Payment In Blood (5 page)

It was a horrible crime, a crime whose enormity delineated itself in the saturated mattress that drank the woman’s blood, in her outstretched hand that reached for assistance that would never come, in her parted lips and soundless cry. There is, Lynley thought, no crime so execrable as murder. It contaminates and pollutes, and no life it touches, no matter how tangentially, can ever be the same.

He passed the photographs to St. James and looked at Macaskin. “Now,” he said, “shall we consider the intriguing question of what happened at Westerbrae between six-fifty when Mary Agnes Campbell found the body and seven-ten when someone finally managed to get round to phoning the police?”

3

T
HE ROAD TO
Westerbrae was poorly maintained. In the summer, negotiating its switchbacks, its potholes, its steep climbs to moors and quick descents to dales would be difficult enough. In the winter, it was hell. Even with Constable Lonan at the wheel of Strathclyde CID’s Land Rover, well equipped to handle the perilous conditions, they did not arrive at the house until nearly dusk, emerging from the woods and swinging through the final curve on a sheet of ice that caused Lonan and Macaskin to curse fervently in unison. As a result, the constable took the final forty yards at a respectable crawl and switched off the ignition at last with undisguised relief.

In front of them, the building loomed like a gothic nightmare on the landscape, completely unilluminated and deadly quiet. Constructed entirely of grey granite in the fashion of a pre-Victorian hunting lodge, it shot out wings, sprouted chimneys, and managed to look menacing in spite of the snow that mounded like fresh clotted cream on its roof. It had peculiar crow-stepped gables shaped from smaller granite blocks stacked in a staggered fashion. Behind one of these, the curious architectural appendage of a slate-roofed tower was tucked into the abutment of two wings of the house, its deeply recessed windows bare of covering and without light. A white Doric-columned portico sheltered the front door, and over it trailing wisps of a now leafless vine made an heroic effort to climb to the roof. The entire structure combined the fancies of three periods of architecture and at least as many cultures. And as Lynley evaluated it, he thought that it hardly had the potential to be Macaskin’s romantic spot for newlyweds.

The drive they parked on was well channelled and gouged, evidence of the number of vehicles that had come and gone during the day. But at this hour, Westerbrae may well have been deserted. Even the snow surrounding it was pristine and untouched across the lawn and down the slope to the loch.

For a moment no one stirred. Then Macaskin, casting a glance over his shoulder at the London group, shoved open the door, and fresh air assaulted them. It was glacial. They climbed out reluctantly.

A nasty wind was gusting off the water a short distance away, an unforgiving reminder of how far north Loch Achiemore and Westerbrae really were. It blew numbingly from the Arctic, stinging cheeks and piercing lungs and carrying with it the flavour of nearby pines and the faint musk of peat fires burning in the surrounding countryside. Huddling into themselves for protection against it, they crossed the drive quickly. Macaskin pounded on the door.

Two of his men had been left behind that morning, and one admitted them into the house. He was a freckled constable with monstrously large hands and a bulky, muscled body that strained against the buttons of his uniform. Carrying a tray covered by the sort of insubstantial sandwiches that usually decorate plates at tea, he was chewing ravenously, like an overlarge waif who has not seen food in many days and may very well not see it again for days more. He beckoned them into the great hall and thudded the door closed behind them, swallowing.

“Cuik arrived thirty minutes back,” he explained hurriedly to Macaskin, who was eying him with a disapproval that thinned his lips. “I was juist takin’ this in tae them. Dinna seem they should gae much longer wi’out fude.”

Macaskin’s expression withered the man to silence. Dismay stained his cheeks, and he shifted from one foot to the other, as if unsure about what he should do to explain himself further to his superior.

“Where are they?” Lynley’s glance took in the hall, noting its hand-moulded panelling and its immense, unlit chandelier. The floor was bare, recently refinished, and even more recently marred by a wide stain that pooled across it and dripped like treacle down one of the walls. All the doors leading off the hall were closed, and the only light came from the reception desk tucked under the stairs. Apparently the constable had made this his duty post that day, for it was littered with teacups and magazines.

“Library,” Macaskin answered. His eyes darted suspiciously to his man, as if the courtesy of supplying the suspects with food may well have led to other courtesies which he would live to regret. “They’ve been in there since we left this morning, Euan?”

At this the young constable grinned. “Aye. Wi’ brief visits tae the tollet down the northe’st corridor. Two minutes, unlocked door, maiself or Will’am richt awside.” He went on as Macaskin led the others across the hall. “Th’ one is still in a fair rage, Inspector. Not used tae spendin’ the day ’n her nichtgawn, I should guess.”

It was, Lynley quickly discovered, a more than accurate description of Lady Helen Clyde’s state of mind. When Inspector Macaskin unlocked and pushed open the library door, she was the first one on her feet, and whatever had been simmering on the back burner of her self-control was clearly about to boil over. She took three steps forward, her slippers moving soundlessly on what looked like—but could not possibly have been—an Aubusson carpet.

“Now you listen to me. I absolutely
insist…
” Her words were hot with fury, but they iced over into mute astonishment when she saw the new arrivals.

Whatever Lynley might have thought he would feel at this first sight of Lady Helen, he was not prepared for tenderness. Yet it overcame him in an unexpected rush. She looked so pathetic. She was wearing a man’s greatcoat over her dressing gown and slippers. The cuffs had been folded back, but there was nothing at all to be done about the garment’s length or about its wide shoulders, so it hung on her baggily, dangling to her ankles. Her usually smooth, chestnut hair was dishevelled, she wore absolutely no make-up, and in the half-light of the room she looked like one of Fagin’s boys, all of twelve years old and badly in need of rescue.

It passed through Lynley’s mind that this was probably the first time he had ever seen Helen at a loss for words, and he said to her drily, “You always did know how to dress for an occasion.”

“Tommy,” Lady Helen replied. A hand went to her hair in a gesture that was born more of confusion than self-consciousness. She added, inanely, “You’re not in Cornwall.”

“Indeed. I’m not in Cornwall.”

That brief exchange charged those assembled in the library into furious action. They had been fairly spread out across the room, seated near the fire, standing by the bar, gathered in a collection of chairs under the glass-fronted bookshelves. But now nearly everyone began to move—and to shout—at once. Voices came from all directions with no desire for answer, merely a need to give vent to wrath. It was instantaneous pandemonium.

“My solicitor
shall
hear—”

“Bloody police kept us locked—”

“…the most outrageous behaviour I’ve ever seen!”

“We’re supposed to be living in a civilised—”

“…no wonder to
me
that the country’s gone to hell!”

Unmoved by their anger, Lynley passed his eyes over them and made a quick survey of the room. The heavy rose curtains were drawn and only two lamps had been lit, but there was quite enough light for him to study the company as they continued to make vociferous demands, which he continued to ignore.

He recognised the principal players in the drama, mostly by their relative proximity to what was clearly the main attraction and dominant force in the room: Britain’s foremost actress, Joanna Ellacourt. She was standing by the bar, a wintry blonde beauty whose white angora sweater and matching wool trousers seemed to emphasise the temperature of disdain with which she greeted the arrival of the police. As if in the expectation of meeting some need of hers, at Joanna’s elbow stood a brawny, older man, with heavy-lidded eyes and coarse, greying hair—no doubt her husband, David Sydeham. Only two steps away on Joanna’s other side, her leading man turned abruptly back to a drink that he was nursing at the bar. Robert Gabriel was either not interested in the newcomers or eager not to be seen until properly fortified for the encounter. And in front of Gabriel, having risen quickly from the couch on which he had been sitting, Stuart Rintoul, Lord Stinhurst, studied Lynley intently as if with the purpose of casting him in some future production.

There were others in the room whose identities Lynley could only guess at for the moment: two older women near the fire, most likely Lord Stinhurst’s wife and his sister, Francesca Gerrard; an angry-faced, pudgy man somewhere in his thirties who smoked a pipe, wore newish tweeds, and seemed to be the journalist Jeremy Vinney; sharing a settee with him, an exceedingly ill-dressed, unattractive middle-aged spinster type whose extreme lankiness if not her resemblance to Lord Stinhurst indicated that she had to be his daughter; the two teenagers employed at the hotel, together at the furthest corner of the room; and in a low chair nearly obscured by shadows, a black-haired woman who raised a haunted face to Lynley, hollow-cheeked, dark-eyed, with an undercurrent of passion held in savagely tight rein. Irene Sinclair, Lynley guessed, the victim’s sister.

But none of these was the one person Lynley was looking for, and he passed his eyes over the group once again until he found the director of the play, recognising him from the olive skin, black hair, and sombre eyes of the Welsh. Rhys Davies-Jones was standing by the chair that Lady Helen had just vacated. He had moved when she did, as if to prevent her from confronting the police alone. He stopped, however, when it became apparent to everyone that this particular policeman was no stranger to Lady Helen Clyde.

Across the width of the room and through the gulf created by the conflict of their cultures, Lynley looked at Davies-Jones, feeling an aversion take hold of him, one so strong that it seemed a physical illness.
Helen’s lover
, he thought, and then more fiercely to convince himself of the fact’s grim immutability:
This is Helen’s lover
.

No man could have looked less likely for the role. The Welshman was at least ten years Helen’s senior, quite possibly more. With curly hair going to grey at the temples and a thin weathered face, he was wiry and fit like his Celtic ancestors. Also like them, he was neither tall nor handsome. His features were sharp and stony. But Lynley could not deny that the look of the man spoke of both intelligence and inner strength, qualities that Helen would recognise—and value—beyond any others.

“Sergeant Havers,” Lynley’s voice cut through the continued protestations, eliminating them abruptly, “take Lady Helen to her room and allow her to get dressed. Where are the keys?”

Wide-eyed and white-faced, a young girl came forward. Mary Agnes Campbell, finder of the body. She held out a silver tray on which someone had deposited all of the hotel keys, but her hands were shaking, so the tray and its contents jangled discordantly. Lynley’s eyes took it in, then moved to the assembled company.

“I locked all the rooms and collected the keys immediately after she…the body was discovered this morning.” Lord Stinhurst resumed his seat by the fire, a couch which he was sharing with one of the two older women. Her hand groped for his, and their fingers intertwined. “I’m not certain what the procedure is in a case like this,” Stinhurst concluded, in explanation, “but that seemed the best.”

When Lynley looked less than willing to receive this bit of news with appreciation, Macaskin interjected, “Everyone was in the drawing room when we arrived this morning. His lordship had done us the service of locking them in.”

“How helpful of Lord Stinhurst.” It was Sergeant Havers, speaking in a voice so polite that it sounded like steel.

“Find your key, Helen,” Lynley said. Her eyes had never left his face since he’d first spoken to her. He could feel them on him now, her gaze warm, like a touch. “The rest of you may be expected to be inconvenienced awhile longer.”

Into the storm of fresh protests that greeted this remark, Lady Helen started to respond, but Joanna Ellacourt expertly wrested the stage from her by crossing the room to Lynley. The lighting became her, and Joanna walked like a woman who knew how to use the moment. Her long, unpinned hair moved like sun-shot silk upon her shoulders.

“Inspector,” she murmured, motioning gracefully towards the door, “I feel I
may
ask you…if it’s not too much. I should be only too grateful to be given just a few moments to myself. Somewhere. Out of here. In my own room, perhaps, but if that’s not possible, just in any room. Anywhere. With a single chair on which I could sit and ponder and gather my wits once again. Five minutes only. If you would be so good as to see to it for me, I should feel in your debt. After this dreadful day.”

Her performance was lovely, Blanche Dubois in Scotland. But Lynley had no intention of acting the part of her gentleman from Dallas.

“I’m sorry,” he replied, “I’m afraid you shall have to rely on the kindness of strangers other than myself.” And then he repeated, “Find your key, Helen.”

Lady Helen made a gesture Lynley recognised, a prelude to speaking. He turned away. “We’ll be in the Sinclair room,” he said to Havers. “Let me know when she’s dressed. Constable Lonan, see that the rest of them stay here for now.”

Angry voices swelled again. Lynley ignored them and left the room. St. James and Macaskin followed.