Believing the Lie (50 page)

“How’d that come about?”

“What do you mean? Are you looking for something sinister? He asked me and I said yes. I believe in the cause.”

“And he asked you because…”

“I assume he thought my work for him in Barrow was competent and reflective of a willingness to be useful in other ways as well. When I left Fairclough Industries—”

“Why?”

“Why did I leave?”

“Seems to me you could’ve climbed the career ladder there as well as anywhere else.”

“Have you spent much time in Barrow, Sergeant Havers? No? Well, it didn’t appeal. I had the opportunity to come to London and I took it. That’s what people do. I had the kind of offer of employment that might have taken years to get in Barrow, even if I’d wanted to stay there, which, believe me, I did not.”

“And here you are, then, in Lord Fairclough’s flat.”

Vivienne altered her position slightly, her posture—which had seemed perfect in the first place—managing to become even more so. “Whatever you’re thinking, you’re misinformed.”

“Fairclough doesn’t own this flat? Why’s he got his own key, then? I reckoned he was showing up to check you weren’t rubbishing the place. Doing the landlord bit, if you know what I mean.”

“What does any of this have to do with Ian Cresswell, the ostensible reason for your call?”

“Not sure yet,” Barbara said cheerfully. “Want to explain the situation with the keys? Especially since Fairclough doesn’t, as I’d
thought, own this place. Which’s quite nice, by the way. Must’ve cost you a pile of dosh. You’d want to keep it all safe and secure, I’d think. So I’m wondering if you hand out keys willy-nilly or if you only give them to special sorts of people.”

“I’m afraid that’s none of your business.”

“Where’s our Bernard stay when he comes to London, Miss Tully? Or I s’pose I should say Ms. eh? I checked at Twins, but they don’t have overnighters there, it seems. Also, they don’t allow women past the threshold aside from the old bag on door duty—believe me, I found that out straightaway—unless they’re in the company of a member. Turns out you’re in and out all the time on Fairclough’s arm, the way I heard it. Lunch, dinner, drinks, whatever, and off the two of you go by taxi and the taxi always brings you here. Sometimes you unlock the front door. Sometimes he does, with his own key. Then up you come to this…well, let me say it’s a bloody gorgeous place…and after that…Where
does
Fairclough stow his ageing body when he’s in London? That’s the real question.”

Vivienne rose. She would need to, Barbara reckoned. It was close to the point where the other woman would do the ceremonious tossing of her rotund body out of the front door. Meantime, Barbara meant to push things as far as she could. She saw that Vivienne’s entire composure was heading in a southerly direction, and this gratified her enormously. There was, after all, a certain selfish thrill in discommoding someone so ostensibly perfect.

“No, it isn’t the real question,” Vivienne Tully said. “The real question is how long it will take you to walk to the door, where I shall open it for you, and then close it upon your timely departure. Our discussion is over.”

“Thing is,” Barbara said, “I
do
have to walk there, don’t I? To the door, that is.”

“Or you can be dragged, of course.”

“Kicking, screaming, and howling for the neighbours to hear? Raising a ruckus the likes of which gets you noticed rather more than you’d probably like to be noticed?”

“I want you out of here, Sergeant. There’s not a single thing illegal in any part of my life. I don’t see what my having lunch, dinner,
drinks, or anything else with Bernard Fairclough has to do with Ian Cresswell unless Bernard handed the receipts to Ian and Ian didn’t want to pay the bills. But he’d hardly lose his life over that, would he?”

“Would that’ve been like Ian? Tight with the baron’s money, was he?”

“I don’t know. I had no contact with Ian once I left the firm, which was years ago. Is that all you want to know? Because, as I told you, I have an appointment.”

“There’s still the matter of the keys to be cleared up.”

Vivienne smiled mirthlessly. “Let me wish you luck in that matter.” She walked to the front door of the flat, then, and she opened it. She said, “If you don’t mind…?” and really, there was nothing for it but for Barbara to cooperate. She’d got what she could from Vivienne, and the fact that Vivienne had been unsurprised to have Scotland Yard come calling in the first place—not to mention the fact that she’d managed the nearly impossible feat of not putting a foot wrong during their entire conversation—told Barbara that this was a case in which forewarned had led effortlessly to forearmed. There was nothing for it but to try another route. Nothing, after all, was impossible.

She took the stairs down, rather than the lift. They deposited her opposite the table on which the postal cubbies stood. The porter was there. He’d gathered up the post from where it had been dropped into the mail slot at the front of the building, and he was in the process of distributing it. He heard her and turned.

“Back again, are you?” he said in greeting. “Still hoping for a flat?”

Barbara joined him at the table, the better to have a look at what he was putting into the cubbies. A signed declaration of
She’s guilty of something
would have gone down a treat, shoved into Vivienne Tully’s cubby or, better yet, handed over to Barbara to be sent along to Lynley. But everything seemed to be straightforward enough from what she could see from the return addresses of BT, Thames Water, Television Licensing, and the like.

She said, “Got an in at Foxtons. As things turn out in the world
of property sales, flat six will be going on offer soon. I thought I’d have a quick look.”

“Miss Tully’s flat?” the porter said. “I heard naught about that. Odd, as people gen’rally tell me since there’ll be some coming and going once it hits the market.”

“Could be it’s a sudden thing,” Barbara said.

“S’pose. Never thought she’d sell, though. Not with the situation she’s got. ’Tisn’t easy to find nice digs where a good school’s just round the corner, eh?”

Barbara felt a frisson of excitement shoot through her. “School?” she said carefully. “Exactly what school are we talking about?”

WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA

Z
ed Benjamin found that he was quite looking forward to his morning chat with Yaffa Shaw, and he wondered if this was what true partnership was like between a man and a woman. If so, he also wondered why, for years, he’d been avoiding it like a Romany beggar on the steps of a church.

When he rang her, she gave the verbal sign that his mother was within listening distance. She said, “Zed, my little puppy, let me tell you all the ways I’ve been missing you,” and she constructed a quick paean to his intelligence, his wit, his affability, and added the warmth of his hugs for good measure.

Zed reckoned his mother would be over the moon at that. “Hmm, I’m missing you as well,” he said in reply, without thinking about the ramifications of such a disclosure. He didn’t, after all, have to respond other than with amused thanks for Yaffa’s continuing to bamboozle his mother during their daily conversations. “If I were there, I’d show you warmth the likes of which you’ve never seen.”

“From far more than hugs, I hope,” Yaffa said.

“That,” Zed told her, “you may rely on.”

She laughed. “You’re a very naughty boy.” And then to his mother, “Mama Benjamin, our Zed’s being rather naughty again.”

“‘Mama Benjamin’?”

“She insisted,” Yaffa said, and before he could comment, she went on. “So tell me what you’ve uncovered, my dear. You’ve moved your story forward a leap, haven’t you? I can hear it in your voice.”

The reality Zed admitted to himself was that
this
was the real reason for his call. He wanted to crow to the woman who was pretending to be the love of his life, as any man putatively caught within the snares of adoration would wish. He said, “I’ve found the cop.”

“Have you indeed? That’s marvellous, Zed. I
knew
that you would. And will you phone your editor with this news? Will you”—she made her voice appropriately anxious—“will you come home?”

“Can’t yet. I don’t want to phone Rod, either. I want to have this story signed and sealed so I can hand it over and tell him it’s ready to be run. Word for word with every detail chased down. I’ve spoken to the detective and I’ve struck a deal. We’re going at it as a team.”

“My God.” Yaffa produced breathless admiration. “That’s brilliant, Zed.”

“She’s going to be helping without knowing she’s helping. We’ll track down one story as far as she’s concerned, but I’ll end up with two and one of them is her.”

“The detective’s a woman, then?”

“Detective Sergeant Cotter, she’s called. First name Deb. Got her nailed down. She’s part of the story but she’s not all of it. Turns out she’s looking into the wife, Alatea Fairclough. She’s not onto Nick Fairclough at all. Well, she was at first, but turns out there’s something particularly iffy about the wife. Have to say I reckoned that from the first. It
never
made sense that someone like Nick Fairclough could have ended up with an Alatea.”

“Oh?” Yaffa sounded interested. “Why is this, Zed?”

“He’s an okay sort of bloke, but she…His wife’s drop-dead gorgeous, Yaf. I’ve never in my life seen anyone like her.”

There was silence from Yaffa’s end. Then a little “Goodness” comprised her entire response, and Zed wanted to slap himself
sharply. What a bloody gaffe, he thought. He said, “She’s not my type at all, of course. Cool and distant. The sort of woman keeps a man running to do her bidding, if you know what I mean. Sort of a black widow and you’re in the web? You know what black widows do, eh, Yaffa?”

“They attract males to mate with, as I recall,” she said.

“Well, right. Of course. But point is, they’re deadly. It’s the old mate-and-die. Or rather, it’s the old mate-and-be-murdered. Gives me the absolute willies, Yaffa. She’s beautiful, but there’s something strange going on with her. One can tell.”

Yaffa seemed to take comfort from this although Zed wondered what it meant that she needed comfort, what with the loathed Micah in Tel Aviv studying to be a physician, a nuclear physicist, a neurosurgeon, and a financial wizard all rolled into one. She said, “You must be careful, then, Zed. This could be dangerous.”

“Not a worry there,” he told her. “Plus, I’ve got the Scotland Yard detective with me for added protection.”

“Another woman.” Did Yaffa sound sad?

“A redhead like me, but I like my women dark.”

“Like this Alatea?”

“No,” he said. “Not one bit like this Alatea.
Any
way, darling, this detective’s got information by the bucketful. She’s giving it to me in exchange for my sitting on the story for a few more days.”

“But what will you tell your editor, Zed? How long can you hold off giving him something?”

“No problem there. I’ll have Rodney where I want him once I tell him about the deal I’ve struck with the Met. He’ll love that. It’s right up his alley.”

“You be careful, then.”

“Will do, always.”

Yaffa rang off then. Zed was left literally holding the phone. He shrugged and shoved the mobile into his pocket. It was only when he was on his way down to breakfast that he realised Yaf hadn’t made her usual kissy noises at him. It was only when he’d tucked into his plate of watery scrambled eggs that he also realised he wished she’d done so.

MILNTHORPE
CUMBRIA

They’d passed a wretched night together. Deborah knew that Simon wasn’t happy with her. They’d had a desultory dinner in the Crow and Eagle’s restaurant, an establishment that wasn’t exactly within breathing distance of being awarded a Michelin rosette. He’d said very little at the meal about the matter of open adoption, which Deborah knew was the source of his displeasure, just a quiet “I’d have preferred it had you not phoned David quite so soon,” and that was it. What he meant, of course, was that he’d have preferred it had she waited until he could talk her into something that she did not want in the first place.

Deborah had not replied to this at first. Instead, she’d made conversation with him on other matters and waited until they’d returned to their room. There, she’d said, “I’m sorry you’re unhappy about this adoption situation, Simon. But you did tell me the girl wanted to know,” at which he’d observed her with his grey-blue eyes so assessing in that way he had. He’d said, “That’s not really the point, though, is it?”

It was the sort of remark that could make her miserable or fire her anger, depending upon which part of her history with Simon she went to in order to receive it. She could hear it as the wife of a beloved husband whom she’d inadvertently hurt. Or she could hear it as the child who’d grown to adulthood in his house and under his gaze, recognising the disappointed-father tone in his voice. She
knew
the former but at the moment, she
felt
the latter. And sometimes it was such a pleasure just to let one’s feelings fly.

So she’d said, “You know, I really
hate
it when you talk to me like that.”

He’d looked surprised, which added fuel. He’d said, “Talk to you like what?”

“You
know
like what. You are
not
my father.”

“Believe me, I’m aware of that, Deborah.”

And that had set her off: that he wouldn’t allow himself to be
roused to anger, that anger simply wasn’t part of who he was. It maddened her, and it had always done so. She couldn’t imagine a time when it would not.

Things had developed from there in the way of all arguments. From the manner in which she’d put an end to this matter with David and the girl in Southampton, they’d found themselves examining the myriad ways in which she had apparently long required his benevolent intervention in her life. That took them ultimately into the manner in which he’d dismissed her in the car park during their conversation with Tommy. This was a primary example of why he was required to watch over her, he’d pointed out, since she could not see when she was pigheadedly putting herself into harm’s way.