Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [227]
“Manette,” Freddie murmured.
“No,” Manette said. “It’s time someone took her to task for this nonsense. You have two children and a duty to those children and that has nothing to do with Ian, with his rejection of you, with his love for Kaveh, with— ”
“Stop it!” Niamh hissed. “I will not have that name spoken inside this house.”
“Which one? Ian, the father of your children, or Kaveh, the man he left you for? You were hurt. Fine. All right. Everyone knows it. You had a right to be and, believe me, everyone knows that as well. But Ian’s dead and the children need you and if you can’t see that, if you’re so self-absorbed, if you’re so bloody needy, if you have to continue to prove to yourself over and over that some man— any man, for the love of God— wants you… What on earth is the matter with you? Were you ever a mother to Gracie and Tim?”
“Manette,” Freddie murmured. “Really.”
“How dare you.” Niamh’s voice was fury. “How bloody dare you. To stand there… to tell me… you who threw away a man for— ”
“This isn’t about me.”
“Oh, it never is, is it? You’re perfect, aren’t you, while the rest of us are beneath your contempt. What do you know of what I went through? What do you know of discovering that the man you love has been meeting with other men for years? Public lavatories, city parks, nightclubs where they grope each other and stick their cocks into strangers’ arseholes? Do you know how it feels to have that knowledge descend on you? To realise your marriage has been a sham and, worse, that you’ve been exposed to every possible variety of filthy disease because the man you’ve given your life to has been living a lie for years? Don’t you tell me how to live my life now. Don’t you bloody tell me I’m all about myself, I’m needy, I’m pathetic, I’m whatever else is on your goddamn mind…”
She’d begun to weep as she spoke, and she dashed the tears away from her face. She said, “Get out of here and don’t come back. If you do, Manette, I swear to God I’ll phone the police. I want you out of here and I want you to leave me alone.”
“And Tim? And Gracie? What of them?”
“I can’t have them here.”
It was Freddie who spoke. “What d’you mean?”
“They remind me. Always. I can’t bear it. Them.”
Manette’s lips parted. She took in the meaning behind Niamh’s words. She finally said, “Why on earth did he choose you? Why did he not see?”
“What?” Niamh demanded. “What? What?”
“From the very first, you were totally about yourself. Even now, Niamh. That’s how it is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Niamh said.
“Don’t worry about that,” Manette said. “I finally do.”
LANCASTER
LANCASHIRE
Deborah felt a twinge of guilt about Lynley, but a twinge was all she allowed herself to feel. He would arrive at the Crow and Eagle, and she wouldn’t be there, but he wouldn’t know she’d gone to Lancaster since her hire car would still be sitting in the car park. She reckoned he’d think at first she’d gone for a final walk round Milnthorpe, perhaps over to the town’s market square or beyond it to the church to have a look at the graveyard. Or perhaps, he’d think, she’d gone along the route to Arnside for a stroll to watch the marsh birds. For the tide was out, and the mudflats were thickly populated at the moment with flocks of every sort of bird one could think of, wintering in Britain from harsher climes. There was the bank, as well, just across the road from the hotel. He might think she’d be there. Or perhaps still at breakfast. But in any case, it didn’t matter. What mattered is that she wouldn’t be there for him to cart home to Simon. She could have left him a note, of course. But she knew Tommy. One indication that she was on her way to Lancaster for another go with Lucy Keverne on the subject of Alatea Fairclough and he’d be after her like a hound chasing down a hare.
After her phone call to him, Zed Benjamin arrived in record time. She was waiting for him just inside the doorway of the inn— having booked