A Great Deliverance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,110

poured each of them a whisky. He crossed the room and handed it to his friend.

"Is she outside?" he asked.

"She's gone to the church. Knowing Deborah, to have one last look at the graveyard, I expect. We're off tomorrow."

Lynley smiled. "You've been braver than I. Hank would have driven me off within the first five minutes. Are you fleeing to the lakes?"

"No. To York for a day, then back to London. I'm to be in court to testify on Monday morning. I need a bit of time to complete a fibre analysis before then."

"Rotten luck to have had so few days."

"We've the rest of our lives. Deborah understands."

Lynley nodded and looked from St. James to the windows in which they saw themselves reflected, two men so entirely different from each other, who shared an afflicted past and who could, if he chose, share a full, rich future. It was all, he decided, in the definition. He tossed back the rest of his drink.

"Thank you for your help today, St. James," he said finally, extending his hand. "You and Deborah are wonderful friends."

Jonah Clarence drove them to Islington in his dilapidated Morris. It wasn't a very long drive, and he was quiet for every moment of it, his hands on the wheel showing white knuckles that betrayed his distress.

They lived on a peculiar little street called Keystone Crescent, directly off Caledonian Road. Blessed with two take-away food stores at its head - exuding the multicultural odours of frying egg rolls, falafel, and fish and chips - and a butcher shop at its foot on Pentonville Road, it was located in an area of town that was arguing between industrial and residential.

Dressmaking factories, car hire firms, and tool companies gave way to streets which were trying very hard to become fashionable.

Keystone Crescent was just that, a crescent lined on one side with concave and on the other with a convex terrace of houses. All were fenced by identical wrought iron, and where once diminutive gardens had bloomed, concrete paving provided additional parking for cars.

The buildings were sooty brick, two storeys tall, topped by dormer windows and a thin scalloping of ornamentation at the roofline. Each building had its own basement flat, and while some of the houses had recently been refurbished in keeping with the neighbourhood effort towards chic, the one in front of which Jonah Clarence parked his car was definitely shabby, whitewashed and decorated with green woodwork at one time, but grimy now, with two unlidded dustbins standing in front of it.

"It's this way," he said tonelessly.

He opened the gate and led her down a set of narrow, steep steps to the door of a flat.

Unlike the building itself, which was in sad disrepair, the door was sturdy, freshly painted, with a brass knob gleaming in its centre. He unlocked and opened it, gesturing Barbara inside.

She saw at once that a great deal of care had gone into the decorating of the little home, as if the occupants wanted to drive a very firm wedge between the exterior grubbiness of the building and the crisp, clean loveliness of what existed within it. Walls were freshly painted; floors were covered with colourful rugs; white curtains hung in windows which housed a splendour of plants; books, photograph albums, a humble stereo system, a collection of phonograph records, and three pieces of antique pewter occupied a low shelving unit that ran along one wall. There were few pieces of furniture, but each one had been clearly selected for its workmanship and beauty.

Jonah Clarence set his guitar carefully down on a stand and went to the bedroom door.

"Nell?" he called.

"I was just changing, darling. Out in a moment," a woman's voice replied cheerfully.

He looked at Barbara. She saw that his face had become grey and ill. "I'd like to go in - "

"No," Barbara said. "Wait here. Please, Mr. Clarence," she added when she read his determination to go to his wife.

He sat down on a chair, moving painfully, as if he had aged years in their brief twenty-minute acquaintance. He fixed his eyes on the door. Behind it, brisk movement accompanied light-hearted humming, a lilting rendition of "Onward Christian Soldiers." Drawers opened and closed. A wardrobe door creaked. There was a pause in the humming as footsteps approached. The song finished, the door opened, and Gillian Teys returned from the dead.

She looked exactly like her mother, but her blonde hair was quite short, almost like a boy's, and gave her the appearance