Elizabeth George - For the Sake of Elena

“And might fight even harder to keep himself there.”

“True enough. No matter Thorsson’s superficial disdain for Cambridge, I can’t think he’d want to endanger himself. He’s young enough to have his eye on an eventual professorship, probably a chair. But that’s lost to him if he’s involved with a student.”

Havers dumped some sugar into her coffee. She munched thoughtfully on a toasted teacake. At three other steel-legged tables in the airy buttery, seven junior members of the college huddled over their own mid-morning snacks with sunlight from the wall of windows streaking down their backs. The presence of Lynley and Havers did not appear to interest them.

“He had opportunity as well,” Havers pointed out.

“If we discount his claim that he didn’t know Elena ran in the morning.”

“I think we can, Inspector. Look how many times her calendar indicates she met with Thorsson. Are we supposed to believe that she never once mentioned the cross country team to him? That she never talked about her running? What utter rot.”

Lynley grimaced at the bitterness of his own coffee. It tasted cooked-like a soup. He added sugar and borrowed his sergeant’s spoon.

“If an investigation was pending, he’d want to put an end to it, wouldn’t he?” Havers was continuing. “Because once Elena Weaver came forward to put the thumbscrews to him, what was to stop a dozen other sweet young things from doing the same?”

“If a dozen other sweet young things even exist. If, in fact, he’s guilty at all. Elena may have charged him with harassing her, Sergeant, but let’s not forget that it remained to be proved.”

“And it can’t be proved now, can it?” Havers pointed a knowing finger at him. Her upper lip curled. “Are you actually taking the male position in this? Poor Lenny Thorsson’s been falsely accused of dandling some girl because he rejected her when she tried to get him to take off his trousers? Or at least unzip them?”

“I’m not taking any position at all, Havers. I’m merely gathering facts. And the most cogent one is that Elena Weaver had already turned him in, and as a result an investigation was pending. Look at it rationally. He’s got motive spelled out in neon lights above his head. He may talk like an idiot, but he doesn’t strike me as a fool. He would have known he’d be placed at the top of the list of suspects as soon as we learned about him. So if he did kill her, I imagine he’d have set himself up with an ironclad alibi, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.” She waved her teacake at him. One of its raisins dropped with a plop into her coffee. She ignored it and continued. “I think he’s clever enough to know we’d be having a conversation just like this. He knew we’d be saying he’s a Cambridge don, he’s a far sight off dim, he’d never kill Elena Weaver and hand himself over to the rozzers on a platter now, would he? And look at us, will you. Playing right into his hands.” She bit into her teacake. Her jaws worked it furiously.

Lynley had to admit that there was a certain skewed logic to what Havers was suggesting. Still, he didn’t like the fire with which she suggested it. That hot edge of feeling nearly always implied a loss of objectivity, the bane of effective policework. He had encountered it too often in himself to let it go ignored in his partner.

He knew the source of her anger. But to address it directly would be to give a distinction to Thorsson’s words that was undeserved. He sought another tack.

“He would know about the Ceephone in her room. There’s that. And according to Miranda, Elena left the room prior to the time Justine received the call. If he’d been in her room before-and he admits that he had-then he probably knew how to use the phone as well. So he could have made the call to the Weavers.”

“Now you’re onto something,” Havers said.

“But unless Sheehan’s forensic team give us trace evidence that we can connect to Thorsson, unless we can pin down the weapon used to beat the girl before she was strangled, and unless we can connect that weapon to Thorsson, we’ve got nothing much more than our natural dislike of him.”

“And we’ve plenty of that.”

“In spades.” He shoved his coffee cup to one side. “What we need is a witness, Havers.”

“To the killing?”

“To something. To anything.” He stood. “Let’s look up this woman who found the body. If nothing else, at least we’ll fi nd out what she was planning to paint in the fog.”

Havers drained her coffee cup and wiped the greasy crumbs from her hands onto a paper napkin. She headed for the door, shrugging into her coat, with her two scarves dragging along the floor behind her. He said nothing else until they were outside on the terrace above North Court. And even then he chose his words carefully.

“Havers, as to what Thorsson said to you.”

She looked at him blankly. “What he said, sir?”

Lynley felt an odd strip of sweat on the back of his neck. Most of the time he didn’t give a thought to the fact that his partner was a woman. At the moment, however, that fact couldn’t be avoided. “In his room, Havers. The…” He sought a euphemism. “The bovine reference?”

“Bo…” Under her thick fringe of hair, her brow creased in perplexity. “Oh, bovine . You mean when he called me a cow?”

“Ah…yes.” Even as he said it, Lynley wondered what on earth he could possibly come up with to soothe her feelings. He needn’t have worried.

She chuckled quietly. “Don’t give it a thought, Inspector. When an ass calls me a cow, I always consider the source.”

“And what’s this one, Christian?” Lady Helen asked. She held up a piece of the large wooden puzzle that lay on the floor between them. Carved from mahogany, oak, fir, and birch, it was a softly hued map of the United States, a gift to the twins on their fourth birthday sent from America by their aunt Iris, Lady Helen’s oldest sister. The puzzle reflected Lady Iris’ taste more than it said anything about her devotion to her niece and nephew. “Quality and durability, Helen. That’s what one looks for,” she would say stolidly, as if in the expectation that Christian and Perdita would be playing with toys right into their dotage.

Bright colours would have attracted the children more strongly. They certainly would have gone further to hold their attention. But after a few false starts, Lady Helen had managed to turn putting the puzzle together into a game which Christian was playing like a zealot as his sister watched. Perdita sat snugly against Lady Helen’s side, her thin legs splayed out in front of her, her scuffed shoes pointed northeast and northwest.

“Cafilornia!” Christian announced triumphantly, after spending a moment studying the shape his aunt held for him. He beat his feet on the floor and crowed. He was always successful with the oddly shaped states. Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Utah. No problem there. But Wyoming, Colorado, and North Dakota were blatant invitations to a fi t of temper.

“Wonderful. And its capital is…?”

“New York!”

Lady Helen laughed. “Sacramento, silly face.”

“Sackermenno!”

“Quite. Now put it in. Do you know where it goes?”

After a futile attempt to pound it into the spot left for Florida, Christian slid it across the board to the opposite coast. “’Nother, Auntie Leen,” he said. “I can do more.”

She selected the smallest piece and held it up. Wisely, Christian squinted down at the map. He plunged his finger into the empty spot to the east of Connecticut.