“I’m talking about you taking it from my dad,” Tim said. “Up the arse, night after night. You think some woman’s going to want to marry you if she knows what you’ve been up to, Kaveh?”
“‘Night after night,’” Kaveh said, his brow furrowing. “‘Taking it’ from your dad. What are you talking about, Tim?” He began to move the car to the edge of the lay-by.
Tim reached over and killed the engine with a twist of the key. “You and my dad fucking each other,” Tim said. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Kaveh’s jaw actually dropped. “Fucking… What’s wrong with your head? What’ve you been thinking? That your father and I…?” Kaveh made an adjustment to his seat, as if with the intention of settling in for a proper natter with Tim. He went on. “Your father was dear to me, Tim, a close and dear friend. I held him in the highest esteem, and we loved each other as close friends do. But that there might have been more than that… That he and I were… Are you thinking we were homosexual lovers? How could you have come to think that? I had a room in his house, only as his lodger. You know that.”
Tim stared at the man. His face was perfectly serious. He was lying with such skill and such grace that for a moment Tim could actually almost quite nearly be poised on the edge of believing that everyone including himself had been completely wrong about Kaveh and about Tim’s father and most of all about what they’d been to each other. Except Tim had been there the night his father had declared his love for Kaveh Mehran in front of his wife and his children. And Tim had seen his father with Kaveh. So he knew the truth.
“I watched you,” he said. “Through the door. Didn’t know that, did you? Makes your situation a bit different, doesn’t it? You up on your hands and knees and Dad giving it to you in the arse and both of you liking it just fine. I watched you. Okay? I watched you.”
Kaveh looked away from him for a moment. Then he sighed. Tim thought he was going to say something along the lines of being caught out and Tim needing to keep mum on the subject round Kaveh’s family please. But Kaveh, it seemed, was full of surprises. He brought out another for Tim’s entertainment. He said, “I used to have the same sort of dreams when I was your age. They’re very real, aren’t they? They’re called waking dreams. They generally happen at the moment your body is making the transition from waking to sleeping and they seem so real that one actually thinks what’s happening in them is life itself. People believe all sorts of things because of waking dreams: they’ve been abducted by aliens, they’ve seen someone in the bedroom with them, they’ve had a sexual experience with a parent or a teacher or even a mate, and on and on. But all the time they’re merely asleep. As you were, of course, when you saw what you think you saw between your father and myself.”
Tim’s eyes widened. He wet his lips to respond but Kaveh went first.
“The fact that what you dreamed you saw between us was sexual in nature comes from the age you are, Tim. At fourteen a boy is all hormones and desire. And this is due to how his body’s changing. He has dreams of sex, often. Often he ejaculates during them. And this could be— and probably is— an embarrassment to him if no one has explained it’s perfectly normal. Your dad did explain this, didn’t he? He ought to have done. Or perhaps your mum?”
Tim’s next breath felt like a stab, not only in the lungs but in the brain and right to the centre of who he knew he was and not to the centre of whoever Kaveh was making him out to be. He said, “You fucking liar,” and to his horror, he felt tears rising and God how he knew that Kaveh would use them. He could even see the endgame now, how it would all play out no matter which way he turned or what he threatened or what, indeed, he said to anyone, but especially what he said or might say to Kaveh’s parents and his intended bride.
And there was no one else to tell those people the truth about Kaveh. No one would be motivated to do it, and even if that were not the case, Kaveh’s relations would themselves not be the least motivated to believe what strangers reported to them without a shred of proof. Plus, Kaveh was the consummate liar, wasn’t he. He was the consummate con man and the consummate player in the chess game of life. Tim could speak the truth, he could rant, he could rail. Kaveh would know how to twist his words.
You must excuse young Tim, Kaveh would declare solemnly. You must not worry what he says and does. He goes to a special school, you know, for children who are disturbed in one way or another. There are times when he makes claims, when he does things… He ripped his little sister’s favourite doll to pieces, for example, and just the other day or week or month or whatever I found him trying to kill the ducks in the village stream.
And people would believe him, of course. First, because people always believed what they wanted and needed to believe. Second, because every bloody word he said would be the truth. It was as if Kaveh had planned his whole game from the first, the very moment he locked eyes on Tim’s dad.
Tim reached for the handle of the door. He grabbed up his rucksack and jerked the door open.
“What are you doing?” Kaveh demanded. “Stay in the car. You’re going to school.”
“And you’re going to hell,” Tim said. He leaped out and slammed the car door behind him.
VICTORIA
LONDON
Raul Montenegro certainly wasn’t a dead end, Barbara Havers concluded. An hour or more of following various links connected to his name could easily have gleaned her half a ream of paper eaten up with printing stories about the bloke, so she tried to be selective. It was all in Spanish, but there were enough words similar to English for Barbara to be able to make out that Montenegro was a very big nob in industry and the industry in which he operated had something to do with natural gas in Mexico. From this she concluded that somehow Alatea Fairclough, neé Alatea Vasquez y del Torres, had got herself from Argentina to Mexico for reasons that remained unclear. She had moved herself either from a town still unknown to Barbara or, what was more likely considering the reaction of the woman to whom Barbara had attempted to speak in Argentina, she’d disappeared from Santa Maria de la Cruz, de los Angeles, y de los Santos. There, perhaps, she had lived as a member of the mayor’s extended family as a niece or a cousin or, equally perhaps and probably more likely, she had been married to one of his five sons. At least that would explain all the excited quiens and dondes Barbara had heard on the other end of the line when she’d managed to get someone within the mayor’s house to speak to her. Had Alatea done a runner from her marriage to one of the sons of the mayor, that son of the mayor might well like to know where she’d ended up. Especially, Barbara thought, if he and Alatea were still legally married.
All this was supposition, of course. She needed Azhar to get back to her with someone who could translate Spanish, and so far she’d heard not a word from him. So she kept struggling and following leads and vowing to take a tutorial from Winston Nkata on the use and abuse of the World Wide Web.
She also learned that Raul Montenegro was rolling in barrels of lolly. She got this from an online edition of Hola!, that journalistic mother ship from which Hello! had been launched. The two magazines were identical in their dedication to glossy photographs of celebrities of all ilks, all of whom possessed the kind of white teeth one needed to don sunglasses to gaze upon, all of whom dressed in designer gear and posed either at their own palatial estates or— if they lived too modestly for the magazine’s readers— at expensive period hotels. The only difference was in the subjects of the stories, since with the exception of film actors or members of various and sometimes obscure European royal families, Hola! generally appeared to feature individuals from Spanish-speaking countries, Spain itself being the most frequently used. But Mexico had been included more than once, and there was Raul Montenegro with his frightening nose showing off his estate, which appeared to be somewhere along the coast of Mexico where there were many palm trees, lots of other colourful vegetation, and a host of nubile girls and boys willing to lounge at his poolside. There was also a shiny photo of Monte
negro at the helm of his yacht, with various members of his youthful male crew striking crewlike poses around him in their very tight white trousers and equally tight blue tee-shirts. What Barbara gathered from all this was that Raul Montenegro liked to be surrounded by youth and beauty since both at his home and on his yacht, there was no one who wasn’t occupying a place somewhere on the scale between beautiful and lightning-struck gorgeous. Where, she wondered as she looked at the pictures, did these amazing-looking people come from? She reckoned one never saw so many tan, lithe, supple, and scrumptious human beings in one place outside of a casting call. Which, of course, made her wonder if all these individuals were indeed auditioning for something. If they were, she also reckoned she knew what that something was. Money always had a way of singing a siren song, didn’t it? And if nothing else, Raul Montenegro appeared to be swimming in money.
What was interesting, though, was that Alatea Fairclough neé all the rest of her names did not appear in any of the Hola! pictures. Barbara compared the dates on the magazine with the date on the article she’d found with the photo of Alatea hanging on to Montenegro’s arm. The Hola! photos predated the other, and Barbara wondered if Montenegro had changed his stripes once he had Alatea on his arm. Alatea had the kind of looks that allowed a woman to lay down the law: You want me? Get rid of the others. Otherwise, believe me, I can easily move on.
Which brought Barbara back to the situation in Santa Maria de la Cruz, de los Angeles, y de los Santos, whatever that situation might be. She had to find out, so she printed out the Hola! article and went back to Mayor Esteban Vega y de Vasquez of Santa Maria di and all the rest of it. Tell me your tales, señor, she thought. At this point, pretty much anything would do.
LAKE WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
“I’ve pulled Barbara Havers from your… Am I to call this ‘your case’ or what, Thomas?”
Lynley had veered to the side of the road to take the call on his mobile. He was on his way back to Ireleth Hall to go over St. James’s conclusions with Bernard Fairclough. He said, “Isabelle,” on a sigh. “You’re angry with me. With very good reason. I’m terribly sorry.”
“Yes. Well. Aren’t we both. Barbara’s brought Winston into things, by the way. Is that down to you as well? I put a stop to it, but I wasn’t happy to find them cheek-to-cheek over a computer terminal on the twelfth floor.”
Lynley lowered his head, looked at his hand on the steering wheel of the Healey Elliott. He was still wearing his wedding ring and had not been able in the months since Helen’s death even to think about removing it. It was a plain gold band, engraved inside: her initials and his and the date of their marriage.
More than anything on earth, he wanted her back. That desire would continue to govern every decision he made until he was able finally and forever to let her go by embracing the fact of her death instead of struggling with its grim reality day after day. Even when he was with Isabelle, Helen was there: both the spirit of her and the delightful essence of who she had been. This was no one’s fault, least of all Isabelle’s. It was simply, ineluctably, how things were.
He said, “No. I didn’t ask Winston’s help. But please, Isabelle, don’t blame Barbara for this. She’s only been trying to track down some information for me.”
“On this matter in Cumbria.”
“On this matter in Cumbria. I’d thought, as she had time off coming— ”
“Yes. I do see what you thought, Tommy.”
He knew Isabelle was both wounded and hating the fact that she was wounded. When people felt like that, they needed to wound in turn, and he recognised that as well as understood it. But all of this was unnecessary at the moment, and he wanted, perhaps futilely, to make her see that. He said, “None of this was meant as a betrayal.”
“And what makes you think I’m seeing it that way?”
“Because in your position, I’d see it that way myself. You’re the guv. I’m not. I have no right to make requests of members of your team. Had there been any other way that I could have got the information quickly, believe me, I would have used it.”
“But there was another way, and that’s what concerns me. That you didn’t see that other way and that you apparently still don’t see it.”
“You mean that I could have come to you. But I couldn’t, Isabelle. I had no choice in the matter once Hillier gave the order. I was on the case and no one was to know about it.”
“No one.”
“You’re thinking of Barbara. But I didn’t tell her. She worked it out because it came down to Bernard Fairclough and things I needed to know about him, things in London and not in Cumbria. As soon as she looked into him for me, she put it together. Tell me. What would you have done in my position?”
“I’d like to think I would have trusted you.”
“Because we’re lovers?”
“Essentially. I suppose that’s it.”
“But it can’t be,” he said. “Isabelle, think about things.”
“I’ve done little else. And that’s a real problem, as you can imagine.”
“I can. I do.” He knew what she meant, but he wanted to forestall her although he could not have said exactly why. He thought it had something to do with the vast emptiness of his life without Helen and how, ultimately, as social creatures mankind did not do well in isolation. But he knew this might be the crassest form of self-delusion, dangerous both to himself and to Isabelle. Still, he said, “There has to be a separation, doesn’t there? There must be a surgical cut— if you will— between what we do for the Met and who we are when we’re alone together. If you go forward in this job as superintendent, there are going to be moments when you’re put in a position of knowledge— by Hillier or by someone else— that you can’t share with me.”
“I’d share them anyway.”
“You wouldn’t, Isabelle. You won’t.”
“Did you?”
“Did I…? What d’you mean?”
“I mean Helen, Tommy. Did you share information with Helen?”
How could he possibly explain it? he wondered. He hadn’t had to share information with Helen because Helen had always known. She’d come to him in the bath and pour a bit of oil on her hands and work on his shoulders and murmur, “Ah, David Hillier again, hmm? Really, Tommy. I tend to think that never has knighthood caused such inflation in a man’s self-esteem.” He might then talk or he might not but the point was it didn’t matter to Helen. What he said was a matter of indifference to her. Who he was was everything.
He hated missing her most of all. He could bear the fact that he’d been the one to decide upon when her life— such as it had been at that point, maintained by hospital machinery— would end. He could bear that she’d carried their child with her into the grave. He was coming to terms with the horror of her death’s being a senseless street murder that had come from nothing and resulted in nothing. But the hole that losing her had created within him… He hated it so much that there were moments when its presence brought him perilously close to hating her.
Isabelle said, “What am I to make of your silence?”
He said, “Nothing. Nothing at all. Just thinking.”
“And the answer?”
He’d honestly forgotten the question. “To?”
“Helen,” she said.
“I wish there were one,” he replied. “God knows I’d give it if I knew where to find it.”
She altered then, on the edge of a coin, in that way of hers that somehow kept him unbalanced with her but still bound to her. She said quietly, “God. Forgive me, Tommy. I’m devastating you. You don’t need that. I’m ringing you when I’m meant to be doing other things anyway. This isn’t the time for this conversation. I was upset about Winston and that’s not down to you. We’ll speak later.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Have you any idea when you’ll be back?”
That was, he thought wryly, the question in a nutshell. He looked out of the window. He was on the A592 i
n a heavily wooded area where the trees seemed to grow thickly right down to the shore of Lake Windermere. A few last leaves still stubbornly clung to the maples and the birches here, but another good storm would finish them off. He said, “Soon, I expect. Tomorrow, perhaps. The day after. I’ve had Simon with me and he’s finished his part with the forensics. Deborah’s still onto something, though. I’ll need to be here to see that part through. I’m not sure it relates, but she’s being stubborn and I can’t let her stay here alone in case things go badly in some way.”
She was quiet for a moment and he waited for her to make one of two choices dictated by his mention of Simon and Deborah. When she made it, he wanted to think it had been effortless for her, but he knew how unlikely this was. She said, “It’s good they’ve been able to help you, Tommy.”
“It is,” he said.
“We’ll speak when you return.”
“We will.”
They rang off then, and he spent a moment in the lay-by looking at nothing. There were facts and feelings that had to be sorted out, and he knew he would have to get to them. But for the moment, there was Cumbria, along with what needed to be sorted out here.
He drove the rest of the distance to Ireleth Hall and found the gates standing open. When he reached the hall, he saw that a car was parked in front of it. He recognised this as one of the two vehicles he’d seen in Great Urswick. Fairclough’s daughter Manette would be here, then.
She’d not come alone, he discovered. She had her former husband with her, and Lynley found them with Manette’s parents in the great hall, in the aftermath of what apparently had been a visit from Nicholas. When Lynley and Fairclough exchanged a look, Valerie was the one to speak.
“I’m afraid we haven’t been entirely truthful with you, Inspector,” she said. “And it’s looking more and more like this is the moment for truth.”
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