A Banquet of Consequences

by Elizabeth George

  “Are you saying you took her to a bookstore, Dee?”

  She leveled a look at him. “Do you think I’m thick? I took her to Middlesex Street. I actually revealed to her the source of virtually my entire wardrobe. All right, not all of it. I mean, obviously, I do have some basic pieces—more or less foundations but not foundation garments in the strictest sense of the word, but building blocks on which anyone with any sense of fashion can begin to at least structure a wardrobe.”

  Lynley felt all out at sea. Nonetheless, he tried to look encouraging. He said, “Ah,” and waited for more.

  The lift doors opened. They stepped into the corridor, where Dorothea went on. “Essentially, I showed her everything. I explained how it’s done. We went over accessories and the importance of owning a very good steam iron and purchasing buttons to alter the look in order to make the piece seem more expensive. And I even told her where because if one wants vintage, one has to know where it can be found.”

  He went with one word, “Vintage?”

  “Vintage buttons, Detective Inspector. Leather-covered. Shell. Oyster. Even Bakelite. One takes a very simple suit that costs twenty pounds—”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, yes, they exist. Obviously you wouldn’t be seen dead in one, but—”

  “That’s hardly the case. I was about to ask where such bargains can be—”

  “Middlesex Street. Like I said. So if you take the suit or the jacket or whatever and change its buttons to something . . . well, rather flash . . . then people concentrate on the buttons instead of on the suit and because the buttons are special, they naturally conclude that the suit is as well.”

  “I see.” He held up the book. “As to this?”

  “She said she saw a poster advertising it. I have no idea where because within fifteen seconds of my getting her to the market, she’d disappeared in the direction of the food stalls.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  “She didn’t find it in one of the food stalls, of course. She found several plates of pad Thai or something. At least that’s what she told me. But when she gave me that”—a nod at the book—“she said it was down to our jaunt to the clothing market and thank you very much, Dorothea. Don’t ask me how she discovered it. P’rhaps someone handed it over to her in the hope that . . . whatever. I do not know.”

  Lynley opened the book and saw the inscription. He said, “It’s signed to you.”

  “It never is!” When Dorothea saw the title page, her blue eyes widened. Then they narrowed, as she apparently took in the barb behind being given such a book. “She did it as a joke then, didn’t she? She thinks I exist merely to capture a man because I think that’s what life is all about. I find a man and he rescues me from this”—with a wave of her arm to encompass all of New Scotland Yard—“and takes me to . . . to Surrey where we buy a twee little cottage and make babies together.”

  “Surely not Surrey,” Lynley said gravely but with a smile.

  She smiled as well, in spite of herself. “Berkshire then. Perhaps Buckinghamshire.”

  “Yes. Perhaps that,” he said.

  “Well, I shall sort her, Detective Inspector Lynley. My first plan didn’t work. Obviously.” She frowned for a moment and tapped her foot. She said, “Gardening? Vegetable growing? One can meet all sorts of men these days in gardening centres . . .”

  “Lord” was Lynley’s reply.

  “DIY, then. Going into those shops where you have to ask questions of guys who’re only too happy . . .” A sudden thought seemed to strike her. “Which, by the way, brings us back to where we started, doesn’t it? You never answered me. Why d’you have paint in your hair? You’ve never seemed the DIY type.”

  “Dorothea,” he said, “there are depths to me of which you are completely unaware.”

  “Hmmm. But fuchsia, Detective Inspector Lynley?”

  “Let it be our secret,” he replied.

  BELSIZE PARK

  LONDON

  Fuchsia was merely the accent colour in the bathroom, a touch of it only in a horizontal stripe six inches above a wainscoting of white tiles set in, he’d learned, a pattern called subway. Otherwise, the room was a pale grey with darker grey towels and further touches of fuchsia in what Daidre called “the extras.” These consisted of a vase, a rug on the floor that was polka-dotted, and a vertical stripe rendered in special paint for fabric on the roman blind that covered the new double-glazed window—“energy-efficient, Tommy”—that she’d had installed. That window, the electrical wiring, and the plumbing were the three projects that Daidre Trahair had not taken on herself. The rest of the room she’d done by inches and degrees on her free time away from London Zoo, where she was the large-animal veterinarian. When Lynley had time and when he wished to see her, he was her man Friday in the DIY renovation of a disastrous flat in Belsize Park which she’d purchased in order to have a home near to the zoo. She could bicycle there, she’d declared. And once the flat was made liveable, she’d be in her element.

  He’d had his doubts about the project, but Daidre had pooh-poohed them. She’d declared herself very handy, and she’d proved that over the months she’d been in residence. She’d done the bathroom as project number one, and the accent paint had gone up last. He’d lent a hand, not because he was particularly handy himself—he absolutely was not—but because it was the only way to spend a few hours with her at present.

  Now with the key she’d given him, he let himself into the flat that same evening. He’d come armed with yet another pizza as their dinner, walking it down from the shops in Belsize village and trying not to consider that he’d not eaten so much pizza since his time at university. He set it under the bay window where they took their makeshift meals when he called upon her. Their seating consisted of two camping stools; their table was the discarded window from the bathroom placed over two rusty lobster pots that Daidre declared she’d found among the rubble in her back garden when she’d had the filthy stove and the disreputable fridge hauled away from where they’d been shoved by their previous owner.

  There was no kitchen yet. There was barely a bedroom. Daidre slept on a camp bed kitted out with a sleeping bag in the larger of the two rooms designated for that purpose, but like the kitchen, that room remained what it had been when she’d made her purchase: a wreck with holes in the walls and a window painted blue and painted shut. It wasn’t high on her priority list, she said. The kitchen, she’d told him, had to come next. How are you with kitchens, Tommy? she’d asked. His skills there, he’d told her, were fairly comparable to those for bathrooms.

  The nature of their relationship remained as she’d told him from the very first it would have to be. She held a large part of herself to herself, and Lynley understood that she believed she had to do this. But he continued to want to draw her out, and he’d begun to ask himself if this longing had to do with the challenge she presented or with something more than that. He had no answer yet. But she was, he thought, completely self-reliant and utterly self-sufficient, and this also made her profoundly intriguing.

  He went to check on the kitchen. He saw that, according to plan, the new double-glazed window had been installed sometime today. The French windows for behind the room’s eating area leaned against the far wall that, at present, featured only a narrow doorway to the garden. Those French windows would go in next, but only when the construction on the wall had been completed, which it had not. Nothing else had been done.

  He returned to what would be the sitting room. He’d brought with him Looking for Mr. Darcy and he reached in his jacket for his spectacles and dipped into the book as he waited for Daidre. It began, he saw, with the subject of Tristan and Iseult. This myth, declared the author, was where the entire wrongheaded modern idea of romantic love had begun, centuries ago, within the tale of a knight, his lady, and the great impossibility of their passion for each other.

>   Lynley was deep into Tristan’s half of the tale when he heard Daidre’s key in the lock. He set the book aside, removed his glasses, and rose from the camping stool. She came in, rolling her bicycle into the flat and saying with a start, “Tommy! I didn’t see your car.” She looked back over her shoulder, apparently trying to work this out. “Surely you didn’t come by public transport.”

  “You know me too well. It’s parked up in the village. I walked from there. With dinner, as it happens,” and he indicated the pizza box.

  “Is someone minding the Healey Elliott, then? Are you paying a twelve-year-old to keep the dust from its bonnet?”

  He smiled at this. “He’s fifteen.”

  “And happy to be of service, I expect. Are you letting him sit in it?”

  “Good Lord. I’d hardly go that far.”

  She leaned the bicycle against the wall and said as he took a step towards her to kiss her hello, “Keep at a distance. I must have a shower. What have you brought?”

  “They were having a special on goat at the Turkish restaurant.”

  “Why do I see a pizza box, then?”

  “A clever disguise. Had I walked out of the place with the appropriate takeaway carton, there’s a very good chance I would have been mobbed.”

  “Hmmm. Yes. Well, I hope the ‘goat’ is olive, mushroom, and mozzarella.”

  “Why else live I in our native land?”

  She laughed. Once again, he began to cross the room to her. She held up her hand. “Elephants, today. Truly. I must have a shower.” She dashed away from him, down the narrow corridor and to the bathroom, where she closed the door.

  She liked her showers long, so Lynley knew she would be a while. He took out his spectacles again, went back to his camping stool, and picked up the book along with a glass of the wine they’d not finished three nights earlier. He continued his reading.

  He moved on to Iseult’s half of the tale, the Irish daughter of the sorceress Queen. She was the feminine ideal, he saw, the other half of a doomed courtly romance. He was on to the author’s analysis of this when Daidre returned. She stood behind him, put her hand on his shoulder, and he caught the fresh scent of her as she said, “Looking for Mr. Darcy? What on earth are you reading? Are you seeking some pointers in the area of masculine perfection? Or merely wondering why women are still smitten by someone so . . . so . . .”

  “So?” he enquired, looking up at her.

  “Well, he’s a terrible snob, isn’t he?”

  “The marriage proposal was rather teeth-grating,” Lynley said. “But he was brought to his knees in the end by the love of a good woman. At least that’s what we’re led to believe, along with the assertion that despite having the most horrifying mother-in-law in literature, he and his wife managed to live happily ever after at Pemberley among the Van Dycks and Rembrandts and on the vast acreage inclusive, as I recall, of a very fine trout stream.”

  “That was the ticket to their happiness, I expect. One does love fresh trout. So what is that, actually?” She nodded at the book.

  He told her of the book’s origins, ending with, “Dorothea believes that Barbara must have a diversion from fixating on her work troubles. A sexual diversion, to be specific. For her part, Barbara apparently believes that Dorothea needs her thinking adjusted on the topic of men.”

  “Sounds like a friendship made in heaven. And you?”

  He set the book on the floor and rose. “I was merely engaged in some light reading as I waited for you.”

  “Has your thinking undergone an adjustment from your reading?”

  “It’s all so blasted difficult, isn’t it?”

  “Entanglements generally are. Which is why I avoid them, preferring animals instead.”

  He gazed at her and she met that gaze directly. There was no challenge in her eyes, for that was not her way. Daidre spoke the truth as she knew it. It was part of her appeal. He said, “Right. But let’s not drift in that direction just now. I’ve not said hello to you properly.”

  “You’re better off for it. Because of the elephants. I do think the shower’s taken care of that, though.”

  “I hope so, although it probably wouldn’t have mattered much.”

  “Have you ever smelled elephant?”

  “On my bucket list.” He kissed her lightly and then again. He found the scent of her intoxicating, despite its being merely the scent of her soap and shampoo.

  She ended the kiss but not all at once, and he found that gratifying. She gazed at him with unmistakable fondness. “You’ve had wine,” she said. “I haven’t. It’s hardly fair.”

  “That can, of course, be immediately remedied.”

  “A very good idea.” She went to their makeshift table and opened the pizza box. He watched her, noting the unselfconscious nature of her movements as she brushed her damp sandy hair off her face, securing it behind her ears, and then sat and dipped into the olive, mushroom, and mozzarella masterpiece. She took a bite and looked up at him. “After a day with elephants, heaven,” she declared. She gestured with the pizza slice at his own camping stool and at the book that lay next to it on the floor. “So tell me about Looking for Mr. Darcy and living happily ever after,” she said. “I note it has the word myth in its title.”

  CAMBERWELL

  SOUTH LONDON

  It was half past seven when Charlie Goldacre rang the bell at India’s small house in Benhill Road. There were no lights on, but he told himself that she could be in a back room of the place. She wasn’t. When no one answered his ring, he stepped back from the tiny front porch to look above at the first-floor windows. Nothing indicated a human presence.

  He gazed round the neighbourhood. While it was true that he could have just as well phoned her with the message he wished to deliver, he’d thought it wiser to come in person. Now, however, what to do?

  He decided upon a walk to Camberwell Church Street, just at the end of Benhill Road. If he could find a moderately decent pub there, he could while away an hour or so and then return in the hope that India would have arrived home.

  He set off up the street. He didn’t get far. He was opposite a nondescript yellow building with the look of a community centre when the sound of raucous, joyful singing burst forth from the open doors. He slowed.

  It was gospel music, sung a cappella. The volume of it along with the lyrics arrested him, declaring that Abel’s blood for vengeance / Pleaded to the skies; / But the blood of Jesus / For our pardon cries. As the song continued, Charlie crossed over curiously. Then he saw that the building in question wasn’t a community centre at all, but rather Jesus Saviour Pentecostal Church of Camberwell, and what he was hearing was the church’s choir in rehearsal. Oft as it is sprinkled / On our guilty hearts. / Satan in confusion / Terror struck departs, they sang.

  He peeked in the doorway from the vestibule. At least forty strong, the choir stood on risers in what served as the chancel, their director before them. As Charlie watched, he pointed out a soloist who stepped forward and belted out the next verse. It was a mixed bag of people in the choir, he saw, a real United Nations of church going. They wore their street clothes, as did their director, but Charlie could imagine them as they would be on a Sunday, kitted out in red or blue or gold cassocks and moving rhythmically, as they were at the moment, to the uplifting beat of the song. He was thinking that having a listen to them would be far more enjoyable than whiling away an hour alone in a pub when he saw India.

  She was, amazingly, in the choir. She was, as joyfully as the others, clapping and singing the backup notes in accompaniment of the soloist.

  To Charlie, it was an astounding sight: India, his self-effacing wife, in a mixed-race choir, openly enjoying herself. He could not remember ever having seen her like this. He pulled back and looked round the vestibule. There was a window ledge with brochures fanned out on it. He went to this and leaned against
it. He would wait for her here and listen.

  There were four more songs to be rehearsed. He found they did much to buoy his spirits. When the rehearsal ended, he heard the choir director giving them instructions for Sunday’s service. He concluded with, “And you, Izzy Bolting, had better show up on time because there is no way I’m allowing you to slip into the choir late, fall on your bum, and make us all look like damn fools again.” Someone called out, “Language, Pastor Perkins!” and laughter followed this. Then came the sounds of the choir noisily disbanding. Footsteps trod up the aisle.

  Before any of the choir members reached the vestibule, however, a man entered the church, and Charlie shrank back. He recognised him as India’s new bloke, Nat, obviously there to fetch her. The man wouldn’t recognise Charlie, but still Charlie did not come forward. Thus, he saw the greeting between the two of them—India and her bloke—before either one of them knew he was there.

  She came out with the last of the choir. She walked to Nat at once, saying, “You’re here. Lovely. I’ve just got to pop back to the house for five minutes,” and lifting her face to his for a kiss. She said, “Hmm. You taste of chocolate.”

  He said, “On purpose. Would you like more?” and she laughed.

  She stepped back from him, and that was when she saw Charlie by the window. Immediately all colour drained from her face. At that, Charlie knew that India had begun sleeping with the other man. He felt momentarily paralysed by his own agony.

  India said, “Charlie! What are you doing here? How did you know where to find me?”

  He took from this that she thought he’d been stalking her again, and he wanted to protest, but at India’s saying of his name, Nat put his arm protectively round her shoulders in a way that made Charlie wonder exactly what she’d said about him. Was it that he hadn’t adjusted yet to the end of things between them? Was it that he’d been trying to reason with her, to explain that he was attempting to overcome those things about himself that she’d said he needed to overcome? Or was it more than that . . . such as what it was like to be with him when he was at his most pathetic, requiring her to be the Madonna and the whore simultaneously for him so that he could reach one searing moment of forgetting? Charlie couldn’t believe India would have told Nat about that. But it seemed to him that she’d revealed something because knowledge of a sort flashed across the man’s face and with that knowledge a bone-deep contempt.