Believing the Lie (49 page)

“We need direct light.”

“For what, at this point?”

“Nothing in here. Come with me.”

They left the boathouse. St. James brought the fillet knife up between them. They both had a look at it and the conclusion required no microscopic examination in a forensic lab. From its use on the grout, it was deeply scratched and scored. But the one that Lynley had earlier brought up from the water had been completely unmarked.

Lynley said, “Ah. I do see.”

“This clarifies matters, I think, Tommy. It’s time Deborah and I went back to London. I’m not saying at this point that those stones couldn’t have been loosened in another way. But the fact that the knife you brought up from the water was unmarked suggests the drowning was indeed an accident or something else was used to dislodge one of those stones. And unless you intend to cart everything from the property off to forensics for some kind of match-up with the stones that went into the water—”

“I’ll need another route,” Lynley finished for him. “Or I can close this up and head back myself.”

“Unless Barbara Havers gives you something, I daresay that’s the case. It’s not a bad result, though, is it? It’s just a result.”

“It is.”

They stood silently looking out at the lake. A rowing boat was approaching them with a woman skillfully at the oars. Valerie Fairclough was dressed for fishing but she’d evidently had no luck. When she neared them, she showed her empty bucket and called out cheerfully, “It’s good we’re not starving round here. I’ve become rather hopeless in the last few days.”

“There are more loose stones on the dock inside,” Lynley called back. “We’ve made several a bit worse. Have a care. We’ll help you.”

They went back inside. She glided in silently and docked the rowing boat in the exact spot where the stones were loose. Lynley
said, “You’ve managed to choose the very worst spot. Was this where you set out?”

“It was,” Valerie said. “I hadn’t noticed. Are they bad?”

“Over time they’ll give way.”

“Like the others?”

“Like the others.”

Her face relaxed. She didn’t smile but her relief was palpable. St. James took note of this and he knew Lynley did likewise as Valerie Fairclough handed her fishing gear over to him. Lynley set this to one side, then extended his hand and helped Valerie Fairclough from the boat. He made the introductions between the woman and St. James.

St. James said, “You found Ian Cresswell’s body, as I understand.”

“I did, yes.” Valerie removed the hat she’d been wearing, a baseball cap that covered her fine grey hair. This was youthfully styled and she ran her fingers through it.

“You phoned for the police as well,” St. James said.

“That’s correct.”

“I’m rather wondering about that,” St. James said. “Are you heading to the house? May we walk with you?”

Valerie glanced at Lynley. She didn’t look wary. She had far too much control for that. But she’d be wondering why Lynley’s friend the expert witness from London wanted to have a chat, and she’d know quite well the topic wasn’t going to be her momentary lack of success as an angler. She said graciously, “Of course you may,” but that quick movement at the corners of her blue eyes told a different story about how she actually felt.

They set off up the path. St. James said to her, “Had you been fishing that day?”

“When I found him? No.”

“What took you out to the boathouse?”

“I was having a walk. I do that in the afternoons, generally. Once the weather gets bad with the winter, I’m rather more confined than I like to be, as we all are, so I try to get out as much as I can while the days are still fine.”

“Around the property? Into the woods? On the fells?”

“I’ve lived here all my life, Mr. St. James. I walk wherever my fancy takes me.”

“On that day?”

Valerie Fairclough glanced at Lynley. She said to him, “Would you like to clarify?” which was, naturally, a well-bred way of asking why she was being grilled by his friend.

St. James said, “This is my interest, rather than Tommy’s. I’ve spoken to Constable Schlicht about the day Ian Cresswell was found. He told me two curious things about the phone call to nine-nine-nine, and I’ve been trying to understand them ever since. Well, actually, only one of the things he told me was about the phone call. The other was about you.”

Now the wariness was plain to see. Valerie Fairclough stopped on the path. She ran her hands down the sides of her trousers, a movement that St. James could tell was meant to settle her nerves. He knew Lynley was aware of this from the look Lynley cast him, which was one that told him to go on in order to get what he could from her.

“And what did the constable tell you?” Valerie said.

“He’d had a conversation with the bloke at dispatch. This would be the person who took the nine-nine-nine call about Ian Cresswell’s drowning. He learned that whoever made that call was remarkably calm, considering the circumstances.”

“I see.” Valerie spoke pleasantly enough, but the fact that she’d stopped moving along the path suggested there were elements of Ian Cresswell’s death that she didn’t want St. James and Lynley to uncover. One of them, St. James knew, was now out of their sight line. The folly built for their daughter Mignon was no longer in view.

“‘There appears to be a dead man floating in my boathouse,’ is roughly what was said,” St. James told Valerie.

She glanced away. A ripple on the surface of her face was not unlike a ripple on the surface of the lake behind them. Something swimming beneath the water or a gust of wind across it but in either case, the moment comprised an instant in which her placidity failed her. She raised a hand to her forehead and brushed an errant hair
away. She’d not put her baseball cap back on her head. The sunlight struck her face, showing the fine lines of an ageing that she seemed intent upon keeping at bay.

She said, “No one knows exactly how they’ll react in that kind of situation.”

“I entirely agree. But the second odd thing about that day was how you were dressed when you met the police and the ambulance on the drive. You weren’t dressed for walking, certainly not for an autumn walk and certainly not for anything other than a walk through the rooms of your house, I expect.”

Realising the direction St. James had been heading, Lynley said, “So you see, there are several possibilities that want exploring.” He gave her a moment to think about this before going on with, “You weren’t at the boathouse at all, were you? You weren’t the one to find the body and you weren’t the one to call nine-nine-nine.”

“I believe I gave my name when I phoned.” Valerie spoke stiffly, but she wasn’t stupid. She would know that at least this part of the game was over.

“Anyone can give any name,” St. James said.

“Perhaps it’s time you told the truth,” Lynley added. “It’s about your daughter, isn’t it? I daresay Mignon found the body, and Mignon placed the call. From the folly, she can see the boathouse. If she goes upstairs to the top floor of the tower, I should guess she can see everything from the door of the building to the boats leaving it to go out on the lake. The real question, then, is whether she had a reason to arrange Ian Cresswell’s death as well. Because she would have known he was out there on the lake that evening, wouldn’t she?”

Valerie raised her eyes to the sky. St. James was reminded unaccountably of a suffering Madonna and what motherhood brought and did not bring to a woman brave enough to engage in everything that it comprised. It never ended with the child’s entry into adulthood. It went on till death, either the mother’s or the child’s. Valerie said, “None of them…” She faltered. She looked at both of them, St. James and Lynley, before she spoke again. “My children are innocent in all matters.”

St. James said, “We found a filleting knife in the water.” He showed her the knife he’d used on the stones. “Not this one, of course, but one very similar.”

“That would be the one I lost a few weeks ago,” she said. “An accident, actually. I was cleaning a good-sized trout, but I dropped the knife and it slid into the water.”

“Indeed?” Lynley said.

“Indeed,” she replied. “Clumsy of me but there you have it.”

Lynley and St. James glanced at each other. What they had, actually, was a lie, since the workbench for cleaning fish was on the other side of the boathouse from the spot where the filleting knife had fallen into the water. Unless St. James was very much mistaken about the nature of the tool, the knife would have had to swim in order to end up lying beneath Ian Cresswell’s scull.

KENSINGTON
LONDON

In person Vivienne Tully looked exactly like the photographs Barbara had seen of her on the Internet. They were of an age—she and Vivienne—but they couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Vivienne, Barbara reckoned, was exactly what Acting Detective Superintendent Ardery would have
her
become: svelte of body, sveltely clothed with all the suitable accessories, and ultra-sveltely put together when it came to hair and makeup. Indeed, if there were degrees of svelte—and Barbara reckoned there were—then Vivienne Tully had somehow managed to claw her way to the top level. On principle alone, Barbara hated her on sight.

She’d made the decision to turn up at Rutland Gate as who she was and not as who she had earlier pretended to be: someone in search of a piece of pricey Kensington property. She rang the bell for flat 6, and without asking who’d come calling upon her, Vivienne Tully—or whoever was inside her flat—had released the door’s lock. At that, Barbara reckoned she was expecting someone. Very few
people were foolish enough to allow callers into their buildings without giving them a proper grilling. People ended up burgled that way. People also ended up dead.

It turned out that the expected visitor was an estate agent. Barbara learned this within three seconds of Vivienne Tully’s giving her a once-over. Head to toe and a look of this-can’t-
possibly
-be, and Vivienne was saying, “
You’re
from Foxtons?” Barbara might have taken offence at this, but she wasn’t there for a beauty contest. She also wasn’t there to seize the moment and run with it since there was no way on earth that Vivienne Tully was going to believe an estate agent hot to sell her property would show up at her door wearing high-top red trainers, orange corduroys, and a navy donkey jacket.

So she said, “DS Havers, New Scotland Yard. I need a word.”

Vivienne didn’t exactly fall back in shock, which Barbara found worthy of note. She said, “Come in. I don’t have a great deal of time, I’m afraid. I’ve an appointment.”

“With Foxtons. Got it. Selling up, are you?” Barbara looked round as Vivienne closed the door behind them. It was a gorgeous flat by anyone’s standards: high ceilings, elaborate crown mouldings, hardwood floors covered by Persian carpets, a few tasteful antiques, a marble fireplace surround. It would have cost buckets in the first place and it would take barrels to purchase it now. The odd thing was, however, that there was nothing of a personal nature anywhere. One could call a few pieces of carefully chosen German porcelain personal, Barbara supposed, but the collection of antique books on a bookshelf didn’t exactly look like something one browsed through on rainy days.

“I’m moving to New Zealand,” Vivienne said. “Time to go home.”

“Born there?” Barbara asked, although she already knew the answer. The other woman had no evident accent; she’d be able to lie if she wished.

She didn’t. “In Wellington,” she said. “My parents are there. They’re getting older and they’d like me back in the area.”

“Been in the UK a while, then?”

“May I ask what this call is about, Sergeant Havers? How may I help you?”

“By telling me about your relationship with Bernard Fairclough. That’d be a start.”

Vivienne’s expression remained preternaturally pleasant. “I don’t think that’s any of your business. Exactly what is this about?”

“The death of Ian Cresswell. It’s being investigated. I expect you knew him since you worked for Fairclough Industries for a time and so did he.”

“Then wouldn’t the logical question be what my relationship with Ian Cresswell was?”

“I reckoned we’d get to that next. Right now it’s the Fairclough angle of things that interests me.” Barbara looked round the room with an appreciative nod. She said, “Very nice digs. Mind if I park myself somewhere?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she went to an armchair, dumped her shoulder bag next to it, and sank down into its comfortable depths. She ran a hand along the fine upholstery. Bloody hell, is this silk? she wondered. Obviously, Vivienne Tully didn’t do her shopping at IKEA.

Vivienne said, “I think I told you I’m expecting—”

“Someone from Foxtons. Got it. I’m good that way. Memory like the proverbial elephant if you know what I mean. Or is it the metaphorical elephant? I never know which. Well, never mind. You’d probably like things better if I scarpered before Foxtons shows up, eh?”

Vivienne wasn’t a fool. She knew it was going to be information in exchange for Barbara’s departure. She went to a small sofa and sat. She said, “I worked for a time for Fairclough Industries, as you’ve noted. I was Bernard Fairclough’s executive assistant. It was my first job straight after the London School of Economics. After several years, I went on to other employment.”

“Your type generally move round in the employment game,” Barbara acknowledged. “I get that. But in your case, it was Fairclough Industries, a spate of private consulting, and then this current gig you have with the gardening concern and there you’ve stayed.”

“What of it? I wanted more job security than private consultancy
offers, and once I went to Precision Gardening, I had it. I climbed the ladder there, the right person in the right place during a period of time when it was important to demonstrate equity in employment between men and women. I hardly started as managing director, Sergeant.”

“But you didn’t cut your ties with Fairclough.”

“I don’t burn bridges. I find it wise to maintain contacts. Bernard asked me to serve on the board of the Fairclough Foundation. I was happy to do so.”