In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

  Hanken parked and asked where the Brittons were hiding. He was directed to a viewing area within the third of the manor's ruined gardens. There, on the southwest side of the house, a stalwart crowd huddled on makeshift stands and deck chairs to watch the unfolding reenactment from beneath a motley mushrooming of umbrellas.

  To one side of the viewers, a lone man sat on a tripod stool of the type used at the turn of the century by artists or hunters on safari. He wore an antique tweed suit and an old pith helmet, and he sheltered himself from the rain with a striped umbrella. He watched the action with a collapsible telescope. A walking stick lay by his feet. Jeremy Britton, Hanken thought, dressed as always in his forebears’ clothing.

  Hanken approached him. “Mr. Britton? You won't remember me. DI Peter Hanken. Buxton CID.”

  Britton half turned on the stool. He'd aged greatly, Hanken thought, since their sole encounter at the Buxton police station five years in the past. Britton had been drunk at the time. His car had been broken into on the High Street while he was “taking the waters”—undoubtedly a euphemism for his imbibing something considerably stronger than the town's mineral water—and he was demanding action, satisfaction, and immediate vengeance upon the ill-dressed and worse-bred hooligans who'd violated him so egregiously.

  Looking at Jeremy Britton now, Hanken could see the results of a lifetime spent in drink. Liver damage showed in the colour and texture of Britton's skin and in the cooked-egg-yolk look of his eyes. Hanken noted the Thermos on the far side of the camp stool on which Britton was sitting. He doubted it contained either coffee or tea.

  “I'm looking for Julian,” Hanken said. “Is he taking part in the battle, Mr. Britton?”

  “Julie?” Britton squinted through the rain. “Don't know where he's gone off to. Not part of this though.” He waved at the drama below. The battering ram was mired in the mud and the Cavaliers were taking advantage of this blip on the screen of the Roundheads’ plans. Swords drawn, a crush of them were swarming down the slope from the house to fend off the Parliamentary forces. “Julie never did like a good dust-up like this,” Britton said, slipping slightly with dust. He'd added an h. “Can't think why he agrees to let the grounds be used this way. But it's great fun, what?”

  “Everyone seems to be fully involved,” Hanken agreed. “Are you a history buff, sir?”

  “Nothing like it,” Britton said and shouted down at the soldiers, “Traitors be damned! You'll burn in hell for harming one hair on the head of God's anointed.”

  Royalist, Hanken thought. Odd position for a member of the gentry to have taken at the time, but not unheard of if the gentleman in question had no ties to Parliament. “Where can I find him?”

  “Carried off the field, sporting a head wound. No one could ’cuse the poor sod of not having his share of courage, could they?”

  “I meant Julian, not King Charles.”

  “Ah. Julie.” With an irresolute grip Britton fixed his telescope towards the west. A fresh band of Cavaliers had just arrived by coach. That vehicle was disgorging them on the far side of the bridge, where they were racing to arm themselves. Among them an elaborately clad nobleman appeared to be shouting directions. “Shouldn't allow that, you ask me,” Britton commented. “If they aren't here on time, they should forfeit, what?” He swung back to Hanken. “The boy was here, if tha's why you've come.”

  “Does he get to London much? With his late girlfriend living there, I expect—”

  “Girlfriend?” Britton blew out a contemptuous breath. “Rubbish. Girlfriend says there's give and take involved. There was none of that. Oh, he wanted it, Julie. He wanted her. But she wasn't having anything from him other than a shag if the mood was on her. If he'd only used the eyes God gave him, he would've seen that from the first.”

  “You didn't like the Maiden girl.”

  “She had nothing to add to the brew.” Britton looked back at the battle, shouting, “Watch your backs, you blighters!” at the Parliamentary soldiers as the Cavaliers forded the River Wye and began charging wetly up the hillside towards the house. A man of easy allegiance, Hanken thought.

  He said, “Will I find Julian in the house, Mr. Britton?”

  Britton watched the initial clash as the Cavaliers reached those of the Roundheads who were straggling behind in the effort to free the battering ram from the mud. Suddenly, the tide of the battle shifted. The Roundheads looked outnumbered three to one. “Run for your lives, you idjits,” Britton shouted. And he laughed with glee as the rebels began to lose the uneasy purchase they had on their footholds. Several men went down, losing their weapons. Britton applauded.

  Hanken said, “I'll try him inside.”

  Britton stopped the detective as he turned to depart. “I was with him. On Tues'ay night, you know.”

  Hanken turned back. “With Julian? Where? What time was this?”

  “In the kennels. Don't know the time. Proba'ly round eleven. A bitch was delivering. Julie was with her.”

  “When I spoke to him, he made no mention of your being there, Mr. Britton.”

  “He wouldn't've done. Didn't see me. When I saw what he was about, I lef’ him to it. I watched for a bit from the doorway—something special about the birthing process, no matter who's delivering, don't you think?—then I went off.”

  “Is that your normal routine? To visit the kennels at eleven at night?”

  “Don't have a normal routine at all. Do what I want when I want.”

  “What took you to the kennels, then?”

  Britton reached in his jacket pocket with an unsteady hand. He brought out several heavily creased brochures. “Wanted to talk to Julie about these.”

  They were, Hanken saw, all leaflets from clinics that offered programmes for alcoholics. Smudged and dog-eared, they looked like refugees from the Oxfam book section. Either Britton had been caressing them for weeks on end or he'd found them secondhand somewhere in anticipation of a moment just like this.

  “Want to take the cure,” Britton said. “'Bout time, I think. Don't want Julie's kids to have a sot for a granddad.”

  “Julian's thinking of marrying, is he?”

  “Oh, things're definitely brewing in that direction.”

  Britton extended his hand for the brochures. Hanken bent towards the umbrella to give them back.

  “He's a good boy, our Julie,” Britton said, taking the leaflets and stuffing them back in his jacket pocket. “Don't you forget it. He'll make a good father. And I'll be a granddad he can be proud of.”

  There was at least a fragment of doubt to that. Britton's breath could have been lit with a match, so heavily was it laden with gin.

  Julian Britton was conferring with the reenactment's organisers on the roof-top battlements when DI Hanken appeared. He'd seen the detective in conversation with his father and he'd watched as Jeremy produced his treatment brochures for the other man's inspection. He knew how unlikely it was that Hanken had come to Broughton Manor to have colloquy on the subject of alcoholism with his father, so he wasn't unprepared when the policeman finally tracked him down.

  Their conversation was brief. Hanken wanted to know the exact last date that Julian had been in London. Julian took him down to his office, where his diary lay among the discarded account books on his desk, and he handed it over. His record keeping was faultless, the diary showing that his last trip to London had been at Easter, in early April. He'd stayed at the Lancaster Gate Hotel. Hanken could phone to verify because the number was next to the hotel's name in his diary. “I always stay there when I'm in town,” Julian said. “Why do you want to know?”

  Hanken answered the question with one of his own. “You didn't stay with Nicola Maiden?”

  “She had only a bed-sit.” Julian coloured. “Besides, she preferred me to stay in a hotel.”

  “But you'd gone to town to see her, hadn't you?”

  He had.

  It had been stupid really, Julian told himself now as he watched Hanken work his way back through the
Cavaliers that crowded the courtyard, bunched under awnings and umbrellas as they prepared for the next phase of the battle. He'd gone to London because he'd sensed a change in her. Not only because she hadn't come to Derbyshire for Easter—as had been her habit during every holiday while she was at university—but because at each of their meetings from the autumn onwards, he'd felt a greater distance developing between them than had existed at the meeting before. He suspected another man, and he'd wanted to know the worst firsthand.

  He gave a bitter brief laugh as he thought of it now: that trip to London. He'd never asked her directly if there was someone else, because at heart he hadn't wanted to know. He'd allowed himself to be satisfied with the fact that his surprise visit hadn't caught her out with someone else, and that a surreptitious look in the bathroom cupboards, the medicine cabinet, and her chest of drawers hadn't turned up anything a man might keep there for mornings after nighttime assignations. On top of that, she'd made love with him. And hopeless numbskull that he'd been at the time, he'd actually thought that her lovemaking meant something.

  But it was just part of her line of work, he realised now. Just part of what Nicola did for money.

  “All's clear with the coppers, Julie my boy.”

  Julian swung round to see that his father had joined him in the manor office, apparently having had enough of the rain, the reenactment, or the company of other spectators. Jeremy had a dripping umbrella hanging over his arm, a camp stool in one hand, and a Thermos in the other. His great-uncle's telescope poked from the breast pocket of his grandfather's jacket.

  Jeremy smiled, looking pleased with himself. “Gave you an alibi, son. Concrete as the motorway, it was.”

  Julian stared at him. “What did you say?”

  “Told the copper I was with you an’ the new pups on Tuesday. Saw them pop out and saw you catch them, I said.”

  “But, Dad, I never said you were there! I never told them …” Julian sighed. He began sorting through the account books. He stacked them in order of year. “They're going to wonder why I never mentioned you. You see that, don't you? Don't you, Dad?”

  Jeremy tapped a trembling finger to his temple. “Thought that out in advance, my boy. Said I never disturbed you. There you were, acting the part of midwife, and I didn't like to break your concentration. Said I went to talk to you 'bout getting off the drink. Said I went to show you these.” Once more Jeremy produced the brochures. “'Nspired, wasn't it? You already saw them, see? So when he asked you 'bout them, you tol’ him, right?”

  “He didn't ask me about Tuesday night. He wanted to know when I'd last been to London. So no doubt he's wondering why you took the trouble to give me a damn alibi, when he wasn't even asking for one.” Past his exasperation, Julian suddenly realised the implication behind what his father had done. He said, “Why did you give me an alibi, Dad? You know I don't need one, don't you? I was with the dogs. Cassie was delivering. And anyway, how did you know to tell them that?”

  “Your cousin tol’ me.”

  “Sam? Why?”

  “She says the police're looking at you funny, and she doesn't like that. ‘As if Julie would raise his hand against anyone,’ she says. All righteous anger, she is, Julie. Quite a woman. Loyalty like that … It's something to behold.”

  “I don't need Sam's loyalty. Or your help, for that matter. I didn't kill Nicola.”

  Jeremy shifted his glance from his son to the desktop. “No one's saying you did.”

  “But if you think you have to lie to the police, that must mean … Dad, do you think I killed her? Do you honestly believe … Jesus.”

  “Now, don't get yourself twisted. You're red in the face, and I know what that means. I didn't say I thought anything. I don't think anything. I just want to ease the way a bit. We don't have to take life as it comes so much, Julie. We can do something to shape our destinies, y'know.”

  “And that's what you were doing? Shaping my destiny?”

  He shook his head. “Selfish bastard. I'm shaping my own.” He lifted the brochures to his heart. “I want to get dry. It's time. I want it. But God knows and I know: I can't do it alone.”

  Julian had been round his father long enough to recognise a manipulation when he heard one. The yellow flags of caution went up. “Dad, I know you want to get sober. I admire you for it. But those programmes … the cost …”

  “You c'n do this for me. You c'n do it knowing I'd do it for you.”

  “It isn't as if I don't want to do it for you. But we haven't the funds. I looked through the books again and again and we just haven't got them. Have you thought about phoning Aunt Sophie? If she knew what you intend to do with the money, I expect she'd lend—”

  “Lend? Bah!” Jeremy swept the notion aside with the brochures he held. “Your aunt'll never go for that. ‘He'll stop when he wants to stop’ is what she thinks. She won't lift a finger to help me do it.”

  “What if I phoned her?”

  “Who're you to her, Julie? Just some relative she's never seen, come begging for a handout from what her own husband worked hard to make. No. You can't be the one to do the asking.”

  “If you spoke to Sam, then.”

  Jeremy waved the idea off like a gnat. “Can't ask her to do that. She's been giving us too much as it is. Her time. Her effort. Her concern. Her love. I can't ask her for anything more, and I won't.” He heaved a sigh and shoved the brochures back into his pocket. “Never mind, then. I'll soldier on.”

  “I could ask Sam to speak to Aunt Sophie. I could explain.”

  “No. Forget it. I c'n bite the bullet. I've done it before …”

  Too many times, Julian thought. His father's life spanned more than five decades of broken promises and good intentions come to nothing. He'd seen Jeremy give up drink more times than he could remember. And just as many times, he'd seen Jeremy return to the bottle. There was more than a simple grain of truth in what he said. If he was going to beat the beast this time, he was not going to go into battle alone.

  “Look, Dad. I'll talk to Sam. I want to do it.”

  “Want to?” Jeremy repeated. “Really want to? Not think you have to because of whatever you owe your old man?”

  “No. Wantto. I'll ask her.”

  Jeremy looked humbled. His eyes actually filled with tears. “She loves you, Julie. Fine woman like that and she loves you, son.”

  “I'll speak to her, Dad.”

  The rain was still falling when Lynley turned up the drive to Maiden Hall.

  Barbara Havers had actually provided him with a few minutes' distraction from the turmoil he felt over what he'd learned about Andy Maiden's presence in London. Indeed, he'd managed to exchange the turmoil for an anger over Barbara's defiance that hadn't been the least palliated by Helen's gentle attempt to wring reason from the constable's behaviour. “Perhaps she misunderstood your orders, Tommy,” she'd said once Havers had taken herself away from Eaton Terrace. “In the heat of the moment, she might have assumed you didn't intend her to be part of the Notting Hill search.”

  “Christ,” he'd countered. “Don't defend her, Helen. You heard what she said. She knew what she was supposed to do and she chose not to do it. She went her own way.”

  “But you admire initiative. You always have done. You've always told me that Winston's initiative is one of the finest—”

  “God damn it, Helen. When Nkata takes matters into his own hands, he does it after he's completed an assignment, not before. He doesn't argue, whinge, or ignore what's in front of him because he thinks he's got a better idea. And when he's been corrected—which is damn seldom, by the way—he doesn't make the same mistake twice. One would think that Barbara would have learned something this summer about the consequence of defying an order. But she hasn't. Her skull is lead.”

  Helen had carefully gathered together the sheets of music that Barbara had left behind. She placed them, not in the envelope, but in a pile on the coffee table. She said, “Tommy, if Winston Nkata and not Barbara Havers had
been in that boat with DCI Barlow … If Winston Nkata and not Barbara Havers had taken up that gun …” She'd gazed at him earnestly. “Would you have been so angry?”

  His response had been both swift and hot. “This isn't a bloody issue of gender. You know me better than that.”

  “I do know you, yes” had been her quiet reply.

  Still, he'd considered her question more than once during the first one hundred miles of the drive to Derbyshire. But every way he examined his possible responses both to the question and to Havers’ incredible act of insubordination on the North Sea, his answer was the same. Havers had engaged in assault, not initiative. And nothing justified that. Had Winston Nkata been wielding the weapon—which was as risible an image as Lynley could invent—he would have reacted identically. He knew it.

  Now, as he pulled into the car park of Maiden Hall, his anger had long since abated, to be replaced by the same disquiet of spirit that had descended upon him when he'd learned about Andy Maiden's visit to his daughter. He stopped the car and gazed at the hotel through the rain.

  He didn't want to believe what the facts were asking him to believe, but he drew in what resolve he could muster and reached in the back seat for his umbrella. He walked through the rain across the car park. Inside the hotel, he asked the first employee he saw to fetch Andy Maiden. When the former SO 10 officer appeared five minutes later, he came alone.

  “Tommy,” he greeted him. “You've news? Come with me.”

  He led the way to the office near Reception. He shut the door behind them.

  “Tell me about Islington in May, Andy,” Lynley said without preamble, because he knew that to hesitate was to offer the other man an opening into his sympathy that he couldn't afford to allow. “Tell me about saying ‘I'll see you dead before I let you do it.’”

  Maiden sat. He indicated a chair for Lynley. He didn't speak until Lynley was seated, and even then he seemed to go inward for a moment, as if he was gathering his resources before he replied.