Believing the Lie

“PC Schlicht mentioned him,” St. James said. “Has he got motive?”

“There’s the will and insurance to be looked into.”

“Anyone else?”

“With motive?” Lynley told them about his meeting with Mignon Fairclough: her insinuations about her parents’ marriage followed by her denial of those insinuations. He also told them about the holes in the background of Nicholas Fairclough that she’d been only too happy to fill in. He ended with, “She’s rather a piece of work and I have the impression she’s got a hold over her parents for some reason. So Fairclough himself might bear looking into.”

“Blackmail? With Cresswell somehow in the know?”

“Emotional or otherwise, I daresay. She lives on the property but not in the house. I suspect Bernard Fairclough built her digs for her and I wouldn’t be surprised if one reason was to get her out of his hair. There’s another sister as well. I’ve yet to meet her.”

He went on to tell them that Bernard Fairclough had put a videotape into his hands. He’d suggested Lynley watch it because if there was indeed someone behind Ian’s death, then he needed to “see something rather telling.”

This turned out to be a video of the funeral, made for the purpose of sending to Ian’s father in Kenya, too frail to make the trip to say farewell to his son. Fairclough had watched it at Lynley’s side, and as things turned out, it was what he didn’t see that he wanted to point out. Niamh Cresswell, Ian’s wife of seventeen years and the mother of his two children, had not attended. Fairclough pointed out that, at least to be of support to those grieving children, she might have turned up.

“He gave me a few details on the end of Ian Cresswell’s marriage.” Lynley told them what he knew, to which St. James and Deborah said simultaneously, “Motive, Tommy.”

“Hell hath no fury. Yes. But it’s not likely that Niamh Cresswell could prowl round the grounds of Ireleth Hall without being seen and so far no one’s mentioned her being there.”

“Still and all,” St. James said, “she’s got to be looked into. Revenge is a powerful motive.”

“So is greed,” Deborah said. “But then, so are all the deadly sins, aren’t they? Why else be deadly?”

Lynley nodded. “So we’ll have to see if she benefits in any way other than vengeance,” he said.

“We’re back to the will. Or an insurance policy,” St. James said. “That information’s not going to be easy to suss out while keeping your head down about why you’re really here in Cumbria, Tommy.”

“Not for me going at it directly. You’re right about that,” Lynley said. “But there’s someone else who can do it.”

LAKE WINDERMERE CUMBRIA

By the time they’d concluded their meeting, it was too late for Lynley to place the call he needed to make. So instead he phoned Isabelle. Truth was, he was missing her. Truth was, he was also glad to be away from her. This wasn’t due to any disinclination on his part for her company. This was, instead, due to his need to know how he felt about her when they were apart. Seeing her every day at work, seeing her several nights each week, made it nearly impossible for him to sort through his feelings for the woman aside from those that were clearly sexual. At least now he had a feeling to name: longing. Thus he knew he missed her body. What remained to be seen was whether he missed the rest of the package comprising Isabelle Ardery.

He waited till he’d got back to Ireleth Hall to place the call from his mobile. He stood just to the side of the Healey Elliott, and he punched in the number and waited for it to go through. He thought about how he was all at once wishing that she were with him. There had been something in the easy conversation between himself and his friends and something more in the way Simon and Deborah communicated with each other that made him want that for himself once again: that familiarity and assurance. He understood that, more specifically, what he really wanted was a return to the way he and his wife had talked to each other in the morning, over dinner at night, in bed together, even as one or the other of them bathed. For the first time as well, however, he realised that Helen herself didn’t need to be that woman but that someone else — somewhere else — could. This felt, in part, like a betrayal of a most beloved wife, cut down through no fault of her own by a senseless act of violence. Yet he also understood that this feeling was part of getting on with life, and he knew Helen would have wanted that for him as much as she’d wanted their life together.

The ringing stopped on the other end, in London. He heard, “Damn,” faintly, then the sound of Isabelle’s mobile hitting something, and then there was nothing at all.

He said, “Isabelle? Are you there?” and he waited. Nothing. Again he said her name. When there was no response, he ended the call, the connection apparently gone.

He punched in her number again. The ringing began. It continued. Perhaps she was in the car, he thought, unavailable. Or in the shower. Or engaged in something that made it impossible-

“’Lo? Tommy? Joo jus’ call?” And then a sound he didn’t want to hear: something knocking against the side of her mobile, a glass, a bottle, what did it matter. “I’s thinking of you an’ here you are. How’s tha’ for mental tepe… tele … telepathy?”

“Isabelle…” Lynley found he couldn’t say more. He ended the call, put the mobile in his pocket, and returned to his room in Ireleth Hall.

5 NOVEMBER

CHALK FARM LONDON

Barbara Havers had spent the first part of her day off visiting her mother in the private care home where she was domiciled in Greenford. The call was long overdue. She hadn’t been there in seven weeks, and she’d been feeling the weight of guilt grow heavier with every day once she’d reached the three-week point. She’d admitted the worst to herself: that she welcomed having work piled upon her so she wouldn’t have to go and witness the further disintegration of her mother’s mind. But there had come a point when continuing to live with herself meant she had to make the journey to that pebbledash house with its neat front garden and spotless curtains hanging behind windows that fairly gleamed in sun or rain, so she took the Central Line from Tottenham Court Road, not because it was faster but because it wasn’t.

She wasn’t liar enough to tell herself she was travelling in this manner to give herself time to think. The last thing she really wanted to do was to think about anything, and her mother was only one of the subjects she didn’t want pressing in on her mind. Thomas Lynley was another: where he was, what he was doing, and why she hadn’t been informed about either. Isabelle Ardery was yet another: whether she was actually going to be named to the position of detective superintendent permanently and what that would mean to Barbara’s own future with the Met, not to mention to her working relationship with Thomas Lynley. Angelina Upman was still another: whether she — Barbara — could have a friendship with the lover of her neighbour and friend Taymullah Azhar, whose daughter had become a needed bit of sparkle in Barbara’s life. No. The reason she took the train was avoidance, pure and simple. Additionally, the distractions afforded by the Tube were vast and continually shifting, and what Barbara wanted was distractions because they gave her conversation openers that she could use with her mother when she finally saw her.

Not that she and her mother had conversations any longer. At least not the sort of conversations one might deem normal between a mother and daughter. And this day had ultimately been no different to others in which Barbara spoke, hesitated, watched, and felt desperate to end the visit as soon as possible.