Elizabeth George - A Great Deliverance

And weren’t they both handling the little bitch with kid gloves! One couldn’t really blame her ladyship for that approach. She didn’t have all the facts on Gillian Teys. But what was Lynley’s excuse? Since when did an accessory to murder get the red carpet treatment from CID?

“You’re going to find Roberta very much changed, Gillian,” he was saying.

Barbara listened to the words with incredulity. What was he doing? What was he talking about? Was he actually preparing her to see her sister when both of them knew damn well she’d seen her only three weeks ago when they’d killed William Teys?

“I understand,” Gillian responded in a very small, nearly inaudible voice.

“She’s been placed in the asylum as a temporary measure,” Lynley continued gently. “It’s a question of mental competence arising out of her admission to the crime and her unwillingness to speak.”

“How did she…Who…?” Gillian hesitated, then gave up the effort. She seemed to shrink into her seat.

“Your cousin Richard Gibson had her committed.”

“Richard?” Her voice grew even smaller.

“Yes.”

“I see.”

No one spoke. Barbara waited impatiently for Lynley to begin questioning the woman, and she couldn’t understand his obvious reluctance to do so. What was he doing? He was making the kind of solicitous conversation that one generally made with the victim of a crime, not with its perpetrator!

Furtively, Barbara examined Gillian. Good God, she was manipulative, right to the bitter end. A few minutes in the bathroom last night and she had the whole lot of them right where she wanted. How long had she been trotting out that little routine?

Her eyes moved back to Lynley. Why had he brought her back on the case today? There could be only one reason, really: to put her in her place once and for all, to humiliate her with the knowledge that even an amateur like her sweet ladyship had more expertise than Havers the pig. And then to condemn her, forever, to the street.

Well, the message was received, Inspector. Now all she longed for was a return to London and to uniform, leaving Lynley and his lady to sweep up the shards of the mess she had made.

She’d worn her hair in two long, blonde braids. That’s why she looked so young that first night in Testament House. She spoke to no one, instead taking a quiet measure of the group, deciding whether they were worthy of her trust. The decision once made, she said only her name: Helen Graham, Nell Graham.

But hadn’t he known from the fi rst that it wasn’t really her name? Perhaps the slight hesitation before her response when someone addressed her had betrayed her. Perhaps it was the wistful look in her eyes when she said it herself. Perhaps it was her tears when he fi rst entered her body and whispered Nell in the darkness. At any rate, hadn’t he always known-somewhere in his heart-that it wasn’t her name?

What had drawn him to her? At first, it was the childlike innocence with which she embraced the life at Testament House. She was so eager to learn, and then so passionately involved in the purpose of the community. After that it was her purity he so admired, the purity which allowed her to lead a new life, unaffected by personal animosities in a world where she had simply decided that such ugliness would never exist. Then it was her devotion to God-not the breast-beating, ostentatious piety of the religious reborn but a calm acceptance of a power greater than her own-that touched him. And last, it was her steadfast faith in his ability to do anything, her words of encouragement when he felt despair, her abiding love when he needed it most.

As I do now, Jonah Clarence thought.

In the last twelve hours he had looked deeply, unforgivingly, at his own behaviour and had come to see it for what it was: unremitting cowardice. He had left wife and home, running to an unknown destination, fl eeing so that he wouldn’t have to face what he was afraid to know. Yet what was there to fear when Nell-whoever she was-could be nothing more nor less than the lovely creature who stood by his side, who listened, rapt, to his words, who held him in her arms at night? There could be no dark monster in her past for him to dread. There could be only what she was and always had been.

This was the truth. He knew it. He could feel it. He believed it. And when the door to the mental hospital opened, he stood up quickly and strode across the central hall to meet his wife.

Lynley felt, rather than saw, the hesitation in Gillian’s footsteps as they entered the hospital. At first he attributed it to her understandable trepidation about seeing her sister after so many years. But then he saw that her gaze was fixed on a young man who came across the lobby in their direction. Curious, Lynley turned to Gillian to speak, only to see on her face an expression of unmitigated dread.

“Jonah,” she gasped, taking a step backwards.

“I’m sorry.” Jonah Clarence reached out as if to touch her but stopped. “Forgive me. I’m sorry, Nell.” His eyes were burnt out, as if he hadn’t slept in days.

“You mustn’t call me that. Not any longer.”

He ignored her words. “I spent the night sitting on a bench in King’s Cross, trying to sort it all out, trying to decide if you could love a man who was too much of a coward to stay with his wife when she needed him most.”

She reached out, touched his arm. “Oh, Jonah,” she said. “Please. Go back to London.”

“Don’t ask that of me. It would be too easy.”

“ Please . I beg you. For me.”

“Not without you. I won’t do that. Whatever you feel you must do here, I’ll be here as well.” He looked at Lynley. “May I stay with my wife?”

“It’s up to Gillian,” Lynley replied and noticed the manner in which the young man involuntarily recoiled at the name.

“If you want to stay, Jonah,” she whispered.

He smiled at her, touched her cheek lightly, and looked up from her face only when the sound of voices from the transverse passage signalled Dr. Samuels’s approach. The man carried a stack of file folders which he handed to a female colleague before swiftly crossing towards them.

He eyed the entire group, unsmiling. If he was grateful for the appearance of Roberta Teys’s sister and the possibility of progress that her presence implied, he gave no indication.

“Inspector,” he said by way of greeting. “Is a group this large absolutely necessary?”

“It is,” Lynley responded evenly and hoped the man had the good sense to take a close look at Gillian’s condition before he raised a storm of protest and threw them all out.

A pulse beat in the psychiatrist’s temple. It was obvious that he was unused to anything short of fawning courtesy and that he was caught between a desire to put Lynley summarily in his place and a wish to carry on with the planned meeting between the two sisters. His concern for Roberta won out.

“This is the sister?” Without waiting for an answer, he took Gillian’s arm and devoted his attention to her as they started down the passageway towards the locked ward. “I’ve told Roberta that you’re coming to see her,” he said quietly, his head bent to hers, “but you must prepare yourself for the fact that she may not respond to you. She probably won’t, in fact.”

“Has she…” Gillian hesitated, seemed unsure how to proceed. “Has she still said nothing?”

“Nothing at all. But these are the very early stages of therapy, Miss Teys, and-”

“Mrs. Clarence,” Jonah interjected fi rmly.

The psychiatrist stopped, swept his eyes over Jonah Clarence. A spark shot between them, suspicion and dislike.

“Mrs. Clarence,” Samuels corrected himself, his eyes steadily on her husband. “As I was saying, Mrs. Clarence, these are the earliest stages of therapy. We’ve no reason to doubt that your sister will someday make a full recovery.”