Believing the Lie

by Elizabeth George

  McGhie said to her, “What’s going on there?”

  She said to him, “I haven’t told you. Kaveh’s now sole owner of the farm.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Hardly. Ian left it to him. Or so he claims. I expect he’s telling the truth as it wouldn’t take a big effort to check out the paperwork.”

  “Everything’s being looked into, Mrs. McGhie,” Lynley said.

  “But you don’t think Kaveh killed Ian, do you?” Freddie McGhie asked.

  “No one killed him at all,” Manette said. “His death might have been opportune for someone, but it was an accident, Freddie. That entire boathouse ought to be pulled down before it collapses of its own accord. I’m surprised Mother wasn’t the one to fall, smash her head, and drown. She’s in there more often than Ian anyway.”

  McGhie said nothing, but his face altered, a subtle change in which his jaw lowered but his lips didn’t part. Something had struck him with his former wife’s words, something he was, perhaps, inclined to speak of if the prod was gentle enough.

  Lynley said, “Mr. McGhie?”

  McGhie’s hand was on the table, and his fingers curled till they made a light fist. He was watching Manette, but he was also deciding: what it would mean, Lynley reckoned, if he told what he knew.

  There was always tremendous value in silence. It acted upon people in much the same way that time alone in a police interview room acted. Tension was the great equaliser among men. Most couldn’t handle it, especially when they themselves could so easily defuse the ticking bomb it comprised. Lynley waited. Manette’s gaze met her former husband’s eyes. She read there, apparently, what she didn’t want to know because she said, “We don’t know what anything means, Freddie.”

  To which he replied, “True enough, old girl. But we can easily guess, can’t we?” And then without ceremony, he began to speak. She protested, but he made his position clear: If someone had set up the boathouse to hurt Ian Cresswell or, indeed, to hurt Manette’s own mother, then everything currently in the shadows had to come out.

  The way Freddie McGhie saw it, Bernard Fairclough had been running through money for a number of years. Payments to various clinics to turn Nicholas around, the wealth put into the Ireleth Hall gardens, the purchase of Arnside House at a high point in the property market, the renovation of that building to make it suitably habitable for Nicholas Fairclough and his bride, the folly built to house Mignon, her subsequent operations to allow her finally to shed the weight she’d been piling on since childhood, the follow-up surgery for the excess skin she then carted round …

  “Ian might have been writing the cheques, but he also would’ve been telling Bernard to stop, stop, stop,” was how McGhie put it. “Because some of this nonsense had been going on for years. There was no sense to it, as far as I can see. It was as if he couldn’t stop himself. Or he felt he had to for some reason. Had to lay out money, I mean.”

  “For years?” Lynley clarified.

  “Well, Nick’s been a problem for a very long time, and then there was— ”

  “Freddie. That’s enough.” Manette’s voice was sharp.

  Freddie said, “He’s got to know it all. I’m sorry, darling, but if Vivienne’s somehow at the bottom of this she’s got to be mentioned.”

  “Vivienne Tully?” Lynley said.

  “You know about her?”

  “I’m learning.”

  “D’you know where she is?” Manette asked. “Does Dad know?”

  “Well, he has to, hasn’t he?” McGhie said to her reasonably. “Unless Ian was paying her every month without your father’s knowledge. But why in God’s name would he do that?”

  “The obvious reason: because she knew about him, what he was hiding from Niamh and from everyone else. She held his feet to the fire. Blackmail, Freddie.”

  “Come on, old girl, you don’t believe that. There’s only one good reason for payouts to Vivienne Tully, and we both know what it probably is.”

  They’d almost forgotten he was in the room, Lynley realised, so intent were they upon believing whatever it was each of them wished to believe: about Ian Cresswell, about Vivienne Tully, about the money Cresswell had paid out left, right, and centre, either on behalf of Bernard Fairclough or without his knowledge.

  Aside from everyone else taking handouts from Bernard Fairclough’s funds, Freddie McGhie told Lynley that Vivienne Tully— a long-ago employee, as Lynley already knew— had been receiving monthly sums for years, despite not having been employed by Fairclough Industries during that time period. This money wouldn’t have anything to do with profit sharing or a pension scheme, Freddie added.

  “So the payout could mean any number of things,” he concluded. “A sexual harassment lawsuit Bernard was trying to avoid, an unlawful dismissal…” He glanced at his former wife as if for confirmation of this.

  “Or Dad didn’t know,” was what she said. “You’ve said yourself: Ian might have been cooking the books all along.”

  To Lynley, all of the information indicated a death that was no accident. What it still did not clarify, however, was who the intended victim had actually been.

  He thanked Manette and her former husband. He left them to what he reckoned was going to be a full discussion of the family situation. He could tell from Manette’s reaction to the information McGhie had been giving that she was not going to let these dogs lie.

  He was getting into the Healey Elliott, when his mobile rang. Havers, he thought. Clarity on its way. But he saw by the incoming number that it was Isabelle ringing.

  He said to her, “Hullo, you. This is a pleasant diversion.”

  She said, “I’m afraid we need to talk, Thomas.”

  Even if she hadn’t said Thomas, Isabelle’s tone would have told him this wasn’t the woman whose soft curves and warm body his hands knew and enjoyed. This was his guv, and she wasn’t pleased. On the other hand, she was stone-cold sober, and he could tell that as well.

  He said, “Of course. Where are you?”

  “Where you should be. I’m at work.”

  “As am I, Isabelle.”

  “After a fashion. But that’s not my point.”

  He waited for more. It was quick in coming.

  “Why is it Barbara Havers can be entrusted with information and I can’t? What d’you expect I’d have done with the knowledge? What could I have done? Marched into Hillier’s office crowing, ‘I know, I know, I bloody well know’?”

  “Barbara’s doing some digging for me, Isabelle. That’s all it is.”

  “You lied to me, didn’t you?”

  “About what?”

  “The entire need for secrecy. It can hardly be a hush-hush matter if Sergeant Havers is sledgehammering her way through it.”

  “Barbara knows no more than some names. There were matters I couldn’t deal with at my end, but I knew she could. She’s doing research.”

  “Oh, please. I’m hardly stupid, Tommy. I know how tight you are with Barbara. She’d gladly step into the iron maiden if you asked her. You say mum’s the word on this one, Barb, and she’d cut out her tongue. This has to do with Bob, hasn’t it?”

  Lynley was flummoxed. Bob? For a moment, he had no idea what she was talking about. Then she added, “Bob, his wife, the twins. You’re punishing me because unlike you I have entanglements and sometimes they get in our way.”

  “Are you talking about that night?” he asked. “When I turned up? When they were all there? Isabelle, good God. That happened and it’s done with. I carry no— ”

  “Grudge? No, you wouldn’t, would you? You’re far too well bred for that.”

  “Really, Isabelle darling, you’re upset about nothing. It’s everything that I said it was. Hillier wants this unknown at the Met and I’ve kept it that way.”

  “It’s about trust, you know. And I’m not just talking about this situation. I’m talking about the other as well. You could ruin me, Tommy. One word and I’m finished. Gone. It’s done. If you don’t
trust me, how can I trust you? God in heaven, what’ve I done to myself?”

  “What you’ve done is work yourself into a state over nothing. What do you expect I’d do to you?”

  “I step out of line, I don’t cooperate, I’m not quite the woman you think I should be…”

  “And what? I march into Hillier’s office and say I’ve been my guv’s lover on the sly for the past four months, six months, two years, whatever? Is that what you think?”

  “You could destroy me. I don’t have that equal power over you. You don’t need the job, you don’t even bloody want the job. We’re not equals in so many ways and this is the biggest one. Add to that the fact that there’s no trust now and what have we got?”

  “What do you mean that there’s no trust now? That’s ridiculous. It’s completely absurd.” And then the question, because he suddenly knew— was sure of it— that he’d been wrong at first about her condition. “Have you been drinking?”

  Silence. It was the worst thing to ask. He wished he could unsay it. But he couldn’t and her reply was soft.

  “Thank you, Tommy,” she said. She cut off the call. She left him looking out at Great Urswick’s pond and a family of swans peacefully afloat upon the placid water.

  LAKE WINDERMERE

  CUMBRIA

  After the detective left, Manette drove directly to Ireleth Hall. She parked on the drive and strode to the folly. She’d left with Freddie telling her that he’d had no choice but to speak, that if indeed Ian’s death was no accident, they had to get to the bottom of the matter. Anyway, he’d said, it was becoming clear that there were other matters they needed to get to the bottom of, also. Well and good, had been Manette’s reply. Getting to the bottom of things was exactly what she intended to do.

  Mignon was at home. When was Mignon not at home? But she was not alone as she usually was, so Manette was forced to sit through the last part of her sister’s thrice-weekly head-and-foot massage. This was administered by a grave Chinese man who drove out from Windermere for this purpose, which was an hour on the head and an hour on the feet. Which, of course, their father would pay for.

  Mignon was in a reclining chair, eyes closed, as her feet were seen to: pressure, massage, whatever the hell else it all was. Manette didn’t know and she hardly cared. But she understood her twin well enough to throw herself into a seat and wait because this was the only way she was going to be able to garner her sister’s cooperation. Interrupt her pleasure and there would be hell to pay.

  It all took a tedious half hour. Occasionally, Mignon murmured, “So lovely,” or “Yes,” or “A bit more pressure to the left, darling.” The solemn Chinese man obliged as instructed. Manette wondered what he’d do if her sister asked him to suck on her toes.

  At the end, the masseur gently wrapped Mignon’s feet in a warm towel. She moaned and said, “So soon? It seemed like five minutes.” Slowly, she opened her eyes and cast a radiant smile upon the man. “You are a miracle incarnate, Mr. Zhao,” she murmured. “You know where to send the bill, of course.”

  Of course, Manette thought.

  Mr. Zhao nodded and packed up his things. Oils and unguents and whatevers. Then he was gone, as silent as an embarrassing thought.

  Mignon stretched in her chair. Arms raised high over her head, toes pointed, all of it like a luxuriating cat. Then she unwrapped her feet, got up, and strolled to the window, where she stretched a bit more. She bent to touch her toes, and she worked her body to loosen her waist and her hips. Manette half expected her to start doing jumping jacks. Anything to rub in the obvious joke that Mignon was continuing to play on their parents.

  “I don’t know how the hell you live with yourself,” Manette said.

  “It’s one eternal circle of excruciating pain,” Mignon told her, casting a sly look in her direction. If one could project gleeful misery, Manette decided, that would come close to describing her sister’s expression. “You cannot possibly know what I suffer.” She strolled from the sitting room into the area set up to house her computer, careful to take her zimmer along should either of their parents make an unexpected call upon her. She tapped a few keys and spent a few moments reading something that was likely an e-mail message. She said, “Oh dear. This one’s becoming something of a bore. We’ve got to the great-impossibility-of-our-love-darling stage, and when they get there, all the anguish and teeth gnashing put such a bloody damper on things.” She sighed. “I did have such hopes for him. He seemed good for a year’s go, at least, especially once he started with the genitalia photos. But what can I say? When they fall, they do fall so hard.” She punched a few keys and murmured, “Bye-bye, darling. Alas, alack, and all the rest. Love springs eternal. Whatever.”

  “I want to talk to you,” Manette said to her twin.

  “I did conclude that, Manette, mere casual calls upon your siblings not being exactly your style. At least casual calls upon this sibling. That troubles me, you know. We used to be so close, you and I.”

  “Odd,” Manette said, “I don’t recall that part of our history.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t, would you? Once Freddie came into the picture, it was all about him and how you intended to snare the poor man. He was second-best, of course, but he didn’t know that. Unless, of course, you moaned the wrong name at an inopportune moment. Did you, by the way? Is that how it ended between you and Freddie?”

  Manette refused to bite. She said, “Dad’s haemorrhaging money. I know about the increased payments to you. We must talk about that.”

  “Ah, the economy,” Mignon said piously. “Always such a fragile thing, isn’t it?”

  “Let’s not play games. What’s happening to the business and to Dad has nothing to do with a sudden and surprising decline in the need for lavatories, basins, and tubs since the beauty of that business is simple enough: There’s always a need. But you might want to know that Freddie’s been dealing with the books since Ian’s death. These payouts to you must stop.”

  “Must they? Why? Worried I’ll run through all the money? Till there’s nothing left for you?”

  “I think I’ve made myself clear: I know Dad’s increased his payments to you, Mignon. It’s right there in the books. It’s ridiculous. You don’t need the money. You’re entirely taken care of. You’ve got to cut him loose.”

  “And are you having this same conversation with Nick, beloved apple of our father’s eye for his entire wasteland of a life?”

  “Oh, stop it. You weren’t the son Dad wanted and neither was I. Is that always going to be at the centre of your thoughts? Your entire existence on earth defined straight into eternity by Daddy-didn’t-love-me-enough? You’ve been jealous of Nick since the day he was born.”

  “While you haven’t a jealous bone in your body?” Mignon returned to the sitting room, making her way past the boxes and the crates and the endless array of items she’d seen and fancied and bought online. “At least I know what to do with my ‘jealousy,’ as you call it.”

  “Referring to what?” Manette saw the trap too late.

  Mignon smiled, the successful black widow awaiting her mate. “To Ian, of course. You always wanted Ian. Everyone knew it. Everyone tut-tutted behind your back for years. You took Freddie as second-best, and everyone knew that as well, poor Freddie included. That man’s a saint. Or something.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “Which part? The saint? The something? The wanting Ian or the Freddie knowing? It can’t be the wanting-Ian part of things, Manette. Lord, it must have slain you in your trainers when Niamh came along. I expect you think even now that Niamh, being the piece of work she is, drove Ian to try it on with men instead.”

  “If you think back carefully,” Manette said calmly, although she was burning, “you’ll come up with a small problem in your scenario.”

  “Which is?”

  “That I was married to Freddie when Ian chose Niamh. Now, that doesn’t quite make things fit, does it?”

  “Details,” Mignon said. “Utterly
insignificant. You didn’t want to marry Ian, anyway. You just wanted to… well, you know. Some poking and thrusting on the sly.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “Whatever you say.” She yawned. “Are we finished here? I’d like to have a lie-down. Massages take it out of one, don’t they? So if there’s nothing else…”

  “Stop this nonsense with Dad. I swear to you, Mignon, if you don’t— ”

  “Please. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m taking what I’m owed. Everyone’s doing that. I can’t think why you aren’t.”

  “Everyone? Like Vivienne Tully, for example?”

  Mignon’s face became shuttered, but only for the instant it took her to come up with a nonchalant reply. “You’ll have to ask Dad about Vivver.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “What I know isn’t important. It’s what Ian knew, darling. And it’s like I said: People take what they’re owed at the end of the day. Ian knew this better than anyone. He probably took some of the dosh himself. I wouldn’t be surprised. It would have been child’s play. He held the purse strings, after all. How difficult would it have been for him to do some skimming, only to have Dad find out about it? Get into that kind of chicanery and you’re not going to be able to do it forever. Someone’s going to get wise. Someone’s going to stop you.”

  “That sounds like a cautionary tale you ought to heed yourself,” Manette told her sister.

  Mignon smiled. “Oh, I’m the exception to every rule there is,” was her airy reply.

  LAKE WINDERMERE

  CUMBRIA

  There was at least some truth in what Mignon had said. Manette had loved Ian once romantically, but it had been a young adolescent’s love, insubstantial and unsustainable albeit as obvious as the longing looks she’d cast in his direction over family dinners and the desperate letters she’d written and pressed into his hand at the end of holidays when he left for school.