Believing the Lie

by Elizabeth George

Realising the direction St. James had been heading, Lynley said, “So you see, there are several possibilities that want exploring.” He gave her a moment to think about this before going on with, “You weren’t at the boathouse at all, were you? You weren’t the one to find the body and you weren’t the one to call nine-nine-nine.”

  “I believe I gave my name when I phoned.” Valerie spoke stiffly, but she wasn’t stupid. She would know that at least this part of the game was over.

  “Anyone can give any name,” St. James said.

  “Perhaps it’s time you told the truth,” Lynley added. “It’s about your daughter, isn’t it? I daresay Mignon found the body, and Mignon placed the call. From the folly, she can see the boathouse. If she goes upstairs to the top floor of the tower, I should guess she can see everything from the door of the building to the boats leaving it to go out on the lake. The real question, then, is whether she had a reason to arrange Ian Cresswell’s death as well. Because she would have known he was out there on the lake that evening, wouldn’t she?”

  Valerie raised her eyes to the sky. St. James was reminded unaccountably of a suffering Madonna and what motherhood brought and did not bring to a woman brave enough to engage in everything that it comprised. It never ended with the child’s entry into adulthood. It went on till death, either the mother’s or the child’s. Valerie said, “None of them…” She faltered. She looked at both of them, St. James and Lynley, before she spoke again. “My children are innocent in all matters.”

  St. James said, “We found a filleting knife in the water.” He showed her the knife he’d used on the stones. “Not this one, of course, but one very similar.”

  “That would be the one I lost a few weeks ago,” she said. “An accident, actually. I was cleaning a good-size trout, but I dropped the knife and it slid into the water.”

  “Indeed?” Lynley said.

  “Indeed,” she replied. “Clumsy of me but there you have it.”

  Lynley and St. James glanced at each other. What they had, actually, was a lie, since the workbench for cleaning fish was on the other side of the boathouse from the spot where the filleting knife had fallen into the water. Unless St. James was very much mistaken about the nature of the tool, the knife would have had to swim in order to end up lying beneath Ian Cresswell’s scull.

  KENSINGTON

  LONDON

  In person Vivienne Tully looked exactly like the photographs Barbara had seen of her on the Internet. They were of an age— she and Vivienne— but they couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Vivienne, Barbara reckoned, was exactly what acting Detective Superintendent Ardery would have her become: svelte of body, sveltely clothed with all the suitable accessories, and ultra-sveltely put together when it came to hair and makeup. Indeed, if there were degrees of svelte— and Barbara reckoned there were— then Vivienne Tully had somehow managed to claw her way to the top level. On principle alone, Barbara hated her on sight.

  She’d made the decision to turn up at Rutland Gate as who she was and not as who she had earlier pretended to be: someone in search of a piece of pricey Kensington property. She rang the bell for flat 6, and without asking who’d come calling upon her, Vivienne Tully— or whoever was inside her flat— had released the door’s lock. At that, Barbara reckoned she was expecting someone. Very few people were foolish enough to allow callers into their buildings without giving them a proper grilling. People ended up burgled that way. People also ended up dead.

  It turned out that the expected visitor was an estate agent. Barbara learned this within three seconds of Vivienne Tully’s giving her a once-over. Head to toe and a look of this-can’t-possibly-be, and Vivienne was saying, “You’re from Foxtons?” Barbara might have taken offence at this, but she wasn’t there for a beauty contest. She also wasn’t there to seize the moment and run with it since there was no way on earth that Vivienne Tully was going to believe an estate agent hot to sell her property would show up at her door wearing high-top red trainers, orange corduroys, and a navy donkey jacket.

  So she said, “DS Havers, New Scotland Yard. I need a word.”

  Vivienne didn’t exactly fall back in shock, which Barbara found worthy of note. She said, “Come in. I don’t have a great deal of time, I’m afraid. I’ve an appointment.”

  “With Foxtons. Got it. Selling up, are you?” Barbara looked round as Vivienne closed the door behind them. It was a gorgeous flat by anyone’s standards: high ceilings, elaborate crown mouldings, hardwood floors covered by Persian carpets, a few tasteful antiques, a marble fireplace surround. It would have cost buckets in the first place and it would take barrels to purchase it now. The odd thing was, however, that there was nothing of a personal nature anywhere. One could call a few pieces of carefully chosen German porcelain personal, Barbara supposed, but the collection of antique books on a bookshelf didn’t exactly look like something one browsed through on rainy days.

  “I’m moving to New Zealand,” Vivienne said. “Time to go home.”

  “Born there?” Barbara asked, although she already knew the answer. The other woman had no evident accent; she’d be able to lie if she wished.

  She didn’t. “In Wellington,” she said. “My parents are there. They’re getting older and they’d like me back in the area.”

  “Been in the UK a while, then?”

  “May I ask what this call is about, Sergeant Havers? How may I help you?”

  “By telling me about your relationship with Bernard Fairclough. That’d be a start.”

  Vivienne’s expression remained preternaturally pleasant. “I don’t think that’s any of your business. Exactly what is this about?”

  “The death of Ian Cresswell. It’s being investigated. I expect you knew him since you worked for Fairclough Industries for a time and so did he.”

  “Then wouldn’t the logical question be what my relationship with Ian Cresswell was?”

  “I reckoned we’d get to that next. Right now it’s the Fairclough angle of things that interests me.” Barbara looked round the room with an appreciative nod. She said, “Very nice digs. Mind if I park myself somewhere?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she went to an armchair, dumped her shoulder bag next to it, and sank down into its comfortable depths. She ran a hand along the fine upholstery. Bloody hell, is this silk? she wondered. Obviously, Vivienne Tully didn’t do her shopping at IKEA.

  Vivienne said, “I think I told you I’m expecting— ”

  “Someone from Foxtons. Got it. I’m good that way. Memory like the proverbial elephant if you know what I mean. Or is it the metaphorical elephant? I never know which. Well, never mind. You’d probably like things better if I scarpered before Foxtons shows up, eh?”

  Vivienne wasn’t a fool. She knew it was going to be information in exchange for Barbara’s departure. She went to a small sofa and sat. She said, “I worked for a time for Fairclough Industries, as you’ve noted. I was Bernard Fairclough’s executive assistant. It was my first job straight after the London School of Economics. After several years, I went on to other employment.”

  “Your type generally move round in the employment game,” Barbara acknowledged. “I get that. But in your case, it was Fairclough Industries, a spate of private consulting, and then this current gig you have with the gardening concern and there you’ve stayed.”

  “What of it? I wanted more job security than private consultancy offers, and once I went to Precision Gardening, I had it. I climbed the ladder there, the right person in the right place during a period of time when it was important to demonstrate equity in employment between men and women. I hardly started as managing director, Sergeant.”

  “But you didn’t cut your ties with Fairclough.”

  “I don’t burn bridges. I find it wise to maintain contacts. Bernard asked me to serve on the board of the Fairclough Foundation. I was happy to do so.”

  “How’d that come about?”

  “What do you mean? Are you looking for something sinister? He asked me a
nd I said yes. I believe in the cause.”

  “And he asked you because…”

  “I assume he thought my work for him in Barrow was competent and reflective of a willingness to be useful in other ways as well. When I left Fairclough Industries— ”

  “Why?”

  “Why did I leave?”

  “Seems to me you could’ve climbed the career ladder there as well as anywhere else.”

  “Have you spent much time in Barrow, Sergeant Havers? No? Well, it didn’t appeal. I had the opportunity to come to London and I took it. That’s what people do. I had the kind of offer of employment that might have taken years to get in Barrow, even if I’d wanted to stay there, which, believe me, I did not.”

  “And here you are, then, in Lord Fairclough’s flat.”

  Vivienne altered her position slightly, her posture— which had seemed perfect in the first place— managing to become even more so. “Whatever you’re thinking, you’re misinformed.”

  “Fairclough doesn’t own this flat? Why’s he got his own key, then? I reckoned he was showing up to check you weren’t rubbishing the place. Doing the landlord bit, if you know what I mean.”

  “What does any of this have to do with Ian Cresswell, the ostensible reason for your call?”

  “Not sure yet,” Barbara said cheerfully. “Want to explain the situation with the keys? Especially since Fairclough doesn’t, as I’d thought, own this place. Which’s quite nice, by the way. Must’ve cost you a pile of dosh. You’d want to keep it all safe and secure, I’d think. So I’m wondering if you hand out keys willy-nilly or if you only give them to special sorts of people.”

  “I’m afraid that’s none of your business.”

  “Where’s our Bernard stay when he comes to London, Miss Tully? Or I s’pose I should say Ms. eh? I checked at Twins, but they don’t have overnighters there, it seems. Also, they don’t allow women past the threshold aside from the old bag on door duty— believe me, I found that out straightaway— unless they’re in the company of a member. Turns out you’re in and out all the time on Fairclough’s arm, the way I heard it. Lunch, dinner, drinks, whatever, and off the two of you go by taxi and the taxi always brings you here. Sometimes you unlock the front door. Sometimes he does, with his own key. Then up you come to this… well let me say it’s a bloody gorgeous place… and after that… Where does Fairclough stow his ageing body when he’s in London? That’s the real question.”

  Vivienne rose. She would need to, Barbara reckoned. It was close to the point where the other woman would do the ceremonious tossing of her rotund body out of the front door. Meantime, Barbara meant to push things as far as she could. She saw that Vivienne’s entire composure was heading in a southerly direction, and this gratified her enormously. There was, after all, a certain selfish thrill in discommoding someone so ostensibly perfect.

  “No, it isn’t the real question,” Vivienne Tully said. “The real question is how long it will take you to walk to the door, where I shall open it for you, and then close it upon your timely departure. Our discussion is over.”

  “Thing is,” Barbara said, “I do have to walk there, don’t I? To the door, that is.”

  “Or you can be dragged, of course.”

  “Kicking, screaming, and howling for the neighbours to hear? Raising a ruckus the likes of which gets you noticed rather more than you’d probably like to be noticed?”

  “I want you out of here, Sergeant. There’s not a single thing illegal in any part of my life. I don’t see what my having lunch, dinner, drinks, or anything else with Bernard Fairclough has to do with Ian Cresswell unless Bernard handed the receipts to Ian and Ian didn’t want to pay the bills. But he’d hardly lose his life over that, would he?”

  “Would that’ve been like Ian? Tight with the baron’s money, was he?”

  “I don’t know. I had no contact with Ian once I left the firm, which was years ago. Is that all you want to know? Because, as I told you, I have an appointment.”

  “There’s still the matter of the keys to be cleared up.”

  Vivienne smiled mirthlessly. “Let me wish you luck in that matter.” She walked to the front door of the flat, then, and she opened it. She said, “If you don’t mind…?” and really, there was nothing for it but for Barbara to cooperate. She’d got what she could from Vivienne, and the fact that Vivienne had been unsurprised to have Scotland Yard come calling in the first place— not to mention the fact that she’d managed the nearly impossible feat of not putting a foot wrong during their entire conversation— told Barbara that this was a case in which forewarned had led effortlessly to forearmed. There was nothing for it but to try another route. Nothing, after all, was impossible.

  She took the stairs down, rather than the lift. They deposited her opposite the table on which the postal cubbies stood. The porter was there. He’d gathered up the post from where it had been dropped into the mail slot at the front of the building, and he was in the process of distributing it. He heard her and turned.

  “Back again, are you?” he said in greeting. “Still hoping for a flat?”

  Barbara joined him at the table, the better to have a look at what he was putting into the cubbies. A signed declaration of She’s guilty of something would have gone down a treat, shoved into Vivienne Tully’s cubby or, better yet, handed over to Barbara to be sent along to Lynley. But everything seemed to be straightforward enough from what she could see from the return addresses of BT, Thames Water, Television Licensing, and the like.

  She said, “Got an in at Foxtons. As things turn out in the world of property sales, flat six will be going on offer soon. I thought I’d have a quick look.”

  “Miss Tully’s flat?” the porter said. “I heard naught about that. Odd, as people gen’rally tell me since there’ll be some coming and going once it hits the market.”

  “Could be it’s a sudden thing,” Barbara said.

  “S’pose. Never thought she’d sell, though. Not with the situation she’s got. ’Tisn’t easy to find nice digs where a good school’s just round the corner, eh?”

  Barbara felt a frisson of excitement shoot through her. “School?” she said carefully. “Exactly what school are we talking about?”

  9 NOVEMBER

  WINDERMERE

  CUMBRIA

  Zed Benjamin found that he was quite looking forward to his morning chat with Yaffa Shaw, and he wondered if this was what true partnership was like between a man and a woman. If so, he also wondered why, for years, he’d been avoiding it like a Romany beggar on the steps of a church.

  When he rang her, she gave the verbal sign that his mother was within listening distance. She said, “Zed, my little puppy, let me tell you all the ways I’ve been missing you,” and she constructed a quick paean to his intelligence, his wit, his affability, and added the warmth of his hugs for good measure.

  Zed reckoned his mother would be over the moon at that. “Hmm, I’m missing you as well,” he said in reply, without thinking about the ramifications of such a disclosure. He didn’t, after all, have to respond other than with amused thanks for Yaffa’s continuing to bamboozle his mother during their daily conversations. “If I were there, I’d show you warmth the likes of which you’ve never seen.”

  “From far more than hugs, I hope,” Yaffa said.

  “That,” Zed told her, “you may rely on.”

  She laughed. “You’re a very naughty boy.” And then to his mother, “Mama Benjamin, our Zed’s being rather naughty again.”

  “‘Mama Benjamin’?”

  “She insisted,” Yaffa said, and before he could comment, she went on. “So tell me what you’ve uncovered, my dear. You’ve moved your story forward a leap, haven’t you? I can hear it in your voice.”

  The reality Zed admitted to himself was that this was the real reason for his call. He wanted to crow to the woman who was pretending to be the love of his life, as any man putatively caught within the snares of adoration would wish. He said, “I’ve found th
e cop.”

  “Have you indeed? That’s marvellous, Zed. I knew that you would. And will you phone your editor with this news? Will you”— she made her voice appropriately anxious— “will you come home?”

  “Can’t yet. I don’t want to phone Rod, either. I want to have this story signed and sealed so I can hand it over and tell him it’s ready to be run. Word for word with every detail chased down. I’ve spoken to the detective and I’ve struck a deal. We’re going at it as a team.”

  “My God.” Yaffa produced breathless admiration. “That’s brilliant, Zed.”

  “She’s going to be helping without knowing she’s helping. We’ll track down one story as far as she’s concerned, but I’ll end up with two and one of them is her.”

  “The detective’s a woman, then?”

  “Detective Sergeant Cotter, she’s called. First name Deb. Got her nailed down. She’s part of the story but she’s not all of it. Turns out she’s looking into the wife, Alatea Fairclough. She’s not onto Nick Fairclough at all. Well, she was at first, but turns out there’s something particularly iffy about the wife. Have to say I reckoned that from the first. It never made sense that someone like Nick Fairclough could have ended up with an Alatea.”

  “Oh?” Yaffa sounded interested. “Why is this, Zed?”

  “He’s an okay sort of bloke, but she… His wife’s drop-dead gorgeous, Yaf. I’ve never in my life seen anyone like her.”

  There was silence from Yaffa’s end. Then a little, “Goodness,” comprised her entire response, and Zed wanted to slap himself sharply. What a bloody gaffe, he thought. He said, “She’s not my type at all, of course. Cool and distant. The sort of woman keeps a man running to do her bidding, if you know what I mean. Sort of a black widow and you’re in the web? You know what black widows do, eh, Yaffa?”

  “They attract males to mate with, as I recall,” she said.

  “Well right. Of course. But point is, they’re deadly. It’s the old mate-and-die. Or rather, it’s the old mate-and-be-murdered. Gives me the absolute willies, Yaffa. She’s beautiful, but there’s something strange going on with her. One can tell.”