Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [144]
“That journalist.”
“What…? Are you talking about that man? That same man? The one who came here…? The story that never was a story at all?”
Nicholas nodded. “He’s back. He told me. Scotland Yard’s here. The rest is clear enough: I’m the person they’re interested in.”
“He said that? The journalist said that?”
“Not in so many words. But from everything that’s gone on, it’s obvious.”
There was something more here that he wasn’t telling her. Alatea could read it in his face. She said, “I don’t believe it. You? Why on earth would you have hurt Ian? And why would your father think you could?”
He shrugged. She saw that he was struggling with a conflict that he couldn’t bear to reveal and she herself struggled to understand what it was and what it could mean to both of them. He was deeply depressed or deeply grieved or deeply— very deeply— something else.
She said, “I think you should speak to your father. You must do this straightaway. This reporter, Nicky, he doesn’t mean you well. And now this woman who says she’s from the film company that doesn’t exist… You must talk to your father at once. You must hear the truth of the matter. It’s the only answer, Nicky.”
He raised his head. His eyes were liquid. Her heart constricted with her love for this man, troubled soul to her own troubled soul. He said, “Well, I’ve definitely decided against being part of that documentary film that she was here about. I’ve told her that, by the way, so there’s one less thing for either of us to deal with.” His lips curved but it was a poor effort at a smile. It was meant to encourage her, to tell her all would be well soon enough.
Both of them knew this was a lie, however. But like everything else, neither one of them would be willing to admit that.
MILNTHORPE
CUMBRIA
“I wouldn’t want to have to write it on an envelope, but they probably have some Spanish abbreviation if you’re sending a letter there,” Havers said. She was referring to the town in Argentina that she’d managed to come up with as being the likeliest origin of Alatea Vasquez y del Torres. “Santa Maria de la Cruz, de los Angeles, y de los Santos,” she had just announced to Lynley over his mobile phone. “We’re talking about a burg that’s touching all the spiritual bases. It must be in an earthquake zone and hoping for divine intervention in case of the worst.”
Lynley could hear her smoking on the other end. No surprise. Havers was always smoking. She wouldn’t be at the Met, then. Or if she was, she was phoning from a stairwell where, he knew, she occasionally skulked for an illegal hit of the weed. He said to her, “Why this town, Barbara?” and to St. James, who had joined him to lean against the Healey Elliott, “She’s onto Alatea Fairclough.”
“Who’re you talking to?” Havers enquired irritably. “I bloody well hate three-way conversations.”
“St. James is here. I’ll switch it to the speaker if I can work out how to do that.”
“Oh, that’ll happen on a snowy day in hell,” she said. “Give it to Simon, sir. He can do it for you.”
“Havers, I’m not entirely— ”
“Sir.” It was her patient-as-a-saint voice. There was nothing for it. He handed the mobile over to St. James. One or two buttons and both of them were listening to Havers in the car park of the Crow and Eagle.
“It’s the mayor,” Havers said. “I know this is spitting in the dark, sir, but the mayor’s a bloke called Esteban Vega y de Vasquez and his wife’s called Dominga Padilla y del Torres de Vasquez. I reckoned it could be a put-it-all-together-and-what’ve-you-got situation. Some of the surnames are the same as Alatea’s.”
“That’s a stretch, Barbara.”
“This came from the Internet?” St. James asked.
“Bloody hours on it. And since everything’s in sodding Spanish, I’m only guessing he’s the mayor. He could be the dog catcher but there was a picture of him and I can’t think why the dog catcher’d be handing over the keys to the