For the Sake of Elena

by Elizabeth George

  “Sergeant,” Lynley said, when he saw how Gareth intended them to communicate, “you’re going to have to make notes from the screen.” He took off his coat and scarf and sat at the desk. Havers came to stand behind him, the hood of her coat thrown back, her pink cap removed, a notebook in her hand.

  Were you the father? Lynley typed.

  The boy looked long at the words before he replied with: Didn’t know she was pg. She never said. Told you already.

  “Not knowing she was pregnant doesn’t mean sod-all,” Havers remarked. “He can’t take us for fools.”

  “He doesn’t,” Lynley said. “I dare say he just takes himself for one, Sergeant.” He typed: You had sex with Elena, deliberately making it a statement, not a question.

  Gareth answered by hitting one of the number keys: 1.

  Once?

  Yes.

  When?

  The boy pushed away from the desk for a moment. He remained in his chair. He looked not at the computer screen but at the floor, his arms on his knees. Lynley typed the word September and touched the boy’s shoulder. Gareth glanced up, read it, dropped his head again. A hollow sound, akin to a stricken bellow, rose from his throat.

  Lynley typed: Tell me what happened, Gareth and touched the boy’s shoulder again.

  Gareth looked up. He had begun to cry, and as if this display of emotion angered him, he drew his arm savagely across his eyes. Lynley waited. The boy moved back to the desk.

  London, he typed. Just before term. I saw her for my birthday. She fucked me on the floor of the kitchen while her mum was out buying milk for tea. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YOU BLOODY STUPID BERK.

  “Great.” Havers sighed.

  Loved her, Gareth went on. I wanted us special. To be—he dropped his hands to his lap, stared at the screen.

  You thought the lovemaking meant more than Elena intended it to mean, Lynley typed. Is that what happened?

  Fucking, Gareth answered. Not lovemaking. Fucking.

  Is that what she called it?

  Thought we build something. Last year. I took real care. To make it last. Didn’t want to rush anything. Never even tried with her. Wanted it to be real.

  But it wasn’t?

  Thought it was. Because if you do that with a woman it means like a pledge. Like you say something you wouldn’t say to anyone else.

  Saying that you love each other?

  Want to be together. Want to have a future. I thought that’s why she did it with me.

  Did you know she was sleeping with someone else?

  Not then.

  When did you learn it?

  She came up this term. I thought we’d be together.

  As lovers?

  She didn’t want that. Laughed when I tried to talk to her about it. Said what’s matter with you Gareth it was only a fuck we did it it felt good that’s the end of it right why you getting so moon-eyed over it it’s not a big deal.

  But it was to you.

  Thought she loved me that’s why she wanted to do it with me didn’t know—He stopped. He looked sapped of energy.

  Lynley gave him a moment, glancing round the room. Over a hook on the back of the door hung his scarf, the distinctive blue of the University letterman. His boxing gloves—smooth, clean leather with a look of having been lovingly cared for—hung on a second hook beneath them. Lynley wondered how much of Gareth Randolph’s pain had been worked out against one of the punching bags in the small gymnasium on the upper floor of Fenners.

  He turned back to the computer. The argument you had with Elena on Sunday. Is that when she told you she was involved with someone else?

  I talked about us, he responded. But there was no us.

  That’s what she told you?

  How could there not be us. I said what about London.

  That’s when she told you it hadn’t meant anything?

  Just a poke for fun Gareth we were randy we did it don’t be such a twit and make it more than that.

  She was laughing at you. I can’t imagine you liked it.

  Kept trying to talk. How she acted London. What she felt London. But she wouldn’t listen. And then she told.

  That there was someone else?

  Didn’t believe her at first. I said she was scared. Said she was trying to be what her father wanted her to be. Said all sorts of things. Wasn’t even thinking. Wanted to hurt her.

  “That’s a telling remark,” Havers noted.

  “Perhaps,” Lynley said. “But it’s a fairly typical reaction to being hurt by someone you love: Measure still for measure.”

  “And when the first measure is murder?” Havers asked.

  “I haven’t discounted that, Sergeant.” He typed, What did you do when she’d convinced you there was another man?

  Gareth lifted his hands but did not type. In a nearby room, a vacuum began to thunder as the building’s bedder made her daily rounds, and Lynley felt the answering urgency of concluding this interview before they were disturbed by anyone. He typed again: What did you do?

  Hesitantly, Gareth touched the keys. Hung about at St. Stephen’s till she left. I wanted to know who.

  You followed her to Trinity Hall? You knew it was Dr. Troughton? When the boy nodded, Lynley typed: How long did you hang about there?

  Till she came out.

  At one?

  He nodded. He’d waited in the street for her to emerge, he told them. And when she’d come out, he’d confronted her again, furiously angry at her rejection of him, bitterly disappointed in the loss of his dreams. But most of all he was disgusted with her behaviour. For he thought he’d understood her intentions in involving herself with Victor Troughton. And he saw those intentions as an attempt to attach herself to a hearing world that would never fully accept or understand her. She was acting deaf. She wasn’t acting Deaf. They’d argued violently. He’d left her in the street.

  Never saw her again, he finished.

  “Doesn’t look good to me, sir,” Havers said.

  Where were you Monday morning? Lynley typed.

  When she was killed? Here. In bed.

  But no one, of course, could verify that. He had been alone. And it would not have been an impossibility for Gareth simply to have failed to return to Queens’ College that night, going instead to Crusoe’s Island to lie in wait for Elena Weaver and to put a permanent end to the dispute between them.

  “We need those boxing gloves, Inspector,” Havers said as she snapped her notebook closed. “He’s got motive. He’s got means. He’s got opportunity. He’s got a temper as well and the talent to channel it right through his fists.”

  Lynley had to admit that a blue in boxing could not be overlooked when the murder victim had been beaten before she was strangled.

  He typed, Did you know Georgina Higgins-Hart? And after Gareth nodded, Where were you yesterday morning? Between six and half past.

  Here. Asleep.

  Can someone verify that?

  He shook his head.

  We need your boxing gloves, Gareth. We need to give them to the forensic lab. Will you let us take them?

  The boy gave a slow howl. Didn’t kill her didn’t kill her didn’t didn’t didn’t didn’t did—

  Gently, Lynley moved the boy’s hands to one side. Do you know who did?

  Gareth shook his head once, but he kept his hands in his lap, balled into fists, as if they might betray him of their own volition should he raise them to the keyboard and allow them to type again.

  “He’s lying.” Havers paused in the doorway to drape Gareth’s boxing gloves round the strap of her shoulder bag. “Because if anyone ever had a motive to bag her, he’s the one, Inspector.”

  “I can’t disagree with that,” Lynley said.

  She pulled her cap firmly down over her forehead and drew up the hood of her coat. “But you can—and no doubt will—disagree with something else. I’ve heard that tone of yours before. What?”

  “I think he knows who killed her. Or thinks he knows.”


  “Of course he does. Because he did it himself. Directly after he pounded her face in with these.” She flipped the gloves in his direction. “What have we been looking for as a weapon all along? Something smooth? Have a feel of this leather. Something heavy? Imagine being on the receiving end of a boxer’s punch. Something capable of inflicting face-shattering damage? Look at a few post-prize-fight photos for the proof if you want it.”

  He couldn’t disagree. The boy had all the necessary requirements. Save one.

  “And the gun, Sergeant?”

  “What?”

  “The shotgun used on Georgina Higgins-Hart. What about that?”

  “You said yourself that the University probably has a gun club. To which, I have no doubt, Gareth Randolph belongs.”

  “So why follow her?”

  She frowned, jabbing the toe of her shoe against the icy stone floor.

  “Havers, I can understand why he would lie in wait at Crusoe’s Island for Elena Weaver. He was in love with her. She’d rejected him. She’d made it plain that their lovemaking was just a bit of sweaty frolic on her mother’s kitchen floor. She’d declared her attachment to another man. She’d teased and humiliated and made him feel a perfect fool. I agree with all that.”

  “So?”

  “What about Georgina?”

  “George…” Havers only stumbled over the thought for a moment before going on stoutly. “Perhaps it’s what we thought before. Symbolically killing Elena Weaver again and again by seeking out all the young women who resemble her.”

  “If that’s the case, why not go to her room, Havers? Why not kill her in the college? Why follow her all the way out past Madingley? And how did he follow her?”

  “How…”

  “Havers, he’s deaf.”

  That stopped her.

  Lynley pressed his advantage. “It’s the country, Havers. It was pitch dark out there. Even if he got a car and followed her at a distance until they were safely out of town and then drove beyond her to lie in wait in that field, wouldn’t he have had to hear something—her footfalls, her breathing, anything, Havers—in order to know exactly when to shoot? Are you going to argue that he went out there before dawn on Wednesday morning and blithely relied upon there being adequate starlight in this weather—which, frankly, would have been a fairly bad bet—to see a running girl well enough and soon enough to aim at her, discharge the weapon, and kill her? That’s not premeditated murder. That’s pure serendipity.”

  She lifted one of the boxing gloves with the palm of her hand. “So what’re we doing with these, Inspector?”

  “Making St. James work for his money this morning. As well as hedging our bets.”

  She pushed open the door with a weary grin. “I just love a man who keeps his options open.”

  They were heading towards the turreted passage and Queens’ Lane beyond it when a voice called out to them. They turned back into the court. A slender figure was coming along the path, the mist breaking before her like a curtain as she jogged in their direction.

  She was tall and fair, with long silky hair that was held back from her face by two tortoise shell combs. These glittered with damp in the light that shone from one of the buildings. Beads of moisture clung to her eyelashes and skin. She was wearing only an unmatched sweatsuit whose shirt, like Georgina’s, was emblazoned with the name of the college. She looked terribly cold.

  “I was in the dining hall,” she told them. “I saw you come for Gareth. You’re the police.”

  “And you’re…?”

  “Rosalyn Simpson.” Her eyes fell to the boxing gloves, and her brow furrowed in consternation. “You don’t think Gareth’s had anything to do with this?”

  Lynley said nothing. Havers crossed her arms. The girl continued.

  “I would have come to you sooner, but I was in Oxford until Tuesday evening. And then…Well, it gets a bit complicated.” She cast a glance in the direction of Gareth Randolph’s room.

  “You have some information?” Lynley asked.

  “I went to see Gareth at first. It was the DeaStu handout he’d printed, you see. I saw it when I got back, so it seemed logical to talk to him. I thought he’d pass the information on. Besides, there were other considerations at the time that…Oh, what does it matter now? I’m here. I’m telling you.”

  “What, exactly?”

  Like Sergeant Havers, Rosalyn too crossed her arms, although it seemed more in a need to keep warm than a desire to project implacability. She said, “I was running along the river Monday morning. I went by Crusoe’s Island round half past six. I think I saw the killer.”

  Glyn Weaver edged part way down the stairs, just far enough to hear the conversation between her former husband and his current wife. They were still in the morning room—although it had been some hours since breakfast—and their voices were just polite and formal enough to give a clear indication of the state of things between them. Cool, Glyn decided, frosting over into glacial. She smiled.

  “Terence Cuff wants to give some sort of eulogy,” Anthony was saying. He spoke without any evident feeling, the information given like a recitation. “I’ve talked to two of her supervisors. They’ll also speak, and Adam’s said he’d like to read a poem she was fond of.” There was a clink of china, a cup being placed carefully into a saucer. “We might not have the body back from the police before tomorrow, but the funeral parlour will have a coffin there all the same. No one will know the difference. And as everyone’s been told she’s to be buried in London, no one will be expecting an interment tomorrow.”

  “As to the funeral, Anthony. In London…” Justine’s voice was calm. Glyn felt her spine tingle when she heard that tone of cool determination.

  “There can’t be a change in the plans,” Anthony said. “Try to understand. I have no choice in the matter. I must respect Glyn’s wishes. It’s the least I can do.”

  “I’m your wife.”

  “As she was once. And Elena was our daughter.”

  “She was your wife for less than six years. Six miserable years, as I recall your telling me. More than fifteen years ago at that. While you and I—”

  “This situation has nothing to do with how long I was married to either of you, Justine.”

  “It has everything to do with it. It has to do with loyalty, with vows I made and promises I’ve kept. I’ve been faithful to you in every way, while she slept around like a whore and you know it. And now you say that respecting her wishes is the least you can do? Respecting hers over mine?”

  Anthony had begun to respond with, “If you still can’t see that there are times when the past—” when Glyn got to the doorway. She took only a moment to survey them before speaking. Anthony was sitting in one of the wicker chairs, unshaven, desiccated. Justine was at the bank of windows where the fog that shrouded the wide front garden pressed long streaks of moisture against the glass. She was dressed in a black suit and pearl grey blouse. A black leather briefcase leaned against her chair.

  Glyn said, “Perhaps you’d like to say the rest, Justine. Like mother, like daughter. Or don’t you have the nerve to carry your special brand of honesty to its logical conclusion?”

  Justine began to move towards her chair. She brushed a strand of blonde hair off her cheek. Glyn caught her arm, dug her fingers into the fine wool of her suit, and enjoyed a fleeting moment of delight when she saw Justine flinch.

  “I said why don’t you finish what you were saying?” she insisted. “Glyn put Elena through her paces, Anthony. Glyn turned your daughter into a little deaf whore. Elena gave a poke to anyone who wanted it, just like her mum.”

  “Glyn,” Anthony said.

  “Don’t try to defend her, all right? I was standing on the stairs. I heard what she said. My only child dead for just three days, myself struggling to make some kind of sense of it, and she can’t wait to tear into the both of us. And she chooses sex to do it. I find that most interesting.”

  “I won’t listen to this,” Justine said.


  Glyn tightened her grip. “Can’t you bear to hear the truth? You use sex as a weapon, and not merely against me.”

  Glyn felt Justine’s muscles go rigid. She knew that her dagger had hit the mark. She drove it in farther. “Reward him when he’s been a good little boy, punish him when he’s bad. Is that how it is? So. How long will he pay for keeping you from the funeral?”

  “You’re pathetic,” Justine said. “You can’t see beyond sex any more than—”

  “Elena?” Glyn dropped Justine’s arm. She looked at Anthony. “Ah. There it is.”

  Justine brushed at her sleeve as if to cleanse herself of the contact she’d had with her husband’s former wife. She picked up her briefcase.

  “I’m off,” she said calmly.

  Anthony stood, his eyes going from the briefcase to her, moving his gaze from her head to her feet as if he had only just become aware of the manner in which she had dressed for the day. “You can’t be intending—”

  “To go back to work just three days after Elena was murdered? To expose myself to public censure for having done so? Oh yes, Anthony, that’s exactly what I intend.”

  “No. Justine, people—”

  “Stop it. Please. I’m not at all like you.”

  For a moment, Anthony stared after her as she left the house, taking her coat from round the newel post on the stairway and closing the front door behind her. He watched her walk through the fog towards her grey Peugeot. Glyn kept her eyes on him warily, wondering if he would run out and try to stop her. But he seemed, if anything, too exhausted to care about changing anyone’s mind. He turned from the window and trudged towards the back of the house.

  She went to the table upon which the breakfast things still lay: bacon congealing in slim jackets of grease, egg yolks drying and splitting like yellow mud. A piece of toast still stood in the silver rack, and Glyn reached for it thoughtfully. Dry and abrasive beneath her fingers, it crumbled easily, leaving a shower of dust upon the clean parquet floor.

  From the back of the house, she could hear the metallic sound of file drawers sliding open. And over it, the high whine of Elena’s Irish setter, longing to be allowed into the house. Glyn walked to the kitchen from whose window she could see the dog sitting on the back step, his black nose pressed into the doorjamb, his feathery tail sweeping back and forth in innocent anticipation. He took a step backwards, looked up, and saw her watching him through the window. His tail picked up rhythm, he gave a joyful bark. She regarded him evenly—taking a small degree of pleasure in allowing his hopes to rise—before she turned and made her way to the rear of the house.