She said, with a glance at Hillier, “I still don’t quite see—”
Hillier cut in, “There’ve been enormous cutbacks in the force up there. Mr. Walker is asking us to make certain those cutbacks have no bearing on anything related to this suicide.” He’d emphasised one word: certain. It would be her job to assign someone to smooth the waters of Mr. Druitt’s concern in order to avoid a lawsuit. This didn’t please her, but she knew better than to argue with the assistant commissioner.
She said, “I can spare Philip Hale, sir. He’s just finished—”
“I’d like you to handle this personally, Isabelle. It’s going to require quite a delicate hand.”
She kept her expression steady. This was an assignment for a detective inspector at most. Even if that were not the case, the last thing she needed at the moment was to be asked to travel up to Shropshire. She said, “If we’re speaking of delicate hands, this sounds like something more suited to DI Lynley, then.”
“Perhaps. But I’d like you to take it on. With Detective Sergeant Havers, by the way. I daresay she’ll be an excellent second. As she acquitted herself so well in Dorset, doubtless she’ll do the same in Shropshire.”
Isabelle did not miss the implicit message here. Having received it, she finally recognised the matter in hand. She said, “Ah. Yes. I hadn’t thought of the sergeant. I do agree, sir.”
Hillier twitched a smile in her direction and said, “I did think you would.” He then turned to the MP and went on. “I’ll be frank, Mr. Walker. We’re stretched thin everywhere and that’s owing to decisions that have been taken by the government. We can give you five days only. After that, DCS Ardery and DS Havers must return to London.”
Walker seemed wise enough not to argue the point. He said, “Thank you, Commissioner. Understood. Let me be frank as well. I was opposed to what’s been done to reduce the police force nationally. You have a friend in me. You’ll have more of a friend when this is completed.”
He took his leave soon after that. Hillier had already gestured Isabelle to remain where she was. When the door had closed upon the member of Parliament, Hillier returned to his seat. He examined Isabelle, and his look was speculative.
“I trust,” he said, “that this adventure in Shropshire will suffice to meet our ends at long last?”
Isabelle fully understood the AC’s plan. “That would be my intention,” she told him.
WANDSWORTH
LONDON
At home later, Isabelle turned her attention to packing for her trip to the Midlands. First, however, she sought the vodka. She’d already had one martini, but she told herself that she was owed another as the day had been long and the developments had been unexpected.
As she sorted out underwear, trousers, jerseys, and nightclothes for the Midlands jaunt, she enjoyed the cocktail. She’d taken to stirring instead of shaking the vodka and the ice, which provided the drink with so much more power to alter the way she looked at life. And she needed to start seeing life differently now, thanks to her shit former husband and his Necessary Career Step, Isabelle. You might consider coming out at holidays, he’d told her with unctuous pleasantry. We’ll have a big enough house, and if that doesn’t appeal, no doubt there’ll be suitable hotels nearby. Or B & B’s? That wouldn’t be bad, would it? And, no, before you ask. The boys may not come to spend holidays with you. It’s out of the question.
Isabelle would not give her former husband the pleasure of hearing her upset. Were she even to say, Please, Bob, she knew where that would take them: into the realm of You Know Why This Is Necessary. That would lead them directly into their shared history, yet another pointless discussion that would deteriorate quickly into accusations and denials. There was no point.
She finished her martini before she finished her packing. There was little enough left to do, so she knew she couldn’t bugger anything up at this point. She was quite pleased with her level of sobriety, so she topped up her martini and then slipped the bottle of vodka carefully into her suitcase. She’d not been sleeping well lately, and she’d sleep worse in a bed that was not her own. The vodka would act as a soporific. No harm in that.
Having completed her preparations for the trip and having also placed her suitcase by the door, she finally went to the phone. She knew both of his numbers by heart, and she punched in one of them, ringing his home and not his mobile. If he wasn’t there, she’d leave a message. She didn’t want to disturb him if he was spending the night elsewhere.
Lynley recognised her voice, as he would do. He sounded surprised and, so completely like him, rather suspicious. After, “Guv. Hullo,” he went on with, “Everything all right?” far too casually.
She schooled herself. Proper diction and cool assurance were called for. She said, “Quite fine, Tommy. Am I interrupting something?” which was a veiled way of saying, “Is Daidre with you?” and “Are you and she in the midst of what lovers are often in the midst of after ten o’clock at night?”
“You’re interrupting something, but it can wait,” Lynley said pleasantly. “Charlie has persuaded me to go over his lines with him. Have I mentioned that he’s captured quite a good role in a Mamet play? Admittedly, it’s not the West End. It’s not actually in London at all. But apparently as long as it’s somewhere in the Home Counties, one is meant to be impressed.”
A voice spoke in the background. Isabelle recognised it as belonging to Charlie Denton. Denton had long kept lodgings in Thomas Lynley’s Belgravia townhouse. In exchange for room and board, he acted as manservant, valet, cook, housekeeper, and general dogsbody, with the understanding that he would require time off to audition for anything of a thespian nature that came along. So far he’d managed a few small roles here and there, but mostly there.
“Yes, of course, you’re absolutely right,” Lynley was answering Charlie. “It’s Mamet that counts.” And then to Isabelle, “He’s also waiting for a callback from the BBC.”
“Is he?”
“His experience here in Eaton Terrace has given him—what do they call it?—serious street cred when it comes to roles in costume dramas. If his luck holds, he’s to be an irascible footman in a twelve-part series taking place in the 1890s. He’s asking one and all to keep fingers crossed.”
“Tell him mine are.”
“He’ll be delighted.”
“D’you have a few moments?”
“Of course. We’re finished up here. Or at least I am. Charlie could go on till dawn. Has something come up?”
Isabelle gave him an abbreviated version: suicide, the West Mercia police, the IPCC, a member of Parliament, and his wealthy constituent. At the conclusion, Lynley said what was logical: “If the IPCC have indicated that there’s no further case to pursue, what does Walker expect someone to find?”
“It’s all pro forma, a pouring of oil on the water with the Met doing the pouring for an MP who’ll doubtless be called upon later to repay the favour.”
“That sounds like Hillier.”
“Doesn’t it just.”
“When would you like me to leave? I’ve a jaunt down to Cornwall I intended to make, but that could easily be put off.”
“I do need you to put it off, Tommy, but not in order to head to the Midlands.”
“Ah. Then who . . . ?”
“Hillier’s asked me to take this on.”
Lynley’s silence greeted this. He, too, knew how irregular it was that she would be doing a job that generally would have been taken up by a member of their department whom she outranked. Additionally, there was the not small matter of who was going to replace her while she was gone.
In answer to this, she said, “I’m leaving you in my place. This Midlands situation isn’t going to require a great deal of time, so you won’t have to put off Cornwall for long. I do hope all’s well, by the way.”
She was speaking of his family, living in Cornwall
on what was purported to be a walloping great estate somewhere near the coast, which they’d so far managed to hold together without having had to wave the white flag and hand the heap over to the National Trust or English Heritage. He reassured her. This was merely something of an annual trip, he told her, made slightly complicated this season by his sister and her adolescent daughter having sold up in Yorkshire to join his mother and brother in Cornwall. “But, as I said, the trip’s easily put off,” he finished.
“That’s helpful, Tommy. I know you’re owed the time, by the way.”
They had now reached the more delicate part of the conversation. Thomas Lynley was many things—urbane, educated, blue-blooded, and in possession of a dusty old title that he probably used to book tables more easily at London’s most renowned restaurants—but the one thing he wasn’t was a fool. He’d know something was up and he’d work it out soon enough. Still, since she was leaving him in charge, she had to tell him, so she said, “I’ll be taking Sergeant Havers with me. She’s reporting to work with her rucksack packed, in case you arrive after she and I have left and you begin wondering where she’s got herself off to.”
This, too, was met by silence. Isabelle could picture the wheels spinning in Lynley’s brain. He arrived quickly at, “Isabelle, wouldn’t it be wiser—”
“Guv,” she corrected him.
“Guv,” he agreed. “Sorry. As to having Barbara accompany you . . . Wouldn’t DS Nkata be the better choice? Considering what’s happened, isn’t this going to require . . . well, a softer touch?”
Of course Nkata would be the better choice. Winston Nkata was a man who knew an order when he heard one, a skilled detective who had so far managed without a hint of difficulty to work in concert with the entire cast of detectives under her command. DS Nkata was the better choice for virtually anything. But he did not suit her larger purpose, and Lynley was certain to winkle that out.
“I’d like to witness Barbara back in form,” she told him. “She’s had some success since that Italian business and this is—at least for me—her final hurdle.”
“Are you saying that if Barbara manages to carry off this enquiry without”—Lynley seemed to search for a term, choosing—“without colouring outside the lines, you’ll tear up the transfer paperwork?”
“Destroying her girlish dreams of a future in Berwick-upon-Tweed? I shall put the paperwork through the shredder,” she assured him.
While he seemed satisfied, she knew he would harbour enough suspicions about her intentions towards Barbara Havers that the first thing he’d do upon ringing off would be to contact the detective sergeant and give her a talking to that he hoped would get through to the exasperating woman. She could almost hear it: “Barbara,” in that smooth voice of his, a mixture of Eton and received pronunciation, “this is an opportunity to determine your future. May I encourage you to see it that way?”
“I’m on board,” Havers would tell him. “On it, over it, under it, and whatever you want. I’ll even do without fags on the drive up there. That should impress, eh?”
“What will impress,” he would counter, “is the offering of ideas instead of arguments, a dress sense that speaks of professionalism, and an adherence to procedure at all times. Are we clear?”
“As water in the Caribbean,” she would say breezily. “Trust me, Inspector, I won’t cock things up.”
“See that you don’t,” would be his final remark. He would then ring off, but he would have his doubts. No one knew Barbara Havers better than her longtime partner. Cocking things up was her stock-in-trade.
Isabelle had very little doubt that she was providing Barbara Havers with sufficient rope. She herself merely had to stand back from the gallows in order to have a better view as the body plunged through the trapdoor.
5 MAY
HINDLIP
HEREFORDSHIRE
The first thing Barbara Havers clocked when they were finally admitted onto the vast grounds of West Mercia Police Headquarters was the isolation of the place. They’d had to stop at a lone reception building first, both to show their police identification and to inform the officer behind the counter that they were expected by the chief constable, who should have made arrangements for them to be allowed in at once. This hadn’t turned out to be the case, so Barbara reckoned that the higher-ups at West Mercia Headquarters weren’t exactly going to be strewing rose petals to herald their arrival.
When they finally received permission to proceed, they climbed back into their car and passed through several gates as they coursed along a drive from which not a single building could be seen. What was in sight were CCTV cameras. They were everywhere. But the only things they seemed to be documenting were the acres of lawns across which no terrorist—domestic or otherwise—in his right mind would have attempted to cross. For there wasn’t a single tree behind which to hide. Nor was there a bush. Nor was there even a convenient sheep. Nor was there anything until they finally reached the car park.
The administrative offices were in a former great house that was sumptuously draped with Virginia creeper. The path to this imposing structure was softened by the presence of shrubbery, and in a few neatly kept flower beds roses were beginning to bloom. In addition to the great house, institutional purpose-built structures served as the rest of the headquarters, and from somewhere on the vast grounds around them, the sound of barking suggested police dogs were also trained in this place. Some kind of police cadet activity was ongoing, Barbara saw as they drew closer to the main entrance. An arrow-shaped sign reading JUNIOR CADETS THIS WAY indicated the route to a building whose shape hinted at its being a chapel that had once served the occupants of the great house.
It had taken them four and a half hours to make the drive up from London. There was no simple route. One had to choose among various motorways and primary roads with—if one was lucky—the occasional dual carriageway not afflicted by roadworks. By the time they finally reached Hindlip, the only thought in Barbara’s mind was how she was going to manage a fag and where she was going to find a very large steak and kidney pie. For although Ardery had stopped for petrol along the way, she was otherwise not one for taking breaks unless the loo beckoned with considerable urgency. And even then it was a matter of in, out, and on their way. Barbara had thought it wise not to suggest an interlude somewhere that might involve lunch.
“This is an opportunity you may not have again,” DI Lynley had told her privately before she’d set off with Ardery. “I hope you make the most of it.”
“I plan to do some serious forelock pulling,” Barbara had assured him. “I’ll probably be bald by the time we return.”
“Don’t take this lightly, Barbara,” he’d said. “Unlike me, the superintendent has a much lower tolerance for creative initiative. You’re going to need to play by every rule. If you can’t, there’ll be heavy consequences.”
She’d felt impatient with him. “Yes, yes, and all right. I’m not a complete fool, sir.”
Their colloquy had been interrupted by Dorothea Harriman. The departmental secretary had obviously been put into the picture either by Lynley or by Ardery because she gestured to Barbara’s small wheeled suitcase, and she said, “I hope you’ve got your tap shoes in there, Detective Sergeant. You know how easy is it to fall behind. And why on earth didn’t you tell me last night what was going on? I’d’ve asked Kaz to make a music tape for you. You can always practise in your hotel room, and now you’ll have to do it without accompaniment. How many lessons will you miss? With the recital in July—”
“Recital?” This came from Lynley, who looked far too interested in the conversation for Barbara’s liking.
Dorothea informed him that “there’s to be a dance recital July sixth and the beginner’s class is to take part in it.”
“A dance recital?” He raised an aristocratic eyebrow. Barbara knew at once that their little chat with Dorothea had to be cut off.
No such luck, of course. Dorothea Harriman was the European champion of not being derailed. She said to Lynley, “You remember, Detective Inspector Lynley. I did tell you the detective sergeant and I were going to see about tap dancing.”
“And you have, have you? And you’ve mastered it enough to be part of a dance recital? Impressive indeed.” Lynley nodded at Barbara and said, “Sergeant, you’re full of surprises. Where in July is the recital so that I might—”
“No need to tell him.” Barbara shot a warning look at Dorothea. “He’s not going to be invited.” And then meaningfully to Lynley, “No one I know is going to be invited, sir, so don’t take it personally. If all goes well in the Midlands, I’ll break a leg and not be able to do it at all.”
“Pshaw!” Dorothea said. “Detective Inspector Lynley, I shall invite you.”
Lynley’s response was a mild, “Dorothea, did you actually just say pshaw?”
To which Barbara said, “She’s full of surprises herself, Inspector.”
Now, though, there was no surprise in the fact that once she and Isabelle Ardery entered the great house and identified themselves at the huge round reception counter in the rotunda of the place, they discovered they were meant to wait. The chief constable was at present in a meeting. He would get to them when he could.
HINDLIP
HEREFORDSHIRE
Isabelle hadn’t expected to be welcomed warmly by the West Mercia police. Her presence was a signal to them that someone believed they’d stepped afoul of proper procedure, and that same someone wasn’t happy.
Generally, this unhappiness took the form of solicitors participating in what could be a very costly lawsuit or it took the form of unrelenting phone calls from tawdry tabloids and respected newspapers still in possession of funds for the sort of investigative journalism that most people—not to mention most organisations—preferred to avoid. But neither of those possibilities had occurred. There were no solicitors involved, no legal case threatened, and the papers that had covered the death in custody and the subsequent investigation had ultimately moved on to something else. So for there to be another investigation and for this current investigation to be instigated by the careful manoeuvrings of a member of Parliament . . . It was no wonder to Isabelle that she and Sergeant Havers were left cooling their heels for a full twenty-five minutes.
The Punishment She Deserves Page 5