Believing the Lie

Berner and by Debbie Cavanaugh. My professional life is made smoother through the efforts of my literary agent, Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media Group, as well as my British publishing team of Sue Fletcher, Martin Nield, and Karen Geary at Hodder and Stoughton. With this novel, I join a new American publishing team at Dutton, and I’m grateful for the confidence in my work expressed by my editor and publisher Brian Tart.

Finally, to my readers who are interested in Cumbria and its crowning jewel — the Lake District — all of the places in this novel are real, as is the case in all my books. I have merely picked them up and moved them when necessary. Ireleth Hall stands in for Levens Hall, the home of Hal and Susan Bagot; the Faircloughs’ boathouse can actually be found in Fell Foot Park; Arnside House stands in for Blackwell, the Arts and Crafts beauty on the shore of Lake Windermere; Bryan Beck farm grew from an Elizabethan manor house called Townend; and Bassenthwaite village became Bryanbarrow village, complete with ducks. Playing God with locations such as these is part of the pleasure of writing fiction.

Elizabeth George

Whidbey Island,

Washington

BELIEVING THE LIE

ALSO BY

ELIZABETH GEORGE

A Great Deliverance

Payment in Blood

Well-Schooled in Murder

A Suitable Vengeance

For the Sake of Elena

Missing Joseph

Playing for the Ashes

In the Presence of the Enemy

Deception on His Mind

In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

A Traitor to Memory

I, Richard

A Place of Hiding

With No One as Witness

What Came Before He Shot Her

Careless in Red

This Body of Death

NONFICTION

Write Away: One Novelist’s Approach

to Fiction and the Writing Life

ANTHOLOGY

A Moment on the Edge:

100 Years of Crime Stories by Women

Two of the Deadliest

ELIZABETH GEORGE

BELIEVING THE LIE

DUTTON

Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 25 °Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi — 110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First printing, January 2012

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright © 2012 by Susan Elizabeth George

Map copyright © by David Cain

Title page photo of Morecambe Bay copyright © by John Sparks/Alamy

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase authorized editions.

REGISTERED TRADEMARK — MARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

George, Elizabeth, 1949 —

Believing the lie: an Inspector Lynley novel / Elizabeth George. p. cm.

EISBN: 9781101565797

1. Lynley, Thomas (Fictitious character) — Fiction. 2. Women detectives — England — Fiction. 3. Havers, Barbara (Fictitious character) — Fiction. I. Title.

PS3557.E478B45 2012 813’.54-dc23 2011032904

Printed in the United States of America

Set in Bembo

Designed by Amy Hill

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental..