Payment In Blood (43 page)
Authors: Elizabeth George
“I love you,” he said. And then again, as if each word could serve as its own painful act of contrition. “Helen. Helen. I love you.”
He saw her lips part, saw her fleeting, sweet smile before the lift doors closed and she was gone.
B
ARBARA
H
AVERS
was in the public bar of the King’s Arms not far from New Scotland Yard, moping into her weekly pint of ale. She’d been nursing it along for the past thirty minutes. It was an hour before closing, long after the time when she should have made her way back to her parents and Acton, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to that yet. The paperwork was filed, the reports completed, the conversations with Macaskin at an end for now. But as always, at the conclusion of a case, she had a sense of her own uselessness. People would go on brutalising one another, despite her meagre efforts to stop them.
“Buy a bloke a drink?”
At Lynley’s voice, she looked up. “I thought you’d gone to Skye! Holy God, you look done in.”
He did indeed. Unshaven, his clothes rumpled, he looked like last year’s Christmas wish.
“I
am
done in,” he admitted, making a pathetically visible effort to smile. “I’ve lost count of the hours I’ve spent in the car over the last few days. What’re you drinking? Not tonic water tonight, I take it?”
“Not tonight. I’ve moved up to Bass. But now you’re here, I may change my poison. Depends on who’s paying.”
“I see.” He took off his overcoat, threw it down carelessly on the next table, and sank into a chair. Feeling in his pocket, he produced cigarette case and lighter. As always she helped herself, regarding him over the flame that he held for her.
“What’s up?” she asked him.
He lit a cigarette. “Nothing.”
“Ah.”
They smoked companionably. He made no move to get himself a drink. She waited.
Then with his eyes on the opposite wall he said, “I’ve asked her to marry me, Barbara.”
It was as she expected. “You don’t exactly look like the bearer of glad tidings.”
“No. I’m not.” Lynley cleared his throat, studying the tip of his cigarette.
Barbara sighed, felt the weighty, sore blanket of his unhappiness, and found to her surprise that she wore it as her own. At the nearby bar Evelyn, the blowsy barmaid, was fingering her way, bleary-eyed, through the night’s receipts and doing her best to ignore the leering advances of two of the establishment’s regular patrons. Barbara called out her name.
“Aye?” Evelyn responded with a yawn.
“Bring on two Glenlivets. Neat.” Barbara eyed Lynley and added, “And keep them coming, will you?”
“Sure, luv.”
When they were delivered to the table and Lynley reached for his wallet, Barbara spoke again.
“It’s on me tonight, sir.”
“A celebration, Sergeant?”
“No. A wake.” She tossed back her whisky. It lit her blood like a flame. “Drink up, Inspector. Let’s get ourselves soused.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ELIZABETH GEORGE is the author of thirteen award-winning and internationally bestselling novels, including
A Great Deliverance, Payment in Blood
, and
A Traitor to Memory
. Most of her novels have been filmed for television by the BBC and broadcast in the United States on PBS’s
Mystery!
She lives in Seattle and London.
ALSO BY ELIZABETH GEORGE
A Great Deliverance
Well-Schooled in Murder
A Suitable Vengeance
For the Sake of Elena
Missing Joseph
Playing for the Ashes
In the Presence of the Enemy
Deception on His Mind
In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner
A Traitor to Memory
I, Richard
A Place of Hiding
PAYMENT IN BLOOD
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published September 1989
Bantam mass market edition / July 1990
Bantam reissue / May 1993
Bantam reissue / August 2003
Bantam trade paperback edition / May 2007
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1989 by Susan Elizabeth George
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 89-426
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90485-7
v3.0