Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [37]
The garden was showing its autumn colours and readying itself for the winter. The lawn was strewn with leaves needing gathering while the herbaceous borders offered plants whose flowers were long gone now and whose stalks leaned perilously, as if weighted towards the ground by an unseen hand. The wicker furniture wore canvas shrouds. Moss grew between the bricks. Lynley followed a path of these, which led to the house. There, steps descended to the basement kitchen. A light was on there against the coming evening. He could see a shape moving behind the window, itself steamed from the heat inside.
He knocked sharply twice and when the usual barking of the dog commenced, he opened the door and said, “It’s me, Joseph. I’ve come in the back way.”
“Tommy?” It was a woman’s voice, however, not the voice Lynley had been expecting but rather the man’s daughter. “Are you playing at Victorian tradesman?”
She came round the corner from the kitchen in the wake of the dog, a long-haired dachshund with the unlikely name of Peach. Peach barked, jumped, and did her usual by way of greeting him. She was as undisciplined as always, living proof of what Deborah St. James often declared: that she required a dog she could pick up as she was utterly hopeless at training anything.
“Hullo, you,” Deborah said to Lynley. “What a very nice surprise.” She scooted the dog to one side and hugged him. She brushed a kiss against his cheek. “You’re staying for dinner,” she announced. “For many reasons but most of all because I’m cooking it.”
“Good Lord. Where’s your father?”
“Southampton. Anniversary. He didn’t want me to go this year. I expect it’s because it’s the twentieth.”
“Ah.” He knew Deborah wouldn’t say more, not because it pained her to speak of her mother’s death, which, after all, had occurred when Deborah was seven years old, but because of him and the fact of what death might remind him of.
“Anyway,” she said, “he’ll be back tomorrow. But meanwhile that leaves poor Simon in my culinary clutches. Are you wanting him, by the way? He’s only upstairs.”
“I’m wanting you both. What’re you cooking, then?”
“Shepherd’s pie. The mash is instant. More than that I wasn’t willing to attempt and besides, potatoes are potatoes, aren’t they? I’m doing broccoli for the veg, Mediterranean style. Swimming in olive oil and garlic. And a side salad as well, also swimming in olive oil and garlic. You’ll stay? You must. If it’s terrible, you can lie and tell me everything tastes like ambrosia. I’ll know you’re lying, of course. I always know when you lie, by the way. But it won’t matter because if you say everything’s wonderful, Simon’ll be forced to do likewise. Oh yes, and there’s pudding as well.”
“That’ll be the deciding factor.”
“Ah. You see? I know you’re lying, but I’ll play along. It’s actually a French tart.”
“Leaping out of a cake or something?”
She laughed. “Very amusing, Lord Asherton. Are you staying or not? It’s apple and pear, by the way.”
“How can I refuse?” Lynley glanced towards the stairs that led up to the rest of the house. “Is he…?”
“In the study. Go up. I’ll join you once I check to see how things look in the oven.”
He left her. Upstairs, he walked down the corridor. He heard the sound of Simon St. James’s voice coming from his study at the front of the house. This took the place of a normal sitting room, and it was crammed floor to ceiling with books on three walls with a fourth dedicated to Deborah’s photographs. When Lynley entered the room, his friend was seated at his desk, and the fact that he was driving his hand into his hair with his head bent to the task as he spoke on the phone told Lynley that difficulty was afoot in the other man’s life.
St. James was saying, “I thought so as well, David. I still think so. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the answer we’re looking for… Yes, yes. I completely understand… I’ll speak to her again… How much time exactly?… When would she want to see us?… Yes, I see.” He glanced up then, saw Lynley, and nodded a hello. He said, “All right, then. Best to Mother and your family,