Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [240]
She said, “Right. Well. Hullo back at you. Which one is it, then? Did you have a personality transplant or a toss-and-turn night?”
He said, “Sorry. I’m on the motorway.”
“Heading…?”
“Home, where else?”
“Not a good idea, sir.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Just ring me when you can talk. Find a services area. I don’t want you crashing that expensive motor of yours. I’ve already got the Bentley on my conscience.”
The next services area was a Welcome Break, and he had to travel some way to find it. It was a quarter of an hour before he got there, but the car park wasn’t crowded and there was virtually no one inside the unappealing sprawl of sticky-floored cafeteria, shops, newsagents, and children’s play area. He bought himself a coffee and took it to a table. He rang Havers’s mobile.
“Hope you’re sitting down,” were her words when she answered.
“I was sitting down the first time we spoke,” he reminded her.
“Okay, okay.” She brought him up to the minute on what she’d been doing, which appeared mostly to be keeping out of Isabelle Ardery’s sight in order to do research on the Internet, for which she seemed to be developing a distinct liking. She talked about a Spanish graduate student; her neighbour Taymullah Azhar, with whom Lynley was acquainted; the town of Santa Maria de la Cruz, de los Angeles, y de los Santos; and finally the five sons of the mayor of that town. She ended with the purpose of her call, always someone who liked to build to dramatic moments:
“And here’s the situation in a nutshell. There is no Alatea Vasquez y del Torres. Or perhaps better put: There is and there isn’t an Alatea Vasquez y del Torres.”
“Hadn’t you already established that Alatea’s probably from another part of the family?”
“To borrow unblushingly from rock ’n’ roll history, sir: That was yesterday and yesterday’s gone.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning Alatea’s from this part of the family. She’s just not Alatea.”
“Who is she, then?”
“She’s Santiago.”
Lynley tried to take this in. Around him, a cleaner was industriously mopping the floor, casting meaningful glances in his direction as if with the hope he’d vacate the premises, giving access to the floor beneath his chair. He said, “Barbara, what on earth do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I say, sir. Alatea is Santiago. Santiago is Alatea. Either that or they are identical twins, and if I remember my biology correctly, there is no such thing as identical twins of the male-female sort. A biological impossibility.”
“So we’re talking about… What, exactly, are we talking about?”
“Cross-dressing, sir. Impeccable female impersonation. A tasty secret one would hope to keep from the family, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would say, yes. In certain circumstances. But in these circumstances— ”
Havers cut in. “Sir, here’s how it is: The trail on Santiago goes dead when he’s about fifteen years old. That’s when, I daresay, he started passing himself off as someone called Alatea. He ran away from home round then as well. I got that, among other details, from a phone call to the family.”
She began to tell him what she’d learned from her earlier meeting with the graduate student Engracia after that call the young woman had placed to Argentina: the family wanted Alatea to come home; her father and her brothers now understood; Carlos— “He’s the priest,” Havers reminded Lynley— made them understand; everyone was praying for Alatea’s return; they’d been searching for years; she must not continue to run; Elena Maria’s heart was broken—
“Who’s Elena Maria?” Lynley felt as if his head were filling with wet cotton wool.
“Cousin,” Havers said. “Way I figure it, Santiago did a runner because he liked to cross-dress, which— let’s face it— probably didn’t go down a treat with his brothers and his dad. Latin types, you know? Macho and all that, if you’ll pardon the stereotyping. Anyway, somewhere along the line he met up with Raul Montenegro— ”
“Who