Believing the Lie

he’s here at your invitation and he’s prowling round the boathouse in the company of whoever that other bloke was, I think I can connect the dots well enough.” She turned in her chair so that her focus was on Lynley and not her father. Her mother had stepped away from her, towels in her hands. Mignon said to Lynley, “So you’re conducting a little investigation on the sly. Engineered by…? Well, it can’t be Dad, can it?”

“Mignon,” her father said.

She went on. “Because that suggests that Dad himself is innocent, which, frankly, isn’t very likely.”

“Mignon!” Valerie cried. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”

“Do you think so? But Dad’s got a reason for offing our Ian. Haven’t you, Dad?”

Fairclough made no reply to his daughter. His look at Mignon betrayed nothing. Either he was used to this sort of conversation with her or he knew she would go no further with what she was claiming. A tense moment passed as they all waited for more. Outside, a gust of wind sent something against the windows of the small drawing room. Valerie was the one to flinch.

Mignon said, “But then, so do I. Isn’t that correct, Dad?” She leaned back in her chair, enjoying herself. Looking at her father, she nonetheless directed her next words to Lynley. “Dad doesn’t know that I know Ian wanted to cut me off, Thomas. He was always pouring over the books, our Ian, looking for ways to save Dad money. Well, I’m certainly one of them. There’s the folly itself, which cost a bundle to build, and then there’s its maintenance, as well as my own. And as you no doubt used your detective skills to suss out when you paid your call upon me, I do like to spend a bit of money here and there. Considering the piles Dad’s made for the firm over the years, what I need isn’t a lot, of course. But to Ian it was far more than I deserved. To his credit, Dad never agreed with him. But we both know — Dad and I — that there was always a chance that he’d change his mind and go along with Ian’s suggestion to throw me out on my ear. Isn’t that correct?”

Fairclough’s face was stony. Her mother’s face was watchful. This offered more information than either of them might have given Lynley otherwise.

“Valerie,” Bernard finally said, his gaze on his daughter, “I think it’s time for dinner, don’t you? Mignon will be leaving presently.”

Mignon smiled. She gulped down the rest of her sherry. She said pointedly, “I believe I’ll need some help to get back to the folly, Dad.”

“I expect you’ll do fine on your own,” he replied.

8 NOVEMBER

CHALK FARM TO VICTORIA LONDON

Barbara Havers shrieked when she saw herself in the bathroom mirror, having stumbled towards the loo upon rising in the early morning and having forgotten that her appearance was decidedly altered. Her heart leapt in her chest, and she swung round ready to confront the woman she saw in an oblique angle of the mirror. It was a matter of seconds only, but she felt every which way the fool as she came to her senses and all of yesterday came sweeping back in the form of a hot wave of what was not quite shame but not quite anything else, either.

She’d rung Angelina Upman on her mobile after she’d visited the building in which Bernard Fairclough’s associate Vivienne Tully lived. She’d said she was in Kensington and it looked like she was going to have to cancel “the hair thing,” as she called it, being so far from Chalk Farm at the moment. But Angelina enthused on the matter: Heavens, Kensington was just a hop from Knightsbridge. They’d meet there instead of going in each other’s company. Hadiyyah had weighed in, hearing her mother’s end of the conversation. She’d got onto the mobile and said, “You can’t, Barbara. And anyways, you’re under orders, you know. And it’s not going to hurt.” She’d lowered her voice and gone on to say, “And it’s the Dorchester, Barbara. Tea at the Dorchester afterwards. Mummy says they’ve got someone who plays the piano while you have your tea and she says someone’s always walking round with silver trays heaped with sandwiches and she says someone brings fresh scones that’re hot and then there are cakes. Lots of cakes, Barbara.”

Barbara reluctantly agreed. She would meet them in Knightsbridge. Anything to be served tea sandwiches from a silver platter.

The big event at the hair salon had been what Barbara knew a pop psychologist would have called a growth experience. Dusty — Angelina’s stylist — had fully lived up to her description of him. When Barbara was ensconced in the chair of one of his underlings, he’d come over from his own station, taken one look at her, and said, “God. And what century is it that you’re representing?” He was thin, handsome, spiky haired, and so tan for the month of November that only hours in a tanning bed could have possibly effected such a dubious glow of precancerous health. He hadn’t waited for Barbara to come up with a witty reply to this. Instead, he’d turned to the underling and said, “Bob it, foil it with one-eighty-two and sixty-four. And I’m going to want to check your work.” He then said to Barbara, “Really, you’ve gone this long. You could have waited another six weeks and I’d have seen to you myself. What on earth do you use for shampoo?”

“Fairy Liquid. I use it for everything.”

“You’re joking of course. But it’s something from the shampoo aisle in the supermarket, isn’t it?”

“Where else am I supposed to buy shampoo?”

He rolled his eyes in horror. “God.” And then to Angelina, “You’re looking gorgeous as always,” after which he air-kissed her and left Barbara in the hands of the underling. Hadiyyah he ignored altogether.

At the end of what had seemed like a period in Hades to Barbara, she had emerged from the ministrations of Dusty’s underling with sleekly bobbed hair that was highlighted with streaks of shimmering blond and with subtle strands of auburn. The underling — who turned out not to be Cedric after all but rather a young woman from Essex, nice despite her four lip rings and her chest tattooes — gave her instructions about the care and maintenance of her locks, which did not involve the use of Fairy Liquid or anything else save a supremely costly bottle of elixir that apparently was going to “preserve the colour, improve the body, repair the follicles,” and, one assumed, alter one’s social life.

Barbara paid for it all with a shudder. She wondered if women truly poured this much lolly into something that could as easily be seen to in the shower every now and again.

Nonetheless, when she showered that morning, she protected the costly hairstyle from the water by wrapping it in cling film first. She was shrouded in an overlarge pair of flannel drawstring trousers and a hoody and toasting herself a strawberry Pop-Tart when she heard the excited chatter of Hadiyyah at her door, followed by the little girl’s knock upon it.

“Are you there? Are you there?” Hadiyyah cried. “I’ve brought Dad to see your new hair, Barbara.”

“No, no, no,” Barbara whispered. She wasn’t actually ready for anyone to see her yet, least of all Taymullah Azhar, whose voice she could hear but whose words she could not distinguish. She waited in silence, hoping that Hadiyyah would assume she was already off for the day, but really, how could she? It wasn’t eight in the morning and Hadiyyah knew Barbara’s habits, and even if she hadn’t known, Barbara’s Mini was in full view of Azhar’s flat. There was nothing for it but to open the door.

“See?” Hadiyyah cried, grabbing her father’s hand. “See, Dad? Mummy and I took Barbara to Mummy’s own hairdresser yesterday. Doesn’t Barbara look nice? Everyone at the Dorchester noticed her.”

Azhar said, “Ah. Yes. I do see,” which Barbara felt was akin to being damned with very faint praise indeed.

She said, “Bit different, eh? Scared the dickens out of myself when I looked in the mirror this morning.”

“It’s not at all frightening,” Azhar told her gravely.