Believing the Lie

“I said no!” He sounded fierce. “Look. I already told you. I got to meet someone.”

“Where?”

“It’s important. I said I’d be there.”

“Where?”

“Windermere.”

“Windermere? Who on earth are you meeting in Windermere? Does your mum know you’re meeting someone in Windermere?” She’d been crouched among the items intended for setting up the tent, but now she stood. She said, “See here, Tim. What’s going on? Are you up to something?”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“You know very well. Drugs, drink, some sort of naughty nonsense that — ”

“No. Look, I got to be there. I got to.”

She could hear his desperation, but she couldn’t tell what it had to do with or why he was feeling it. Any idea she had in the matter was not a good one. But there was something in his eyes when they flashed in her direction, a form of suffering looking out at her and begging for her help. She said, “I can’t take you there without speaking to your mum,” and she headed in the direction of the house, saying, “I’m going to phone her and make sure — ”

“You can’t!”

“Why not? Tim, what’s going on?”

“She won’t care. She doesn’t know. It won’t matter. If you ring her… oh fuck, fuck, fuck.” And he stalked across the tent and down to the little wooden jetty that stretched into the pond. There was a rowingboat tied there, but he didn’t get into it. Instead he dropped heavily down onto the jetty and his head fell into his hands.

Manette could tell he was crying. Her heart went out to him. She crossed the lawn and went out to join him on the dock. She sat down next to him but didn’t touch him. She said, “Buster, this is a bad time for you. This is the worst. But it’s going to pass. I promise you. It is going to pass because — ”

“You don’t know anything!” He swung round and shoved her. She fell onto her side. “You don’t know shit!” He kicked her, and she felt the force of the blow in the region of her kidneys. She tried to say his name but could not get it past her lips before he kicked her again.

3 NOVEMBER

LAKE WINDERMERE CUMBRIA

Lynley arrived at Ireleth Hall in the afternoon. Given the choice among flying, driving, or taking the train, he’d opted for driving, despite the length of the trip. He left London long before dawn, stopped twice along the way, and spent the time in the Healey Elliott deep in thought.

He hadn’t been with Isabelle on the previous night. She’d asked and he’d wanted, but he reckoned it would be better for them both if he stayed away. Despite her words to the contrary, he knew she intended to get to the bottom of where he was going and why, and he equally intended not to tell her. The conflict between them that this would have doubtless caused was something he wanted to avoid. Isabelle had cut back radically on her drinking in the months they’d been together, and he didn’t want anything — like an argument with him — to set her on the path to the bottle again. She needed to stay sober and he liked her sober, and if avoiding a conflict encouraged her to maintain sobriety, then he was happy to avoid anything resembling a conflict with her.

Darling, I had no idea you’d become such a coward with women, Helen would have said about this. But it wasn’t cowardice as far as he was concerned. It was the course of wisdom and he was determined to follow it. Still, he thought about this and about Isabelle and himself most of the way to Cumbria. Compatibility was on his mind.

When he reached Ireleth Hall, the great iron gates stood open as if in anticipation of his arrival. He drove beneath the shelter of ancient oaks, winding in the direction of Lake Windermere, and finding himself ultimately pulling up to an impressive many-gabled affair of stone dappled with grey lichen, its central feature a boxy pele tower of enormous proportions that announced the age of at least part of the building. Thirteenth century, Lynley thought. It predated his own home in Cornwall by more than four hundred years.

From the pele tower various extensions had been put onto the building over the centuries. Wisely, however, they were all of a piece so the result was a harmonious blend of architectural periods, with rolling lawns spreading out on either side of it, these copiously dotted with some of the most impressive oaks Lynley had ever seen. Among the oaks stood equally impressive plane trees, and beneath them fallow deer grazed placidly.

He got out of the car and breathed deeply of air fresh from a recent rainfall. From where he stood, the lake wasn’t visible, but he reckoned that from inside the west-facing house, the views of the water and the opposite shore would be impressive.

“Here you are then.”

Lynley turned at the sound of Bernard Fairclough’s voice. The man was heading his way from a walled garden to the north of the house. He joined Lynley by the Healey Elliott. He admired the old car, ran his hand along its sleek wing, and asked the usual polite questions about the vehicle, its age, its performance, and about Lynley’s drive from London. The niceties dispensed with, he ushered him into the house through a door that led directly into a great hall panelled in oak and hung with burnished breastplates of armour. A fire burned in a fireplace here, with two sofas facing each other in front of it. Other than the crackling from flames consuming wood and the ticking from a longcase clock, the place seemed entirely silent.

Fairclough spoke in the low tones of a man at a church service or one concerned about being overheard, although as far as Lynley could tell they were alone. “I’ve had to tell Valerie why you’re here,” he said. “We don’t keep secrets in general — more than forty years together and it’s impossible anyway — so she’s in the picture. She’ll cooperate. She’s not entirely happy with me for pushing this matter, but she understands… as well as a mother can understand when there are concerns about her children.” Fairclough pushed his thick-framed spectacles up the bridge of his nose as he considered his words. “She’s the only one, though. So for everyone else, you’re a fellow member of Twins who’s come for a visit. Some of them know about your wife as well. It’s made… Well, it’s made everything more believable. You’ve no trouble with that, I hope?”

He sounded nervous. Lynley had to wonder what he was nervous about: that Lynley was here, that he was a cop, or that he might uncover something unsavoury as he stumbled round the property. He supposed any of these were possible, but the nerves did make him curious about Fairclough. “Helen’s death was in the newspapers,” he replied. “I can hardly protest if it’s common knowledge.”

“Good. Good.” Fairclough rubbed his hands together in a let’s-get-down-to-work gesture. He shot Lynley a smile. “I’ll show you your room and give you a tour. I thought a quiet dinner this evening, just the four of us, and then tomorrow perhaps you can… Whatever it is you do, you know.”

“The four of us?”

“Our daughter Mignon will be joining us. She lives here on the property. Not in the house as she’s of an age when a woman prefers to have her own home. She’s not far, though, and as she’s unmarried and you’re a widower, it did seem possible…” Fairclough, Lynley noted, had the grace to look uncomfortable at this. “Something of another excuse for you to be here. I haven’t said anything to Mignon directly, but if you keep it in mind that she’s unmarried… I’ve a feeling she might be more forthright with you if you… perhaps showed her a bit of interest.”

“You suspect she has something to hide?” Lynley asked.

“She’s a cipher,” Fairclough replied. “I’ve never been able to have a break through to her. I hope you’ll manage it. Come. It’s just this way.”

The stairs formed part of the pele tower’s base and they rose among a collection of landscape watercolours into a corridor paneled in oak much like the great hall but without the great hall’s windows to lighten the gloom. Doors opened off this corridor, and Fairclough led Lynley to one at the far north end, where a lead-paned window