For the Sake of Elena (18 page)

“I’m all right,” she told him. “Really. It’s true.”

He didn’t look convinced—after all, he knew the truth since he’d witnessed most of it and she’d told him the rest—but he made four revolutions in his basket, dug around in his blanket, and sank into its folds. His eyelids began to droop at once.

“Good,” she said. “Have a bit of a kip.” She was grateful that at least one of them could.

To distract herself from the idea of sleep and from everything that conspired to keep her from sleeping, she went to the window. It seemed that with every foot away from the fire, the temperature in the room dropped another ten degrees. And while she knew that this couldn’t possibly be the case, her arms went round herself anyway. She looked outside.

The car was still there. Sleek, silver, it winked in the sun. For the second time, she wondered if they had really been the police. When she’d first opened the front door to them, she’d thought they’d come with a request to see her work. That hadn’t happened in ages and never without an appointment, but it seemed the only reasonable explanation for the appearance of two strangers who’d arrived in a Bentley. They’d been mismatched as a couple: the man tall, handsome in a refined sort of way, astonishingly well-dressed, and possessing an unmistakably public school voice; the woman short, quite plain, looking more thrown together than Sarah herself was, with an accent that bore the distinct inflections of the working class. Still, even for a few minutes after they had identified themselves, Sarah continued to think of them as man and wife. It was easier to talk to them that way.

But no matter her story, they hadn’t believed her. She could see it in their faces. And who could blame them? Why would anyone run across Coe Fen in the fog instead of dashing back the way she’d come? Why would someone who had just found a body tear by her own car and sprint to the police station instead of simply driving there? It didn’t make sense. She knew that very well. And so did they.

Which went far to explain why the Bentley was still parked in front of her house. The police officers themselves were not in sight. They’d be questioning her neighbours, verifying her story.

Don’t think of it, Sarah.

She forced herself away from the window and went back to the studio. On a table near the door, her answering machine stood, blinking to announce a message on the tape. She stared at it for a moment before she remembered having heard the phone ringing while she was talking to the police. She pressed the button to play.

“Sarah. Darling. I’ve got to see you. I know I have no right to ask. You’ve not forgiven me. I don’t deserve forgiveness. I’ll never deserve it. But I need to see you. I need to talk to you. You’re the only one who knows me completely, who understands, who has the compassion and tenderness and…” He began to weep. “I was parked in front of your house most of Sunday evening. I could see you through the window. And I…Monday I came by but I didn’t have the courage to come to the door. And now…Sarah. Please. Elena’s been murdered. Please see me. Please. Phone me at the college. Leave a message. I’ll do anything. Please see me. I beg you. I need you, Sarah.”

Numbly, she listened as the unit switched itself off. Feel something, she told herself. But nothing stirred in her heart. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and bit on it, hard. And then a second time and a third and a fourth until she tasted the vague salinity of her blood rather than the chalk and lotion of her skin. She forced a memory forward. Something, anything. It didn’t matter what. It merely had to suffice as a smokescreen to keep her mind occupied with thoughts she could bear to face.

Douglas Hampson, her foster brother, seventeen years old. Wanting him to notice her. Wanting him to talk to her. Wanting him. That musty shed at the bottom of his parents’ garden in King’s Lynn where even the smell from the sea couldn’t supplant the odours of compost, mulch, and manure. But they hadn’t cared, had they? She, desperate for an indication of someone’s approval and affection. He, eager to do it because he was seventeen and randy and if he returned from one more school holiday without having had a good roger to talk about with his mates he’d never live it down.

They’d chosen a day when the sun beat down on the streets and the pavements and most especially on the old tin roof of that garden shed. He’d kissed her with his tongue and as she wondered if this was what people called making love—because she was only twelve and although she should have known at least something about what men and women actually did with those parts of their bodies that were so different from each other’s, she didn’t at all—he grappled first with her shorts, then with her knickers and all the time he breathed like a dog who’s had a good run.

It was over quickly. He was hard and hot and she wasn’t ready, so there was nothing in it for her but blood, suffocation, and searing pain. And Douglas stifling a groan when he came.

He stood up immediately afterwards, cleaning himself on her shorts and tossing them back to her. He zipped his jeans and said, “This place smells like a toilet. I’ve got to get out of here.” And out he went.

He didn’t answer her letters. He responded with silence when she phoned the school and wept out a tedious declaration of her love. Of course, she hadn’t loved him at all. But she had to believe that she did. For nothing else excused that mindless invasion of her body which she had allowed without protest on that summer afternoon.

In her studio, Sarah moved away from the answering machine. For a smokescreen memory, she couldn’t have chosen better than to conjure Douglas Hampson up out of the pit. He wanted her now. Forty-four years old, twenty years married, an insurance adjuster well on his way into midlife crisis, he wanted her now.

Come on, Sarah, he would say when they met for lunch as they often did. I can’t just sit here and look at you and pretend I don’t want you. Come on. Let’s do it.

We’re friends, she’d respond. You’re my brother, Doug.

Bugger the brother business. You didn’t think about that once.

And she would smile at him fondly—because she was fond of him now—and not try to explain what that
once
had cost her.

It was not enough—the memory of Douglas. In spite of herself, she moved across the studio to the covered easel and gazed at the portrait she’d begun all those months ago to act as companion piece to the other. She’d intended it as a Christmas present for him. She hadn’t yet known there would be no Christmas.

He was leaning forward as she so often had seen him, one elbow on his knee, his spectacles dangling from his fingers. His face was lit with the zeal which always came upon him when he talked about art. His head cocked to one side, himself caught in the act of arguing a fine point of composition, he looked boyish and happy, a man living fully for the first time in his life.

He wore no three-piece suit but a paint-splattered work shirt with half the collar turned up and a rip in the cuff. And as often as not when she stood close in front of him to study the way the light hit his hair, he’d reach out and pull her to him and laugh at her protest which wasn’t much of a protest and hold her in his arms. His mouth on her neck and his hands on her breasts and the painting forgotten in the shedding of clothes. And the way he looked at her, beautifying her body, every moment of the act his eyes upon hers. And his voice that whisper
oh my god my dear love…

Sarah steeled herself against the force of the memory and made herself evaluate the painting as a simple piece of art. She thought about finishing it, dwelling on the idea of a possible exhibition and of finding a way to put paint to canvas and making it mean something beyond a neophyte’s obedient exercise in technique. She could do it, after all. She
was
a painter.

She reached towards the easel. Her hands were shaking. She drew them back, fists clenched into balls.

Even if she filled her mind with a dozen other thoughts, her body still betrayed her. At the end of everything, it would neither avoid nor deny.

She looked back at the answering machine, heard his voice and his plea.

But her hands still trembled. Her legs felt hollow.

And her mind had to accept what her body was telling her. There are things far worse than finding a dead body.

8

Lynley was just tucking into his shepherd’s pie when Sergeant Havers came into the pub. The temperature had begun to fall outside and the wind to rise, and Havers had reacted to the weather accordingly, wrapping one of her scarves three times round her head and pulling up the other to cover her mouth and nose. She looked like a bandit from Iceland.

She paused in the doorway, eyes sweeping over the considerable—and boisterous—lunchtime crowd seated beneath the collection of antique scythes, hoes, and pitchforks which decorated the pub walls. She nodded in Lynley’s direction when she saw him and went to the bar, where she divested herself of her outer garments, ordered her meal, and lit a cigarette. Tonic water in one hand and a bag of vinegar crisps in the other, she wove her way through the tables and joined him in the corner. Her cigarette dangled between her lips, growing ash.

She dumped her coat and scarves next to his on the bench and slumped into a chair facing him. She shot a look of irritation at the stereo speaker directly above them which was currently offering “Killing Me Softly” by Roberta Flack at a disturbing volume. Havers was no lover of musical trips down memory lane.

Over the din created by music, conversation, and clattering crockery, Lynley said, “It’s better than Guns and Roses.”

“Only just,” Havers replied. Using her teeth for a start, she tore open her crisps and spent the next few moments munching, while her cigarette’s smoke wafted into Lynley’s face.

He looked at it meaningfully. “Sergeant..”

She scowled. “I wish you’d take it up again. We’d get on better if you did.”

“And I thought we were marching blissfully arm-in-arm towards retirement.”

“Marching, yes. I don’t know about bliss.” She moved the ashtray to one side. It began offering its smoke to a blue-haired woman with six noticeable hairs growing out of her chin. From the table she was sharing with a three-legged wheezing Corgi and a gentleman in only marginally better condition, she scathed Havers with a glare over the top of her gin and bitters. Havers muttered in defeat, took a final hit of the cigarette, and crushed it out.

“So?” Lynley said.

She picked a piece of tobacco off her tongue. “She checks out completely with two of her neighbours. The woman next door”—she grabbed her notebook from her shoulder bag and flipped it open—“a Mrs. Stamford…Mrs.
Hugo
Stamford, she insisted, and spelled it out just in case I’d fluffed my O-levels. She saw her loading up the boot of her car sometime round seven yesterday morning. In a real hurry, Mrs. Stamford said. Preoccupied as well because when she went out for the morning milk, she called a hello but Sarah didn’t hear her. Then”—she turned the notebook to read it sideways—“a bloke called Norman Davies who lives across the road. He saw her fly by in her car round seven as well. He remembers because he was walking his collie and the dog was doing its business on the pavement instead of in the street. Our Norman was all in a flutter about that. He didn’t want Sarah to think he’d just blithely allow Mr. Jeffries—that’s the dog—to foul the footpath. He nattered on for a bit about her being in the car in the first place. Not good for her, he wanted me to know. She needs to get back to walking. She was always a walker. What’s happened to the g’el? What’s she doing in the car? He didn’t much like your motor, by the way. Gave it a bit of a sneer and said whoever drove it is sending the country straight to Arab-dominated oil hell, never mind the North Sea. Quite a talker. I’m lucky I got away before teatime.”

Lynley nodded but didn’t reply. “What’s up?” she asked him.

“Havers, I’m not sure.”

He said nothing more as a teenaged girl dressed like one of Richard Crick’s milkmaids delivered the sergeant’s meal to the table. It was cod, peas, and chips which Havers doused thoroughly with vinegar while she eyed the waitress and said, “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I’m old for my looks,” the girl replied. She wore a large garnet stud through her right nostril.

Havers snorted. “Right.” She dug into her fish. The girl disappeared with a flounce of her petticoats. Havers said in reference to his last comment, “I don’t like the sound of that, Inspector. I’ve got the feeling you’re keyed in to Sarah Gordon.” She looked up from her food as if in the expectation of reply. When he said nothing, she went on with, “I expect it’s because of that St. Cecilia business. Once you found out she’s an artist, you decided that she arranged the body unconsciously.”

“No. It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

“I’m sure I saw her last night at St. Stephen’s College. And I can’t account for it.”

Havers lowered her fork. She sipped some tonic water and scraped a paper napkin across her mouth. “Now that’s an interesting bit. Where was she?”

Lynley told her about the woman who had emerged from the shadows of the graveyard while he watched from his window. “I couldn’t get a clear look at her,” he admitted. “But the hair’s the same. So’s the profile. I’d swear to it.”

“What would she have been doing there? You’re nowhere near Elena Weaver’s room, are you?”

“No. Ivy Court’s used by the senior fellows. It’s mostly studies where professors do their work and hold supervisions.”

“So what would she—”

“My guess is that Anthony Weaver’s rooms are there, Havers.”

“And?”

“If that’s the case—and I’ll check it out after lunch—I should imagine that she went to see him.”

Havers forked up a generous portion of chips and peas, chewed on them thoughtfully before replying. “Are we doing some serious quantum leaping here, Inspector? Going from A to Z with twenty-four letters unaccounted for?”

“Who else would she have gone to see?”

“How about practically anyone in the college? Better yet, how about the possibility that it wasn’t Sarah Gordon? Just someone with dark hair. It could have been Lennart Thorsson if he didn’t get in the light. The colour’s not right but he’s got hair enough for two women.”

“But this was clearly someone who didn’t want to be seen. Even if it was Thorsson, why would he have been hiding?”

“Why would she, for that matter?” Havers returned to her fish. She took a bite, chewed, and pointed her fork in his direction. “Okay, I’m easy. Let’s play it your way. Let’s say Anthony Weaver’s study is there. Let’s say Sarah Gordon went to see him. She said he’d been her student, so we know she knew him. She was calling him Tony, so let’s say she knew him well. She admitted as much. What have we got, then? Sarah Gordon going to offer her former student—a friend—some words of comfort upon the death of his daughter.” She lowered her fork, rested it on the edge of her plate, and offered the counterpoint to her own argument. “Except that she didn’t know his daughter was dead. She didn’t know the body she’d found was Elena Weaver’s until we told her this morning.”

“And even if she did know who it was and lied to us about it for some reason, if she wanted to offer Weaver condolences, why didn’t she go to his house?”

Havers speared up a soaking chip. “All right. Let’s change the story. Perhaps Sarah Gordon and Anthony—
Tony
—Weaver have been boffing each other on an ongoing basis. You know the sort of thing. Mutual passion for art leading to mutual passion for each other. Monday night was one of their previously arranged assignations. There’s your reason for her stealth. She didn’t know it was Elena Weaver she’d found, and she was showing up for a bit of the regular go. All things considered, Weaver wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to phone her up and cancel their session, so she got to his rooms—if they
are
his rooms—only to find he wasn’t there.”

“If they had an assignation, wouldn’t she have waited for at least a few minutes? More importantly, wouldn’t she have a key to his rooms to let herself in?”

“How do you know she doesn’t have a key?”

“Because she was in and out in less than five minutes, Sergeant. I’d say two minutes at the very most. Does that suggest unlocking a door and having a bit of a wait for your lover? And why on earth would they meet in his rooms in the first place? On his own admission, he has a graduate student working there. Beyond that, he’s been short-listed for a prestigious chair in history which I don’t imagine he’d care to jeopardise by having at a woman who’s not his wife right there in the college. Selection committees tend to be peculiar about that sort of thing. If a love affair’s at the heart of this, why wouldn’t Weaver just go to see her in Grantchester?”

“What are we saying here, Inspector?”

Lynley pushed his plate to one side. “How often does it happen that the finder of the body turns out to be the killer just trying to cover his tracks?”

“About as often as the killer turns out to be a member of the immediate family.” Havers forked up more fish, piled two chips on top of it. She regarded him shrewdly. “Perhaps you might tell me exactly where you’re heading. Because her neighbours have just got through clearing her no matter what you say, and I’m getting that Westerbrae feeling of discomfort with where you’re leading us. If you know what I mean.”

He did. Havers had ample reason to question his ability to remain objective. He sought to justify his leery feelings about the artist. “Sarah Gordon finds the body. She appears at Weaver’s rooms that night. I don’t like the coincidence.”

“What coincidence? Why does it even have to be coincidence? She didn’t recognise the body. She went to see Weaver for other reasons. Maybe she wanted to woo him back to art. That’s a big deal to her. Maybe she wanted it to be a big deal to him.”

“But she was trying not to be seen.”

“According to your appraisal, Inspector. On a foggy night when she might only have been trying to stay warm.” Havers crumpled up her crisp bag and rolled it in her palm. She looked concerned and, at the same time, intent upon not showing the extent of that concern. “I think you’ve made a hasty decision here,” she said carefully. “I’m wondering why. You know, I had a fair good look at Sarah Gordon myself today. She’s dark, she’s thin, she’s attractive. She reminded me of someone. I wonder if she reminded you of someone as well.”

“Havers—”

“Inspector, listen to me. Look at the facts. We know Elena started running at a quarter past six. Her stepmother told you that. The porter confirmed it. From her own report—now verified by her neighbours—Sarah left her own house just round seven. And the police report has her popping into the station to report finding the body at twenty past. So please take a look at what you’re suggesting, all right? First, that for some reason, although she left St. Stephen’s at a quarter past six, it took Elena Weaver forty-five minutes to run from her college to Fen Causeway—what is it, less than a mile? Second, that when she got there, for reasons unknown, Sarah Gordon beat her in the face with something which she managed to get rid of, then strangled her, then covered her body with leaves, then got sick, and then dashed to the police station to divert suspicion. All in just over fifteen minutes. And we haven’t even addressed the question of
why
. Why would she kill her? What on earth was her motive? You’re always lecturing me on motive, means, and opportunity, Inspector. So tell me how Sarah Gordon fits in.”

Lynley couldn’t do so. Nor could he argue that any part of what they knew had occurred was a wildly improbable coincidence illustrating undeniable culpability. For everything Sarah Gordon told them about her reasons for going to the island in the first place had the ring of veracity. And that she was committed to her art seemed easily understandable when one considered the quality of her work. This being the case, he forced himself to evaluate Sergeant Havers’ pointed questions.

He wanted to argue that Sarah Gordon’s resemblance to Helen Clyde was purely superficial, a combination of dark hair, dark eyes, fair skin, a slender frame. But he couldn’t lie about the fact that he was drawn to her because of other similarities—a straightforward manner of speaking, a willingness to examine the self, a commitment to personal growth, the ability to be alone. And yet beneath it all, something frightened and vulnerable. He didn’t want to believe that his difficulties with Helen would once again result in a form of professional myopia in which he forged obdurately ahead, not to pin guilt upon a man with whom Helen was sleeping this time, but to concentrate on a suspect to whom he was drawn for reasons having nothing to do with the case, all the time ignoring signposts leading him elsewhere. Yet he had to admit that Sergeant Havers’ points about the time frame in which the crime was carried out obviated Sarah Gordon’s guilt immediately.

He sighed, rubbing his eyes. He wondered if he had actually seen her at all the previous night. He had been thinking of Helen only moments before he walked to the window. Why not transport her through the means of imagination from Bulstrode Gardens to Ivy Court?

Havers rustled through her shoulder bag to bring out a packet of Players which she flipped onto the table between them. Instead of lighting up, however, she looked at him.

“Thorsson’s the stronger candidate,” she said. And when he started to speak, she cut him off with, “Hear me out, sir. You’re saying his motive’s too obvious. Fine. So apply a variation of that objection to Sarah Gordon. Her admitted presence at the crime scene is too obvious. But if we’re going to go with one of them—if only for the moment—my money’s on the man. He wanted her, she refused him, she turned him in. So why’s your money on the woman?”