Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

Still, he said to counter the implication in her statements, “When I first knew that I loved you-have I ever told you this?-I couldn't understand how I'd managed to go so long blind to the fact. There you were, a part of my life for years, but you'd always been at the safe distance of a friend. And when I actually knew that I loved you, risking having more than your friendship seemed like risking it all.”

“It was risking it all,” she said. “There's no going back after a certain point with someone, is there? But I don't regret the risk for a moment. Do you, Tommy?”

He felt a rush of relief. “Then we're at peace.”

“Were we anything else?”

“It seemed-” He hesitated, uncertain how to describe the sea change he was experiencing between them. He said, “We've got to expect a period of adjustment, haven't we? We aren't children. We had lives that were independent of each other before we married, so it's going to take some time to adjust to lives that include each other all the time.”

“Had we.” She said it as a statement, reflectively. She looked up from the wallpaper samples, to him.

“Had we what?”

“Independent lives. Oh, I see that you did. Who would ever argue with that? But as to the other half of the equation…” She made an aimless gesture at the samples. “I would have chosen flowers without a moment's hesitation. But flowers, I'm told by Charlie, are twee. You know, I never actually considered myself hopeless in the arena of interior design. Perhaps I've been kidding myself about that.”

Lynley hadn't known her for more than fifteen years to fail in understanding her meaning now. “Helen, I was angry. Angry, I'm the first to climb on the highest horse I can find. But as you pointed out, what I said was words. There's no more truth in them than there's truth in suggesting I'm the soul of sensitivity. Which, as you know, I'm not. Full stop.”

As he spoke, she'd begun setting the floral samples to one side. As he finished, she paused. She looked at him, head cocked, face gentle. “You don't really understand what I'm talking about, do you? But then, how could you? In your position I wouldn't understand what I was talking about either.”

“I do understand. I corrected your language. I was angry because you weren't taking my side, so I responded as I believed you'd responded: to the form instead of to the substance beneath it. In the process, I hurt you. And I'm sorry for that.”

She got to her feet, sheets of wallpaper held to her chest. “Tommy, you described me as I am,” she said simply. “I left the house because I didn't want to listen to a truth I've avoided for years.”

Women had always been a mystery to him. Helen was a woman. Ergo, Helen would always be a mystery. So Lynley thought as he worked his way from Belgravia to Westminster and New Scotland Yard. He'd wanted to continue their discussion, but she'd said gently, “Tommy darling, you've come back to London with work to do haven't you? You must do it. Go on. We'll talk later.”

A man who'd generally managed to obtain what he desired in fairly short order after desiring it, Lynley chafed at any kind of postponement. But Helen was right. He'd already tarried at home longer than he'd originally intended. So he kissed her and set off for the Yard.

He found Nkata on the telephone in his office. He was jotting something into his notebook, saying, “Describe it for me as best you can, then… Well, what sort of collar does it have, f'r instance? Are there snaps or a zip?… Look, anything you give me is more than I have right now… Hmmm? Yeah. Okay. Right. I'll hold… Put her on as well. Cheers.” He looked up as Lynley entered the room. He began to remove himself from the chair behind the desk.

Lynley waved him back into place. He went round to stand behind him, where he could see a column of postcards that had been arranged on his leather blotter. The cards ran along one edge of this, samples of the lot that-according to Nkata-had been taken from Terry Cole's flat.

Lynley saw that punishment was offered on some of the cards; domination was promised on others; still others suggested that one's ultimate fantasies could be fulfilled. Mention was made of bubble baths, massages, video services, torture chambers. Some cards offered the use of animals; a few noted that costumes could be provided. Many had photographs depicting such delights as were on offer from the Transsexual Black She-Male or The Ultimate Domina or a Hot Stunning Thai Girl In short, there was something for every taste, inclination, and perversion. And since the cards looked too fresh from the printer to have spent any time Blu Tacked to the walls of a phone box prior to being collected by a sweaty-palmed teenager with masturbation in mind, the only conclusion to be reached from the presence of several thousand of such cards beneath his bed was that Terry Cole had not been a collector but, rather, a distributor-a part of the great machine that peddled sex in London.

This, at least, explained the cash that Cilia Thompson claimed the boy had carried. Card boys who worked quickly enough putting up cards in phone boxes all round central London could earn a substantial living because the going rate was one hundred pounds for every five hundred cards the boy managed to place. And the service of a card boy was absolutely essential: Agents of British Telecom removed the cards daily, so they always had to be replaced.

Two of these cards had been isolated from the column on Lynley's blotter and lay in the centre of his desk. One displayed the photo of a putative schoolgirl; one bore only print. Lynley picked them up and examined them-feeling heart-sore-as Nkata continued his call.

SHHH was printed across the top of the first. And below the photograph ran the words Don't Tell Mummy What's On After School! The picture itself showed a rucksack with books tumbling out of it and bending from the waist to gather them up was a girl, her bum pointing towards the camera. She wasn't one's average schoolgirl: Her pleated skirt was hiked up to display black thong knickers and thigh-high black stockings with lace round the top. She was looking coyly over her shoulder at the camera, blonde hair tousled and tumbling round her face. Beneath her stiletto-heeled shoes was a telephone number with a hand-scrawled ring me! next to it.

“Christ,” Lynley whispered. And when Nkata ended his phone call, he said as if an explanation in the light of day would negate the one he'd heard via phone from the constable in the dead of night, “Take me through it the entire situation beginning to end another time, Winnie.”

“Let me fetch Barb. The brainwork was hers.”

“Havers?” Lynley's tone stopped the other man from picking up the phone. “Winston, I told her I wanted her on the computer. You assured me that's what she was doing. Why's she involved in this end of the investigation?”

Nkata showed his palms, empty and innocent. He said, “She's not involved. I'd the box of cards in your motor when I came back here last evening from Battersea. I called in to see how she was doing on CRIS. She asked to take the cards along with her when she went home. To have a look through them. The rest… She can tell you how it played out.”

Nkata's face wore the guileless expression of a child at the knees of Father Christmas, declaring that there was more to the story than had been revealed. Lynley sighed. “Fetch her, then.”

Nkata reached for the phone. He punched in a few numbers and while waiting for the connection, said solemnly, “She's working CRIS right now. Been there since six this morning.”

“I'll kill the fatted calf,” Lynley replied.

Nkata, not given to biblical exegesis or allusion, said, “Right,” uncertainly. And then into the phone, “Guv's here, Barb.” That was the extent of it.