Lynley had driven them home from Buxton and had followed them into the Hall for a final conversation. Because the lounge was still occupied by hotel residents and diners enjoying postprandial coffees, brandy, and chocolates, they'd repaired to an office next to the reception desk. It was overcrowded with the three of them, a room meant for one person who would work at a computer behind a desk. A fax machine was disgorging a lengthy message when they walked in. Andy Maiden glanced at this, and placed the message into a tray that bore a neat sign declaring it to be the repository of reservations.
Neither of the Maidens had known of their daughter's leaving the College of Law. Neither had known that she had moved house to take up residence in Fulham with a young woman called Vi Nevin, whose name Nicola had never mentioned. Neither had known that she'd gone to work full-time at MKR Financial Management. Which went far to put a significant dent in Nan Maiden's earlier assertion that her daughter had been the incarnation of honesty.
Andy Maiden had been silent in response to the revelations. But he looked beaten, as if each new piece of knowledge about his daughter was a blow to his psyche. While his wife sought to explain away the inconsistencies in their daughter's actions, he merely seemed to be attempting to absorb them while minimising the additional damage to his heart.
“Perhaps she meant to transfer to a college closer to home.” Nan had sounded pathetically eager to believe her own words. “Isn't there one in Leicester? Or in Lincoln? And as she was engaged to Julian, she might have wanted to be nearer to him.”
Disabusing Nicola's mother of the notion of an engagement to Julian Britton had been a tougher task than Lynley would have thought possible. Nan Maiden's efforts at elucidation ceased entirely when he revealed Britton's misrepresentation of the facts of his relationship with her daughter. She looked stricken, saying only, “They weren't … ? But then why … ?” before falling silent and turning to her husband as if he were capable of giving her an explanation for the inexplicable.
Thus, Lynley reached the conclusion that it wasn't beyond the realm of reason that the Maidens hadn't known of their daughter's possession of a pager. And when Nan Maiden had proved to be as much in the dark as her husband regarding the little device, Lynley had felt inclined to believe her.
Now, as he stood in the penumbrous space between the softly-lit car park and bright-windowed hotel, Lynley allowed himself a few minutes to ponder in a circumstance in which he also allowed himself a few additional minutes to feel. He'd earlier taken the car keys from Hanken and said, “Go home to your family, Peter. I'll drive the Maidens back to Padley Gorge,” and it was Hanken, his family, and his words earlier that day that Lynley considered as he remained by the pillar. The DI had said that holding in his arms an infant—one's own child and creation—changed a man irrevocably He'd said that the pain of losing that child was something beyond his contemplation. What, then, did a man like Andy Maiden feel at this moment: the fabric of him altered so many years ago at his daughter's birth, the substance of him shifting subtly throughout her childhood and adolescence, and the core of him fractured—perhaps irreparably—at her death. And now to pile on top of the loss of her came the additional knowledge that his only child had had secrets from him …. How, Lynley wondered, must it feel?
The death of a child, he thought, kills the future and decimates the past, making the former an imprisonment that seems interminable, rendering the latter an unvoiced reproach for every moment robbed of its significance by the calls of a parent's career. One didn't recover from such a death. One just grew more adept at stumbling on.
He glanced back at the Hall and saw the distant form of Andy Maiden leave the little office, cross the entrance, and trudge towards the stairs. The light remained on in the room he departed and in the window of that room Nan Maiden's silhouette appeared. Lynley saw the Maidens’ separateness and wanted to tell them not to bear their grief in solitude from each other. They'd created their daughter Nicola together and they'd bury her together. So why did they have to mourn her alone?
We're all alone, Inspector, Barbara Havers had told him once in a similar case in which two parents had been forced to mourn the death of a child. And believe me, it's only a bloody illusion that we're anything else.
But he didn't want to think of Barbara Havers, of her wisdom or her lack thereof. He wanted to do something to give the Maidens a measure of peace. He told himself that he owed that much, if not to two parents whose suffering was of a kind he hoped never to have to face, then to a former colleague whose service on the force had placed officers like Lynley in his debt. But he also had to admit that he sought to give them peace as a hedge against potential grief in his own future, in the hope that attenuating their present sorrow might prevent him from ever having to experience a similar pain himself.
He couldn't change the basic facts of Nicola's death and the secrets she'd kept from her parents. But he could seek to disprove what information was beginning to look manufactured, wearing the guise of innocent revelation while all the time created to meet the exigency of the moment.
Will Upman, after all, was the person who had mentioned a pager and a London lover in the first place. And who better than Upman—interested in the young woman himself—to fabricate both possessions and relationships to divert the police's attention from himself? He could have been the lover in question, showering gifts upon a woman who was his obsession as well as his employee. And told that she was leaving the law, leaving Derbyshire, and establishing a life for herself in London, how might he have reacted to the knowledge that he would be losing her permanently? Indeed, they knew from the postcards which Nicola sent to her flatmate that she had a lover in addition to Julian Britton. And she would have hardly felt the need to code a message—let alone to arrange for the assignations suggested by the postcards—had the man in question been someone with whom she felt that she could freely be seen.
And then there was the entire question of Julian Britton's place in Nicola's life. If he had actually loved her and had wished to marry her, what would his reaction have been had he discovered her relationship with another man? It was perfectly possible that Nicola had revealed that relationship to Britton as part of her refusal to marry him. If she'd done so, what thoughts—taking up residence in Britton's mind—did he have and where did those thoughts take him on Tuesday night?
An exterior door closed somewhere. Footsteps crunched in gravel, and a figure came round the side of the building. It was a man wheeling a bicycle. He guided it into a puddle of light that spilled from one of the windows. There, he toed the kick stand downwards and removed from his pocket a small tool which he applied to the base of the bicycle's spokes.
Lynley recognised him from the previous afternoon when, from the lounge window, he'd seen him pedalling away from the Hall as Lynley and Hanken had waited for the Maidens to join them. He was, no doubt, one of the employees. As Lynley watched him, crouched on his haunches next to the bike with a heavy lock of hair falling into his eyes, he saw his hand slip and get caught between the spokes and he heard him cry out, “Merde! Saloperie de bécane! Je sais pas ce qui me retient de Venvoyer a la casse.” He leapt up, knuckles shoved to his mouth. He used his sweatshirt to wipe the blood from his skin.
Hearing him speak, Lynley also recognised the unmistakable sound of a cog in the wheel of the investigation clicking into place. He adjusted his previous conjectures with alacrity, realising that Nicola Maiden had done more than merely joke with her London flatmate. She'd also given her a clue.
He approached the man. “Have you hurt yourself?”
The man swung round, startled, brushing the hair from his eyes. “Bon Dieu! Vous m'avez fait peur!”
“Excuse me. I didn't mean to come out of nowhere like that,” Lynley said. And he produced his warrant card and introduced himself.
A fractional movement of the eyebrows was the other man's only reaction to hearing the words New Scotland Yard. He replied in heavily-accented English—interspersed with F
rench—that he was Christian-Louis Ferrer, master chef of the kitchen and the primary reason that Maiden Hall had been awarded the coveted étoile Michelin.
“You're having trouble with your bike. D'you need a lift somewhere?”
No. Mais merci quand même. Long hours in the kitchen robbed him of time to exercise. He needed the twice-daily ride to keep himself fit. This vélo de merde—with a dismissive gesture at the bicycle—was better than nothing to use for that exercise. But he'd have been grateful for un deux-roues that was a little more dependable on the roads and the trails.
“Might we chat before you leave, then?” Lynley asked politely.
Ferrer shrugged in classic Gallic fashion: a simple uplift of the shoulders communicating that if the police wished to speak with him, he'd be foolish to refuse. He'd been standing with his back to the window, but now he shifted position so that his face was in the light.
Seeing him illuminated, Lynley realised that he was much older than he'd looked from a distance on his bicycle. He appeared to be in his mid fifties, with age and the good life incised on his face and grey threaded through his walnut hair.
Lynley quickly discovered that Ferrer's English was fine when it suited him. Of course he knew Nicola Maiden, Ferrer said, calling her la malheureuse jeune femme. He had laboured for the past five years to raise Maiden Hall to its current position de temple de la gastronomie—did the inspector happen to know how few country restaurants in England had actually been awarded the étoile Michelin?—so of course he knew the daughter of his employers. She had worked in the dining room during all her school holidays ever since he himself had practised his art for Monsieur Andee, so naturally he had come to know her.
Ah. Good. How well? Lynley enquired mildly.
At which time Ferrer failed to understand English, although his anxious, polite smile—spurious though it might have been—indicated his willingness to do so.
Lynley switched to what he'd always referred to as his travel-and-survive French. He took a moment to telegraph a silent message of thanks to his fearsome aunt Augusta who'd often decreed—in the midst of a family visit—that ce soir, on parlera tous frangais a table et apres le diner. C'est la meilleure fagon de se préparer ` passer des vacances d’été en Dordogne, thus attempting to polish his rudimentary skills in a language in which he would otherwise only have been able to request a cup of coffee, a beer, or a room with a bath. He said in French, “Your expertise in the kitchen isn't in doubt, Monsieur Ferrer. What I'd like to know is how well you knew the girl. Her father tells me that all the family are cyclists. You're also a cyclist. Did you have occasion to ride with her?”
If Ferrer was surprised that a barbaric Englishman spoke his language—however imperfectly—he covered it well. He gave no quarter by slowing the pace of his reply though, forcing Lynley to ask him to repeat the answer, which gave the Frenchman the satisfaction he apparently needed. “Yes, of course, once or twice we rode together,” Ferrer told him in his native tongue. He had been riding from Grindleford to Maiden Hall on the road and, when she'd heard about this, the young lady had told him of a route through the forest that was rough going but more direct. She didn't wish him to become lost, so she rode it with him twice to make sure he took all the right paths.
“Grindleford is where you have lodgings?”
Yes. There were not enough rooms here at Maiden Hall to accommodate those who worked for the hotel and restaurant. It was, as the inspector had no doubt observed, a small establishment. So Christian-Louis Ferrer had a room with a widow called Madame Clooney and her spinster daughter who, if Ferrer's account was to be believed, had designs upon him that were—alas—impossible to gratify.
“I am, of course, married,” he told Lynley. “Although my beloved wife remains in Nerville le Forét until such a time as we can be together again.”
This, Lynley knew, was not an unusual arrangement. European couples often lived separately, one of them remaining with their children in their native country while the other emigrated to seek more gainful employment. However, an innate cynicism that he quickly assessed as having flourished within him through too much exposure to Barbara Havers over the past few years made him immediately suspicious of any man who used the adjective beloved in front of the noun wife. “You've been here the entire five years?” Lynley asked. “Do you get home much, for holidays and such?”
Alas, Ferrer confessed, a man of his profession was best served—as indeed were his beloved wife and dearest children—by spending his holiday time in the pursuit of cooking excellence. And while this pursuit could be done in France—and with far more felicitous results, considering with what licence the word cuisine was bandied about in this country—Christian-Louis Ferrer knew the wisdom of thrift. Should he travel back and forth between England and France at holiday time, there would be that much less money to save for the future of his children and the security of his old age.
“It must be difficult,” Lynley said, “such a long separation from one's wife. Lonely as well, I expect.”
Ferrer grunted. “A man does what he must do.”
“Still, there must be times when the loneliness makes one long for a connection with someone. We don't live on work alone, do we? And a man like you … It would be understandable.”
Ferrer crossed his arms in a movement that emphasised the prominence of his biceps and triceps. He was, in so many ways, the perfect image not only of virility but of virility's need to establish its presence. Lynley knew that he was engaging in the worst kind of stereotyping even to think so. But still he allowed himself to think it, and to see where the thinking would lead their conversation. He said with a meaningful, just-between-us-boys shrug, “Five years without one's wife … I couldn't do it.”
Ferrer's mouth—full-lipped, the mouth of a sensualist—curved and his eyes became hooded. He said in English, “Estelle and I understand each the other. It is why we are married for twenty years.”
“So there is the occasional dalliance here in England.”
“Nothing of significance. Estelle, I love. The other … ? Well, it was what it was.”
A useful slip, Lynley thought. “Was. It's over, then?”
And Ferrers face—so swiftly guarded—told Lynley the rest. “Were you and Nicola Maiden lovers?”
Silence in reply.
Lynley persevered. “If you and the Maiden girl were lovers, Monsieur Ferrer, it looks far less suspicious if you answer the question here and now rather than find yourself being confronted with the truth of it gathered from a witness who might have seen the two of you together.”
“It is nothing,” Ferrer said, again in English.
“That's not the assessment I'd make about coming under suspicion in a murder investigation.”
Ferrer switched back to French. “I don't mean suspicion. I mean with the girl.”
“Are you saying that nothing happened with the girl?”
“I'm saying that what happened was nothing. It meant nothing. To either of us.”
“Perhaps you'd tell me about it.”
Ferrer glanced at the Hall's front door. It stood open to the pleasant night air, and within, residents were moving towards the stairs, chatting amiably. Ferrer spoke to Lynley but kept his gaze on the residents. “A woman's beauty exists for a man to admire. A woman naturally wishes to augment her beauty to increase the admiration.”
“That's arguable.”
“It is the way of things. All of nature speaks to support this simple, true order of the world. One sex is created by God to attract the other.”
Lynley didn't point out that the natural order of which Ferrer spoke generally called for the male—not the female—of a species to be more attractive in order to be acceptable as a mate. Instead, he said, “Finding Nicola attractive, you did something to support God's natural order, then.”
“As I say, it meant nothing of a serious nature. I knew this. She knew it as well.” He smiled, not without fondness it seemed. “She enjoyed the ga
me of it. I could see this in her when first we met.”
“When she was twenty?”
“It is a false woman who doesn't know her own allure. Nicola was not a false woman. She knew. I saw. She saw that I saw. The rest …” He gave another quintessentially Gallic shrug. “There are limits to every communion between men and women. If one remembers the limits, one's happiness within the communion is safeguarded.”
Lynley made the interruption adroitly. “Nicola knew you wouldn't leave your wife.”
“She did not require that I leave my wife. She had no interest there, believe me.”
“Then where?”
“Her interest?” He smiled, as if with memory. “The places we met. The exertion required of me to get to the places. What was left of my energy once I arrived. And how well I was able to use it.”
“Ah.” Lynley considered the places: the caves, the barrows, the prehistoric villages, the Roman forts. Oooh-la-la, he thought. Or, as Barbara Havers might have said, Bingo, Inspector. They had Mr. Postcard. “You and Nicola made love—”
“We had sex, not love. Our game was to choose a different site for each meeting. Nicola would pass a message to me. A map sometimes. Sometimes a riddle. If I could interpret it correctly, follow it correctly …” Again that shrug. “She would be there to provide the reward.”
“How long had you been lovers?”
Ferrer hesitated before replying, either doing the maths or assessing the damage of revealing the truth. Finally, he chose. “Five years.”
“Since you first came to the Hall.”
“This is the case,” he admitted. “I would, of course, prefer that Monsieur and Madame. … It would only serve to distress them unnecessarily. We were always discreet. We never left the Hall together. We returned first one, then the other later. So they never knew.”
In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner Page 29