Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [93]
“I said enough!” Bernard snapped. And to Kaveh, “Excuse her, Kaveh. She doesn’t mean— ”
“Oh, she knows very well what she means,” Kaveh said. “Most people do.”
Manette sought a way out of the mire she’d created for herself by saying lamely, “All right. Look. If nothing else, you’re too young to be the father of a fourteen-year-old boy, Kaveh. He needs someone older, someone experienced, someone— ”
“Not homosexual,” Kaveh finished for her.
“I didn’t say that. And I don’t mean that. I was going to say someone within his own family.”
“You’ve made that point more than once.”
“I’m sorry, Kaveh. It’s not about you. It’s about Tim and Gracie. They can’t be asked to tolerate more devastation in their lives. It’s destroying Tim. It’s going to do the same to Gracie. I have to stop their world from falling apart even further. I hope you can understand that.”
“Leave things as they are, Manette,” her father said. “There are larger concerns at the moment.”
“Like what?”
He said nothing. But there were those glances between her father and his London friend and she wondered for the first time what was going on here. Clearly, this bloke wasn’t intended to press a case for love with her wily sister in the fashion of the eighteenth century: out for her money, perhaps, in order to support a crumbling estate in Cornwall. And the fact that her father had actually wanted him to hear every word of her conversation with Kaveh suggested that the quiet waters of Tommy Lynley’s outward appearance were probably deep enough for Nessie to swim in. Well, that couldn’t matter. Nothing could matter. She intended to do something about her cousin’s children and if her father wouldn’t join forces with her, she knew someone else who was likely to do so.
She threw up her hands. “All right,” she said. And to Lynley, “Sorry you had to listen to all this.”
He nodded politely. But there was an expression on his face that told he hadn’t minded hearing the information at all.
BRYANBARROW EN ROUTE TO WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
The previous day had been a wash-out. Two hours trying to thumb it to Windermere and Tim had finally given up. But he was determined today would be different.
The rain started not long after he began the most difficult part of his journey: the endless hike from Bryanbarrow village down to the main road through the Lyth Valley. He didn’t expect to get a lift during this part of the route, as the cars were few and far between and if a farm vehicle happened to come by— a tractor, for example— it moved so slowly and went so little distance that he could actually make better time on foot.
He hadn’t counted on the rain, though. This was stupid of him, considering it was the sodden month of sodding November and as far as he knew, it rained more in the Lakes than anywhere else in the bloody country. But because he’d left Bryan Beck farm in a state in which clear thinking wasn’t exactly going on in his head, he had put a hoodie on over a flannel shirt, which he wore over a tee-shirt and none of this was waterproof. He had trainers on his feet, too, and while these weren’t soaked through, they were mud up to the ankles because the verges of the lane were swampy the way they always were at this time of year. As for his jeans, they were growing heavier and heavier as the rain got to them. Since they were several sizes too large anyway, the struggle to keep them up round his hips was infuriating.
He was on the main road through the valley when he scored his first lift, a spot of luck in a day that otherwise was sucking ostrich eggs. This was supplied by a farmer. He pulled over in a Land Rover that was up to its wings in crusted mud and he said, “Get in, son. You look like something dragged out of the pond. Where to?”
Tim said Newby Bridge— the opposite direction from Windermere— because he had a feeling about the bloke and the way the bloke looked at him, close and curious. He also didn’t want to leave a trail once everything was