Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [59]
She looked over her shoulder but did not appear startled. She said, “There you are, then. Rotten luck entirely, I’m afraid. I was out for three hours and all I managed were two miserable little things who looked at me so pathetically, I was forced to toss them back into the water. You must be Thomas Lynley”— this to Lynley. “Welcome to Cumbria.”
“It’s Tommy.” He extended his hand to her. She threw him the dock line instead of grasping it.
“Cleat hitch,” she said. “Or do I speak Greek?”
“Not to me.”
“Good man.” She handed her fishing gear to her husband: a tackle box, a rod, and a pail of squirming bait that Lynley recognised as maggots. Clearly, she wasn’t a squeamish woman.
She clambered out of the rowingboat as Lynley tied it up. She was extremely agile, impressive for her age since Lynley knew she was sixty-seven years old. When she was on the dock, she shook his hand. “Welcome again,” she said. “Has Bernie given you the tour?” She tugged off her rain slicker and removed the trousers. She hung these from pegs on the boathouse wall as her husband stowed her fishing kit beneath a wooden workbench. When he turned to her, she offered her cheek for a kiss. She said, “Darling,” as ostensible greeting and added, “How long’ve you been back?” to which he said, “Noon,” to which she said, “You should have sent up a flare.” She added, “Mignon?” and he said, “Not yet. She’s well?” to which she replied, “Slow process, but better.” It was, Lynley knew, that shorthand of all couples who’ve been together so many years.
Valerie said to him with a nod at the scull, “You were having a look at where our Ian drowned, weren’t you. Bernie and I aren’t of the same mind on this subject, but I expect he’s told you that.”
“He’s mentioned that you found the body. It must have been a shock.”
“I hadn’t even known he’d gone out rowing. I hadn’t known he was on the property at all as he hadn’t parked his car near the house. He’d been in the water nearly twenty-four hours when I got to him, so you can imagine what he looked like at that point. Still, I’m glad I found him and not Mignon. Or Kaveh. I can only imagine what would have happened then.”
“Kaveh?” Lynley asked.
“Ian’s partner. He’s doing some work for me here on the property. I’m putting in a children’s area and he’s done the design. He’s overseeing the work as well.”
“He’s here every day?”
“Perhaps three times a week? He doesn’t check in with me, and I don’t keep track.” She regarded Lynley as if evaluating what was going on in his mind. She said, “As the Americans say on their television programmes, do you like him for the murder?”
Lynley smiled briefly. “It may well turn out that the coroner was right.”
“I have every confidence that it will.” She looked from Lynley to her husband. Fairclough, Lynley saw, was gazing intently through the water-side opening in the boathouse, out onto the lake. She said, “It was a terrible thing to have happened. We were very fond of Ian, Bernie and I. We should have kept a closer eye on the dock. It’s quite old— more than a hundred years— and it’s never been out of use. Stones become loose. See here. There’s another.”
She used her toe against a stone next to the spot from which the other two had fallen. It was, as she said, unsteady as well. But of course, Lynley thought, that might have been owing to the fact that someone had deliberately loosened it.
“When accidents happen, we want to blame someone,” Valerie said. “And this was a wretched thing to have happened because it leaves those poor children with one mad parent and no tempering influence whatsoever. If there’s fault here, however, it’s mine, I’m afraid.”
“Valerie,” her husband said.
“I’m in charge of Ireleth Hall and the property, Bernie. I fell down on the job. Your nephew died as a result.”
“I don’t blame you,” her husband replied.
“Perhaps you should consider doing so.”
They exchanged a look from which Bernard broke away first. That look said more than their words had done. There were, Lynley reckoned, deep waters here. They went far beyond those found in the