Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

Deborah moved restlessly on the ottoman. Out of the corner of his eye, Lynley saw St. James’ hand move to her shoulder.

“I realise why you’ve come to see me,” Lynley said at last.

“Good. Then—”

“And it’s one of those unfortunate quirks of fate, that you’ve walked into the middle of an investigation. You can, of course, telephone your solicitor if you’d prefer to have him here while you answer the question. Where, exactly, did Mrs. Spence come from?” It bent the truth only partially. Lynley gave a mental salute to his sergeant. He could live with that.

The question was whether Townley-Young could do also. They engaged in a silent skirmish of wills, their eyes locked in combat. Townley-Young fi nally blinked.

“Aspatria,” he said.

“In Cumbria?”

“Yes.”

“How did she come to work for you?”

“I advertised. She applied. She came to interview. I liked her. She’s got common sense, she’s independent, she’s fully capable of taking whatever action is necessary to protect my property.”

“And Mr. Sage?”

“What about him?”

“Where was he from?”

“Cornwall.” And before Lynley could press the point with a further question, “Via Bradford. That’s all I recall.”

“Thank you.” Lynley got to his feet.

Townley-Young did likewise. “As to the Hall…”

“I’ll be speaking to Mrs. Spence,” Lynley said. “But my suggestion is to follow the keys and to think about who might not want your daughter and her husband to move into the Hall.”

Townley-Young hesitated at the door to the residents’ lounge, his hand on the knob. He seemed to be studying it because he kept his head bent for a moment and his forehead was creased as if with thought. He said, “The wedding.”

“Sorry?”

“Sage died the night before my daughter’s wedding. He was to perform the ceremony. We none of us knew where to find him, and we had the devil of a time fi nding someone else.” He looked up. “Someone who doesn’t want Becky at the Hall could be someone who didn’t want her to marry in the fi rst place.”

“Why?”

“Jealousy. Revenge. Thwarted desire.”

“For?”

Townley-Young gazed back at the door, an act of seeing through it to the pub beyond. “For what Becky already has,” he said.

Brendan found Polly Yarkin in the pub. He went to the bar for his gin and bitters, bobbed his head in good evening to three farmers and two maintenance men from Fork Reservoir, and joined her at her table near the fi replace where she was toeing the bark from a piece of birch at her feet. He didn’t wait for an invitation to sit with her. Tonight, at least, he had an excuse.

She looked up as he decisively placed his glass on the table and lowered himself onto the three-legged stool. Her eyes moved from him to the far door that gave way to the residents’ lounge. She kept them fixed on it as she said, “Bren, you mustn’t sit here. You best go on home.”

She didn’t look well. Although she was sitting right next to the fire, she hadn’t removed either her coat or her scarf, and as he unbuttoned his jacket and slid his stool closer to hers, she seemed to draw her body inward protectively. She said, “Bren,” in a low, insistent voice, “mind what I say.”

Brendan cast a casual glance round the pub. His conversation with Colin Shepherd — and especially the parting remark he’d shot at the constable as he sauntered off — had given Brendan a surge of confidence he hadn’t experienced in months. He felt invulnerable to stares or gossip or even direct confrontation itself. “What have we got here, Polly? Day labourers, farmers, a few housewives, the local teen gang. I don’t care what they think. They’ll think what they want no matter what, won’t they?”

“It’s not just them, all right? Di’n’t you see his car?”

“Whose?”

“His. Mr. Townley-Young’s. He’s in there.” She gave a nod in the direction of the residents’ lounge, her eyes still averted. “With them.”

“With whom?”

“The London police. So be off with you before he comes out and—”

“And what? What?”

She replied with a shrug. He could see what she thought of him in the movement of her shoulders and the settling of her mouth. It was the very same thing that Rebecca thought. It was what they all thought: every man jack of them in the whole bloody village. They saw him under Townley-Young’s thumb, under everyone’s thumb. Like a cart horse in bridle and blinkers for life.

He took an irritated gulp of his drink. The liquor washed back in his throat too quickly, misdirected itself, and made him cough. He fished in his pocket for a handkerchief. His pipe, tobacco, and matches spilled onto the fl oor.

“God damn .” He snatched them back. He coughed and hacked. He could see Polly looking round the pub, smoothing her scarf, trying to achieve some distance by ignoring his plight. He found his handkerchief and pressed it to his mouth. He took a second, slower sip of the gin. It roared across his tongue and down his throat, leaving fire in its wake. But it warmed him this time, both to his topic and to the situation.

“I’m not afraid of my father-in-law,” he said tersely. “Despite what everyone thinks, I’m fully capable of standing my ground with him. I’m fully capable of a hell of a lot more than this lot round here gives me credit for.” He considered adding an if-they-only-knew innuendo to give his assertion an air of credibility. But Polly Yarkin was nobody’s fool. She’d question and probe and he’d end up revealing what he most wanted to keep to himself. So instead he said, “I have a right to be here. I have a right to sit wherever I please. I have a right to speak to whomever I like.”

“You’re acting the fool.”

“Besides, this is business.” He threw back more gin. It went down smoothly. He considered a trip to the bar for a second glass. He’d toss that down and perhaps have a third and bugger anyone who tried to stop him.

Polly was toying with a stack of beer mats, concentrating on them as if by that action she could continue to avoid an open acknowledgement of his presence. He wanted her to look at him. He wanted her to reach over and touch his arm. He was important in her life now and she didn’t even know it. But she would soon enough. He would make her see.

“I was out at Cotes Hall,” he said.

She didn’t reply.

“I came back on the footpath.”

She stirred on the stool as if to leave. One hand went to the back of her neck. Her fi ngers dug into its nape.

“I saw Constable Shepherd.”

Her movement ceased. Her eyelids seemed to tremble, as if she wanted to look at him but couldn’t allow herself even that much contact. “So?” she said.

“So you’d better watch where you’re stepping, all right?”

Contact at last. She met his gaze. But it wasn’t curiosity he read in her face. It wasn’t a need to possess information or obtain clarity. A slow, ugly flush was climbing her neck and spreading streaks of crimson up from her jaw.

He was disconcerted. She was supposed to ask what he meant by his statement, which was supposed to lead to a request for his advice, which he would be only too happy to give, which would lead to her gratitude. Gratitude would prompt her to establish a place for him in her life. Obtaining that would lead her to love. And if it wasn’t love exactly that she ended up feeling, desire would do.

Except that his statement wasn’t engendering anything close to that primary domino of curiosity that would topple the defences she’d kept raised against him from the instant he’d met her. She looked enraged.

“I’ve done nothing to her or to anyone,” she hissed. “I don’t know nothing about her, all right?”