He upended the boot on the bench, thumped it soundly against the wood, and dislodged a large glove, at one time leather and fur but now nothing more than a pulpy mass of Joy Sinclair’s blood. Not yet dried, not yet done for.
HALF THE SIZE of the library, the Westerbrae sitting room to the left of the wide baronial stairway seemed to Lynley an odd choice of locations for any large group to meet in.Yet it was still set up for the reading of Joy Sinclair’s play, with a concentric arrangement of tables and chairs at the room’s centre for the actors, and peripheral observation points along its walls for everyone else. Even the scent in the room bore witness to last night’s ill-fated gathering: tobacco, burnt matches, coffee dregs, and brandy.
When Lord Stinhurst entered under the watchful eye of Sergeant Havers, Lynley directed him to sit in an unwelcoming ladder-back chair near the fireplace. A coal fire burned in the small grate there, cutting the chill in the room. Outside the closed door, the scene-of-crime men from Strathclyde CID were making an unusually noisy arrival.
Stinhurst took his designated seat cooperatively, crossing one well-tailored leg over the other, refusing a cigarette. He was impeccably dressed, the personification of weekend-inthe-country. Yet, in spite of his movements, which carried the assurance of a man used to the stage, used to being under the eyes of hundreds of people at once, he looked physically drained, whether from exhaustion or from the effort of holding together the women in his family during this time of crisis, Lynley could not have said. But he took the opportunity of observing the man while Sergeant Havers leafed through the pages of her notebook.
Cary Grant, Lynley thought in summation of Stinhurst’s general appearance and liked the comparison. Although Stinhurst was in his seventies, his face had lost none of the extraordinarily handsome, strong-jawed force of its youth, and his hair, shafted obliquely by the amiable low light of the room, was variations on silver, roughly textured and full as it had always been. With a body on which there was no spare flesh, Stinhurst belied the term old age, living proof that relentless industry was the key to youth.
Yet, underneath this pleasant, surface perfection, Lynley sensed strong undercurrents being mastered, and he decided that control was the key to understanding the man. He appeared to excel at maintaining it: over his body, over his emotions, over his mind. This last was acutely alive and, as far as Lynley could tell, perfectly capable of deciding how best to tamper with a mountain of evidence. At the moment, Lord Stinhurst manifested only one sign of agitation in the face of this interview, pressing together the thumb and forefinger of his right hand in repeated, forceful spasms. The flesh under the nails alternately whitened and blushed as circulation was interrupted and then restored. Lynley found the gesture interesting and wondered if Stinhurst’s body would continue to reveal his increasing tension.
“You look a great deal like your father,” Stinhurst said. “But I suppose you hear that frequently.”
Lynley saw Havers’ head come up with a snap. “Generally not, in my line of work,” he replied. “I’d like you to explain why you’ve burnt Joy Sinclair’s scripts.”
If Stinhurst was disconcerted by Lynley’s unwillingness to recognise any bond between them, he did not show it. Rather, he said, “Without the sergeant, please.”
Gripping her pencil more firmly, Havers regarded the older man with eyes narrowed in contempt at his lord-of-the-manor dismissal of her. She waited for Lynley’s response and flashed a brief, satisfied smile when he said firmly, “That’s not possible.” Hearing that, she settled back into her chair.
Stinhurst didn’t move. He had not, in fact, even glanced at Sergeant Havers before he requested her removal. He merely said, “I have to insist, Thomas.”
The use of his given name was a stimulus that brought back to Lynley not only Havers’ angry challenge to treat Lord Stinhurst with an iron glove, but also the trepidation he had earlier felt about his assignment to this case. It set off every alarm.
“That’s not one of your rights, I’m afraid.”
“My…rights?” Stinhurst offered the smile of a card-player with a winning hand. “This entire fantasy that says I have to speak with you is just that, Thomas. A fantasy. We don’t have that kind of legal system. You and I both know it. The sergeant goes or we wait for my solicitor. From London.”
Stinhurst might have been mildly disciplining a fractious child. But there was absolute reality behind his words, and in the space of time that it had taken to hear them, Lynley saw the alternatives, a legal minuet with the man’s attorney or a momentary compromise that could well be used to purchase some truth. It had to be done.
“Step outside, Sergeant,” he told Havers, his eyes unwavering from the other man.
“Inspector…” Her voice was unbearably restrained.
“See to Gowan Kilbride and Mary Agnes Campbell,” Lynley went on. “It will save us some time.”
Havers drew a tense breath. “May I speak to you outside, please?”
Lynley allowed her that much, following her into the great hall and closing the door behind them. Havers gave rapid scrutiny to the left and right, wary of listeners. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper, fierce and angry.
“What the hell are you doing, Inspector? You can’t question him alone. Let’s chat about the procedure you’ve been so bloody fond of throwing in my face these last fifteen months.”
Lynley felt unmoved by her quick fl are of passion. “As far as I’m concerned, Sergeant, Webberly threw procedure out the window the moment he got us involved in this case without a formal request from Strathclyde CID. I’m not about to spend time agonising over it now.”
“But you’ve got to have a witness! You’ve got to have the notes! What’s the point of questioning him if you’ve nothing written down to use against…” Sudden comprehension dawned on her face. “Unless, of course, you know right now that you intend to believe every blessed word his sweet lordship has to say!”
Lynley had worked with the sergeant long enough to know when a conversational skirmish was about to escalate into verbal warfare. He cut her off.
“At some point, Barbara, you’re going to have to decide whether an uncontrollable factor such as a person’s birth is reason enough to distrust him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m supposed to trust Stinhurst? He’s destroyed a stack of evidence, he’s sitting smack in the middle of a murder, he’s refusing to cooperate. And I’m supposed to trust him?”
“I wasn’t talking about Stinhurst. I was talking about myself.”
She gaped at him, speechless. He turned back to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob.
“I want you to see to Gowan and Mary Agnes. I want notes. I want them precise. Use Constable Lonan to assist. Is that clear?”
Havers shot him a look that would have withered fl owers. “Perfectly…sir.” Slamming her notebook shut, she stalked off.
When Lynley returned to the sitting room, he saw that Stinhurst had adjusted to the new conditions, his shoulders and spine releasing their wire-tight grip on his posture. He seemed suddenly less unyielding and far more vulnerable. His eyes, the colour of fog, focussed on Lynley. They were unreadable.
“Thank you, Thomas.”
This easy shift in persona-a chameleon passage from hauteur to gratitude-was a glaring reminder to Lynley that Stinhurst’s lifeblood flowed not through his veins but through the aisles of the theatre.
“As to the scripts,” Lynley said.
“This murder has nothing to do with Joy Sinclair’s play.” Lord Stinhurst gave his attention not to Lynley but to the shattered front of the curio cabinet next to the door. He left his chair and went to it, retrieving the disembodied head of a Dresden shepherdess from the remaining crumble of broken porcelain that still lay inside, heaped upon the bottom shelf. He carried it back to his seat.