A Great Deliverance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,76
with the man. The entire situation was an irritating, howling, political maelstrom of thwarted ambition, error, and revenge. He was sick of it.
A glass was placed before him on the table. He looked up into Stepha's serene eyes. "A bit of Odell's is called for, I think."
He laughed shortly. "Sergeant," he said, "would you care to indulge?"
"No, sir," she replied, and just when he thought she would go on in her former, exasperating I'm-on-duty manner, she added, "but I could do with a smoke, if you don't mind."
He handed her his gold case and silver lighter. "Have as many as you like."
She lit her cigarette. "Got all dressed up to chop off Dad's head? It doesn't make sense."
"The dress does," Stepha said.
"Why?"
"Because it was Sunday. She was ready for church."
Lynley and Havers looked up, realising simultaneously the import of Stephia's words.
"But Teys was killed on Saturday night." Havers said.
"So Roberta must have got up as usual on Sunday morning, put her church clothes on, and waited for her father." Lynley eyed the dress heaped in the carton. "He wasn't in the house, so she probably assumed he was somewhere on the farm. She wouldn't worry, of course, because he'd be back in time to take her to church. He probably never missed church in his life. But when he didn't show up, she began to get worried. She went out to look for him."
"And she found him in the barn," Havers concluded. "But the blood on her dress - how do you think it came to be there?"
"I'd guess she was in shock. She must have picked up the body and cradled it in her lap." "But he had no head! How could she - "
Lynley went on. "She lowered the body back down to the floor and, still in shock, sat there until Father Hart came and found her." "But then why say she killed him?" "She never said that," Lynley replied. "What do you mean?" "What she said was, "I did it. I'm not sorry.'"
Lynley's voice held a note of decision. "That sounds like a confession to me." "Not necessarily." He ran his fingers round the edges of the stain on the dress and tested the spacing of the spatters on the skirt. "But it does sound like something."
"What?" "That Roberta knows quite well who murdered her father."
Lynley awoke with a jolt. Early morning light filtered into the room in delicate bands that streaked across the floor to the bed. A chill breeze blew back the curtains and carried upon it the pleasant sounds of waking birds and the distant cries of sheep. But none of this touched his awareness. He lay in the bed and knew only depression, overwhelming desperation, and the burning of desire. He longed to turn on his side and find her there, her wealth of hair spread across the bedclothes, her eyes closed in sleep. He longed to arouse her to wakefulness, his mouth and tongue feeling the subtle, familiar changes in her body that betrayed her desire.
He flung back the covers.
Madness, he thought. He began pulling on clothing mindlessly, furiously, any article that first came to hand. Escape was the exigency.
He grabbed an Aran sweater and ran from the room, thundering down the stairs and out into the street. There, he finally noticed the time. It was half past six.
A heavy mist lay on the dale, swirling delicately round the edges of buildings and blanketing the river. To his right the high street was shuttered, abandoned. Not even the greengrocer was stirring his boxes out onto the pavement. Sinji's windows were darkened, the Wesleyan chapel was barred, and the tea room looked back at him with blank disinterest.
He walked to the bridge, wasted five minutes restlessly tossing pebbles into the river, and was finally distracted by the sight of the church.
On its hillock, St. Catherine's looked peacefully down upon the village, the very exorcist he needed for the demons of his past. He began to walk towards it.
It was a proud little church. Surrounded by trees and an ancient, crumbling graveyard, it lifted its splendid Norman exterior to the sky. Its apse housed a semicircle of stained glass windows, while its bell tower at the opposite end played host to a whispering band of doves. For a moment he watched them rustling at the edges of the roof, then he walked up the gravel path to the lych gate. He entered, and the peace of the graveyard settled round him.