In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

by Elizabeth George

He'd begun that process at the Star of India in Old Brompton Road, where a conversation with the maitre d’ established that Martin Reeve and his wife, Tricia—both of whom were regulars in the restaurant—had indeed taken a meal there earlier in the week. But no one could say on what evening they'd occupied their table by the window. The waiters were evenly divided between Monday and Tuesday while the maitre d’ himself seemed able to recall only that which he had written evidence of in his reservations folder.

  “I see they did not book,” he said in his lilting voice. “Ah, one must book at the Star of India to guarantee a seating.”

  “Yes. She claims they didn't book,” Lynley told him. “She said that was the cause of a row between you and her husband. On Tuesday night.”

  “I do not row with the customers, sir,” the man had said stiffly. And the offence he took at Lynley's remark had coloured the rest of his memory.

  The indefinite nature of the corroboration from the Star of India gave Lynley the impetus to call upon the Reeves despite the hour. And as he drove to do so, he fixed in his mind the image of Vi Nevin's ruined face. When finally he'd negotiated his way to the top of Kensington Church Street and made the turn into Notting Hill Gate, he was feeling the sort of slow-burning anger that made it easy for him to persist at the doorbell of MKR Financial Management when no one answered his initial ring.

  “Do you have any idea what time it is?” was Martin Reeves greeting to him upon jerking open the door. He didn't even need to identify himself for Lynley to know who he was. The overhead light which illuminated his face and glowed brightly against four fresh deep scratches on his cheek told the tale well enough.

  He strong-armed Reeve backwards into the entry corridor of the house. He muscled him into the wall—easy enough to do since the pimp was so much smaller than Lynley had anticipated—and held him there with one cheek pressed into the tastefully striped wallpaper.

  “Hey!” Reeve protested. “What the hell do you think you're—”

  “Tell me about Vi Nevin,” Lynley demanded, wrenching his arm.

  “Hey! If you think you can barge in here and—” Another wrench. Reeve howled. “Fuck you!”

  “Not even in your dreams.” Lynley pressed up against him and jerked his arm upwards. He spoke into his ear. “Tell me about your afternoon and your evening, Mr. Reeve. Give me every detail. I'm done in and I need a fairy tale before I go to bed. Oblige me. Please.”

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” Reeve twisted his head towards the stairs. He shouted, “Trish … Tricia … Trish! Phone the cops.”

  “Nice try,” Lynley said, “but the cops have arrived. Come along, Mr. Reeve. Let's talk in here.” He shoved the smaller man in front of him. Inside the reception office he threw Reeve into a chair and switched on a light.

  “You'd better have an eighteen karat reason for this,” Reeve snarled. “Because if you don't, you can anticipate a lawsuit the likes of which you've never seen in this country.”

  “Spare me the threats,” Lynley replied. “They might work in America, but they're not going to get you a cup of coffee here.”

  Reeve massaged his arm. “We'll see about that.”

  “I'll count the moments till we do. Where were you this afternoon? This evening as well? What happened to your face?”

  “What?” The word was spoken incredulously. “D'you think I'll answer those questions?”

  “If you don't want this building boarded up by the vice squad, I expect you'll give me chapter and verse. And don't push me, Mr. Reeve. I've had a long day, and I'm not a reasonable man when I'm tired.”

  “Fuck you.” Reeve turned his head to the door and shouted, “Tricia! Get your ass down here. Phone Polmanteer. I'm not paying through the nose for his sorry butt—”

  Lynley grabbed a heavy ashtray from the reception desk and hurled it at Reeve. It skimmed past his head and slammed into a mirror, shattering it.

  “Jesus!” Reeve shouted. “What the hell—”

  “Afternoon and evening. I want the answers. Now.”

  When Reeve didn't reply, Lynley advanced on him, grabbed the collar of his pyjama top, yanked him backwards into the chair, and twisted the collar till it was tight round his neck. “Tell me who scratched you, Mr. Reeve. Tell me why.”

  Reeve made a choking sound. Lynley found that he liked it.

  “Or shall I fill in the blanks myself? I dare say I know the dramatis personae.” Another twist with each name as he said, “Vi Nevin. Nicola Maiden. Terry Cole. Shelly Platt as well, if we come down to it.

  Reeve gasped, “F … king … out … of … mind.” His hands clawed his throat.

  At which Lynley released him, flinging him forward like a discarded rag. “You're trying my patience. I'm beginning to think a phone call to the local station isn't a bad idea. A few nights with the boys in the Ladbroke Grove lock-up might be just what we need to oil your tongue.”

  “Your ass is history. I know enough people who'll—”

  “I've no doubt of that. You probably know people from here to Istanbul. And while every one of them would happily rise to your defence were you brought up on charges of pandering, you're going to find that assaulting women doesn't go down such a treat among the big public profiles. Not when you think of the fodder they'd be giving the tabloids if word got out that they came to your aid. As it is, they're going to find it a delicate enough business lending you a hand once I run you in as a pimp. To expect more from them … I wouldn't be so unwise, Mr. Reeve. Now answer the question. What happened to your face?”

  Reeve was silent, but Lynley could see his mind working. The other man would be assessing what facts the police had. He hadn't lived on the periphery of the law for as long as he had without acquiring some knowledge about the law's application to his own life. He would know that had Lynley possessed anything solid—like an eyewitness or the signed statement of his victim—he would have made an immediate arrest. But he would also know that living outside the law as he did, he had fewer options when caught up in a dicey situation.

  Reeve said, “All right. It's Tricia. She's on the shit. I came home from looking in on two of my girls whose work's fallen off. She was smacked out. I lost it. Jesus. I thought she was dead. I got physical with her, slapped her around, part fear and part anger. And I found out she wasn't as out of it as I'd thought. She got physical back.”

  Lynley didn't believe a word. He said, “You're trying to tell me that your wife—strung out on drugs—did that to your face?”

  “She was upstairs in a nod, the worst she's been in months. I couldn't deal with it on top of the girls and their troubles. I can't be everyone's daddy. So I lost it.”

  “What troubles?”

  “What?”

  “The girls. Their troubles.”

  Reeve looked towards the reception desk and upon it the display of brochures that ostensibly advertised MKR's financial services. “I know you know about the business. But you probably don't know what lengths I go to to keep them healthy. Blood tests every four months, drug screening, physical exams, balanced diet, exercise …”

  “A real drain on your financial resources,” Lynley noted dryly.

  “Hell. I don't care what you think. This is a service industry, and if someone doesn't offer it, someone else will. I'm not apologising. I supply clean, healthy, educated girls in a decent environment. Any guy who spends time with one of them gets value for his money and no threat of disease to take home to the ball-and-chain. And that's what I was uptight about when I got home: two girls with trouble.”

  “Disease?”

  “Genital warts. Chlamydia. So I was pissed off. And then when I saw Tricia, I snapped. That's it. If you want their names, addresses, and numbers, I'm happy to oblige.”

  Lynley watched him carefully, wondering if it was all a calculated risk on the part of the pimp or an actual coincidence that he'd bear his wife's defensive marks on his face on the very same evening that Vi Nevin had been attacked. He said, “Let's have Mr
s. Reeve down here to tell her side of the story, then.”

  “Oh come on. She's asleep.”

  “That didn't appear to bother you a moment ago when you were howling for her to phone the police. And Polmanteer … your solicitor, is that? We can still phone him if you'd like.”

  Reeve stared at Lynley, disgust and dislike on his features. He finally said, “I'll get her.”

  “Not alone, I'm afraid.” The last thing Lynley wanted to do was to give Reeve an opportunity to coerce his wife into supporting his story.

  “Fine. Then come along.”

  Reeve led the way up two flights of stairs to the second floor. In a bedroom overlooking the street he walked to a bed the size of a playing field and switched on the bedside lamp. Light from it fell upon the form of his wife. She lay on her side, curled foetally, deeply asleep.

  Reeve flipped her onto her back, grabbed her under the armpits, and pulled her upright. Her head lolled forward like a rag doll's. He tipped her backwards and propped her up against the headboard. “Good luck,” he said to Lynley with a smile. He pointed out a string of nasty bruises round her throat, saying, “I had to get rougher than I wanted with the bitch. She was out of control. I thought she'd kill me.”

  Lynley jerked his head away from the woman, indicating he wanted Reeve to back off. Reeve did so. Lynley took his place at the bed. He reached for Tricia's arm, saw the angry tracks of injections, felt for a pulse. As he did this, she heaved in a deep breath, making his gesture unnecessary. Lightly, he slapped her face. “Mrs. Reeve,” he said. “Mrs. Reeve. Can you wake up?”

  Reeve moved behind him, and before Lynley realised what he intended, he'd grabbed a vase of flowers, tossed the blooms to the floor, and dashed the water across his wife's face. “God damn it, Trida. Wake up!”

  “Stand back,” Lynley ordered.

  Tridas eyes fluttered open as the water dripped down her cheeks. Her dazed glance went from Lynley to her husband. She flinched. That reaction said it all.

  Lynley said through his teeth, “Get out of here, Reeve.”

  “Fuck that,” Reeve said. And he went on tersely, “He wants you to tell him we fought, Tricia. That I went after you and you went after me. You remember how it happened. So tell him that you went for my face and he'll clear the hell out of our house.”

  Lynley surged to his feet. “I said get out!”

  Reeve stabbed a finger at his wife. “Just tell him. He can see we fought when he looks at us, but he's not about to take my word unless you tell him it's the truth. So tell him.”

  Lynley threw him from the room. He slammed the door. He returned to the bed. There, Tricia sat as he'd left her. She made no move to dry herself.

  There was an en suite bathroom, and Lynley went to this and fetched a towel. He used it gently against her face, against her damaged neck, against her sopping chest. Tricia looked at him numbly for a moment before she turned her head and gazed at the door through which he'd ejected her husband.

  He said, “Tell me what happened between you, Mrs. Reeve.”

  She turned back to him. She licked her lips.

  “Your husband attacked you, didn't he? Did you fight back?” It was a ludicrous question and he damn well knew it. How, he wondered, could she possibly have done so? The last thing heroin users were good for was a vigorous round of self-defence. “Let me phone someone for you. You need to get out of here. You must have a friend. Brothers or sisters? Parents?”

  “No!” She grabbed his hand. Her grip wasn't strong, but her nails—long and as artificial as the rest of her—dug into his flesh.

  “I don't believe for a moment that you put up a fight against your husband, Mrs. Reeve. And my failure to believe that is going to make things difficult for you once your husband bails himself out of custody. I'd like to get you out of here before all that happens, so if you'll give me a name of someone to phone …”

  “Arrest?” she whispered, and she seemed to be making a monumental effort to clear her head. “You'll … arrest? But you said—”

  “I know. But that was earlier. Something's happened this evening that makes it impossible for me to keep my word. I'm sorry, but I have no choice in the matter. Now, I'd like to phone someone for you. Will you give me a number?”

  “No. No. It was … I hit him. I did. I tried … bite.”

  “Mrs. Reeve. I know you're frightened. But try to see that—”

  “I scratched him. My nails. His face. Scratched. Scratched. Because he was choking me and I wanted him … stop. Please. Please. I scratched … face. I made him bleed. I did.”

  Lynley saw her rising agitation. He cursed silently: He cursed Reeve's slippery and successful insinuation of himself into the interview with his wife; he cursed his own damnable inadequacies, the largest of which was the loss of temper that always obscured his vision and clouded his thinking. As it had done on this night.

  Now, in his house in Eaton Terrace, Lynley reflected on everything. His sense of grievance and his need to avenge Vi Nevin had got in his way, allowing Martin Reeve to outmanoeuvre him. Tricia's fear of her husband—probably in combination with a heroin addiction which he no doubt fed—had prompted her at long last to confirm Reeve's every word. Lynley still could have run the soulless little rat into the nick for six or seven hours of interrogation, but the American hadn't got where he was by being ignorant of his rights. He was guaranteed legal representation, and he would have claimed it before he'd left the house. So what would have been gained was a sleepless night for everyone concerned. And in the end Lynley would have found himself no closer to an arrest than he'd been upon his arrival in London that morning.

  But things had ended in Notting Hill the way they had ended because of a miscalculation on Lynley's part, and he had to admit that. In his anxiety to have Tricia Reeve conscious and coherent enough to take part in a conversation, he'd allowed her husband enough time in her presence to give her the script she needed in her interview with Lynley. Thus, he'd lost whatever advantage he might have established over Martin Reeve in arriving at his home in the dead of night. It was a costly mistake, the sort of error that was made by a rank beginner.

  He wanted to tell himself that the miscalculation was the product of a long day, a misguided sense of chivalry, and out-and-out exhaustion. But the disquiet in his soul, which he'd begun feeling the moment he saw the card with Nikki Temptation's advertisement on it, spoke of another source altogether. And because he didn't wish to consider either the source or the implications of the source, Lynley descended to the kitchen, where he rooted round in the refrigerator until he found a container of leftover paella.

  He fetched a Heineken to go with his makeshift meal, and he cracked it open and carried it to the table. He dropped wearily into one of the chairs and took a deep swig of the lager. A slim magazine lay next to a bowl of apples, and while he waited for the microwave to work its magic on his food, Lynley reached in his pocket for his spectacles and had a look at what turned out to be a souvenir theatre programme.

  Denton, he saw, had managed to prevail over the masses who were attempting to obtain tickets to the season's hottest show in the West End. The single word Hamlet made a bold graphic design in silver on an ebony cover, along with a rapier and the words King-Ryder Productions tastefully arranged above the play's title. Lynley shook his head with a chuckle as he flipped through the pages of glossy photographs. If he knew Denton, the next few months in Eaton Terrace were going to be an endless exposure to whatever melodies from the pop opera resonated within his stage-struck soul. As he recalled, it had taken nearly nine months for Denton to stop warbling “The Music of the Night” at the drop of a hat.

  At least this new production wasn't Lloyd-Webber, he thought with some gratitude. He'd once considered homicide the only viable alternative to having to listen to Denton crooning the main—and what seemed like the only—melody from Sunset Boulevard for weeks on end.

  The microwave signaled, and he scooped out the container and dumped its content
s unceremoniously onto a plate. He tucked into his late-night meal. But the action of forking up the food, chewing, and swallowing was not enough to divert his thoughts, so he cast about for something else to distract him.

  He found it in the consideration of Barbara Havers.

  She must have managed to gather something useful by now, he thought. She'd been on the computer since the morning, and he could only assume that he'd finally managed to pound into her skull the message that he expected her to continue at CRIS until she had something valuable to report.

  He reached for the phone that sat on the work top and, mindless of the hour, he punched in her number. The line was engaged. He looked at his watch. Christ. Who the hell would Havers be talking to at one-twenty in the morning? No one that he could name, so the only conclusion was that she'd taken her phone off the hook, the bloody woman. He dropped his own receiver into the cradle and gave idle thought to what he was going to do with Havers. But going down that path only promised him a tempestuous night, which would do nothing to improve his performance in the morning.

  So he finished his meal with his attention on the Hamlet programme once again, and he thanked Denton silently for having provided him with a diversion.

  The photographs were good. And the text made interesting reading. David King-Ryder's suicide was still fresh enough an event in the public consciousness to give an air of romance and melancholy to anything associated with his name. Besides, it was no arduous task, having to gaze upon the voluptuous maiden who'd been cast as the production's Ophelia. And how clever of the costume designer to have her go to her death in a gown so diaphanous as to make the wearing of it practically unnecessary. Back-lit, she stood poised to drown herself, a creature already caught between two worlds. The gauzy gown claimed her soul for heaven while her earthbound body chained her—in all her sensual beauty—firmly to the earth. It was the perfect combination of—“Are you actually leering, Tommy? Married three months and I've already caught you leering at another woman?” Helen stood in the doorway, blinking, sleep tousled, tying her dressing gown belt at the waist.