Elizabeth George - With No One As Witness

Such, however, was Hillier’s lot in life. Such were the disadvantages of ambition.

BY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Lynley had in hand from SO7 the complete autopsies of the first three victims and the preliminary postmortem information from the most recent killing. He combined this with an extra set of photographs from all four of the murder scenes. He packed this material into his briefcase, went for his car, and set out from Victoria Street in a light mist that was blowing in from the river. Traffic was stop and start, but when he finally got over to Millbank, he had the river to contemplate…or what he could see of it, which was mostly the wall built along the pavement and the old iron street lamps that cast a glow against the gloom.

He veered to the right when he came to Cheyne Walk, where he found a place to park that was being vacated by someone leaving the King’s Head and Eight Bells at the bottom of Cheyne Row. It was a short distance from there to the house at the corner of this street and Lordship Place. Less than five minutes found him ringing the bell.

He anticipated the barking of one very protective long-haired dachshund, but that didn’t happen. Instead the door was opened by a tallish red-haired woman with a pair of scissors in one hand and a roll of yellow ribbon in the other. Her face brightened when she saw him.

“Tommy!” Deborah St. James said. “Perfect timing. I need help and here you are.”

Lynley entered the house, shedding his overcoat and setting his briefcase by the umbrella stand. “What sort of help? Where’s Simon?”

“I’ve already roped him into something else. And one can only ask husbands for so much assistance before they run off with the local floozy from the pub.”

Lynley smiled. “What am I to do?”

“Come with me.” She led him to the dining room, where an old bronze chandelier was lit over a table spread with wrapping materials. A large package there was already brightly wrapped, and Deborah seemed to have been caught in the midst of designing a complicated bow for it.

“This,” Lynley said, “is not going to be my métier.”

“Oh, the plans are laid,” Deborah told him. “You’re only going to need to hand over the Sellotape and press where indicated. It shouldn’t defeat you. I’ve started with the yellow, but there’s green and white to add.”

“Those are the colours Helen’s chosen…” Lynley stopped. “Is this for her? For us? By any chance?”

“How vulgar, Tommy,” Deborah said. “I never saw you as someone who’d hint round for a present. Here, take this ribbon. I’m going to need three lengths of forty inches each. How’s work, by the way? Is that why you’ve come? I expect you’re wanting Simon.”

“Peach will do. Where is she?”

“Walkies,” Deborah said. “Rather reluctant walkies because of the weather. Dad’s taken her, but I expect they’re battling it out somewhere to see who’s going to walk and who’s going to get carried. You didn’t see them?”

“Not a sign.”

“Peach has probably won, then. I expect they’ve gone into the pub.”

Lynley watched as Deborah coiled the lengths of ribbon together. She was concentrating on her design, which gave him a chance to concentrate on her, his onetime lover, the woman who’d been meant to be his wife. She’d found herself face-to-face with a killer recently, and she still hadn’t healed completely from the stitches that had patched up her face. A scar from the sutures ran along her jaw and, typical of Deborah-who’d always been a woman almost completely devoid of ordinary vanity-she was doing nothing to hide it.

She looked up and caught him observing her. “What?” she said.

“I love you,” he told her frankly. “Differently from before. But there it is.”

Her features softened. “And I love you, Tommy. We’ve crossed over, haven’t we? New territory but still somehow familiar.”

“That’s exactly how it is.”

They heard footsteps then, coming along the corridor, and the uneven nature of them identified Deborah’s husband. He came to the door of the dining room with a stack of large photographs in his hands. He said, “Tommy. Hullo. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“No Peach,” Deborah and Lynley said together, then laughed companionably.

“I knew that dog was good for something.” Simon St. James came to the table and laid the photographs down. “It wasn’t an easy choice,” he told his wife.

St. James was referring to the photographs which, as far as Lynley could see, were all of the same subject: a windmill in a landscape comprising field, trees, background hillsides, and foreground cottage tumbling to ruins. He said, “May I…,” and when Deborah nodded, he looked at the pictures more closely. The exposure, he saw, was slightly different in each, but what was remarkable about them all was the manner in which the photographer had managed to catch all the variations of light and dark while at the same time not losing the definition of a single subject.

“I’ve gone for the one where you’ve enhanced the moonlight on the windmill’s sails,” St. James told his wife.

“I thought that was the best one as well. Thank you, love. Always my best critic.” She completed her task with the bow and had Lynley assist with the Sellotape. When she was done, she stood back to admire her work, after which she took a sealed envelope from the sideboard and slipped it into place on the package. She handed it over to Lynley. “With our fondest wishes, Tommy,” she said. “Truly and completely.”

Lynley knew the journey Deborah had traveled in order to be able to say those words. Having a child of her own was something denied her.

“Thank you.” He found that his voice was rougher than usual. “Both of you.”

There was a moment of silence among them, which St. James broke by saying lightly, “A drink is in order, I think.”

Deborah said she would join them as soon as she’d sorted out the mess she’d made in the dining room. St. James led Lynley from there to his study, just along the corridor and overlooking the street. Lynley fetched his briefcase from the entry then, leaving the wrapped package in its place. When he joined his old friend, St. James was at the drinks cart beneath the window, a decanter in his hand.

“Sherry?” he said. “Whisky?”

“Have you gone through all the Lagavullin yet?”

“Too hard to come by. I’m pacing myself.”

“I’ll assist you.”

St. James poured them both a whisky and added a sherry for Deborah, which he left on the cart. He joined Lynley by the fireplace and eased himself into one of the two old leather chairs to one side of it, something of an awkward business for him, owing to the brace he’d worn for years on his left leg.

He said, “I picked up an Evening Standard this afternoon. It looks like a messy business, Tommy, if my reading between the lines is any good.”

“So you know why I’ve come.”

“Who’s working on the case with you?”

“The usual suspects. I’m after clearance to add to the team. Hillier will give it, reluctantly, but what choice has he? We’re going to need fifty officers, but we’ll be lucky to end up with thirty. Will you help?”

“You expect Hillier to give clearance for me?”

“I’ve a feeling he’ll greet you with open arms. We need your expertise, Simon. And the Press Bureau will be only too happy to have Hillier announcing to the media the inclusion of independent forensic scientist Simon Allcourt-St. James, formerly of the Metropolitan police, now an expert witness, university lecturer, public speaker, et cetera. Just the sort of thing to restore public confidence. But don’t let that pressure you.”

“What would you have me do? My crime-scene days are far and away gone. And God willing, you won’t have further crime scenes anyway.”