Elizabeth George - Payment in Blood

When the ferry docked, the lorry started up with a foul emission of smoke, and trundled down the Invergarry road. Arm in arm, the hikers passed him, laughing, a man and a woman who stopped to kiss, then to ponder the opposite shore of Skye. It was hung with clouds, dove grey turning to the lavish hues of sunset.

The drive north from London had given Lynley long hours in which to contemplate what he would say to Helen when he fi nally saw her. But as she stepped from the ferry, brushing her hair from her cheeks, words were lost to him. He wanted only to hold her in his arms and knew beyond a doubt that he did not have that right. Instead, he walked wordlessly at her side up the rise towards the hotel.

They went inside. The lounge was empty, its vast front windows offering a panorama of water and mountains and the sunset-shot clouds of the island. Lady Helen walked to these and stood before them, and although her posture-the slightly bent head, the small curved shoulders-spoke volumes of her desire for solitude, Lynley could not bring himself to leave her with so much left unsaid between them. He joined her and saw the shadows under her eyes, smudges of both sorrow and fatigue. Her arms were crossed in front of her, as if in the need of warmth or protection.

“Why on earth did he kill Gowan? More than anything else, Tommy, that seems so senseless to me.”

Lynley wondered why he had ever given a moment to thinking that Helen, of all people, would greet him with the score of recriminations that he had so steadfastly earned. He had been prepared to hear them, to admit to their truth. Somehow in the confusion of the last few days, he had forgotten the basic human decency that was the central core of Helen’s character. She would put Gowan before herself.

“At Westerbrae, David Sydeham claimed that he’d left his gloves at the reception desk,” he replied, watching her eyes lower thoughtfully, the lashes dark against her creamy skin. “He said he’d left them there when he and Joanna fi rst arrived.”

She nodded in comprehension. “But when Francesca Gerrard ran into Gowan and spilled all those liqueurs that night after the reading, Gowan had to clean the entire area. And he saw that David Sydeham’s gloves weren’t there at all, didn’t he? But he must not have remembered it at once.”

“Yes, I think that’s what happened. At any rate, once Gowan remembered, he would have realised what it meant. The single glove that Sergeant Havers found at the reception desk the next day-and the one that you found in the boot-could have got there only one way: through Sydeham’s putting them there himself, after he killed Joy. I think that’s what Gowan tried to tell me. Just before he died. That he hadn’t seen the gloves at the reception desk. But I…I thought he was talking about Rhys.”

Lynley saw her eyes close painfully upon the name, knew she hadn’t expected to hear it from him.

“How did Sydeham manage it?”

“He was still in the sitting room when Macaskin and the Westerbrae cook came to me and asked if everyone could be allowed out of the library. He slipped into the kitchen then and got the knife.”

“But with everyone in the house? Especially with the police?”

“They’d been packing up to leave. Everyone was wandering here and there. And besides, it was only the work of a minute or two. After that, he went up the back stairs and along to his room.”

Without thinking, Lynley raised his hand, grazed it gently along the length of her hair, following its curve to touch her shoulder. She did not move away from him. He felt his heart beat heavily against his chest.

“I’m so sorry about everything,” he said. “I had to see you to say at least that much, Helen.”

She didn’t look at him. It seemed as if the effort to do so was monumental, as if she found herself unequal to the task. When she spoke, her voice was low and her eyes were fixed on the distant ruin of Caisteal Maol as the sun struck its crumbling walls for the fi nal time that day.

“You were right, Tommy. You said I was trying to replay Simon to a different ending, and I discovered that I was. But it wasn’t a different ending after all, was it? I repeated myself admirably when it came down to it. The only thing missing from the wretched scenario was a hospital room for me to walk out of, leaving him lying there entirely alone.”

No acrimony underscored her tone. But Lynley didn’t need to hear it to know how each word carried its full weight of searing self-loathing. “No,” he said miserably.

“Yes. Rhys knew it was you on the telephone. Was that just two nights ago? It seems like forever. And when I rang off, he asked me if it was you. I said no, I said it was my father. But he knew . And he saw that you’d convinced me that he was the killer. I kept denying it, of course, denying everything. When he asked me if I’d told you he was with me, I even denied that as well. But he knew I was lying. And he saw that I’d chosen, just as he’d told me I’d choose.” She lifted a hand as if to touch her cheek, but again it seemed that it required too much effort. She dropped it to her side. “I didn’t even need to hear a cock crow three times. I knew what I’d done. To both of us.”

Whatever his own desires in coming to her here, Lynley knew he had to convince Lady Helen of his culpability in the sin she believed she had committed. He had to give her that much, if nothing else.

“It isn’t your fault, Helen. You wouldn’t have done any of that had I not forced you into it. What were you to think when I told you about Hannah Darrow? What were you to believe? Whom were you to believe?”

“That’s just it. I could have chosen Rhys in spite of what you said. I knew that then, I know it now. But instead, I chose you. When Rhys saw that, he left me. And who could blame him? Believing one’s lover is a murderer does rather irreparable damage to a relationship, after all.” She finally looked at him, turning, so near that he could smell the pure, fresh scent of her hair. “And until Hampstead, I did think Rhys was the killer.”

“Then why did you warn him off? Was it to punish me?”

“Warn him…? Is that what you thought? No. When he came over the wall, I saw at once it wasn’t Rhys. I…I’d grown to know Rhys’ body, you see. And that man was too big. So without thinking, I reacted. It was horror, I think, the realisation of what I’d done to him, the knowledge that I’d lost him.” Her head turned back to the window, but only for a moment. When she went on, her eyes once again sought his. “At Westerbrae, I’d come to see myself as his saviour, the fine, upright woman who was going to make him whole again after he’d been in ruins. I saw myself as his reason for never drinking again. So you see, you were really right at the heart of it, weren’t you? It was just like Simon after all.”

“No. Helen, I didn’t know what I was talking about. I was half-mad with jealousy.”

“You were right, all the same.”

As they spoke, shadows lengthened in the lounge, and the barman walked through, turning on lights, opening the bar at the far end of the room for its evening business. Voices drifted to them from the reception desk: a crucial decision to be reached about postcards, a good-humoured debate about the next day’s activities. Lynley listened, longing for that sweet normality of a holiday from home with someone he loved.

Lady Helen stirred. “I must change for dinner.” She began to move towards the lift.

“Why did you come here?” Lynley asked abruptly.

She paused but did not look at him. “I wanted to see Skye in the dead of winter. I needed to see what it was like to be here alone.”

He put his hand on her arm. Her warmth was like an infusion of life. “And have you seen enough of it? Alone, I mean.”