Elizabeth George - A Great Deliverance

“I’ve the car just outside,” he said.

“Thank God,” Lady Helen declared. “Lead me to it this moment before my feet suffer irreparable damage from these ghastly shoes. They are fetching, aren’t they? But the agony I endure hobbling about in them simply beggars belief. I keep asking myself why I’m such a slave to fashion.” She airily dismissed the question as unanswerable. “I’m even willing to put up with five minutes of the most melancholy Tchaikovsky in your collection just to get off my feet.”

He smiled. “I’ll remember that, old duck.”

“Darling, I haven’t the slightest doubt of it.” She turned to Sergeant Havers, who had plodded wordlessly behind them since they had disembarked. “Sergeant, I need to pop into the ladies’ and undo the damage I did to my makeup by burying my face in that last pastry just before that dreadful tunnel. Will you take Gillian out to the car?”

Havers looked from Lady Helen to Lynley. “Of course,” she replied impassively.

Lady Helen watched the pair walk off before she spoke again. “I’m really not sure which one of them is the worse for wear, Tommy.”

“Thank you for last night,” he said in answer. “Was it awful for you?”

She took her eyes off the departing women. “Awful?” The terrible desolation in Jonah Clarence’s face; the sight of Gillian lying vacant-eyed, scarcely covered by a bloodied sheet, her wounds still seeping slow crimson where the self-inflicted damage was most severe; the blood on the floor and the walls of the bathroom and deep in the grout where it would never come clean; the smashed door and the brushes with bits of flesh still adhering to their horrifying metal bristles.

“I’m sorry for putting you through it,” Lynley said. “But you were the only one I could trust to manage it. I don’t know what I would have done had you not been at home when I phoned.”

“I’d only just got in. I have to admit that Jeffrey wasn’t at all pleased at the manner in which our evening ended.”

Lynley’s reaction played at the corners of his mouth and eyes, equal parts amusement and surprise. “Jeffrey Cusick? I thought you threw him over.”

She laughed lightly and took his arm. “I tried, darling Tommy. I did try. But Jeffrey is quite determined to prove that, whether I realise it or not, he and I are on the path to true love. So he was working on advancing us a bit further towards the journey’s end last night. It was romantic. Dinner in Windsor on the bank of the Thames. Champagne cocktails in the garden of the Old House. You would have been proud of me. I even remembered that Wren built it, so all these years of your seeing to my education haven’t been in vain.”

“But I hardly thought you’d be throwing it away on Jeffrey Cusick.”

“Not throwing it away at all. He’s a lovely man. Really. Besides, he was only too helpful in assisting me with my dressing.”

“I’ve no doubt of that,” Lynley remarked drily.

She laughed at his grim expression. “Not that way. Jeffrey would never take advantage. He’s far too…too…”

“Fish-like?”

“Spoken like the most petulant Oxonian, Tommy,” she declared. “But to be dreadfully honest, he is the teeniest bit like a cod. Well, what can one expect? I’ve never in my life known a Cambridge man to get caught in the throes of passion.”

“Was he wearing his Harrovian tie when I phoned?” Lynley asked. “For that matter, was he wearing anything? ”

“Tommy, how vicious! But, let me think.” She tapped her cheek thoughtfully. Her eyes twinkled up at him as she pretended to consider his question at some length. “No, I’m afraid we were both fully clothed when you phoned. And after that, well, there simply wasn’t time. We rushed desperately to my wardrobe and began looking for something that would do. What do you think? Is it a success?”

Lynley eyed the beautifully tailored black suit and matching accessories. “You look like a Quaker on the path to hell,” he said soberly. “Good Lord, Helen, is that really a Bible ?”

She laughed. “Doesn’t it just do ?” She examined the leather volume in her hand. “Actually, it’s a collection of John Donne, given to me by darling Grandfather on my seventeenth birthday. I may actually open it someday.”

“What would you have done if she had asked you to read a few verses to her to get her through the night?”

“I can sound positively biblical when I want to, Tommy. A few thees and thous , a few lays and begets and…What is it?” He had stiffened at her words. She felt the sudden rigidity in his arm.

Lynley was looking at his car parked outside the station doors. “Where’s her husband?”

She regarded him curiously. “I don’t know. He’s vanished. I went directly in to see Gillian, and later, when I came out of the bedroom, he’d gone. I spent the night there, of course, and he never returned.”

“How did Gillian react to that?”

“I’m…” Lady Helen considered how best to answer the question. “Tommy, I’m not even certain that she’s aware that he’s gone. This sounds a little strange, I’m sure, but I think he’s ceased to exist for her. She hasn’t mentioned his name to me.”

“Has she said anything?”

“Only that she left something for Bobby.”

“The message in the newspaper, no doubt.”

Lady Helen shook her head. “No. I have the distinct impression that it was something at the house.”

Lynley nodded pensively and asked a fi nal question. “How did you talk her into coming, Helen?”

“I didn’t. She’d already made up her mind, and I credit that to Sergeant Havers, Tommy, although from the way she’s been acting, I think she believes that I performed some sort of loaves and fishes in the Clarence fl at. Do speak to her, won’t you? She’s been positively monosyllabic since I rang her this morning, and I think she’s blaming herself for everything that’s happened.”

He sighed. “That sounds just like Havers. Christ, what I don’t need is one more thing to have to deal with in this bloody case.”

Lady Helen’s eyes widened fractionally. Rarely, if ever, did he give vent to anger. “Tommy,” she said hesitantly, “while you were in Keldale, did you happen to…Is it…” She didn’t want to speak of it. She wouldn’t speak of it.

He flashed her his crooked smile. “Sorry, old duck.” He dropped his arm round her shoulders and squeezed affectionately. “Did I mention how damnably good it is to have you here?”

He hadn’t said anything to her. He hadn’t so much as acknowledged her beyond a cursory nod. But then, why should he? Now that her little ladyship was there to save the day- just as she’d managed to do last night-there was no reason for them to communicate at all.

She might have known that Lynley would use one of his mistresses rather than someone from the Yard. Wasn’t that typical of him? An ego so enormous that he had to make certain his London women would jump to his bidding in spite of his catting about in the country. Wonder if her ladyship will still jump through hoops when she finds out about Stepha, Barbara thought. And just look at her with her perfect skin, perfect posture, perfect breed-ing-as if her ancestors spent the last two hundred years throwing out the rejects, leaving them on hillsides like unacceptable Spartan babies in order to arrive at the eugenic masterpiece that was Lady Helen Clyde. But not quite good enough to keep his lordship faithful, are we, sweetheart? Barbara smiled inwardly.

She observed Lynley from the rear seat. Had another big night with little Stepha, I’ll bet . Of course he had. Since he hadn’t had to worry about how much the woman howled, he probably banged happily away at her for hours on end. And now here was her precious ladyship to be serviced tonight. Well, he could handle it. He could rise to the challenge. Then he could move right on to give Gillian a treat. No doubt that anaemic little husband of hers would be only too happy to give the reins over to a real man.