Believing the Lie

She drove to Ireleth Hall. She thought there was a good chance that Kaveh Mehran would be there since he’d been long engaged in designing a children’s garden for the estate, as well as overseeing the implementation of this design. The garden was intended for Nicholas’s future children — and wasn’t that like counting chickens, Manette thought — and considering the size of the garden that had been staked out, it looked as if Valerie was expecting dozens of them.

She was in luck, Manette saw upon her arrival. She traipsed round to the location of the future children’s garden, which was north of the immense and fantastical topiary garden, and she saw not only Kaveh Mehran but her father as well. There was another man with them whom Manette did not recognise but reckoned was “the earl” that her sister had phoned her about.

“Widower,” Mignon had told her. Manette could hear the tapping of her keyboard in the background, so she knew her sister was doing her usual multitasking: e-mailing one of her online lovers while simultaneously dismissing what she’d reckoned was a potential offline one. “It’s rather obvious why Dad’s dragged him up here from London. Hope springs eternal et cetera. And now I’ve had the surgery and lost all the weight, he reckons I’m ready for a suitor. A regular Charlotte Lucas, just waiting for Mr. Collins to show up. God, how embarrassing. Well, dream on, Pater. I’m quite happy where I am, thank you very much.”

Manette wouldn’t have put it past her father. He’d been trying to offload Mignon for years, but she had him very much where she wanted him and she had no intention of making any changes. Why Bernard wouldn’t show her the door or give her the boot or any other figurative cutting of ties with Mignon was beyond Manette, although once he’d built the folly for her sister some six years earlier, Manette had concluded her twin was holding back something damaging that would ruin their father if she let it be known. What that was Manette couldn’t imagine, but it had to be something big.

Kaveh Mehran appeared to be showing the other two men the progress so far made on the children’s garden. He was pointing hither and yon at stacks of timber beneath tarps and piles of quarried stone and stakes driven into the ground with string strung between them. Manette called out a hello and strode in their direction.

Mignon was out of her mind, Manette decided as the men turned towards her, if she thought “the widower” had been brought up from London as a potential suitor for her, a sort of “gentleman caller” in the best tradition of Tennessee Williams’s psychodramas. He was tall, blond, exceedingly attractive, and dressed — even in the Lakes, for God’s sake — with that kind of understated rumpled elegance that fairly screamed old family money. If he was a widower out looking for Wife Number Two or Wife Number Two Hundred and Twenty-two, he wasn’t going to choose her sister to step into that position. The human animal’s capacity for self-delusion was absolutely amazing, Manette thought.

Bernard smiled a hello at Manette and made the introductions. Tommy Lynley was the name of the earl and wherever he was earl of was not mentioned. He had a firm handshake, an interesting old scar on his upper lip, a nice smile, and very brown eyes at odds with his light hair. He was good at small talk, she found, and equally good at putting people at ease. Beautiful day in a beautiful place, he told her. He himself was from Cornwall originally, south of Penzance, an area which was — obviously — lovely as well, and he’d spent very little time in Cumbria. But from what he was seeing round Ireleth Hall, he knew he should make regular visits here.

Very nicely said, Manette thought. Very polite. Had he said it to Mignon she would doubtless have considered it rife with double meanings. Manette said, “Come in winter and it’s likely you’ll think otherwise,” and then to Kaveh Mehran, “I’d like a word if you’ve time.”

Her father had succeeded wildly in industry because he was a man fully capable of reading nuances. He said, “What’s going on, Manette?” and when she gave a glance at Lynley, Bernard continued with, “Tommy’s a close friend. He knows we’ve had a recent tragedy in the family. Has something more…?”

“Niamh,” Manette said.

“What about her?”

Manette glanced at Lynley and then said to her father, “I’m not sure you want…”

Lynley started to excuse himself but Bernard said, “No. It’s fine. Stay.” And to Manette, “As I said, he’s a friend. It can’t be anything — ”

Fine, Manette thought. Whatever you like. And she said abruptly, “Niamh’s not yet taken the children back. They’re still with Kaveh. We need to do something about it.”

Bernard glanced at Kaveh, his brow furrowed, and he murmured to Lynley, “My late nephew’s wife.”

“It’s absolutely not right,” Manette said. “She knows it, and she doesn’t much care. I spoke to her yesterday. All dressed to the ninety-nines, she was, with a bucket of sex toys sitting out for all the world to see. She’s got some bloke coming round to do the business with her, and Tim and Gracie are in the way.”

Bernard cast another look at Kaveh. The young man said, “‘Absolutely not right,’ Manette?” He spoke politely enough, but his tone told Manette he’d misunderstood her meaning.

She said, “Oh for God’s sake, Kaveh. You know I’m not talking about what you are. You can be as bent as a broken twig for all I care, but when it comes to children — ”

“I’m not interested in children.”

“Well, that’s just the point, isn’t it?” Manette snapped, choosing to misinterpret his remark. “It helps to have an interest in children if one is actually caring for them. Dad, Tim and Gracie belong with family and whatever he is, Kaveh’s not family.”

“Manette…” Her father’s voice was minatory. Evidently, there were things in the “recent tragedy in the family” that he did indeed prefer Tommy Lynley not to know, despite what he’d said a moment earlier. Well, that was unfortunate, because he’d welcomed her to speak openly in front of the London man, so that was what she intended to do.

She said, “Ian was happy to have the children with him in Bryanbarrow. I understood that and I was on board with it. Anything to keep them away from Niamh, who’s about as motherly as a great white shark, as you know very well. But Ian can’t have intended Kaveh to keep them if something happened to him. You know that, Kaveh.” And back to her father, “So you have to talk to Niamh. You have to order her. You have to do something. Tim’s in a very bad way — he’s worse than what he was like to get him into Margaret Fox School in the first place — and God knows Gracie needs a mother more than ever just now and she’s going to be completely desperate for one in a year or two. If Niamh isn’t willing to do the job, then someone else is going to have to step onto the pitch.”

“I see the situation,” Bernard said. “We’ll carry on further another time.”

“We can’t, Dad. I’m sorry.” And to Lynley, “Dirty laundry and more to come. If you haven’t the stomach for it…”

To Bernard, Lynley said, “Perhaps there’s a way I can be of help?” and something passed between them, some sort of message or assurance or something that assuaged whatever Manette’s father had been concerned about in having Lynley present at an escalating conversation.

Manette said, “Tim attacked me. No, no, I didn’t get hurt. I’m sore but that’s not the point. He must be dealt with — the whole bloody situation must be dealt with — and since Kaveh’s not going to be staying on that farm forever, it’s in everyone’s best interests to deal with it now before the farm is sold. Once Kaveh has to move house, what happens to the children? Are they going with him? And where? This can’t go on. They can’t keep being uprooted.”

“He left it to me,” Kaveh said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Manette swung back to him. “What?”

“The farm, Manette. Ian left it to me.”

“To you? Why?”

Kaveh said with a dignity Manette had to admire, “Because he loved me. Because we were partners and that’s what partners usually do: make arrangements to take care of each other in the event of death.”

Silence ensued. Into it, the sound of jackdaws burst into the air. From somewhere the smell of burning leaves came at them in a rush as if there were flames nearby, which there were not.

“Men usually take care of their children as well,” Manette said. “That farm should be Tim’s, not yours. It should be Gracie’s. It should be theirs to sell, to provide for their future.”

Kaveh looked away. He worked his jaw as if this would allow him to master an emotion. “I think you’ll find there was an insurance policy for that.”