Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

Will Upman, after all, was the person who had mentioned a pager and a London lover in the first place. And who better than Upman-interested in the young woman himself-to fabricate both possessions and relationships to divert the police's attention from himself? He could have been the lover in question, showering gifts upon a woman who was his obsession as well as his employee. And told that she was leaving the law, leaving Derbyshire, and establishing a life for herself in London, how might he have reacted to the knowledge that he would be losing her permanently? Indeed, they knew from the postcards which Nicola sent to her flatmate that she had a lover in addition to Julian Britton. And she would have hardly felt the need to code a message-let alone to arrange for the assignations suggested by the postcards-had the man in question been someone with whom she felt that she could freely be seen.

And then there was the entire question of Julian Britton's place in Nicola's life. If he had actually loved her and had wished to marry her, what would his reaction have been had he discovered her relationship with another man? It was perfectly possible that Nicola had revealed that relationship to Britton as part of her refusal to marry him. If she'd done so, what thoughts-taking up residence in Britton's mind-did he have and where did those thoughts take him on Tuesday night?

An exterior door closed somewhere. Footsteps crunched in gravel, and a figure came round the side of the building. It was a man wheeling a bicycle. He guided it into a puddle of light that spilled from one of the windows. There, he toed the kick stand downwards and removed from his pocket a small tool which he applied to the base of the bicycle's spokes.

Lynley recognised him from the previous afternoon when, from the lounge window, he'd seen him pedalling away from the Hall as Lynley and Hanken had waited for the Maidens to join them. He was, no doubt, one of the employees. As Lynley watched him, crouched on his haunches next to the bike with a heavy lock of hair falling into his eyes, he saw his hand slip and get caught between the spokes and he heard him cry out, “Merde! Saloperie de bécane! Je sais pas ce qui me retient de Venvoyer a la casse.” He leapt up, knuckles shoved to his mouth. He used his sweatshirt to wipe the blood from his skin.

Hearing him speak, Lynley also recognised the unmistakable sound of a cog in the wheel of the investigation clicking into place. He adjusted his previous conjectures with alacrity, realising that Nicola Maiden had done more than merely joke with her London flatmate. She'd also given her a clue.

He approached the man. “Have you hurt yourself?”

The man swung round, startled, brushing the hair from his eyes. “Bon Dieu! Vous m'avez fait peur!”

“Excuse me. I didn't mean to come out of nowhere like that,” Lynley said. And he produced his warrant card and introduced himself.

A fractional movement of the eyebrows was the other man's only reaction to hearing the words New Scotland Yard. He replied in heavily-accented English-interspersed with French-that he was Christian-Louis Ferrer, master chef of the kitchen and the primary reason that Maiden Hall had been awarded the coveted étoile Michelin.

“You're having trouble with your bike. D'you need a lift somewhere?”

No. Mais merci quand même. Long hours in the kitchen robbed him of time to exercise. He needed the twice-daily ride to keep himself fit. This vélo de merde -with a dismissive gesture at the bicycle-was better than nothing to use for that exercise. But he'd have been grateful for un deux-roues that was a little more dependable on the roads and the trails.

“Might we chat before you leave, then?” Lynley asked politely.

Ferrer shrugged in classic Gallic fashion: a simple uplift of the shoulders communicating that if the police wished to speak with him, he'd be foolish to refuse. He'd been standing with his back to the window, but now he shifted position so that his face was in the light.

Seeing him illuminated, Lynley realised that he was much older than he'd looked from a distance on his bicycle. He appeared to be in his mid fifties, with age and the good life incised on his face and grey threaded through his walnut hair.

Lynley quickly discovered that Ferrer's English was fine when it suited him. Of course he knew Nicola Maiden, Ferrer said, calling her la malheureuse jeune femme. He had laboured for the past five years to raise Maiden Hall to its current position de temple de la gastronomie -did the inspector happen to know how few country restaurants in England had actually been awarded the étoile Michelin?-so of course he knew the daughter of his employers. She had worked in the dining room during all her school holidays ever since he himself had practised his art for Monsieur Andee, so naturally he had come to know her.

Ah. Good. How well? Lynley enquired mildly.

At which time Ferrer failed to understand English, although his anxious, polite smile-spurious though it might have been-indicated his willingness to do so.

Lynley switched to what he'd always referred to as his travel-and-survive French. He took a moment to telegraph a silent message of thanks to his fearsome aunt Augusta who'd often decreed-in the midst of a family visit-that ce soir, on parlera tous frangais a table et apres le diner. C'est la meilleure fagon de se préparer ` passer des vacances d’été en Dordogne, thus attempting to polish his rudimentary skills in a language in which he would otherwise only have been able to request a cup of coffee, a beer, or a room with a bath. He said in French, “Your expertise in the kitchen isn't in doubt, Monsieur Ferrer. What I'd like to know is how well you knew the girl. Her father tells me that all the family are cyclists. You're also a cyclist. Did you have occasion to ride with her?”

If Ferrer was surprised that a barbaric Englishman spoke his language-however imperfectly-he covered it well. He gave no quarter by slowing the pace of his reply though, forcing Lynley to ask him to repeat the answer, which gave the Frenchman the satisfaction he apparently needed. “Yes, of course, once or twice we rode together,” Ferrer told him in his native tongue. He had been riding from Grindleford to Maiden Hall on the road and, when she'd heard about this, the young lady had told him of a route through the forest that was rough going but more direct. She didn't wish him to become lost, so she rode it with him twice to make sure he took all the right paths.

“Grindleford is where you have lodgings?”

Yes. There were not enough rooms here at Maiden Hall to accommodate those who worked for the hotel and restaurant. It was, as the inspector had no doubt observed, a small establishment. So Christian-Louis Ferrer had a room with a widow called Madame Clooney and her spinster daughter who, if Ferrer's account was to be believed, had designs upon him that were-alas-impossible to gratify.

“I am, of course, married,” he told Lynley. “Although my beloved wife remains in Nerville le Forét until such a time as we can be together again.”

This, Lynley knew, was not an unusual arrangement. European couples often lived separately, one of them remaining with their children in their native country while the other emigrated to seek more gainful employment. However, an innate cynicism that he quickly assessed as having flourished within him through too much exposure to Barbara Havers over the past few years made him immediately suspicious of any man who used the adjective beloved in front of the noun wife. “You've been here the entire five years?” Lynley asked. “Do you get home much, for holidays and such?”