Read Online Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth George
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physical need and a form of oblivion, however brief.
He did as much on this evening. In the afternoon they’d had a meeting with the head of IPCC on the matter of a complaint registered that past summer by a solicitor on the behalf of her client: a paranoid schizophrenic who had run into traffic in a London street while being pursued by the police. The resulting internal injuries and fractured skull demanded monetary compensation, and the solicitor meant to have it. The police complaints commission was investigating the matter and this constituted meeting upon meeting with everyone involved explaining his or her take on the story, with CCTV footage viewed, with eyewitnesses interviewed, and with the London tabloids breathlessly eager to snatch up the story and run with it as soon as the IPCC made a determination as to guilt, innocence, malfeasance, accident, circumstances beyond anyone’s control, or whatever else they chose to conclude. The meeting had been tense. He was as tightly strung as Isabelle at its conclusion.
She’d said to him as they walked through the corridors to return to their offices in Victoria Block, I’d like to have you tonight, Thomas, if you’ve the energy. Dinner and a shag. Very good steaks, very nice wine, very clean sheets. Not Egyptian cotton as I expect yours are, but fresh all the same.
And then the smile and something in her eyes that he’d not yet been able to interpret, these three months after they’d first coupled in the soulless bedroom of her basement flat. Damn if he didn’t want her, he thought. It had to do with an act the nature of which allowed him to believe he’d mastered her when the truth was she had quickly mastered him.
The arrangement was simple enough. She would go to the shops, and he could either go straight to the flat and let himself in with his key or go to his own home first on one pretext or another, killing time till making the drive to that dismal street at the halfway point between Wandsworth prison and a cemetery. He chose the latter. It allowed him the semblance of being his own man.
To further this illusion, he took his time with his preparations: reading his mail, having a shower and a shave, returning a phone call from his mother on the matter of rainwater heads along the west side of the house in Cornwall. Should they be replaced or repaired, did he think? Winter’s coming, darling, and with the rains getting heavier…It was a pretext call on her part. She wanted to know how he was, but she didn’t like to ask directly. She knew very well that the rainwater heads had to be repaired. They could not possibly be replaced. It was a listed building, after all. It would probably be falling down round their ears before they’d receive permission to alter it. They chatted on of family matters. How was his brother doing? he asked, which was family code for Is he still coping without turning back to cocaine, heroin, or whatever other substance he might use to remove himself from reality? The answer was Perfectly well, darling. This was family code for I’m monitoring him, as always, and you’ve no cause to worry about it. How was his sister? meant had Judith yet given up the idea of permanent widowhood, to which the answer Terribly busy as always was code for She has no intention of risking another dreadful marriage, believe me. So went the conversation till all topics were exhausted and his mother said, I do so hope we’ll see you for Christmas, Tommy, and he assured her that she would.
After that, with no other reason to hold him in Belgravia, he worked his way over to the river and south from there to Wandsworth Bridge. He reached the house in which Isabelle lived just after halfpast seven. Parking was murder in the area, but he got lucky when a van pulled away from the kerb some thirty yards down the street.
At Isabelle’s door, he fished out his key. He had it in the lock and was letting himself in when she opened the door from within and
He did as much on this evening. In the afternoon they’d had a meeting with the head of IPCC on the matter of a complaint registered that past summer by a solicitor on the behalf of her client: a paranoid schizophrenic who had run into traffic in a London street while being pursued by the police. The resulting internal injuries and fractured skull demanded monetary compensation, and the solicitor meant to have it. The police complaints commission was investigating the matter and this constituted meeting upon meeting with everyone involved explaining his or her take on the story, with CCTV footage viewed, with eyewitnesses interviewed, and with the London tabloids breathlessly eager to snatch up the story and run with it as soon as the IPCC made a determination as to guilt, innocence, malfeasance, accident, circumstances beyond anyone’s control, or whatever else they chose to conclude. The meeting had been tense. He was as tightly strung as Isabelle at its conclusion.
She’d said to him as they walked through the corridors to return to their offices in Victoria Block, I’d like to have you tonight, Thomas, if you’ve the energy. Dinner and a shag. Very good steaks, very nice wine, very clean sheets. Not Egyptian cotton as I expect yours are, but fresh all the same.
And then the smile and something in her eyes that he’d not yet been able to interpret, these three months after they’d first coupled in the soulless bedroom of her basement flat. Damn if he didn’t want her, he thought. It had to do with an act the nature of which allowed him to believe he’d mastered her when the truth was she had quickly mastered him.
The arrangement was simple enough. She would go to the shops, and he could either go straight to the flat and let himself in with his key or go to his own home first on one pretext or another, killing time till making the drive to that dismal street at the halfway point between Wandsworth prison and a cemetery. He chose the latter. It allowed him the semblance of being his own man.
To further this illusion, he took his time with his preparations: reading his mail, having a shower and a shave, returning a phone call from his mother on the matter of rainwater heads along the west side of the house in Cornwall. Should they be replaced or repaired, did he think? Winter’s coming, darling, and with the rains getting heavier…It was a pretext call on her part. She wanted to know how he was, but she didn’t like to ask directly. She knew very well that the rainwater heads had to be repaired. They could not possibly be replaced. It was a listed building, after all. It would probably be falling down round their ears before they’d receive permission to alter it. They chatted on of family matters. How was his brother doing? he asked, which was family code for Is he still coping without turning back to cocaine, heroin, or whatever other substance he might use to remove himself from reality? The answer was Perfectly well, darling. This was family code for I’m monitoring him, as always, and you’ve no cause to worry about it. How was his sister? meant had Judith yet given up the idea of permanent widowhood, to which the answer Terribly busy as always was code for She has no intention of risking another dreadful marriage, believe me. So went the conversation till all topics were exhausted and his mother said, I do so hope we’ll see you for Christmas, Tommy, and he assured her that she would.
After that, with no other reason to hold him in Belgravia, he worked his way over to the river and south from there to Wandsworth Bridge. He reached the house in which Isabelle lived just after halfpast seven. Parking was murder in the area, but he got lucky when a van pulled away from the kerb some thirty yards down the street.
At Isabelle’s door, he fished out his key. He had it in the lock and was letting himself in when she opened the door from within and
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