He put together everything she’d said since they’d first begun talking. That his mother knew, that his mother wanted to help make it more understandable. He said, “Pete, are you seeing someone about sex?”
She dropped her head again. But having done so, she also nodded. She was fingering the seam on her jeans, working a thread loose, pinching and tugging it. She looked small and sad and tired, like someone who’d been carrying a burden alone, unwilling to ask for help. He felt what he hadn’t expected to feel as the outcome of this conversation. He felt his heart open, and something of himself flowed towards her. He couldn’t identify what it was, exactly. Love? Empathy? Sadness? Loss? He only knew she’d been by herself in the dark, while he’d been too consumed not only by need but also by a hundred and one unspoken feelings, the existence of which he’d long denied.
He said to her, “Pete, you never had to—”
“I know that.” She looked up then. “But I just didn’t want to be that person any longer. I wanted to stop being so afraid all the time. It’s eaten me up inside till there’s almost nothing left of the me who was me, the woman you loved. It’s felt like a slow disappearing, and I was just so tired—”
He crossed to her. He touched her hair. “Loved and still love, Pete,” he said. When she didn’t move away, he put his arms round her and drew her to him.
She rested her head against his chest. “I’m trying to find the way back to you,” she told him.
“Ah, girl,” he said in return. “Good God, Pete, what courage you have.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Let’s find our way back to each other, Pete. Let’s discover together if we can do that.”
WESTMINSTER
CENTRAL LONDON
All the way back to New Scotland Yard from Bethnal Green, they talked about the case: the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, the evidence, the lack thereof, the suspects, the motives, and the question of access. During all this, Barbara waited. She wanted to see if Lynley was going to bring up the subject that needed to be brought up between them. She wanted to know if she was the one who was going to have to broach it. She was about to do so as he pulled into his parking bay, and said, “Hang on, Barbara, if you don’t mind.”
She was desperate for a fag, but she remained in the car. She glanced in his direction and saw that he was watching her, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel of the Healey Elliott. He seemed to be thinking so she let him think.
He finally said, “I want to explain the flowers.”
“No. You want to excuse,” she replied.
“I want to tell you the reason.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Of course there’s a difference. I have no excuse for doing it. An excuse would be ‘I meant them to be sent to my mother for her birthday, but somehow they came here by mistake.’？”
“With my name on them. Oh bloody yeah, I see how that could’ve happened.”
“I’m just using my mother’s birthday as an example, Barbara. I think you know that.”
“And was it her birthday?”
“No. Of course not. But that’s hardly the point.”
“What is the point, then, when it’s home with its mother?”
“Dorothea’s the point.”
Barbara frowned at him. He had an expression on his face that indicated she was supposed to be following some kind of impeccable logic that he was laying before her.
He went on with, “We talked about it, you and I. You mentioned Charlie temporarily playing the role of your suitor so that Dorothea—”
“My ‘suitor’？ We’re not living inside a Jane Austen novel last time I looked, Inspector.”
“A gentleman caller. Your lover. Your boyfriend. Why does boyfriend sound so strange? A new prospect destined to alter your life? We talked about Charlie taking up that role—I mean playing the role—so Dorothea would give you up as a project. Is any of this sounding familiar, Barbara?”
Barbara sighed. She picked up her bag and rooted out her fags and a plastic lighter. She saw his expression, and said, “I’m not bloody stupid.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Dorothea came to me and I could see that she wasn’t about to let anything go when it comes to your love life. So do you see . . . ?”
“You had someone write the note. That was cruel. That was bloody hardhearted. What was I supposed to think once I read it?”