Elizabeth George - For the Sake of Elena

In combination with a bleached oak fl oor and an oatmeal sofa, the overall effect of a room filled with this much art should have been much like a museum and just about as friendly. But as if with the intention of easing the unwelcoming nature of her environment, Sarah Gordon had draped a red mohair blanket across the back of the sofa and covered the floor with a motley braided rug. If this were not enough to declare the room lived in, a copy of The Guardian was spread out in front of the fireplace, a sketch box and easel lay near the door, and the air-most unmuseumlike of all-bore the unmistakable, rich odour of chocolate. This seemed to be emanating from a thick green jug on the bar at one end of the room. It sat next to a mug. A trail of steam rose from both.

Seeing the direction of his gaze, Sarah Gordon said, “It’s cocoa. An anti-depressant, I find. I’ve needed rather a lot of it since yesterday. May I offer you some?”

He shook his head. “Sergeant?”

Havers demurred and went to sit on the sofa, where she dropped her scarves, shed her coat, and wrestled her notebook from her shoulder bag. A large orange cat, materialising from behind the open front curtains, leaped agilely to join her and settled, paws working, directly on her lap.

Sarah fetched her cup of cocoa and hurried to Havers’ rescue. “Sorry,” she said, scooping the cat under one arm. She herself took a place at the other end of the sofa, putting her back to the light. She buried her free hand in the cat’s thick fur. The other-raising the cocoa to her lips-trembled noticeably. She spoke as if with the need to excuse this.

“I’ve never seen a dead body before. No, that’s not absolutely true. I’ve seen people in coffins but that’s after they’ve been scoured, washed, and painted by an undertaker. I suppose that’s the only way we can bear death, isn’t it, if it looks like a modestly altered state of life. But this other…I’d like to forget that I saw her, but she seems to be branded right into my brain.” She touched the towel wrapped round her head. “I’ve taken five showers since yesterday morning. I’ve washed my hair three times. Why am I doing that?”

Lynley sat in an armchair opposite the sofa. He didn’t bother to try to frame an answer to the question. Everyone’s reaction to an exposure to violent death was peculiar to his individual personality. He’d known young detectives who wouldn’t bathe until a case was solved, others who wouldn’t eat, still others who wouldn’t sleep. And while the vast majority of them became immune to death over time, seeing a murder investigation merely as a job to be done, the layman never saw it that way. The layman took it personally, like a deliberate insult. No one wanted a sudden reminder of life’s grim and remarkable transiency.

He said, “Tell me about yesterday morning.”

Sarah placed the mug on a side table and buried her other hand in the cat’s fur. It didn’t seem so much a gesture of affection as a means of holding onto something for solace or support. With typical feline sensitivity, the cat apparently knew this, for his ears fl attened and he gave a throaty growl which Sarah ignored. She began to pet him. He attempted to launch himself in the direction of the fl oor. She said, “Silk, be good,” and tried to hold onto him, but he yowled once, spit, and jumped off her lap. Sarah looked stricken. She watched the cat stroll over to the fi re where, completely indifferent to his act of desertion, he settled himself on the newspaper and began to wash his face.

“Cats,” Havers said in eloquent explanation. “Aren’t they just exactly like men.”

Sarah appeared to evaluate the comment gravely for its merit. She sat as if she held the cat in her lap, slightly bent forward, her hands on her thighs. It was a particularly self-protective position. “Yesterday morning,” she said.

“If you will,” Lynley said.

She went through the facts quickly, adding very little to what Lynley had read in the police report. Unable to sleep, she had risen at a quarter past five. She had dressed, eaten a bowl of cereal. She had read most of the previous day’s paper. She had sorted through and gathered up her equipment. She had arrived at Fen Causeway shortly before seven. She had gone onto the island to do some sketches of Crusoe’s Bridge. She had found the body.

“I stepped on her,” she said. “I…It’s awful to think about. I realise now that I should have wanted to help her. I should have tried to see if she was still alive. But I didn’t.”

“Where was she exactly?”

“At the side of a small clearing, towards the south end of the island.”

“You didn’t notice her at once?”

She reached for her cocoa and cradled the mug between her hands. “No. I’d gone there to do some sketching, and I was intent upon getting something done. I’d not worked-no, let me be truthful for once, I’d not produced anything of possible merit -in a number of months. I felt inadequate and paralysed, and I’d been harbouring a tremendous fear that I’d lost it altogether.”

“It?”

“Talent, Inspector. Creativity. Passion. Inspiration. What you will. Over time, I’d grown to believe it was gone. So I decided a number of weeks ago to stop procrastinating. I was determined to put an end to busying myself with projects round the house-being afraid of failure, really-and to start working again. I chose yesterday as the day.” She appeared to anticipate Lynley’s next question, for she went on with, “It was just an arbitrary choice of days, actually. I felt if I marked the calendar, I’d be making a commitment. I thought if I chose the date in advance, I could begin again without any further false starts. It was important to me.”

Lynley looked round the room again, more carefully this time, studying the collection of lithographs and oils. He couldn’t help comparing them to the watercolours he had seen in Anthony Weaver’s house. Those had been clever, nicely executed, safe. These were a challenge, both in colour and design.

“This is all your work,” he said, a statement, not a question, for it was obvious that everything had been created by the same gifted hand.

She used her cocoa mug to point towards one of the walls. “This is all my work, yes. None of it recent. But all of it mine.”

Lynley allowed himself to revel in an instant’s gratification which rose from the knowledge that he couldn’t have been handed a better potential witness. Artists were trained observers. They couldn’t create without observation. If there had been something to see on the island, an object out of kilter, a shadow worth noticing, Sarah Gordon would have seen it. Leaning forward, he said:

“Tell me what you recall about the island itself.”

Sarah looked into her cocoa as if replaying the scene there. “Well. It was foggy, very wet. Tree leaves were actually dripping. The boat repair sheds were closed. The bridge had been repainted. I remember noticing that because of the way it caught the light. And there was…” She hesitated, her expression thoughtful. “Near the gate, it was quite muddy, and the mud was…churned up. I’d call it furrowed, actually.”

“As if a body had been dragged through it? Heels to the ground?”

“I suppose. And there was rubbish on the ground by a fallen branch. And…” She looked up. “I think I saw the remains of a fire as well.”

“There by the branch?”

“In front of it, yes.”

“And on the ground, what sort of rubbish?”

“Cigarette packs, mostly. A few newspapers. A large wine bottle. A sack? Yes, there was an orange sack from Peter Dominic. I remember that. Could someone have spent some time waiting for the girl?”

He ignored the question, saying, “Anything else?”