His question was met with no reply. Lynley could feel his friend's eyes on his face. His fingers fumbled with the mess he had made of his tie. "Oh, d.a.m.n and blast!" he muttered savagely.

AT THE KNOCK, Lady Helen opened her door, expecting to find Sergeant Havers or Lynley or St. James in the corridor, ready to escort her to dinner as if she were either the prime suspect or a key witness in need of police protection. Instead, it was Rhys. He said nothing, his expression hesitant, as if he was wondering what his reception might be. But when Lady Helen smiled, he entered the room and pushed the door shut behind him.

They looked at each other like guilty lovers, hungry for a surrept.i.tious meeting. The need for quiet, for stealth, for a declaration of unity heightened sensitivity, heightened desire, heightened and strengthened the newly forged bond between them. When he held out his arms, Lady Helen more than willingly sought their refuge.

With a wordless longing, he kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks, and at last her mouth. Her lips parted in response and her arms tightened round him, holding him closer to her as if his presence might obliterate the worst of the day. She felt the length of his body create its sweet agony of pressure against her own, and she began to tremble, shot through with a dizzying, unexpected bolt of desire. It came upon her from nowhere, running through her blood like a liquid fire. She buried her face against his shoulder, and his hands moved upon her with possessive knowledge.

"Love, love," Rhys whispered. He said nothing more, for at his words, she turned her head and sought his mouth again. After some moments, he murmured, "Aw bey browden on ye, la.s.sie," and then added with a torn chuckle, "But I suppose you've noticed that."

Lady Helen lifted her hand to smooth his hair back from his temples where it was peppered with grey. She smiled, feeling somehow comforted and not entirely certain why this should be so. "Where on earth did a black-hearted Welshman ever learn to speak Scots?"

At that, his mouth twisted, his arms stiffened momentarily, and Lady Helen knew before he answered that she had innocently asked the wrong question. "In hospital," he said.

"Oh Lord. I'm so sorry. I didn't think-"

Rhys shook his head, pulled her closer to him, resting his cheek against her hair. "I've not told you about any of it, have I, Helen? I think it's something I didn't want you to know."

"Then don't-"

"No. The hospital was just outside of Portree. On Skye. In the dead of winter. Grey sea, grey sky, grey land. Boats leaving for the mainland with me wishing to be on any one of them. I used to think that Skye would drive me to drink on a permanent basis. That kind of place tests one's mettle as nothing else ever does. To survive, it all came down to clandestine pulls at a whisky bottle or proficiency in Scots. I chose Scots. That, at least, was guaranteed by my roommate, who refused to speak anything else." His fingers touched her hair, a mere ghost of a caress. It seemed tentative, unsure. "Helen. For G.o.d's sake. Please. I don't want your pity."

It was his way, she thought. It was always his way. He would cut through like that, moving past the potential of any meaningless expression of compa.s.sion that stood between him and the rest of the world. For pity kept him at a disadvantage, prisoner of an illness that could not be cured. She took his pain as her own.

"How could you ever believe I feel pity? Is that what you think was between us last night?"

She heard his ragged sigh. "I'm forty-two years old. Do you know that, Helen? Is that fifteen years your senior? Good G.o.d, is it more?"

"Twelve years."

"I was married once, when I was twenty-two. Toria was nineteen. Both of us fresh from the regionals and thinking we'd become the next West End wonders."

"I didn't know that."

"She left me. I'd been doing a winter's season round Norfolk and Suffolk-two months here, a month there. Living in grimy bed-sits and foul-smelling hotels. Thinking none of it was really half bad since it put food on the table and kept the children in clothes. But when I got back to London, she was gone, home to Australia. Mum and Dad and security. More than mere bread on the table. Shoes on her feet." His eyes were bleak.

"How long had you been married?"

"Only five years. But quite long enough, I'm afraid, for Toria to come to terms with the worst about me."

"Don't say-"

"Yes. I've only seen my children once in the past fifteen years. They're teenagers now, a boy and a girl who don't even know me. And the worst of it is that it's my own fault. Toria didn't leave because I was a failure in the theatre, although G.o.d knows my chances of success were fairly dim. She left because I was a drunkard. I still am. A drunkard, Helen. You must never forget that. I mustn't let you forget it."

She repeated what he had said himself one night as they walked together against the wind along the edge of Hyde Park: "Well, it's only a word, isn't it? It only has the power we're willing to give it."

He shook his head. She could feel the heavy beating of his heart. "Have they questioned you yet?" she asked.

"No." His cool fingers rested on the nape of her neck, and he spoke over her head carefully, as if each word was chosen with deliberation. "They do think I killed her, don't they, Helen?"

Her arms tightened of their own volition, speaking the answer for her. He went on. "I've been considering how they might think I did it. I came to your room, brought you cognac to make you drunk, made love to you as a distraction, then stabbed my cousin. Why, of course, remains to be seen. But no doubt they'll think of something soon enough."

"The cognac was unsealed," Lady Helen whispered.

"Do they think I put something in it? Good G.o.d. And what about you? Do you think that as well? Do you think I came to you, intent upon drugging you and then murdering my cousin?"

"Of course not." Looking up, Lady Helen saw a mixture of fatigue and sadness melt together on his face, tempered by relief.

"When I got out of your bed, I unsealed it," he said. "G.o.d knows I wanted the stuff. I felt desperate to have it. But then you woke up. You came to me. And frankly, I discovered that I wanted you more."

"You don't need to tell me."

"I was inches from a drink. Centimetres. I haven't felt like that in months. If you hadn't been there..."

"It doesn't matter. I was there. I'm here now."

Voices came to them from the room next door: Lynley's raised hotly for a moment, followed by St. James' placid murmur. They listened. Rhys spoke.

"Your loyalties are going to be tested brutally through this, Helen. You know that, don't you? And even if you're presented with irrefutable truths, you're going to have to decide for yourself why I came to your room last night, why I wanted to be with you, why I made love to you. And, most of all, what I was doing all that time while you slept."

"I don't need to decide," Lady Helen declared. "There aren't two sides to this story as far as I'm concerned."

Rhys' eyes darkened to black. "There are. His and mine. And you know it."

WHEN ST. JAMES and Lynley entered the drawing room, they saw it was destined to be a most unpleasant dinner. The a.s.sembled group could not have placed themselves across the oriental carpet with any more effective staging to depict their displeasure with the fact that they would be sitting down to dine with New Scotland Yard.

Joanna Ellacourt had selected a centre-stage location. Having established herself somewhere between sitting and draping on a rosewood chaise near the fireplace, she favoured the two newcomers with a glacial look before she turned away, sipped on what looked like white-capped pink syrup, and cast her eyes upon the George II chimney-piece as if its pale green pilasters needed memorising. The others were gathered round her on couches and chairs; their desultory conversation ceased entirely at the entrance of the two men.

Lynley's eyes swept over the group, making a quick note of the fact that some of them were missing, making especial note of the fact that among the missing were Lady Helen and Rhys Davies-Jones. At a drinks trolley at the far end of the room, Constable Lonan sat like a guardian angel, keeping sharp eyes on the company as if in the expectation that one or more of them might commit some new act of violence. Lynley and St. James went to join him.

"Where are the others?" Lynley asked.

"Not down yet," Lonan replied. "The one lady just got in here herself."

Lynley saw that the lady in question was Lord Stinhurst's daughter, Elizabeth Rintoul, and she was approaching the drinks trolley like a woman going to her execution. Unlike Joanna Ellacourt, who had dressed for the dinner in clinging satin as if it were a social occasion of the highest order, Elizabeth wore a tan tweed skirt and bulky green sweater, both decidedly old and ill-fitting, the latter decorated with three moth holes that made an isosceles triangle high on her left shoulder.

She was, Lynley knew, thirty-five years old, but she looked far older, like a woman approaching spinsterly middle age in the worst possible way. Her hair, perhaps in an unsuccessful attempt to achieve strawberry blonde, had been coloured an artificial shade of brown that had since gone bra.s.sy. It was heavily permed so that it formed a screen from behind which she could observe the world. Both the colour and the style suggested a choice made from a magazine photograph and not one that took into consideration the demands of her complexion or the shape of her face. She was very gaunt, with features that were pinched and pointed. Her upper lip was beginning to develop the creasing lines of age.

Uneasiness limned itself on her bloodless face as she crossed the room. One hand caught at her skirt and squeezed the material. She didn't bother to introduce herself, didn't bother with any introductory formality at all. It was clear that she had waited more than twelve hours to ask her question and was not about to be put off another moment. Nonetheless, she didn't actually look at Lynley as she spoke. Her eyes-shadowed inexpertly with a peculiar shade of aquamarine-merely touched his face to establish contact and from that moment forward remained riveted on the wall just beyond him, as if she were addressing the painting that hung there.

"Do you have the necklace?" she asked stiffly.

"I beg your pardon?"

Elizabeth's hands splayed out against her skirt. "My aunt's pearl necklace. I gave it to Joy last night. Is it in her room?"

There was a murmur from the group at the fireplace, and Francesca Gerrard got to her feet. Coming to Elizabeth's side, she put her hand on her elbow, attempting to draw her back to the others. She kept her eyes off the police.

"It's all right, Elizabeth," she murmured. "Really. Quite all right."

Elizabeth jerked away. "It's not all right, Aunt Francie. I didn't want to give it to Joy in the first place. I knew it wouldn't work. Now that she's dead, I want you to have it back." Still, she looked at no one. Her eyes were bloodshot, a condition that her eyeshadow only heightened.

Lynley looked at St. James. "Were there pearls in the room?" The other man shook his head.

"But I took the necklace to her. She wasn't in her room yet. She'd gone to...So I asked him to..." Elizabeth stopped, her face working. Her eyes sought and then fastened on Jeremy Vinney. "You didn't give it to her, did you? You said you would, but you didn't. What have you done with that necklace?"

Vinney's gin and tonic stopped midway to his lips. His fingers, too plump and overly hairy, tightened on the gla.s.s. Clearly, the accusation came as a surprise. "I? Of course I gave it to her. Don't be absurd."

"You're lying!" Elizabeth shrilled. "You said she didn't want to talk to anyone! And you put it in your pocket! I heard the two of you in your room, you know! I know what you were after! But when she wouldn't let you do it, you followed her back to her room, didn't you? You were angry! You killed her! And then you took the pearls as well!"

Vinney was on his feet at that, a quick man in spite of the weight he carried. He tried to push aside David Sydeham, who grabbed his arm.

"You dried-up little shrew," he flared. "You were so G.o.dd.a.m.ned jealous of her, you probably killed her yourself! Snooping about, listening at doors. That's about as close as you've come to having any, isn't it?"

"Jesus G.o.d, Vinney-"

"And what were you doing with her?" Angry colour shot across Elizabeth's cheeks in patches. Her lips contorted into a sneer. "Hoping to get your own creative juices up by bleeding off hers? Or smelling her up like every other man here?"

"Elizabeth!" Francesca Gerrard pleaded weakly.

"Because I know why you came! I know what you were after!"

"She's mad," Joanna Ellacourt muttered in disgust.

Lady Stinhurst broke at that. She spat a response at the actress. "Don't you say that!

Don't you dare! You sit there like an ageing Cleopatra who needs men to-"

"Marguerite!" Her husband's voice boomed. It shattered everyone to silence, nerve-strung and brittle.

The tension was broken by footsteps on the stairs and in the hall. A moment later the remaining members of the party entered the room: Sergeant Havers, Lady Helen, Rhys Davies-Jones. Robert Gabriel appeared less than a minute behind them.

His eyes darted from the tense group by the fireplace to the others near the drinks trolley, to Elizabeth and Vinney, squaring off in anger. It was an actor's moment and he knew how to use it.

"Ah." He smiled gaily. "We are indeed all in the gutter, aren't we? But I wonder which of us are looking at the stars?"

"Certainly not Elizabeth," Joanna Ellacourt replied curtly and turned back to her drink.

From the corner of his eye, Lynley saw Davies-Jones draw Lady Helen towards the drinks trolley and pour her a dry sherry. He even knows her habits, Lynley thought dismally and decided that he had had his fill of the entire group.

"Tell me about the pearls," he said.

Francesca Gerrard felt for the single string of cheap beads she wore. They were pucecoloured; they argued dramatically with the green of her blouse. Ducking her head, raising a nervous hand to her mouth as if to hide her prominent teeth from scrutiny, she spoke with a well-bred hesitation, as if better manners told her it was unwise to intrude.

"I...It's my fault, Inspector. I'm afraid that last night I did ask Elizabeth to offer the pearls to Joy. They aren't priceless, of course, but I thought if she needed money...."

"Ah. I see. A bribe."

Francesca's eyes went to Lord Stinhurst. "Stuart, won't you...?" The words wavered uneasily. Her brother didn't reply. "Yes. I thought she might be willing to withdraw the play."

"Tell him how much the pearls are worth," Elizabeth insisted hotly. "Tell him!"

Francesca made a delicate moue of distaste, clearly unused to discussing such matters in public. "They were a wedding present from Phillip. My husband. They were...perfectly matched so-"

"They were worth more than eight thousand pounds," Elizabeth snapped.

"I had of course always intended to pa.s.s them on to my own daughter. But since I have no children-"

"They were going to go to our little Elizabeth," Vinney finished triumphantly. "So who better to have nicked them from Joy's room? You nasty little b.i.t.c.h! Clever to point the finger at me!"

Elizabeth made a precipitate move towards him. Her father rose and intercepted her. The entire scene was about to be lived through once again. But Mary Agnes Campbell arrived in their midst, coming to stand hesitantly in the doorway, her eyes large and round, her fingers playing at the tips of her hair. Francesca spoke to her in an effort to divert the tide of pa.s.sion.

"Dinner, Mary Agnes?" she asked inanely.

Mary Agnes scanned the room. "Gowan?" she responded. "He isna wi' ye? Nae wi' the police? Cuik wants him..." Her voice fell off. "Ye havena seen..."

Lynley looked from St. James to Havers. All of them shared a moment of the unthinkable.

All of them moved. "See that no one leaves the room," Lynley directed Constable Lonan.

THEY WENT in separate directions, Havers up the stairs, St. James down the lower northeast corridor, and Lynley into the dining room, through the china and warming rooms. He burst into the kitchen.The cook started in surprise, a steaming kettle in her hand. Broth spilled over the side in an aromatic stream. Above them, Lynley heard Havers pounding down the west corridor. Doors crashed open. She called the boy's name.

Seven steps and Lynley was at the scullery door. The k.n.o.b turned in his hand, but the door wouldn't open. Something blocked the pa.s.sage.

"Havers!" he shouted, and in rising anxiety at the absence of reply, "Havers! d.a.m.n and blast!"

Then he heard her flying down the back staircase, heard her pause, heard her cry of incredulity, heard the unbelievable sound of water, the sound of sloshing like a child in a wading pond. Precious seconds pa.s.sed. And then her voice like a bitter draught of medicine one expects but hopes not to swallow: "Gowan! Christ!"

"Havers, for G.o.d's sake-"

There was movement, something dragging. The door eased open a precious twelve inches, giving Lynley access to the heat and the steam and the heart of malevolence.

His back muddied and gummed by crimson, Gowan had been lying on his stomach across the top step of the scullery, apparently in an effort to escape the room and the scalding water that poured from the boiler and mixed with the cooling water on the floor. It was inches deep, and Havers waded back across it, seeking the emergency valve that would shut it off. When she found it, the room was plunged into an eerie stillness that was broken by the cook's voice on the other side of the door.

"Is it Gowan? Is it the lad?" And she began a keening that reverberated like a musical instrument against the kitchen walls.

But when she paused, a second sound racked the hot air. Gowan was breathing. He was alive.

Lynley turned the boy to him. His face and neck were a puckered, red ma.s.s of boiled flesh. His shirt and trousers were cooked onto his body. "Gowan!" Lynley cried. And then, "Havers, phone for an ambulance! Get St. James!" She did not move. "Blast it, Havers! Do as I say!"

But her vision was transfixed on the boy's face. Lynley spun back, saw the initial glazing of Gowan's eyes, knew what it meant.

"Gowan! No!"

For an instant, Gowan seemed to try desperately to respond to the shout, to accept the call back from the darkness. He took a stertorous breath, wracked with b.l.o.o.d.y phlegm.

"Didn't...see..."