“The scandal we were speaking of earlier?”
“Anthony always had too much of himself tied into Elena’s performance here in Cambridge. He involved himself in every aspect of her life. How she acted and dressed, how she took notes in her lectures, how she comported herself in her supervisions. These were weighty matters to him. I think he believed that he would be judged-as a man, a parent, an academic even-dependent upon her success or failure here.”
“Was the Penford Chair tied into all this?”
“In his mind, I should think so. In reality, no.”
“But if he thought judgement of himself was going to be connected to Elena’s performance and behaviour-”
“Then he would want to see to it that she performed and behaved as the daughter of a respected professor should. Elena knew that. She could sense that attitude in everything her father did, and she resented him for it. So you can imagine the vast and-to Elena- amusing possibilities for his humiliation and her revenge when it became known that his daughter was having it off on a regular basis with one of his close colleagues.”
“Didn’t you mind being used in this way?”
“I was living every fantasy I’d ever entertained about making love to a woman and having a woman make love to me. We met at least three times a week from Christmas on and I loved every moment of it. I didn’t care about her motives in the least as long as she kept coming round to see me and taking off her clothes.”
“You met here, then?”
“Generally. I managed to get to London several times during the summer break to see her as well. And on a few weekend afternoons and evenings at her father’s house during term.”
“When he was home?”
“Only once, during a party. She found that particularly exciting.” He shrugged although his cheeks had begun to flush. “I found it rather exciting as well. I suppose it was the sheer terror of thinking we might be caught going at it.”
“But you weren’t?”
“Never. Justine knew-she’d found out somehow, she may well have guessed or Elena may have told her-but she never actually caught us in the act.”
“She never told her husband?”
“She wouldn’t have wanted to bear that sort of witness against Elena, Inspector. As far as Anthony was concerned, it would have been a case of kill the messenger, and Justine knew that better than anyone. So she held her tongue. I imagine she was waiting for Anthony to find things out on his own.”
“Which he never did.”
“Which he never did.” Troughton shifted his position in his chair, crossing one leg over the other and pulling out his cigarette case once again. He merely played it from hand to hand, however. He didn’t open it. “Of course, he would have been told eventually.”
“By you?”
“No. I imagine Elena would have wanted that pleasure.”
Lynley found it hard to believe that Trough-ton had no conscience in the matter of Elena. He had obviously felt no need to guide her. He had seen no necessity for urging her to deal with her resentment towards her father in another way. “But, Dr. Troughton, what I don’t understand is-”
“Why I went along with the game?” Trough-ton set the cigarette case next to the balloon glass. He studied the picture they made, side by side. “Because I loved her. At first it was her body-the incredible sensation of holding and touching that beautiful body. But then it was her. Elena. She was wild and ungovernable, laughing and alive. And I wanted that in my life. I didn’t care about the cost.”
“Even if it meant posing as the father of her child?”
“Even that, Inspector. Once she told me she was pregnant, I nearly convinced myself that the vasectomy had gone wrong all those years ago and that the child was really mine.”
“Have you any idea who the father was?”
“No. But I’ve spent hours since last Wednesday wondering about it.”
“Where have your thoughts led you?”
“To the same conclusion again and again. If she slept with me to have revenge on her father, whomever else she slept with, it was for the same reason. It didn’t have anything to do with love.”
“Yet you were willing to take up a life with her in spite of knowing all this?”
“Pathetic, isn’t it? I wanted passion again. I wanted to feel alive. I told myself that I would be good for her. I thought that with me she would be able to let go of her grievances against Anthony eventually. I believed I’d be enough for her. I’d be able to heal her. It was an adolescent little fantasy that I clung to till the end.”
Lady Helen placed her balloon glass on the table next to Troughton’s. She kept her fi ngers carefully on its rim. She said, “And what about your wife?”
“I hadn’t told her about Elena yet.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know,” he said. “You meant what about the fact that Rowena bore my children and did my laundry and cooked my meals and cleaned my house. What about those seventeen years of loyalty and devotion. What about my commitment to her, not to mention my responsibilities to the University, to my students, to my colleagues. What about my ethics and my morals and my values and my conscience. That’s what you meant, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is.”
He looked away from them, eyes focussed on nothing. “Some kinds of marriages wear at a person until the only thing left is a body that’s simply going through the motions.”
“I wonder if that’s your wife’s conclusion as well.”
“Rowena wants out of this marriage as much as I do. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
Now, in the darkness on the terrace, Lynley felt burdened not only by Troughton’s assessment of his marriage but also by the mixture of revulsion and indifference he had expressed towards his wife. More than anything, he wished Helen had not been with him to hear the story of his attachment to Elena Weaver and his maddeningly level-headed rationale for that attachment. For as the historian had calmly outlined his reasons for turning away from his wife and seeking the company and the love of a woman young enough to be his daughter, Lynley believed he had fi nally come to understand at least part of what lay at the root of Helen’s refusal to marry him.
The understanding had been an uneasiness churning within him-asking to be noticed- since the start of the evening in Bulstrode Gardens. It had demanded some sort of spoken release in the musty confines of Victor Troughton’s study.
What we ask of them, he thought. What we expect, what we demand. But never what we will give in return. Never what they want. And never a moment’s thorough consideration of the burdens which our desires and requirements place upon them.
He looked up at the vast grey darkness of the cloud-heavy sky. A distant light winked in it.
“What are you seeing?” Lady Helen asked him.
“A shooting star, I think. Close your eyes, Helen. Quickly. Make a wish.” He did so himself.
She laughed at him quietly. “You’re wishing on a plane, Tommy. It’s heading for Heath-row.”
He opened his eyes, saw that she was right. “I’ve no viable future in astronomy, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t believe that. You used to point out all the constellations to me. In Cornwall. Don’t you remember?”
“It was all show, Helen darling. I was trying to impress you.”