Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

“Baritone, yes. Does he want you out of the fl at?”

“‘Your grandmother intended it for the family, and as you’re part of the family, we can’t accuse you or ourselves of ignoring her wishes. Nonetheless, when your mother and I reflect upon the manner in which you spend your time,’ and all the etceteras at which he so excels. I hate it when he blackmails me about the fl at.”

“You mean ‘Tell me how uselessly you’ve been spending your days, Helen darling’?” Lynley asked.

“That’s just exactly it.” She went to the coffee table and began folding the newspaper and stacking the dishes. “And it all came about because Caroline wasn’t here to cook his breakfast. She’s back in Cornwall — she’s defi nitely decided to return and isn’t that the decade’s best news, the blame for which, frankly, I lay directly on Denton’s doorstep, Tommy. And because Cybele is such a model of connubial bliss, and because Iris is as happy as a pig in the muck with Montana, cattle, and her cowboy. But mostly it was because his egg wasn’t boiled the way he wanted it and I burnt his toast — well, heavens, how was I supposed to know one had to hang over the toaster like a woman in love? — and that set him off. He’s always been as prickly as a hedgehog in the morning anyway.”

Lynley weeded through the information for the one point on which he had at least a degree of expertise. He couldn’t comment on the marital choices that two of Helen’s sisters had made — Cybele to an Italian industrialist and Iris to a rancher in the United States — but he felt conversant with at least one area of her life. For the past several years, Caroline had acted the role of maid, companion, housekeeper, cook, dresser, and general angel of mercy for Helen. But she was Cornwall born and Cornwall bred and he’d known London would wear uneasily upon her in the long run. “You couldn’t have hoped to hold on to Caroline forever,” he noted. “Her family’s at Howenstow, after all.”

“I could have done if Denton hadn’t seen fi t to break her heart every month or so. I don’t understand why you can’t do something about your own valet. He’s simply unconscionable when it comes to women.”

Lynley followed her into the kitchen. They set the dishes on the work top, and Helen went to the refrigerator. She brought out a carton of lemon yogurt and prised it open with the end of a spoon.

“I was going to ask you to lunch,” he said hastily as she dipped into it and leaned against the work top.

“Were you? Thank you, darling. I couldn’t possibly. I’m afraid I’m too occupied with trying to decide how to make something of my life in a fashion both Daddy and I can live with.” She knelt and rooted through the refrigerator a second time, bringing forth three more cartons. “Strawberry, banana, another lemon,” she said. “Which would you like?”

“None of them, actually. I had visions of smoked salmon followed by veal. Champagne cocktails fore, claret with, brandy aft.”

“Banana, then,” Helen decided for him and handed him the carton and a spoon. “It’s just the very thing. Quite refreshing. You’ll see. I’ll make some fresh coffee.”

Lynley examined the yogurt with a grimace. “Can I actually eat this without feeling like little Miss Muffet?” He wandered to a circular table of birch and glass that fitted neatly into an alcove in the kitchen. At least three days of post lay unopened upon it, along with two fashion magazines with corners turned down to mark pages of interest. He fl ipped through these as Helen poured coffee beans into a grinder and set it to roar. Her choice of reading material was intriguing. She’d been investigating bridal gowns and weddings. Satin versus silk versus linen versus cotton. Flowers in the hair versus hats versus veils. Receptions and breakfasts. The registry offi ce versus the church.

He glanced up to see that she was watching him. She spun away and dealt with the ground coffee intently. But he had seen the momentary confusion in her eyes — when on earth had Helen ever been nonplussed about anything? — and he wondered how much, if any, of her current interest in weddings had to do with him and how much of it had to do with her father’s criticism. She seemed to read his mind.

“He always goes on about Cybele,” she said, “which puts him into a state about me. There she is: mother of four, wife of one, the grande dame of Milano, patroness of the arts, on the board of the opera, the head of the museum of modern art, chairwoman of every committee known to mankind. And she speaks Italian like a native. What a wretched sort of oldest sister she is. She could at least have had the decency to be miserable. Or to be married to a lout. But no, Carlo adores her, worships her, calls her his fragile little English rose.” Helen slammed the glass carafe under the spout of the coffee maker. “Cybele’s as fragile as a horse and he knows it.”

She opened a cupboard and began pulling out an assortment of tins, jars, and cartons, which she carried to the table. Cheese biscuits took up position on a plate with a wedge of brie. Olives and sweet pickles went into a bowl. To these, she added a splash of cocktail onions.

She finished off the array with a hunk of salami and a cutting board.

“Lunch,” she said and sat down opposite him as the coffee brewed.

“Eclectic gastronomy,” he noted. “What could I have been thinking of, suggesting smoked salmon and veal?”

Lady Helen cut herself some brie and smoothed it onto a biscuit. “He sees no need for me to have a career — honestly, what a Victorian Daddy is — but he thinks I ought to be doing something useful.”

“You are.” Lynley tucked into his banana yogurt and tried to think of it as something one could chew rather than simply gum and swallow. “What about everything you do for Simon when he gets swamped?”

“That’s a particularly sore spot with Daddy. What on earth is one of his daughters doing dusting and photographing latent fi ngerprints, placing hairs on microscope slides, typing up reports about decomposing flesh? My God, is this the sort of life he expected the fruit of his loins to be living? Is this what he sent me to finishing school for? To spend the rest of my days — intermittently, of course, I don’t pretend to be doing anything far removed from frivolity on a regular basis — in a laboratory? If I were a man, at least I could fritter away my time at the club. He’d approve of that. It’s what he spent most of his youth doing, after all.”

Lynley raised an eyebrow. “I seem to recall your father chairing three or four rather successful investment corporations. I seem to recall that he still chairs one.”

“Oh, don’t remind me. He spent the morning doing so, when he wasn’t listing the charitable organisations to which I ought to be giving my time. Really, Tommy, sometimes I think he and his attitudes stepped right out of a Jane Austen novel.”

Lynley fingered the magazine he’d been looking through. “There are, of course, other ways to appease him, aside from giving your time to charity. Not that he needs to be appeased, of course, but supposing you wish to. You might, for instance, give your time to something else he considered worthwhile.”

“Naturally. There’s fund raising for medical research, home visits to the elderly, working on one hot line or another. I know I ought to do something with myself. And I keep intending to, but things just get in the way.”

“I wasn’t talking about becoming a volunteer.”

She paused in the act of slicing herself a piece of salami. She placed the knife down, wiped her fingers on a peach linen napkin, and didn’t respond.

“Think how many birds the single stone of marriage would kill, Helen. This flat could go back to the use of your whole family.”