In The Presence Of The Enemy (84 page)

He saw you meet with Bowen. He’s been doing double his job since the Bowen girl’s death and before.”

“And he’s made sure you knew it,” Luxford said.

“I’m giving you the opportunity to explain yourself,” Ogilvie pointed out. “I brought you on board to do for
The Source
what you did for the
Globe
. If you can assure me that tomorrow morning’s lead story will fill in the gaps in the public’s information—and I mean all the information, Dennis—then we’ll call your job secure for at least another six months. If you can’t give me that assurance, then I shall have to say it’s time we parted company.”

“My son’s been kidnapped,” Luxford repeated. “Did you even hear that?”

“All the more power for the front page story,” Ogilvie said. “What’s your answer?”

“My answer?” Luxford had looked at his wife, who sat at the end of the chaise longue in the bay window of their bedroom. She still held Leo’s pyjama top. She was folding it carefully into a square on her lap. He wanted to go to her. He said to Ogilvie, “I’m out of it, Peter.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Rodney’s been after my job since day one.

Give it to him. He deserves it.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I’ve never meant anything more.”

He’d replaced the phone and gone to Fiona.

He’d undressed her gently and put her to bed.

He got in next to her. They watched the pattern of moonlight work its slow way across the wall and onto the ceiling.

When the phone rang three hours later, Luxford’s heavy heart told him to let it keep ringing. But he went through the routine that the police had prescribed for him, and on the fourth ring he picked it up.

“Mr. Luxford?” The man’s voice was soft.

His words carried the melodic accent of the West Indian grown to adulthood in South London. He identified himself as Constable Nkata and added Scotland Yard CID as if Luxford had forgotten him in the intervening hours since they had last met. “We have your son, Mr. Luxford. It’s all right. He’s fi ne.”

Luxford had only been able to say:

“Where?”

Nkata had said Amesford police station.

He’d gone on to explain how he’d been found and by whom, why he’d been taken, where he’d been held. He’d ended by giving Luxford directions to the station and the directions were the only part of the brief speech that Luxford remembered or cared to remember as he and Fiona sped onwards in the night.

They left the motorway at Swindon and tore south towards Marlborough. The thirty miles to Amesford felt like sixty—one hundred and sixty—and during them Fiona fi nally began to speak.

“I made a bargain with God.”

Luxford glanced at her. The headlamps from a passing lorry washed her face with light.

She said, “I told Him that if He gave Leo back to me, I would leave you, Dennis, if that’s what it took to make you see reason.”

“Reason?” he asked.

“I can’t think what it would be like to leave you.”

“Fi—”

“But I will leave you. Leo and I will go. If you don’t see reason about Baverstock.”

“I thought I’d already made it clear that Leo doesn’t have to go. I thought you’d understood from my words. I know I didn’t say it directly, but I assumed that you realised I’ve no intention of sending him away after this.”

“And once the horror of ‘this’—as you call it—wears away? Once Leo begins to irritate you again? Once he skips instead of stalks?

Once he sings too beautifully? Once he asks to be taken to the ballet for his birthday instead of to a football game or a cricket match? What will you do when you again begin to think he needs some toughening up?”

“I pray I’ll hold my tongue. Is that good enough, Fiona?”

“How could it be? I’ll know what you’re thinking.”

“What I think isn’t important,” Luxford said. “I’ll learn to accept him as he is.” He looked towards her again. Her expression was implacable. He could tell there was no bluff behind her words. He said, “I love him. For all my faults, I do love him.”

“As he is or as you want him to be?”

“Every father has dreams.”

“A father’s dreams shouldn’t become his son’s nightmares.”

They passed through Upavon, manoeuvred a roundabout, continued south in the darkness. To the west an occasional glitter of lights marked sleepy villages that sat on the edge of Salisbury Plain. East Chisenbury, Littlecott, Longstreet, Coombe, Fittleton. As Luxford drove past their signposts, he thought about his wife’s words and how closely one’s dreams ally to one’s fears. Dream to be strong when you’re weak. Dream to be rich when you’re poor. Dream to climb mountains when you’re caught in the masses scrabbling about on the valley fl oor.

His dreams for his son were merely a refl ection of his fears about his son. Only when he let go of his fears would he be able to relin-quish his dreams.

“I need to understand him,” Luxford said.

“And I will understand him. Let me try. I will.”

He followed the route Constable Nkata had given him as they reached the outskirts of Amesford. He pulled into the car park and stopped next to a panda car.

Inside the station, the bustle of activity suggested the middle of the day and not the middle of the night. Uniformed constables passed through the corridors. A three-piece suit carrying a briefcase announced himself as Gerald Sowforth, Esq., a solicitor demanding to see his client. A white-faced woman came through reception leaning heavily on the arm of a balding man, who patted her hand and said, “Let’s just get you home, my pear.” A team of paramedics were answering questions put to them by a plainclothes police officer. A lone reporter was making angry enquiries of a sergeant behind the reception counter.

Luxford said loudly over the head of the reporter, “Dennis Luxford. I’m—”

The woman who’d come into reception began to keen, shrinking into her companion’s side. She said, “Don’t leave me, Sammy. Say you won’t leave!”

“Never,” Sammy told her fervently. “Just you wait and see.” He allowed her to hide her face against his chest as they passed Luxford and Fiona and went out into the night.

“I’m here for my son,” Luxford said to the sergeant.

The sergeant nodded and picked up a phone. He punched in three numbers. He spoke briefly. He rang off.

Within a minute the door next to the reception counter opened. Someone said Luxford’s name. Luxford took his wife’s arm and together they passed into a corridor that ran the length of the building.

“This way,” a female constable said. She led them to a door, which she opened.

Fiona said, “Where’s Leo?”

The constable said, “Wait here, please.” She left them alone.

Fiona paced. Luxford waited. They both listened to the sounds outside in the corridor.

Three dozen footsteps passed without stopping during the next ten minutes. And then a man’s quiet voice finally said, “In here?” The door opened.

When he saw them, Inspector Lynley said immediately, “Leo’s all right. It’s taking a bit of time because we’ve had a doctor examining him.”

Fiona cried, “A doctor? Has he—”

Lynley took her arm. “It’s just a precaution.

He was filthy when my sergeant brought him in, so we’re trying to clean him a bit as well. It won’t be much longer.”

“But he’s all right? He
is
all right?”

The inspector smiled. “He’s more than all right. He’s largely the reason my sergeant’s alive. He took on a murderer and gave him something on the skull to remember him by.

If he hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be here now. Or at least if we were, we’d be having an entirely different conversation.”

“Leo?” Fiona asked. “Leo did that?”

“He jumped into a drainage trench to fi nd the weapon first,” Lynley explained. “And then he wielded a tyre iron like a young man who was born to crack open skulls.” He smiled again. Luxford could tell he was trying to put Fiona at ease. He covered her hand and led her to a chair. “Leo’s quite the young lout,” he said. “But that’s exactly what was called for in the circumstances. Ah. Here he is.”

And there he was, carried in the arms of Constable Nkata, his fair hair damp, his clothes brushed but filthy, his head resting against the black constable’s chest. He was asleep.

“Dead knackered,” Nkata told them. “They kept him awake long enough for the doc to check him over, but he fell asleep while they were washing his hair. Had to use hand soap on that, ’m afraid. You’ll want to give him a good scrubbing when you get him home.”

Luxford went to the constable and took his son in his arms. Fiona said, “Leo. Leo,” and touched his head.

Lynley said, “We’ll leave you alone for a while. When you’ve said your hellos, we’ll talk again.”

As the door closed softly, Luxford carried his son to a chair. He sat, holding him, wondering at the meagre weight of him, feeling every bone in his body as if he were touching each for the very first time. He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of him: from the detergent pungency of his badly washed hair to the sour muck of his clothing. He kissed his son’s forehead, then both of his eyes.

These f luttered open, sky blue like his mother’s. They blinked, then adjusted. He saw who held him.

“Daddy,” he said, then automatically made the adjustment—with an altering of voice—

that Luxford had long insisted upon. “Dad.

Hullo. Is Mummy with you? I didn’t cry. I was scared, but I didn’t cry.”

Luxford tightened his arms round the boy.

He lowered his face to the crook of Leo’s shoulder.

Fiona said, “Hello, darling,” and knelt by the chair.

“I expect that was the right thing to do,”

Leo said to her stoutly. “I didn’t cry once. He kept me locked up and I was awfully scared and I
wanted
to cry. But I didn’t. Not once.

That was good, wasn’t it? I did right, I think.”

His face wrinkled round the eyes and on the forehead. He squirmed to have a better look at his father. “What’s wrong with Dad?” he asked his mother, perplexed.

“Nothing at all,” Fiona said. “Daddy’s just doing your crying for you.”

WOOTTON CROSS AND
the Vale of Wootton do not exist. But I thank those individuals who helped with its creation: Mr. A. E.

Swaine of Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, who shared the beauties of Wilton Windmill with me; Gordon Rogers of High Ham, Somerset, and the kind people of the National Trust who made High Ham Windmill available to me; the good police constables of Pewsey who fielded questions and who allowed their police station to stand in for Wootton Cross’s.

I’m greatly indebted to Michael Fairbairn, political correspondent from the BBC, who spent time with me at the Houses of Parliament and who graciously answered innumerable questions during the course of this novel’s creation; to David Banks, who allowed me access to the
Mirror
and Maggie Pringle, who answered my questions and made arrangements for me to visit the newspaper’s offi ces in Holburn; to Ruth and Richard Boulton, who always respond graciously to every question, no matter how trivial; to Chief Inspector Pip Lane, who keeps me at least somewhat within the boundaries of reasonable policework; to my agent Vivienne Schuster and my editor Tony Mott, who support my efforts and make encouraging noises when necessary.

In the United States, I’m grateful to Gary Bale of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for his words of wisdom on everything from fingerprinting to toxicology; to Dr. Tom Ruben and Dr. H. M. Upton for supplying me with medical advice when necessary; to April Jackson of the
Los Angeles Times
for fi elding miscellaneous questions on journalism; to Julie Mayer for reading yet another draft; to Ira Toibin for his kind and consistent support; to my editor Kate Miciak for listening to endless variations on plot and theme; to my agent Deborah Schneider for her wisdom and her belief in the project.

It should be remembered that this is a work of fiction. It should also be remembered that any errors or missteps in the novel are mine alone.

ELIZABETH GEORGE is the author of award-winning and internationally bestselling novels, including
A Great Deliverance, Payment
in Blood
, and
A Traitor to Memory
. Her novels have been filmed for television by the BBC and broadcast in the United States on PBS’s
Mystery!

She lives in Seattle and London.

If you enjoyed Elizabeth George’s IN THE PRESENCE OF THE ENEMY, you won’t want to miss any of her internationally bestselling novels of suspense. Look for them at your favorite bookseller’s, and visit the Elizabeth George website at
www.ElizabethGeorgeOnline.com
.