by Iona Whishaw
“Come on, you should get cleaned up, have those wounds looked at,” Carl said, but he didn’t reach out to help him. The other men who’d tried were already back inside.
“I want my bloody bag! Where is it?”
“Is it inside? I’ll go check. Sit here.”
“I’m not sitting anywhere. I’m going after him, now get my bag.”
Carl hesitated. Heppwith looked murderous. He’d been badly beaten, and he wasn’t taking it well.
The men at the table he’d been sitting at looked up when Carl came in. Suddenly he felt sober. “Have you calmed Heppwith down?” one of them asked.
“I don’t think so. He’s pretty mad. I wouldn’t want to be that guy. Is this Heppwith’s bag? I’m hoping I can talk him into going home.”
Back outside, Carl saw someone leading Heppwith up the road toward the rooming house where the meeting, which now seemed from some distant time past, had been. Was it the man in the suit? What had happened to the other man, the one called Klaus? Heppwith had been looking down the road toward the lake. There was no moon and the darkness seemed absolute. Carl started down the road, feeling himself almost stumbling forward. The temporary feeling of sobriety had left him, and now he felt only the need for darkness and clean air. He’d never been to the lakeside here. He could see the large pier where a steamer was docked. A few bulbs hanging along the edge of the roof threw a small ring of light at the beginning of the pier. Otherwise it seemed to be unmanned and was encased in darkness. Farther to the right he heard a sound and stopped. He turned toward it and stumbled down an incline to a pebbled beach. His head whirled and he suddenly felt sick.
“Who’s there?” Had he said it or had someone else? He was lying on the beach, recovering from vomiting. He thought he could see the outline of the pier.
Carl managed to stagger to his feet. He had been going to walk down toward the man but stopped. Klaus had beaten Heppwith badly. He could see the man moving dimly in the dark. He was leaning down and pushing something into a barely discernible rowboat. He didn’t hear the men behind him till he turned and they were right there. A light went on, blinding him so that he turned away.
All he could think later was that he had to run as far away as possible.
Klaus leaned over and fumbled with the rope, one hand feeling for his ear, where sound boomed and billowed through his head. He reached into his pocket and found his knife and cut the rope, trying to sit up. He let the knife slip through his fingers into the water, feeling the boat under him bob with his movement and begin to drift free. He wondered that he couldn’t hear anything but thunder. If he could just lie down and float . . . but he had to get home. Julia was waiting for him. He took up the oars and pulled. It was always much easier to go home with the current. How good it would be! The children would jump on him, laughing. He was so tired. Someone had been angry, he remembered a shot, the force of it tumbling him into the boat. He was glad it had not hit him because she would be inconsolable if something happened to him. She would be surprised to see him coming by water. The streets of their childhood were all rivers now, flowing past the factory, her garden, flowing, gathering into one great current. He closed his eyes to see the streets, but they retreated and all was darkness again. When the rain started he turned his face and felt the drops falling, and he knew water was above him and below him. He could feel it filling him, making his legs heavy. An oar slipped from his hand and he smiled, relieved of the responsibility. The night and the water pulled at him until he felt himself as heavy as the whole world, sinking into shadow. How she would laugh to see him in a boat!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“What do you think?” Lane was standing doubtfully looking at the blouse and skirt draped across the sofa. She had met Angela at the post office, and her friend was only too thrilled to come over and inspect the new outfit and bubble excitedly about the fact that it came from a Paris fashion house. “Not too . . . I don’t know . . .”
“It’s not too anything. It’s divine! That red will demand an equally red lipstick. And shoes! Have you got shoes?”
Lane, with some embarrassment at her own vanity and extravagance, pulled a pair of black suede open-toed pumps from a bag she’d tucked behind the sofa, and held them up for inspection.
“Well, I need to sit down! It’s exactly what I would have expected of you. Stunning beauty and understated elegance!” declared Angela.
“Now you’re being ridiculous. I feel I shall have to hide the whole affair under a long black cape to avoid notice. Now let’s have a cup of tea and talk about anything else.” She put the shoes down firmly and moved to the kitchen to put on the water.
With their teacups on the veranda, and the lake laid out before them, the two women enjoyed an easy silence. Then Angela spoke. “Lane, there’s no getting around it, is there, you and the inspector? No, don’t say anything! I can see you love him madly, and if he doesn’t already love you beyond redemption, he will be lost when he sees you in that outfit. So what are you going to do? You can’t go on having this silly driving back and forth relationship, can you?”
“We don’t just drive back and forth. We talk on the telephone every night.” She regretted saying it as soon as the words came out of her mouth. She’d never told her friend about those evening calls.
Angela seemed to appreciate the confidence, and looked at her with concern. “You see? You want to be together.”
“Angela, you know by now, I could never leave this house. And anyway, you are being a bit previous—he has no intention of marrying me, if that’s what you mean by your coy ‘being together.’ He’s something of a lone wolf, and in that regard he is like me. You see? We suit each other down to the ground, he in his territory, I in mine. Anyway, I’m not the marrying type. I’d be hopeless as a wife.”
Angela shook her head. “What nonsense! You aren’t in a novel, are you? You’re real people, and real people, however exotic, follow convention like everyone else. Maybe you don’t see it now, but there will come a day when you simply want to wake up with him beside you, you mark my words.”
Lane could make no response to this. She could not disguise from herself the multiple times she had imagined the two of them together, unhurried and content in this very house. With a blasted dog. Wanting to change the subject, she said, “That poor fellow Klaus Lazek may have a connection to someone here. He wrote a letter to someone saying he’d seen someone he referred to as a ‘dictator.’ A businessman of some sort.” She sat up excitedly. “If he’s a big enough businessman, he’ll be at this shindig of Lorimer’s, I’ll bet you anything!”
“So killing two birds with one stone,” Angela said. “Seducing your inspector with that Paris original and spying on Lorimer’s guests. I find him kind of smarmy. I’m not sure I’d vote for him. But there’s that other guy, Whatshisname.”
“That’s why Lorimer will win,” Lane said. “No one can remember the other candidate’s name, which happens to be James Cray, and he is unfortunately the most boring man between here and the Pacific Ocean. Lorimer is ingratiating and smarmy and rich. No one should be fooled by him, but everyone will be. He will be voted in because everyone wants to be him. I hope someone close to him has done something perfectly vile and it will come out before he’s elected. Lazek certainly implied that whoever he was writing about had.”
“What sort of thing?”
Lane, ruefully conscious of how far away she was being from the British agent who could keep an official secret under any inducement, said, “I probably shouldn’t say. I’m simply guessing about the possible connection between them. Darling, I’m sure, wouldn’t thank me for gossiping like this!”
“You’re no fun at all.” Angela stood up and went back into the sitting room to look at the dress. “You watch out. Lorimer has a bit of a reputation. He will be making a play for you, if you’re not careful!”
�
��I’m sure he won’t do anything untoward in front of his wife.”
Lane’s bag was taken from her at the entrance to the Dade Hotel, and she was ushered to the front desk through a lobby with a once-plush carpet and heavy leather and wood chairs. The room smelled of stale smoke. Her heart sank slightly. The hotel had seen better days. She had thought about staying at a guesthouse, but she liked the freedom from the society of a garrulous landlady.
“You will be in the corner room on the third floor, madam. There is a nice view of the lake. I hope you will have a lovely stay. I have you checking out tomorrow at noon?” The man at the front desk removed the key from a mail slot behind him and signalled for the boy who had brought up her bag to accompany her to the third floor.
It was more than an hour before Darling was scheduled to call for her. She had brought a book to read, and a notebook, no doubt to be ready for the inspiration she was ever hopeful would suddenly seize her for some sort of groundbreaking poetry. Even so, an hour was a long time to live with this awful combination of anxiety and hope. Was it because it was their first real outing together? If they appeared at a “society” event together, it could never be taken back. She felt a little sad that what had seemed theirs alone would take on this more public face. Would it increase the pressure to be more conventional, as Angela had suggested? She pulled the skirt out of her suitcase and hung it in the closet, suddenly regretting the vanity that had led her to bring something so showy. Perhaps her anxieties were exaggerated. Smiling, she remembered what her practical and affectionate grandmother had said once when she was young and had asked desperately, “What will people think?” “Laneke,” she had said, “you will soon learn that no one is thinking of you. Everyone is only thinking of themselves. You will feel liberated when you understand this.”
So she was going into Nelson society. What constituted “society” in Nelson, anyway? Big business leaders, she supposed, members of the local legion, and Masons, the local gentry like that dog woman in the mansion. Not Lorenzo, she was certain. All people to whom she would be utterly insignificant, and whom she herself could not care less about, though she had rather liked the dog woman . . . Enderby, that was her name.
Feeling slightly more relaxed at the prospect of knowing someone at the fete, Lane ran a bath and laid out her hair brush and pins, and put the new lipstick on the dresser. Darling was most certainly not a member of the upper echelons of local society, and so no one would much care who he brought to the party, she told herself. She had brought the outfit because she rather liked how she looked in it, and Angela had been so enthused. The fashion, according to her and the magazines she showed Lane, was trending toward tight bodices and voluminous skirts, but Lane had loved the sleek, long lines of the silk skirt. It was simple and unfussy, with just enough extra fabric creating a pleated fall down the back of the skirt to give it a touch of elegance.
Sunk into the bath Lane tried to give herself over to the luxury of hot water and an empty mind, but instead her mind used the opportunity to focus on the lines she was drawing between the people in the case. Reminding herself again not to jump to conclusions, she mulled over this new and unexpected connection between a businessman Lazek had found—according to his letter—to be an old enemy. How threatened or angry would that person have been about the confrontation Lazek described? Enough to kill him, or try to? She sat up, water cascading over the edge of the bath. What if, just what if Lazek had been speaking of Lorimer? She sank down again. That was palpable nonsense. A man like Lorimer would not have something murky in his past and still be running for mayor, and he wouldn’t kill anyone. He’d have someone do it. She thought of his vile secretary. Her mind wandered past the mysterious businessman of Lazek’s letter, and focused on Lorimer. She’d found him so unpleasant. Did that secretary of his simply drive Lorimer around in the fancy car, or did he have a more sinister job? And this brought her to the Castles. That very same man had visited Mrs. Castle in his fancy car. That was the part Lane couldn’t understand. It connected Carl to Lorimer, but how? And why? And where the blazes was he?
When the phone on her bedside table rang, she was ready. She had pinned up her dark auburn hair, and put on the red lipstick Angela had seemed so keen on, and now picked up the receiver with her stomach in an uproar.
“There is an Inspector Darling here for you, madam,” said the voice on the other end of the line.
“I’ll be right down.”
She slipped on the short black velvet cape she had bought in Nelson the day she bought the shoes and, taking a deep breath, made for the elevator. Darling was standing near the front door, not wearing his brown suit but a full suit of evening dress, watching people go by on the street.
“Hello,” she said brightly, behind him.
Darling pivoted and saw her, his heart lurching. He took her hand and pressed it and then leaned close to her. “My God,” he said. “Let’s forget the party, and go back up to your room.”
She turned so that her mouth brushed his, and then she smiled and said, “Absolutely out of the question. It took me an hour to assemble this! You polish up nicely yourself. You did hire a dinner jacket.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. For example, I can be reckless. I actually bought this damn thing. I’ve also just decided to throw my career to the wind and beat Lorimer to within an inch of his life if he tries anything with you.” He took her arm, and under the admiring gaze of everyone in the lobby, they went out into the street where the maroon police car was waiting, Ames acting the chauffeur.
“May I say, Miss Winslow,” began Ames.
“No, you mayn’t,” said Darling.
Ames smiled happily and made for the Lorimer mansion.
Lorimer’s home was high on the hill above the town, rather appropriately looking down, Lane thought, on the lesser citizens whose more humble houses cascaded below him. Ames pulled the car into the driveway, and Darling got out to hold the door for Lane and then took her by the arm to lead her upstairs to the front door. Ames watched them fondly as they went up the stairs. To see his boss in a black evening suit with a beautiful woman on his arm was to suddenly see him in a new light. It had never dawned on Ames before how handsome Darling was. Momentarily awestruck, Ames put the car in gear and drove down the hill to the station, where he would occupy himself with paperwork until the appointed time for him to return to Lorimer’s.
The evening was warm, and Darling and Lane were shown out to the back garden. They passed through a foyer and a sitting room that owed much to the opulence of the late-nineteenth century, all dark panelling and heavy drapes gathered at the sides of long windows. French doors issued onto a generous stone terrace, where the quiet buzz of the great and the good drinking champagne and gossiping filled the air.
The appearance of Lane and Darling caused anyone who saw them to fall silent, and for a brief and agonizing moment it seemed to Lane that every head had turned, and all eyes were on Darling and her. Lorimer peeled himself away from a stout person who looked like a crabby man of business and came to Lane with both hands out.
“Miss Winslow! How absolutely delightful.” Lorimer reluctantly let go of Lane to shake Darling’s hand. “You must be Inspector Darling, is it? You’re a dark horse, aren’t you? I’m glad you could tear yourself away from fighting crime and bring this lovely creature to my party. Drinks over there, and later a light buffet supper and some dancing.” He winked at Lane. “You will save me one? Ah. Here’s my lovely wife, Linda. Linda, this is Miss Lane Winslow, who lives out . . . Balfour way, is it? And our very own Inspector Darling—the reason we sleep safely in our beds at night.”
Linda Lorimer, slender and pale, wore a blue gown that nearly matched the colour of her eyes; those eyes gave her the cold air of someone who was constantly on guard and suspicious, despite her attempt at a smile. Once the formalities were over, Lane and Darling drifted to one end of the terrace a
nd stood looking at the perfect, manicured garden and holding glasses of champagne.
“God, I shouldn’t gulp it. I’ve not eaten much. I’ll be tipsy if I’m not careful,” Lane said.
“I haven’t seen you tipsy. What are you like?” he asked, smiling at her.
“Not at all tidy, I’m afraid. Hopelessly emotional.”
“I’m hopelessly emotional already,” he said softly.
Lane felt herself flush and then said, “Nice garden. I could only dream of making my wild tangle into something as lovely as this.”
“I much prefer your garden, as tangled and wild and mysterious as it is.”
“Right, Inspector. That’s enough. Look. There’s Mrs. Enderby from that Tudor place up the lake. Eleanor’s puppy comes from there. Would you like an introduction, or shall I go take refuge with her on my own?”
“You go on. I’d better do the politic thing and get around and press some flesh, and keep an eye out for a dishonest-looking businessman.” He took her hand where it hung by her side and gave it a surreptitious squeeze, and then moved off toward the man that Lorimer had been talking to. She watched Darling disappear into the crowd, and wondered if he was, like her, watching Lorimer with some interest. She had asked him in the car on the way up, “What do you make of the possibility of a connection between Lazek and Lorimer?”
“Nothing at all. I am the cautious inspector, you the impulsive amateur sleuth interfering where she doesn’t belong. Just because Lazek mentioned a man of business, it does not follow that the man must be a confidant of Lorimer’s. So rather than jumping to conclusions, let’s both keep our eyes open, shall we?”
“Inspector,” she had said, “are you impulsively asking me to help you?”
“No, I am not. But since you’re here, I might as well make use of you.”