In Pursuit Of The Proper Sinner (62 page)

“What troubles?”

“What?”

“The girls. Their troubles.”

Reeve looked towards the reception desk and upon it the display of brochures that ostensibly advertised MKR's financial services. “I know you know about the business. But you probably don't know what lengths I go to to keep them healthy. Blood tests every four months, drug screening, physical exams, balanced diet, exercise …”

“A real drain on your financial resources,” Lynley noted dryly.

“Hell. I don't care what you think. This is a service industry, and if someone doesn't offer it, someone else will. I'm not apologising. I supply clean, healthy, educated girls in a decent environment. Any guy who spends time with one of them gets value for his money and no threat of disease to take home to the ball-and-chain. And that's what I was uptight about when I got home: two girls with trouble.”

“Disease?”

“Genital warts. Chlamydia. So I was pissed off. And then when I saw Tricia, I snapped. That's it. If you want their names, addresses, and numbers, I'm happy to oblige.”

Lynley watched him carefully, wondering if it was all a calculated risk on the part of the pimp or an actual coincidence that he'd bear his wife's defensive marks on his face on the very same evening that Vi Nevin had been attacked. He said, “Let's have Mrs. Reeve down here to tell her side of the story, then.”

“Oh come on. She's asleep.”

“That didn't appear to bother you a moment ago when you were howling for her to phone the police. And Polmanteer … your solicitor, is that? We can still phone him if you'd like.”

Reeve stared at Lynley, disgust and dislike on his features. He finally said, “I'll get her.”

“Not alone, I'm afraid.” The last thing Lynley wanted to do was to give Reeve an opportunity to coerce his wife into supporting his story.

“Fine. Then come along.”

Reeve led the way up two flights of stairs to the second floor. In a bedroom overlooking the street he walked to a bed the size of a playing field and switched on the bedside lamp. Light from it fell upon the form of his wife. She lay on her side, curled foetally, deeply asleep.

Reeve flipped her onto her back, grabbed her under the armpits, and pulled her upright. Her head lolled forward like a rag doll's. He tipped her backwards and propped her up against the headboard. “Good luck,” he said to Lynley with a smile. He pointed out a string of nasty bruises round her throat, saying, “I had to get rougher than I wanted with the bitch. She was out of control. I thought she'd kill me.”

Lynley jerked his head away from the woman, indicating he wanted Reeve to back off. Reeve did so. Lynley took his place at the bed. He reached for Tricia's arm, saw the angry tracks of injections, felt for a pulse. As he did this, she heaved in a deep breath, making his gesture unnecessary. Lightly, he slapped her face. “Mrs. Reeve,” he said. “Mrs. Reeve. Can you wake up?”

Reeve moved behind him, and before Lynley realised what he intended, he'd grabbed a vase of flowers, tossed the blooms to the floor, and dashed the water across his wife's face. “God damn it, Trida. Wake up!”

“Stand back,” Lynley ordered.

Tridas eyes fluttered open as the water dripped down her cheeks. Her dazed glance went from Lynley to her husband. She flinched. That reaction said it all.

Lynley said through his teeth, “Get out of here, Reeve.”

“Fuck that,” Reeve said. And he went on tersely, “He wants you to tell him we fought, Tricia. That I went after you and you went after me. You remember how it happened. So tell him that you went for my face and he'll clear the hell out of our house.”

Lynley surged to his feet. “I said get out!”

Reeve stabbed a finger at his wife. “Just tell him. He can see we fought when he looks at us, but he's not about to take my word unless you tell him it's the truth. So tell him.”

Lynley threw him from the room. He slammed the door. He returned to the bed. There, Tricia sat as he'd left her. She made no move to dry herself.

There was an en suite bathroom, and Lynley went to this and fetched a towel. He used it gently against her face, against her damaged neck, against her sopping chest. Tricia looked at him numbly for a moment before she turned her head and gazed at the door through which he'd ejected her husband.

He said, “Tell me what happened between you, Mrs. Reeve.”

She turned back to him. She licked her lips.

“Your husband attacked you, didn't he? Did you fight back?” It was a ludicrous question and he damn well knew it. How, he wondered, could she possibly have done so? The last thing heroin users were good for was a vigorous round of self-defence. “Let me phone someone for you. You need to get out of here. You must have a friend. Brothers or sisters? Parents?”

“No!” She grabbed his hand. Her grip wasn't strong, but her nails—long and as artificial as the rest of her—dug into his flesh.

“I don't believe for a moment that you put up a fight against your husband, Mrs. Reeve. And my failure to believe that is going to make things difficult for you once your husband bails himself out of custody. I'd like to get you out of here before all that happens, so if you'll give me a name of someone to phone …”

“Arrest?” she whispered, and she seemed to be making a monumental effort to clear her head. “You'll … arrest? But you said—”

“I know. But that was earlier. Something's happened this evening that makes it impossible for me to keep my word. I'm sorry, but I have no choice in the matter. Now, I'd like to phone someone for you. Will you give me a number?”

“No. No. It was … I hit him. I did. I tried … bite.”

“Mrs. Reeve. I know you're frightened. But try to see that—”

“I scratched him. My nails. His face. Scratched. Scratched. Because he was choking me and I wanted him … stop. Please. Please. I scratched … face. I made him bleed. I did.”

Lynley saw her rising agitation. He cursed silently: He cursed Reeve's slippery and successful insinuation of himself into the interview with his wife; he cursed his own damnable inadequacies, the largest of which was the loss of temper that always obscured his vision and clouded his thinking. As it had done on this night.

Now, in his house in Eaton Terrace, Lynley reflected on everything. His sense of grievance and his need to avenge Vi Nevin had got in his way, allowing Martin Reeve to outmanoeuvre him. Tricia's fear of her husband—probably in combination with a heroin addiction which he no doubt fed—had prompted her at long last to confirm Reeve's every word. Lynley still could have run the soulless little rat into the nick for six or seven hours of interrogation, but the American hadn't got where he was by being ignorant of his rights. He was guaranteed legal representation, and he would have claimed it before he'd left the house. So what would have been gained was a sleepless night for everyone concerned. And in the end Lynley would have found himself no closer to an arrest than he'd been upon his arrival in London that morning.

But things had ended in Notting Hill the way they had ended because of a miscalculation on Lynley's part, and he had to admit that. In his anxiety to have Tricia Reeve conscious and coherent enough to take part in a conversation, he'd allowed her husband enough time in her presence to give her the script she needed in her interview with Lynley. Thus, he'd lost whatever advantage he might have established over Martin Reeve in arriving at his home in the dead of night. It was a costly mistake, the sort of error that was made by a rank beginner.

He wanted to tell himself that the miscalculation was the product of a long day, a misguided sense of chivalry, and out-and-out exhaustion. But the disquiet in his soul, which he'd begun feeling the moment he saw the card with Nikki Temptation's advertisement on it, spoke of another source altogether. And because he didn't wish to consider either the source or the implications of the source, Lynley descended to the kitchen, where he rooted round in the refrigerator until he found a container of leftover paella.

He fetched a Heineken to go with his makeshift meal, and he cracked it open and carried it to the table. He dropped wearily into one of the chairs and took a deep swig of the lager. A slim magazine lay next to a bowl of apples, and while he waited for the microwave to work its magic on his food, Lynley reached in his pocket for his spectacles and had a look at what turned out to be a souvenir theatre programme.

Denton, he saw, had managed to prevail over the masses who were attempting to obtain tickets to the season's hottest show in the West End. The single word Hamlet made a bold graphic design in silver on an ebony cover, along with a rapier and the words King-Ryder Productions tastefully arranged above the play's title. Lynley shook his head with a chuckle as he flipped through the pages of glossy photographs. If he knew Denton, the next few months in Eaton Terrace were going to be an endless exposure to whatever melodies from the pop opera resonated within his stage-struck soul. As he recalled, it had taken nearly nine months for Denton to stop warbling “The Music of the Night” at the drop of a hat.

At least this new production wasn't Lloyd-Webber, he thought with some gratitude. He'd once considered homicide the only viable alternative to having to listen to Denton crooning the main—and what seemed like the only—melody from Sunset Boulevard for weeks on end.

The microwave signaled, and he scooped out the container and dumped its contents unceremoniously onto a plate. He tucked into his late-night meal. But the action of forking up the food, chewing, and swallowing was not enough to divert his thoughts, so he cast about for something else to distract him.

He found it in the consideration of Barbara Havers.

She must have managed to gather something useful by now, he thought. She'd been on the computer since the morning, and he could only assume that he'd finally managed to pound into her skull the message that he expected her to continue at CRIS until she had something valuable to report.

He reached for the phone that sat on the work top and, mindless of the hour, he punched in her number. The line was engaged. He looked at his watch. Christ. Who the hell would Havers be talking to at one-twenty in the morning? No one that he could name, so the only conclusion was that she'd taken her phone off the hook, the bloody woman. He dropped his own receiver into the cradle and gave idle thought to what he was going to do with Havers. But going down that path only promised him a tempestuous night, which would do nothing to improve his performance in the morning.

So he finished his meal with his attention on the Hamlet programme once again, and he thanked Denton silently for having provided him with a diversion.

The photographs were good. And the text made interesting reading. David King-Ryder's suicide was still fresh enough an event in the public consciousness to give an air of romance and melancholy to anything associated with his name. Besides, it was no arduous task, having to gaze upon the voluptuous maiden who'd been cast as the production's Ophelia. And how clever of the costume designer to have her go to her death in a gown so diaphanous as to make the wearing of it practically unnecessary. Back-lit, she stood poised to drown herself, a creature already caught between two worlds. The gauzy gown claimed her soul for heaven while her earthbound body chained her—in all her sensual beauty—firmly to the earth. It was the perfect combination of—“Are you actually leering, Tommy? Married three months and I've already caught you leering at another woman?” Helen stood in the doorway, blinking, sleep tousled, tying her dressing gown belt at the waist.

“Only because you were asleep,” Lynley said.

“That reply came too readily. I expect you've used it a bit more often than I'd like to know.” She padded across the room to him, looked over his shoulder, placing one slender cool hand on the back of his neck. “Ah. I see.”

“A little light reading with dinner, Helen. Nothing more than that.”

“Hmm. Yes. She's beautiful, isn't she?”

“She? Oh. Ophelia, you mean? I hadn't really noticed.” He flipped the programme closed and took his wife's hand, pressing her palm against his mouth.

“You make a poor liar.” Helen kissed his forehead, disengaged her hand from his, and went to the refrigerator, where she took out a bottle of Evian. She leaned against the work top as she drank, watching him fondly over the top of her glass. “You look ghastly,” she noted. “Have you eaten today? No. Don't answer. That's your first decent meal since breakfast, isn't it?”

“Am I meant to answer or not?” he asked reasonably.

“Never mind. I can read it all over your face. Why is it, darling, that you can forget to eat for sixteen hours while I can't manage to put food from my mind for ten simple minutes?”

“It's the contrast between pure and impure hearts.”

“Now, that's a new slant on gluttony.”

Lynley chuckled. He rose. He went to her and took her into his arms. She smelled of citrus and sleep, and her hair was as soft as a breeze when he bent his head to press his cheek against it. “I'm glad I woke you,” he murmured, and he settled into their embrace, finding within it enormous comfort.

“I wasn't asleep.”

“No?”

“No. Just making an attempt but not getting very far with it, I'm afraid.”

“That's not like you.”

“It isn't. I know.”

“Something's on your mind, then.” He released her and looked down at her, smoothing her hair away from her face. Her dark eyes met his and he made a study of them: what they revealed and what they tried to hide. “Tell me.”

She touched his lips with the tips of her fingers. “I do love you,” she said. “Much more than when I married you. More, even, than I loved you the first time you took me to bed.”

“I'm glad of it. But something tells me that's not what's on your mind.”

“No. That's not what's been on my mind. But it's late, Tommy. And you're far too exhausted for conversation. Let's go to bed.”

He wanted to do so. Nothing sounded better than sinking his head into a plump down pillow and seeking the soothing oblivion of sleep with his wife, warm and comforting, by his side. But something in Helen's expression told him that would not be the wisest course to take at the moment. There were times when women said one thing when they meant another, and this appeared to be one of those times. He said, half truth and half lie, “I am done in. But we've not talked properly today, and I won't be able to sleep till we do.”