Inspector Lynley 01 - A Great Deliverance by George Elizabeth

Author:George, Elizabeth [George, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery, Mystery & Detective, Police Procedural, Thriller, Traditional British
ISBN: 9780553384796
Google: xadF5VQb7BUC
Amazon: 0553384791
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2013-12-06T05:00:00+00:00

10

The visitor was Superintendent Nies. He was waiting in the lounge, three empty pint glasses on a table nearby and a cardboard carton at his feet. He was standing, not sitting, a man wary and watchful and never relaxed. His lips thinned at the sight of Lynley, and his nostrils pinched as if he smelled something foul. He was contempt personified.

“You wanted everything, Inspector,” he snapped. “Here it is.” He gave the carton a sharp kick, not so much to move it as to direct the other man’s attention to it.

No one stirred. It was as if the raw hatred behind Nies’s words immobilised them all. Next to her, Barbara felt Lynley’s tension tightening his muscles like a whipcord. His face, however, was without expression as he took the measure of the other man.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Nies persisted nastily. He picked up the carton, dumping its contents onto the carpet. “I expect, when you ask for everything, that you do mean everything, Inspector. Something about you tells me you’re a man of your word. Or were you hoping that I’d send it all with someone else so you might avoid having any further chats with me?”

Lynley’s eyes dropped to the objects on the floor. A woman’s clothing, by their appearance.

“Perhaps you’ve had too much to drink,” he suggested.

Nies took a step forward. Blood rushed to his face. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? You’d like to see me giving it over to drink, in my cups with flaming regret for having you in the nick for a few days over Davenport’s death. Not exactly the digs his precious lordship was used to, were they?”

Barbara had never recognised so acutely one man’s need to strike another or the atavistic savagery that often drives that need to completion. She saw it in Nies now, in his posture, in his hands with their talon-like fingers halfway drawn into a fist, in the cords that stood out on his neck. What she couldn’t understand was Lynley’s reaction. After the initial flash of tension, he’d become unnaturally unperturbed. That seemed to be the source of Nies’s increasing rage.

“Have you solved this case, Inspector?” Nies sneered. “Made any arrests? No, of course not. Not without having all the facts. So let me give you a few and save you a little time. Roberta Teys killed her father. She chopped off his miserable head, sat herself down, and waited to be discovered. And no bloody evidence you can dig out of the blue is ever going to prove this case otherwise. Not for Kerridge. Not for Webberly. Not for anyone. But you have a fine time digging for it, laddie. You’ll get nothing more from me. Now, get out of my way.”

Nies shoved past them, flung open the outer door, and stormed to his car. It roared into life. He ground the gears viciously and was gone.

Lynley looked at the two women. Stepha was very pale, Havers was stoic, but both clearly expected some kind of response from him.

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