"There you have it," Isabelle told him. "You know, second thought on this: I'm going to set things in motion myself. From this end. On that score. The treasure. We'll get the authorities to come out there. You have enough on your plate." She looked up at a movement in her office doorway. Lynley was standing there. She held up a finger, a gesture that asked him to wait. He came inside and took the seat that angled from her desk. He looked relaxed. She wondered if anything ever ruffled the man.
She completed her phone call. The duty press officer from Lyndhurst would be identifying Gordon Jossie as Ian Barker. While this would undoubtedly drag forth all the details of John Dresser's inhuman murder once again, the Home Office wanted it known that one of the three killers of the toddler was now dead himself, at his own hand.
Isabelle wondered at this. Was it supposed to be a cautionary tale? Something to give the Dresser family peace at last? Something to strike fear into Michael Spargo and Reggie Arnold, wherever they were? She didn't see how releasing Gordon Jossie's true identity would serve to do any of that. But she had no say in the matter.
When she and Whiting rang off, she and Lynley sat in silence for a moment. Outside of her office, the sounds of a day ending were unmistakable. She badly wanted a drink but more badly did she want to know about Lynley's meeting with Sir David Hillier. She knew that was where he'd disappeared to.
She said, "It's a form of blackmail."
He drew his eyebrows together. His lips parted as if he would speak, but he said nothing.
He had a faint scar, she noted for the first time, on his upper lip. It looked like quite an old one.
She wondered how he'd come to have it.
"What he's said is that he'll keep it under wraps as long as the boys stay in Kent with him and Sandra. He says, „You don't want a custody battle over them, Isabelle. You don't want to end up in court. You know what will come to light and you don't want that.' So I'm stuffed. He can destroy my career. And even if he didn't have that power, I'd lose custody permanently if we went to court. He knows that."
Lynley was silent at first. He regarded her, and she couldn't tell what he was thinking although she reckoned it had to do with how to tell her that her career was over anyway, despite her efforts to save it.
When he spoke, however, it was just to say, "Alcoholism."
She said, "I'm not an alcoholic, Tommy. I drink too much occasionally. Most people do.
That's all."
"Isabelle ..." He sounded disappointed.
She said, "It's the truth. I'm no more an alcoholic than ...than you are. Than Barbara Havers is. Where is she, by the way? How the hell long does it take someone to drive from Hampshire to London?"
He wasn't to be diverted. He said, "There are cures. There are programmes. There are ...You don't have to live - "
"It was stress," she said. "How you found me the other night. That's all it was. For God's sake, Tommy. You told me yourself that you drank heavily when your wife was murdered."
He said nothing. But his eyes narrowed the way one's eyes would do when something is thrown. Sand, a handful of earth, an unkindness.
She said, "Forgive me."
He stirred in his chair. "He keeps the boys, then?"
"He keeps the boys. I can have ...He calls it supervised visits. What he means is that I go to Kent to see them, they don't come here, and when I see them, he and Sandra or he or Sandra is present."
"And that's how it stands? Till when?"
"Till he decides otherwise. Till he decides what I must do to redeem myself. Till ...I don't know." She didn't want to talk more about it. She couldn't think why she'd told him as much as she had. It indicated an opening where she couldn't afford one and didn't want one. She was tired, she thought.
He said, "You stay."
She didn't understand at first that he'd switched the topic. "Stay?"
"I don't know how long. He agrees this wasn't the best test of your skills."
"Ah." She had to admit that she was surprised. "But he did say ...Because with Stephenson Deacon ...They told me - "
"That was before the Home Office business came to light."