Believing the Lie (17 page)

Great Urswick wasn’t much of a village, one of those collections of cottages that had grown round the intersection of several country lanes, a distance inland from Bardsea and Morecambe Bay. It possessed a pub, a post office, a restaurant, two churches, and a primary school, but it had the added feature of sitting on the edge of a somewhat large pond. The posh district—as Manette and Freddie liked to call it—consisted of the houses built along the banks of this pond.
They were situated near to the road but their large back gardens comprised lawns giving onto the pond itself. Reeds formed occasional barriers between the gardens and the water, and where there were no reeds, miniature jetties allowed residents access to rowing boats or places to sit and watch the ducks and the two resident swans who lived there throughout the year.

Manette and Freddie’s house was one of these. Manette pulled up to it—leaving the garage for Freddie’s use—and she said to Tim, “Come and look. Here’s where I need your help. Back here.”

“Why isn’t Freddie helping you?” Tim asked abruptly. He didn’t move to unhook his seat belt.

“Freddie?” She laughed. “Impossible. He’d have to read instructions and there’s no way he’s about to do that. The way I reckon it, I read and you build. And afterwards we cook burgers and chips.”

“Build? What? I can’t build nothing.”

“Oh yes you can. Wait and see,” she said. “It’s round the back. Come on.” She set off towards the corner of the house, without waiting to see if he would follow.

The project was a tent. Of course she could have put it up herself, with or without help from anyone. But this was not the point. The point was doing something to engage Tim and to get him talking or at least to get him relaxing enough that he might allow her a modest inroad into his suffering.

She unpacked the tent and laid it out on the lawn. It was a large affair, more suitable for a family of four than for what she had in mind, but as it wasn’t the season for tent buying, she’d had to make do with what was on offer. She was sorting through various stakes and cords when she heard Tim finally come round the side of the house. She said, “Good. There you are. Need a snack before we begin?”

He shook his head. He looked from the sprawl of canvas to her to the water. He said, “What’re you setting this up here for, then?”

“Oh, this is just practice for you and me,” she told him. “When we know what we’re doing, we’ll take it up Scout Scar.”

“What for?”

“For camping out, silly. What else would we use it for? Your mum
told me you’re walking on the fells now and as I’m walking on the fells as well, we c’n do it together, soon’s you’re ready.”

“You don’t walk on the fells.”

“A lot you know. I take all kinds of exercise. Besides, Freddie doesn’t like me running along the roads any longer. He thinks I’ll be hit by a car. Come on, then. What’re you waiting for? Sure you don’t want a snack? Custard cream? Jaffa cake? Banana? Marmite toast?”

“I said no!” He sounded fierce. “Look. I already told you. I got to meet someone.”

“Where?”

“It’s important. I said I’d be there.”

“Where?”

“Windermere.”

“
Windermere
? Who on earth are you meeting in Windermere? Does your mum know you’re meeting someone in Windermere?” She’d been crouched among the items intended for setting up the tent, but now she stood. She said, “See here, Tim. What’s going on? Are you up to something?”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“You know very well. Drugs, drink, some sort of naughty nonsense that—”

“No. Look, I got to be there. I
got
to.”

She could hear his desperation, but she couldn’t tell what it had to do with or why he was feeling it. Any idea she had in the matter was not a good one. But there was something in his eyes when they flashed in her direction, a form of suffering looking out at her and begging for her help. She said, “I can’t take you there without speaking to your mum,” and she headed in the direction of the house, saying, “I’m going to phone her and make sure—”

“You can’t!”

“Why not? Tim, what’s going on?”

“She won’t care. She doesn’t know. It won’t matter. If you ring her…oh fuck, fuck,
fuck
.” And he stalked across the tent and down to the little wooden jetty that stretched into the pond. There was a
rowing boat tied there, but he didn’t get into it. Instead he dropped heavily down onto the jetty and his head fell into his hands.

Manette could tell he was crying. Her heart went out to him. She crossed the lawn and went out to join him on the dock. She sat down next to him but didn’t touch him. She said, “Buster, this is a bad time for you. This is the worst. But it’s going to pass. I promise you. It
is
going to pass because—”

“You don’t know anything!” He swung round and shoved her. She fell onto her side. “You don’t know shit!” He kicked her, and she felt the force of the blow in the region of her kidneys. She tried to say his name but could not get it past her lips before he kicked her again.

LAKE WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA

L
ynley arrived at Ireleth Hall in the afternoon. Given the choice among flying, driving, or taking the train, he’d opted for driving, despite the length of the trip. He left London long before dawn, stopped twice along the way, and spent the time in the Healey Elliott deep in thought.

He hadn’t been with Isabelle on the previous night. She’d asked and he’d wanted, but he reckoned it would be better for them both if he stayed away. Despite her words to the contrary, he knew she intended to get to the bottom of where he was going and why, and he equally intended not to tell her. The conflict between them that this would have doubtless caused was something he wanted to avoid. Isabelle had cut back radically on her drinking in the months they’d been together, and he didn’t want anything—like an argument with him—to set her on the path to the bottle again. She needed to stay sober and he liked her sober, and if avoiding a conflict encouraged her to maintain sobriety, then he was happy to avoid anything resembling a conflict with her.

Darling, I had no idea you’d become such a coward with women
, Helen
would have said about this. But it wasn’t cowardice as far as he was concerned. It was the course of wisdom and he was determined to follow it. Still, he thought about this and about Isabelle and himself most of the way to Cumbria. Compatibility was on his mind.

When he reached Ireleth Hall, the great iron gates stood open as if in anticipation of his arrival. He drove beneath the shelter of ancient oaks, winding in the direction of Lake Windermere, and finding himself ultimately pulling up to an impressive many-gabled affair of stone dappled with grey lichen, its central feature a boxy pele tower of enormous proportions that announced the age of at least part of the building. Thirteenth century, Lynley thought. It predated his own home in Cornwall by more than four hundred years.

From the pele tower various extensions had been put onto the building over the centuries. Wisely, however, they were all of a piece so the result was a harmonious blend of architectural periods, with rolling lawns spreading out on either side of it, these copiously dotted with some of the most impressive oaks Lynley had ever seen. Among the oaks stood equally impressive plane trees, and beneath them fallow deer grazed placidly.

He got out of the car and breathed deeply of air fresh from a recent rainfall. From where he stood, the lake wasn’t visible, but he reckoned that from inside the west-facing house, the views of the water and the opposite shore would be impressive.

“Here you are, then.”

Lynley turned at the sound of Bernard Fairclough’s voice. The man was heading his way from a walled garden to the north of the house. He joined Lynley by the Healey Elliott. He admired the old car, ran his hand along its sleek wing, and asked the usual polite questions about the vehicle, its age, its performance, and about Lynley’s drive from London. The niceties dispensed with, he ushered him into the house through a door that led directly into a great hall panelled in oak and hung with burnished breastplates of armour. A fire burned in a fireplace here, with two sofas facing each other in front of it. Other than the crackling from flames consuming wood and the ticking from a longcase clock, the place seemed entirely silent.

Fairclough spoke in the low tones of a man at a church service or one concerned about being overheard, although as far as Lynley could tell they were alone. “I’ve had to tell Valerie why you’re here,” he said. “We don’t keep secrets in general—more than forty years together and it’s impossible anyway—so she’s in the picture. She’ll cooperate. She’s not entirely happy with me for pushing this matter, but she understands…as well as a mother can understand when there are concerns about her children.” Fairclough pushed his thick-framed spectacles up the bridge of his nose as he considered his words. “She’s the only one, though. So for everyone else, you’re a fellow member of Twins who’s come for a visit. Some of them know about your wife as well. It’s made…Well, it’s made everything more believable. You’ve no trouble with that, I hope?”

He sounded nervous. Lynley had to wonder what he was nervous about: that Lynley was here, that he was a cop, or that he might uncover something unsavoury as he stumbled round the property. He supposed any of these were possible, but the nerves did make him curious about Fairclough. “Helen’s death was in the newspapers,” he replied. “I can hardly protest if it’s common knowledge.”

“Good. Good.” Fairclough rubbed his hands together in a let’s-get-down-to-work gesture. He shot Lynley a smile. “I’ll show you your room and give you a tour. I thought a quiet dinner this evening, just the four of us, and then tomorrow perhaps you can…Whatever it is you do, you know.”

“The four of us?”

“Our daughter Mignon will be joining us. She lives here on the property. Not in the house as she’s of an age when a woman prefers to have her own home. She’s not far, though, and as she’s unmarried and you’re a widower, it did seem possible…” Fairclough, Lynley noted, had the grace to look uncomfortable at this. “Something of another excuse for you to be here. I haven’t said anything to Mignon directly, but if you keep it in mind that she’s unmarried…I’ve a feeling she might be more forthright with you if you…perhaps showed her a bit of interest.”

“You suspect she has something to hide?” Lynley asked.

“She’s a cipher,” Fairclough replied. “I’ve never been able to have
a breakthrough to her. I hope you’ll manage it. Come. It’s just this way.”

The stairs formed part of the pele tower’s base and they rose among a collection of landscape watercolours into a corridor panelled in oak much like the great hall but without the great hall’s windows to lighten the gloom. Doors opened off this corridor, and Fairclough led Lynley to one at the far north end, where a lead-paned window offered a dim shaft of light in which dust motes floated upward as if released from captivity in the Persian carpets.

The room they entered was a large one, its best feature a set of bay windows with a deep embrasure where a seat had been fashioned. Fairclough walked Lynley over to this spot. “Windermere,” he said unnecessarily.

As Lynley had assumed, this west side of the house overlooked the lake. Three terraces made a way down to it: two of lawn and a third of gravel upon which weathered tables, chairs, and chaise longues stood. Beyond this last one, the lake spread out, disappearing round a finger of land that pointed northeast and was called, Fairclough said, Rawlinson Nab. Closer to hand, the tiny island of Grass Holme seemed to float in the water surmounted by a copse of ash trees, and Grubbins Point appeared like a knuckle protruding outward into the water.

Lynley said to Fairclough, “You must quite enjoy living here. Most of the year, at least, as I expect you’re fairly overrun in the summer.” Tourists, he meant. Cumbria in general and the Lakes in particular would be thronged from June to the end of September. Rain or shine—and God knew most of the time it was rain—they’d be walking, climbing, and camping everywhere there was space to do so.

“Frankly, I wish I had more time to do just that, to live here,” Fairclough said. “Between the factory in Barrow, the foundation, my solicitors in London, and the Ministry of Defence, I’m actually fortunate to get here once a month.”

“Ministry of Defence?”

Fairclough grimaced. “My life is governed by a complete lack of romance. I’ve a composting toilet they’re interested in. We’ve been in discussion for months.”

“And the solicitors? Is there a problem I should know about? Something related to the family? To Ian Cresswell?”

“No, no,” Fairclough said. “Patent lawyers, these are, as well as solicitors for the foundation. All of it keeps me on the run. I rely on Valerie to deal with this place. It’s her family home so she’s happy to do so.”

“Sounds as if you don’t see much of each other.”

Fairclough smiled. “Secret of a long and happy marriage. Bit unusual, but it’s worked all these years. Ah. There’s Valerie now.”

Lynley moved his gaze from Fairclough to the three terraces, assuming the man’s wife had come into view from elsewhere on the property. But he indicated the lake and upon it a rowing boat. A figure had just put oars into water and was bending to the task of rowing towards the shore. It was impossible at this distance to tell if the oarsman was male or female, but Fairclough said, “She’ll be heading towards the boathouse. Let me take you to her. You’ll be able to see where Ian…Well, you know.”

Outside, Lynley took note of the fact that the boathouse wasn’t visible from the main house. To gain it, Fairclough led him to the south wing of Ireleth Hall, where through shrubbery formed by the autumn red foliage of a mass of spiraea more than six feet tall, an arbour gave way to a path. This wound through a garden thick with the twin of holly, mahonia, which appeared to have grown in the spot for one hundred years. The path curved downwards through a little plantation of poplars and ultimately opened onto a fanlike landing. The boathouse was here: a fanciful structure faced in the stacked slate of the district with a steeply pitched roof and a land-side single door. There were no windows.