“Inspector, that sort of revenge is far beyond Mignon’s ability to plan. Besides, she would have seen no immediate monetary gain in that. And the only thing Mignon has ever been able to see clearly is the monetary gain of the moment.” She turned from the lake, then, and looked at Lynley. She said, “I knew the stones were loose. I’d told Ian as much, more than once. He and I were the only ones who used the boathouse regularly, so I told no one else. There was no need. I warned him to take care getting in and out of his scull. He said not to worry, that he would take care and when he had a moment, he’d fix the dock. But I think that night he had other things on his mind. He must have done. It was quite out of the ordinary that he came to row that late anyway. I think he wasn’t paying close enough attention. It was always an accident, Inspector. I knew that from the first.”
Lynley considered this. “And that filleting knife I found in the water with the stones?”
“I threw it there. Just to keep you here, in case you decided too soon it was an accident.”
“I see,” he said.
“Are you terribly angry?”
“I ought to be.” They turned and headed back towards the house. Above the walls of the topiary garden, the towering mass of shaped shrubbery loomed and behind it Ireleth Hall itself, sand coloured and teeming with history. He said, “Didn’t Bernard think it unusual?”
“What?”
“Your asking for an investigation into his nephew’s death.”
“Perhaps he did, but what could he say? ‘I don’t want that’? I would have asked why. He would have tried to explain. Perhaps he would have said it was unfair to Nicholas, to Manette, to Mignon to suspect them, but I would have argued it’s better to know the truth about one’s children than to live a lie and that, Inspector, would have taken us far too close to the truth Bernard himself didn’t want me to know. He had to run the risk you wouldn’t unearth Vivienne. He really had no choice in the matter.”
“For what it’s worth, she’s returning to New Zealand.”
She made no response to this. She took his arm as they worked their way along the path. She said, “What’s odd is this: After more than forty years of marriage, a man often becomes a habit. I must consider whether Bernard is a habit I would prefer to break.”
“Might you?”
“I might. But first I want the time to think.” She squeezed his arm and looked up at him. “You’re a very handsome man, Inspector. I’m sorry you lost your wife. But I hope you don’t intend to remain alone. Do you?”
“I haven’t thought about it much,” he admitted.
“Well, do think about it. We all have to choose eventually.”
WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
Tim spent hours in the business centre waiting for the time to be right. It hadn’t taken him that long to reach the town once he’d left Kaveh that morning. He’d leaped over a drystone wall and jogged across a lumpy paddock in the direction of dense woods comprising fir trees and birches. He’d remained there— in a shelter of autumn-hued bracken backed by the trunk of a fallen spruce— until he was certain Kaveh had driven off, and then he’d worked his way over to the road to Windermere, where two lifts took him to the middle of town, at which point he began his search.
He’d had no luck in finding a restorer of broken toys. At long last, he’d had to settle upon an establishment called J. Bobak & Son, a shop dedicated to the repair of all things electrical. Inside this place three aisles crammed with broken kitchen appliances led to the back, where J. Bobak turned out to be a woman with grey plaits, a lined face, and bright pink lipstick that ran up the cracks above her lips while Son turned out to be a kid in his twenties with Down’s syndrome. She was tinkering with something that looked like a miniature waffle iron. He was working on an old-time wireless that was nearly the size of a Mini. All round both Son and his mother stood various appliances in various stages of repair: television sets, microwaves, mixers, toasters, and coffeemakers, some of which looked as if they’d been waiting for expert electrical ministrations for a decade or more.
When Tim presented J. Bobak with Bella, she’d shaken her head. This poor lump of arms and legs and body couldn’t be repaired at all, he was told, even if J. Bobak & Son repaired toys, which they did not. At least, she couldn’t be repaired in a way that would be pleasing to her owner. He’d be better off saving his money to buy a new doll. There was a toy shop—
It had to be this doll, he told J. Bobak. He knew it was rude to interrupt and the expression on J. Bobak’s face indicated she was about to tell him so. He went on to explain the doll belonged to his little sister and their dad had given it to her and their dad was dead. This got to J. Bobak. She laid the doll’s pieces out on the shop counter and pursed her bright pink lips thoughtfully. Her son came to join her. He said, “Hi,” to Tim, and “I don’t go to school any longer but you’re supposed to be in school, eh? Betcher doing a bunk today.” His mum said, “Trev, you see to your own job, luv. There’s a good boy,” and patted him on his shoulder as he snuffled noisily against his arm and went back to the enormous radio.
She said to Tim, “Sure you don’t want to buy a new doll, luv?”
As could be, Tim told her. Could she repair it? There was no other shop. He’d tried all over town.
She said reluctantly that she’d see what she could do, and Tim told her he would give her the address where the doll had to be sent when it was completed. He took out a crumpled wad of bank notes and some coins, all of which he’d cadged over time from his mother’s bag, his father’s wallet, and a tin in the kitchen where Kaveh kept pound coins to use when he ran out of money and hadn’t thought to stop at the cash point in Windermere on his way home from work.
J. Bobak said, “What? You not coming back for it yourself?”
He said no. He wouldn’t be here in Cumbria by the time the doll was repaired. He told her to take as much money as she liked. She could send any change back with the doll. Then he gave her Gracie’s name and the address, which was simple enough. Bryan Beck farm, Bryanbarrow, near Crosthwaite. Gracie might well be gone by then, but even if she’d returned to their mother, certainly Kaveh would send the doll on. He’d do that much, no matter what sort of lie he was living with his pathetic little wife at that point. And she’d be pleased to see it, would Gracie. Perhaps she’d even forgive Tim for having wrecked the poor doll in the first place.
That done, he’d found his way to the business centre and there he stayed. On his way, with what remained of his money he bought a packet of jam mallows, a Kit Kat bar, an apple, and a nachos kit of chips and salsa and refried beans, and, squatting between a filthy white Ford Transit and a wheelie bin overloaded with soaking Styrofoam, he ate it all.
When the car park began to empty as people left the various businesses for the day, he ducked behind the wheelie bin and kept out of sight. He fixed his eyes upon the photo shop and just before the hour when it was to close, he went across to it and opened the door.
Toy4You was taking the cash drawer out of the till. His hands full, he didn’t have the chance to remove his name tag. Tim saw part of it, William Con—, before the man flicked away. He ducked into the back and when he returned, he was without the cash drawer and without the name tag. He was also without good humour.