Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

“Disappointment in love?”

“Perhaps something stronger. Perhaps an elementary passion. A base one at that. Who's this chap Upman?”

“I'll introduce you.”

They finished their meal and returned to the car. They headed northwest out of Bakewell, climbed upwards, and traversed the northern boundary of Taddington Moor.

In Buxton they cruised along the High Street, finding a place to park behind the town hall. This was an impressive nineteenth-century edifice overlooking The Slopes, a tree-shaded series of ascending paths, where those who once had come to Buxton to take the waters had exercised in the afternoons.

The solicitor's office was further along the High Street. Above an estate agent and an art gallery featuring water colours of the Peaks, it was reached by means of a single door with the names Upman, Smith, & Sinclair printed on its opaque glass.

As soon as Hanken sent his card into Upman's office in the hands of an ageing secretary in secretarial twin set and tweeds, the man himself came out to greet them and to usher them into his domain. He'd heard about Nicola Maiden's death, he told them somberly. He'd phoned the Hall to ask where he should send Nicola's final wages for the summer, and one of the dailies there had given him the news. The previous week had been her last in the office.

The solicitor seemed happy enough to cooperate with the police. He deemed Nicola's death “a damnable tragedy for all concerned. She had tremendous potential in the legal field and I was more than satisfied with her performance for me this past summer.”

Lynley studied the man as Hanken gleaned the background information on the solicitor's relationship with the dead woman. Upman looked like a newsreader for the BBC: picture perfect and squeaky clean. His oak-brown hair was greying at the temples, giving him an air of trustworthiness that probably served him well in his profession. This general sense of reliability was enhanced by his voice, which was deep and sonorous. He was somewhere in his early forties, but his casual manner and his easy bearing suggested youth.

He answered Hanken's questions without the slightest indication that he might be uncomfortable with any of them. He'd known Nicola Maiden for most of the nine years that she and her family had lived in the Peak District. Her parents’ acquisition of the old Padley Gorge Lodge-now Maiden Hall-had brought them into contact with one of Upman's associates, who handled estate purchases. Through him, Will Upman had met the Maidens and their daughter.

“We've been given to understand that Mr. Maiden arranged for Nicola to work for you this summer,” Hanken said.

Upman confirmed this. He added, “It was no secret that Andy hoped Nicola would practise in Derbyshire when she'd completed her articles.” He'd been leaning against his desk as they spoke, having not offered either detective a chair. He seemed to realise this all at once, however, because he hurried on to say, “I'm completely forgetting my manners. Forgive me. Please. Sit. Can I offer you coffee? Or tea? Miss Snodgrass?”

This last he called in the direction of the open door. There, the secretary reappeared. She'd donned a pair of large-framed spectacles that gave her the appearance of a timid insect. “Mr. Upman?” She waited to do his bidding.

“Gentlemen?” he asked Lynley and Hanken.

They declined his offer of refreshment, and Miss Snodgrass was dismissed. Upman beamed upon the detectives as they took seats. Then he remained standing. Lynley noted this, raising his guard. In the delicate game of power and confrontation, the solicitor had just scored. And the manoeuvre had been so smoothly handled.

“How did you feel about Nicola becoming employed somewhere in Derbyshire?” he asked Upman.

The solicitor regarded him affably. “I don't think I felt anything at all.”

“Are you married?”

“Never have been. My line of work tends to give one cold feet when it comes to matrimony. I specialise in divorce law. That generally disabuses one of one's romantic ideals in rather short order.”

“Could that be why Nicola turned down Julian Britton's marriage proposal?” Lynley asked.

Upman looked surprised. “I'd no idea he'd made one.”

“She didn't tell you?”

“She worked for me, Inspector. I wasn't her confessor.”

“Were you her anything else?” Hanken put in, clearly annoyed at the tenor of Upman's last remark. “Aside from her employer, naturally.”

From his desk, Upman picked up a palm-size violin that apparently served as a paperweight. He ran his fingers along its strings and plucked at them as if testing their tuning. He said, “You must be asking if she and I had a personal relationship.”

“When a man and a woman work at close quarters on a regular basis,” Hanken said, “these things do happen.”

“They don't happen to me.”

“By which we can take it that you weren't involved with the Maiden girl?”

“That's what I'm saying.” Upman replaced the violin and took up a pencil holder. He began removing those pencils whose lead was too worn, laying them neatly next to his thigh, which continued to rest against the desk. He said, “Andy Maiden would have liked it had Nicola and I become involved. He'd hinted as much on more than one occasion, and whenever I was at the Hall for dinner and Nicola was home from college, he made a point of throwing us together. So I saw what he was hoping for, but I couldn't accommodate him.”

“Why not?” Hanken asked. “Something wrong with the girl?”

“She wasn't my type.”

“What type was she?” Lynley asked.

“I don't know. Look, what does it matter? I'm… Well, I'm rather involved with someone else.”

“‘Rather involved?’” This from Hanken.

“We have an understanding. I mean, we date. I handled her divorce two years ago, and… What does it matter anyway?” He looked flustered. Lynley wondered why.

Hanken appeared to notice this as well. He began to home in. “You found the Maiden girl attractive though.”

“Of course. I'm not blind. She was attractive.”

“And did your divorcee know about her?”

“She's not my divorcee. She's not my anything. We're seeing each other. That's all there is. And there was nothing for Joyce to know-”

“Joyce?” Lynley asked.

“His divorcee,” Hanken said blandly.

“And,” Upman repeated, “there was nothing for Joyce to know because there was nothing between us, between Nicola and me. Finding a woman attractive and becoming caught up in something that can't go anywhere are two different things.”

“Why couldn't it go anywhere?” Lynley asked.

“Because we were both involved elsewhere. I am, and she was. So even if I'd thought about trying my luck-which I hadn't, by the way-I'd have been signing up for a course in frustration.”

“But she'd turned down Julian,” Hanken interposed. “That suggests she wasn't as involved as you supposed, that perhaps she'd set her sights on someone else.”

“If so, they weren't set on me. And as for poor Britton, I'd wager that she turned him down because his income didn't suit her. My guess is that she'd got her eye on someone in London with a hefty bank balance.”

“What gave you that impression?” Lynley asked.

Upman considered the question, but he appeared relieved to be himself let off the hook of a possible involvement with Nicola Maiden. “She had a pager that went off occasionally,” he finally said, “and once when it did, she asked me would I mind if she phoned London to give someone the number here to ring her back. And he did as much after that. Time and again.”

“Why would you conclude this was someone with money?” Lynley asked. “A few long distance phone calls aren't out of the question even for someone strapped for cash.”