Believing the Lie

when they themselves could so easily defuse the ticking bomb it comprised. Lynley waited. Manette’s gaze met her former husband’s eyes. She read there, apparently, what she didn’t want to know because she said, “We don’t know what anything means, Freddie.”

To which he replied, “True enough, old girl. But we can easily guess, can’t we?” And then without ceremony, he began to speak. She protested, but he made his position clear: If someone had set up the boathouse to hurt Ian Cresswell or, indeed, to hurt Manette’s own mother, then everything currently in the shadows had to come out.

The way Freddie McGhie saw it, Bernard Fairclough had been running through money for a number of years. Payments to various clinics to turn Nicholas around, the wealth put into the Ireleth Hall gardens, the purchase of Arnside House at a high point in the property market, the renovation of that building to make it suitably habitable for Nicholas Fairclough and his bride, the folly built to house Mignon, her subsequent operations to allow her finally to shed the weight she’d been piling on since childhood, the follow-up surgery for the excess skin she then carted round …

“Ian might have been writing the cheques, but he also would’ve been telling Bernard to stop, stop, stop,” was how McGhie put it. “Because some of this nonsense had been going on for years. There was no sense to it, as far as I can see. It was as if he couldn’t stop himself. Or he felt he had to for some reason. Had to lay out money, I mean.”

“For years?” Lynley clarified.

“Well, Nick’s been a problem for a very long time, and then there was — ”

“Freddie. That’s enough.” Manette’s voice was sharp.

Freddie said, “He’s got to know it all. I’m sorry, darling, but if Vivienne’s somehow at the bottom of this she’s got to be mentioned.”

“Vivienne Tully?” Lynley said.

“You know about her?”

“I’m learning.”

“D’you know where she is?” Manette asked. “Does Dad know?”

“Well, he has to, hasn’t he?” McGhie said to her reasonably. “Unless Ian was paying her every month without your father’s knowledge. But why in God’s name would he do that?”

“The obvious reason: because she knew about him, what he was hiding from Niamh and from everyone else. She held his feet to the fire. Blackmail, Freddie.”

“Come on, old girl, you don’t believe that. There’s only one good reason for payouts to Vivienne Tully, and we both know what it probably is.”

They’d almost forgotten he was in the room, Lynley realised, so intent were they upon believing whatever it was each of them wished to believe: about Ian Cresswell, about Vivienne Tully, about the money Cresswell had paid out left, right, and centre, either on behalf of Bernard Fairclough or without his knowledge.

Aside from everyone else taking handouts from Bernard Fairclough’s funds, Freddie McGhie told Lynley that Vivienne Tully — a long-ago employee, as Lynley already knew — had been receiving monthly sums for years, despite not having been employed by Fairclough Industries during that time period. This money wouldn’t have anything to do with profit sharing or a pension scheme, Freddie added.

“So the payout could mean any number of things,” he concluded. “A sexual harassment lawsuit Bernard was trying to avoid, an unlawful dismissal…” He glanced at his former wife as if for confirmation of this.

“Or Dad didn’t know,” was what she said. “You’ve said yourself: Ian might have been cooking the books all along.”

To Lynley, all of the information indicated a death that was no accident. What it still did not clarify, however, was who the intended victim had actually been.

He thanked Manette and her former husband. He left them to what he reckoned was going to be a full discussion of the family situation. He could tell from Manette’s reaction to the information McGhie had been giving that she was not going to let these dogs lie.

He was getting into the Healey Elliott, when his mobile rang. Havers, he thought. Clarity on its way. But he saw by the incoming number that it was Isabelle ringing.

He said to her, “Hullo, you. This is a pleasant diversion.”

She said, “I’m afraid we need to talk, Thomas.”

Even if she hadn’t said Thomas, Isabelle’s tone would have told him this wasn’t the woman whose soft curves and warm body his hands knew and enjoyed. This was his guv, and she wasn’t pleased. On the other hand, she was stone-cold sober, and he could tell that as well.

He said, “Of course. Where are you?”

“Where you should be. I’m at work.”

“As am I, Isabelle.”

“After a fashion. But that’s not my point.”

He waited for more. It was quick in coming.

“Why is it Barbara Havers can be entrusted with information and I can’t? What d’you expect I’d have done with the knowledge? What could I have done? Marched into Hillier’s office crowing, ‘I know, I know, I bloody well know’?”

“Barbara’s doing some digging for me, Isabelle. That’s all it is.”

“You lied to me, didn’t you?”

“About what?”

“The entire need for secrecy. It can hardly be a hush-hush matter if Sergeant Havers is sledgehammering her way through it.”

“Barbara knows no more than some names. There were matters I couldn’t deal with at my end, but I knew she could. She’s doing research.”

“Oh, please. I’m hardly stupid, Tommy. I know how tight you are with Barbara. She’d gladly step into the iron maiden if you asked her. You say mum’s the word on this one, Barb, and she’d cut out her tongue. This has to do with Bob, hasn’t it?”

Lynley was flummoxed. Bob? For a moment, he had no idea what she was talking about. Then she added, “Bob, his wife, the twins. You’re punishing me because unlike you I have entanglements and sometimes they get in our way.”

“Are you talking about that night?” he asked. “When I turned up? When they were all there? Isabelle, good God. That happened and it’s done with. I carry no — ”

“Grudge? No, you wouldn’t, would you? You’re far too well bred for that.”

“Really, Isabelle darling, you’re upset about nothing. It’s everything that I said it was. Hillier wants this unknown at the Met and I’ve kept it that way.”

“It’s about trust, you know. And I’m not just talking about this situation. I’m talking about the other as well. You could ruin me, Tommy. One word and I’m finished. Gone. It’s done. If you don’t trust me, how can I trust you? God in heaven, what’ve I done to myself?”

“What you’ve done is work yourself into a state over nothing. What do you expect I’d do to you?”

“I step out of line, I don’t cooperate, I’m not quite the woman you think I should be…”

“And what? I march into Hillier’s office and say I’ve been my guv’s lover on the sly for the past four months, six months, two years, whatever? Is that what you think?”

“You could destroy me. I don’t have that equal power over you. You don’t need the job, you don’t even bloody want the job. We’re not equals in so many ways and this is the biggest one. Add to that the fact that there’s no trust now and what have we got?”

“What do you mean that there’s no trust now? That’s ridiculous. It’s completely absurd.” And then the question, because he suddenly knew — was sure of it — that he’d been wrong at first about her condition. “Have you been drinking?”

Silence. It was the worst thing to ask. He wished he could unsay it. But he couldn’t and her reply was soft.

“Thank you, Tommy,” she said. She cut off the call. She left him looking out at Great Urswick’s pond and a family of swans peacefully afloat upon the placid water.