For the Sake of Elena (45 page)

“Where’s the bloody path!” Havers snarled.

The man started. He pointed down the road. “Just there on Broadway.”

They set off immediately, only to hear him call, “You might express some appreciation, you know. Folks never do think…”

The fog shrouded his body and muffled his voice as they rounded the bend where the high street became Broadway, as misnamed as a country lane could possibly be, narrow and thickly hedged on either side. Just beyond the last cottage, not two-tenths of a mile past the old school, a wooden kissing gate—green with its growth of winter moss—hung from rusty hinges at a lopsided angle, its corner in the mud. A large English oak spread its branches above it, partially hiding a metal sign that was posted on a pole nearby.
Public footpath
, it said.
Cambridge 1½ miles
.

The gate opened onto pasture land, thick and lush with grass that bent under the weight of the day’s heavy fall of moisture. Drops showered their trouser legs and their shoes as they hurried down the track that ran along the rear garden fences and walls which marked the property boundaries of the cottages along the high street of the village.

“D’you really think she made a hike into Cambridge in fog like this?” Havers asked, jogging at Lynley’s side. “And then ran back? Without getting lost?”

“She knew the way,” he said. “You can see the path itself well enough. And it probably skirts the fields rather than heads across them. If you were familiar with the lay of the land, you could probably do it blindfolded.”

“Or in the dark,” she finished for him.

The rear garden of the old school was contained by a barbed wire fence, rather than a wall. It consisted of a vegetable garden gone extensively to seed and an overgrown lawn. Beyond this was the back door of the house, set above three steps. On the top one of these stood Sarah Gordon’s mongrel, pawing at the bottom of the door, giving a low, worried whine.

“He’s going to set up a row the moment he sees us,” Havers said.

“That depends on his nose and his memory,” Lynley replied. He gave a soft whistle. The dog’s head darted up. Lynley whistled again. The dog gave two rapid barks—

“Damn!” Havers said.

—and bounded down the steps. He trotted briskly across the lawn to the fence, one ear perked up and the other drooping over his forehead.

“Hello, Flame.” Lynley extended his hand. The dog sniffed and examined and began wagging his tail. “We’re in,” Lynley said and slipped through the barbed wire. Flame leaped up with a single yelp, eager to say hello. He planted muddy paws on the front of Lynley’s coat. Lynley grabbed him, lifted him, and turned back to the fence as the dog licked his face and squirmed in delight. He handed the animal over to Havers and pulled off his own muffler.

“Put this through his collar,” he said. “Use it as a lead.”

“But I—”

“We’ve got to get him out of here, Sergeant. He’s willing to say hello, but I doubt he’s willing to sit on the back step quietly while we slip into the house.”

Havers was struggling with the animal who seemed to be mostly tongue and legs. Lynley looped his muffler through Flame’s leather collar and handed the ends to Havers as she set the dog on the ground.

“Take him to St. James,” he said.

“What about you?” She looked towards the house and came up with an answer that she clearly didn’t like. She said, “You can’t go in there alone, Inspector. You can’t go in at all. You said he’s armed. And if that’s the case—”

“Get out of here, Sergeant. Now.”

He turned away from her before she could speak again and, in a crouch, quickly crossed the lawn. On the far side of the house, lights were on in what had to be Sarah Gordon’s studio. But the rest of the windows stared blankly into the fog.

The door was unlocked. The knob was cold, wet, and slippery in his hand, but it turned without a sound, admitting him into a service porch beyond which was the kitchen where cupboards and work tops threw long shadows across the white linoleum floor.

Somewhere in the gloom nearby, a cat mewled. The sound was followed a moment later by the appearance of Silk, slithering in from the sitting room like a professional housebreaker. The cat paused abruptly when he saw Lynley in the doorway, scrutinising him with an undaunted stare. Then, he leapt onto one of the work tops where he sat with Egyptian-like tranquillity, his tail curling round his front feet. Lynley walked past him—his eyes on the cat, the cat’s eyes on him—and edged to the door which led into the sitting room.

Like the kitchen, the room was empty. And with the curtains drawn, it was filled with shadows and illuminated only by what little daylight made its way through the curtains and through a small chink that kept those same curtains from being completely closed. A fire was burning low in the fireplace, hissing gently as wood turned to ash. A small log rested next to this on the floor, as if Sarah Gordon had been in the act of adding it to the others that were already burning when Anthony Weaver had arrived to interrupt her.

Lynley shed his overcoat and passed through the sitting room. He entered the corridor that led to the rear of the house. Ahead of him, the door to the studio was partially closed, but light streamed out from the narrow aperture in a transparent triangle on the bleached oak floor.

He heard the murmur of their voices first. Sarah Gordon was talking. Her voice was drained. She sounded exhausted.

“No, Tony, that isn’t how it was.”

“Then tell me, damn you.” In contrast Weaver’s voice was hoarse.

“You’ve forgotten, haven’t you? You never asked me to return the key.”

“Oh God.”

“Yes. After you ended things between us, I thought at first that you’d simply overlooked the fact that I could still get into your rooms. Then I decided you must have changed the locks because that would have been easier for you than asking me to give the key back and risking another scene between us. Then later, I”—a lifeless, brief laugh, sounding mostly self-directed—“I actually started to believe that you were just waiting until you’d secured the Penford Chair before you’d phone and ask me to meet you again. And I’d need the key for that, wouldn’t I?”

“How can you think what happened between us—all right, what I
made
happen between us—had anything to do with the Penford Chair?”

“Because you can’t lie to me, Tony. Not at the heart of things. No matter how much you lie to yourself and to everyone else. This is about the Chair. It always was. It always will be. You merely used Elena as an excuse that was nobler in your mind and far more attractive than academic greed. Better to end your affair with me because of your daughter than because you might lose a promotion if everyone knew you walked out on your second wife for another woman.”

“It was Elena.
Elena
. You know it.”

“Oh, Tony. Don’t. Please. Not now.”

“You never tried to understand anything about us. She’d finally begun to forgive me, Sarah. She’d finally begun to accept Justine. We were building something together. The three of us were a family. She needed that.”

“You needed it. You wanted the appearance it offered to your public.”

“I stood to lose her if I left Justine. They’d started to develop a relationship together, and if I left Justine—just as I’d left Glyn—I stood to lose Elena for good. And Elena came first. She had to.” His voice grew louder as he moved in the room. “She came to our home, Sarah. She saw what a loving marriage could be like. I couldn’t destroy that—I couldn’t betray what she believed about us—by leaving my wife.”

“So you destroyed what was best about me instead. It was, after all, the more convenient thing to do.”

“I had to keep Justine. I had to accept her terms.”

“For the Penford Chair.”

“No! God damn you! I did it for Elena! For my daughter. For Elena. But you could never see that. You didn’t want to see it. You didn’t want to think I could possibly feel anything beyond—”

“Narcissism? Self-interest?”

In answer, metal slid savagely against metal. It was the unmistakable sound of a round being chambered within a shotgun. Lynley moved to within two inches of the studio door, but both Weaver and Sarah Gordon stood outside his line of vision. He tried to gauge their positions by listening to their voices. He rested one hand lightly against the wood.

“I don’t think you really want to shoot me, Tony,” Sarah Gordon was saying, “any more than you want to hand me over to the police. In either case, a scandal will come crashing down round you, and I don’t think you want that. Not after everything that’s happened already between us.”

“You killed my daughter. You phoned Justine from my rooms on Sunday night, you arranged that Elena would run alone, and then you killed her. Elena. You killed Elena.”

“Your creation, Tony. Yes. I killed Elena.”

“She never touched you or hurt you. She never even knew—”

“That you and I were lovers? No, she never knew. I was good about that. I kept my promise. I never told her. She died thinking you were devoted to Justine. And that’s what you wanted her to think, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you wanted everyone to think?”

Although enormously weary, her voice was more clearly defined than his. She would, Lynley thought, be facing the door. He pressed on it gently. It swung inward a few more inches. He could see the edge of Weaver’s tweed coat. He could see the gunstock resting at his waist.

“How could you bring yourself to it? You met her, Sarah. You
knew
her. She sat in this room and let you sketch her and pose her and talk to her and…” His voice caught on a sob.

“And?” she said. “
And
, Tony? And?” She gave a small, pain-stricken laugh when he didn’t respond. “And paint her. That’s how the story goes. But it doesn’t end there. Justine made certain of that.”

“No.”

“Yes.
My
creation, Tony. The only copy. Just like Elena.”

“I tried to tell you how sorry—”

“Sorry?
Sorry?
” For the first time, her own voice broke.

“I had to accept her terms. Once she knew about us. I had no choice.”

“Neither did I.”

“So you murdered my daughter—a human being, flesh and blood, not a lifeless piece of canvas—to get your revenge.”

“I didn’t want revenge. I wanted justice. But I wasn’t going to get it in a court of law because the painting was yours, my
gift
to you. What did it matter how much of myself I’d put into it because it no longer belonged to me. I had no case. So I had to balance the scales myself.”

“As I’m about to do now.”

There was movement in the room. Sarah Gordon passed in line with the door. Her hair matted, her feet bare, she was wrapped in a blanket. Her face was colourless, even to her lips. “Your car’s in the drive. No doubt someone saw you arrive. How do you intend to get away with killing me?”

“I don’t particularly care.”

“About the scandal? Oh, but there won’t be much of one, will there? You’re the grieving father driven to violence by his daughter’s death.” She straightened her shoulders and faced him directly. “You know, I think you ought to thank me for killing her. With public opinion so much on your side, you’re guaranteed the Chair now.”

“Damn you—”

“But how on earth will you manage to pull the trigger without Justine here to steady the gun?”

“I’ll manage it. Believe me. I will. With pleasure.” He took a step towards her.

“Weaver!” Lynley shouted and at the same instant threw open the door.

Weaver whirled in his direction. Lynley dived for the floor. The gun discharged. A deafening explosion roared through the room. The stench of gunpowder filled the air. A cloud of blue-black smoke seemed to rise out of nowhere. Through it, he could see Sarah Gordon’s crumpled form not five feet away from him, prone on the floor.

Before he could go to her, he saw rather than heard the click and slither of metal once again as Weaver reloaded. He surged to his feet a moment before the history professor turned the gun awkwardly on himself. Lynley leapt at the other man, shoving the gun to one side. It discharged a second time just as the front door to the house was kicked open. Half a dozen men from the police firearms unit stormed down the corridor and into the studio, guns extended, ready to fire.

“Hold off,” Lynley shouted over the tremendous ringing in his ears.

And indeed there was no need for further violence. For Weaver sank dully onto one of the stools. He removed his spectacles and dropped them to the floor. He crushed their lenses.

“I had to do it,” he said. “For Elena.”

It was the same crime-scene team that had done the honours at Georgina Higgins-Hart’s death. They arrived only minutes after the ambulance had roared off towards the hospital, cutting a wide path through the curious who had gathered in a cluster at the foot of the drive where Mr. Davies and Mr. Jeffries were holding court, proud to name themselves first at the scene, proud to be able to announce to all listeners that they’d known something was wrong the minute they’d seen that plump little lady leading Flame towards the pub.

“Sarah’d never give Flame to just anyone,” he said. “And him not even on his lead. I knew there was something wrong the minute I saw that, didn’t I, Mr. Jeffries?”

In other circumstances, Mr. Davies’ continued presence might have been irksome to Lynley. But as it was, the man was a godsend, for Sarah Gordon’s dog knew him, recognised his voice, and was willing to go with him even when his owner was carried out of the house, swathed in temporary bandages, with a pressure pack applied to stop arterial bleeding.

“I’ll take the cat as well,” Mr. Davies said as he shuffled down the drive with Flame in tow. “Not much for cats, Mr. Jeffries and I, but we won’t want to see the poor thing go begging for somewhere to lodge till Sarah comes home.” He gazed uneasily in the direction of her house where several members of the firearms unit stood talking together. “She’s coming home, Sarah is, isn’t she? She’ll be all right?”

“She’ll be all right.” But she’d taken the shot straight on in her right arm, and from the look the ambulance attendants had given the extent of the damage, Lynley wondered how
all right
would be defined. He walked back to the house.