In the Presence of the Enemy

by Elizabeth George

  Lynley glanced beyond him, back towards the drawing room. “Where’s your wife, Mr. Luxford?”

  “Upstairs. Lying down.”

  “Got agitated about an hour ago,” Stewart added. “She took a pill and had a lie-down.”

  Lynley nodded at Nkata, who said, “She’s upstairs, Mr. Luxford?”

  Luxford seemed to realise the intent behind the question, because he exclaimed, “Can’t you leave her alone? Does she have to know this now? If she’s finally sleeping—”

  “She may not be sleeping,” Lynley said. “What sort of pill has she taken?”

  “Tranquilliser.”

  “What kind?”

  “I don’t know. Why? What’s this all about? Look. Good Christ. Don’t wake her and tell her what’s happened.”

  “She may already know.”

  “Already? How?” Then Luxford appeared to put it all together, because he said quickly, “You can’t still think Fiona has anything to do with this. You saw her yesterday. You saw her state. She isn’t an actress.”

  “Check her,” Lynley said. Nkata left to do so. “I need a picture of you, Mr. Luxford. I’d like a picture of your wife as well.”

  “What for?”

  “My colleague in Wiltshire. You didn’t mention you’d been in Wiltshire recently.”

  “When the hell was I in Wiltshire?”

  “Does Baverstock jog your memory?”

  “Baverstock? You mean when I went to the school? Why should I have mentioned a visit to Baverstock? It had nothing to do with anything that’s happened. It had to do with enrolling Leo.” Luxford seemed to be trying to read Lynley for his assessment of guilt or innocence. He also seemed to glean that assessment because he went on with, “Jesus. What’s happening? How can you stand there watching me as if you expect my flesh to start bubbling? He’s going to kill my son. You heard it, didn’t you? He’s going to kill him tomorrow if I don’t do what he wants. So what the hell are you doing wasting time interviewing my wife when you could be out there doing something—anything—to save my son’s life? I swear to God, if something happens to Leo after this…” He appeared to notice that he was breathing roughly. He said blankly, “God. I don’t know what to do.”

  DI Stewart did. He opened a cupboard, found a bottle of cooking sherry, and poured half a tumblerful. He said to Luxford, “Drink this.” As Luxford was doing so, Nkata returned with the newspaperman’s wife.

  If Lynley had thought Fiona Luxford was involved in the death of Charlotte Bowen and the subsequent kidnapping of her son, if he’d thought she had made the recent phone call herself from a cellular phone somewhere within this house, those thoughts were laid to rest instantly by the woman’s appearance. Her hair was flattened, her face was swollen, her lips were chapped. She was wearing a crumpled oversized shirt and leggings, the shirt stained in the front as if she’d been sick on it. The smell of sickness was heavy on her, in fact, and she clutched a blanket round her shoulders as if for protection rather than for warmth. When she saw Lynley, her steps faltered. Then she saw her husband and seemed to read disaster on his face. Her own face crumpled.

  She said, “No. He isn’t. He isn’t,” on an ever-rising scale of fear.

  Luxford took her into his arms. Stewart poured more sherry. Lynley led them all back to the drawing room.

  Luxford gently eased his wife onto the sofa. She was trembling violently, so he adjusted the blanket round her and circled her shoulders with his arm.

  He said, “Leo isn’t dead. He isn’t dead. All right?”

  Weakly, she leaned into his chest. She plucked at his shirt. She said, “He’ll be so frightened. He’s only eight…” And she squeezed her eyes shut.

  Luxford pressed her head against him. He said, “We’ll find him. We’ll get him back.” The look he directed towards Lynley asked the unspoken question: How can you believe that this is a woman who engineered the kidnapping of her own son?

  Lynley had to admit that her culpability was unlikely. From what he’d seen of Fiona Luxford since her arrival home yesterday afternoon with her son’s school cap clutched in her hand, she had not struck a single false note. It would take more than a fine actress to carry off the performance of overwrought anxiety that he’d seen from this woman. It would take a sociopath. And his intuition told him that Leo Luxford’s mother was not a sociopath. She was simply Leo’s mother.

  This conclusion, however, did not yet exonerate Dennis Luxford. There was still the fact that a search of his Porsche had produced Charlotte’s spectacles and hairs from her head. And while these might have been plants, Lynley could not dismiss the newspaperman as a suspect. He watched him closely as he said, “We need to examine the newspaper story, Mr. Luxford. If you’ve got it wrong, then we need to know why.” Luxford looked as if he was about to protest, about to argue that their time and their energy could be better spent combing the streets for his son than combing his printed words for an error that could be corrected and thus somehow placate a homicide. Lynley said in answer to that unspoken protest, “The investigation is gaining ground in Wiltshire. We’ve made progress here in London as well.”

  “What sort of progress?”

  “Among other things, a positive ID on those glasses we found. Hairs from the girl as well. In the same location.” He didn’t add the rest: Mr. Luxford was standing on shaky ground, so he might want to cooperate as fully as possible.

  Luxford got the message. He wasn’t a fool. But he said, “I don’t know what else I could have written. And I don’t see where this direction will take us.”

  His doubt wasn’t unreasonable. Lynley said, “Something may have happened during that week you and Eve Bowen spent together in Blackpool, something that you’ve forgotten. That incident—a chance remark, a botched encounter of some sort, an appointment or assignation that you cancelled or failed to keep—could be the key to our rooting out whoever is behind what happened to Charlotte and to your son. If we uncover what it is that you left out of the story, we may see a connection to someone, a connection that at the moment is beyond our reach.”

  “We need Eve for this,” Luxford said. When his wife raised her head, he went on with, “There’s no other way, Fi. I’ve written all that I can remember at this point. If there’s something left out, she’s the only one who can tell me. I have to see her.”

  Fiona turned her head. Her gaze was dull. “Yes,” she said. But the word was dead.

  Luxford said to Lynley, “Not here though. With the vultures outside. Not here. Please.”

  Lynley handed his keys to Nkata, saying, “Fetch Ms. Bowen. Take her to the Yard. We’ll meet you there.”

  Nkata left. Lynley studied Fiona Luxford. He said, “You must be strong for the next several hours, Mrs. Luxford. DI Stewart will be here. The constables will be here as well. If the kidnapper phones, you must try to prolong the conversation to give us a chance at a trace. He may be a killer, but if your son’s the last card he’s holding, he’s not going to harm him while there’s still a possibility that he can get what he wants. Do you understand?”

  She nodded but didn’t move. Luxford touched her hair and said her name. She drew herself up, blanket clutched to her chest. She nodded again. Her eyes became filmed by a transparency of tears, but she didn’t shed them.

  Lynley said to the other DI, “I’ll need your car, John.”

  Stewart tossed him the keys, saying, “Run over a few of those swine at the end of the drive while you’re at it.”

  Luxford said to his wife, “Will you be all right? Shall I phone someone to stay with you before I go?”

  “Go,” she said, and it was clear her mind was completely in order on at least one subject. “Leo’s the only thing that matters.”

  27

  LYNLEY HAD DECIDED in advance that there was little profit in having his meeting with Dennis Luxford and Eve Bowen in an interview room. They might have been disconcerted by the presence of a tape recorder, the absence of windows, and a system of lighting en
gineered to sallow the complexion and rattle the nerves. But effecting a loss in their self-possession wasn’t as important at this point as was garnering their cooperation. So he took Luxford directly to his office, and there they waited for Nkata’s return with the Marylebone MP.

  Dorothea Harriman thrust a stack of messages in Lynley’s direction as they passed her desk. She said in apparent reference to these, “SO7 reporting in on the George Street squat. SO4 on Jack Beard’s fingerprints. Wigmore Street on the Special Constables. Two reporters—one from The Source and the other from the Mirror—”

  “How did they get my name?”

  “Someone’s always willing to blab, Detective Inspector Lynley. Just look at the royals.”

  “They blab on themselves,” Lynley pointed out.

  “How times have changed.” She referred back to the messages. “Sir David twice. Your brother once—he says not to phone back. It was just about having solved the problem at the Trefalwyn’s dairy. Does that make sense?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Your tailor once. Mr. St. James three times. He says you’re to phone him as soon as you can, by the way. And Sir David says he wants his report pronto.”

  “Sir David always wants his report pronto.” Lynley took the messages and stuffed them into his jacket pocket. He said to Luxford, “This way,” and sat the newsman in his office. He phoned SO4 and SO7 to hear what they had to say about Jack Beard and about the squat. The information was complete but not altogether useful. Jack Beard’s criminal record was confirmed by the Fingerprint Office, but his prints were no match for any that they’d found. The carpet from the squat had been examined, and it was going to take at least another week to sort through everything they’d found in it and on it: hairs, semen, blood, urine, and enough food droppings to keep a flock of pigeons happy for hours.

  When Nkata arrived with Eve Bowen, Lynley handed the rest of the messages to the DC, along with the photograph of Dennis Luxford that The Source editor had provided him. As Nkata hurried off to send the picture to Havers in Wiltshire, to deal with the messages, and to compile a report that would keep the Assistant Commissioner content for another day, Lynley shut the door behind him and turned to Eve Bowen and the man who had fathered her child.

  The MP said, “Was this entirely necessary, Inspector Lynley? Do you have any idea how many photographers were waiting to capture the timeless moment when your constable came for me?”

  “We could have come to your office,” Lynley replied. “But I doubt you would have appreciated that. The same photographers who caught you leaving with DC Nkata would have had a field day recording Mr. Luxford’s appearance at your door.”

  She hadn’t acknowledged Dennis Luxford’s presence. She didn’t do so now. She merely crossed to one of the two chairs in front of Lynley’s desk and sat on the edge of it, her back like a shaft. She was wearing a black coatlike dress, double-breasted with six gold buttons. It was politician’s clothing without a doubt, but it looked uncharacteristically rumpled, and a ladder in her black stockings, down by the ankle, threatened to snake whitely up the rest of her leg.

  She said in a composed voice but without looking in his direction, “I’ve stepped down at the Home Office, Dennis. And I’m finished in Marylebone. Are you happy now? Fulfilled? Complete?”

  “Evelyn, this was never—”

  “I’ve lost just about everything,” she interrupted. “But there’s still hope, according to the Home Secretary. In twenty years, if I keep my nose clean, I could turn myself into John Profumo. Admired, if neither respected nor feared. Isn’t that something worth looking forward to?” She gave a false little laugh.

  “I wasn’t involved,” Luxford said. “After everything that’s happened, how can you even think I was behind this horror?”

  “Because the pieces fit into place so nicely: one, two, three, four. Charlotte was taken, the threat was made, I failed to capitulate, Charlotte died. That focused attention on me where you wanted it and prepared the way for piece number five.”

  “Which is what?” Luxford asked.

  “Your son’s disappearance and the subsequent necessity to ruin me.” She finally looked at him. “Tell me, Dennis. How are the newspaper’s circulation numbers? Did you finally manage to outdistance the Sun?”

  Luxford turned away from her, saying, “Good God.”

  Lynley went to his desk. He sat behind it and faced the two of them. Luxford slumped in his chair, unshaven, his hair unwashed and largely uncombed, his skin the colour of putty. Bowen maintained her unyielding posture, her face like a mask that was painted on her flesh. Lynley wondered what it would take to gain her assistance.

  He said, “Ms. Bowen, one child is already dead. Another may die if we don’t move quickly.” He took the copy of The Source that had been at Luxford’s house and laid it upside down on his desk so that its lead story was facing the other two people. Eve Bowen glanced at it distastefully, then averted her eyes. “This is what we need to talk about,” Lynley said to her. “There’s something in here that’s incorrect or something that’s missing. We need to know what it is. And we need your help to know it.”

  “Why? Is Mr. Luxford looking for tomorrow’s lead? Can’t he develop it on his own? He’s managed to do that so far.”

  “Have you read this story?”

  “I don’t wallow in muck.”

  “Then I’ll ask you to read it now.”

  “If I refuse?”

  “I can’t think your conscience will bear the weight of an eight-year-old’s death. Not fast upon the heels of Charlotte’s murder. And not if you can do something to stop it. But that death will occur—make no mistake about it—if we don’t act now to head it off. Please read the story.”

  “Don’t play me for a fool. Mr. Luxford’s got what he wants. He’s run his little front page article. He’s destroyed me. He can carry on for days picking through my remains for additional stories, and I’ve no doubt he’ll do it. But what he won’t do at this point is murder his own son.”

  Luxford lunged forward and grabbed the paper. “Read it!” he snarled. “Read the God damn story. Believe what you want, think what you will, but read this fucking story or so help me God, I’ll—”

  “What?” she asked. “Move from character assassination to the real thing? Are you capable of that? Could you plunge the knife? Could you pull the trigger? Or would you just rely on one of your henchmen to do the job again?”

  Luxford threw the paper into her lap. “You manufacture reality as you go along. I’m through trying to make you see the truth. Read the story, Evelyn. You didn’t want to act to save our daughter, and I have no power to change that fact. But if—”

  “How dare you refer to her as our daughter. How dare you even suggest that I—”

  “But if”—Luxford’s voice grew louder—“if you think I’m going to sit on my hands and wait for my son to be the second victim of a psychopath, you have completely misread me. Now, read the bloody story. Read it now, read it carefully, and tell me what I’ve got wrong so I can save Leo’s life. Because if Leo dies…” Luxford’s voice splintered. He got to his feet and went to the window. To the glass he said, “You have reason enough to hate me. But don’t take your vengeance out on my son.”

  Eve Bowen watched him the way a scientist watches a specimen from which she hopes to glean some empirical information. A career of distrusting everyone, maintaining her own counsel, and keeping an eye open for backbench backstabbers had not prepared her to accept anyone’s credibility. Inherent suspicion—the simultaneous bane and necessity of political life—had brought her to her present state, taking as its hostage not only her position but also, most horribly, the life of her child. Lynley saw clearly that that same suspicion, in conjunction with her animosity for the man who had made her pregnant, prevented her from making the leap of faith that would allow her to help them.

  He couldn’t accept this. He said, “Ms. Bowen, we’ve heard from the kidnapper today. He’s said he’s going to kill the
boy if Mr. Luxford doesn’t correct whatever facts are incorrect in this story. Now, it isn’t necessary for you to believe Mr. Luxford’s word. But I’m going to ask you to believe mine. I heard the tape of the phone call. It was made by one of my CID colleagues who was in the house when the call came through.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Eve Bowen said. But her remark was less certain than her earlier statements had been.

  “Indeed. It doesn’t. There are dozens of clever ways to fake a telephone call. But assuming for the moment that the call was genuine, do you want a second death on your soul?”

  “I don’t have the first one on my soul. I did what I had to do. I did what was right. I’m not responsible. He—” She lifted her hand to gesture at Luxford. For the first time, the hand was trembling slightly. She seemed to see this and dropped the hand to her lap where the tabloid lay. “He…Not I…” She swallowed, stared at nothing, and finally said again, “Not I.”

  Lynley waited. Luxford turned from the window. He started to say something, but Lynley shot him a look and shook his head. Outside Lynley’s office, telephones were ringing and he could hear Dorothea Harriman’s voice. Inside the office, he held his breath, thinking, Come on, come on. Damn you, woman. Come on.

  She crumpled the edges of the tabloid. She pushed her spectacles more firmly into place. She began to read.

  The telephone rang. Lynley snatched it up. Sir David Hillier’s secretary was on the line. When could the AC expect an update on the investigation from his subordinate officer? When it’s written, Lynley told her, and dropped the phone.

  Eve Bowen turned to the inside page where the story continued. Luxford remained where he was. When she had completed her reading, she sat for a moment with her hand covering the newsprint and her head raised just enough so that her gaze rested on the edge of Lynley’s desk.

  “He said I’ve got it wrong,” Luxford told her quietly. “He said I have to write it correctly for tomorrow or he’ll kill Leo. But I don’t know what to change.”