A Great Deliverance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,17

end. She's never made a secret of it that Simon's her favourite brother.... Of course dancing's still on. We promised ourselves, didn't we?...Can you give me, say, an hour or so?...Hmm, what was that?...Helen! My God, what a naughty little girl!" He laughed and dropped the phone back onto its cradle. "Still here, Sergeant?" he asked when he turned from the desk.

"You've no car, sir," she replied stonily. "I thought I'd wait to see if you needed a ride home."

"That's awfully good of you, but we've all been kept here long enough for one evening, and I'm sure you've far better things to do on a Saturday night than see me home. I'll catch a cab." He bent over Webberly's desk for a moment, writing quickly on a piece of paper. "This is my address," he said, handing it to her. "Be there at seven tomorrow morning, will you? That should give us some time to make more sense of all this before we head to Yorkshire. Good evening, then." He left the room.

Barbara looked down at the paper in her hand, at the handwriting which even in a hurry still managed to be an elegant scrawl. She studied it for more than a minute before she ripped it into tiny pieces and tossed them into the rubbish. She knew quite well where Thomas Lynley lived.

The guilt began on the Uxbridge Road. It always did. Tonight it was worse when she saw that the travel agency was closed, preventing her from gathering the material on Greece as she'd promised. Empress Tours. Where had they ever come up with a name like that for such a grubby little shop where people sat behind plastic-topped desks that were painted to look as if they were wood? She slowed the car, peering through the dirty windscreen to look for signs of life. The owners lived above the shop. Perhaps if she banged on the door a bit, she could rouse them. No, it was too ridiculous. Mum was no more going to Greece than to the moon; she'd just have to wait for the brochures a bit longer.

Still, she'd passed at least a dozen agencies in the city today. Why hadn't she stopped?

What else did Mum have to live for but those silly little dreams? Overcome with the need to compensate in some way for her failure, Barbara pulled the car over in front of Patel's Grocery, a ramshackle affair of green paint, rusting shelves, and precariously stacked crates from which emanated that peculiar blend of odours that comes from vegetables not quite as fresh as they ought to be. Patel was still open, at least. Leave it to him never to miss a chance to make ten pence.

"Barbara!" He greeted her from inside the shop as she bent over the boxed fall fruit on the pavement outside. Mostly apples. A few late peaches shipped in from Spain. "Whassa doin' out so late?"

He couldn't imagine her having a date, of course. No one could. She couldn't herself.

"Had to work late, Mr. Patel," she replied. "How much for the peaches?"

"Eighty-five a pound, but for you, pretty face, we say eighty."

She picked out six. He weighed them, wrapped them, and handed them over. "I was seeing your father today."

She looked up quickly and caught the guard dropping over Mr. Patel's dark face like a mask when he saw her expression. "Was he behaving himself?" she asked casually, shouldering her handbag.

"My goodness, yes. He always behaves!" Mr. Patel took her money, counted it twice carefully, and dropped it into his register. "You take care now, Barbara. Men see a nice girl like you and - "

"Yes, I'll take care," Barbara interrupted. She tossed the peaches onto the front seat of the car.

Nice girl like you, Barb. You take care. Keep those legs crossed. Virtue like yours is definitely easy to lose, and a woman fallen is fallen forever. She laughed bitterly, jerked the car into gear, and pulled out onto the road.

In Acton there were two potential areas of residence, simply called by inhabitants the right and wrong streets. It was as if a dividing line split the suburb arbitrarily, condemning one set of residents while it elevated others.

On the right streets of Acton, pristine brick houses boasted woodwork which always sparkled admirably in the morning sun in a multiplicity of colours. Roses grew in abundance there. Fuchsias flourished in hanging pots. Children played games on unlittered pavements and in patchwork gardens. Snow kissed gabled roofs