Toy4You went to a drawer at the end of the counter. Tim tensed, reckoning he meant to pull out a gun or something, which was what would have happened in a film. But instead, he pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He lit one. He examined Tim for a very long moment before he spoke. He finally said, “Okay. All right. But if you want it to happen, I need more from you than you’ve given so far. That’s the only thing that makes it worthwhile for me. A risk you take for a risk I take. Equality.”
Tim parted his lips to speak but he couldn’t at first. He’d already done everything. Every single damn thing. And now he was meant to do more? He said the only thing he could think of, “You promised me.”
Toy4You made the sort of expression one might make upon the discovery of a seriously soiled nappy in the front seat of one’s car. He said, “What’s this ‘you promised me’? Like some infant school pupils’ arrangement, that’s it? You give me your chocolate bikkie and I let you ride my skateboard? Only I eat the bikkie and then run off and you don’t get your ride?”
Tim said, “You agreed. You said. This is fucking unfair.”
Toy4You drew in long on the cigarette and watched Tim over its glowing tip. He said, “I changed my mind. That’s what people do. I’ve assessed the risk and it’s all on my part and none on yours. You want things done, you do them yourself.”
Tim saw a curtain of red fall between himself and Toy4You. He knew what it meant: Action was called for and Toy4You wasn’t about to call the cops to prevent him from taking it. But on the other hand, that would finish things between them and despite what he was feeling at the moment, Tim knew he didn’t want to start this process all over again, searching for someone else. He couldn’t face that: the days and weeks that it would take. So he said, “I swear to God, I’ll tell. And when I’m done telling… No. Before that, I’ll kill you and then I’ll tell. I swear. I’ll say I had to. I’ll say you made me.”
Toy4You lifted an eyebrow casually. “With the trail you’ve left on that computer of yours? I don’t think so, mate.” He glanced at a wall clock behind the shop counter and said, “And now it’s time for you to leave.”
“I’m staying.” Tim’s voice began to shake. The rage filled him with both passion and need. “I’m telling everyone who walks in that door. You throw me out, I wait in the car park. Anyone comes near this place, I tell them. You call the cops to get me out of here, I tell them as well. You think I won’t? You think I even care at this point?”
At this Toy4You took a moment without replying. It became so quiet within the shop that the movement of the second hand on the wall clock sounded like a gun being cocked, over and over again. Finally the man said, “Hell. Relax. Okay. You’ve got my short ’n curlies in your fist but I have yours as well, and you’re not seeing that. As I’ve already said, you’re taking no risk. I’m taking it all. So you’re going to have to make things more worthwhile than you’re making them at present. That’s all I’m saying.”
Tim said nothing. What he wanted to do— “at present,” as Toy4You put it— was dive over the shop counter and beat the bastard to a pulp. But he remained where he was.
Toy4You said, “Really, kid, what’s it going to take you to do that much: an hour, two, three? You want this bad enough, you go along. You don’t want it bad enough, you phone the cops. But if you do, you have to give them something to prove what you’re telling them and you and I both know where that proof leads. You’ve got a mobile with messages. You’ve got a computer with e-mail. There’re cops out there who’re going to take a look at all that and see what’s what with you, and that’s going to be easy. We’re both in a dodgy position here, so why don’t we help each other instead of trying to push each other in front of the train, eh?”
They engaged in a stare-down. From rage and need, what Tim felt altered to pure hopelessness. He didn’t want to face the truth of the matter, that truth being that Toy4You had a point that Tim could not deny. So he finally said numbly, “What?”
Toy4You smiled briefly. “Not alone this time.”
Tim felt his bowels get loose. He said, “When?”
That smile again, the kind of smile that acknowledges triumph. “Soon, my friend. I’ll send you a text. You just be ready. Completely ready this time. Got that?”
“Yeah,” Tim said because there was nothing else left, and he knew that.
LAKE WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
After Manette had left them, Lynley told Bernard Fairclough that they needed to have a talk. Fairclough apparently anticipated this because he nodded, although he said, despite the rain that had begun to fall, “Let me take you through the topiary garden first.”
Lynley reckoned that Fairclough made this offer in order to prepare himself for whatever talk was coming, but he let the other man have the time. They went in through an arched gate in a stone wall that was grey-speckled with lichen. Fairclough chatted about the site. He sounded casual enough, but doubtless he’d gone this route a hundred times: showing off what his wife had accomplished with her efforts to return the garden to its former glory.
Lynley listened without comment. He found the garden oddly beautiful. He generally preferred his shrubbery natural, but in this place box, holly, myrtle, and yew had been fashioned into fantastic shapes, some of them over thirty feet tall. There were trapezoids, pyramids, and spirals. There were double spirals, mushrooms, arches, barrels, and cones. Paths of bleached limestone led among them and where there were no shrubs, there were parterres created from low box hedges. In these parterres yellow dwarf nasturtiums still bloomed, a contrast to the purple violas that surrounded them.
The garden was more than two hundred years old, and restoring it had been Valerie’s dream upon inheriting Ireleth Hall, Fairclough told him. It had taken her years upon years with the assistance of four gardeners and photos from early in the twentieth century. “Magnificent, eh?” Fairclough said with pride. “She’s amazing, my wife.”
Lynley admired the garden. Anyone, he knew, would have done the same. But there was something not quite right in Fairclough’s tone, and Lynley said to him, “Shall we talk here in the garden or somewhere else?”
Fairclough, obviously knowing that the time had come, replied, “Come with me, then. Valerie’s gone to check on Mignon. She’ll be a while. We can talk in the library.”
This turned out to be a misnomer, as there were no books. The room was a small and cosy chamber just off the great hall, with darkly panelled walls that were hung with portraits of Faircloughs long departed. A desk sat in the centre of the room, and two comfortable armchairs faced a fireplace. This was an impressive Grinling Gibbons affair surmounted by a display of old Willow pattern pottery, and a coal fire was laid within. Fairclough lit this, for the room bore a chill. Then he opened the heavy curtains that covered the lead-paned windows. Rain was streaking them.
Fairclough offered drinks. It was a little early for Lynley, so he demurred, but Fairclough poured sherry for himself. He indicated the chairs, and they sat. He said, “You’re seeing more dirty laundry than I expected. I’m sorry about that.”
“Every family has its share,” Lynley noted. “My own included.”
“Not like mine, I wager.”
Lynley shrugged. He said, because at this point it had to be asked, “Do you want me to proceed, Bernard?”
“Why do you ask?”
Lynley steepled his fingers beneath his chin and looked at the coal fire. Lit by candle stubs beneath it, it was building nicely. The room would soon be quite warm. He said, “Aside from this business about Cresswell’s farm, which bears looking into, you may already have the result you prefer. If the coroner has declared it an accident, you might well want to leave it that way.”