Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

it always gets in the way.”
    He said nothing. He allowed her the moment to regain her composure, sorry that he had pushed her to this point, which was always the point of departure for the two of them even though he would not have it that way.
    She looked back at him, her expression fond. “It isn’t you, you know. It isn’t who you are or how you grew up or what you owe to several hundred years of your family’s history. It’s me. And the fact that I have no family history at all. At least not one that I’m aware of or was told about. I suspect, on the other hand, that you can recite your forebears back to the time of the Tudors.”
    “Hardly.” He smiled. “The Stuarts, perhaps, but not the Tudors.”
    “You see,” she said. “You
know
the Stuarts. Tommy, there are actually people out there”—she waved her hand vaguely in the direction of the windows, by which she meant the outside world—“who have no idea who the Stuarts are. You do know that, don’t you?”
    “Daidre, I read history. It’s nothing more than that. And you called me Tommy again. I think you’ve begun to protest too much. And yes, yes, I know it’s Hamlet’s mother and don’t tell me it signifies anything more than people saying ‘There’s the rub’ because you and I both know that it doesn’t. And even if it did, what does it matter at the end of the day?”
    “It matters to me,” she said. “It’s what keeps me apart.”
    “From whom?”
    “From everyone. From you. And besides that . . . After what happened to you, you need—no, you deserve—someone who is one hundred percent
there
for you.”
    He took some wine and thought about this. She worked on her salmon for a moment. He watched her. He finally said, “That hardly sounds healthy. No one actually wants a parasite. I tend to think it’s only in films that we get the idea men and women are supposed to find—what do they call it?—soul mates with whom they march into the future, blissfully joined at the hip.”
    She smiled, it seemed, in spite of herself. “You know what I mean. You deserve someone who is willing and able to be one hundred percent
for
you, open
to
you, accepting
of
you . . . whatever you want to call it. I’m not that person, and I don’t think I could be.”
    Her declaration felt like the thinnest of rapiers. It slid without effort under his skin, barely felt until the bleeding began. “So what are you saying, exactly?”
    “I hardly know.”
    “Why?”
    She looked at him. He tried to read whatever he could on her face, but time and circumstance had made her guarded, and he couldn’t blame her for the walls she built. She said, “Because you’re not an easy man to walk away from, Tommy. So I’m very much aware of the
necessity
of walking away and the marked reluctance I feel about doing so.”
    He nodded. For a moment they ate as the sounds of the dining room rose and fell around them. Plates were removed. Other plates came. He finally said, “Let’s leave it at that, for now.”
    Later, after a shared pudding of something called chocolate death gateau followed by coffee, they left the place. Nothing had been resolved between them and yet the sense of having moved forward was something that Lynley couldn’t ignore. They walked to her car arm in arm, and before she unlocked it and prepared to drive away, she stepped easily and naturally into his arms.
    Just as easily, he kissed her. Just as easily, her lips parted to his and the kiss lingered. He felt a tremendous desire for her: partly the animal lust that drove their species, partly spiritual longing that happened when a soul recognised the immortal worth of another soul.
    The inn has rooms, he wanted to say. Climb those stairs with me, Daidre, and come to bed.
    Instead he said nothing but “Good night, dear friend.”
    “Good night, dear Tommy” was her reply.

15 May
    CHALK FARM
    LONDON
    B arbara’s mobile rang as she was showering, trying to wash off not only her feeling of dread but also the stench of cigarette smoke. Her nerves had been raw for more than forty-eight hours now, and only one fag after another had done anything to calm them. She’d gone through four packets of Players and as a result her lungs were making her feel like a woman being tried for witchcraft: A huge stone the approximate size of the Isle of Man sat on her chest, demanding a confession of her misdeeds.
    When the mobile rang, she leapt from the shower. She grabbed it, it slipped out of