In The Presence Of The Enemy (81 page)

The plan should have come off without a hitch. Departure from the Yard, a drive to Wiltshire, a comparison of DC Payne’s police fingerprints with the prints from the tape recorder and the squat. And after that, a surveillance set up so that when Payne went after the Luxford boy in the morning—which he was sure to do when he saw
The Source
sans the story he wanted—it would be no trying matter to track him, to arrest him, and to restore the child to his parents in London.

What had cocked things up was Amesford CID. They couldn’t fi nd a fi ngerprint offi cer for love or money, and once they had managed to locate such a creature, it had taken him more than an hour to get to the station.

During that time, Lynley had done verbal combat with DS Reg Stanley, whose response to the idea that one of his detectives was behind two kidnappings and one murder was,

“Effing nonsense, that. Who are you blokes anyway? Who sent you here?” and a derisive snort when he understood that they worked with the Scotland Yard sergeant who’d apparently become his
bête noire
. Cooperation didn’t appear to be high on his list of personal attributes at the best of times. At this—the worst of times—it apparently had disappeared altogether.

Once they had the confirmation they were seeking—which absorbed the length of time it took for the fi ngerprint officer to put on his glasses, turn on a high intensity lamp, take out a magnifying glass to hold over the fi ngerprint cards, and say “Double loop whorls. Child’s play. They’re the same. Did you actually bring me from my poker game for this?”—the surveillance team was gathered quickly. There were murmurs among the constables when it became clear who the object of the surveillance was, but a van was dispatched, radio contact was set up, and positions were assigned in short order nonetheless. It was only when the first message came back that the suspect’s car was gone, as was the car of the Scotland Yard DS, that Lynley and Nkata went out to Lark’s Haven.

“She’s followed him somewhere,” Lynley told Nkata as they whipped northward through the night towards Wootton Cross. “He was in the room when I spoke to her. He must have read the truth on her face. Havers is no actress.

He’s making his move.”

“Maybe he’s gone off to see his woman,”

Nkata observed.

“I don’t think so.”

Lynley’s feelings of trepidation heightened when they got to the house on the Burbage Road. It was completely dark—which suggested that everyone had gone to bed—but the back door was not only unlocked, it was open.

And a deep tyre mark in the flower bed along the drive suggested that someone had left in haste.

Lynley’s radio crackled as he and Nkata made for the open back door. “You want back-up, Inspector?” a voice asked from the van, which was parked a few yards down the road.

“Maintain your position,” Lynley told the officer. “Things don’t seem right. We’re having a look inside.”

The back door led into a kitchen. Lynley flipped on the lights. Everything appeared to be in order, as was the case in the dining room and the sitting room beyond.

Upstairs they found the bedroom Havers was using. Her old St. George-and-the-drag-on sweatshirt hung limply by its label from a hook on the door. Her bed was tousled—but only the counterpane and the blanket, with the sheets still folded neatly in place. This suggested that she’d either taken a nap, which was highly unlikely, or that she’d feigned sleep, which was more in keeping with his instruc-tions to her to carry on normally. Her mis-shapen shoulder bag was on the top of the chest of drawers, but her car keys were missing. So she must have heard Payne leaving the house, Lynley thought. She must have grabbed up her keys, and she must have given chase.

The thought of Havers by herself on the trail of a killer sent Lynley to the window of her bedroom. He flicked back the curtains and observed the night, as if the stars and the moon could tell him in which direction she and Robin Payne had gone. Damn and blast the infuriating woman, he thought. What the hell had she been thinking of, setting out after him alone? If she got herself killed—

“’Spector Lynley?”

Lynley turned from the window. Nkata stood in the doorway. “What is it?”

“Woman in one of the other bedrooms. Out like a dead tuna. Seems like she’s drugged.”

Which is how they came to be pouring coffee down Corrine Payne’s throat while she murmured alternately for her “little chappie”

or for Sam. “Who’s Sam when he’s someone?”

Nkata wanted to know.

Lynley didn’t care. He only wanted the woman coherent. And when Nkata brought another pot of coffee into the dining room, he sat Corrine at the table and began sloshing it into her.

“We need to know where your son is,” Lynley said. “Mrs. Payne, can you hear me? Robin’s not here. Do you know where he’s gone?”

Her eyes seemed to focus this time, the caf-feine finally working on her brain. She darted them from Lynley to Nkata, upon whose vis-age they widened in absolute terror.

“We’re police officers,” Lynley said before she could set up a howl at the sight of an unknown—and therefore inherently threatening—black man in her pristine dining room.

“We’re looking for your son.”

“Robbie’s a policeman,” she told them in answer. Then she seemed to read
We’re looking
for your son
for a fuller meaning. “Where’s Robbie?” she demanded. “What’s happened to Robbie?”

“We need to talk to him,” Lynley told her.

“Can you help us, Mrs. Payne? Can you give us an idea where he might be?”

“Talk to him?” Her voice rose slightly. “Talk to him why? It’s night. He’s in bed. He’s a good boy. He’s always been good to his mummy. He’s—”

Lynley put a steadying hand on her shoulder. She was breathing unevenly.

She said, “Asthma. Sometimes my breath goes.”

“Have you medicine?”

“An inhaler. The bedroom.”

Nkata fetched it. She pumped it vigorously and it seemed to restore her. The combination of the coffee and the medicine brought her round to herself. She blinked several times as if fully awakened. “What do you want with my son?”

“He’s taken two children from London.

He’s brought them to the country. One of them is dead. The other may very well still be alive. We need to find him, Mrs. Payne. We need to fi nd that child.”

She looked utterly dazed. Her hand closed over her inhaler and Lynley thought that she would use it again. But instead she stared at him. Her face was a study in absolute incomprehension.

“Children?” she said. “My Robbie? You’re mad.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Why, he wouldn’t hurt children. He wouldn’t consider it. He loves them. He means to have children of his own. He means to get married to Celia Matheson this very year and have children by the score.” She drew the edges of her bathrobe closer as if suddenly chilled. She went on with, “Are you trying to tell me—are you actually trying to suggest to me—that my Robbie’s a
per
vert?” in a hushed and disgusted voice. “My Robbie? My son?

My very own son who won’t touch his little peepee unless I put it into his hands myself?”

Her words hung there between them for an instant. Lynley saw Nkata raise his eyebrows in interest. The woman’s question suggested waters that were cloudy if not deep, but there was no time to draw inferences. Lynley went on.

“The children he’s taken have the same father. Your son appears to have a grievance with this man.”

If anything, the woman looked more nonplussed than before. She said, “Who? What father?”

“A man called Dennis Luxford. Is there a connection between Robin and Dennis Luxford?”

“_Who? _”

“Dennis Luxford. He’s editor of a tabloid called
The Source
. He went to school in this area, at Baverstock, some thirty years ago.

The first child your son took was Luxford’s illegitimate daughter. The second is Luxford’s legitimate son. Apparently, Robin believes there’s a third child, a child older than the other two. He wants Dennis Luxford to name that child in the newspaper. If Luxford doesn’t, the second child he’s taken will die.”

The change came over her slowly as Lynley spoke. Each sentence seemed to shutter her face further. Finally, she dropped her hand to her lap. She said faintly, “Editor of a paper, you said? In London?”

“Yes. He’s called Dennis Luxford.”

“Dear God.”

“What is it?”

She said, “I didn’t think…He wasn’t actually meant to believe…”

“What?”

“It was so long ago.”

“_What? _”

The woman said nothing beyond, “Dear God.”

Lynley’s nerves strung out another degree.

“If you can tell us something that will lead to your son, then I suggest you do it and do it now. One life is gone. Two more are at stake.

We’ve no time to waste and less to refl ect.

Now—”

“I didn’t really know who it was.” She spoke to the tabletop, not to either of the men. “How could I have done? But I had to tell him something. Because he kept insisting…He kept asking and asking. He gave me no peace.” She seemed to shrivel into herself.

Nkata remarked, “This is nowhere, man.”

“Find his bedroom,” Lynley said. “Something there may tell us where he’s gone.”

“But we got no—”

“To hell with a warrant, Winston. Havers is out there. She may be in trouble. And I don’t intend to sit round here waiting for—”

“Right. I’m fi nding it.” Nkata made for the stairs.

Lynley heard the constable moving briskly down the upstairs corridor. Doors opened and shut. Then the sound of drawers and cupboard doors being moved to and fro combined with Corrine Payne’s continuing jabber.

“I never thought,” she was saying. “It just seemed so simple when I saw it in the paper…

When I read…When it said Baverstock…of all places, Baverstock…And he
could
have been one of them. Really, he could have been.

Because I didn’t know their names, you see. I never asked. They just came to the ice house.

Mondays and Wednesdays…Lovely boys, really…”

Lynley wanted to shake her, to jar loose her teeth. She was talking aimlessly while time trickled away. He shouted, “Winston! Is there anything to go on?”

Nkata clattered back down the stairs. He was carrying cuttings from a newspaper. He looked grave. He handed the cuttings over to Lynley, saying, “This was in a drawer in his room.”

Lynley looked at the cuttings. They were from the
Sunday Times
magazine. He spread them on the table, but he didn’t need to read.

It was the same article that Nkata had shown him earlier in the week. He read its title a second time: “Turning Round a Tabloid.” Its contents constituted a minor biography of Dennis Christopher Luxford, and this biography was accompanied by glossy pictures of Luxford, his wife, and their son.

Corrine reached out and weakly traced the outline of Dennis Luxford’s face. She said, “It said Baverstock. It said he went to Baverstock.

And Robbie wanted to know…His dad…He’d been asking for years…He said he had the right…”

Lynley finally understood. “You told your son that Dennis Luxford is his father? Is that what you’re saying?”

“He said I owed him the truth if I was going to marry. I owed him his real dad once and for all. But I didn’t know, you see. Because there’d been so many. And I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t. How could I? So I told him there was one. Once. At night. I hadn’t wanted to do it, I told him, but he was stronger than me, so I had to. I just had to or else I’d be hurt.”

Nkata said, “Rape?”

“I never thought Robbie would…I said it was long ago. I said it didn’t matter. I told him
he
was what mattered now. My son. My lovely love. He was what mattered.”

“You told him Dennis Luxford raped you?”

Lynley clarified. “You told your son Dennis Luxford raped you when you were both teenagers?”

“His name was in the paper,” she murmured. “It said Baverstock as well. I didn’t think…Mercy. I don’t feel very well.”

Lynley shoved himself away from the table.

He’d been standing over her, but now he needed distance. He was incredulous. A little girl was dead and two other lives now hung in the balance because this woman—this utterly loathsome woman—hadn’t wanted her son to know that his father’s identity was a mystery to her. She’d taken a name out of a hat, out of nowhere, out of the sky. She’d seen the word
Baverstock
in the magazine article and she’d used that one word to condemn a ten-year-old to die. God. It was madness. He needed some air. He needed to be out on the road.

He needed to find Havers before Payne got to her.

Lynley turned to the kitchen, to the door, to escape. As he did so, his radio spurted to life.

“Car coming, Inspector. Slow. From the west.”

“Get the lights,” Lynley ordered. Nkata moved quickly to extinguish them.

“Inspector?” the radio crackled.

“Stay where you are.”

At the table, Corrine stirred, saying, “Robbie? Is it Robbie?”

Lynley said, “Get her upstairs.”

She said, “I don’t
want—
”

“Winston.”

Nkata moved to her. He raised her up. “This way, Mrs. Payne.”

She clutched onto the chair. “You won’t hurt him,” she said. “He’s my little boy. You won’t hurt him. Please.”

“Get her out of here.”

As Nkata guided Corrine to the stairs, the headlamps from a car swept light across the dining room. An engine rumbled, growing louder as the car approached the house. Then its noise ceased with a burble and a cough.

Lynley slipped to the window and eased the curtain away from the glass.

The car had pulled beyond his line of vision, towards the back of the house where the kitchen door still stood open. Lynley moved quietly round the table in that direction. He deadened the sound on his radio. He listened for movement outside.

A car door opened. Seconds passed. Then heavy footsteps approached the house.

Lynley made his own move, quickly, to the door between the kitchen and dining room.

He heard a deep, guttural cry—sounding as if it were being savagely stifl ed—from just outside the house. He waited in the darkness with his hand on the light switch. When he saw the shadowy figure on the steps, he fl ipped the switch on and shot the room full of light.