Autorentext

Elizabeth George is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-one psychological suspense novels, five young adult novels, two books of nonfiction, and two short-story collections. Her work has been honored with the Anthony and Agatha awards, two Edgar nominations, and both France's and Germany's first prize for crime fiction. She lives in Washington State.

Klappentext

**A new and highly anticipated Inspector Lynley TV series releasing this fall from BritBox

Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley are back in the next Lynley novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George.**

Michael Lobb has just been found dead on the floor of his family’s tin & pewter workshop. It’s suspicious enough that his body was found by a representative of Cornwall EcoMining, a company keen on acquiring his family’s land, and it’s made even worse when he’s revealed to have been the majority owner of the business and the sole obstacle preventing a deal from being made. But it doesn’t take long for Inspector Beatrice Hannaford to unearth the layers of estrangement that surrounded Michael in his final days, pointing suspicions elsewhere. In comes Kayla, a young woman half Michael’s age, who has just been made his widow.

Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers are brought in to help solve the crime and search for justice in a community where lust, greed, and family traditions collide with devastating consequences.

Leseprobe
4 APRIL

Bodmin and Navax Point

Cornwall

Had he known how his day was going to develop, Geoffrey Henshaw would have remained in his far-less-than-comfortable bed, despite its unpleasant tendency to cradle him in such a manner that he could only ever rise from it by rolling to its edge and balancing there till he could ease himself to the floor on all fours. He knew he was a sight to behold as he engaged in this endeavour every morning. He tried not to think of that, however, as allowing his mind to dwell there took him swiftly to the destination of understanding that there was no one present to behold the sight of him at all, and it was not probable that there would be anyone unless and until Freddie's parents "came round," as she was fond of putting the matter that had entirely upended his life. But as it was, he was not a prescient man-since a prescient man would have immediately understood that allowing any kind of development in an attraction to one's student could lead nowhere good-so he rolled out of bed, made himself ready for what a glance out of the window told him was going to be a misty day, and set out on a route south in complete ignorance of what lay in store for him.

When he finally arrived at his place of employment, he felt like a man sitting on the precipice of being entirely wrung out-mentally, that is-since he'd spent most of the drive from Bodmin to Cornwall EcoMining trying not to drive into a hedgerow or hit anything along various roads that became ever narrower as he went along. By the time he passed the turn to Truro, though, the mist had lifted, and the sun broke through, and he told himself to "enjoy the bloody morning," which had become his mantra over the last few months. This statement rested amongst other imperatives of the be-thankful-for and get-on-with-it ilk, which were ghosts from his childhood.

Admittedly, the further he drove, the more the day became glory itself, painted with the kind of sunlight that speaks of spring at last after an endless winter of bitter cold wind and biting sleet that had tried his patience-not to mention his spirits and his wardrobe-in every possible manner. But now, today, the final roads he drove on his route demonstrated spring's overdue arrival. The hedgerows were still winter bare, but along the verges gorse bloomed bright yellow, and the healthy-looking new greenery made a promise of cow parsley's white blooms bobbing on their narrow stems, along with licorice root doing much the same, canes of blackberries getting ready to bud, and ivy everywhere it could find purchase. Geoffrey knew he should have been uplifted by these sights of spring and the signs of life renewed. But the truth was that he wasn't uplifted, no matter his mind's admonishments.

He told himself-indeed he insisted-that he had turned his life around. He explained to the personal and punishing inner critic sitting daily on his shoulder that, whilst it was true he'd been sacked from his employment as an instructor at Exeter's premier sixth form college, he'd moved on from the attendant public humiliation to secure a position with excellent prospects-he emphasized this mentally-for his future. He was twenty-seven, he pointed out to his companion critic. Thus, unless he was hit by a lorry or-which was more likely in this part of England-a tourist coach, he had a great deal of time to prove himself to anyone interested in how he was getting on after his split from his wife. Yes, for the moment he had to live in temporary accommodation in Bodmin. Yes, he had only a smallish bedroom in a B & B run by an ageing pensioner called Mr. Snyder, whose wife had "departed in some haste" whilst folding the laundry-"doing one of the bedsheets, she was"-and who, perhaps as a result, could not or would not stop talking no matter how many signals Geoffrey sent him to shut his gob, stuff a sock in it, or S the FU. It was all a bit maddening, but at least, Geoffrey argued with the critic, he was provided a full English every morning along with tea, cornflakes, and grapefruit fresh from the tin. Count your blessings, darling boy, as his mum used to tell him. Get on with it, damn you, as his dad still said. So he did both when he remembered to do both, which certainly wasn't every morning and certainly not this morning with Freddie's lengthy phone call still haunting him from the night before and her plea of we can meet somewhere Geoff, Mum, and Dad will never know acting like an earworm that he could not make cease.

He parked his old 2CV-miracle that the thing was still running, he thought-and climbed out. For a moment he stood watching kittiwakes circling above the cliffside, and he breathed deeply of air so fresh he could smell the health of it entering his lungs. He stood directly across from the local offices of Cornwall EcoMining: housed in a converted former engine house. This was a restored building of granite blocks rising four floors. It overlooked the sea and was part of just one of the many defunct copper mines in the district. This particular mine had closed more than one hundred years in the past, but its workings remained: the tall structure that was the pumping engine house, the even taller chimney stack, and the ruins of a boiler house from which had been produced the steam to keep the pumping engine doing its job of ridding the mine of water. The mine shaft itself had no real access point any longer, although anyone creative enough or desperate enough could find a way past the chain link and the bars that were meant to keep out the curious and the foolhardy.

At the engine house's entrance, a panel of buzzers had been fixed as there was no receptionist and no need for one. This was a group of administrative offices. The general employees were in the field somewhere. Geoffrey's presence was a command performance this morning; otherwise, he would have been doing what he'd been doing for months, which was making and keeping appointments with Cornwall's myriad landowners and engaging them in a presentation of Cornwall EcoMining's purpose, intentions, proposals, and plans of action.

He rang the buzzer next to C. Robertson and barely a moment passed before he heard Curtis bark, "That you, Henshaw?" through the speaker. Curtis didn't wait for a reply, merely releasing the door's lock s…