Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

Once the pain medication had been administered, the patient had drifted off to sleep, but not before answering a few more questions. In her role of Argos watching over Io, Shelly Platt had protested Barbara's continued presence. But Vi, lulled into a drug-induced ease, had whispered responses cooperatively until her eyes had closed and her breathing had deepened.

Reviewing her notes, Barbara concluded that the logical place to begin in developing a hypothesis about the case would have to be with the telephone call that Terry Cole had intercepted in South Kensington. That event had set all others in motion. It also stimulated enough questions to suggest that an understanding of the phone call-what had prompted it and what exactly had arisen from it-would lead inexorably to the evidence that would allow her to nab Matthew King-Ryder as a killer.

Although it was now September, Vi Nevin had been quite clear about the fact that Terry Cole had intercepted the phone call in South Kensington in the month of June. She couldn't give the exact date, but she knew it was early in the month because she'd collected a fresh batch of their phone box cards at the beginning of the month and she passed them to Terry on the same day that she picked them up. It was then that he told her about the curious call.

Not the beginning of July? Barbara enquired. Not August? Not even September?

June it was, Vi Nevin insisted. She remembered because they'd already moved house to Fulham-she and Nikki-and since Nikki had gone on to Derbyshire, Terry had questioned putting her cards in the phone boxes when she wasn't in town. Vi was quite sure of that. She'd wanted Terry to put up her own cards as soon as possible, she said, so that she could continue to build her clientele, and she'd told the boy to hold Nikki's cards for posting until the autumn, when he was to place them in boxes a day before the young woman returned.

But why, then, had it taken Terry so long to go to Bowers with the music he'd found?

First, Vi informed her, because she didn't tell Nikki straightaway about Terry's find. And second, because once she did tell Nikki and the plan was hatched among them to try to make some money from the music, it took some time for Nikki to research the best auction houses available to handle a sale of the sort they imagined. “Didn't want to pay lots of sellers’ fees,” she murmured, eyelids heavy. “Nikki thought 'f a country auction first. She made phone calls. Talked to people who knew.”

“And she came up with Bowers?”

“'S right.” Vi turned on her side. Shelly raised the blanket round her charge's shoulders and tucked her in up to her neck.

Now, munching her rogan josh in her Chalk Farm bungalow, Barbara reflected on that telephone call yet another time. No matter which way she considered it, however, she arrived at the same conclusion. The call had to have been intended for Matthew King-Ryder, who failed to be there at the designated hour to receive it. Hearing the single word yeah spoken by a male voice-by Terry Cole's voice-the caller had assumed that his message about the Albert Hall was being received by the right person. And since whoever had possession of the Chandler music wished to remain anonymous-why else make a call to a phone box?-it seemed reasonable to conclude that either the passing of the music from his hand to King-Ryder's constituted an illegality or the caller had come into possession of the music illegally or the music was going to be used by King-Ryder for a purpose that was itself illegal. In any case, the caller thought he'd passed the music along to King-Ryder, who'd no doubt paid a significant sum to get his mitts on it. With that sum in hand-probably paid in advance and in cash-the caller faded into the fog of obscurity, leaving King-Ryder out of the money, out of the music, and out of the picture as well. So when Terry Cole had dropped into his office flashing a page of the Chandler score, Matthew King-Ryder must have thought he was being deliberately ridiculed by someone who had already double-crossed him. Because if he'd arrived in South Keninsgton just one minute late for that telephone call, he'd have stood round for hours waiting for that phone to ring and assuming he'd been had.

He'd want revenge for that. He'd also want that music. And there was only one way to have both.

Vi Nevin's story supported Barbara's contention that Matthew King-Ryder was the man they were looking for. Unfortunately, it wasn't evidence, and without something more solid than conjecture, Barbara knew that she had no case to lay before Lynley. And laying before him irrefutable facts was going to be the only way she could ever redeem herself in his eyes. He'd seen her defiance as further proof of her indifference to a chain of command. He needed to see that same defiance as the dynamism that brought down a killer.

Pondering this, Barbara heard her name called from outside the bungalow. She looked up to see Hadiyyah skipping down the path that led to the back garden. The motion-detecting lights came on as she passed beneath them. The effect wasn't unlike a dancer being spotlit as she flew across the stage.

“We're back, we're back, we're back from the sea!” Hadiyyah sang out. “And look what Dad won me!”

Barbara waved at the little girl and closed her notebook. She went to the door and opened it just as Hadiyyah was finishing a pirouette. One of her long plaits had come loose from its restraining ribbon and was beginning to unravel, trailing a tail of silver satin like a comet in the sky Her socks were rucked and her T-shirt was stained with mustard and ketchup, but her face was radiant.

“We had such fun!” she cried. “I wish and I wish that you could've come, Barbara. We went on the roller coaster and the sailing ships and the airplane ride, and-oh, Barbara, wait'll you hear-I got to drive the train! We even went to the Burnt House Hotel and I visited Mrs. Porter for a bit, but not all day because Dad fetched me back. We ate our lunch on the beach and after we went paddling in the sea, but the water was so cold that we decided to go to the arcade instead.” She gulped for breath.

“I'm surprised you're still standing after a day packed like that.”

“I slept in the car,” Hadiyyah explained. “Almost all the way home.” She thrust her arm forward and Barbara saw that she was carrying a small stuffed frog. “See what Dad won me at the crane grab, Barbara? He's ever so good at the crane grab.”

“It's nice,” Barbara told her with a nod at the frog. “Good to practise with while you're young.”

Hadiyyah frowned and inspected the toy. “Practise with?”

“Right. Practise. Kissing.” Barbara smiled at the little girl's confusion. She put her hand on her tiny shoulder, ushered her to the table, and said, “Never mind. It was a daft joke anyway I'm sure dating will've improved enormously by the time you're ready to try it. So. What else have you got?”

What she had was a plastic bag whose handles were tied to one of the belt loops in her shorts. She said, “This is for you. Dad won it as well. At the crane grab. He's ever so-”

“Good at the crane grab,” Barbara finished for her. “Yeah. I know.”

“Because I already said.”

“But some things bear repeating,” Barbara told her. “Hand it over, then. Let's see what it is.”

With some effort Hadiyyah untangled the bag's handles and presented it to Barbara. She opened it to find inside a small, plush red velvet heart. It was trimmed with white lace.

“Well. Gosh,” Barbara said. She set the heart gingerly on the dining table.

“Isn't it lovely?” Hadiyyah gazed upon the heart with no little reverence. “Dad won it at the crane grab, Barbara. Just like the frog. I said, ‘Get her a froggie, Dad, so she'll have one as well and they can be friends.’ But he said, 'No. A frog won't do for our friend, little khushi! That's what he calls me.”