Elizabeth George - For the Sake of Elena

Gareth Randolph, knowing that Elena had a lover, yet loving her all the time himself. Gareth Randolph, with a Ceephone in his office at DeaStu. Justine Weaver, recounting Elena’s sexual behaviour. Justine Weaver, with a Ceephone but without her own children. Adam Jenn, seeing Elena regularly at her father’s request, his own future tied in to Weaver’s promotion. Adam Jenn, with a Ceephone in Anthony Weaver’s study in Ivy Court. And everything peculiar about that study, most particularly Sarah Gordon’s brief visit to it Monday night.

He made the turn west and began the drive back into Cambridge, recognising the fact that, no matter the day’s revelations to the contrary, his mind kept returning to Sarah Gordon. She didn’t sit well with him.

You know why, Havers would have argued. You know why she keeps forcing her way into your thoughts. You know who she reminds you of.

He couldn’t deny it. Nor could he avoid admitting that at the end of the day when he was most exhausted, he was also most likely to lose the discipline that kept his mind focussed while he was at work. At the end of the day, he was most susceptible to anything and anyone that reminded him of Helen. This had been the case for nearly a year now. And Sarah Gordon was slender, she was dark, she was sensitive, she was intelligent, she was passionate. Still, he told himself, those qualities which she shared with Helen were not the only reasons why he returned to her at a moment when both motive and opportunity were affixing themselves squarely to Lennart Thorsson.

There were other reasons not to eliminate Sarah Gordon. Perhaps they were not as pressing as those which cast blame in Thorsson’s direction, but they still existed, nagging at the mind.

You’re talking yourself into it, Havers would have said. You’re building a case out of dust motes and lint.

But he wasn’t so sure.

He didn’t like coincidences in the midst of a murder investigation, and-Havers’ protests to the contrary-he couldn’t avoid seeing Sarah Gordon’s presence at the murder scene followed by her presence at Ivy Court that night as coincidental. More than that, he couldn’t get away from the fact that she knew Weaver. He had been her student-her private student. She had called him Tony.

Okay, so they were boffing each other, Havers would have continued. So they were doing it five nights a week. So they were doing it in every position known to mankind and in some they invented. So what, Inspector.

He wants the Penford Chair, Havers.

Ah, she would have crowed. Let me get this straight. Anthony Weaver stopped boffing Sarah Gordon-whom, of course, we don’t know whether he was boffing in the first place-because he was afraid that if anyone found out, he wouldn’t get the Chair. So Sarah Gordon killed his daughter. Not Weaver himself, who probably deserves to be put out of his misery if he’s such a gormless twit, but his daughter. Great. When did she do it? How did she carry it off? She wasn’t even on the island until seven in the morning and the girl was dead by then. Dead, Inspector, cold, out, kaput, dead. So why are you thinking about Sarah Gordon? Tell me, please, because this is making me nervous. We’ve walked the path before, you and I.

He couldn’t come up with an answer that Havers would find acceptable. She would argue that any exploration of Sarah Gordon at this point was, in fact or fantasy, a pursuit of Helen. She would not accept his essential curiosity about the woman. Nor would she allow for his uneasiness with coincidence.

But Havers wasn’t with him at the moment to argue against a course of action. He wanted to know more about Sarah Gordon, and he knew where to find someone with access to the facts. In Bulstrode Gardens.

How convenient, Inspector, Havers would have hooted.

But he made the right turn into Hills Road and dismissed his sergeant’s spectral presence.

He arrived at the house at half past eight. Lights were on in the sitting room, fi ltering through the curtains in lacy strands which fell upon the semi-circle of the drive and glanced off the silver metal of a child’s pantechnicon which lay on its side with one wheel missing. Lynley picked it up and rang the front bell.

Unlike the previous evening, there was no shouting of children’s voices. Only a few moments of quiet in which he listened to the traffic passing on the Madingley Road and smelled the acrid odour of leaves being burnt somewhere in the neighbourhood close by. Then the deadbolt was drawn and the door was opened.

“Tommy.”

It was curious, he thought. For how many years had she greeted him in this identical fashion, just saying his name and nothing more? Why had he never before stopped to realise how much it had come to mean to him-such simplistic idiocy this all was, really-just to hear the cadence of her voice as she said it?

He handed her the toy. Along with a missing wheel, he noticed that the lorry’s bonnet bore a considerable dent, as if it had been smashed with a rock or a hammer. “This was in the drive.”

She took it from him. “Christian. He’s not making a great deal of progress in the taking-care-of-possessions department, I’m afraid.” She stepped back from the door. “Come in.”

He took off his overcoat without invitation this time, hanging it on a rattan rack just to the left of the front door. He turned to her. She wore a teal pullover with an ash-coloured blouse beneath it, and the sweater was smeared in three separate places with what appeared to be spaghetti sauce. She saw his glance take in the stains.

“Christian again. He’s also not making progress in the table manners area.” She smiled wearily. “At least he doesn’t offer false compliments to the cook. And God knows that I’ve never been much in the kitchen.”

He said, “You’re exhausted, Helen.” He felt his hand go up as if of its own volition and for a moment the backs of his fingers brushed against her cheek. Her skin was cool and smooth, like the untroubled surface of fresh, sweet water. Her dark eyes were on his. A pulse beat rapidly in the vein on her neck. He said, “Helen,” and felt the quick current of perennial longing that always accompanied the simple, mindless act of saying her name.

She moved away from him, walked into the sitting room, saying, “They’re in bed now, so the worst is over. Have you eaten, Tommy?”

He found that he still had his hand lifted as if to touch her, and he dropped it to his side, feeling ever the lovesick fool. He said, “No. Dinner got past me somehow.”

“Shall I make you something?” She glanced down at her pullover. “Other than spaghetti, of course. Although I don’t recall your ever throwing food at the cook.”

“Not lately, at least.”

“We’ve some chicken salad. There’s a bit of ham left. Some tinned salmon if you like.”

“Nothing. I’m not hungry.”

She stood near the fireplace where a pile of children’s toys leaned against the wall. A wooden puzzle of the United States was balanced on the top. Someone, it appeared, had bitten off the southern end of Florida. He looked from the puzzle to her, saw the lines of weariness beneath her eyes.

He wanted to say, Come with me, Helen, be with me, stay with me. Instead he said merely, “I need to talk to Pen.”

Lady Helen’s eyes widened. “Pen?”

“It’s important. Is she awake?”

“I think so, yes. But”-she glanced warily towards the doorway and the stairs beyond it-“I don’t know, Tommy. It’s been a bad day. The children. A row with Harry.”

“He’s not home?”

“No. Again.” She picked up the small Florida and examined the damage, then chucked the puzzle piece back with the others. “It’s a mess. They’re a mess. I don’t know how to help her. I can’t think what to tell her. She’s had a baby she doesn’t want. She has a life she can’t bear. She has children who need her and a husband who’s set on punishing her for punishing him. And my life is so easy, so smooth compared to hers. What can I say that isn’t base and blind and entirely useless?”