"How much education did your wife have, Mr. Darrow? Did she finish school? Did she go to university? Or was she self-educated? A great reader, perhaps?"
Darrow's scowling face revealed a stumbling search through Lynley's words for a trap. Apparently not finding one, he said shortly, "Hannah didn't hold with books. She'd had enough of school at fi fteen."
"I see. But interested in the Fens, was she? The plant life and such?"
The man's lips moved in a quick snarl of contempt. "What d'you want with me, pommy boy? Have your say and get out."
"She writes here about trees. And a tree that died but still sways in the wind. Rather poetic, wouldn't you say? Even for a suicide message. What is this note really, Darrow? When did your wife write it? Why did she? Where did you find it?" There was no reply. Wordlessly, Darrow continued washing glasses. They clanked and scraped angrily against the metal pan. "On the night she died, you left the pub. Why?"
"I went looking for her. I'd been up to the flat, found that"-Darrow's sharp nod indicated the note-"in the kitchen, went out to fi nd her."
"Where?"
"The village."
"Knocking on doors? Looking in sheds? Searching through houses?"
"No. She wasn't likely to kill herself in someone's house now, was she?"
"And you knew for a certainty that she was going to kill herself?"
"It bloody well says that!"
"Indeed. Where did you look for her?"
"Here and there. I don't remember. It's fi f-teen years past. I didn't heed it at the time. And it's buried now. Am I clear on that, man? It's buried."
"It was buried," Lynley acknowledged. "Quite successfully so, I should guess. But then Joy Sinclair came here and began an exhumation. And it looks very much as if someone was afraid of that. Why did she telephone you so many times, Darrow? What did she want?"
Darrow swung both arms up from the dishwater. Irately, he slammed them onto the bar.
"I've told you! The bitch wanted to talk about Hannah, but I was having none of it. I didn't want her raking up the past and mucking about with our lives. We're over it. God damn you, we're going to stay that way. Now, get out of here or make a fucking arrest."
Regarding the other man calmly, Lynley made no reply, so the implication behind Darrow's last statement grew with every moment. His face began to mottle. The veins in his arms seemed to swell.
"An arrest," Lynley repeated. "Odd that you should suggest that, Mr. Darrow. Why on earth should I want to make an arrest for a suicide? Except we both know, don't we, that this wasn't a suicide. And I believe that Joy Sinclair's mistake was telling you that it didn't much look like a suicide to her."
"Get out!" Darrow roared.
Lynley took his time about gathering the materials back into the folder. "We'll be back," he said pleasantly.
BY FOUR O'CLOCK that afternoon, the company assembled at the Agincourt Theatre had, after seven hours of politics and debate, settled on a playwright for the theatre's opening production: Tennessee Williams, a revival piece. The play itself was still open to discussion.
From the back of the auditorium, St. James observed the group on the stage. They had narrowed the field down to the relative merits of three possibilities, and from what St. James could tell, things were swinging in Joanna Ellacourt's direction. She was arguing strongly against A Streetcar Named Desire, her aversion to it rising, it seemed, out of a quick calculation of how much stage time Irene Sinclair would have if, however incongruously, she played Stella. There appeared to be no doubt at all as to the casting of Blanche Dubois.
Lord Stinhurst had been displaying a remarkable degree of patience for the quarter hour that St. James had been watching. In an unusual display of magnanimity, he had allowed all the players, the designers, the director, and the assistants to have their say about the crisis facing the company and the pressing need to get into production as soon as possible. Now, he got to his feet, kneading his fingers into the small of his back.
"You'll have my decision tomorrow," he told them. "We've been together long enough for now. Let's meet again in the morning. At half past nine. Be ready to read."
"No hints for us, Stuart?" Joanna Ellacourt asked, stretching languorously and leaning back in her chair so that her hair fell like a shimmering gold veil in the light.