Believing the Lie

“I have every confidence that it will.” She looked from Lynley to her husband. Fairclough, Lynley saw, was gazing intently through the water-side opening in the boathouse, out onto the lake. She said, “It was a terrible thing to have happened. We were very fond of Ian, Bernie and I. We should have kept a closer eye on the dock. It’s quite old — more than a hundred years — and it’s never been out of use. Stones become loose. See here. There’s another.”

She used her toe against a stone next to the spot from which the other two had fallen. It was, as she said, unsteady as well. But of course, Lynley thought, that might have been owing to the fact that someone had deliberately loosened it.

“When accidents happen, we want to blame someone,” Valerie said. “And this was a wretched thing to have happened because it leaves those poor children with one mad parent and no tempering influence whatsoever. If there’s fault here, however, it’s mine, I’m afraid.”

“Valerie,” her husband said.

“I’m in charge of Ireleth Hall and the property, Bernie. I fell down on the job. Your nephew died as a result.”

“I don’t blame you,” her husband replied.

“Perhaps you should consider doing so.”

They exchanged a look from which Bernard broke away first. That look said more than their words had done. There were, Lynley reckoned, deep waters here. They went far beyond those found in the lake.

4 NOVEMBER

MILNTHORPE AND ARNSIDE CUMBRIA

When they’d laid their plans for taking a few days to help Tommy in Cumbria, Deborah St. James had entertained visions of herself and Simon being domiciled in a hotel draped in a stunning display of Virginia creeper in its autumnal glory, overlooking one of the lakes. She would even have settled for a situation viewing a mere waterfall as the county appeared to have a plethora of them. But where she ended up was an old inn called the Crow and Eagle exactly at the point one would expect an inn to be sitting: at an intersection of two roads down which lorries seemed to rumble at all hours of the night. This intersection was in the middle of the market town of Milnthorpe, so far south of the Lakes as not to be considered part of the Lakes at all, and the only water it boasted was the River Bela — nowhere in view — which appeared to be one of the countless tributaries that debouched into Morecambe Bay.

Simon had seen her expression at the first glimpse of the place. He’d said, “Ah,” and, “Well, we’re not here on holiday, are we, my love, but we’ll take a day or two when we’ve finished. A grand hotel with a view of Windermere, roaring fires, scones, tea, and whatever else.” He’d leered at her playfully.

She’d eyed him and said, “I’m planning to hold you to that, Simon.”

“I’d have it no other way.”

On the evening of their arrival, she’d received on her mobile the call that she’d been awaiting. She answered as she’d been answering every call for the last twenty-four hours, just for the practice. She’d said, “Deborah St. James Photography,” and she’d nodded to Simon when the caller identified himself as Nicholas Fairclough. It hadn’t taken long to make the arrangements: He was willing to meet with her and discuss the project that she had phoned about. He’d said, “But this documentary… it’s not about me, is it? At least not about my private life.” She’d assured him that it was only about the project he had developed for recovering addicts. It would be a preliminary interview, she told him. She would give a report to a filmmaker from Query Productions, who would ultimately make the decision regarding the project’s inclusion in his documentary. “This is purely on spec,” she told him. She liked this jargon. Anything to make her seem like the genuine article to this man. “I’ve no idea if you’d actually be in the film at the end of the day, you understand.” This seemed to relieve him. He sounded quite buoyant when he said, “Right, then. When shall we meet?”

She was readying herself for that meeting now. Simon was on his mobile with the coroner, spinning his own tale about a lecture he would be giving to a class at University College, London. He was, she was finding, far more glib than she. This surprised her, for while he had always been the most confident of men and his credentials were impressive enough to make him confident, his confidence had always seemed to be connected to his relationship with the truth. That he could dissemble so well gave her pause. One didn’t like to know one’s husband was quite so adept at lying when he had to.

Her own mobile rang as she was gathering her things. She looked at the number and recognised it. No need to be Deborah St. James Photography at the moment. The caller was Simon’s brother David.

She knew at once why David was ringing her. She was more or less ready for the call.

“Just thought I’d answer any questions you might have,” was how David brought up the subject. His voice had that encouraging ring to it, jollying her along. “The girl’s quite keen to meet you, Deborah. She’s had a look at your website: the photos and all that. Simon said you were worrying a bit about the London placement since she lives here in Southampton. I daresay she wouldn’t have considered it, but she knows Simon’s my brother, and her father’s worked at the company here for a good twenty years. Part of the accounting department,” he added hastily. That was synonymous with she’s from a good family, as if he felt that the girl’s having a dockworker as a father would constitute the possession of tainted blood.

They wanted her to decide. Deborah understood this. David and Simon both saw the situation as the perfect solution to a problem having gone on for years. They were both the sort of man who takes each difficulty in life as it comes up and deals with it as soon as possible and just as efficiently. Neither of them was like her, projecting into the future and seeing how complicated and potentially heartbreaking was the scenario they were proposing.

She said, “David, I just don’t know. I don’t think it would work. I can’t see how — ”

“Are you saying no?”

That was another one of the problems. Saying no meant no. Asking for more time meant not taking a position. Why on earth, Deborah wondered, could she not take a definite position on this matter? Last chance and only chance seemed like the reasons, but she was still frozen in place, unwilling to speak.

She said she’d ring him back. At the moment, she had to set off for Arnside. A heavy sigh at his end told her he wasn’t happy with this, but he rang off. Simon said nothing, although he’d obviously heard her side of the call as he’d finished with his own. They parted at the sides of their respective hire cars, wishing each other luck.

Deborah’s drive was the lesser one. Nicholas Fairclough lived just on the far outskirts of the village of Arnside, and Arnside was southwest of Milnthorpe, a short distance along the side of a muddy flat of sand that gave onto the Kent Channel. There were fishermen here, positioned along the road and down the bank, although Deborah couldn’t tell exactly where they were fishing. From the car, it didn’t look as if there was any water in the mud flat at all. She could see, however, where the shifting tide from Morecambe Bay had scoured out depressions in the sand, creating banks and drops that suggested danger.

Arnside House was the name of Nicholas Fairclough’s property. It sat at the end of the Promenade, an impressive display of Victorian mansions that had no doubt at one time served as the summer homes of industrialists from Manchester, Liverpool, and Lancaster. Most of these were stately-looking conversions now: flats possessing unimpeded views of the channel, of the railway viaduct that stretched across the water towards Grange-over-Sands, and of Grange-over-Sands itself, just visible today through a mild autumn mist.

Unlike the mansions that preceded it, Arnside House was an unadorned structure, utterly plain and whitewashed over a roughcast exterior that was itself a finishing surface over what was undoubtedly stone or brick. Its windows featured unpainted sandstone surrounds, and its many gables displayed rounded chimneys whitewashed like the rest of the building. Only the rainwater heads were other than plain, and these were highly stylised in a design Deborah recognised as Arts and Crafts. Shades of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, she thought.