Elizabeth George - A Suitable Vengeance

For the past two weeks she had been trying to contact him. Every effort had received a rebuff. Out on a job, working a double shift, caught at a meeting, testifying in court. From a series of unquestionably polite secretaries, assistants and junior officers, she had heard every permutation of a job-related excuse. The implicit message was always the same: he was unavailable, alone, and preferring it so.

It would not be so tonight. She rang the bell. It sounded somewhere in the back of the house, resonating oddly towards the front door as if the building were empty. For a fleeting, mad moment, she actually harboured the thought that he had moved from London – ninning away from everything once and for all – but then the fanlight above the door showed a sudden illumination in the lower hallway. A bolt was drawn, the door opened, and Lynley's valet stood blinking owlishly out at her. He was wearing his bedroom slippers, Lady Helen noted, and a tartan flannel bathrobe over paisley pyjamas. Surprise and judgement played spontaneously across his face. He wiped them off quickly enough, but Lady Helen read their meaning. Well brought up daughters of peers were not supposed to go calling on gentlemen late at night, no matter which part of the twentieth century this was.

'Thank you, Denton,' Lady Helen said decisively. She stepped into the hall every bit as if he'd asked her in with earnest protestations of welcome. 'Please tell Lord Asherton that I must see him at once.' She removed her light evening coat and placed it along with her bag on a chair in the foyer.

Still standing by the open door, Denton looked from her to the street as if trying to recall whether he had actually asked her in. He kept his hand on the doorknob and shifted from foot to foot, appearing caught between a need to protest the solecism of this visit and the fear of someone's wrath should he do so.

'His Lordship's asked-'

'I know,' Lady Helen said. She felt a brief flicker of guilt to be bullying Denton, knowing that his determination to protect Lynley was motivated by a loyalty that spanned nearly a decade. 'I understand. He's asked not to be disturbed, not to be interrupted. He's not returned one of my calls these last two weeks, Denton, so I quite understand he wishes not to be bothered. Now that the issue is clear between us, please tell him I wish to see him.' 'But-'

'I shall go directly up to his bedroom if I have to.' Denton signalled his surrender by closing the door. 'He's in the library. I'll fetch him for you.' 'No need. I know the way.'

She left Denton gaping in the entry and went quickly up the stairs to the first floor of the house, down a thickly carpeted corridor, past an impressive collection of antique pewter, winked at by half a dozen Asherton ancestors long since dead. She heard Lynley's valet not far behind her, murmuring, 'My lady… Lady Helen…'

The library door was closed. She knocked once, heard Lynley's voice, and entered.

He was sitting at his desk, his head resting in one hand and several folders spread out in front of him. Lady Helen's first thought – with some considerable surprise as he looked up – was that she had no idea he'd begun wearing spectacles to read. He took them off as he got to his feet. He said nothing, merely glanced behind her to where Denton stood, looking monumentally apologetic.

'Sorry,' Denton said. 'I tried.'

'Don't blame him,' Lady Helen said. 'I bullied my way in.' She saw that Denton had moved one step into the room. With another he would be close enough to put his hand on her arm and escort her back down the stairs and out into the street. She couldn't imagine him doing so without Lynley's direction, but just in case he was considering the idea she headed him off. 'Thank you, Denton. Leave us, please. If you will.'

Denton gawked at her. He looked at Lynley, who nodded sharply once. He left the room.

'Why haven't you returned my calls, Tommy?' Lady Helen asked the moment they were alone. 'I've telephoned here and the Yard repeatedly. I've stopped by four times. I've been sick with worry about you.'

'Sorry, old duck,' he said easily. 'There's been a mass of work lately. I'm up to my ears in it. Will you have a drink?' He walked to a rosewood table on which were arranged several decanters and a set of glasses.

'Thank you, no.'

He poured himself a whisky but did not drink it at once. 'Please sit down.' 'I think not.'

'Whatever you'd like.' He offered her a lopsided smile and tossed back a large portion of his drink. And then, perhaps unwilling to keep up the pretence any longer, he looked away from her, saying, Tm sorry, Helen. I wanted to return your calls. But I couldn't do it. Sheer cowardice, I suppose.'

Her anger melted immediately. 'I can't bear to see you like this. Walled up in your library. Incommunicado at work. I can't bear it, Tommy.'

For a moment, the only response was his breathing. She could hear it, shallow and unevenly spaced. Then he said, 'The only time I seem to be able to drive her from my mind is when I'm working. So that's what I've been doing, that's all I've been doing. And when I haven't been on a case I've spent the time telling myself that I'll get over this eventually. A few more weeks, a few months.' Shakily, he laughed. 'It's a bit difficult to believe.'

'I know. I understand.'

'God, yes. Who on earth could know better than you?'

'Then, why haven't you phoned me?'

He moved restlessly across the room to the fireplace. No fire demanded his attention there, so he gave it instead to a collection of Meissen porcelain plates on the overmantel. He took one from its stand, turning it in his hands.

Lady Helen wanted to tell him to have a care, the plate might well shatter under the strength with which he gripped it, but she said nothing. He put the plate back. She repeated her question.

'You know I've wanted to talk to you. Why haven't you phoned me?'

'I haven't been able to. It hurts too much, Helen. I can't hide that from you.'

'Why on earth should you want to?'

'I feel like a fool. I should be stronger than this. None of it should matter. I should be able just to slough it off and go on.'

'Go on?' She felt all her anger return in a rush. Her blood heated in the presence of this stiff-upper-lip attitude which she'd always found so contemptible in the men she knew, as if schooling and breeding and generations of reserve condemned each of them to a life of feeling nothing. 'Do you actually mean to tell me that you've no right to your sorrow because you're a man? I don't believe that. I won't believe that.'

'It's nothing at all to do with sorrow. I've just been trying to find my way back to the man I was three years ago. Before Deborah. If I can reclaim him, I'll be fine.'

'That man was no different from the man you are now.'

'Three years ago, I'd not have taken this so hard. What were women to me then? Bed partners. Nothing more.'

'And that's what you want to be? A man drifting through life in a sexual fugue? Only thinking about his next performance in bed? Is that what you want?'

'It's easier that way.'

'Of course it's easy. That kind of life is always easy. People fade out of one another's bed with hardly a word of farewell, let alone one of commitment. And, if by chance they wake up one morning with someone whose name escapes them, it's all right, isn't it? It's part of the game.'

'There was no pain involved in relationships then. There was nothing involved. Never for me.'

'That may be what you'd like to remember, Tommy, but that's not the way it was. Because, if what you say is true, if life was nothing more than collecting and seducing a stableful of women, why did you never have me?'

He reflected on the question. He went back to the decanters and poured himself a second drink. 'I don't know.'