A Great Deliverance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,38

are how he paid for his board here one autumn. He lives in the village permanently now."

Barbara watched the redheaded woman deftly work the taps and scoop the foam from the churning brew that was developing a life of its own in the glass. Stepha laughed in a breathless, charming way when the foam slipped over the side and onto her hand, and she unconsciously raised her fingers to her lips to lick the residue. Barbara idly wondered how long it would take Lynley to get her into bed.

"Sergeant?" Stepha asked. "An ale for you as well?"

"Tonic water, if you have it," Barbara replied. She looked out the window. On the common, the old priest who had been to see them in London was having an anxious conversation with another man. From the gesturing and pointing at the silver Bentley, the news of their arrival was apparently the topic of the village. A woman crossed from the bridge to join them. She was wispy-looking, an effect produced by a dress too gauzy for the season and by baby-fine hair which the smallest air current ruffled. She rubbed her arms for warmth, and, rather than joining in the conversation of the two men, she merely listened as if waiting for one or the other of them to walk off. In a moment the priest said a few final words and meandered back towards the church. The other two remained standing together. Their conversation went in fits and starts, with the man saying something with a quick look at the woman and then away and the woman replying briefly. There were long silences in which the woman looked at the bank of the river next to the common and the man focused his attention on the lodge - or perhaps the car in front of it. Someone was significantly interested in the arrival of the police, Barbara decided.

"A tonic water and an ale," Stepha was saying as she placed both glasses on the bar. "It's a home brew, my father's recipe. We call it Odell's. You must tell me what you think of it, Inspector."

It was a rich, brown liquid shot through with gold. "Has a bit of a kick, doesn't it?"

Lynley said when he tasted it. "Are you sure you won't have one, Havers?"

"Just the tonic water, thank you, sir."

He joined her at the couch in front of which he had earlier spilled out the contents of the report on the Teys murder and had icily flipped through every paper looking for the explanation of Roberta Teys's placement in Barnstingham Mental Asylum. There had been none. That had set him off on the telephone to Richmond. Now he began to go through the paperwork again, stacking things in categorical fashion. From the bar, Stepha Odell watched them with friendly interest, sipping an ale that she'd poured for herself.

"We've got the original warrants, the forensics report, the signed depositions, the photographs." Lynley fingered the materials as he named them. He looked up at Barbara. "No keys to the farmhouse. Damn the man."

"Richard has a set of those if you need them," Stepha said quickly, as if hoping to make up for her remark about Roberta that had set Lynley off on a collision course with the Richmond police in the first place. "Richard Gibson. He was...is William Teys's nephew. He lives in the council cottages on St. Chad's Lane. It's just off the high street."

Lynley looked up. "How does he come to have keys to the farmhouse?"

"Having arrested Roberta...well, I suppose they just gave them to Richard. He's to inherit it anyway once the estate's all settled," she added. "In William's will. I suppose he's seeing to the place in the meantime. Someone must."

"He's to inherit? How was Roberta treated in the will?"

Stepha gave the bar a thoughtful sweep with a cloth. "It was fixed between Richard and William that the farm would go to Richard. It was a sensible arrangement. He works there with William.... Worked there," she corrected herself, "ever since he returned to Keldale two years ago. Once they got over their row about Roberta, it all worked out to everyone's advantage.

William had someone to help him, Richard had a job and a future, and Roberta had a place to live for life."

"Sergeant." Lynley nodded at her notebook, which was lying unused next to her tonic water. "If you would please..."

Stepha flushed as she saw Barbara reach for her pen. "Is this an interview then?" she asked, flashing an