to shore punctuating the grey with a darkness that huddled and shifted in a solid mass as if the ground itself were sighing.

The headlamps of cars did little to pierce the gloom, merely reflecting the light back onto the driver. When, occasionally, a pedestrian was present — foolhardy enough to be walking along the verge in such weather — he emerged without warning as if popping out of the ground like a Halloween ghoul. It was an unnerving experience to be on the road. Deborah was grateful when she reached the car park of the inn without incident.

Tommy was waiting for her as he’d promised. He was in the bar with a coffee service in front of him and his mobile pressed to his ear. His head was bent and he didn’t see her, but she caught the remainder of his conversation.

“Quite late,” he was saying. “Shall I come to you anyway? I’ve no idea of the time and perhaps you’d rather… Yes. All right… Quite anxious as well. Isabelle, I’m terribly sorry how this has… Indeed. Very well. Later, then. Right…” He listened for a moment and evidently felt Deborah’s presence for he turned in his chair and saw her approaching. He said, “She’s just arrived so I daresay we’ll be off in a few moments,” with a raised eyebrow in Deborah’s direction, to which she nodded. “Very good,” he said. “Yes. I have the key with me.”

He rang off. Deborah wasn’t sure what to say. Two months earlier, she’d concluded that Tommy was sleeping with his superior officer. What she hadn’t worked out was how she felt about the fact. It was a given that Tommy had to move on with his life, but the how of his moving on was something that made her unsure of her footing with him.

She settled for, “Could I have a coffee before we leave, Tommy? I promise to swill it like a priest going after the altar wine.”

“Swilling won’t be necessary,” he replied. “I’ll have another. I’d prefer both of us wide awake for the drive. It’s going to be a long one.”

She sat as he went to place the order. He’d been doodling on a paper napkin, she saw, as he’d spoken to Isabelle Ardery in London. He’d sketched a rough cottage in a wide meadow somewhere, with two smaller buildings and a stream nearby and hillsides rising on either side. Not bad by the look of it, she thought. She’d never considered Tommy as an artist.

“A second calling,” she said to him, indicating the sketch when he turned to the table.

“One of a thousand similar places in Cornwall.”

“Thinking of going home?”

“Not quite yet.” He sat, smiled at her fondly, and said, “Someday, I suppose.” He reached for the napkin, folded it, and put it into the breast pocket of his jacket. “I’ve rung Simon,” he told her. “He knows we’ll be coming home.”

“And?”

“Well, of course, he finds you the most maddening sort of woman. But, then, don’t we all?”

She sighed, saying, “Yes. Well. I think I’ve made things worse, Tommy.”

“Between you and Simon?”

“No, no. I’ll put that right. It does help to be married to the most tolerant man on the planet. But I’m talking about Nicholas Fairclough and his wife. I’ve had an awkward conversation with her, followed by an awkward conversation with her husband.”

She told him about both conversations, sketching in all the details as she remembered them, including the reactions of both Alatea and her husband. She explained Alatea’s offer of jewellery and money and she included the revelation about the man Montenegro. Tommy listened as he always had done, his brown eyes fixed on hers. Their coffee service came as she was talking. He poured them both a cup as she was concluding.

Her final words were, “So all along, Alatea apparently thought I was talking about this Raul Montenegro while I thought we were talking about the reporter from The Source. I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered much, except for the fact that I told her he was in Windermere — at least I think that’s where he went when he dropped me here after Lancaster — and when I told her that, she simply panicked, obviously thinking I meant Montenegro. Nicholas panicked as well.”

Lynley added a packet of sugar to his coffee. He stirred it, looking thoughtful all the while. Indeed, he looked so thoughtful that Deborah understood something she should have recognised earlier.

She said to him, “You know what’s actually going on with these people, don’t you, Tommy? I expect you’ve known from the first. Whatever it is, I wish you’d told me. At least I could have refrained from blundering in and doing whatever it is I’ve now managed to do to them.”

Lynley shook his head. “Actually, no. I think I’ve known less than you since I’d not met Alatea before today.”

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

“She’s quite…” He seemed to search for a better word, perhaps a more accurate one. He lifted his fingers as if to say that any choice he made would not do her justice. He settled on, “Rather amazing, actually. Had I not known about her before going to see her, I would never have believed she began life as a man.”

Deborah felt her jaw loosen with the surprise that swept through her. She said, “What?”

“Santiago Vasquez y del Torres. That’s who she was.”

“What do you mean was? Is she impersonating…?”

“No. She had surgery, financed by this bloke Montenegro. His intention, apparently, was to have her play his female lover in public to maintain his reputation and social position but, in private, to make love to her as a male to a male.”

Deborah swallowed. “Dear God.” She thought about Lancaster, about Lucy Keverne, about what she and Alatea Fairclough could have and must have actually planned between them. She said, “But Nicholas… Surely he knows?”

“She hasn’t told him.”

“Oh surely, Tommy, he’d be able to tell. I mean… Good heavens… There’d be signs, wouldn’t there? There’d be marks of incisions, scars, whatever.”

“In the hands of a world-class surgeon? With all the tools at hand? With lasers to deal with potential scarring? Deborah, everything would be altered. Even the Adam’s apple can go. If the man’s appearance was feminine to begin with — because of an extra X chromosome perhaps — then the shift to female would be even simpler.”

“But not to tell Nicholas? Why wouldn’t she have told him?”

“Desperation? Worry? Fear of his reaction? Fear of rejection? With Montenegro looking for her and apparently having the funds to go on looking indefinitely, she would need a safe place. To achieve it, she allowed Nicholas to believe what he wanted to believe about her. She married, giving her the right to remain in England once she came here.”

Deborah saw how this fitted in with what Tommy and Simon had come to Cumbria to do. She said, “Ian Cresswell? Did she murder him? Did he know?”

Lynley shook his head. “Consider her, Deborah. She’s something of a masterpiece. No one would know unless there was a reason to delve back into her past, and there was no reason. For all intents and purposes, she’s Nicholas Fairclough’s wife. If anyone bore looking into with regard to Ian’s death, it would have been Nicholas. As things happened, we didn’t need to go that far because Simon was right from the first and so was the coroner. There’s not a single sign of Ian Cresswell’s death being anything other than an accident. Someone may have