Payment In Blood (22 page)

“Renie, for the love of God—”

“No! I heard you! It was Hampstead all over again! Exactly! And they say that life doesn’t repeat itself, don’t they? What a filthy laugh! All I needed to do was open the door to find you a second time having my sister. Just as I did last year, with the only difference being that I was alone this time. At least our children would have been spared a second go at the sight of their father sweating and panting and moaning over their lovely aunt Joy.”

“It isn’t—”

“What I think?” Irene felt her face quiver with encroaching tears. Their presence angered her—that he should
still
be able to reduce her to this. “I don’t want to hear it, Robert. No more clever lies. No more, ‘It only happened once.’ No more anything.”

He grabbed her arm. “Do you think I killed your sister?” His face looked ill, perhaps from lack of sleep, perhaps from guilt.

She laughed hoarsely, shaking him off. “Killed her? No, that’s not at all your style. Dead, Joy was absolutely no good to you, was she? After all, you aren’t the least bit interested in screwing a corpse.”

“That didn’t happen!”

“Then what did I hear?”

“I don’t know what you heard! I don’t know
who
you heard! Anyone could have been with her.”

“In
your
room?” she demanded.

His eyes widened in panic. “In
my…
Renie, good God, it’s not what you think!”

She flung his coat off her shoulders. Dust leaped from the floor when it dropped. “It’s worse than knowing you’ve always been a filthy liar, Robert. Because now I realise that
I’ve
become one. God help me. I used to think that if Joy died I’d be free of the pain. Now I believe I’ll only be free of it when you’re dead as well.”

“How can you say that? Is that what you really want?”

She smiled bitterly. “With all my heart. God,
God!
With all my heart!”

He stepped away from her, away from the coat on the floor between them. His face was ashen. “So be it, love,” he whispered.

L
YNLEY FOUND
Jeremy Vinney outside on the drive, stowing his suitcase into the boot of a hired Morris. Vinney was muffled against the cold in coat, gloves, and scarf; his breath steamed the air. His high domed forehead gleamed pink where the sun struck it and he looked, surprisingly, as if he were perspiring. He was also, Lynley noted, the first to leave. A decidedly strange reaction in a newspaperman. Lynley crossed the drive to him, his footsteps grating against the gravel and ice. Vinney looked up.

“Making an early start of it,” Lynley remarked.

The journalist nodded towards the house where dark early morning shadows were painted like ink along the stone walls. “Not really a spot for lingering, is it?” He slammed the boot lid home and checked to see that it was securely locked. Fumbling a bit with his keys, he dropped them and cleared his throat raspily as he bent to retrieve them in their worn leather case. When he finally looked at Lynley, it was to reveal a face upon which grief played subtly, the way it often does when an initial shock has been lived through and the immensity of a loss begins to be measured against the endlessness of time.

“Somehow,” Lynley said, “I should think a journalist would be the last to leave.”

At this, Vinney gave an abrupt, little laugh. It seemed self-directed, punitive, and unkind. “Hot after a story at the scene of the crime? Looking for a good ten inches of space on page one? Not to mention a byline and a knighthood for having solved the crime single-handedly? Is that how you see it, Inspector?”

Lynley answered the question by asking one. “Why were you actually here this weekend, Mr. Vinney? Every other presence can be accounted for in one way or another. But you remain a bit of a mystery. Can you shed some light on it for me?”

“Didn’t you get a good enough picture from our attractive Elizabeth last evening? I was wild to get Joy in bed. Or better yet, I was picking her brains for material to bolster my career. Choose either one.”

“Frankly, I’d prefer the reality.”

Vinney swallowed. He seemed discomfited, as if he expected something other than equanimity from the police. Bellicose insistence upon the truth, perhaps, or a finger stabbed provocatively into his chest. “She was my friend, Inspector. Probably my best friend. Sometimes I think my only friend. And now she’s gone.” His eyes looked burnt out as he turned them towards the untroubled surface of the loch in the distance. “But people don’t understand that kind of friendship between a man and a woman, do they? They want to make something of it. They want to cheapen it up.”

Lynley was not untouched by the man’s distress. He noticed, however, that Vinney had sidestepped his question. “Was Joy the one who actually arranged for you to be here? I know you did the phoning to Stinhurst, but did she smooth the way? Was it her idea?” When Vinney nodded, he asked, “Why?”

“She said she was worried about how Stinhurst and the actors would receive the revisions she’d made to the play. She wanted a friend along, she said, for moral support should things not go her way. I’d been following the Agincourt renovation for months. It seemed reasonable that I might ask to be included in the setting-up of the play for its opening. So I came. To support her, as she asked. But I didn’t support her at all in the end, did I? She may as well have been here alone.”

“I saw your name in her engagement book.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. We met for lunch regularly. We’ve done so for years.”

“At these meetings, did she tell you anything about this weekend? What it would be like? What to expect?”

“Just that it was a read-through and that I might find it an interesting story.”

“The play itself?”

Vinney didn’t answer at first. His vision appeared fixed on nothing. When he replied, however, his voice sounded thoughtful, as if he’d been struck by an idea unconsidered before. “Joy said she wanted me to think about writing an early article on the play. It would be a piece about the stars, the plot, perhaps the format she was using. Coming here would give me an idea about how the play would be staged. But I…I could easily have got that information in London, couldn’t I? We see…saw…each other often enough. So could she…could she have been worried that something like this might happen to her, Inspector? Good God, could she have hoped I’d see to it that the truth were told?”

Lynley commented upon neither the man’s apparent belief in the inability of the police to ferret out the truth nor the egotistical likelihood of a single journalist’s being able to do it for them. Nonetheless, he catalogued the fact that Vinney’s remark was astonishingly close to Lord Stinhurst’s own assessment of the columnist’s presence.

“Are you saying she was concerned about her safety?”

“She didn’t say that,” Vinney admitted honestly. “And she didn’t act concerned.”

“Why was she in your room the other night?”

“She said she was too keyed up to sleep. She’d had it out with Stinhurst and went to her room. But she felt restless, so she came to mine. To talk.”

“What time was this?”

“A bit after midnight. Perhaps a quarter past.”

“What did she talk about?”

“The play at first. How she was bound and determined to see to it that it was produced, with or without Stinhurst. And then about Alec Rintoul. And Robert Gabriel. And Irene. She felt rotten about everything that had happened to Irene, you know. She…she was desperate for her sister to get back with Gabriel. That’s why she wanted Irene in the play. She thought if the two of them were thrown together enough, nature would take its course. She said she wanted Irene’s forgiveness and knew she couldn’t have it. But more than that, I think she wanted to forgive herself. And she couldn’t do that as long as Gabriel and her sister were apart.”

It was a glib enough recital, seemingly straightforward. Yet Lynley’s instincts told him there was more to be said about Joy’s nocturnal visit to Vinney’s room.

“You make her sound rather saintly.”

Vinney shook his head in denial. “She wasn’t a saint. But she was a decent friend.”

“What time did Elizabeth Rintoul come to your room with the necklace?”

Vinney brushed the snow from the Morris’ roof before answering. “Not long after Joy came in. I…Joy didn’t want to talk to her. She expected it would be another row about the play. So I kept Elizabeth out. I only opened the door a crack; she couldn’t see inside. So when I wouldn’t invite her in, of course she assumed Joy was in my bed. That’s fairly typical of her. Elizabeth can’t conceive that members of the opposite sex might just be friends. With her, a conversation with a man is an access route to some sort of sexual encounter. It’s rather sad, I think.”

“When did Joy leave your room?”

“Shortly before one.”

“Did anyone see her leave?”

“There was no one about. I don’t think anyone saw her, unless Elizabeth was peering out her door somehow. Or maybe Gabriel. My room was between both of theirs.”

“Did you see Joy to her room?”

“No. Why?”

“Then she might not have gone there at once. If, as you said, she thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep.”

“Where else would she go?” Understanding swept across his face. “To meet someone? No. She wasn’t interested in any of these people.”

“If, as you say, Joy Sinclair was merely your friend, how can you be certain that she didn’t share something more than friendship with someone else? With one of the other men here this weekend. Or one of the women, perhaps.”

At the second suggestion, Vinney’s face clouded. He blinked and looked away. “There were no lies between us, Inspector. She knew everything. I knew everything. Surely she would have told me if…” He stopped, sighing, rubbing the back of his gloved hand wearily across his forehead. “May I be off? What else is there to say? Joy was my friend. And now she’s dead.” Vinney spoke as if there were a connection between the last two ideas.

Lynley couldn’t help wondering if there was. Curious about the man and his relationship with Joy Sinclair, he chose another subject.

“What can you tell me about a man called John Darrow?”

Vinney dropped his hand. “Darrow?” he repeated blankly. “Nothing. Should I know who he is?”

“Joy did. Evidently. Irene said she even mentioned him at dinner, perhaps in reference to her new book. What can you tell me about it?” Lynley watched Vinney’s face, waiting to see a flicker of recognition from the man with whom Joy had ostensibly shared everything.

“Nothing.” He appeared embarrassed about this apparent contradiction in what he had previously said. “She didn’t talk about her work. There was nothing.”

“I see.” Lynley nodded thoughtfully. The other man shifted his weight back and forth on his feet. He played his keys from one hand to the other. “Joy carried a tape recorder in her shoulder bag. Did you know?”

“She used it whenever a thought struck her. I knew that.”

“She made reference to you on it, asking herself why she was in such a lather over you. Why might she have said that?”

“In a lather over
me?
” His voice rose incredulously.

“‘Jeremy. Jeremy. Oh Lord, why be in such a lather over him? It’s hardly a lifetime proposition.’ Those were her words. Can you shed light on them?”

Vinney’s face was tranquil enough, but the unrest in his eyes betrayed him. “No. I can’t. I can’t think what she meant. We didn’t have that sort of friendship. At least not on my side. Not at all.”

Six denials. Lynley knew his man well enough to discern the fact that his last remarks had deliberately misdirected the conversation. Vinney wasn’t a good liar. But he was skilled in seizing the moment and using it cleverly. He’d just done so. But why?

“I won’t keep you any longer, Mr. Vinney,” Lynley concluded. “No doubt you’re anxious to get back to London.”

Vinney looked as if he wanted to say more, but instead he got into the Morris and switched on its ignition. At first the car made that rolling sound that comes from an engine unwilling to start. But then it coughed and fired into life, releasing exhaust fumes dyspeptically. Vinney cranked down the window while the front wipers worked to free the windscreen of snow.

“She was my friend, Inspector. Just that. Nothing more.” He reversed the car. The tyres spun fiercely on a patch of ice before gaining hold on the gravel. He shot down the drive towards the road.

Lynley watched Vinney’s departure, intrigued by the man’s compulsion to repeat that last remark, as if it contained an underlying meaning that a detective’s close scrutiny would instantly reveal. For some reason—perhaps because of the distant presence of Inverness—it took him back to Eton and a fifth form’s passionate debate over the obsessions and compulsions evidenced by Macbeth, that pricking of conscience spurring his tormented references to sleep once the deed was done.
What need is going unfulfilled in the man despite his successful completion of the act that he thought would bring him joy?
His pacing literature master would ask the question insistently, pointing at this boy or that for assessments, evaluations, speculations, defence.
Needs drive compulsions. What need? What need?
It was a very good question, Lynley decided.

He felt for his cigarette case and started back across the drive just as Sergeant Havers and St. James came round the corner of the house. Snow clung to their trouser legs as if they’d been thrashing in it. Lady Helen was right behind them.

For an awkward moment, the four of them stared at one another wordlessly. Then Lynley said, “Havers, put a call in to the Yard, will you? Let Webberly know we’re on our way back to London this morning.”

Havers nodded, disappearing through the front door. With a quick glance from Lady Helen to Lynley, St. James did likewise.

“Will you come back with us, Helen?” Lynley asked when they were alone. He put his cigarette case back into his pocket, unopened. “It’ll be a quicker trip for you. We’ve a helicopter waiting near Oban.”

“I can’t, Tommy. You know that.”

Her words were not unkind. But they were unmercifully final. There seemed to be nothing more for them to say to each other. Still, Lynley found himself struggling to break her reserve in some manner, no matter how shadowy or inconsequential. It was inconceivable that he should part from her this way. And that’s what he told her, before common sense or pride or stiff propriety could prevent him from doing so.