Playing for the Ashes (60 page)

pressed it to the spot of blood.

“You’re going too fast,” she said.

“Don’t give me that. Don’t you bloody give me that. We’ve known each other since you were eighteen years old. Eighteen.
Eighteen
. We’ve been friends. We’ve been lovers. We’ve been…” He shook the razor at her re
fle
ction. “What are you waiting for, Helen? What are you—”

“I meant the shaving,” she interjected.

Half-masked in lather, he stared at her blankly. “The shaving,” he repeated.

“You’re shaving too quickly. You’ll cut yourself again.”

He lowered his gaze to the razor in his hand. It, too, was covered with lather. He thrust it under the tap and let the water wash over it and its speckling of ginger whiskers.

“I’m too much of a distraction,” Helen noted. “You said so yourself on Friday night.”

He knew where she was heading with her statement, but for a moment he didn’t try to block her path. He pondered the word
distraction
: what it explained, what it promised, and what it implied. He finally had the answer. “That’s the whole point.”

“What?”

“The distraction.”

“I don’t understand.”

He finished his shaving, rinsed his face, and dried it on a towel she handed him. He didn’t answer until after he had slapped his cheeks with lotion. “I love you,” he said to her, “because when I’m with you, I don’t have to think about what I otherwise would be forced to think about. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week.”

He pushed past her into the bedroom and began tossing his clothes onto the bed. “I need you for that,” he said, as he dressed. “To temper my world. To offer me something that isn’t black or foul.” She listened. He threw on his clothes. “I love coming home to you and wondering what I’ll
fin
d. I love having to wonder. I love having to worry you might blow up the house with the microwave because when I worry about that, in those five or
fif
teen or twenty-five seconds that I’m worrying, I don’t have to think of whose murder I’m trying like the devil to investigate, how that murder was committed, and who’s responsible for it.” He went in search of a pair of shoes, saying over his shoulder, “That’s the way of it, all right?

Oh, there’s lust involved. Passion. Body heat. Whatever you will. There’s plenty of lust, always has been, frankly, because I enjoy taking women to bed.”

“Women?”

“Helen, don’t try to trap me, all right? You know what I mean.” Under the bed, he found the shoes he was seeking. He thrust his feet into them and tied the laces so tight that pain shot into his knees. “And when the lust I feel for you wears off—as it’s going to, eventually—I suppose I’ll find myself left with the rest. All those distractions. Which just happen to constitute the reason I love you in the
fir
st place.”

He went to his serpentine chest of drawers where he shoved the brush through his hair four times. He crossed back to the bathroom. She still stood by the door. He put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her, hard.

“That’s the story,” he said to her. “Beginning to end. Now decide what you want and have done with it.”

Lynley found Guy Mollison in the drawing room that overlooked Eaton Terrace. Denton had thoughtfully provided the cricketer with entertainment as well as coffee, croissants, fruit, and jam: Rachmaninoff was soaring from the stereo. Lynley wondered who had made the choice of music and decided it had to be Mollison. Left to his own devices, Denton opted for show stoppers from musicals.

Mollison was leaning over the coffee table, cup and saucer in hand, reading
The Sunday Times
. This was spread open next to the tray upon which Denton had laid out his meal. He wasn’t reading an article about sports, however, as one might expect of the longtime captain of England’s national team in advance of a test match with Australia, but about Fleming’s death and the investigation. Particularly, Lynley saw as he passed the table on his way to silence the stereo, he was perusing an article that bore the now outdated headline “Cricket Car Sought.”

Lynley pulled the plug on the music. Denton stuck his head in the doorway. “Got your breakfast, m’lord. In here? The dining room?”

Lynley winced inwardly. He hated the use of the title in any situation related to his work. He said brusquely, “Here. Did you track down Sergeant Havers?”

“She’s on her way. She was at the Yard. Said to tell you the blokes are on the beat. That make sense to you, does it?”

It did. Havers had taken it upon herself to assign the DCs he’d pulled off rota. The move was irregular—he would have preferred to talk to them himself—but the fact that she had assumed the responsibility was due to his own failure to set the alarm before falling into bed with Helen the previous night.

“Yes. Thank you. It makes perfect sense.” As Denton vanished, Lynley turned to Mollison, who had risen to watch the exchange with undisguised interest.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Exactly.”

“What?”

“I saw the coat of arms by the doorbell, but I thought it was a joke.”

“It is,” Lynley said. Mollison looked as if he was going to argue the point. Lynley poured the cricketer another cup of coffee.

Mollison said slowly, more to himself than to Lynley, “You showed the porter some police identification last night. At least that’s what he told me.”

“You weren’t misinformed. Now what can I do for you, Mr. Mollison? I understand you have some information for me.”

Mollison cast a glance round the room as if evaluating its contents and matching them to what he knew or didn’t know of a policeman’s pay. He looked suddenly wary. He said, “I’d like to have a look for myself, if you don’t mind. At your identification.”

Lynley fished out and handed over his warrant card. Mollison examined it. After a long scrutiny, he was apparently satisfied because he handed the card back and said, “All right, then. I like to be careful. For Allison’s sake. We get all kinds prying into our lives. It tends to be part of things when you have a name.”

“Doubtless,” Lynley said drily. “As to your information?”

“I wasn’t altogether truthful with you last night, not about everything. I’m sorry about that. But there are certain things…” He chewed on the nail of his index finger. He gave a grimace, made a fist, and dropped his hand to his thigh. “It’s this,” he announced. “Some things I can’t say in front of Allison. No matter the legal consequences. Understand?”

“Which is why you initially wanted to conduct our interview in the corridor instead of in the
fla
t.”

“I don’t like to upset her.” Mollison picked up his cup and saucer. “She’s eight months along.”

“You mentioned that last night.”

“But I could tell when you saw her…” He set his coffee down, undrunk. “Look, I’m not telling you what you don’t know already. The baby’s fine. Allison’s fine. But anything upsetting could really cock things up at this point.”

“Between the two of you.”

“I’m sorry I stretched the truth when I said she wasn’t well, but I couldn’t think of any other way to keep you from talking in front of her.” He began on the fingernail again. He indicated the newspaper with a nod of his head. “You’re looking for his car.”

“Not any longer.”

“Why not?”

“Mr. Mollison, is there something you want to tell me?”

“Have you found it? The Lotus?”

“I thought you were here to offer information.”

Denton entered, another tray in his hands. He’d apparently decided that heroic measures needed to be taken after last night’s
fettuccine à la mer
: He’d prepared cornflakes and bananas, eggs and sausages, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, grapefruit and toast. He’d thoughtfully provided a rose in a vase and a pot of Lapsang Souchong as well. As he was laying the meal out, the doorbell rang.

“That’ll be the sergeant,” he said.

“I’ll get it.”

Denton was right. Lynley found Havers on the doorstep.

“Mollison’s here.” He closed the door behind her.

“What’s he given us?”

“So far, nothing but excuses and evasion. He’s betrayed a passing interest in Rachmaninoff, however.”

“That must have warmed your heart. I hope you crossed him off your list of suspects straightaway.”

Lynley smiled. He and Havers passed Denton, who offered coffee and croissants to which Havers said, “Coffee. I’m dieting this hour.”

Denton guffawed and went on his way. In the drawing room, Mollison had moved from the sofa to the window where he stood taking squirrel bits from his fingernails and their surrounding skin. He nodded a hello to Havers as Lynley went back to his breakfast. He didn’t say anything until Denton had returned with another cup and saucer, poured coffee for Havers, and left again.

Then Mollison said, “Are you looking for his car?”

“We’ve found it,” Lynley said.

“But the paper said—”

“We like to stay one step ahead of the papers when we can,” Havers remarked.

“And Gabbie?”

“Gabbie?”

“Gabriella Patten. Have you spoken to her?”

“Gabbie.” Lynley mused over the diminutive as he tucked into his cornflakes. He’d never managed to get a proper meal last night. He couldn’t remember when food had tasted so
fin
e.

“If you’ve found the car, then—”

“Why don’t you tell us what you’ve come to tell us, Mr. Mollison?” Lynley said. “Mrs. Patten is either a primary suspect in or a material witness to a homicide. If you know where she is, you’d do well to share the information. As, no doubt, your wife has already told you.”

“Allison isn’t to be involved in this. I told you that last night. I meant it.”

“Indeed.”

“If I can have your assurance that what I say to you will go no further.” Mollison nervously played his thumb along his index
fin
ger, as if testing the texture of his skin. “I can’t talk to you unless you give me an assurance.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Lynley said. “But you can phone a solicitor if you’d like.”

“I don’t need a solicitor. I haven’t done anything. I just want to make certain that my wife…Look, Allie doesn’t know…If she somehow discovered that…” He spun back to the window and stared out at Eaton Terrace. “Shit. I was just helping out. No. I was just
trying
to help out.”

“Mrs. Patten?” Lynley set his corn
fla
kes down and went on to the eggs. Sergeant Havers slid her cover-creased notebook out of her bag.

Mollison sighed. “She phoned me.”

“When?”

“Wednesday night.”

“Before or after you talked to Fleming?”

“After. Hours after.”

“What time?”

“It must have been…I don’t know…shortly before eleven? Shortly after? Something like that.”

“Where was she?”

“A call box in Greater Springburn. She and Ken had had a bust-up, she said. Things were finished between them. She needed somewhere to go.”

“Why did she phone you and not someone else? A female friend, perhaps.”

“Because Gabbie hasn’t any female friends. And even if she had, she phoned me because I was the reason for the bust-up in the first place. I owed her, she said. And she was right. I did.”

“Owed her?” Havers asked. “She’d done you favours?”

Mollison turned back to them. His ruddy face was taking on an ugly flush that had begun on his neck and was climbing rapidly. “She and I…At one time. The two of us. You know.”

“We don’t,” Havers said. “But why don’t you tell us?”

“We had some laughs together. That sort of thing.”

“You and Mrs. Patten were lovers?” Lynley clarified and when Mollison’s hue deepened, he said, “When was this?”

“Three years ago.” He returned to the sofa and took up his coffee cup. He drained it like a man who was desperate for something to give him strength or to calm his nerves. “It was such a stupid thing to do. It nearly cost me my marriage. We…well, we misread each other’s signals.”

Lynley speared a hunk of sausage on the end of his fork. He added egg. He ate and impassively watched Mollison watching him. Sergeant Havers wrote, her pencil steadily scratching against the paper of her notebook.

Mollison said, “It’s like this. When you’ve got a name, there are always women who decide they fancy you. They want…They’re interested in…They have these fantasies. About you. I mean, you’re part of their fantasy. They’re part of their fantasy as well. And they generally won’t rest until they’ve had an opportunity to see how close their fantasy comes to the truth.”