lay crushed in the ashtray, if she had not awakened until he was smoking the very last one, what else might he have done? Never mind the fact that she knew perfectly well how he had spent the time while she slept: fighting off legions of demons and ghouls that had drawn him to the bottle of cognac like a man with an unquenchable thirst. In Lynley's mind, he had used the time to unlock the door, murder his cousin, and return, his body broken out with the sweat of apprehension. Lady Helen read all of that in the stillness-like a void-that followed her sentence.
"He wanted a drink," she said simply. "But he can't drink. So he smoked. That's all."
"I see. May I assume he's an alcoholic?"
Her throat felt numb. It's only a word, Rhys would have said with his gentle smile. A word alone has no power, Helen. "Yes."
"So he got out of bed, and you never awakened. He smoked five or six cigarettes, and you never awakened."
"And you want to add that he unlocked the door to murder Joy Sinclair and I never awakened, don't you?"
"His prints are on the key, Helen."
"Yes, they are! I've no doubt of it! He locked the door before he took me to bed. Or are you going to say that was part of his plan? To make certain I saw him lock the door so I could explain away his fingerprints later? Is that how you have it worked out?"
"It's what you're doing, isn't it?"
She drew in a broken breath. "What a rotten thing to say!"
"You slept through his getting out of bed, you slept through his smoking one cigarette after another. Are you going to try to argue now that, in reality, you're a light sleeper, that you would have known had Davies-Jones left your room?"
"I would have known!"
Lynley looked over his shoulder. "St. James?" he asked evenly. And those two words took the entire affair out of the realm of control.
Lady Helen sprang to her feet. Her chair toppled over. Her hand came down brutally against Lynley's face. It was a blow of lightning swiftness, driven by the power of her rage.
"You filthy bastard!" she cried and headed for the door.
"Stay where you are," Lynley ordered.
She whirled and faced him. "Arrest me, Inspector." She left the room, slamming the door behind her.
St. James followed her at once.
Chapter 4
BARBARA HAVERS closed her notebook.
It was a studied movement, one that bought her time while she thought.
Across from her, Lynley felt in the breast pocket of his jacket. Although colour still splodged his face where Lady Helen had struck him, his hands were quite steady. He brought out his cigarette case and lighter, used them both and handed them over. Barbara did likewise although after inhaling once, she grimaced and crushed out the cigarette.
Not a woman who ever spent a great deal of time analysing her emotions, Barbara did so now, realising with some confusion that she had wanted to intervene in what had just occurred. All Lynley's questions had, of course, been fairly standard police procedure, but the manner in which he had asked them and the nasty insinuations carried in his tone had made Barbara want to throw herself into the fray as Lady Helen's champion. She couldn't understand why. So she thought about it in the aftermath of Lady Helen's departure, and she found her answer in the myriad ways that the young woman had shown kindness to her in the months since Barbara had been assigned to work with Lynley.
"I think, Inspector," Barbara ran her thumb back and forth on a crease in the cover of her notebook, "that you were more than a bit out of line just now."
"This isn't the time for a row about procedure," Lynley replied. His voice was dispassionate enough, but Barbara could hear its taut control.
"It has nothing to do with procedure, does it? It has to do with decency. You treated Helen like a scrubber, Inspector, and if you're about to answer that she acted like a scrubber, I might suggest you take a good look at one or two items in your own chequered past and ask yourself how well they'd appear in a scrutiny the likes of which you just forced her to endure."
Lynley drew on his cigarette, but, as if he found the taste unpleasant, he stubbed it out in the ashtray. As he did so, a jerk of his hand spilled ashes across the cuff of his shirt.