“That's arguable.”
“It is the way of things. All of nature speaks to support this simple, true order of the world. One sex is created by God to attract the other.”
Lynley didn't point out that the natural order of which Ferrer spoke generally called for the male—not the female—of a species to be more attractive in order to be acceptable as a mate. Instead, he said, “Finding Nicola attractive, you did something to support God's natural order, then.”
“As I say, it meant nothing of a serious nature. I knew this. She knew it as well.” He smiled, not without fondness it seemed. “She enjoyed the game of it. I could see this in her when first we met.”
“When she was twenty?”
“It is a false woman who doesn't know her own allure. Nicola was not a false woman. She knew. I saw. She saw that I saw. The rest …” He gave another quintessentially Gallic shrug. “There are limits to every communion between men and women. If one remembers the limits, one's happiness within the communion is safeguarded.”
Lynley made the interruption adroitly. “Nicola knew you wouldn't leave your wife.”
“She did not require that I leave my wife. She had no interest there, believe me.”
“Then where?”
“Her interest?” He smiled, as if with memory. “The places we met. The exertion required of me to get to the places. What was left of my energy once I arrived. And how well I was able to use it.”
“Ah.” Lynley considered the places: the caves, the barrows, the prehistoric villages, the Roman forts. Oooh-la-la, he thought. Or, as Barbara Havers might have said, Bingo, Inspector. They had Mr. Postcard. “You and Nicola made love—”
“We had sex, not love. Our game was to choose a different site for each meeting. Nicola would pass a message to me. A map sometimes. Sometimes a riddle. If I could interpret it correctly, follow it correctly …” Again that shrug. “She would be there to provide the reward.”
“How long had you been lovers?”
Ferrer hesitated before replying, either doing the maths or assessing the damage of revealing the truth. Finally, he chose. “Five years.”
“Since you first came to the Hall.”
“This is the case,” he admitted. “I would, of course, prefer that Monsieur and Madame. … It would only serve to distress them unnecessarily. We were always discreet. We never left the Hall together. We returned first one, then the other later. So they never knew.”
And never had reason to sack you, Lynley thought.
The Frenchman seemed to feel the necessity for a further explanation. “It was that look she gave me when first we met. You know what I mean. I could tell from the look. Her interest matched my own. There is sometimes an animal need between a man and a woman. This is not love. This is not devotion. This is just what one feels—a pain, a pressure, a need—here.” He indicated his groin. “You, a man, you feel this as well. Not every woman has an ache that matches that of a man. But Nicola had. I saw that at once.”
“And did something about it.”
“As was her wish. The game of it came later.”
“The game was her idea?”
“Her way … It was why I never sought another woman while in England. There was no need. She had a way to make a simple affair …” He sought a word to describe it. “Magic,” he settled on. “Exciting. I would not have thought myself capable of fidelity to a mere mistress over five years. One woman had never held me more than three months before Nicola.”
“The game of it was what she enjoyed? That's what kept her tied to the affair with you?”
“The game kept me tied. For her, there was the physical pleasure, naturally.”
There was also the ego, Lynley thought wryly. He said, “Five years is a long time to keep a woman interested, especially with no hope of any future.”
“Of course, there were the tokens as well,” Ferrer admitted. “They were small, but all true symbols of my esteem. I have so little money because most of it … My Estelle would wonder if the money changed … what I send to her, you see … if it became less. So there were tokens only, but they were enough.”
“Gifts to Nicola?”
“Gifts, if you will. Perfume. A gold charm or two. This pleased her. And the game went on.” He dug into his pocket and removed the small tool he'd been using on the bicycle spokes. He hunkered down and went at them again, tightening each spoke with infinite patience. He said, “I shall miss her, my little Nicola. We didn't love. But how we laughed.”
“When you wanted the game to begin,” Lynley said, “how did you let her know?”
The Frenchman raised his head, his expression puzzled. “Please?”
“Did you leave her a note? Did you page her?”
“Ah. No. It was the look between us. Nothing else was needed.”
“So you never paged her?”