Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [203]
“And what makes you think I’m seeing it that way?”
“Because in your position, I’d see it that way myself. You’re the guv. I’m not. I have no right to make requests of members of your team. Had there been any other way that I could have got the information quickly, believe me, I would have used it.”
“But there was another way, and that’s what concerns me. That you didn’t see that other way and that you apparently still don’t see it.”
“You mean that I could have come to you. But I couldn’t, Isabelle. I had no choice in the matter once Hillier gave the order. I was on the case and no one was to know about it.”
“No one.”
“You’re thinking of Barbara. But I didn’t tell her. She worked it out because it came down to Bernard Fairclough and things I needed to know about him, things in London and not in Cumbria. As soon as she looked into him for me, she put it together. Tell me. What would you have done in my position?”
“I’d like to think I would have trusted you.”
“Because we’re lovers?”
“Essentially. I suppose that’s it.”
“But it can’t be,” he said. “Isabelle, think about things.”
“I’ve done little else. And that’s a real problem, as you can imagine.”
“I can. I do.” He knew what she meant, but he wanted to forestall her although he could not have said exactly why. He thought it had something to do with the vast emptiness of his life without Helen and how, ultimately, as social creatures mankind did not do well in isolation. But he knew this might be the crassest form of self-delusion, dangerous both to himself and to Isabelle. Still, he said, “There has to be a separation, doesn’t there? There must be a surgical cut— if you will— between what we do for the Met and who we are when we’re alone together. If you go forward in this job as superintendent, there are going to be moments when you’re put in a position of knowledge— by Hillier or by someone else— that you can’t share with me.”
“I’d share them anyway.”
“You wouldn’t, Isabelle. You won’t.”
“Did you?”
“Did I…? What d’you mean?”
“I mean Helen, Tommy. Did you share information with Helen?”
How could he possibly explain it? he wondered. He hadn’t had to share information with Helen because Helen had always known. She’d come to him in the bath and pour a bit of oil on her hands and work on his shoulders and murmur, “Ah, David Hillier again, hmm? Really, Tommy. I tend to think that never has knighthood caused such inflation in a man’s self-esteem.” He might then talk or he might not but the point was it didn’t matter to Helen. What he said was a matter of indifference to her. Who he was was everything.
He hated missing her most of all. He could bear the fact that he’d been the one to decide upon when her life— such as it had been at that point, maintained by hospital machinery— would end. He could bear that she’d carried their child with her into the grave. He was coming to terms with the horror of her death’s being a senseless street murder that had come from nothing and resulted in nothing. But the hole that losing her had created within him… He hated it so much that there were moments when its presence brought him perilously close to hating her.
Isabelle said, “What am I to make of your silence?”
He said, “Nothing. Nothing at all. Just thinking.”
“And the answer?”
He’d honestly forgotten the question. “To?”
“Helen,” she said.
“I wish there were one,” he replied. “God knows I’d give it if I knew where to find it.”
She altered then, on the edge of a coin, in that way of hers that somehow kept him unbalanced with her but still bound to her. She said quietly, “God. Forgive me, Tommy. I’m devastating you. You don’t need that. I’m ringing you when I’m meant to be doing other things anyway. This isn’t the time for this conversation. I was upset about Winston and that’s not down to you. We’ll speak later.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Have you any idea when you’ll be back?”
That was, he thought wryly, the question in a nutshell. He looked out of the window.