Lynley looked at Fairclough again. Fairclough looked away. Lynley knew he’d been used for some reason unspoken at the moment, and at this he felt the inner burning that comes from the most useless sort of anger. He said, “If you’d care to explain,” to Valerie.
“Of course. I’m the reason you’ve been brought up to Cumbria, Inspector. No one knew this except Bernard. And now Manette, Freddie, and Nicholas know it.”
For an utterly mad moment Lynley thought the woman was actually confessing to murdering her husband’s nephew. The setting, after all, was perfect for it, in the best tradition of more than one hundred years of tea-in-the-vicarage and murder-in-the-library paperback novels sold in railway stations. He couldn’t imagine why she might be confessing, but he’d also never been able to understand why the characters in those novels sat quietly in the drawing room or the sitting room or the library while a detective laid out all the clues leading to the guilt of one of them. No one ever demanded a solicitor in the midst of the detective’s maundering. He’d never been able to sort that one out.
Valerie clarified quickly, probably in answer to the confusion on his face. It was simple enough: She and not her husband had been the one who wanted to have the death of Ian Cresswell more closely looked into.
That, Lynley thought, explained a great deal, particularly when he considered what they’d uncovered about Fairclough’s private life. But it did not go the entire distance. Why still hung out there waiting for an answer. Why Valerie and not Bernard? was foremost. Why at all? was next since a conclusion of murder most likely would have meant that a member of her own family was culpable.
Lynley said, “I see. I’m not sure it matters entirely.” He went on to explain the results of his examination of everything connected to the death in the boathouse. Everything he had looked at and everything looked at by Simon St. James was in agreement with the coroner’s conclusion. A tragic accident had taken Ian Cresswell’s life. It could have happened to anyone using the boathouse. The dock’s stones were ancient; some were loose. Those that had been dislodged had not been tampered with. Had Cresswell been getting out of a different sort of boat, he might have merely stumbled. But getting out of a scull was trickier. The combination of its delicate balance and the dock’s loose stones had done him in. He’d pitched forward, hit his head, gone into the water, and drowned. No foul play had been involved.
In these circumstances, Lynley thought, one would expect a general sigh of relief to go around the room. One would expect something along the lines of “thank goodness” from Valerie Fairclough. But what came next was a long, tense silence in which he finally realised that something more than Ian Cresswell’s death had been the real reason for the investigation. And into this silence the front door opened, and Mignon Fairclough came into the hall.
She pushed her zimmer frame in front of her. She said, “Freddie, can you manage the door, darling? It’s a bit awkward for me,” and as Freddie McGhie rose to do so, Valerie cut in with a sharp, “I expect you can cope quite well on your own, Mignon.”
Mignon tilted her head and managed an arch look at her mother. She said, “Very well, then,” and made something of a minor production out of turning herself and her zimmer and dealing with the door. She said, “There, then,” when it was closed and she’d turned back to them. “Such an excitement of comings and goings today, my darlings. Manette and Freddie à deux. My heart flutters with all the possibilities attendant on that. Then Nick roars up. Then Nick roars away. And now our handsome Scotland Yard detective is back among us, pitter-pattering our collective hearts. Forgive the idle curiosity, Mother and Dad, but I couldn’t bear to be outside looking in another moment with everything that’s going on round here.”
“It’s just as well,” Valerie said to her. “We’re discussing the future.”
“Whose, may I ask?”
“Everyone’s. Including yours. I’ve just learned today that for quite some time you’ve had something of pay rise in your monthly stipend. That’s at an end. As is the entire allowance.”
Mignon looked startled. Clearly, this was a turn of events she hadn’t anticipated. “Mother, darling, well obviously… I’m disabled. I can hardly go out like this and expect to become gainfully employed. So you can’t— ”
“But that’s where you’re wrong, Mignon. I can. And I do.”
Mignon looked round, apparently for the source of this sudden alteration to her circumstances. She settled her gaze on Manette. Her eyes narrowed and she said, “You little bitch. I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”
“I say, Mignon,” Freddie declared.
“I expect you do,” Mignon replied to him. “What else will you say when we begin to talk about her and Ian, Freddie?”
“There is no me and Ian and you know it,” Manette cut in.
“There’s a shoe box crammed with letters, darling, some of them burned but the rest in very good condition. I can easily fetch them. Believe me, I’ve been waiting years to do so.”
“I had an adolescent infatuation with Ian. Make more of it if you like. It won’t get you far.”
“Not even the bits about ‘wanting you more than I’ll ever want anyone’ and ‘darling Ian please be my first’?”
“Oh please,” Manette said in disgust.
“I could go on, you know. I’ve endless bits memorised.”
“And none of us want to hear them,” Valerie snapped. “Enough has been said. We’re finished here.”
“Not nearly as finished as you think.” Mignon made her way to the sofa on which her sister and Freddie McGhie were sitting. She said, “If you don’t mind, darling Freddie…,” and began to lower herself. He had no choice but to have her in his lap or to move. He opted for the second and joined his former father-in-law at the fireplace.
Lynley could see everyone regrouping mentally. All of them seemed to know something was coming, although he reckoned that no one knew what it was. Mignon had obviously been gathering information for years on the members of her family. She’d not had to use it in the past, but now she seemed to be preparing to do so. She cast one look at her sister and another at her father. She kept her eyes on him and, with a smile, said, “You know, I don’t think things are going to change quite so much, Mother. And neither does Dad, I daresay.”
Valerie took this on board easily enough. She said, “Vivienne Tully’s payments are being stopped as well, if that’s what you’re getting at. And it is what you’re getting at, isn’t it, Mignon? You’ve been holding Vivienne Tully over your father’s head for years, I expect. No wonder so much money’s gone out to you.”
“And this is turn-the-other-cheek time?” Mignon asked her mother. “Is that where we are? Where you are? With him?”
“Where I am, as you put it, with your father is none of your business. No one’s marriage is your business.”
“So let me make sure I understand,” Mignon said. “He carries on with Vivienne Tully in London, he buys her flat, he has a bloody second life there with her… and I’m to pay because I had the common decency not to tell you about it?”
“Please don’t paint yourself as the noble character in this situation,” Valerie said.
“Here, here,” murmured Freddie.
Valerie continued. “You know very well why you didn’t tell me about it. The information was useful and you’re a common blackmailer. You ought to get down on your very capable knees and thank God I’m not asking the inspector to arrest you. Beyond that, everything about Vivienne Tully is a matter between your father and me. It doesn’t concern you. She doesn’t concern you. The only thing that ought to concern you is what you intend to do with your life because it’s beginning tomorrow morning and I expect it to look very different from how it looks just now.”
Mignon then turned to her father. She was in that moment every inch the woman holding all the valuable cards in the deck. She said to Fairclough, “Is that how you want it to be, then?”
“Mignon,” he murmured.
r />
“You’ve got to say. Now’s the moment, Dad.”
“Don’t take this further,” Bernard said to her. “It’s not necessary, Mignon.”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“Valerie.” Bernard appealed to his wife. He was, Lynley thought, a man who was watching his life as he’d known it come tumbling down. “I think all points have been touched upon. If we can agree upon— ”
“Upon what?” Valerie broke in sharply.
“Upon showing a modicum of mercy here. That terrible fall all those years ago. Launchy Gill. She’s not been well. She’s never been the same. You know she’s not capable of supporting herself.”
“She’s as capable as I am,” Manette put in. “She’s as capable as anyone in this room. Honestly, Dad, Mum’s right, for God’s sake. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense. That has to be the most expensive fractured skull in history, considering how Mignon’s played it.”
Valerie, however, was watching her husband. Lynley could see that sweat had appeared on Fairclough’s forehead. His wife apparently saw this as well because she turned to Mignon and said quietly, “Let’s have the rest, then.”
“Dad?” Mignon said.
“For God’s sake, Valerie. Give her what she wants.”
“I will not,” she said. “I absolutely will not.”
“Then it’s time we had a chat about Bianca,” Mignon declared. Her father shut his eyes.
“Who’s Bianca?” Manette demanded.
“Our baby sister, as it happens,” Mignon replied. She turned to her father. “Care to talk about this, Dad?”
ARNSIDE
CUMBRIA
When Lucy Keverne phoned her, Alatea Fairclough was alarmed. Their arrangement was that Lucy would never phone, either Alatea’s mobile or the land line at Arnside House. Lucy had the numbers of course, because giving her the numbers had been one of the ways in which Alatea had made a stab at legitimatising that which could never be legitimate between them. But she’d impressed upon her from the first that ringing the number could bring an end to everything, and neither of them wanted that.
“What shall I do in case of an emergency?” Lucy had asked, not unreasonably.
“Then, of course, you must phone. But you’ll understand, I hope, if at the moment I can’t speak to you.”
“We’ll need some sort of code for that.”
“For what?”
“For your not being able to speak at the moment. You can’t just say ‘I’m not able to speak to you now,’ if your husband’s in the room. That would be rather obvious, wouldn’t it?”
“Of course. Yes.” Alatea had thought about it. “I shall say, ‘No, I’m sorry. I’ve sent for no package.’ And then I’ll ring you back as soon as I’m able. But it might not be at once. It might not be until the next day.”
They’d agreed to this arrangement, and as things developed between them, Lucy had had no reason to phone. Because of this, all the uneasiness Alatea naturally felt in embarking upon a confidential journey with this woman had faded over time. So when Lucy rang not terribly long after their rendezvous in Lancaster, Alatea knew that something had gone wrong.
How badly wrong became clear within moments. They’d been seen at the university together, Lucy told her. They’d been seen inside the George Childress Centre. It was probably nothing, but a woman had followed them from the university back to the disabled soldiers’ home. She wanted to talk about surrogacy. She was looking for a surrogate mother to carry her child. Again, it could be nothing. But the fact that this woman had settled on Lucy to talk to instead of Alatea …
“She claimed you have the ‘look,’” Lucy said. “She claimed it was a ‘look’ she recognised well because she knows she has it herself. And because of this she reckoned I was the one to talk to about the possibility of surrogacy and not you, Alatea.”
Alatea had taken the call in the inglenook of the main hall. It was a sheltered place, topped by a whimsical minstrel’s gallery, and she liked it because it gave her a choice between the L-shaped window seat at one end of the inglenook, looking out on the lawn, or the confines of a pew-like shelter at the other side of the fireplace, one that hid her from anyone who might come into the hall.
She was alone. She’d been leafing through a design book relevant to the restoration of Arnside House, but she’d been thinking not of the house but rather of the progress she and Lucy were making. She’d been considering how each step of the process was going to be successfully managed. Very soon now, she’d decided, Miss Lucy Keverne, a struggling playwright from Lancaster who made ends meet by working as a social director in the Kent-Howath Foundation for Disabled Veterans, would come into her life as a newfound friend. From that point forward, things would be easier. They would never be perfect, but that was of no account. One had to learn how to live with imperfection.
When Lucy mentioned the woman who’d followed them, Alatea knew at once who this woman had to be. She thus put the pieces together very quickly, and she arrived at the only possible conclusion: She herself had been followed from Arnside and the red-haired woman called Deborah St. James— she of the faux documentary film— had done the following.
Alatea’s earlier fears had revolved around the newspaper reporter. She’d seen The Source, and she knew its appetite for scandal was insatiable. The man’s first visit to Cumbria had been an ordeal for her, his second a torment. But the worst his presence had ever suggested was a photograph that might lead to discovery. With the red-haired woman, discovery was here, just a knock-on-the-door away.
“What did you tell her?” Alatea asked, as calmly as she could manage.
“The truth about surrogacy, but she already knew most of it.”
“Which truth are we talking about?”
“The various ways and means, the legalities, that sort of thing. I’d thought at first there was nothing in it. It rather made sense in a bizarre sort of way. I mean, when women are desperate…” Lucy hesitated.
Alatea said quietly, “Go on. When they’re desperate…?”
“Well, they will go to extremes, won’t they? So, considering everything, how extreme was it, really, that a woman who’s gone to the George Childress Centre for a consultation would see us at some point in one corridor or another, perhaps as she’s coming out of someone’s office…”
“And what?”
“And think there was a chance. I mean, essentially that’s how you and I met.”
“No. We met via an advertisement.”
“Yes. Of course. But the feeling is what I’m talking about. That sense of desperation. Which was what she described. So I believed her at first.”
“At first. Then what?”
“Well, that’s why I’ve rung you. When she left, I walked with her to the front of the building. The way one does, you know. She headed up the street and I thought nothing of it, but I walked to a window along the corridor and happened to see— quite by chance— that she’d reversed directions. I thought she intended to come back for another word, but she passed altogether and got into a car some way down the street.”
“Perhaps she’d forgotten where she’d parked,” Alatea said, although she reckoned there was more to come, something that had further intrigued Lucy. And so there was.
“That’s what I thought at first. But when she got to the proper car, it turned out that she hadn’t come alone. I couldn’t see who was with her, but when she reached the car, the door swung open as if someone had pushed it from inside. So I continued to watch till the car drove by. She wasn’t driving. It was a man. That made it all suspicious, you see. I mean, if she had her husband with her, why not come to talk to me together? Why not mention him? Indeed, why not say he was waiting in the car? Why not say he was in agreement with her in the matter? Or he was against her in the matter? Or he was anything at all? But she said nothing. So on top of her story of having stumbled upon us, the fact that there was a man— ”
“What did he look like, Lucy?”
“I didn’t get a good look, merely a quick glimpse. But I thought it best to ring you because… Well, you know. We’re on very thin ice as things stand and— ”
“I can pay more.”
“That’s not why I’m ringing. Good heavens. That’s all been agreed to. I’m not about to squeeze more money out of you. Of course, money’s always nice, isn’t it, but we’ve agreed on a sum and I’m not the sort to go back on my word. Still, I wanted you to know— ”
“We must get on with it, then. And soon. We must.”
“Well, that’s just the thing, you see. I’m suggesting we slow things down a bit. I think we need to make sure this woman— whoever she is— is completely out of the picture. Perhaps then in a month or two— ”
“No! We’ve made our arrangements. We can’t.”
“I think we should, Alatea. I think we must. Look at it this way: Once we know it was just a one-off— this woman turning up— a strange coincidence meaning nothing, then we’ll move forward. I’m at bigger risk than you, after all.”
Alatea felt numb, someone straitened on all sides with those sides pressing in till she reached the point when she’d no longer be able even to breathe unconstricted. She said, “I’m in your power, of course.”
“Alatea. My dear. This isn’t about power. This is about safety. Yours and mine. This is about dancing round the law. I daresay this is also about a number of other things as well, but we’ve no need to touch on those.”
“What sort of things?” Alatea demanded.
“Nothing. Nothing. It’s just a turn of phrase. Listen, I must get back to work. We’ll speak in a few days. Till then, you’re not to worry, all right? I’m still on board. Just not at this precise moment. Not till we know for certain that this woman’s appearance in my life meant nothing.”
“How will we know that?”
“As I said. We’ll know it if I don’t see her again.”
Lucy Keverne rang off then, amid urgings and murmurings that Alatea was not to worry, was to remain calm, was to have a care. She— Lucy— would be in touch. They would be in touch. Everything would go according to plan.