Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

“I'm sorry,” he replied.

“Of course you are. How could you be anything else but sorry?”

“I mean I'm sorry for what I said… how I acted… when I questioned you, Sam. About that night. You know.”

She gave particular attention to a window pane that was crusted with guano, which had dripped from a hundred years of birds’ nests tucked into a crevice above them. “You were upset.”

“I didn't need to accuse you though. Of… of whatever.”

“Of murdering the woman you loved, you mean.” She looked his way. The ruddy colour in his face had heightened.

“Sometimes I can't get a rein on the voices inside my head. I start talking and whatever the voices have been shouting pops out. It's nothing to do with what I believe. I'm sorry.”

She wanted to say, But she wasn't good for you anyway, Julie. Why did you never see that she wasn't good for you? And when will you see what her death can mean? To you. To me. To us, Julie. But she didn't say it because to say it would be to reveal what she couldn't afford-or even bear-to reveal to him. “Accepted,” she said instead.

“Thanks, Sam. You're a brick,” he said.

“Again.”

“I mean-”

She flashed him a smile. “It's okay. I understand. Hand me the hose pipe. These need dousing now.”

A burble of water was all they could risk against the old windows. Sometime in the future it would be necessary to have all the lead replaced or what was left of the ancient glass would definitely be destroyed. But that was a conversation for another time. With his present money worries, Julian didn't need to hear Samantha's prescription for saving another part of the family home.

He said, “It's Dad.”

She said, “What?”

“What's on my mind. Why I've been going through the books. It's Dad.” And then he explained, ending ruefully with, “I've been waiting for years for him to choose sobriety-”

“All of us have waited.”

“-and now he's done that, I got all caught up in trying to come up with a way to seize the moment before it passes. I know the truth of the matter. I've read enough about it to understand he has to do it for himself. He has to want it. But if you could have seen him, heard how he was talking… I don't think he's had a drink all day.”

“Hasn't he? No, I suppose he hasn't.” And she thought of her uncle as he'd been the previous night: slurring not a word and coaxing from her an admission that she didn't want to make. She felt a stillness come over her, one in which she knew that she too could seize the moment-could use it and mould it-or let it pass. She said carefully, “Perhaps he does want it this time, Julie. He's getting older. Facing his… well, his mortality.” His mortality, she thought, not his death. She wouldn't use that word, because in this instant it was crucial to maintain a delicate balance in the conversation. “I expect everyone comes face-to-face with… well, with the knowledge that nothing goes on forever. Perhaps he's feeling older all at once and he wants to sort himself out while he still has the chance.”

“But that's just it,” Julian said. “Does he have a chance? How can he do it without help when he's never been able to do it before? And now that he's finally asked for help how can I fail to give it? Because I want to give it. I want him to succeed.”

“We all do, Julie. The family. We want that.”

“So I went through the books. Because of the health insurance we have. I don't even need to read the small print to know there's no way…” He examined the pane he was working on, scraping his fingernail against the glass.

Nails on a chalkboard. Samantha shuddered. She turned her head from the sound.

Which was when she saw him, where he always was. He stood at the window in the parlour. He watched her talking to his son. And as she watched him watching her, Samantha saw her uncle raise his hand. One finger touched his temple and then his hand dropped. He might have been smoothing his hair from his face. But the reality was that the gesture looked very much like a mock salute.

“We got in straightaway yesterday,” Nkata said when no entry buzzer answered their ringing of the bell next to the white front door. “Could be they got word 'bout us from the Platt bird and did a runner. What d'you think?” “I didn't get the impression that Shelly Platt had any sympathy for the Reeves, did you?” Lynley rang the bell at MKR Financial Management another time. “She seemed happy enough to put a spanner in their works so long as no trail led back to her. Do the Reeves not live here as well as run their business from here, Winnie? It looks like a residence to me.” Lynley moved back from the door, then descended the stairs to the pavement. While the candy-floss building appeared uninhabited, he had the distinct sensation of being watched from within. It could have been his impatience to get Martin Reeve under his thumb for a thorough grilling, but something suggested to him a form just out of sight behind the sheer curtains of a second floor window. Even as he stood gazing up at it, the curtain twitched. He called up, “Police. It's in your interests to let us in, Mr. Reeve. I'd rather not have to phone Ladbroke Grove police station for their assistance.”

A minute passed during which Nkata leaned on the bell and Lynley walked to the Bentley to phone the Ladbroke Grove station. This apparently did the trick, for as he was speaking to the duty sergeant, Nkata called, “We're in, spector,” and shoved the door open. He waited for Lynley inside the hall.

The building was quiet, the air bearing a faint odour of lemons: from polish, perhaps, used to maintain an impressive Sheraton wardrobe in the corridor. As Lynley and Nkata shut the door behind them, a woman descended the stairs.

Lynley's first thought was that she looked like a doll. In fact, she looked like a woman who'd spent considerable time and energy-not to mention money-in moulding herself into a remarkable duplicate of Barbie. She wore black Lycra from head to toe, displaying a body so outrageously perfect that only imagination and silicone could have produced it. This had to be Tricia Reeve, Lynley thought. Nkata had done a fine job of describing her.

Lynley introduced himself, saying, “We'd like a word with your husband, Mrs. Reeve. Will you fetch him for us, please?”

“He's not here.” She'd stopped at the lowest step on the stairs. She was tall, Lynley saw, and she'd made herself taller by refusing to descend completely to their level.

“Where's he gone to, then?” Assiduously, Nkata prepared to take down the information.

Tricia's hand was on the staircase railing, long, skeletal fingers encumbered by rings. She had a formidable grip upon the oak: Her diamonds glittered as her arm trembled with the force she was applying. “I don't know.”

“Try out a few ideas on us,” Nkata said. “I'll take them all down. We're happy to check 'round for him. We got the time.”

Silence.

“Or we could wait here,” Lynley said. “Where might we do that, Mrs. Reeve?”

Her glance flickered. Blue eyes, Lynley saw. Enormous pupils. Nkata had told him that she was a user. It appeared that she was spiked up right now. “Camden Passage,” she said, her pale tongue coming out to lick bee-stung lips. “There's a dealer there. Miniatures. Martin collects. He's gone to look at what's been brought in from an estate sale last week.”

“The name of the dealer?”

“I don't know.”

“Name of the gallery? The shop?”

“I don't know.”

“What time d'he leave?”

“I don't know. I was out.”

Lynley wondered in what sense she was using out. He had a fairly good idea. “We'll wait for him, then. Shall we show ourselves into your reception room? Is it this door, Mrs. Reeve?”