Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [179]
NEWBY BRIDGE
CUMBRIA
When Lynley rang off, he looked at his friend. St. James had watched him the entire time he’d been speaking to Deborah, and there were few people Lynley knew who were more adept at reading between the lines than St. James, although there actually wasn’t much reading between the lines that St. James would have had to do. Lynley had framed the conversation with Deborah in such a way that her husband would understand where she was and with whom without Lynley overtly betraying her.
St. James said, “She can be the most maddening woman.”
Lynley raised and lowered his fingers in a gesture that indicated his acceptance of this idea. “Isn’t that the nature of women in general?”
St. James sighed. “I should have put my foot down in some fashion.”
“Good Lord, Simon. She’s an adult. You can hardly drag her kicking and howling back to London.”
“Her point exactly.” St. James rubbed his forehead. He looked as if he hadn’t slept during the previous night. He continued. “It’s unfortunate we needed two hire cars. I’d have been able to give her a clear choice otherwise: Come with me to Manchester airport or find your own way home.”
“I doubt that would have gone down very well. And you know what her reply would have been.”
“Oh yes. That’s the hell of it. I do know my wife.”
“Thank you for coming up here, Simon, for lending a hand.”
“I would have liked to give you a more definitive answer. But it all stacks up the same way, no matter how I look at the facts: an unfortunate accident.”
“Despite the plethora of motives? Everyone seems to have one. Mignon, Freddie McGhie, Nick Fairclough, Kaveh Mehran. God knows who else.”
“Despite,” St. James said.
“And not the perfect crime?”
St. James glanced out of the window at a copper beech hedge aflame with autumn as he considered this. They had met in a rather crumbling Victorian hotel not far from Newby Bridge, where in its lounge they were able to order morning coffee. It was the sort of place about which Helen would have happily declared Lord, how deliciously atmospheric it is, Tommy in order to excuse the hideous carpets, the layer of dust on the wall-mounted deer heads, and the tattered condition of the sofas and armchairs. For a moment, Lynley missed his wife with a crushing force. He breathed through it as he’d learned to do. Everything passes, he thought. This also would.
St. James stirred in his armchair and said, “There were perfect crimes at one time, of course. But today, it’s so difficult that virtually no one can carry one off. Forensic science is too advanced, Tommy. There are ways to pick up trace evidence now that were unheard of even five years ago. Today a perfect crime would have to be one in which no one thinks there was a crime at all.”
“But isn’t that the case here?”
“Not with a coroner’s investigation having been completed. Not with Bernard Fairclough coming to London and getting you involved. A perfect crime now is one in which there’s no suspicion that there could have been a crime. An investigation is neither ordered nor needed, the coroner signs off on the death on the spot, the victim is conveniently cremated within forty-eight hours, and there you have it. But with the situation you’ve got here, all the bases were covered and there was ultimately nothing to suggest Ian Cresswell’s death was anything other than what the coroner decided: an accident.”
“And if Valerie and not Ian was the intended victim?”
“Exactly the same problem, as you know.” St. James took up his coffee. “If this was intentional, Tommy, and if Valerie and not Ian had been the intended victim, you’ve got to agree there are far better ways to be rid of her. Everyone knew Ian used the boathouse as well as Valerie. Why risk killing him if she was supposed to die? And what’s the motive anyway? And even if there is a motive for her death, trying to go at this problem through forensic data isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
“Because there is no forensic data.”
“None that suggests this wasn’t what it