“Sorry,” he said.
“You’ll have to be satisfied with the way things are and so will she. If Barbara can’t find it in herself to work not only as a member of a team but also as an individual whose responsibilities carry the weight of certain behavioural requirements, then she needs to find another line of employment. Frankly, I can come up with several but most of them have to do with sheep and the Falkland Islands and my guess is that lacks a certain appeal. Now.” She rose, and he knew what this meant. “Are we finished here? I’ve work to do and so do you and so does Barbara, who, I hope, has arrived on time, well dressed, and well adjusted.”
Lynley didn’t know. He hadn’t yet seen Havers that morning. But he blithely lied and told Ardery that well dressed and well adjusted appeared to be exactly Barbara Havers’ state.
VICTORIA
LONDON
He was in the corridor heading to his own office when he heard Dorothea Harriman behind him, her identity telegraphed by the snapping of her stiletto heels on the lino as well as her typical style of greeting anyone at the Met: by full title only, no initials allowed. She said, “Detective Inspector Lynley?” When he turned, she was casting a glance back over her shoulder.
He waited for her to catch him up. That glance she’d tossed in the direction of Isabelle’s office told him that Dorothea—the department’s civilian secretary—had probably helped herself to an earful of what had gone on between the superintendent and him, a not unusual behaviour on her part. Information, Dee knew, was paramount when it came to police work, even at the secretarial level.
She said when she reached him, “Could I have a word?” and she indicated one of the stairwells in the centre of the building, a frequent hideaway of Met smokers hoping to get away with a few drags to sustain them until they had time to duck outside and pace the requisite distance from the entrance. Lynley followed her through the door. Two uniformed constables were on the landing applying coins to a vending machine while having a conversation about “the bloody bastard deserving what he got, you ask me.” Dorothea waited till they’d made their purchases and clomped down to the floor below. She didn’t speak till she heard the door click shut behind them. Then she said, “Not wishing to be the bearer of bad news, but going there anyway—”
“Christ. I haven’t driven her to transfer Barbara at once, have I?”
“No, of course not. And rest assured she won’t do that unless the detective sergeant forces her hand.”
“But Barbara being Barbara and hand forcing being her primary forte, along with line crossing and going entirely off the rails . . .”
“You’d hoped to forestall what you see as the inevitable,” Dorothea said. “That’s what I reckoned you were up to. But really, there’s not going to be a change in that direction, Detective Inspector.” Dorothea indicated the route she’d come from Isabelle’s office as means of identifying the antecedent when she went on with, “She thinks she’s done the right thing and the only thing. She’s not about to back off.”
“Not without a miracle the likes of which I’ve not yet encountered,” Lynley agreed.
“And truth to tell, the detective sergeant does look ever so slightly more put together these days, wouldn’t you say?”
“Her physical appearance is hardly the point. As you no doubt overheard.”
Dorothea dropped her gaze and strove to look embarrassed although Lynley knew very well that the young woman experienced absolutely no shame when it came to her peerless skill at eavesdropping. “Admittedly,” she said, “things haven’t been nearly as lively as they used to be now that Detective Sergeant Havers is being so . . . so not Detective Sergeant Havers. And things definitely have become less interesting.”
“You won’t find me disagreeing, Dee. But aside from persuading the superintendent to be rid of that transfer request—”
“Which she will never do.”
“—I’ve not the first idea how to put Barbara into the position where her brain is firing the way it once did without the additional problem of that same brain encouraging her to go her own way and ignore what she’s been ordered to do.” Lynley sighed and looked down at his shoes which, he noted, wanted a decent polishing.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Dorothea said.
“How to bring Barbara’s work up to snuff?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What does that mean?”
Dorothea smoothed a nonexistent ruck in the seam of her frock. She was wearing a frothy summer dress of swirling, saturated colours, and she’d topped this with some sort of hot pink half-cardigan affair whose style Lynley’s late wife would have been able to name without hesitation, but Lynley himself could not. It was far too dressy an ensemble for a day at the Met, but Dorothea as usual made it work.
She said, “It’s this. Obviously, she’s desperately unhappy just now. She’s being someone she isn’t. She’s like a pendulum that’s swung too far one way and now is swinging too far the other.”
“That fairly well describes it,” Lynley said.
“Well, I think that there’s always been a solution to the problems she has here at the Met although I’m fairly sure you aren’t going to like it if I bring that solution to light. Shall I anyway?”
“Try me,” he said.
“Fine. Here it is. She’s too focused. She always has been. She’s been . . . let’s call it hyperfocused. It’s generally been on her work, an investigation, that sort of thing. But now the only focus she has is how to stay out of trouble with Detective Superintendent Ardery.”
“As Ardery’s holding the transfer paperwork, I don’t disagree with that assessment at all.”
“Well, that’s due to something, don’t you think?”
“What is?”
“Her problem with hyperfocus.”
“I daresay it’s due to Barbara’s not wanting to end up in Berwick-upon-Tweed. And I can hardly blame her.”
“Certainly, but that’s only half of it, Detective Inspector. The rest of it is what she’s not thinking about. And thinking about that would relieve her of the strain of thinking only about how not to get herself sent up north. Yes?”
“Agreed, more or less,” Lynley said cautiously. He did wonder where all this was heading. “So tell me,” he went on. “What is it that she’s not thinking about that she actually ought to be thinking about?”
Dorothea looked patently startled at the question. “Goodness, it’s what everyone else is always thinking about, Detective Inspector.”
“I’m intrigued. Go on.”
“Sex,” she said.
“Sex.” He glanced round the stairwell to emphasise what he was about to say. “Dorothea, ought we to be having this conversation?”
“Sexual harassment being all the rage, you mean? Detective Inspector Lynley, let’s please set political correctness aside for a moment and just get down to facts.” Dorothea indicated the stairwell with a manicured hand, by which she also indicated the Met. “Detective Sergeant Havers needs to think like the rest of humanity. She’s always needed that. Which means she needs to think of something more than the Met, her job, and being transferred. Sex is just the ticket for that, and I suspect you know it as well as I do. Call it love, romance, making babies, finding a soul mate, settling down, or anything else you like, it all comes down to the same thing at the end of the day. A mate. The detective sergeant needs an outlet. She needs someone special so that her whole entire world is not this place.”
Lynley eyed her. “You’re suggesting Barbara needs to find a man, aren’t you.”
“I am. She needs a love life. We all need a love life. Have you ever known the detective sergeant to have one? You don’t even need to answer. No. She hasn’t had one, and that’s why she keeps falling afoul of—”
“Dee, has it occurred to you that not every woman on the planet
wants—or even needs—a man?”
Dorothea took a step backwards, her smooth brow creased. “Heavens, Detective Inspector, are you suggesting the detective sergeant is an asexual being? No? Then what? Not that she’s . . . That’s completely ridiculous. I don’t believe it. Because she and that professor, her neighbour, the man with the lovely little daughter . . .” She paused, looking thoughtful. “On the other hand, there is her hair. And the strange lack of interest in makeup. And her absolutely appalling dress sense. But still . . .”
“Have we gone down the rabbit hole?” Lynley asked. “Or is this merely an intriguing illustration of random thinking?”
Dorothea looked flustered, which was entirely unlike her, but she gathered herself together heroically. “No matter. All that’s to be decided,” she said obscurely. “But we’ll use her professor friend as an example.”
“Taymullah Azhar,” Lynley told her. “The daughter’s called Hadiyyah. They were Barbara’s neighbours. What are we using them as examples of?”
“What she needs,” she declared. “What she might have had had they not left the country.”
“Barbara and Azhar,” Lynley clarified, just to be sure he was on the right track. “What they might have had. Together.”
“Indeed.”
“Sex.”
“Yes. Sex, a relationship, a love affair, a romance. Had things gone that way, she’d be a different woman, you mark my words. And being a different woman is what she needs. And the way to get her there . . . ? The entire process of getting her there . . . ? I can be of help.”
Lynley felt his scepticism rise. “You know, of course, that Azhar and his daughter are in Pakistan now. As far as I know, they’re not coming back any time soon and Barbara certainly can’t go to them. So what exactly are you suggesting? Surely not sending Barbara on a blind date? Pray not that.”
“Oh please. Detective Sergeant Havers is not about to step out on a blind date. No. This situation you and I are looking at? It must be gone at a bit more obliquely.” She straightened her shoulders and threw her head back. “Detective Inspector, I’d like to offer to take the project in hand.”
“Towards what end?” Lynley enquired.
“To the obvious end,” she announced. “The end that delivers her to love, of course, in any particular form it takes.”
“And you actually think this will make a difference?” Lynley asked her.
She smiled a smile replete with knowledge. “Trust me,” she said.
23 JULY
BISHOPSGATE
LONDON
As soon as she alighted at Liverpool Street Station, Barbara Havers asked herself what on earth she’d been thinking in agreeing to any kind of jaunt with Dorothea Harriman. She and the departmental secretary had exactly one thing in common—the possession of two X chromosomes—and no amount of plumbing either the depths or the shallows of their personalities was going to change that immutable fact. Additionally, Dee had not clued Barbara in as to their destination. Just “We’ll start out at Liverpool Street Station, Detective Sergeant Havers. The rail station, I mean. We’ll meet and see what happens from there. I must pop by Wentworth Street first, though. Have you been . . . ?”
Barbara realised later that the innocence of that question should have told her a great deal, but at the moment she did not twig to anything other than Harriman’s offer of a mercy outing during their off hours. Since she was doing nothing on the particular day and time of the proposed outing—when was she doing anything at this point in her life? she asked herself—Barbara shrugged and said Wentworth Street was fine by her and no, she’d never been. She had no clue what they would encounter in that part of London aside from the distinct possibility of urban renewal run amok, and being invited to engage in a Dorothea Harriman experience was a novelty anyway.
Barbara couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in Liverpool Street rail station, but as she emerged from the underground and wandered into the vast maw of the place, she did know it hadn’t been then what it currently was: an enormous shopping mall–cum–railway station with loudspeakers blaring announcements, people rushing by with valises, briefcases, and rucksacks; uniformed police pacing round and giving the eye to potential terrorists—male, female, youth, adult, or aged grandparent behind explosive zimmer frame—and adolescent girls with shopping bags the size of sandwich boards in one hand and smartphones in the other.
They’d agreed to meet at the flower vendor, which Dorothea had assured Barbara she would have no trouble finding, and this turned out to be the case. She sauntered up and interrupted the young woman in midflirt with an antique gentleman who was attempting to press an armload of tuberoses upon her.
Barbara joined them with the excuse for her tardiness that every Londoner who used the underground had long ago expected to hear when someone was late for an appointment: “Northern Line. There’s going to be a riot on the platform one day.”
“Not a problem,” Dorothea told her. She waved good-bye to the gentleman, linked her arm to Barbara’s, and said confidentially, “I’ve had a skinny latte, bought some new knickers, and practised turning down an indecent proposal from a seventy-year-old. Lord. Have you noticed how men never seem to take the fact of their ageing to heart while, as women, we’re continually bombarded with reminders that middle age is out there, waiting to claim us with crow’s-feet?”
Barbara hadn’t noticed. She’d never been the recipient of any sort of proposal, indecent or otherwise, and as for crow’s-feet, her attempts to avoid them had so far been limited to not looking into mirrors longer than it took to see if she had spinach between her teeth on the rare occasions when she actually ate spinach.
As they walked towards a glittering exit that loomed at the top of a set of escalators, Barbara cast an eye upon Harriman’s day-out-in-East-London ensemble of slim navy trousers tapering down to slender ankles and ballerina shoes in tan and white. She’d topped the trousers with a red-and-white-striped tee-shirt, and she carried a tan and white handbag that matched the shoes. On her days off, Harriman managed to look as put together as she looked on her days on, Barbara thought.
In contrast, Barbara herself had taken directly to heart the word “outing” that Dorothea had used to describe what they would be doing, and she had dressed accordingly. She wore draw-string trousers and a tee-shirt with Are you talking to yourself or just pretending that I’m listening? emblazoned across it while on her feet she’d donned—in honour of the occasion—her new shoes. The fact that they were leopard-print high-top trainers made a certain statement, she’d reckoned back in Chalk Farm when she’d put them on. Now, however, she decided that they might be a wee bit . . . well, out there was probably the term of choice.
Right. Well. Too late to do anything about it, she decided. She followed Harriman onto the escalator. At the top, she decided a compliment was in order, and she told Dorothea that she looked—a word search was necessary—smashing. Harriman thanked her prettily and explained that Wentworth Street was responsible.
Barbara experienced an uh-oh moment. “I hope you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”
“Which is what?” Dorothea asked.
“Which is that you intend to make me over. I went that route once, Dee. It didn’t take.”
“Heavens, no,” Dorothea said. “I wouldn’t presume. But I’ve a garden party to go to tomorrow afternoon and not a stitch to wear that everyone hasn’t seen two thousand times. This will take five minutes.”
“And after that?”
“I think it’s bric-a-brac day at Spitalfields Market. Are you interested in bric-a-brac, Detective Sergeant?”
“Do I look like someone who’s interested in bric-a-brac?” Barbara enquired. “Dee, what’s this about?”
“Nothing at all.” Dorothea had stepped off the escalator and was heading towards the towering doors. She stopped, though, when Barbara said her na
me more insistently.
“You’re not taking me in hand?” Barbara demanded. “You’re not following orders? Ardery says to you, ‘Do something with Sergeant Havers because she still isn’t quite right,’ and you go along with it?”
“You’re joking, of course. What on earth would I ‘do’ with you? Come along and stop being so difficult,” Dorothea said, and she once again took Barbara’s arm to make sure her directions were being followed.
They found themselves in Bishopsgate, where modern London of the City—in the form of looming glass tower blocks—was steadily creeping towards pre-Victorian London of Spitalfields. Here unrestrained capitalism was doing its best to destroy the history of the capital, and where there were not soaring buildings announcing themselves as multinational corporations, there were chain shops whose ownership by unknown multinational magnates fairly did the same.
The pavements were crowded. So was the street. But the congestion didn’t deter Dorothea, who kept her arm linked with Barbara’s and who carved an easy route through pedestrians, taxis, buses, and cars in order to cross over. Barbara expected her to pop inside one of the several shops they passed, but this did not happen. Instead, within five minutes, Harriman’s sure pacing had taken them in a crisscross pattern of narrowing thoroughfares and back into a London of another century.
A hotchpotch of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings sprang up in unwashed brick splendour, comprising questionable housing and forlorn places of business. There were colourful sari shops, dubious-looking hair studios with Mediterranean names, textile outlets, pubs announcing themselves as the Angel and the Pig and Whistle, and the kind of cafés where coffee came in either white or black via a kettle and a jar of powder. Within one hundred yards an open-air market sprang up, filled with stalls that offered a staggering array of products: from pin-striped business suits to ladies’ crotchless underwear. There were also food vendors of every ilk, and accordingly the air was filled with the scents of curry, cumin, cooking oil, and cod.
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