She wouldn't begin to buy that line of thinking. Any pity Barbara might have mustered for the man was erased by two senseless deaths in Derbyshire and the image of what he'd done to Vi Nevin. He'd pay for those crimes. But a prison term—no matter its length—didn't seem enough recompense for blackmail, suicide, murder, assault, and the aftermath of each. She said, “You might want to know the truth of the matter about Terry Cole's intentions, Mr. King-Ryder. In fact, I think it's important that you know.”
And so she told him that all Terry Cole had wanted was a simple address and telephone number. In fact, had Matthew King-Ryder offered to take the music off his hands and pay him handsomely for bringing it to the offices of King-Ryder Productions, the boy would probably have been thrilled to the dickens.
“He didn't even know what it was,” Barbara said. “He hadn't the slightest idea in the world that he'd put his hands on the music to Hamlet.”
Matthew King-Ryder absorbed this information. But if Barbara had hoped she was dealing him a mortal blow that would worsen his coming life in prison, she was disabused of that notion when he replied. “He's to blame for it all. If he hadn't interfered, my dad would be alive.”
Lynley reached Eaton Terrace at ten that night. He found his wife in the bathroom, sunk in a fragrant citrus froth of bubbles. Her eyes were closed, her head cradled in a towelling pillow, and her hands—garbed incongruously in white satin gloves—rested on the spotless stainless steel tray that spanned the width of the bath and held her soaps and her sponges. A CD player sat on the vanity amid a clutter of Helens unguents, potions, and creams. Music emanated from it. A soprano sang.
They lay him—gently and softly—in the cold cold ground,
they lay him—gently and softly—in the cold cold ground.
And here am I, a child without a light, to see me through the coming
storm, with no one here to tell me I am not alone.
Lynley reached for the off button. “Ophelia, I expect, once Hamlet's killed Polonius.”
Helen splashed in the bath behind him. “Tommy! You frightened me half to death.”
“Sorry.”
“Have you just now got in?”
“Yes. Tell me about the gloves, Helen.”
“The gloves?” Helens glance shifted to her hands. “Oh! The gloves. It's my cuticles. I'm giving them a treatment, a combination of heat and oil.”
“That's a relief,” he said.
“Why? Had you noticed my cuticles?”
“No. But I thought you were anticipating a future as the Queen, which would mean our relationship has come to an end. Have you ever seen the Queen without her gloves?”
“Hmm. I don't think I have. But you don't suppose she actually bathes with them on, do you?”
“It's a possibility. She may loathe human contact even with herself.”
Helen laughed. “I'm so glad you're home.” She peeled off the gloves and plunged her hands into the water. She settled back against her pillow and regarded him. “Tell me” she said gently. “Please.”
It was her way, and Lynley hoped it would always be her way: to read him so swiftly and to open herself to him with those three simple words.
He pulled a stool over to the side of the bath. He took off his jacket, dropped it onto the floor, rolled up his sleeves, and reached for one of the sponges and some soap. He took her arm first and ran the sponge down its slender length. And as he bathed her, he told her everything. She listened in silence, watching him.
“The worst of it all is this,” he said in conclusion to his tale. “Andy Maiden would still be alive if I'd stuck to procedure when we met yesterday afternoon. But his wife came into the room, and instead of questioning her about Nicola's life in London—which would have revealed that she'd known about it even longer than Andy, that Nicola had told her months before she told her father—I held back. Because I wanted to help him protect her.”
“When she didn't need his protection at all,” Helen said. “Yes. I see how it happened. How dreadful. But, Tommy, you were doing the best you knew at the time.”
Lynley squeezed the sponge and let the soapy water run against his wife's shoulders before he returned the sponge to its tray. “The best I knew at the time was to stick to procedure. He was a suspect. So was she. I didn't treat either one of them that way. Had I done so, he wouldn't be dead.”
Lynley couldn't decide what the worst of it had been: seeing the bloody Swiss Army knife still clutched in Andy's stiffened hand, trying to get Nancy Maiden away from her husband's corpse, hiking back to the Bentley with her in tow and every moment fearing that her shock would give way to a raving grief which he would not be able to handle, waiting—endlessly, it seemed—for the police to arrive, facing the corpse a second time and this time without Andy's wife present to deflect his attention from his former colleague's manner of death.
“Looks like the knife he showed me,” Hanken had said, observing it on the ground.