Payment In Blood

by Elizabeth George

  “It’s not time. She’s not ready.”

  Lynley felt a surge of anger at such implacable resolution. “Damn you, St. James. She tried to warn him off! Did she tell you that as well? When he came over the wall, she gave a cry that he heard, and we nearly lost him. Because of Helen. So if she’s not ready to see me, she can tell me that herself. Let her make the decision.”

  “She’s decided, Tommy.”

  The words were spoken so coolly that his anger died. He felt his throat tighten in quick reaction. “She’s gone with him, then. Where? To Wales?”

  Nothing. Deborah moved, casting a long look at her husband, who had turned his head to the unlit fire.

  Lynley felt rising desperation at their refusal to speak. He’d met with the same kind of refusal from Caroline Shepherd at Helen’s flat earlier, the same kind of refusal on the telephone when he spoke to Helen’s parents and three of her sisters. He knew it was a punishment richly due him, and yet in spite of that knowledge, he railed against it, refused to accept it as just and true.

  “For God’s sake, Simon.” He felt riven by despair. “I love her. You, above all people, know what it means to be separated like this from someone you love. Without a word. Without a chance. Please. Tell me.”

  Unexpectedly then, he saw Deborah reach out quickly. She grasped her husband’s thin hand. Lynley barely heard her voice as she spoke to St. James.

  “My love, I’m sorry. Forgive me. I simply can’t do this.” She turned to Lynley. Her eyes were bright with tears. “She’s gone to Skye, Tommy. She’s alone.”

  HE FACED only one last task before heading north to Helen, and that was to see Superintendent Webberly and, through seeing him, to put a period to the case. To other things as well. He had ignored the early-morning message from his superior, with its official congratulations for a job well done and its request for a meeting as soon as possible. Filled with the realisation of how blind jealousy had governed every step of his investigation, Lynley had hardly wanted to hear anyone’s praise. Much less the praise of a man who had been perfectly willing to use him as an unwitting tool in the master game of deceit.

  For beyond Sydeham’s guilt and Davies-Jones’ innocence, there still remained Lord Stinhurst. And Scotland Yard’s dance of attendance upon the commitment of the government to keeping a twenty-five-year-old secret out of the public eye.

  This remained to be dealt with. Lynley had not felt himself ready for the confrontation earlier in the day. But he was ready now.

  He found Webberly at the circular table in his office. There, as usual, open files, books, photographs, reports, and used crockery abounded. Bent over a street map which was outlined heavily in yellow marking pen, the superintendent held a cigar clenched between his teeth, filling the already claustrophobic room with a malodorous pall of smoke. He was talking to his secretary, who sat behind his desk, cooperatively nodding and note-taking and all the time waving her hand in front of her face in a useless attempt to keep the cigar smoke from permeating her well-tailored suit and smooth blonde hair. She was, as usual, as close a replica of the Princess of Wales as she could make herself.

  She rolled her eyes at Lynley, wrinkled her nose delicately in distaste at the smell and the clutter, and said, “Here’s Detective Inspector Lynley, Superintendent.”

  Lynley waited expectantly for Webberly to correct her. It was a game the two of them played. Webberly preferred mister to the use of titles. Dorothea Harriman (“call me Dee, please”) vastly preferred titles to anything else.

  This afternoon, however, the superintendent merely growled and looked up from his map, saying, “Did you get everything, Harriman?”

  His secretary consulted her notes, adjusting the high scalloped collar of her Edwardian blouse. She wore a pert bow tie beneath it. “Everything. Shall I type this lot up?”

  “If you will. And run thirty copies. The usual routing.”

  Harriman sighed. “Before I leave, Superintendent?…No, don’t say it. I know, I know. ‘Put it on the tick, Harriman.’” She shot Lynley a meaningful look. “I’ve so much time on the tick right now that I could take my honeymoon on it. If someone would be so good as to pop the question.”

  Lynley smiled. “Blimey. And to think I’m busy tonight.”

  Harriman laughed at the answer, gathered up her notes, and brushed three paper cups from Webberly’s desk into the rubbish. “See if you can get him to do something about this pit,” she requested as she left.

  Webberly said nothing until they were alone. Then he folded the map, slid it onto one of his filing cabinets, and went to his desk. But he did not sit. Rather, puffing on his cigar contentedly, he looked at the London skyline beyond the window.

  “Some people think it’s lack of ambition that makes me avoid promotion,” Webberly confided without turning. “But actually it’s the view. If I had to change offices, I’d lose the sight of the city coming to light as darkness falls. And I can’t tell you what pleasure that’s given me through the years.” His freckled hands played with the watch fob on his waistcoat. Cigar ash fluttered, ignored, to the floor.

  Lynley thought about how he had once liked this man, how he had respected the fine mind inside the dishevelled exterior. It was a mind that brought out the best in those under his command, conscientiously using each one to his personal strength, never to his weakness. That quality of being able to see people as they really were had always been what Lynley admired most in his superior. Now, however, he saw that it was double-edged, that it could be used—indeed, had been used in his case—to probe a man’s weakness and use that weakness to meet an end not of his own devising.

  Webberly had known without a doubt that Lynley would believe in the given word of a peer. That kind of belief was part and parcel of Lynley’s upbringing, a precious clinging to “my word as a gentleman” that had governed people of his class for centuries. Like the laws of primogeniture, it could not be sloughed off easily. And that is what Webberly had depended upon, sending Lynley to hear Lord Stinhurst’s manufactured tale of his wife’s infidelity. Not MacPherson, Stewart, or Hale, or any other DI who would have listened sceptically, called in Lady Stinhurst to hear the story herself and then moved on to uncover the truth about Geoffrey Rintoul without a second thought.

  Neither the government nor the Yard had wanted that to happen. So they had sent in the one man they believed could be depended upon to take the word of a gentleman and hence to sweep all connections to Lord Stinhurst right under the carpet. That, to Lynley, was the unpardonable offence. He couldn’t forgive Webberly for having done it to him. He couldn’t forgive himself for having mindlessly lived up to their every expectation.

  It didn’t matter that Stinhurst had been innocent of Joy Sinclair’s death. For the Yard had not known that, had not even cared, had desired only that key information in the man’s past not come to light. Had Stinhurst been the killer, had he escaped justice, Lynley knew that neither the government nor the Yard would have felt a moment’s compunction as long as the secret of Geoffrey Rintoul was safe.

  He felt ugly, unclean. He reached into his pocket for his police identification and tossed it onto Webberly’s desk.

  The superintendent’s eyes dropped to the warrant card, raised back to Lynley. He squinted against the smoke from his cigar. “What’s this?”

  “I’m done with it.”

  Webberly’s face looked frozen. “I’m trying to misunderstand you, Inspector.”

  “There’s no need for that, is there? You’ve all got what you wanted. Stinhurst is safe. The whole story is safe.”

  Webberly took the cigar from his mouth and crushed it among the stubs in his ashtray, spattering ash. “Don’t do this, lad. There’s no need.”

  “I don’t like being used. It’s a funny quirk of mine.” Lynley moved to the door. “I’ll clean out my things—”

  Webberly’s hand slammed down against the top of his desk, sending papers flying. A pencil holder toppled to the floor. “And you think I like
being used, Inspector? Just what’s your fantasy about all this? What role have you assigned me?”

  “You knew about Stinhurst. About his brother. About his father. That’s why I was sent to Scotland and not someone else.”

  “I knew only what I was told. The order to send you north came from the commissioner, through Hillier. Not from me. I didn’t like it any better than you did. But I had no choice in the matter.”

  “Indeed,” Lynley replied. “Well, at least I can be grateful that I do have choices. I’m exerting one of them now.”

  Webberly’s face flooded with angry colour. But his voice stayed calm. “You’re not thinking straight, lad. Consider a few things before your righteous indignation carries you nobly towards professional martyrdom. I didn’t know a thing about Stinhurst. I still don’t know, so if you care to tell me, I’d be delighted to hear it. All I can tell you is that once Hillier came to me with the order that you were to have the case and no one else, I smelled a dead rat floating in somebody’s soup.”

  “Yet you assigned me anyway.”

  “Damn you for a fool! I wasn’t given a choice in the matter! But see it for what it was, at least. I assigned Havers as well. You didn’t want her, did you? You fought me on it, didn’t you? So why the hell do you think I insisted she be on the case? Because of all people, I knew Havers would stick to Stinhurst like a tick on a dog if it came down to it. And it came to that, didn’t it? Blast you, answer me! Didn’t it?”

  “It did.”

  Webberly drove a thick fist into his open palm. “Those sods! I knew they were trying to protect him. I just didn’t know from what.” He fired Lynley a dark look. “But you don’t believe me, I dare say.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. You’re not that powerless, sir. You never have been.”

  “You’re wrong, lad. I am, when it comes to my job. I do as I’m told. It’s easy to be a man of inflexible rectitude when you’ve the freedom to walk out of here anytime you smell something a little unpleasant. But I don’t have that kind of freedom. No independent source of wealth, no country estate. This job isn’t a lark. It’s my bread and butter. And when I’m given an order, I follow it. As unpleasant as that may seem to you.”

  “And if Stinhurst had been the killer? If I’d closed the case without making an arrest?”

  “You didn’t do that, did you? I trusted Havers to see that you wouldn’t. And I trusted you. I knew that your instincts would take you to the killer eventually.”

  “But they didn’t,” Lynley said. The words cost him dearly in pride, and he wondered why it mattered so much to him that he had been such a fool.

  Webberly studied his face. When he spoke, his voice was kind yet still keen with perception. “And that’s why you’re tossing it in, isn’t it, laddie? Not because of me and not because of Stinhurst. And not because some higher-ups saw you as a man they could use to meet their own ends. You’re tossing it in because you made a mistake. You lost your objectivity on this one, didn’t you? You went after the wrong man. So. Welcome to the club, Inspector. You’re not perfect any longer.”

  Webberly reached for the warrant card, fingered it for a moment before taking it to Lynley. Without formality, he shoved it into the breast pocket of his coat.

  “I’m sorry the Stinhurst situation happened,” he said. “I can’t tell you it won’t happen again. But if it does, I should guess you won’t need Sergeant Havers there to remind you that you’re more of a policeman than you ever were a bloody peer.” He turned back to his desk and surveyed its mess. “You’re due time off, Lynley. So take it. Don’t report in till Tuesday.” And then, having said that, he looked up. His words were quiet. “Learning to forgive yourself is part of the job, lad. It’s the only part you’ve never quite mastered.”

  HE HEARD the muted shout as he drove up the ramp from the underground car park and pulled onto Broadway. It was fast growing dark. Braking, he looked in the direction of St. James’ Park Station, and among the pedestrians he saw Jeremy Vinney loping down the pavement, topcoat flapping round his knees like the wings of an ungainly bird. As he ran, he waved a spiral notebook. Pages, covered with writing, fluttered in the wind. Lynley lowered the window as Vinney reached the car.

  “I’ve done the story on Geoffrey Rintoul,” the journalist panted, managing a smile. “Jesus, what a piece of luck to catch you! I need you to be the source. Off the record. Just to confirm. That’s all.”

  Lynley watched a flurry of snow blow across the street. He recognised a group of secretaries making their end-of-day dash from the Yard to the train, their laughter like music rising into the air.

  “There’s no story,” he said.

  Vinney’s expression altered. That momentary sharing of confidence was gone. “But you’ve spoken to Stinhurst! You can’t tell me he didn’t confirm every detail of his brother’s past! How could he deny it? With Willingate in the inquest pictures and Joy’s play alluding to everything else? You can’t tell me he talked his way out of that!”

  “There’s no story, Mr. Vinney. I’m sorry.” Lynley began to raise the window but stopped when Vinney hooked his fingers over the glass.

  “She wanted it!” His voice was a plea. “You know Joy wanted me to follow the story. You know that’s why I was there. She wanted everything about the Rintouls to come to light.”

  The case was closed. Her murderer had been found. Yet Vinney pursued his original quest. There was no possibility of a journalistic coup involved for him since the government would quash his story without a thought. Here was loyalty far beyond the call of friendship. Once again, Lynley wondered what lay at its heart, what debt of honour Vinney owed Joy Sinclair.

  “Jer! Jerry! For God’s sake, hurry up! Paulie’s waiting and you know he’ll get himself all hot and bothered if we’re late again.”

  The second voice drifted from across the street. Delicate, petulant, very nearly feminine. Lynley tracked it down. A young man—no more than twenty years old—stood in the archway leading into the station. He was stamping his feet, shoulders hunched against the cold, and one of the passageway lights illuminated his face. It was achingly handsome, possessing a Renaissance beauty, perfect in feature, in colour, in form. And a Renaissance assessment of such beauty rose in Lynley’s mind, Marlowe’s assessment, as apt now as it had been in the sixteenth century. To hazard more than for the Golden Fleece.

  Finally, then, that last puzzle piece clicked into position, so obvious a piece that Lynley wondered what had kept him from placing it before. Joy hadn’t been talking about Vinney on her tape recorder. She had been talking to him, reminding herself of a point she wanted to make in a future conversation with her friend. And here across the street was the source of her concern: “Why be in such a lather over him? It’s hardly a lifetime proposition.”

  “Jerry! Jemmy!” the voice wheedled again. The boy spun on one heel, an impatient puppy. He laughed when his overcoat billowed out round his body like a circus clown’s garb.

  Lynley moved his eyes back to the journalist. Vinney looked away, not towards the boy but towards Victoria Street.

  “Wasn’t it Freud who said there are no accidents?” Vinney’s voice sounded resigned. “I must have wanted you to know, so you’d understand what I meant when I said that Joy and I were always—and only—friends. Call it absolution, I suppose. Perhaps vindication. It makes no difference now.”

  “She did know?”

  “I had no secrets from her. I don’t think I could have had one if I tried.” Vinney looked deliberately back at the boy. His expression softened. His lips curved in a smile of remarkable tenderness. “We are cursed by love, aren’t we, Inspector? It gives us no peace. We seek it endlessly in a thousand different ways, and if we’re lucky, we do have it for a shuddering instant. And we feel like free men then, don’t we? Even when we bear its most terrible burden.”

  “Joy would have understood that, I dare say.”

  “God knows. She was the only one in my life who ever did.” His hand d
ropped from the window. “So I owe her this about the Rintouls, you see. It’s what she would have wanted. The story. The truth.”

  Lynley shook his head. “Revenge is what she wanted, Mr. Vinney. And I do think she got that. After a fashion.”

  “So that’s the way it’s to be? Can you really let it end this way, Inspector? After what these people have done to you?” He waved in the direction of the building behind them.

  “We do things to ourselves,” Lynley replied. He nodded, raised the window, and drove on.

  HE WOULD LATER SEE the trip to Skye as a phantasmagorical blur of continually changing countryside that he was only dimly aware of as he flew towards the north. Stopping merely for food and petrol and once for a few hours of rest at an inn somewhere between Carlisle and Glasgow, he arrived at Kyle of Lochalsh, a small village on the mainland across from the Isle of Skye, in the late afternoon the following day.

  He pulled into the car park of an hotel on the waterfront and sat gazing at the strait, its rippled surface the colour of old coins. The sun was setting, and on the island the majestic peak of Sgurr na Coinnich looked covered in silver. Far below it, the car ferry pulled away from the dock and began its slow movement towards the mainland, carrying only a lorry, two hikers who hugged one another against the bitter cold, and a slender solitary figure whose smooth chestnut hair blew round her face, which was lifted, as if for blessing, to the last rays of the winter sun.

  Seeing Helen, Lynley all at once perceived the sheer lunacy of his coming to her now. He knew he was the last person she wanted to see. He knew that she wanted this isolation. Yet none of that mattered as the ferry drew nearer to the mainland and he saw her eyes fall upon the Bentley in the car park above her. He got out, pulled on his overcoat, and walked down to the landing. The wind blew frigidly against him, buffeting his cheeks, whipping through his hair. He tasted the salt of the distant North Atlantic.