“Even when I was Santiago, I was a woman. I had the body of a male. But I was not male. To live like that… belonging nowhere… having a body that is not your own body… so that you look upon it with loathing and would do anything to alter it in order to be who you are…”
“So you became a woman,” Lynley said.
“I transitioned,” she said. “This is what it’s called. I left Santa Maria because I wished to live as a woman and could not do it there. Because of my father, his position, our family. Many things. And then came Raul. He had the money I needed to become a woman and he had his own needs. So we made a deal, he and I. No one else was involved and no one else knew.” She looked at him, then. Over the years, he’d seen the various expressions that flitted across the faces of desperate, crafty, or sly people when they attempted to play with the truth. They always thought they could hide who they were, but only the sociopath ever succeeded. Because the reality was that eyes were indeed windows into the soul, and only the sociopath was soulless.
There was a bench seat opposite Alatea’s position in the inglenook. Lynley went to it and sat. He said, “The death of Ian Cresswell— ”
“I had nothing to do with that. If I were to kill anyone, it would be Raul Montenegro, but I don’t want to kill him. I never wanted to kill him. I just wanted to flee him, and even then it wasn’t because Raul’s intention was to betray who I am. He wouldn’t have done that because he needed to have a woman on his arm. Not a real woman, you see, but a man who could pass as a woman, to safeguard his reputation in his world. What he didn’t understand and what I didn’t tell him was that I didn’t want to pass as a woman because I already was one. I only needed surgery to make it so.”
“He paid for it?”
“In exchange, he thought, for the perfect relationship between two men, one of whom looks to all of the world like a woman.”
“A homosexual relationship.”
“A form of one. Which really cannot exist when one of the partners is not of the same sex, you see. Our problem— mine and Raul’s— was that we did not clearly understand each other before we began this… this venture. Or perhaps I deliberately misunderstood what he wanted from me because I was desperate and he was my only way out.”
“Why do you think he’s pursuing you now?”
She said without irony or self-congratulation, “Wouldn’t you, Thomas Lynley? He spent a great deal of money to make me, and he’s had little enough return on his investment.”
“What does Nicholas know?”
“Nothing.”
“How can that be?”
“I had the final surgery many years ago in Mexico City. When I knew I could not be what Raul wanted me to be, I left him. And Mexico. I was here and there, never remaining any place long. Finally, I was in Utah. And so was Nicky.”
“But you would have had to tell him— ”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because…” Well, it was obvious. There were certain things her body was never going to be able to do.
She said, “I thought I could go forever as a woman without Nicky knowing. But then he wished to come home to England, and he wished even more to make his father proud. He saw a single way to do it, a certain guarantee of his father’s happiness. We would do what neither of his sisters had managed to do. We would have a child and give Bernard a grandchild and this would heal forever the damage Nicky had done to his relationship with his father— and his mother— during all his years of addiction.”
“So now you must tell him.”
She shook her head. “How can I tell him of such betrayal? Could you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I could love him. I could be a lover to him. I could make a home for him and do everything a woman might do for a man. Except this one thing. And to submit to a doctor’s examination as to why I haven’t yet become pregnant…? I’ve lied to Nicky from the first because I was used to lying, because that’s what we do, because that’s what we have to do to get on in the world. It’s called stealth and it’s how we live. The only difference between me and the rest of the people who have transitioned from male to female is that I hid it from the man I love because I thought if he knew he would not wish to marry me and take me to a place where Raul Montenegro would never find me. That was my sin.”
“You know you must tell him.”
“I must indeed do something,” she said.
ARNSIDE
CUMBRIA
He was drawing his car keys from his pocket when Deborah drove her hire car up to Arnside House. He remained where he was, and their eyes locked on each other. She pulled up next to the Healey Elliott, got out, and stood there looking at him for a moment. At least, he thought, she had the grace and decency to look regretful.
She said, “I’m so sorry, Tommy.”
“Ah,” he said. “Well.”
“Have you waited all this time?”
“No. I was on my way back to London, about an hour from here. Barbara rang my mobile. There were a few loose ends. I thought it best to tie them.”
“What sort of loose ends?”
“None that actually have anything to do with Ian Cresswell’s death as things turn out. Where have you been? Lancaster again?”
“You know me too well.”
“Yes. There’ll always be that between us, won’t there?” He looked past her to see that during his time inside Arnside House, the fog had reached the seawall. It was beginning to billow up and over it, reaching long cold fingers onto the lawn. He needed to leave at once in order to reach the motorway before the mist became impenetrable. But with it fast making all of Cumbria dangerous, he didn’t see how he could in conscience depart unless Deborah was with him.
Deborah said, “I needed to speak to her one more time— Lucy Keverne— but I knew you’d not allow it.”
Lynley raised an eyebrow. “I don’t ‘allow’ or not allow anything. You’re a free agent, Deborah. I told you on the phone I merely wanted your company on the drive back to town.”
She dropped her head. That red hair of hers— always her most becoming feature— swung down from her shoulders and he saw how quickly it was being affected by the mist. Curls of it were separating, forming other curls. Medusa, he thought. Well, she’d always had that effect on him, hadn’t she?
“As it turns out, I was right,” she said. “I mean, there was more to the story than Lucy Keverne told me. I’m just not sure it would go far as a motive for anyone to murder Ian Cresswell.”
“What is it, then?”
“That Alatea was indeed going to pay her to carry a baby, more than her expenses, that is. So… Well, I suppose the story’s not as sensational as I thought it might be. I can’t really imagine anyone committing murder over it.”
This told Lynley that Lucy Keverne— whoever she was— either didn’t know the full truth about Alatea Fairclough or she’d not told the full truth to Deborah. For the actual story was sensational in spades. Driven by those three prongs that dominated human behaviour— sex, power, and money— the story gave anyone in possession of it reason to ride it as far as it would go. But to murder as well? Deborah was probably correct in this. The one part of the story Ian Cresswell might have been murdered over was the part of the story Lucy Keverne had not known, if Alatea Fairclough was to be believed. And he thought she was.
“And now?” he said to Deborah.
“Actually, I’ve come to apologise to Alatea. I’ve made her life a misery for these past days, and I think I’ve put paid to her plans with Lucy as well. I didn’t intend to, but that infernal reporter from The Source burst into our conversation and announced that I was the Scotland Yard detective in Cumbria to investigate Ian Cresswell’s death and— ” She sighed. She shook her hair off her shoulders and fingered it back in a gesture exactly like Alatea’s. She said, “If I’ve made Lucy afraid to carry this baby for Alatea, Tommy, I’ve done her a serious wrong. She’ll have to go back to square one and find another surrogate. I thought… Well, we have something in common, she and I, don’t we? This business about babies. I wanted to tell her that much at least. Along with an apology. And the truth about who I am.”