Believing the Lie il-17

by Elizabeth George

  The farmer said, “Not for my three, it’s not. Where d’you go to school?”

  Jesus, Tim thought. Where he went to school was the farmer’s business like it was his business asking Tim when his last shit had occurred. He said, “Not round here. Margaret Fox. Near Ulverston,” reasonably sure that the man wouldn’t have heard of the place and its reason for being. He added, “Independent school. It’s boarding but I don’t board.”

  “What’s happened to your hands, then?” the farmer asked. “You don’t want them to stay like that.”

  Tim gritted his teeth. He said, “Cut myself. Got to be more careful.”

  “Cut? Those don’t look like you cut — ”

  “Look, pull over,” Tim said. “You c’n let me out here.”

  “This’s nowheres near Winster, boy.” True enough. They’d gone barely a mile.

  “Just let me out, okay?” Tim’s voice was controlled. He didn’t want it to go fierce with all that fierceness revealed, but he knew that if he didn’t get out of the Land Rover now, he would do something and it wouldn’t be pleasant.

  The farmer shrugged. He pulled over. He looked long and hard at Tim as he braked, and Tim knew that the man was memorising his face. No doubt he’d be listening to the radio news next time it came on, waiting to hear about a local burglary or a spate of malicious mischief that he could pin on Tim. Well, that was the risk he’d have to take. Better that than riding farther with the bloke.

  “You take care, son,” the farmer said just before Tim slammed the door, hard.

  “Whatever,” Tim replied as the Land Rover moved on. He tore at the back of his hand with his teeth.

  His next ride was better. A German couple took him as far as the road to Crook, where they turned off in search of some posh country house hotel. They spoke good English, but all they wanted to talk about to him was “ach, such rain you have in Cumbria,” and when they spoke to each other — which was most of the time anyway — they spoke in German, rapid sentences about someone called Heidi.

  Tim managed to get a final lift from a lorry driver just north of the Crook Road. This bloke was heading all the way to Keswick, so Windermere would be no problem, he said.

  What was a problem was the driver’s intention of using their limited time together to lecture Tim on the dangers of hitchhiking and to quiz him about his parents and did they know he was out on the roads taking lifts from strangers? You don’t even know who I am, he announced. I could be Sutcliffe. I could be Brady. I could be some child molester. You understand that?

  Tim bore all this without kicking the bloke in the face, which was what he badly wanted to do. He nodded, said, “Yeah,” said, “Whatever,” and when they finally reached Windermere, said, “Drop me off over there by the library.” This the lorry driver did, although not without saying it was lucky for Tim that he had no interest in twelve-year-old boys. Because this was truly and absolutely too much, Tim said that he was fourteen, not twelve. The lorry driver hawked a laugh and said, “You aren’t ever. And what’re you hiding under them baggy clothes? I reckon truth is you’re a girl, you are,” in response to which Tim slammed the door.

  He’d borne just about all that he could. If he’d done exactly what he preferred to do at that precise moment, he would have gone into the library and ripped up a shelf of books. But that, he knew, would not get him an inch closer to where he wanted to be. So he bit down hard, harder, and then hardest of all on his knuckles till he tasted the blood and that helped a bit and made him able to set off towards the business centre.

  Even at this time of year, there were tourists in Windermere. It was nothing like the summer, when one couldn’t move in the town without bashing straight into some fell-walking enthusiast with a bulging rucksack on his back and a hiking pole in his hand. Then no one local with any sense came into town since endless tailbacks transformed every street into nothing more than a car park. Now, though, moving about was easier, and the tourists on the pavements were of the who-gives-a-shit sort, kitted out in green plastic bedsheets with their rucksacks underneath making them all look like hunchbacks. Tim passed them by and followed the route into the business centre, where there was not a single tourist at all, tourists having no reason to go there.

  Tim, however, had a very good reason and it was called Shots! This was a photographic developing service, he’d learned upon his only visit to the place, and its general purpose was to create super-enlargements for professional photographers who came to the Lakes to memorialise its grand vistas at all times of year.

  In the window, samples of what Shots! was capable of producing stood on large easels against a black background curtain. Inside the shop itself, photo portraits were hanging on the walls, digital cameras were on offer, and a display of antique cameras was arranged in a glass-fronted bookcase as well. There was a counter and, as Tim knew, a back room. From this room a man emerged. He was wearing a white lab coat with Shots! embroidered on the left breast and a plastic name tag above it. When his eyes met Tim’s, his hand went quickly to that name tag. He removed it and shoved it into his pocket.

  Tim thought once again how normal Toy4You looked. He was not at all what one would expect, with neat brown hair, roses in his cheeks, and wire-rimmed specs. He had a pleasant smile and he used it now. But what he said to Tim was, “This isn’t a good time.”

  “I texted you,” Tim said. “You didn’t answer.”

  “I had no message from you,” Toy4You replied. “Are you sure you sent it to the right number?” He looked directly at Tim, which was how Tim knew he was lying because that was what he himself had used to do until he’d understood how dead a giveaway it was to meet someone’s eyes like that.

  Tim said, “Why didn’t you answer? We had a deal. We have a deal. I did my part. You didn’t do yours.”

  The man’s gaze shifted. It went from Tim to the doorway. This meant he was hoping that someone would enter the shop so that the conversation could go no further because he knew as well as Tim knew that neither of them wanted to be overheard. But there was no one out there, so he was going to have to talk or Tim was going to do something inside the shop… like make a move for those old cameras in that case or one of the digitals. He doubted Toy4You wanted any of them destroyed.

  Tim said, “I said-”

  “For what you’re proposing, the risk is too great. I’ve thought about it, but that’s how it is.”

  Tim grew so hot that he felt a fire being lit at his feet. It rose quickly and engulfed him and he breathed fast and hard because that seemed the best way to control it. He said, “We fucking agreed. You think I’m forgetting about that?” He clenched his fists, unclenched them, and looked around. “D’you even want to know what I can do to you if you don’t keep your promise to me?”

  Toy4You went to a drawer at the end of the counter. Tim tensed, reckoning he meant to pull out a gun or something, which was what would have happened in a film. But instead, he pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He lit one. He examined Tim for a very long moment before he spoke. He finally said, “Okay. All right. But if you want it to happen, I need more from you than you’ve given so far. That’s the only thing that makes it worthwhile for me. A risk you take for a risk I take. Equality.”

  Tim parted his lips to speak but he couldn’t at first. He’d already done everything. Every single damn thing. And now he was meant to do more? He said the only thing he could think of, “You promised me.”

  Toy4You made the sort of expression one might make upon the discovery of a seriously soiled nappy in the front seat of one’s car. He said, “What’s this ‘you promised me’? Like some infant school pupils’ arrangement, that’s it? You give me your chocolate bikkie and I let you ride my skateboard? Only I eat the bikkie and then run off and you don’t get your ride?”

  Tim said, “You agreed. You said. This is fucking unfair.”

  Toy4You drew in long on the cigarette and watched Tim over its glowing tip. He said, “I changed my mind. That’s what peo
ple do. I’ve assessed the risk and it’s all on my part and none on yours. You want things done, you do them yourself.”

  Tim saw a curtain of red fall between himself and Toy4You. He knew what it meant: Action was called for and Toy4You wasn’t about to call the cops to prevent him from taking it. But on the other hand, that would finish things between them and despite what he was feeling at the moment, Tim knew he didn’t want to start this process all over again, searching for someone else. He couldn’t face that: the days and weeks that it would take. So he said, “I swear to God, I’ll tell. And when I’m done telling… No. Before that, I’ll kill you and then I’ll tell. I swear. I’ll say I had to. I’ll say you made me.”

  Toy4You lifted an eyebrow casually. “With the trail you’ve left on that computer of yours? I don’t think so, mate.” He glanced at a wall clock behind the shop counter and said, “And now it’s time for you to leave.”

  “I’m staying.” Tim’s voice began to shake. The rage filled him with both passion and need. “I’m telling everyone who walks in that door. You throw me out, I wait in the car park. Anyone comes near this place, I tell them. You call the cops to get me out of here, I tell them as well. You think I won’t? You think I even care at this point?”

  At this Toy4You took a moment without replying. It became so quiet within the shop that the movement of the second hand on the wall clock sounded like a gun being cocked, over and over again. Finally the man said, “Hell. Relax. Okay. You’ve got my short ’n curlies in your fist but I have yours as well, and you’re not seeing that. As I’ve already said, you’re taking no risk. I’m taking it all. So you’re going to have to make things more worthwhile than you’re making them at present. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Tim said nothing. What he wanted to do — “at present,” as Toy4You put it — was dive over the shop counter and beat the bastard to a pulp. But he remained where he was.

  Toy4You said, “Really, kid, what’s it going to take you to do that much: an hour, two, three? You want this bad enough, you go along. You don’t want it bad enough, you phone the cops. But if you do, you have to give them something to prove what you’re telling them and you and I both know where that proof leads. You’ve got a mobile with messages. You’ve got a computer with e-mail. There’re cops out there who’re going to take a look at all that and see what’s what with you, and that’s going to be easy. We’re both in a dodgy position here, so why don’t we help each other instead of trying to push each other in front of the train, eh?”

  They engaged in a stare-down. From rage and need, what Tim felt altered to pure hopelessness. He didn’t want to face the truth of the matter, that truth being that Toy4You had a point that Tim could not deny. So he finally said numbly, “What?”

  Toy4You smiled briefly. “Not alone this time.”

  Tim felt his bowels get loose. He said, “When?”

  That smile again, the kind of smile that acknowledges triumph. “Soon, my friend. I’ll send you a text. You just be ready. Completely ready this time. Got that?”

  “Yeah,” Tim said because there was nothing else left, and he knew that.

  LAKE WINDERMERE

  CUMBRIA

  After Manette had left them, Lynley told Bernard Fairclough that they needed to have a talk. Fairclough apparently anticipated this because he nodded, although he said, despite the rain that had begun to fall, “Let me take you through the topiary garden first.”

  Lynley reckoned that Fairclough made this offer in order to prepare himself for whatever talk was coming, but he let the other man have the time. They went in through an arched gate in a stone wall that was grey-speckled with lichen. Fairclough chatted about the site. He sounded casual enough, but doubtless he’d gone this route a hundred times: showing off what his wife had accomplished with her efforts to return the garden to its former glory.

  Lynley listened without comment. He found the garden oddly beautiful. He generally preferred his shrubbery natural, but in this place box, holly, myrtle, and yew had been fashioned into fantastic shapes, some of them over thirty feet tall. There were trapezoids, pyramids, and spirals. There were double spirals, mushrooms, arches, barrels, and cones. Paths of bleached limestone led among them and where there were no shrubs, there were parterres created from low box hedges. In these parterres yellow dwarf nasturtiums still bloomed, a contrast to the purple violas that surrounded them.

  The garden was more than two hundred years old, and restoring it had been Valerie’s dream upon inheriting Ireleth Hall, Fairclough told him. It had taken her years upon years with the assistance of four gardeners and photos from early in the twentieth century. “Magnificent, eh?” Fairclough said with pride. “She’s amazing, my wife.”

  Lynley admired the garden. Anyone, he knew, would have done the same. But there was something not quite right in Fairclough’s tone, and Lynley said to him, “Shall we talk here in the garden or somewhere else?”

  Fairclough, obviously knowing that the time had come, replied, “Come with me, then. Valerie’s gone to check on Mignon. She’ll be a while. We can talk in the library.”

  This turned out to be a misnomer, as there were no books. The room was a small and cosy chamber just off the great hall, with darkly panelled walls that were hung with portraits of Faircloughs long departed. A desk sat in the centre of the room, and two comfortable armchairs faced a fireplace. This was an impressive Grinling Gibbons affair surmounted by a display of old Willow pattern pottery, and a coal fire was laid within. Fairclough lit this, for the room bore a chill. Then he opened the heavy curtains that covered the lead-paned windows. Rain was streaking them.

  Fairclough offered drinks. It was a little early for Lynley, so he demurred, but Fairclough poured sherry for himself. He indicated the chairs, and they sat. He said, “You’re seeing more dirty laundry than I expected. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Every family has its share,” Lynley noted. “My own included.”

  “Not like mine, I wager.”

  Lynley shrugged. He said, because at this point it had to be asked, “Do you want me to proceed, Bernard?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  Lynley steepled his fingers beneath his chin and looked at the coal fire. Lit by candle stubs beneath it, it was building nicely. The room would soon be quite warm. He said, “Aside from this business about Cresswell’s farm, which bears looking into, you may already have the result you prefer. If the coroner has declared it an accident, you might well want to leave it that way.”

  “And let someone get away with murder?”

  “At the end of the day, no one gets away with anything, I’ve found.”

  “What have you uncovered?”

  “It’s not a matter of what I’ve uncovered. So far, that’s little enough as my hands are somewhat tied by the pretence of my being a visitor here. It’s rather a matter of what I might uncover, which is a motive for murder. I suppose what I’m saying is that while this easily could have been an accident, you run the risk of discovering things about your son, your daughters, even your wife that you’d rather not know, no matter how your nephew died. That sort of thing happens in an investigation.”

  Fairclough seemed to give this some thought. Like Lynley, he directed his gaze to the fireplace and then to the Willow pattern pottery above it. One of the vases, Lynley saw, was cracked and had been repaired at some time. Long ago, he reckoned. The repair was inexpert, not like what could be done today to hide damage.

  Lynley said, “On the other hand, this could indeed be a murder, perpetrated by someone you love. Do you want to face that?”

  Fairclough looked at him then. He said nothing, but Lynley could see that the man’s mind was ticking away at something.

  Lynley continued. “Consider this as well. You wanted to know if Nicholas was somehow involved in what happened to his cousin. That was why you came to London. But what if someone else is involved, other than Nicholas? Some other member of your family. Or what if Ian wasn’t the intended vic
tim? Do you want to know that as well?”

  Fairclough didn’t hesitate. Both of them knew who the other intended victim would have been. He said, “No one has a reason to want Valerie hurt. She’s the centre of this world. Both my world and theirs.” He indicated the out-of-doors, by which Lynley took that he meant his children, and one of them in particular.

  Lynley said, “Bernard, we can’t avoid looking at Mignon. She has access to that boathouse every day.”

  “Absolutely not Mignon,” Fairclough said. “She wouldn’t have lifted a finger against Ian and certainly not against her own mother.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s fragile, Tommy. Always has been. She had a head injury as a child and ever since … She’s incapacitated. Her knees, her surgery… No matter… She wouldn’t have been able to manage it.”

  Lynley pressed him. “If she somehow were able, has she a motive? Is there something I should know about her relationship with her mother? With her cousin? Were they close? Were they enemies?”

  “In other words, did she have a reason to want Ian dead?”

  “That’s what I’m asking.”

  Fairclough took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Ian advised me on financial matters, as you know. He was in charge of all finances. That was his job. He was good at that and I needed him.”

  “I understand,” Lynley said.

  “He’d insisted for a while — perhaps three years — that I cut Mignon off. He never understood that the girl can’t work. She’s never been able. Ian’s point was that giving her money was what had crippled her and she was otherwise perfectly fine. It was a bone of contention between us. Not a big one and it only came up once or twice a year. But I had no intention of… I just couldn’t. When your child’s been badly injured… When you have children of your own, you’ll understand, Tommy.”