In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

by Elizabeth George

  “Upman's lied to us, the sod,” he announced, flipping Mott a cursory nod. “Not that I'm surprised. Smarmy bastard.”

  Lynley went on to the third bag from the Saab. He set it on the top of the barrel, but he didn't open it, saying, “Lied about what?”

  “About Friday night. About his supposed”—heavy irony on the word—“guv-to-subordinate relationship with our girl.” Hanken scrambled in his jacket and brought out his Marlboros, at which Constable Mott said, “Not in here, sir. Fire hazard.”

  To which Hanken said, “Hell,” and shoved them back into his pocket. He went on. “They were in the Chequers, all right. I even had a word with their waitress, a girl called Margery, who remembered them at once. Seems our Upman's taken more than one dolly bird to the Chequers in the past, and when he does, he asks that Margery serve them. Likes her, she says. And tips like an American. Bloody fool.”

  Lynley said, “The lie? Did they ask for a room?”

  “Oh no. They left, like Upman said. What he failed to tell us was where they went afterwards.” Hanken smiled thinly, clearly delighted at having caught the solicitor out. “They went from the Chequers to chez Upman,” he announced, “where the Maiden girl checked in for a lengthy visit.”

  Hanken warmed to his story. Having learned never to believe the first thing a lawyer said, he'd done a little more scavenging once he'd spoken to Margery. A brief stint in the solicitor's neighbourhood had been enough to unearth the truth. Upman and Nicola Maiden had apparently arrived at the solicitor's house round eleven forty-five, seen by a neighbour who was taking Rover out for his last-of-the-evening. Ana they'd been friendly enough with each other to suggest that a little more existed between them than the employer-employee relationship depicted by Mr. Upman.

  “Tongues on the porch,” Hanken said crudely. “Our Will was examining her dental work closely.”

  “Ah.” Lynley opened the evidence bag and lifted its contents onto the barrel top. “And do we know it was Nicola Maiden Upman was with? What about the divorcee girlfriend? Joyce?”

  “It was Nicola all right,” Hanken said. “When she left—this was at half past four the next morning—the bloke next door was taking a piss. He heard voices, had a look out the window, and got a fine glimpse of her when the light went on in Upman's car. So”—and here he took out his Marlboros once more—“what d'you think they were up to for five hours?”

  Mott said again, “Not in here, sir.”

  Hanken said, “Shit,” and returned the Marlboros to their place.

  “Another talk with Mr. Upman appears to be in order,” Lyn-ley said.

  The expression on Hanken's face said that he couldn't wait.

  Lynley summarised for his colleague the information that Nkata and Havers had gleaned in London. He concluded by saying thoughtfully, “But no one here in Derbyshire seems to know that the girl had no intention of completing her law course. Curious, don't you think?”

  “No one knew or someone's lying to us,” Hanken said pointedly. He seemed to note for the first time that Lynley was sifting through evidence. He said, “What're you doing, then?”

  “Satisfying myself that Nicola's pager isn't here. D'you mind?”

  “Satisfy away.”

  The contents of the third bag appeared to be articles from the Saab's boot. Among the items lying on the barrel top were the car's jack, a box spanner, a wheel brace, and a set of screwdrivers. Three spark plugs looked as if they'd been rolling round the boot since its factory days, and a set of jump leads were curled round a small chrome cylinder. Lynley lifted this last up and looked it over under the light.

  “What've we got?” Hanken asked.

  Lynley reached for his glasses and slipped them on. He'd been able to identify every other item that had been taken from the car, but what the cylinder was, he couldn't have said. He turned the object over in his hand. Little more than two inches long, the cylinder was perfectly smooth both inside and out, and either end of it was curved and polished, suggesting that as it was, it was all of a piece. It opened to fall precisely in half by means of a hinge. Each half had a hole bored into it. Through each hole an eyebolt was screwed.

  “Looks like something from a machine,” Hanken said. “A nut. A cog. Something like that.”

  Lynley shook his head. “It hasn't any interior grooves. And if it had, we'd be looking at a machine the size of a space ship, I dare say.”

  “Then what? Here. Let me have a look.”

  “Gloves, sir,” Mott barked, vigilance in action. He tossed a pair to Hanken, who put them on.

  In the meantime, Lynley gave the cylinder a closer scrutiny. “It's got something on the inside. A deposit of some kind.”

  “Motor oil?”

  “Not unless motor oil solidifies these days,” Lynley said.

  Hanken took it from him and had his own go with it. He turned it in his palm and said, “Substance? Where?”

  Lynley pointed out what he'd seen: a smear in the shape of a small maple leaf lapping over the top—or the bottom—of the cylinder. Something had been deposited there and had dried to the colour of pewter. Hanken scrutinised this, even going so far as to sniff it in a noisy, houndlike fashion. He asked Mott for an evidence bag and said, “Get this checked out straightaway.”

  “Ideas?” Lynley asked him.

  “Not off the top of my head,” he replied. “Could be anything. Bit of salad cream. Smear of mayonnaise from a prawn sandwich.”

  “In the boot of her car?”

  “She went on a picnic. How the devil do I know? That's what forensic is for.”

  There was more than a grain of truth to this. But Lynley felt unsettled by the presence of the cylinder, and he wasn't altogether sure why. He said, attempting delicacy with the request and knowing how it might be interpreted, “Peter, would you mind if I had a look at the crime scene?”

  He needn't have worried. Hanken was hot to get on to other things. “Have at it. I'll have at Upman.” He peeled off his gloves and fished out his Marlboros a final time, saying to Mott, “Don't have a coronary, Constable. I'm not lighting up in here.” And once outside the constable's demesne, he went on happily as he fired up the tobacco. “You know how it looks, with the girl bonking Upman as well as … what've we got so far, two others?”

  “Julian Britton and the London lover,” Lynley verified.

  “For starters. And Upman'll make a third once I've talked to him.” Hanken inhaled deeply and with some satisfaction. “So how d'you suppose our Upman felt, wanting her, having her, and knowing she was giving it out to two other blokes just as happily as she was giving it to him?”

  “You're getting ahead of yourself on that one, Peter.”

  “I wouldn't put money on it.”

  “More important than Upman,” Lynley pointed out, “how did Julian Britton feel? He wanted to marry her, not to share her. And if, as her mother claims, she always told the truth, what might his reaction have been when he learned exactly what Nicola was up to?”

  Hanken mulled this over. “Britton is easier to tag with an accomplice,” he admitted.

  “Isn't he just,” Lynley said.

  Samantha McCallin didn't want to think, and when she didn't want to think, she worked. She trundled a wheelbarrow briskly down the Long Gallery's old oak floor, kitted out with a shovel, a broom, and a dust pan. She stopped at the first of the room's three fireplaces and applied herself to removing the grit, grime, coal dust, bird droppings, old nests, and bracken that over time had fallen down the chimney. In an attempt at disciplining her thoughts, she counted her movements: one-shovel, two-lift, three-swing, four-dump, and in this way she emptied the fireplace of what appeared to be fifty years of detritus. She found that as long as she kept up the rhythm, she held her mind in check. It was when she had to move from shovelling to sweeping that her thoughts began to gallop about.

  Lunch had been a quiet affair, with the three of them gathered round the table in a nearly unbroken silence. Only Jeremy Britton had
spoken during the meal, when Samantha had placed a platter of salmon in the middle of the table. Her uncle had caught her hand unexpectedly and raised it to his lips, announcing, “We're grateful for all you've been doing round here, Sammy We're grateful for everything.” And he'd smiled at her, a long, slow, meaningful smile, as if they shared a secret.

  Which they did not, Samantha told herself. No matter the extent to which her uncle had revealed his feelings about Nicola Maiden on the previous day, she'd been successful in keeping hers to herself.

  It was necessary, that. With the police crawling about, asking questions and gazing at one with open suspicion, it was absolutely crucial that how she felt about Nicola Maiden be something Samantha held close to her heart.

  She hadn't hated her. She'd seen Nicola for what she was, and she'd disliked her for it, but she hadn't hated her. Rather, she'd simply recognised her as an impediment to attaining what Samantha had quickly decided she wanted.

  In a culture requiring her to find a man in order to define her world, Samantha hadn't come across a decent prospect in the last two years. With her biological clock ticking away and her brother refusing to have so much as a cup of coffee with a prospective female lest he be asked to commit his life to her, she was beginning to feel that the responsibility to extend the immediate family line was hers alone. But she'd been unable to sniff out a mate despite the humiliation of taking out personal ads, joining a dating agency, and engaging in such maritally conducive activities as singing in the church choir. And as a result, she'd felt a growing desperation to Settle Down, which meant, of course, to Reproduce.

  At one level she knew it was ridiculous to be so marriage-and-offspring minded. Women in this day and age had careers and lives beyond husband and children, and sometimes those careers and those lives excluded husband and children altogether. But on another level, she believed that she would be failing, somehow, if she made her life's journey forever alone. Besides, she told herself, she wanted children. And she wanted those children to have a father.

  Julian had seemed so likely a candidate. They'd got on from the first. They'd been such pals. They'd achieved a quick intimacy born of a mutual interest in restoring Broughton Manor. And if that interest had been manufactured on her part initially, it had become real quickly enough when she'd understood how passionate her cousin was about his plans. And she could help him with those plans; she could nurse them along. Not only by working at his side, but by infusing the manor with the copious supply of money she'd inherited upon her father's death.

  It had all seemed so logical and meant to be. But neither her camaraderie with her cousin, her ample funds, nor her efforts at proving her worthiness to Julian had sparked the slightest degree of interest in him beyond the affectionate interest one might have had for the family dog.

  At the thought of dogs, Samantha shuddered. She would not go in that direction, she thought firmly Walking that path would lead her inexorably to a consideration of Nicola Maiden's death. And thinking about her death was as intolerable a prospect as was thinking about her life.

  Yet the act of trying not to think about her spurred Samantha to think about her anyway.

  “You don't like me much, do you, Sam?” Nicola had asked her, scanning her face to read what was there. “Yes. I see. It's because of Jules. I don't want him, you know. Not the way women generally want men. He's yours. If you can win him, that is.”

  So frank, she was. So absolutely up-front with every word she spoke. Hadn't she ever worried about the impression she was making? Hadn't she ever wondered if someday that relentless honesty was going to cost her more than she was willing to pay?

  “I could put in a word for you if you'd like. I'm happy to do it. I think you and Jules would be good together. A frightfully proper sort of match, as they used to say.” And she'd laughed, but it hadn't been malicious. Disliking her would have been so much easier if only Nicola had stooped to ridicule.

  But she hadn't. She hadn't needed to when Samantha already knew quite well how absurd her desire for Julian was.

  “I wish I could make him stop loving you,” she'd said.

  “If you find a way, do it,” Nicola had replied. “And there'll be no hard feelings. You can have him with my blessing. It would be for the best.”

  And she'd smiled the way she always smiled, so open and engaging and friendly, so completely without the worries of a woman who knew that her looks were nondescript and her talents worthless that smacking her seemed like the only response Samantha could possibly make. Smacking her and shaking her and shouting, “Do you think it's easy being me, Nicola? Do you think I enjoy my situation?”

  That contact of flesh on flesh, of flesh on bone, was what Samantha had wanted. Anything to remove from Nicola's clear blue eyes the knowledge that in a battle in which Nicola didn't even bother to fight, Samantha McCallin still could not win.

  “Sam. Here you are.”

  Samantha swung hastily round from the fireplace and saw Julian coming along the gallery in her direction, the afternoon sunlight striking his hair. Her sudden movement spilled several globs of petrified ashes onto the floor. Miniature clouds of griseous dust rose from them.

  “You frightened me,” she said. “How can you walk so quietly on a wooden floor?”

  He looked down at his shoes as if in explanation. “Sorry.” He was carrying a tray with cups and plates on it, and he gestured with it. “I thought you'd like a break. I've made us tea.”

  She saw that he'd also cut them each a piece of the chocolate cake she'd made for that evening's pudding. She felt a twinge of impatience at this. Surely, he could have seen it hadn't been cut into yet. Surely, he could have known it was meant for something. Surely, just for once, dear God, he could have drawn one or two conclusions from the facts in hand. But she emptied her shovelful of debris into a wheelbarrow and said, “Thanks, Julie. I could do with something.”

  She hadn't been able to eat much of the lunch she'd prepared them. Neither, she had noted, had he. So she knew that she was due for some sustenance. She just wasn't sure she could manage it in his presence.

  They went to the windows, where Julian set the tray on the top of an old dole cupboard. Leaning their bums against the dusty sill, they each held a mug of Darjeeling and waited for the other to speak.

  “It's coming along” was Julians offering as he looked the length of the gallery to the door through which he'd entered. For an over-long time he seemed to study the grimy, ornate carving of the Britton falcon that surmounted it. “I couldn't manage any of this without you, Sam. You're a brick.”

  “Just what a woman longs to hear,” Samantha replied. “Thanks very much.”

  “Damn. I didn't mean—”

  “Never mind.” Samantha took a sip of tea. She kept her eyes on its milky surface. “Why didn't you tell me, Julie? I thought we were close.”

  Next to her, he slurped his tea. Samantha subdued her moue of distaste. “Tell you what? And we are close. At least, I hope we are. I mean, I want us to be. Without you here, I would have packed it all in a long time ago. You're practically the best friend I have.”

  “Practically,” she said. “That limbo place.”

  “You know what I'm saying.”

  And the trouble was, she did know. She knew what he was saying, what he meant, and how he felt. She wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him into an understanding of what it meant that such an unspoken communication should exist between them. But she couldn't do so, so she settled on trying to ferret out some of the real story of what had occurred between her cousin and Nicola, not really knowing what she'd do with the facts when and if she got them.

  “I'd no idea you'd even thought about asking Nicola to marry you, Julie. When the police brought it up, I didn't know what to think.”

  “About what?”

  “About why you hadn't told me. First, that you'd asked her. Then, that she'd said no.”

  “Frankly, I hoped she'd reconsider.”

  “I
wish you had told me.”

  “Why?”

  “It would have made things … easier, I suppose.”

  At that, he turned. She could feel his gaze on her, and she grew restive under it. “Easier? How could knowing I'd asked Nicola to marry me and been turned down have made anything easier? And for whom?”

  His words were guarded, careful for the first time, which made her speak guardedly in reply. “Easier for you, of course. I had the feeling something was wrong all day Tuesday If you'd told me, I could have given you some support. It can't have been easy, waiting through Tuesday night and Wednesday. I expect you didn't get a minute's sleep.”

  Silence for a terribly long moment. Then quietly, “Yes. That's true enough.”

  “Well, we could have talked about it. It helps to talk, don't you think?”

  “Talking would have … I don't know, Sam. We'd been terribly close, the two of us, in the last few weeks. It felt so good. And I—”

  Samantha warmed to the words.

  “—suppose I didn't want to do anything that might kill the closeness and drive her off. Not that talking to you would have done that, because I know you wouldn't have told her we'd spoken.”

  “Naturally,” Samantha said with quiet bleakness.

  “I knew she'd be unlikely to reconsider. But I still hoped she would. And it seemed to me that if I said something about what was going on, it would be like bursting a bubble. Idiotic, I know. But there you have it.”

  “Putting your hopes into words. Yes. I understand.”

  “I suppose the truth is that I couldn't face reality. I couldn't look squarely at the fact that she didn't want me the way I wanted her. I would have done as a friend. As a lover even, when she was in the Peaks. But nothing more than that.” He picked at his wedge of cake with the fork tines. He was, she noted, eating as little as she.

  Finally, he set his plate on the window sill. He said, “Did you see the eclipse?”