A Great Deliverance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,64

on for several miles before Lynley spoke again. "She could have done it, Havers. Something tells me she was desperate enough."

"Tessa, d'you mean?"

"Russell was gone that night. She says she took aspirin and went directly to bed, but no one can verify it. She could have gone to Keldale."

"Why kill the dog?"

"He wouldn't have known her. He wasn't there nineteen years ago. Who was Tessa to him? A stranger."

"But decapitate her first husband?" Havers frowned. "Would have been easier to divorce him, I'd think."

"No. Not for a Catholic."

"Even so, Russell's a better candidate if you ask me. Who knows where he went?" When Lynley didn't reply, she added, "Sir?"

"I..." Lynley hesitated, studying the road ahead. "Tessa's right. He's gone to London."

"How can you be certain of that?"

"Because I think I saw him, Havers. At the Yard."

"So he did go to turn her in. I suppose she knew all along that he would."

"No. I don't think so."

Havers offered a new thought. "Well, then there's Ezra."

Lynley flashed her a smile. "William in his jimjams in the middle of the road ripping up Ezra's watercolours while Ezra curses him to hell and back? We could have a motive for murder there. I don't think an artist would take lightly to having someone rip up his work."

Havers opened her mouth, stopped. She reflected for a moment. "But it wasn't his pyjamas."

"Yes, it was."

"It wasn't. It was his dressing gown. Remember? Nigel said his legs reminded him of a gorilla. So what was he doing in his dressing gown? It was still light out. It wasn't time for bed."

"Changing for dinner, I dare say. He's up in his room, looks out the window, sees Ezra trespassing, and comes charging into the yard."

"I suppose that could be it."

"What else?"

"Exercising, perhaps?"

"Deep knee bends in his underwear? That's hard to picture."

"Or...perhaps with Olivia?"

Lynley smiled. "Not if everything we've heard about him is true. William sounds to me like a strictly after-marriage man. I don't think he'd try any funny business with Olivia beforehand."

"What about Nigel Parrish?"

"What about him?"

"Walking the dog back to the farm out of the goodness of his heart, like a card-carrying member of the RSPCA? Doesn't that whole story seem a bit off to you?"

"It does. But do you really think Parrish would want to get his hands dirty with a bit of William Teys's blood? Not to mention his head rolling across the stall floor."

"To be honest, he seems the type to faint at the sight."

They laughed, a first shared communication. It dropped almost immediately into an uncomfortable silence at the sudden realisation that they could become friends.

The decision to go to Barnstingham Mental Asylum grew out of Lynley's belief that Roberta held all the cards in the current game they were playing: the identity of the murderer, the motive behind the crime, and the disappearance of Gillian Teys. He'd stopped an hour out of York to make the arrangements by telephone, and now, pulling the car to a stop on the gravel drive in front of the building, he turned to Barbara.

"Cigarette?" He offered his gold case.

"No, sir. Thank you."

He nodded, glanced at the imposing building, then back at her. "Rather wait here, Sergeant?" he asked as he lit his cigarette with the silver lighter. He took a few moments about replacing all the impedimenta of his habit.

She watched him with speculative eyes. "Why?"

He shrugged casually. Too casually, she noted. "You look fagged out. I thought you might want a bit of a rest."

Fagged out. It was his public-school-fop act. She'd begun to notice how he used it occasionally to serve the need of the moment. He'd dropped it earlier. Why was he picking it up now?

"If we're talking about exhaustion, Inspector, you look just about ready to drop. What's up?"

He examined himself in the mirror at her words, his cigarette dangling from his lips, his eyes narrowed against the smoke, part Sam Spade, part Algernon Moncrieff. "I do look a sight."

He busied himself about his appearance for a moment: straightening his tie, examining his hair, brushing at nonexistent lint on the lapels of his jacket. She waited. Finally he met her eyes. The fop, as well as the other personae, was gone. "The farm upset you a bit yesterday," he said frankly. "I have an idea that what we'll find in here is going to be a hell of a lot worse than the farm."

For a moment she couldn't take her eyes from his, but she pressed her hand to the door