Upon close examination, guilt was the prime mover behind so many kinds of devotion. Lynley wondered if it underlay Weaver’s devotion to his daughter. In his own mind, Weaver had sinned. Against his wife, Elena, and society itself. Fifteen years of guilt had grown out of his sin. Proving himself to Elena, smoothing the way for her, capturing her love, had apparently been the only expiation he saw for himself. Lynley felt a profound pity at the thought of the other man’s struggle to gain acceptance as what he already was: his daughter’s father. He wondered if Weaver had ever garnered the courage and taken the time to ask Elena if such extremes of behaviour and such torment of spirit were actually necessary to obtain her forgiveness.
“I don’t think he ever really knew her,” Adam said.
Lynley wondered if Weaver really knew himself. He got to his feet. “What time did you leave here last night after Dr. Weaver phoned you?”
“A bit after nine.”
“You locked the door?”
“Of course.”
“The same on Sunday night? Do you always lock it?”
“Yes.” Adam nodded his head towards the pine desk and its collection of equipment- word processor, two printers, fl oppy disks, and files. “That lot’s worth a fortune. The study door’s double bolted.”
“And the other doors?”
“The gyp and bedroom don’t have locks, but the main entry door does.”
“Did you ever use the Ceephone in here to contact Elena in her room? Or at Dr. Weaver’s home?”
“Occasionally, yes.”
“Did you know Elena ran in the morning?”
“With Mrs. Weaver.” Adam pulled a face. “Dr. Weaver wouldn’t let her run alone. She didn’t care for having Mrs. Weaver tag along, but the dog went as well, so it made the situation bearable. She loved the dog. And she loved to run.”
“Yes,” Lynley said thoughtfully. “Most people do.”
He nodded his goodbye and left the room. Two girls were sitting on the staircase outside the door, their knees drawn up, their heads together over an open textbook. They didn’t look up as he passed them, but their conversation ceased abruptly, only to resume once he reached the lower landing. He heard Adam Jenn’s voice call, “Katherine, Keelie, I’m ready for you now,” and went out into the chill autumn afternoon.
He looked across Ivy Court at the graveyard, thinking about his meeting with Adam Jenn, wondering what it must have been like to be caught between the father and the daughter, wondering most of all what that violent No! had meant when he asked the young man if he and Elena had been suited to each other. And still he knew nothing more about Sarah Gordon’s visit to Ivy Court than he had known before.
He glanced at his pocket watch. It was just after two. Havers would be a while with the Cambridge police. He had sufficient time to make the run to Crusoe’s Island. If nothing else, that would give him at least a modicum of information. He went to change his clothes.
9
Anthony Weaver stared at the discreet nameplate on the desk-P. L. Beck, Funeral Director-and felt overcome by a surge of simple-minded gratitude. This main business office of the mortuary was as unfunereal as good taste would allow it to be, and while its warm autumn colours and comfortable furniture did not alter the reality which had brought him here, at least it did not underscore the finality of his daughter’s death with sombre decorations, canned organ music, and lugubrious employees dressed in black.
Next to him, Glyn sat with her hands balled into her lap, both feet flat on the floor, her head and shoulders rigid. She did not look at him.
Upon her continued insistence throughout the morning, he’d taken her to the police station where, in spite of what he had tried to tell her, she had fully expected to find Elena’s body and be able to see it. When told that the body had been taken to autopsy, she had demanded to be allowed to observe the procedure. And when with a horrified look of supplication in Anthony’s direction, the female police constable working reception had gently said with apologies that it simply wasn’t possible, that it couldn’t be allowed, that at any rate the autopsy was performed in another location, not here at the station, and even if that weren’t the case, family members-
“I’m her mother!” Glyn cried. “She’s mine! I want to see her!”
The Cambridge police were not an unsympathetic lot. They took her quickly to a conference room where a concerned young secretary tried to ply her with mineral water which Glyn refused. A second secretary brought in a cup of tea. A traffic warden offered aspirin. And while anxious calls were put out for the police psychologist and the public relations officer, Glyn continued to insist that she see Elena. Her voice was tight and shrill. Her features were taut. When she didn’t get what she wanted, she began to shout.
Witness to all of this, Anthony felt only his own growing shame. It was directed at her for causing a humiliating public scene. It was directed at himself for being ashamed of her. So when she finally turned on him and fl ew in his direction and accused him of being too self-centred to be capable of identifying his own daughter’s body so how did they even know it was Elena Weaver whose body they had if they didn’t let her mother make the identifi cation, her mother who gave her birth, her mother who loved her, her mother who raised her alone, do you hear me alone you bastards he had nothing to do with anything after she was five years old because he had what he wanted he had his precious freedom all right so let me see her LET ME SEE HER…
I am wood, he had thought. Nothing she says can touch me. Although this stoic determination to remain inviolate sufficed to keep him from striking out in turn, it was not enough to prevent his unrestrained mind from shooting back through time, sifting through memories in an attempt to recall-let alone understand-what forces had ever brought him together with this woman in the first place.
It should have been something more than sex: a mutual interest, perhaps, a shared experience, a similarity of background, a goal, an ideal. Had any of those been present between them, they might have stood a fi ghting chance of survival. But instead it had been a drinks party in an elegant house off the Trumping-ton Road where some thirty postgraduates who had worked for his election had been invited to the victory celebration of the new local MP. At loose ends for the evening, Anthony had gone with a friend. Glyn Westhompson had done the same. Their shared indifference towards the esoteric machinations of Cambridge politics supplied the initial illusion of mutuality. Far too much champagne provided the physical allure. When he’d suggested that they take their own bottle out onto the terrace to watch the moonlight silver the trees in the garden, his intention had been a bit of casual kissing, a chance to fondle the ample breasts which he could see through the sheer material of her blouse, and an opportunity in privacy to slip his hand between her thighs.
But the terrace was dark, the night was quite warm, and Glyn’s reaction was not what he’d thought it might be. Her response to his kiss took him by surprise. Her eager mouth hungrily sucked his tongue. One hand unbuttoned her blouse and unhooked her bra while the other insinuated itself into his trousers. She moaned her arousal. She straddled his leg and rotated her hips.