“I’m sorry. It’s what I need.” She walked into the lift, pushed the button for her fl oor.

“Even after this, I still can’t bear to hurt you. I never could, Tommy.”

“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 fl eeting, sweet smile before the lift doors closed and she was gone.

BARBARA HAVERS 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 fi ngering 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 highly acclaimed novels of psychological suspense. Her first novel, A GREAT DELIVERANCE, was honoured with the Anthony and Agatha Best First Novel awards in America and received the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in France; WELL-SCHOOLED IN MURDER was awarded the prestigious German prize for international mystery fiction, the MIMI '1990'. Her novels have now been adapted for television by the BBC as the Inspector Lynley Mysteries. An Edgar and Macavity Nominee as well as an international bestselling author, Elizabeth George lives on Whidbey Island in the state of Washington.