In the Presence of the Enemy

by Elizabeth George

  The fact that she hadn’t faded into any woodwork at all after the seduction, the fact that she had acted as if nothing had happened between them, the fact that her wits were, if anything, sharper than ever, served only to infuriate him first and then to make him want her more. At least in bed, he’d thought, there would be neither symmetry nor equality between them. At least in bed, he’d thought, what conquest there was would always be his. Men dominate, he’d believed, and women submit.

  But not Evelyn. Nothing he did and nothing he swore that she felt ever took away her self-possession. Intercourse was just another battleground for them, with pleasure instead of words the weapon.

  The worst of it was that she knew all along what he was trying to do to her. And the final time she’d come, on that last hurried morning when both of them had trains to catch and deadlines to meet, she’d raised his face shiny with her fluids to hers and she’d said, “I am not diminished, Dennis. In any way. Not even by this.”

  He was shamed by the knowledge that an innocent life had grown from their loveless mating. So indifferent had he been to the consequences of skewering her in the only way he could, he hadn’t bothered to take a single precaution and he hadn’t cared in the least whether she was taking any. He hadn’t even thought of what they were doing in terms of possibly creating a life. He’d seen it only as mastery, a necessary step in proving to her—and above all to himself—his supremacy.

  He hadn’t loved her. He hadn’t loved the child. He had wanted neither. He’d assuaged what few twinges of conscience he’d had by “taking care of matters” in a way that meant he would never be touched personally by either of them. So by rights he should feel nothing now, other than bitterness and shock that Evelyn’s single-minded recalcitrance had cost a human life.

  But the truth was that what he felt went far beyond bitterness and shock. He felt knotted inside by guilt, anger, anguish, and regret. Because while he was responsible for the life of a child he had never tried to see, he knew very well that he was also responsible for the death of a child he would never know. Nothing could change that fact for him now. Nothing ever would.

  Numbly, he drew the computer’s keyboard towards him. He accessed the story that would have saved Charlotte’s life. He read the first line: “When I was thirty-six years old, I made a woman pregnant.” Into the silence of his office—a silence undercut by the exterior noises from the newspaper he’d been hired to rebuild from nearly nothing—he recited the conclusion to the sordid story: “When I was forty-seven, I killed the child.”

  16

  WHEN LYNLEY REACHED Devonshire Place Mews, he saw that Hillier had already been at work meeting the Home Secretary’s demands for an efficient operation. Sawhorses had been erected at the entrance to the mews. These were manned by a police constable, while another constable stood guard at the front door of Eve Bowen’s home.

  Behind the sawhorses and swelling out onto Marylebone High Street, the media were gathered in the dusk. They were represented by several television crews who were in the process of fixing up lights to film their correspondents’ evening reports, print journalists who were barking questions at the constable nearest to them, and photographers who were restlessly waiting for the opportunity to take pictures of anyone related to the case.

  When Lynley stopped the Bentley to show his identification to the sawhorse guard, the reporters surged round the car. A babble of questions rose. Was the death being labelled a homicide? If so, were there any suspects yet? Was there truth to the rumour that the Bowen child had a history of doing a bunk whenever she was unhappy? Would Scotland Yard be working with the local police? Was it true that important evidence was going to be removed from the MP’s house this evening? Would DI Lynley comment upon any aspects of the case that related to child abuse, to the white slave trade, to devil worship, pornography, and ritual sacrifice? Did the police suspect IRA involvement? Had the child been molested before she died?

  Lynley said, “No comment.” And, “Constable, clear a path please.” He guided the Bentley into Devonshire Place Mews.

  As he got out of the car, he heard brisk footsteps coming in his direction, and he turned to see Detective Constable Winston Nkata approaching from the far end of the mews.

  “Well?” Lynley said when Nkata joined him.

  “No score at all.” Nkata surveyed the street. “Folks are home in all but two of the houses. But no one saw anything. They all knew the girl—seems like she was a friendly little bird who liked to chunter with most anyone who’d listen—but no one saw her last Wednesday.” Nkata slipped a small leather-bound notebook into the interior pocket of his jacket. He followed it with a mechanical pencil, carefully retracting its lead first. He said, “Had a long chat with an older bloke, pensioner in a hospital bed on the first floor of Number Twenty-one, see? He keeps a pretty good eye on the street most days. He said nothing out of the ordinary went down last week at all, far as he could tell. Just the normal comings and goings. Postman, milkman, residents, the like. And ’ccording to him, the comings and goings at the Bowen place work just like a clock, so he’d know it if something p’culiar was happening.”

  “Any suggestion of tramps in the neighbourhood?” Lynley told Nkata what he’d learned from St. James.

  Nkata shook his head. “Not a whisper of it, man. And that old bloke I mentioned? He’d be likely to remember. He knows what’s what in the neighbourhood, top to bottom. Even told me who likes having it off with fine young specimens of the opposite sex when her man’s not round. Which, he assured me, goes on three-four days a week.”

  “You made careful note of that, I take it?”

  Nkata grinned and raised a hand in denial. “I’m living clean as dish soap these days. Have been for the last six months. Nothing sticks to my mum’s favourite boy that I don’t want stuck there. Believe it.”

  “I’m glad to hear the news.” Lynley nodded towards Eve Bowen’s house. “Has anyone been in or out?”

  “Home Secretary was there for an hour or so. A tall, skinny bloke with serious hair after that. He was there quarter of an hour, maybe more. He brought a stack of notebooks and folders with him, and he left with an older piece, heavy-set bird with a canvas tote bag. Hustled her into the car and out of here fast. Housekeeper, I’d say by the look of her. Crying into the sleeve of her sweater. Either that or hiding her face from the photogs.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s it. Unless someone parachuted into their back garden. Which, truth to tell, I wouldn’t put past that lot for a moment. How’d they get here so fast, anyway?” Nkata demanded about the reporters.

  “Assisted by Mercury or beamed down from the Enterprise. Take your pick.”

  “I should get so lucky. I got caught in a jam in front of Buck House. Why’n’t they move that damn place to some other part of town? It’s sitting smack in the middle of a roundabout, doing nothing but obstructing traffic.”

  “Which,” Lynley noted, “certain Members of Parliament would find an apt metaphor, Winston. But not Ms. Bowen, I dare say. Let’s have a talk with her.”

  The constable at the door took a look at Lynley’s identification before he admitted them. Inside, another constable was seated on a wicker chair at the foot of the stairs. She was doing The Times crossword puzzle, and she got to her feet—a thesaurus in her hand—as Lynley and Nkata entered. She led them into the sitting room off which a dining area opened. At a table there, a meal was spread out: lamb chops congealing in their juices, mint jelly, peas, and potatoes. Two places were laid. A bottle of wine stood open. But nothing had been either eaten or drunk.

  Beyond the dining table, french doors opened into the back garden. This had been designed as a courtyard, with terra-cotta paving stones on the ground, wide, well-kept flowerbeds edging them, and a small fountain trickling water at their centre. At a green iron table set off to the left of the french doors, Eve Bowen was sitting in the growing shadows with a three-ring notebook opened in front of her and a glass t
o one side, half filled with ruby-coloured wine. Five more notebooks were stacked on another chair next to her.

  The constable said, “Minister Bowen, New Scotland Yard,” and that was the extent of her introductions. When Eve Bowen looked up, the constable backed off and returned to the house.

  “I’ve spoken to Mr. St. James,” Lynley said after identifying himself and DC Nkata. “We’re going to need to talk to you frankly. It may be painful, but there’s no other way.”

  “So he’s told you everything.” Eve Bowen didn’t look either at Lynley or at Nkata, who slipped his leather notebook from his pocket and made a preparatory adjustment to the length of lead in his pencil. Rather, she looked at the papers in front of her, loosened from the notebook. The light was fading too quickly for her to be able to read any longer, and she made no pretence of doing so. She merely fingered the edge of one of the papers as she waited for Lynley’s response.

  “He has,” Lynley said.

  “And how much have you shared with the press so far?”

  “It’s not generally my habit to speak to the media, if that’s your concern.”

  “Not even when the media guarantee anonymity?”

  “Ms. Bowen, I’m not interested in revealing your secrets to the press. Under any circumstances. In fact, I’m not interested in your secrets at all.”

  “Not even for money, Inspector?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Not even when they offer you more than you make as a policeman in the first place? Wouldn’t a nice size bribe—three or four months’ salary, for instance—be a tempting circumstance under which you might find yourself suddenly possessed of an insatiable interest in every one of my secrets?”

  Lynley felt rather than saw Nkata look his way. He knew what the DC was waiting for: DI Lynley’s verbal umbrage at the insult to his integrity, not to mention Lord Asherton’s umbrage at the more serious insult to his bank account. He said, “I’m interested in what happened to your daughter. If your past relates to that, it’s going to become public knowledge eventually. You may as well prepare yourself for that. I dare say it isn’t going to be as painful as what’s happened already. May we talk about it?”

  She favoured him with an evaluative gaze in which he read nothing from her, no ripple on the surface and no emotion in the eyes behind her spectacles. But apparently she’d reached a decision of some sort, because she dipped her chin fractionally in what went for a nod and said, “I phoned the Wiltshire police. We went out directly to identify her last night.”

  “We?”

  “My husband and I.”

  “Where is Mr. Stone?”

  Her eyelids lowered. She reached for her wineglass but she didn’t drink from it. She said, “Alex is upstairs. Sedated. Seeing Charlotte last night…Frankly, I think all the way out to Wiltshire he was hoping it wouldn’t be her. I think he’d even managed to convince himself of that. So when he finally saw her body, he reacted badly.” She drew her wineglass closer, not picking it up but sliding it across the glass that served as top to the table. “As a culture, we expect too much of men, I think, and not enough of women.”

  “None of us know how we’ll react to a death,” Lynley said. “Until it happens.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” She gave the glass a quarter turn and examined how the movement affected its contents. She said, “They knew she had drowned, the police in Wiltshire. But they wouldn’t tell us anything else. Not where, not when, not how. Especially that last, which I find rather curious.”

  “They have to wait for the results of the autopsy,” Lynley told her.

  “Dennis phoned here first. He claimed to have seen the story on the news.”

  “Luxford?”

  “Dennis Luxford.”

  “Mr. St. James told me that you suspected him of being involved.”

  “Suspect,” she corrected him. She removed her hand from the wineglass and began to straighten the papers on the table, evening out the corners and the sides in a movement much like a sleepwalker’s. Lynley wondered if she had been sedated as well, her exercise of straightening them was so slow. She said, “As I understand it, Inspector, there’s currently no evidence that Charlotte was murdered. Is that correct?”

  Lynley was reluctant to put his suspicions into words despite his viewing of the photographs. He said, “Only the autopsy can tell us exactly what happened.”

  “Yes. Of course. The official police line. I understand. But I saw the body. I—” The tips of her fingers whitened where she pressed them against the tabletop. It was a moment before she went on, and during that moment they could all clearly hear the muffled babble of voices from the reporters not far away on Marylebone High Street. “I saw the entire body, not just the face. There was no mark on it. Anywhere. No significant mark. She hadn’t been tied. She hadn’t been weighted down in some way. She hadn’t struggled against someone holding her underneath water. What does that suggest to you, Inspector? It suggests an accident to me.”

  Lynley didn’t openly disagree with her. He was more curious to see where she was heading with her thinking than he was eager to correct her misconceptions about accidental drownings.

  She said, “I think his plan went awry. He intended to have her held until I surrendered to his demands for public notice. And then he would have released her unharmed.”

  “Mr. Luxford?”

  “He wouldn’t have killed her or ordered her killed. He needed her alive to assure my cooperation. But somehow it all went wrong. And she died. She didn’t know what was going on. She may have been frightened. So perhaps she escaped. It would have been like Charlotte to do that, to escape. Perhaps she was running. It was dark. She was in the country. She wouldn’t have been familiar with the land. She wouldn’t even have known the canal was there because she’d never been to Wiltshire before.”

  “Was she a swimmer?”

  “Yes. But if she was running…If she ran, fell, hit her head…You see what could have happened to her, I expect.”

  “We aren’t ruling out anything, Ms. Bowen.”

  “So you’re considering Dennis?”

  “Along with everyone else.”

  She moved her gaze to her papers and to the ordering of them. “There isn’t anyone else.”

  “We can’t draw that conclusion,” Lynley said, “without a full examination of the facts.” He pulled out one of the three other chairs that sat round the table. He nodded at Nkata to do the same. He said, “I see you’ve brought work home.”

  “Is that the first fact to be examined, then? Why is the Junior Minister calmly sitting in her garden with her work spread round her while her husband—who’s not even the father of her child—is upstairs completely prostrate with grief?”

  “I expect your responsibilities are enormous.”

  “No. You expect I’m heartless. That’s the most logical conclusion for you to reach, isn’t it? You have to observe my behaviour. It’s part of your job. You have to ask yourself what sort of mother I am. You’re looking for whoever abducted my daughter and for all you know, I may have arranged it myself. Why else would I be capable of sitting here looking through papers as if nothing had happened? I don’t seem to be the sort who’d be desperate for something to stare at, something to play at working upon, to keep myself from tearing my hair out with grief. Do I?”

  Lynley leaned towards her, placing his hand near where she’d placed hers, on top of one of the stacks of papers. He said, “Understand me. Not every remark I make to you is going to be a judgement, Ms. Bowen.”

  He could hear her swallow. “In my world, it is.”

  “It’s your world we need to talk about.”

  On the papers, her fingers began to curl, the way they would had she decided to crumple the documents. It seemed to take an effort for her to relax them again. She said, “I haven’t cried. She was my daughter. I haven’t cried. He looks at me. He waits for the tears because he’ll be able to comfort me if I give him tears and until I do
, he’s completely lost. There’s no centre for him. There’s not even a handhold. Because I can’t cry.”

  “You’re still in shock.”

  “I’m not. That’s the worst of it. Not to be in shock when everyone expects it. Doctors, family, colleagues. All of them waiting for me to show them an acceptable and appropriately overt indication of maternal torment so that they’ll know what to do next.”

  Lynley knew there was little point in delineating for the MP any one of the endless responses to sudden death he’d seen over the years. It was true that her reaction to her daughter’s death wasn’t what he would have expected from a mother whose ten-year-old has been abducted, held, and then found dead, but he knew that her lack of emotion didn’t make her response any less genuine. He also knew that Nkata was noting it for the record, since the DC had begun writing almost as soon as Eve Bowen had started to speak.

  “We’ll have someone checking into Mr. Luxford,” he told her. “But I don’t want to investigate him to the exclusion of other possible suspects. If your daughter’s abduction was the first step to remove you from political power—”

  “Then we need to consider who other than Dennis would be interested in that end,” she finished for him. “Is that right?”

  “Yes. We’ve got to consider that. As well as the passions that would motivate someone to remove you from power. Jealousy, greed, political ambition, revenge. Have you thwarted someone in the Opposition?”