A Great Deliverance (17 page)

But MacPherson was wrong, Lynley thought. There was no question of angry virginity here. It was something else.

This wasn’t Havers’s first murder investigation, so he could not understand her reaction to the farm: her initial reluctance to enter the barn, her strange behaviour in the sitting room, her inexplicable outburst upstairs.

For the second time he wondered what on earth Webberly had in mind in creating their partnership, but he found he was too weary to attempt an explanation.

The lights of the Dove and Whistle came in sight upon the final curve of the road. “Lets get something to eat,” he said.

“Roast chicken,” the proprietor announced. “It’s our Sunday night dinner. Get you some up quick if you have a seat in the lounge.”

The Dove and Whistle was doing a brisk evening’s business. In the public bar, which had fallen into stillness upon their entrance, a pall of cigarette smoke hung like a heavy rain cloud over the room. Farmers gathered in conversation in a corner, their mud-encrusted boots placed on rungs of ladder-backed chairs, two younger men played a boisterous game of darts near a door marked
TOILETS
, while a group of middle-aged women compared the Sunday evening remnants of Saturday’s crimps and curls, courtesy of Sinji’s Beauty Shoppe. The bar itself was surrounded by patrons, most of whom were joking with the girl who worked the taps behind it.

She was clearly the village anomaly. Jet black hair rose out of her scalp in spikes, her eyes were heavily outlined in purple, and her clothes were nighttime-in-Soho explicit: short black leather skirt, white plunging blouse, black lace stockings with holes held together by safety pins, black laced shoes of the sort that grandmothers wear. Each of her ears—pierced four times—wore the dubious decoration of a line of stud earrings, except for the bottom right hole, which sported a feather dangling to her shoulder.

“Fancies herself a rock singer,” the publican said, following their glance. “She’s m’ daughter, but I try not to let the word out often.” He thumped a pint of ale on the wobbly table in front of Lynley, gave a tonic water to Barbara, and grinned. “Hannah!” he shouted back into the public bar. “Stop making a spectacle of yourself, girl! Y’re driving every man present insane with lust!” He winked at them wickedly.

“Oh Dad!” she laughed. The others did as well.

“Tell him off, Hannah!” somebody called. And another, “What’s the poor bloke ever known about style?”

“Style, is it?” the publican called back cheerfully. “She’s a cheap one to dress, all right. But she’s running through my fortune buying gunk for her hair.”

“How d’you keep them spikes up, Han?”

“Got scared in the abbey, I’d say.”

“Heard the baby howl, did you, Han?”

Laughter. A playful swing at the speaker. The statement made:
See, we’re all friends here
. Barbara wondered if they’d rehearsed the whole thing.

She and Lynley were the only occupants of the lounge, and once the door closed behind the publican, she longed for the noise of the public bar again, but Lynley was speaking.

“She must have been a compulsive eater.”

“Who murdered her father because he put her on a diet?” It slipped out before Barbara could stop herself. Sarcasm was rich in her voice.

“Who obviously did a lot of eating in secret,” Lynley went on. His own voice was unperturbed.

“Well, it doesn’t look that way to me,” she argued. She was pushing him, and she knew it. It was defensive and stupid. But she couldn’t help it.

“What does it look like to you?”

“That food’s been forgotten. Who knows how long it’s been there?”

“I think we can agree that it’s been there three weeks and that any food that’s left out for three weeks is likely to spoil.”

“All right, I’ll accept that,” Barbara said. “But not the compulsive eating.”

“Why not?”

“Because you can’t
prove
it, dammit!”

He ticked off items on his fingers. “We have two rotting apples, three black bananas, something that at one time might have been a ripe pear, a loaf of bread, sixteen biscuits, three half-eaten pastries, and three bags of crisps. Now you tell
me
what we have here, Sergeant.”

“I’ve no idea,” she replied.

“Then if you’ve no idea, perhaps you’ll consider mine.” He paused. “Barbara—”

She knew at once from his tone that she had to stop him. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t understand. “I’m sorry, Inspector,” she said swiftly. “I got spooked at the farm and I… I’ve jumped all over you for it ever since. I … I’m sorry.”

He appeared to be taken aback. “All right. Let’s start again, shall we?”

The publican approached and plopped two plates down onto the table. “Chicken and peas,” he announced proudly.

Barbara got up and stumbled from the room.

“No! Ezra, stop! I can’t!”

With a deliberately unstifled curse, Ezra Farmington lifted himself off the struggling girl beneath him, swung to the edge of the bed, and sat there, fighting for breath and composure, his entire body—but most particularly, he noticed sardonically, his head—throbbing. He lowered this to his hands, burying his fingers in honey-coloured hair. Now she would cry, he thought. “All right, all
right!”
he said and added savagely, “I’m not a rapist, for God’s sake!”

She did begin to cry at that, a fist at her mouth, dry hot sobs erupting from deep within her. He reached for the lamp. “No!” Her voice stopped him.

“Danny,” he said, trying to speak calmly but aware that he was forcing words out between clenched teeth. He couldn’t look at her.

“I’m sorry!” she wept.

It was all too familiar. It couldn’t go on. “This is ridiculous, you know.” He reached for his watch, saw from the luminous dial that it was nearly eight, and put it on. He began to dress.

At that, the crying increased. A hand reached for him, touched his naked back. He flinched. The sobbing continued. He picked up the rest of his clothes, left the room, went into the lavatory, and, after dressing, stared morosely at his reflection in the dusky mirror while his watch ticked away five minutes.

When he returned, the weeping had stopped. She still lay on the bed, her ivory body shimmering in the moonlight, and stared at the ceiling. Her hair was darkness; the rest of her was light. His artist’s eyes travelled the length of her: the curve of cheek, the fullness of breast, the swelling of hip, the softness of thigh. An objective study in black and white, translated quickly to canvas. It was an exercise he often engaged in, one which disassociated mind from body, something he most particularly wanted to do right now. His eyes fell on the curling triangle of darkness. Objectivity shot out the window.

“For God’s sake, get dressed,” he snapped. “Am I supposed to stand here staring at you as retribution?”

“You know why ’tis,” she whispered. She made no other move. “You know why.”

“That I do,” he replied. He stayed across the room by the lavatory door. It was safer there. A few feet closer and he’d be on her again, and there’d be no stopping it. He felt his jaw tighten, felt every muscle coil with a life of its own. “You don’t lose a chance to remind me.”

Danny sat up, swung on him. “Why should I?” she shouted. “You know wha’ you did!”

“Be quiet! Do you want Fitzalan to report back to your aunt? Have
some
sense, won’t you?”

“Why should I? When did you?”

“If you won’t let it go, then what’s the point, Danny? Why see me at all?”

“You c’n ask
that?
Even now? When everyone knows?”

He crossed his arms in front of him, steeling himself to the sight of her. Her hair was tangled round her shoulders; her lips were parted; her cheeks were wet with tears, glistening in the dull light. Her breasts … He forced his eyes to remain on her face.

“You know what happened. We’ve been over it a thousand times. Going over it a thousand times more won’t change the past. If you can’t let it go, then we’ve got to stop seeing each other.”

More tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. He hated to see her cry. It made him want to cross the room and crush her in his arms, but what was the use? It would only begin again and end in disaster.

“No.” She was still crying, but her voice was low. She hung her head. “I don’ want that.”

“Then what do you want? I need to know because I know very well what
I
want, Danny, and if we both don’t want the same thing, then there’s really no use, is there?” He was struggling to summon up control but what little he had was vanishing quickly. He thought he might actually cry with frustration.

“I want you,” she whispered.

Oh God, that cuts it. That really does
. “You don’t want that,” he replied miserably. “Because even if you did, and even if you had me, at every juncture you’d throw the past in my face. And I can’t bear that, Danny. I’ve had
enough.”
To his horror, his voice caught on the last word.

Her head flew up. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She slipped off the bed and came across the room, her body sculpted by moonlight. He looked away. Her smooth fingers found their way to his cheek, across it, into his hair. “I never do think o’ your pain,” she said. “Only my own. I’m so
sorry
, Ezra.”

He drove his gaze to the wall, the ceiling, the square of night sky beyond the window. If he met her eyes, he knew he was lost.

“Ezra?” Her voice was like a caress in the darkness. She smoothed back his hair, took a step closer.

He could smell her musky fragrance, feel the tips of her breasts sear his chest. Her hand dropped to his shoulder and pulled him closer. “Don’t you think,” she continued, “we
both
have t’forgive?”

It was finally too much. There was nowhere else to look. His last sane thought was:
Better lost than alone
.

Nigel Parrish waited until they returned from the lounge to the public bar. He was still sitting in his usual corner, taking his time about nursing a Courvoisier, when they finished their meal.

He regarded them with the kind of interest he usually reserved for the village inhabitants, quite as if they were going to be around for the next few years. They were certainly worth the time and consideration, he decided, for they were so deliciously bizarre a couple.

The man’s dressed absolutely to kill, Nigel thought and chuckled inwardly at his tasteless pun. Charcoal suit, hand-tailored and fairly shrieking Savile Row, gold pocket watch looped across waistcoat, Burberry tossed casually onto the back of a chair—why is it that people with the money to buy Burberries always toss them about without a second thought?—shoes polished to a sombre, unscuffed shine.
This
was Scotland Yard?

Somehow the woman was more what he had in mind. She was short and dumpy, sort of a walking rubbish-bin type. She wore a wrinkled, stained suit that fitted her badly. Entirely the wrong colour for her as well, Nigel noted.
Baby blue’s a lovely colour, but not on you, dumpling
. Her blouse was yellow and did distressing things to her sallow complexion, not to mention the fact that it was very badly tucked in all around. And the shoes! Sensible brogues were what one would expect of the police and indeed she wore them. But with blue tights to match the suit? Lord, what a vision the poor woman was. He clucked his disapproval and got to his feet.

He sauntered over to the table they had chosen near the door. “Scotland Yard?” he began chattily, without introduction. “Has anyone told you about Ezra?”

As he lifted his head to look at the newcomer Lynley’s first thought was,
No, but I should guess you’re about to
. A man stood there, brandy glass in hand, obviously waiting for an invitation to sit. When Sergeant Havers automatically opened her notebook, he considered himself a member of their party and pulled out a chair.

“Nigel Parrish,” he introduced himself.

The organist, Lynley recalled. He guessed that the man was somewhere in his forties, and he was blessed with features that middle age enhanced. Thinning brown hair, touched by grey at the temples, was combed neatly off an intelligent brow; a firm, straight nose gave Parrish’s face distinction; a strong jaw and chin were indications of strength. He was slender, not particularly tall, and striking rather than handsome.

“Ezra?” Lynley prompted him.

Parrish’s brown eyes darted from person to person in the room, as if he were waiting for someone to enter. “Farmington. Our resident artist. Doesn’t every village have a resident artist, poet, novelist, or something? I thought that was a virtual requirement of country life.” Parrish shrugged narrow shoulders. “Ezra’s ours. Watercolours. The occasional oil. Not bad, actually. He even sells some of them in a gallery in London. He used to come here for just a month or so each year, but he’s become one of us now.” He smiled down at his drink. “Dear,
dear
Ezra,” he mused.

Lynley was not about to be played like a fish on the line. “What is it you’d like us to know about Ezra Farmington, Mr. Parrish?”

Parrish’s startled glance betrayed that he hadn’t quite been expecting so direct an approach. “Aside from the fact that he’s just the teeniest bit of a village Lothario, there’s what happened on the Teys’s place that you ought to know.”

Lynley found Ezra’s romantic inclinations to be neither here nor there, although obviously they were of interest to Parrish. “What happened on the Teys’s place?” he asked, ignoring the other dangling line.

“Well …” Parrish warmed to his topic but a sad glance at his empty glass cooled the fires of the story.

“Sergeant,” Lynley said tonelessly, his eyes on the other man, “would you get Mr. Parrish another—”

“Courvoisier,” Parrish said with a smile.

“And one for me.”

Havers obediently left the table. “Nothing for her?” Nigel asked, face wrinkled with concern.

“She doesn’t drink.”

“What a bore!” When Havers returned, Parrish treated her to a sympathetic smile, took a genteel sip of the cognac, and settled down to his story. “As to Ezra,” he said, leaning into the table confidentially, “it was a nasty little scene. The only reason I know about it is that I was out that way. Whiskers, you see.”