Elizabeth George - For the Sake of Elena

“He’s got what he wants. Why hang about to examine the damage?”

“Got…? I don’t understand. Is there another woman?”

Pen laughed bitterly, choked back a sob, and then deftly changed the subject. “You know why he’s come up from London, Helen. Don’t pretend you’re naive. You know what he wants, and he intends to get it. That’s the real Lynley spirit. Charge right towards the goal.”

Lady Helen didn’t reply. She laid Pen’s daughter on her back on the bed, feeling warmed by the baby’s fi st-waving, leg-kicking grin. She wrapped the tiny fingers round one of her own and bent to kiss them. What a miracle she was. Ten fingers, ten toes, sweet miniature nails.

“He’s here for more reasons than to solve some little murder and you ought to be ready to head him off.”

“That’s all in the past.”

“Don’t be such a fool.” Her sister leaned forward, grabbed onto her wrist. “Listen to me, Helen. You’ve got it all right now. Don’t throw it away because of a man. Get him out of your life. He wants you. He means to have you. He’ll never give it up unless you spell it out for him. So do it.”

Lady Helen smiled in what she hoped was a loving fashion. She covered her sister’s hand with her own. “Pen. Darling. We aren’t playacting at Tess of the D’Urbervilles . Tommy isn’t in hot pursuit of my virtue. And even if he were, I’m afraid he’s about-” She laughed lightly. “Let me try to remember…Yes, he’s just about fifteen years too late. Fifteen years exactly on Christmas Eve. Shall I tell you about it?”

Her sister pulled away. “This isn’t a joke!”

Lady Helen watched, feeling surprised and helpless, as Pen’s eyes filled again. “Pen-”

“No! You’re living in a dream world. Roses and champagne and cool satin sheets. Sweet little babies delivered by the stork. Adoring children sitting on mama’s knee. Nothing smelly or unpleasant or painful or disgusting. Well, take a good look round here if you mean to get married.”

“Tommy hasn’t come to Cambridge to ask me to marry him.”

“Take a good long look. Because life’s rotten, Helen. It’s fi lthy and lousy. It’s just a way to die. But you don’t think of that. You don’t think of anything.”

“You’re not being fair.”

“Oh, I dare say you think about screwing him, though. That’s what you hoped for when you saw him tonight. I don’t blame you. How could I? He’s supposed to be quite the performer in bed. I know at least a dozen women in London who’ll be only too happy to attest to that. So do what you want. Screw him. Marry him. I only hope you’re not so stupid as to think he’d be faithful to you. Or your marriage. Or to anything, in fact.”

“We’re only friends, Pen. That’s the beginning and end of it.”

“Maybe you just want the houses and cars and servants and money. And the title, of course. We mustn’t forget that. Countess of Asherton. What a brilliant match. At least one of us will end up making Daddy proud.” She turned on her side and switched out the light on the bedside table. “I’m going to sleep now. Put the baby to bed.”

“Pen.”

“No. I’m going to sleep.”

“It was always clear that Elena Weaver had the potential for a first,” Terence Cuff said to Lynley. “But I suppose we say that about most undergraduates, don’t we? What would they be doing here if they didn’t have the potential to take firsts in their subjects?”

“What was hers?”

“English.”

Cuff poured two sherries and handed one to Lynley. He nodded towards three over-stuffed chairs that were grouped round a gateleg table to the right of the library’s fireplace, a two-tiered demonstration of one of the more fl amboyant aspects of late Elizabethan architecture, deco rated with marble caryatids, Corinthian columns, and the coat of arms of Vincent Amberlane, Lord Brasdown, the college founder.

Before coming to the lodge, Lynley had taken a solitary evening stroll through the seven courts that comprised the western two-thirds of St. Stephen’s College, pausing in the fellows’ garden where a terrace overlooked the River Cam. He was a lover of architecture. He took pleasure in the evidence of each period’s individual caprice. And while he had always found Cambridge itself to be a rich source of architectural whimsies-from Trinity Great Court’s fountain to Queens’ Mathematical Bridge-St. Stephen’s College, he discovered, merited special attention. It spanned five hundred years of design, from the sixteenth-century Principal Court, with its buildings of red brick and freestone quoins, to the twentieth-century, triangular North Court, where the junior combination room, the bar, a lecture hall, and the buttery were contained in a series of sliding glass panels framed by Brazilian mahogany. St. Stephen’s was one of the largest colleges in the University, “bound by the Trinities” as University brochures described it, with Trinity College to its north, Trinity Hall to its south, and Trinity Lane bisecting its west and east sections. Only the river running along its western boundary kept the college from being entirely hemmed in.

The Master’s Lodge sat at the southwest end of the college grounds, abutting Garret Hostel Lane and facing the River Cam. Its construction dated from the 1600’s, and like its predecessors in Principal Court, it had escaped the ashlar refacing that had been so popular in Cambridge in the eighteenth century. Thus, it maintained its original brick exterior and contrasting stone quoins. And like much of the architecture of the period, it was a happy combination of classical and Gothic details. Its perfect balance spoke of the influence of classical design. Two bay windows jutted out on either side of the front door, while a row of dormer windows topped by semi-circular pediments rose from a pitched slate roof. A lingering love of the Gothic showed itself in that roof’s crenellation, in the pointed arch that comprised the building’s entry, and in the fan vaulting of that entry’s ceiling. It was here that Lynley came to keep his appointment with Terence Cuff, Master of St. Stephen’s and a graduate of Exeter College, Oxford, where Lynley himself had been a student.

Lynley watched Cuff settle his lanky frame into one of the over-stuffed chairs in the panelled library. He couldn’t remember having heard about Cuff during his own time at Oxford, but as the man was some twenty years Lynley’s senior, this fact could hardly constitute an indication of Cuff’s failure to distinguish himself as an undergraduate.

He seemed to wear confidence with the same ease with which he wore his fawn trousers and navy jacket. It was clear that while he was deeply-perhaps even personally-concerned about the murder of one of the junior members of the college, he did not look upon Elena Weaver’s death as a statement about his competence as college head.

“I’m relieved that the Vice Chancellor agreed to Scotland Yard’s coordinating the investigation,” Cuff said, setting his sherry on the gateleg table. “Having Miranda Webberly at St. Stephen’s helped. It was easy enough to give the Vice Chancellor her father’s name.”

“According to Webberly, there was some concern about the way a case was handled by the local CID last Easter term.”

Cuff rested his head against his index and forefinger. He wore no rings. His hair was thick and ash grey. “It was a clear-cut suicide. But someone from the police station leaked to the local press that it looked to him like a hushed-up murder. You know the sort of thing, an allegation that the University’s protecting one of its own. It developed into a small but nasty situation fanned by the local press. I’d like to avoid that happening again. The Vice Chancellor agrees.”