A Great Deliverance

  “There’s no medical cause? She’s been examined?”

  Dr. Samuel’s lips tightened in offence. It was clear that this Scotland Yard intrusion bordered on insult, and if he had to impart information, it would be minimal at best.

  “She’s been examined,” he said. “No seizure, no stroke. She can speak. She chooses not to.”

  If he was bothered by the clipped nature of the doctor’s response, Lynley didn’t let it show. He was used to encountering attitudes like the psychiatrist’s, attitudes proclaiming that the police were antagonists to be thwarted rather than allies to be helped. He slowed his steps and told Dr. Samuel about Roberta’s cache of food. This, at least, caught the man’s attention. When he next spoke, his words walked the line between frustration and deeper thought.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Inspector. The food could, as you guess, be a compulsion. It could be a stimulus or a response. It could be a source of gratification or a form of sublimation. Until Roberta’s willing to give us something to go on, it could be damn well anything.”

  Lynley shifted to another area. “Why did you take her from the Richmond police? Isn’t that a bit irregular?”

  “Not when the responsible party’s signed her in,” Dr. Samuels replied. “We’re a private hospital.”

  “The responsible party. Was that Superintendent Nies?”

  Samuels shook his head impatiently. “Not at all. We don’t take people at random from the police.” He scanned Roberta’s chart. “It was…let me see where…Gibson, Richard Gibson. He names himself as her closest relative. He’s the one who got the court to agree and filled out the paperwork.”

  “Richard Gibson?”

  “That’s the name on the form, Inspector,” Samuels replied tersely. “He’s signed her in for treatment pending the trial. She’s in therapy daily. There’s no progress yet, but that isn’t to say there never will be any.”

  “But why would Gibson—” Lynley was speaking more to himself than the other two, but Samuels went on, perhaps in the assumption that he was being addressed.

  “She’s his cousin, after all. And the sooner she’s better, the sooner the trial. That is, unless she’s proven incompetent to stand trial at all.”

  “And in that case,” Lynley finished, his eyes fixed grimly on the doctor’s face, “she’s in for life, isn’t she?”

  “Until she recovers.” Samuels led them up to a heavy, locked door. “She’s just in here. It’s unfortunate that she has to be alone, but considering the circumstances….” He gestured with his hands, unlocked the door, and swung it open. “Roberta, you’ve visitors,” he said.

  He’d chosen Prokofiev—Romeo and Juliet—and the music had begun almost immediately when he started the car. Thank God, Barbara thought brokenly. Thank God. Let the music of violins, cellos and violas drive thought away, drive memory away, drive everything completely, irreversibly away so that there is no existence but that of audition, so that she needn’t think of the girl in the room and, even more frightening, of the man in the car.

  Even staring steadfastly ahead, she could still see his hands on the wheel, could see the gold hair on them—lighter even than the hair on his head—could see each finger, note its movement, as he guided the car back to Keldale.

  When he leaned forward to make an adjustment in the sound, she could see his profile. He was very lightly tanned. Gold and brown. Skin, hair, and eyes. Straight, classical nose. The firm line of jaw. A face that spoke clearly of tremendous inner strength, of resources of character that she couldn’t comprehend.

  How had he done it?

  She’d been by a window, not looking out but rather staring fixedly at the wall, a lummox of a girl nearly six feet tall who must have weighed well over fifteen stone. She sat on a stool, her back hunched over in an arc of defeat, and she rocked.

  “Roberta, my name is Thomas Lynley. I’ve come to talk to you about your father.”

  The rocking continued. The eyes looked at nothing, saw nothing. If she heard at all, she gave absolutely no sign.

  Her hair was filthy, foul-smelling. It was pulled back from her broad, moon-shaped face with an elastic band, but greasy tendrils had escaped imprisonment and hung forward stiffly, kissing on her neck the pockets of flesh that encased in their folds the incongruous ornament of a single, slender gold chain.

  “Father Hart came to London, Roberta. He’s asked us to help you. He says he knows you didn’t hurt anyone.”

  Nothing. The broad face was expressionless. Suppurating pimples covered cheeks and chin. Bloated skin stretched over layers of fat that had long ago erased whatever definition her features might have had. She was dough-like, grey and unclean.

  “We’ve been talking to a great many people in Keldale. We’ve seen your cousin Richard, and Olivia, and Bridie. Bridie cut her hair, Roberta. She’s made quite a mess of it, unfortunately, in an effort to look like the Princess of Wales. Her mother was quite upset about it. She said how good you always were to Bridie.”

  No response. Roberta was dressed in a too-short skirt that revealed white, flabby thighs upon which the flesh, dotted by red pustules, quivered when she rocked. There were hospital slippers on her feet, but they were too small, and her sausage toes hung out, their uncut nails curling around them.

  “We’ve been to the house. Have you read all those books? Stepha Odell said that you’d read them all. We were amazed at how many you have. We saw the pictures of your mother, Roberta. She was lovely, wasn’t she?”

  Silence. Her arms hung at her sides. Her enormous breasts strained against the cheap material of her blouse. Its buttons struggled to hold the thin garment closed as the pressure of the rocking continued, each movement causing the flesh to heave to and fro in a rebarbative pavane.

  “I think this may be a bit difficult for you to hear, Roberta, but we saw your mother today. Do you know that she lives in York? You have another brother and sister there. She told us how much your father loved you and Gillian.”

  The movement ceased. The face neither acknowledged nor changed, but the tears began. They were silent, ugly rivers of mute pain dipping and plunging through the crevices of fat, climbing the peaks of acne. With the tears came the mucus. It began its descent from her nose in a slimy cord, touched her lips, and crawled onto her chin.

  Lynley squatted before her. He removed a snowy handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her face clean. He took her pulpy, lifeless hand in his own and pressed it firmly.

  “Roberta.” There was no response. “I’ll find Gillian.” He stood, folded the elegant, monogrammed linen square, and returned it to his pocket.

  What had Webberly said? Barbara thought. There’s a lot you might learn from working with Lynley.

  And now she knew. She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t meet his eyes. She knew what would be there and the thought of its existence in this man she had been determined to believe was an absolute fop of an upper-class snob chilled her entirely.

  He was supposed to be the man who danced in nightclubs, who dispensed sexual favours, laughter, and good cheer, who moved effortlessly in a gilt-edged world of money and privilege. But he was not supposed to be—never supposed to be—the man she had seen today.

  He’d stepped neatly out of the mould she’d created and destroyed it without a backward glance. She had to fit him back into it somehow. If she didn’t, the fires within her that for so many years had kept her alive would be swiftly extinguished. And then, she knew well, she would die in the cold.

  That was the thought that carried her to Keldale, longing to fly from his presence. But when the Bentley made the final turn into the village, she knew immediately that there would be no quick escape. For Nigel Parrish and another man were having a violent quarrel upon the bridge, directly in the path of the car.

  9

  Organ music seemed to be blasting from the very trees. It swelled to crescendoes, faded, and roared out again: a baroque combination of chords, rests, and flourishes that made Lynley t
hink that at any moment the phantom himself would come swinging down from the opera chandeliers. At the appearance of the Bentley, the two men parted, the one shouting a final violent imprecation at Nigel Parrish before he stalked off in the direction of the high street.

  “I think I’ll have a word with our Nigel,” Lynley remarked. “No need for you to come, Havers. Go have a bit of a rest.”

  “I can certainly—”

  “That’s an order, Sergeant.”

  Damn him. “Yes, sir.”

  Lynley waited until Havers had disappeared into the lodge before he walked back across the bridge to the strange little cottage that sat on the far side of the common. It was, he thought, a more than curious structure. The front of the building was trellissed by late roses. Unrestrained, they spread out like an encroaching wilderness towards the narrow windows on either side of the door. They climbed the wall, crowned the lintel majestically, and travelled upward to begin their glory on the roof. They were a solid blanket of disturbing colour—blood red—and they flooded the air with a scent so rich as to be virtually miasmal. The entire effect was one step short of obscene.

  Nigel Parrish had already retreated inside, and Lynley followed him, pausing in the open doorway to survey the room. The source of the music that continued to soar round them was a speaker system that beggared belief. Enormous amplifiers sat in all four corners, creating at the centre a vortex of sound. Other than an organ, a tape recorder, a receiver, and a turntable, there was nothing in the room save a threadbare carpet and a few old chairs.

  Parrish switched off the tape recorder that had been the source of the sound. He rewound the tape, removed it from the machine, and replaced it in its container. He took his time about it all, giving every movement a precision which told Lynley that he knew very well that the other man was standing at the door. It was nonetheless a nice performance.

  “Mr. Parrish?”

  A start of surprise. A swift turn. A welcoming smile breaking over the features. But he couldn’t hide the fact that his hands were shaking. As Lynley saw this, so apparently did Parrish, for he stuffed them into the pockets of his tweed trousers.

  “Inspector! A social call, I hope? Sorry you had to come upon that little scene with Ezra.”

  “Ah. So that was Ezra.”

  “Yes. Honey-haired, honey-tongued little Ezra. Dear boy thought ‘artistic licence’ gave him access to my back garden to study the light on the river. Can you imagine such cheek? Here I was fine-tuning my psyche with Bach when I glanced out the window and saw him setting up shop. Blast his pretty little heart.”

  “It’s a bit late in the afternoon to be setting up for a painting,” Lynley remarked. He wandered to the window. Neither the river nor the garden could be seen from the room. He reflected on the nature of Parrish’s lie.

  “Well, who knows what goes on in the minds of these great magicians of the paintbrush,” Parrish said lightly. “Didn’t Whistler paint the Thames in the middle of the night?”

  “I’m not sure Ezra Farmington’s in Whistler’s league.” Lynley watched Parrish take out a packet of cigarettes and struggle to light one with fingers that wouldn’t cooperate. He crossed the room and offered the flame of his lighter.

  Parrish’s eyes met his and then hid themselves behind a thin veil of smoke. “Thanks,” he said. “Beastly little scene. Well, I haven’t welcomed you to Rose Cottage. A drink? No? I hope you don’t mind if I indulge.” He disappeared into an adjoining room. Glass rattled. There was a long pause followed by the sounds of bottles and glassware again. Parrish emerged, a respectable inch of whisky in a tumbler. His second or third, Lynley speculated.

  “Why do you drink at the Dove and Whistle?”

  The question caught Parrish off guard. “Do sit down, Inspector. I need to, and the thought of you towering over me like Nemesis himself makes me positively limp with fear.”

  It was an excellent stall tactic, Lynley thought. But two could play at that game. He walked over to the stereo and took his time over an inventory of Parrish’s tapes: a considerable collection of Bach, Chopin, Verdi, Vivaldi, and Mozart, with an adequate representation of modernists as well. Parrish indulged a wide range of musical tastes, he concluded. He crossed the room to one of the heavy, stuffed chairs and meditated on the black oak beams that spanned the ceiling.

  “Why do you live in this village in the middle of nowhere? A man with your musical taste and talent would obviously be happier in a more cosmopolitan environment, wouldn’t he?”

  Parrish laughed shortly. He smoothed a hand over his perfectly combed hair. “I think I like the other question better. Have I choice on which one to answer?”

  “The Holy Grail is only round the corner. But you walk to the other end of the village on—what was it?—your tired old legs to drink in the other pub on St. Chad’s Lane. What’s the attraction?”

  “Absolutely nothing. Well, I could say it’s Hannah, but I doubt if you’d believe me. The truth is I prefer the Dove’s atmosphere. There’s something unholy about getting roaring drunk just opposite a church, isn’t there?”

  “Avoiding someone at the Holy Grail?” Lynley asked.

  “Avoiding…?” Parrish’s eyes slipped from Lynley to the window. A full-headed rose was kissing the glass with enormous lips. The petals had begun to curl back. Stigma, style, anther, and filament had blackened. It should have been picked. It would die soon. “Good heavens, no. Whom would I avoid? Father Hart, perhaps? Or the dear, deceased William? He and the priest used to tipple a few once or twice a week there.”

  “You didn’t care much for Teys, did you?”

  “No, not much. Holier-than-thous have never been in my line. I don’t know how Olivia abided the man.”

  “Perhaps she wanted a father for Bridie.”

  “Perhaps. God knows the child could use some parental influence. Even dour old William was probably better than nothing. Liv is hopeless with her. I’d take it on myself, but to be frank, I don’t much care for children. And I don’t like ducks at all.”

  “But you’re close to Olivia anyway?”

  Parrish’s eyes showed nothing. “I went to school with her husband. Paul. What a man he was! Rip-roaring, good-time Paul.”

  “He died four years ago, is that correct?”

  Parrish nodded. “Huntington’s chorea. At the end he didn’t even recognise his wife. It was horrible. For everyone. Changed everyone’s life to see him die that way.” He blinked several times and gave his attention to his cigarette and then to his fingernails. They were well manicured, Lynley noted. The man went on with another bright smile. It was his defensive weapon, his way of denying any emotion that might seep through the surface of his thin-shelled indifference. “I suppose the next question is where was I on the fatal night? I’d love to trot out an alibi for you, Inspector. In bed with the village tart would be nice. But I’m afraid that I didn’t know our blessed William would encounter an axe that evening, so I sat here playing my organ. Quite alone. But I must clear myself, mustn’t I? So I suppose I should say that anyone who heard me could verify the story.”

  “Like today perhaps?”

  Parrish ignored the question and finished off his drink. “Then when I was done, I skipped off to bed. Again, unfortunately, very much alone.”

  “How long have you lived in Keldale, Mr. Parrish?”

  “Ah. Back to the original thought, are we? Let me see. It must be nearly seven years.”

  “Before that?”

  “Before that, Inspector, I lived in York. I was a music teacher at a prep school. And no, if you’re going to go delving into my past for tasty little items, I was not dismissed. I left by choice. I wanted the country. I wanted some peace.” His voice rose slightly on the last word.

  Lynley got to his feet. “Let me give you some now. Good evening to you.”

  As he left the cottage, the music resumed—muted this time—but not before the discordant noise of glass breaking on stone told him the manner in which Nigel Parr
ish celebrated his departure.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve booked you into Keldale Hall for dinner,” Stepha Odell said. She cocked her bright head to one side and regarded Lynley thoughtfully. “Yes, I think I did just the right thing. You look as if you need that tonight.”

  “Am I becoming gaunt before your eyes?”

  She closed a ledger and shelved it behind the reception desk. “Not at all. The food’s excellent, of course, but that isn’t why I’ve booked you there. The hall is one of our biggest diversions. It’s run by the local eccentric.”

  “You have everything here, don’t you?”

  She laughed. “All the pleasures that life affords, Inspector. Would you like a drink, or are you still on duty?”

  “I wouldn’t say no to a pint of Odell’s.”

  “Good.” She led him into the lounge and busied herself behind the bar. “Keldale Hall is run by the Burton-Thomas family. I use that last word quite loosely, of course. Mrs. Burton-Thomas has half a dozen or more young people working for her, and she stubbornly insists that they all call her auntie. It’s part of the cloud of eccentricity in which she likes to move, I should imagine.”

  “Sounds a Dickensian group,” Lynley remarked.

  She pushed his ale across the bar and pulled a smaller one for herself. “Just wait till you meet them. And meet them you shall, for Mrs. Burton-Thomas always takes dinner with her guests. When I rang her to book you in, she was beside herself with the idea of Scotland Yard dining at her table. No doubt she’ll poison someone just to see you at work. The pickings are going to be rather slim, however. She said she has only two couples there now: an American dentist and two ‘hoochie-smoochie types,’ to use her expression.”

  “It sounds just the kind of evening I’m longing for.” He walked to the window, glass in hand, and looked down the winding lane that was Keldale Abbey Road. He couldn’t see much of it, for it curved to the right and disappeared into the dusk.