Believing the Lie (26 page)

“Just a trip to Greenford.” Barbara said nothing more but Hadiyyah added, “That’s where Barbara’s mum lives, Mummy. She’s not well, is she, Barbara?”

Barbara certainly didn’t want to entertain the topic of her mother, so she sought a different subject. Angelina being 100 percent female in ways Barbara could only dream of, Barbara pulled a topic out of the air that seemed the sort of subject a 100 percent female might wish to pursue.

Hair. More to the point, the fact that, upon Isabelle Ardery’s strongly worded recommendation, she was going to have to do something with hers. Angelina had mentioned, Barbara recalled, that she knew of a beauty parlour…?

“Salon!” Hadiyyah crowed. “Barbara, it’s not a parlour. It’s a salon!”

“Hadiyyah,” her mother said sternly. “That’s very rude. And
parlour
is fine, by the way.
Salon
is more modern, but it hardly matters. Don’t be so silly.” To Barbara she said, “Yes, of course, I do know, Barbara. It’s where I get my own hair done.”

“D’you think they could…?” Barbara wasn’t even sure what she was meant to ask for. A haircut? A styling? A colour job? What? She’d been cutting her own hair for years and while it generally looked exactly as one would expect a self-cut hairstyle to look—which was not like a style at all but rather like an application of scissors to head during a thunderstorm—it had long served the simple purpose of keeping it out of her face. That, however, was no longer going to suit, at least as far as Barbara’s superior officer at the Met was concerned.

“They could do whatever you’d like them to do. They’re very good. I can give you their number. And my stylist’s name. He’s called Dusty and he’s a bit of a flamboyant arse I’m afraid—if you’ll excuse me, Hadiyyah, don’t tell your father I said
arse
in front of you—but if you can get past the fact that he’s completely full of his own excruciating wonderfulness, he’s actually quite good with hair. In fact, why don’t I make you an appointment and come with you as well? Unless, of course, you think that too intrusive.”

Barbara wasn’t sure what she thought about having Azhar’s lover along for the ride of her self-improvement. Hadiyyah had done this service before Angelina’s return to her daughter’s life, but making the switch to her mother and what was
implied
by making the switch to her mother…a movement towards friendship…She wasn’t sure.

Angelina seemed to sense this hesitation because she said, “Well, let me fetch you that number and in the meantime, think about it. I’m completely happy to go with you.”

“Where is it, exactly, this par…salon?”

“Knightsbridge.”

“Knightsbridge?” God, now
that
would cost a fortune.

“It’s not the moon, Barbara,” Hadiyyah said.

Her mother lifted a warning finger. “Hadiyyah Khalidah—”

“S’okay,” Barbara said. “She knows me too well. If you give me the number, I’ll phone them right now. You want to come as well, kiddo?” she asked Hadiyyah.

“Oh yes yes yes!” Hadiyyah cried. “Mummy, I c’n go with Barbara, can’t I?”

“You as well,” Barbara said to Angelina. “I think I’ll need all the help I can get for this enterprise.”

Angelina smiled. She had, Barbara noted, a very pretty smile. Azhar had never told her how he’d met Angelina, but she reckoned it was the woman’s smile that he’d first noticed about her. Since he was male, he’d probably gone right on to her body next, which was lithe and feminine and clothed in appealing and well-groomed ways Barbara could never have hoped to duplicate.

She took out her mobile phone in anticipation of making the call, but it rang before she was able to do so. She looked at the number and saw it was Lynley. She didn’t like the delight that swept through her when she recognised his number.

“Time for a rain check on the hair,” she said to Angelina. “I have to take this call.”

CHALK FARM
LONDON

“What are you doing?” Lynley asked her. “Where are you? Can you talk?”

“My vocal cords haven’t been cut, if that’s what you mean,” Barbara said. “If, on the other hand, you mean is it safe…God, that’s what he kept saying to Dustin Hoffman, isn’t it? I might be losing my bloody mind if I’m starting to quote—”

“Barbara, what are you talking about?”

“Laurence Olivier.
Marathon Man.
Don’t ask. I’m at home, more or less. I mean I’m on the terrace outside Azhar’s flat, having been saved at the final moment from making an appointment to have my hair styled to please Acting Detective Superintendent Ardery. I was thinking Big Hair, circa 1980. Or one of those complicated World War II jelly-roll affairs, if you know what I mean. Masses of hair on either side of the forehead wound round something and looking like salami. I’ve always wondered what it was they used to get that style. Toilet rolls, p’rhaps?”

“Should I anticipate all future conversations with you to take this bent?” Lynley enquired. “Frankly, I’ve always thought your appeal lay in your complete indifference to personal grooming.”

“Those days are past, sir. What c’n I do for you? I reckon this isn’t a personal call, made to see if I’m keeping my legs shaved.”

“I need you to do some digging for me, but it’s got to be completely out of everyone’s sight and hearing. It might involve legwork as well. Are you willing? More, can you manage that?”

“This’s to do with whatever you’re up to, I reckon. Everyone’s talking, you know.”

“About?”

“Where you are, why you are, who sent you, and all the trimmings. Common thought is you’re investigating a monumental cock-up somewhere. Police corruption, with you on tiptoe fading into the woodwork to catch someone taking a payoff or someone else putting electrodes to a suspect’s cobblers. You know what I mean.”

“And you?”

“What do I think? Hillier’s got you up to your eyeballs in something he himself doesn’t want to touch with a ten-foot plastic one. You put a step wrong, you take the fall, he still smells like dewdrops on roses. Am I close?”

“On the Hillier part. But it’s just a favour.”

“And that’s all you can say.”

“For the moment. Are you willing?”

“What? To lend a hand?”

“No one can know. You have to fly beneath the radar. Everyone’s but particularly—”

“The superintendent’s.”

“It could get you into trouble with her. Not in the long run, but in the short term.”

“Why else do I breathe in our native land?” Barbara said. “Tell me what you need.”

CHALK FARM
LONDON

As soon as Lynley said
Fairclough,
Barbara knew. This wasn’t due to the fact that she had her fingers on the pulse of the life of everyone possessing a title in the UK. Far be that from the fact. Rather it was due to her being a devout albeit closet reader of
The Source
. She was addicted and had been so for years, an absolute victim to four-inch headlines and deliciously compromising photographs. Whenever she passed an advertising placard set up on the pavement and screaming a front-page story on sale inside this tobacconist or that corner shop, her feet went into the place of their own accord, she handed over her money, and she had a good wallow, generally over an afternoon cuppa and a toasted tea cake. Thus,
Fairclough
was a familiar name to her, not only as it referenced the Baron of Ireleth and his business—which had garnered many journalistic guffaws over the years—but also as it attached itself to his loose-living scion, Nicholas.

She also knew at once where Lynley was: in Cumbria, where the Faircloughs and Fairclough Industries were based. What she didn’t know was how Hillier knew the Faircloughs and what he’d asked Lynley to do regarding the family. In other words, she wasn’t sure if it was a case of we’re-for-’em or we’re-against-’em, but she reckoned that, if there was a title involved, Hillier was cosying up to the for-’em side. Hillier had a thing about titles, especially those that were above his own rank, which was all of them.

So this probably had to do with Lord Fairclough and not his
wastrel son, long the subject of tabloid exposés along with other rich young things throwing their lives away. But the list of Lynley’s interests suggested that he was casting a very wide net indeed since they involved a will, an insurance policy,
The Source
, Bernard Fairclough, and the most recent edition of
Conception
magazine. They also involved someone called Ian Cresswell, identified as Fairclough’s nephew. And for good measure—if she had time to pursue the matter—someone called Alatea Vasquez y del Torres, hailing from somewhere in Argentina called Santa Maria di whatever, might bear looking into. But only if she had the time, Lynley stressed, because at the moment the real digging needed to be about Fairclough. Fairclough the father, not the son, he emphasised.

LAKE WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA

Freddie’s next Internet date had spent the night and while Manette always tried to think of herself as a with-it sort of woman, this did seem a bit much to her. Her ex-husband was no schoolboy, to be sure, and he certainly wasn’t asking for her opinion on the matter. But for the love of God, it had been their
first
date and where was the world going to—or more to the point, where was Freddie going to?—if men and women tried each other out in bed as a modern-day form of singing “Getting to Know You”? But that’s exactly what had happened, according to Freddie, and it had been her idea. The woman’s! According to Freddie, she’d said, “Really, there’d be no point in carrying on further if we’re not sexually compatible, Freddie, don’t you agree?”

Well, Freddie was a man, after all. Presented with the opportunity, what was he going to do, ask for six months of chastity to give them time to suss each other out on matters from politics to prestidigitation? Plus, it seemed reasonable enough to him. Times were changing, after all. So two glasses of wine at the local and home they came to take the plunge. Evidently, they’d found all their parts in
working order and the experience pleasurable, so they’d done it two more times—again, this was according to Freddie—and she’d spent the rest of the night. There she’d been, having coffee with him in the kitchen when Manette came downstairs in the morning. She’d been wearing Freddie’s shirt and nothing else, which left her showing a lot of leg and not a small part of where the leg came from. And like a cat with canary feathers hanging from her mouth, she said to Manette, “Hello. You must be Freddie’s ex. I’m Holly.”

Holly? Holly! What sort of name was that? Her former husband was going for a shrub? Manette looked at Freddie—who at least had the grace to turn puce—and then poured herself a hasty cup of coffee, after which she retreated to her bathroom. There, Freddie came to apologise for the uneasiness of the situation—not, Manette noted, for having had the woman stay the night—and he said in best Freddie fashion that in the future he’d spend the night at their places instead of the reverse. “It all just happened between us rather quickly,” he told her. “I’d not intended it.”

But Manette homed in on
their places
, and this was how she learned that times had changed and that instantaneous copulation had become the new form of shaking hands. She’d sputtered, “You mean, you intend to try out every one of them?”

“Well, it does seem to be the way things are done these days.”

She’d tried to tell him that this was lunacy. She’d lectured him about STDs, unplanned pregnancies, entrapment, and everything else she could think of. What she didn’t say was that they had a very good situation, she and Freddie, living as roommates, because she didn’t want to hear him say that it was time they both moved on. At the end of it all, though, he’d kissed her forehead, told her not to worry about him, revealed he had another date that night, declared he might therefore not be home afterwards, and said he’d see her at work. He’d take his own car today, he told her, because this date lived in Barrow-in-Furness, and they were meeting at Scorpio nightclub so if she wanted to hook up seriously—Freddie actually
said
“hook up seriously”—they’d go to her place as it was apparently too far to drive to Great Urswick if their knickers were on fire.

Manette wailed, “But, Freddie…!” yet realised there was nothing
else she could say. She could hardly accuse him of being unfaithful or destroying what she and he had or acting hastily. They weren’t married, they “had” next to nothing, and they’d been divorced long enough that Freddie’s decision to get back into the world of dating—as bizarre as that world now apparently was—had not been made on the fly. He wasn’t that sort of man, anyway. And one only had to look at him to understand why women would be happy to try him out as a mate: He was fresh and sweet and not half bad-looking.

No, she had no rights here, and Manette knew it. But she mourned something lost all the same.

Nonetheless, there were things to be seen to that went beyond her situation with Freddie, and she found that she was grateful for them, although she wouldn’t have thought so on the previous day after her confrontation with Niamh Cresswell. Something had to be done about Niamh, and while Manette herself was powerless when it came to the woman, she was not powerless when it came to Tim and Gracie. If she had to move a mountain to help those children, then that was what she intended to do.

She drove to Ireleth Hall. She thought there was a good chance that Kaveh Mehran would be there since he’d been long engaged in designing a children’s garden for the estate, as well as overseeing the implementation of this design. The garden was intended for Nicholas’s future children—and wasn’t
that
like counting chickens, Manette thought—and considering the size of the garden that had been staked out, it looked as if Valerie was expecting dozens of them.

She was in luck, Manette saw upon her arrival. She traipsed round to the location of the future children’s garden, which was north of the immense and fantastical topiary garden, and she saw not only Kaveh Mehran but her father as well. There was another man with them whom Manette did not recognise but reckoned was “the earl” that her sister had phoned her about.

“Widower,” Mignon had told her. Manette could hear the tapping of her keyboard in the background, so she knew her sister was doing her usual multitasking: e-mailing one of her online lovers while simultaneously dismissing what she’d reckoned was a potential
offline one. “It’s rather obvious why Dad’s dragged him up here from London. Hope springs eternal, et cetera. And now I’ve had the surgery and lost all the weight, he reckons I’m ready for a suitor. A regular Charlotte Lucas, just waiting for Mr. Collins to show up. God, how embarrassing. Well, dream on, Pater. I’m quite happy where I am, thank you very much.”