he still needed to come to terms with all that had happened. "I'll be along directly."
ONCE LADY STINHURST'S taxi was on its way to the family's Holland Park home and Sergeant Havers and Constable Nkata had escorted Lord Stinhurst from the Agincourt Theatre, Lynley went back into the building. He did not relish the idea of an accidental meeting with Rhys Davies-Jones, and there was no doubt at all that the man was somewhere on the premises today. Yet something prompted Lynley to linger, perhaps as a form of expiation for the sins he had committed in suspecting Davies-Jones of murder, in doing everything in his power to encourage Helen to suspect him of murder as well. Governed by the force of passion rather than by reason, he had scrambled for facts that would point the case in the Welshman's direction and had ignored those that wanted to lay the blame upon anyone else.
All this, he thought wryly, because I was so stupidly ignorant of what Helen meant in my life until it was too late.
"You needn't try to comfort me." It was a woman's faltering voice, coming from the far side of the bar, just out of the range of Lynley's vision. "I haven't come here on any but equal terms. You said, let's talk truthfully. Well, let's do! Unsparingly, truthfully, even shamelessly, then!"
"Jo-" David Sydeham responded.
"It's no longer a secret that I love you. It never was. I loved you as long ago as the time I asked you to read the stone angel's name with your fingers. Yes, it had begun that early, this affliction of love, and has never let go of me since. And that is my story-"
"Joanna, shut up. You've dropped at least ten lines!"
"I haven't!"
Sydeham and Ellacourt's words pounded their way into Lynley's skull. He crossed the lobby, reached the bar, unceremoniously grabbed the script out of Sydeham's hand, and without a word ran his eyes down the page to find Alma's speech in Summer and Smoke. He didn't use his spectacles, so the words were blurred. But legible enough. And absolutely indelible.
You needn't try to comfort me. I haven't come here on any but equal terms. You said, let's talk truthfully. Well, let's do! Unsparingly, truthfully, even shamelessly, then! It's no longer a secret that I love you. It never was. I loved you as long ago as the time I asked you to read the stone angel's name with your fi ngers.Yes, I remember the long afternoons of our childhood...
And yet, for a moment, Lynley had assumed Joanna Ellacourt had been speaking for herself, not using the words that Tennessee Williams had written. Just as young Constable Plater must have assumed when faced with Hannah Darrow's suicide note fi fteen years earlier in Porthill Green.
Chapter 14
BECAUSE OF a traffic snarl on the M11, he did not arrive in Porthill Green until after one o'clock, and by that time clouds humped along the horizon like enormous tufts of grey cotton wool. A storm was brewing. Wine's the Plough was not yet locked for its midafternoon closing, but rather than go into the pub at once for his confrontation with John Darrow, Lynley crunched across the snow on the green to a call box that leaned precariously in the direction of the sea. He placed a call to Scotland Yard. It was only a matter of moments before he heard Sergeant Havers' voice, and from the background noises of crockery and conversation, he guessed that she was taking the call from the offi cers' mess.
"Bloody hell, what happened to you?" she demanded. And then amended the question truculently with, "Sir. Where are you? You've had a phone call from Inspector Macaskin. They've done the complete autopsy on both Sinclair and Gowan. Macaskin said to tell you they've fixed Sinclair's time of death between two and a quarter past three. And, he said with a great deal of hemming and hawing that she hadn't been interfered with. I suppose that was his genteel way of telling me that there was no evidence of forcible rape or sexual intercourse. He said that the forensic team aren't through with everything they gathered from the room. He'll phone again as soon as they have it all done."
Lynley blessed Macaskin's thoroughness and his self-assured willingness to be of help, unthreatened by the involvement of Scotland Yard.
"We've taken Stinhurst's statement, and I've not been able to shake him into a single inconsistency about Saturday night at Wester-brae no matter