Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [132]
“No, no. Bernard Fairclough. He told me an associate of his lives here and she apparently told him about a flat. I can’t remember her name…”
“Oh. That’d be Vivienne Tully, that would,” he said. “Don’t think it’s her place going up for sale, though. Situation’s too convenient for that.”
“Oh, right,” Barbara said. “It’s not Vivienne’s. I thought it might be and got a bit excited about the possibility but Bernie”— she especially liked the touch of Bernie— “said she’s quite established here.”
“That’d be the case,” he said. “Nice woman, as well. Remembers me at Christmas, she does, which is more than I can say for some of ’em.” He shot a look at the television, then, and cleared his throat. Barbara saw that on a squat table next to a reclining chair, a plate of beans on toast was waiting. Doubtless, he wanted to get back to that as well as back to Sandra, Troy, and more of their passionate, forbidden love. Well, she couldn’t exactly blame him. Passionate and forbidden love made life more interesting, didn’t it?
LAKE WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
Lynley was having a preprandial sherry with Valerie and Bernard Fairclough when Mignon showed up. They were in what Valerie had referred to as the small drawing room, where a fire was doing a fine job of cutting the chill. None of them heard Mignon enter the house— the front door being some distance from the room in which they sat— so she was able to make something of a surprise entrance.
The door swung open and she shoved her zimmer frame in ahead of her. It had begun to rain again, quite heavily, and she’d come from the folly without raingear. This omission— which Lynley reckoned had to be deliberate— had caused her to become wet enough to provoke a reaction from both of her parents. Her hair was flattened, her Alice-in-Wonderland hairband dripped water onto her forehead and into her eyes, and her shoes and clothing were soaked. It was not a far enough walk from the folly to the main house to have become so wet. Lynley concluded that she’d stood for a while in the downpour for the drama a thorough soaking might provide. Seeing her, her mother jumped to her feet and Lynley— who couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d tried— politely rose to his.
“Mignon!” Valerie cried. “Why’ve you come from the folly without an umbrella?”
Mignon said, “I can hardly hold an umbrella while using this, can I?” in reference to the zimmer.
“A mac and a hat might have solved that problem,” her father said guilelessly. Notably, he hadn’t risen and his expression indicated he was fully aware of her ploy.
“I forgot it,” Mignon said.
Valerie said, “Here. Sit by the fire, darling. I’ll fetch some towels for your hair.”
“Don’t bother,” Mignon said. “I’ll be walking back in a moment. You’re dining soon, aren’t you? As I had no invitation to join you this evening, I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”
“You don’t need an invitation,” Valerie said. “You’re always welcome. But since you’ve preferred… because of…” Clearly, she didn’t want to say more in front of Lynley.
Just as clearly, Mignon did. She said, “I’ve had a gastric band, Thomas. Big as an ox, I was. You wouldn’t believe how big. Destroyed my knees heaving my fat round the planet for a good twenty years, so they’ll be replaced next. The knees, I mean. Then I’ll be as good as new and some bloke’ll come along and take me off my parents’ hands. Or so they hope.”
She made her way across the room and lowered herself into the chair her mother had vacated. She said to her father, “I could do with a sherry myself,” and to Lynley, “I thought at first that’s why you’d come. Stupid of me, I know, but you’ve got to consider who my father is. Always has a scheme, my dad. I knew you were part of one as soon as I saw you. I just misjudged what the scheme actually was, thinking you’d come to have a look at me, if you know what I mean.”
“Mignon, really,” her mother said.
“I think I’ll take those towels after all.” Mignon seemed to like the idea of ordering Valerie about. She looked quite gratified