Believing the Lie

bit of sherry to still them. “Come, look, Nicholas. She has a website.”

It had been a simple matter to find out what she needed to know about Deborah St. James. The Internet was a bottomless pit of information and one did not need to be a genius in order to use it. Find a search engine, type in a name. In the world as it was at present, one could run but one could not hide.

Deborah St. James wasn’t even trying to hide. What Do You Want Photographed? was part of her website design, which contained various links showing the nature of her work. She was an art photographer, if that was the word for it. She took the kinds of photos sold in galleries: landscapes, portraits, still lifes, dramatic action shots, spontaneous moments of life captured in the streets. She worked largely in black and white, she’d had several gallery shows, and she’d been featured in photographic competitions. She was obviously good at what she did but what she did not do was scout locations for anyone, let alone for a company called Query Productions.

There was no such company. Alatea had discovered that as well. But that was what she did not tell her husband because she knew intuitively where telling Nicholas that part of the information was going to lead. A logical question had to be asked and Nicholas would ask it: So what is she doing here, then? Alatea didn’t want him to ask that because they’d have to look at the answers. What Do You Want Photographed? said it all. The real matter before them — or before Alatea herself if the truth be told — was what Deborah St. James intended to do with the pictures.

Yet that was far too fragile a subject to entertain with her husband, so Alatea had said to Nicholas, “I’m not comfortable having her round here, Nicky. There’s something about her that I don’t like.”

Nicholas frowned. They’d been in bed and he’d turned on his side to face her, propping his head on his hand. He didn’t have his glasses on, which meant he couldn’t see her properly, but he still looked as if he was studying her face and what he apparently thought he saw there made him say with a smile, “Because she’s a photographer or because she’s a woman? Because, darling wife, let me tell you this: If it’s the woman part that you’re concerned about, you’re never going to have a single worry on that score.” He’d scooted over to her to prove this declaration and she’d allowed this. She’d wanted it, even, for the sheer diversion from her thoughts that love with Nicholas produced. But afterwards the worry and the fear came sweeping back like the tidal bore in Morecambe Bay. There was no escape and the fast-rising tide threatened to drown her.

He’d sensed this. Nicholas was good at that. He could read her tension although he could not interpret it. He’d said, “Why’re you so wound up about this? She’s a freelance photographer, and freelancers get hired to take pictures and to hand them over to whoever hired them. That’s what she’s here to do.” He moved away on the bed. “We need a break, I think.” His face looked tender as he spoke. “We’ve been working too hard, too long. You’ve been up to your ears for months dealing with the house, and I’ve been running between the tower project and Barrow, so bloody caught up in getting back into my father’s good graces that I haven’t been paying enough attention to you. To how you’re feeling, to the fact that this is all foreign to you, coming here, living here. To me, it’s home, but I haven’t seen that for you, it’s a foreign country.” He smiled regretfully. “Addicts are selfish wankers, Allie. I’m a prime example.”

From this, she took up a single strand. She said, “Why do you need this?”

“A break? You? This, here in bed?” His smile, then, and, “I’d hope you wouldn’t have to ask that last question.”

“Your father,” she said. “Why must you get into his good graces?”

When he answered, his voice showed his surprise. “Because I made his life hell for years. My mother’s as well.”

“You cannot rewrite the past, Nicky.”

“But I can make amends for it. I took years off their lives, and I want to give those years back to them if I can. Wouldn’t you want the same in my position?”

“Life,” she said, “is meant to be lived by the individual living it, being true to himself. What you’re doing is living your life in order to be true to someone else’s perception of you.”

He’d blinked and an expression of hurt touched his features and then dissipated as quickly as it had come upon him. He said, “We’ll have to agree to disagree on this. And you’ll have to wait and see how things turn out, how they change for me, for you, and for the family.”

She’d said, “Your family — ”

And he’d cut in with, “I don’t mean my family. I mean our family. Yours and mine. The family we make. Things are going to continue to get better from this point on. You’ll see.”

In the morning, she’d tried again, but this time it was with a diversion and not with a frontal attack. She’d said, “Don’t go to work today. Stay with me, stay here, don’t go to the tower.”

His reply of, “That’s a very tempting proposition,” had given her hope for an instant but he went on to say, “I must go into work, though, Allie. I’ve taken a day off already.”

“Nicky, you’re the son of the owner. If you can’t take a day off — ”

“I’m a line operator in the shipping department. Someday I might be the son of the owner again. But I’m not there yet.”

They were, thus, back to where they started. Alatea knew that this was the point of departure for them. He believed he had to prove himself in order to make amends for his past. In this manner he would pave a way to the future through illustrating over and over again that he was not who he once had been. While she understood this, it was not how she lived. Indeed, living in the way Nicholas was choosing to live was impossible for her.

And now there was the matter of Query Productions and the fact that it did not exist. This meant only one thing: that the presence of the photographer here in Cumbria had nothing at all to do with the work Nicholas was doing, nothing at all to do with what he was attempting to create with the Middlebarrow Pele Project, and nothing at all to do with any intention he had with regard to his parents and to transforming his life. That left only one explanation as far as she could see for the photographer’s presence. What Do You Want Photographed? said it all.

Alatea’s descent from the top of Arnside Knot took more time than the ascent had done. The patches of limestone scree were slick after the rain. Slipping upon the loose stones, falling, and tumbling down the slope were distinct possibilities. So was sliding upon the fallen leaves from the lime and chestnut trees that formed a copse lower down the hill. So safety was foremost in her mind as she made her way home in the fast-fading daylight. Safety, too, took her to the telephone soon after she walked into Arnside House.

She always kept the phone number with her. This had been the case since the very first time she’d made the call. She didn’t want to do what she had to do, but she couldn’t see any other choice available. She took out the card, managed a few deep breaths, punched in the numbers, and waited for the connection to go through. When it did, she asked the only question that mattered to her now.

“I don’t mean to pressure you, but I do need to know. Have you considered my offer?”

“I have,” the quiet voice replied.

“And?”

“Let’s meet to talk it over.”

“This means?”

“You’re completely serious about the money?”

“Yes, yes. Of course I’m serious.”

“Then I think I can do what you’re asking.”

MILNTHORPE CUMBRIA

Lynley tracked them down having what Deborah called “a most indifferent curry, Tommy,” which they’d found in a restaurant called Fresh Taste of India on Church Street in Milnthorpe. St. James added, “We’re not spoiled for choices. It was this, take away Chinese, or pizza. I voted for pizza but was overruled.”

They’d finished their meal and were each drinking a rather disturbingly large glass of limoncello, which was odd in both its size and the fact that an Indian restaurant was serving the Italian liqueur at all. “Simon likes me soused after nine in the evening,” was how Deborah explained at