In Pursuit Of The Proper Sinner (84 page)

Julian allowed himself to be led, but he felt dazed. He said, “What are you saying, exactly?” to Lynley. “Does Andy think I might have … Andy?”

Absurdly, childishly, he wanted to cry. Suddenly the last six terrible days since—heart brimming with love—he'd asked Nicola to marry him came crashing down like a landslide and he could not bear another thing: He was utterly defeated by this final fact that the father of the woman he'd loved might actually believe he had killed her. How strange it was: He hadn't been defeated by her refusal when he'd offered marriage; he hadn't been defeated by the revelations she'd made to him that night; he hadn't been defeated by her disappearance, his part in the search for her, or her actual death. But this simple thing—her father's suspicion—was for some reason the final straw. He felt the tears coming, and the thought of weeping in front of this stranger, in front of his cousin, in front of anyone, burned in his throat.

Samantha's arm went round his shoulders. He felt her rough kiss against his temple. “You're all right,” she told him. “You're safe. And who bloody cares what anyone thinks. I know the truth. And that's what matters.”

“What truth is this?” DI Lynley spoke from the window, where he appeared to be waiting for a sign that the police constables had completed their securing of the house. “Miss McCallin?” he said when Samantha didn't answer.

“Oh stop,” she returned acerbically. “Julian didn't kill Nicola. Neither did I. Neither did anyone else in this house, if that's what you're thinking.”

“So what truth is it that you're talking about?”

“The truth about Julie. That he's fine and good and that fine and good people don't go about murdering one another, Inspector Lynley.”

“Even,” DI Lynley said, “if one of them is less than fine and good?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I expect Mr. Britton does.”

She dropped her arm from his shoulders. Julian could feel her searching his face. She said his name more hesitantly than she had yet done, and she waited for him to clarify the detective's remarks.

And even now he could not do so. He could see her still—so much more alive than he himself had ever once been, grasping life. He could not speak a single word against her, no matter the cause he had for doing so. In the measure and judgement of their everyday world, Nicola had betrayed him, and Julian knew that if he told the tale of her London life as she'd revealed it to him, he could call himself the deeply wronged party. And so he would be seen by everyone he and Nicola had known. There was indeed some satisfaction to be taken from that. But the truth of the matter would always be that only in the eyes of those who possessed the mere facts could he ever be seen as a man with a grievance. Those who knew Nicola as she truly was and had always been would know he'd brought his grief upon himself. Nicola had never once lied to him. He'd merely blinded himself to everything about her that he hadn't wanted to see.

She wouldn't have cared half a fig if he told the real truth about her now, Julian realised. But he wouldn't do so. Not so much to protect her memory but to protect the people who had loved her without knowing all that she was.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Julian told the London detective. “And I don't understand why you can't leave us alone to get on with our lives.”

“I won't be doing that until Nicola Maiden's killer is found.”

“Then look somewhere else,” Julian said. “You won't find him here.”

At the far end of the room the door opened and a constable escorted Julian's father into the Long Gallery. He said to Lynley, “I found this one in the parlour, sir. Emmes has gone on to the gardens.” Jeremy Britton disengaged his arm from DC Benson's hand. He looked confused by the turn of events. He looked frightened. But he didn't look drunk. He came to Julian and squatted before him.

He said, “You all right, my boy?” and although the words were ever so slightly slurred, it occurred to Julian that the enunciation was prompted by Jeremy's concern for him and not the result of his addiction to drink.

This realisation made his heart suddenly warm. Warm to his father, warm to his cousin, and warm to the connections implied by family. He said, “I'm okay, Dad,” and he made room for Jeremy on the floor by the fireplace. He did this by scooting closer to Sam.

In response, she returned her arm to his shoulders. “I'm so glad of that,” she said.

arbara chose a venue that Matthew King-Ryder would know intimately: the Agincourt Theatre, where his father's production of Hamlet was being mounted. But after Nkata passed this message on to King-Ryder from the phone box in South Kensington, he made it clear that he wasn't about to let his fellow DC meet with a killer alone.

“Are you a convert to King-Ryder-as-killer, then?” Barbara asked her colleague.

“Seems like only one reason he'd know the number of this phone box.” Nkata sounded mournful, however, and when he went on, Barbara understood why. “Can't think why he'd go after his own dad. Makes me wonder, that.”

“He wanted more lolly than his dad left for him. He saw only one way to get it.”

“But how'd he come by that music in the first place? His dad wouldn't've told him, would he?”

“Tell your own son—tell anyone, in fact—that you're plagiarising your old mate's work? I don't think so. But he was his dad's manager, Winnie. He must have come across that music somewhere.”

They walked to Barbara's car in Queen's Gate Gardens. Nkata had told King-Ryder to meet him at the Agincourt half an hour from the moment he rang off. “You're there too early and I'm not showing my face,” he had warned King-Ryder. “You just thank your stars I'm willing to negotiate on your own turf.”

King-Ryder was to see to it that the stage door was unlocked. He was also to see to it that the building was unoccupied.

The drive into the West End took them less than twenty minutes. There, the Agincourt Theatre stood next to the Museum of Theatrical History, on a narrow side street off Shaftesbury Avenue. Its stage door was opposite a line of skips serving the Royal Standard Hotel. No windows overlooked it, so Barbara and Nkata could enter the Agincourt unobserved.

Nkata took a position in the last row of the stalls. Barbara placed herself off stage, in the deep darkness provided by a bulky piece of scenery. Although the traffic and the pedestrians outside the theatre had made a din that seemed to run the length of Shaftesbury Avenue, inside the building it was tomb-silent. So when their quarry entered by the stage door some seven minutes later, Barbara heard him.

He did everything as Nkata had instructed him. He closed the door. He made his way to the backstage area. He flipped on the working lights above the stage. He walked to stage centre. He stood pretty much where Hamlet would probably lie dying in Horatio's arms, Barbara realised. It was such a nice touch.

He looked out into the darkened theatre and said, “All right, damn you. I'm here.”

Nkata spoke from the back, where the shadows obscured him. “So I see.”

King-Ryder took a step forward and said unexpectedly in a high, pained voice, “You killed him, you filthy bastard. You killed him. Both of you. All of you. And I swear to God, I'll make you pay.”

“I didn't do no killing. I done no traveling to Derbyshire lately.”

“You know what I'm talking about. You killed my father.”

Barbara frowned as she heard this. What the hell was he on about?

“Seems like I heard that bloke shot himself,” Nkata said.

“And why? Just why the hell do you think he shot himself? He needed that music. And he would have had it—every sodding sheet of it—if you and your fucking mates … He shot himself because he thought … he believed … My father believed …” King-Ryder's voice broke. “You killed him. Give me that music. You killed him.”

“We need to make ourselfs an arrangement first.”

“Come into the light where I can see you.”

“Don't think so. What I figure is this: What you can't see, you don't hurt.”

“You're mad if you think I'll hand over a wad of money to someone I can't even see.”

“Expected your dad to do the same though.”

“Don't mention him to me. You're not fit to speak his name.”

“Feeling guilty?”

“Just give me that God damn music. Step up here. Act like a man. Hand it over.”

“It's going to cost you.”

“Fine. What?”

“What your dad had to pay.”

“You're mad.”

“Nice little packet of dosh that was,” Nkata said. “I'm happy to take it off your hands. And play no games, man. I know the amount. I'll give you twenty-four hours to have it here, in cash. I'spect things take longer when St. Helier's involved, and I'm an understanding kind of bloke, I am.”

The mention of St. Helier took things too far. Barbara saw that when King-Ryder's back stiffened suddenly as every nerve ending went on the alert. No ordinary yobbo in an ordinary scam would have known about that bank in St. Helier.

King-Ryder moved away from centre stage. He peered into the darkness of the stalls. Warily, he said: “Who the hell are you?”

Barbara took the cue.

“I think you know the answer to that, Mr. King-Ryder.” She stepped out of the darkness. “The music's not here, by the way. And to be honest, it probably never would have surfaced at all had you not killed Terry Cole to get it back. Terry had given it to his neighbour, the old lady, Mrs. Baden. And she hadn't the least idea what it was.”

“You,” King-Ryder said.

“Right. Do you want to come quietly, or shall we have a scene?”

“You've got nothing on me,” King-Ryder said. “I didn't say a damn thing that you can use to prove I lifted a finger against anyone.”

“Somewhat true, that.” Nkata came forward down the centre aisle of the theatre. “But we've got ourselves a nice leather jacket up in Derbyshire. And if your dabs match up with the dabs we pull off it, you're going to have one hell of a time dancing your way out of the dock.”

Barbara could almost see the wheels spinning wildly in King-Ryder's skull as he dashed through his options: fight, flight, or surrender. The odds were against him—despite one of the opposition being a woman—and while the theatre and the surrounding neighbourhood provided myriad places to run to and to hide, even had he tried to flee, it was only a matter of time before they nabbed him.

His posture altered again. “They killed my father,” he said obscurely. “They killed my dad.”

It was when Andy Maiden hadn't materialised at Broughton Manor within two hours that Lynley began to doubt the conclusions he'd drawn from the note that the man had left in Maiden Hall. A phone call from Hanken—informing him of Will Upman's safety—further solidified Lynley's doubts.

“There's no sign of him here, either,” Lynley told his colleague. “Pete, I'm getting a bad feeling about this.”

His bad feeling grew ominous when Winston Nkata phoned from London. He had Matthew King-Ryder at the Yard, Nkata told him in a rapid recitation that offered no opportunity for interruption. Barbara Havers had developed a plan to nab him, and it had worked like a charm. The bloke was ready to talk about the murders. Nkata and Havers could lock him up and wait for the inspector or they could have at him themselves. What were Lynley's wishes?

“It was all about that music Barb found in Battersea. Terry Cole got between the music and what was supposed to happen to the music, and King-Ryder's dad blew his brains out over it. Matthew was 'venging himself for the death, so he claims. 'Course, he wanted that music back as well.”

Lynley listened blankly as Nkata talked about the West End, the new production of Hamlet, phone boxes in South Kensington, and Terry Cole. When he had finished and he repeated his question—did the inspector want them to wait until his return to take Matthew King-Ryder's statement?—Lynley said numbly, “What about the girl? Nicola. What about her?”

“Just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Nkata replied.

“King-Ryder killed her because she was there. When the arrow hit Terry, she saw him with the bow. Barb says she saw a picture in his flat, by the way: Matthew as a kid posing with Dad on Sports Day at school. He was wearing a quiver, she says. She saw the strap of it running across his chest. I 'xpect if we get a warrant, we'll find that long bow in his digs. D'you want me to get on to that as well?”

“How was Havers involved?”

“She grilled Vi Nevin when the girl came to last night. She got most of the details from her.” Lynley could hear Nkata draw a deep breath to hurry on. “Since Nevin didn't seem like part of the case, 'spector … because of that Islington business … the threat … the wheel clamp and Andy Maiden and all … I told her to do it. I told Barb to talk to her. If things come down to reprimands, I'll take the rap on that.”

Lynley felt stunned by the amount of information Nkata had passed on to him, but he found the voice to say, “Well done, Winston.”

“I just went along with Barb, spector.”

“Then well done to Constable Havers as well.”

Lynley rang off. He found that his movements were slower than normal. Surprise—shock—was the cause. But when he'd finally managed to take in the extent of what had occurred in London during his absence, he felt apprehension descend like a cloud.

After her appearance at the Buxton police station, Nancy Maiden had gone home to await word of her husband's whereabouts. Stubbornly refusing the offer of a female constable to remain with her until Andy turned up, she'd said, “Find him. Please,” to Lynley as she'd left the station. And her eyes had tried to communicate something that she wouldn't put into words.

He realised the challenge that a search for Andy Maiden presented. If he'd learned nothing else in the past few days, he'd come to know that the Peak District was vast: crosshatched by hiking trails, distinguished by utterly different topographical phenomena, and marked with five hundred thousand years of man's habitation upon it. But when he considered the desperate state that Andy had been in when they'd last spoken and he combined this state with the words I'm taking care of this myself, he had a fairly good idea where his search should begin.