Elizabeth George - For the Sake of Elena

He whirled to face her. “I’ve had it with you. It’s time you decided what you want instead of constantly digging into me for what you have.” Before she could answer, he was gone. A moment later, the front door slammed. Christian howled. The baby cried. In response, fresh growing wet spots seeped through Penelope’s dressing gown. She began to weep.

“I don’t want this life!”

Lady Helen felt an answering rush of pity. Tears stung her eyes. Never had she felt so at a loss for something to say that might comfort.

For the first time she understood her sister’s long silences, her vigils at the window, and her wordless weeping. But what she could not understand was the initial act that had brought Penelope to this point. It constituted a kind of surrender so foreign to her that she found herself recoiling from its signifi cance.

She went to her sister, took her into her arms.

Penelope stiffened. “No! Don’t touch me. I’m leaking all over. It’s the baby…”

Lady Helen continued to hold her. She tried to frame a question and wondered where to start and what she could ask that would not betray her growing anger. The fact that her rage was multi-directional served to make the act of concealing it only that much more diffi cult.

She felt it first for Harry and for the needs of ego that would prompt a man to urge for the breeding of another child, as if what was being created were a demonstration of the father’s virility, and not an individual with decided needs of its own. She felt it also for her sister and for the fact that she had given in to that sense of duty inbred in women from the beginning of time, a duty which told them that the possession of a functioning womb necessarily served as a definition of self.

The initial decision to have children-one which no doubt had been made with joy and commitment by both Penelope and her husband-had proved her sister’s undoing. For in leaving behind her career to care for the twins, she had, over time, allowed herself to become a dependent, a woman who believed she had to hold onto her man. So when he had made the request for another child, she had acquiesced. She had done her duty. After all, what better way to keep him than to give him what he wanted?

That none of this had been necessary, that all of it rose from her sister’s inability or unwillingness to challenge the constrictive definition of womanhood to which she had decided to adhere, served to make her current situation even more untenable. For Penelope was wise enough at the heart of the matter to know that she was assenting to living a life in which she did not believe, and that was, undoubtedly, a large part of the wretchedness she was now experiencing. Her husband’s parting words had instructed her to make a decision. But until she learned to redefi ne herself, circumstances and not Penelope would do the deciding.

Her sister sobbed against her shoulder. Lady Helen held her and tried to murmur comfort.

“I can’t stand it,” Penelope wept. “I’m suffocating. I’m nothing. I don’t have an identity. I’m just a machine.”

You’re a mother, Lady Helen thought, while in the next room, Christian continued to scream.

It was noon when Lynley and Havers pulled to a stop on the twisting high street of the village of Grantchester, a collection of houses, pubs, a church, and a vicarage separated from Cambridge by the University’s rugby fi elds and a long stretch of farmland lying fallow for the winter behind a hawthorn hedgerow that was beginning to brown. The address on the police report had looked decidedly vague: Sarah Gordon, The School, Grantchester . But once they reached the village, Lynley realised that no further information was going to be necessary. For between a row of thatched cottages and the Red Lion Pub stood a hazel-coloured brick building with bright red woodwork and numerous skylights set into a pitched tile roof. From one of the pillars that stood on either side of the driveway hung a bronze-lettered sign that said merely The School .

“Not bad digs,” Havers commented, shouldering open her door. “Your basic loving renovation of an historical property. I’ve always hated people with the patience for preservation. Who is she, anyway?”

“An artist of some sort. We’ll find out the rest.”

The space for the original front door now accommodated four panels of glass through which they could see lofty white walls, part of a sofa, and the blue glass shade of an arching brass floorlamp. When they slammed the car doors and started to walk up the drive, a dog came to these windows and began to yap wildly.

The new front door was set towards the rear of the building, recessed into part of a low, covered passage which connected the house to the garage. As they approached, it was opened by a slender woman wearing faded jeans, a man-sized work shirt of ivory wool, and a rose-coloured towel like a turban on her head. One hand held this in place as with the other she restrained her dog, a scruffy mongrel with lopsided ears-one at attention and the other at ease-and a thatch of khaki hair fl opping into its eyes.

“Don’t be afraid. He never bites,” she said as the dog tried to lunge away from the hold she had on his collar. “He just likes visitors.”

And to the dog, “Flame, sit,” a mild command which he blithely ignored. His tail wagged frantically.

Lynley produced his warrant card, introducing himself and Havers. He said, “You’re Sarah Gordon? We’d like to talk to you about yesterday morning.”

At the request, her dark eyes seemed to grow even darker for an instant, although it may have been the result of her movement into a shadow cast by the overhanging roof. “I don’t know what more I can add, Inspector. I told the police as much as I could.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve read the report. But I fi nd it sometimes helps to hear everything fi rsthand. If you don’t mind.”

“Of course. Please. Come in.” She stepped back from the door. Flame made a leap of happy greeting in Lynley’s direction, planting mitt-sized paws against his thighs. Sarah Gordon said, “No! Flame, stop it at once!” and pulled the dog back. She picked him up-he was a frantic, squirming, tail-wagging arm-ful-and carried him into the room they had seen from the street, where she put him into a basket to one side of the fireplace, saying, “Stay,” and patting him on the head. His eager glance darted from Lynley to Havers to his mistress. When he saw that everyone intended to remain in the room with him, he gave one more delighted bark and settled his chin on his paws.

Sarah went to the fireplace where a haphazard stack of wood was burning. It crackled and popped as the flames hit pockets of resin and sap. She threw on another piece before turning to face them.

“Was this actually a school?” Lynley asked her.

She looked surprised. Obviously, she had expected him to plunge directly into her discovery of Elena Weaver’s corpse on the previous morning. Nonetheless, she smiled, glanced around, and answered. “The village school, yes. It was quite a mess when I bought it.”

“Did you remodel it yourself?”

“A room here and there, when I could afford it and when I had the time. It’s largely fi nished now except for the back garden. This”-she extended her hand to indicate the room in which they stood-“was the last. A bit different from what one would expect to see inside a building of this age, I suppose. But that’s why I like it.”

As Havers began unwrapping the first of her scarves from her throat, Lynley glanced around. The room was indeed an unexpected pleasure, with its extensive display of lithographs and oils. Their subjects were people: children, adolescents, old men playing cards, an elderly woman looking out a window. Their compositions were figurative and metaphorical at once; their colours were pure and bright and true.