Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

She followed them, saying quickly, “He's gone to Camden Passage. From there to meet some painters who're working on a house of ours in Cornwall Mews. I've the address. Shall I give it to you?”

The switch to cooperation was far too swift. Either Reeve was in the house or she'd come up with a plan to put him on the alert to their search for him. That would be easy enough. Lynley couldn't imagine a man of Reeve's description wandering the byways of London without a mobile phone in his possession. The moment he and Nkata were out the front door and on his trail, Reeve's wife would be at the phone to warn him.

“I think we'll wait all the same,” Lynley said. “Joni us, Mrs. Reeve. I can phone the Ladbroke Grove station for a female constable if you're feeling uncomfortable alone with us. Shall I do that?”

“No!” With her right hand she clasped her left elbow. She looked at her watch, and the muscles in her neck convulsed as she worked her way through a swallow. She was coming down, Lynley speculated, and checking to see when she could next hit up with relative safety. The presence of the police was an obstacle that thwarted her need, and that might be useful. She said insistently, “Martin isn't here. If I knew more, I'd tell you. But the fact is, I don't.”

“I'm unconvinced.”

“I'm telling you the truth!”

“Tell us another, then. Where was your husband on Tuesday night?”

“On Tuesday…?” She looked honestly confused. “I have no… He was here. With me. He was here. We spent the evening in.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

The question obviously rang alarm bells for her. She said in a rush, “We went for curry at the Star of India on Old Brompton Road round half past eight.”

“So you weren't in, then.”

“We spent the rest of the evening here.”

“Did you book a table at the restaurant, Mrs. Reeve?”

“The maître d’ will remember us. He and Martin had words because we hadn't booked in advance and they didn't want to let us have a table at first, even though there were several vacant when we got there. We had a meal. Then we came home. That's the truth. On Tuesday. That's what we did.”

It would be easy enough to confirm their presence at the restaurant, Lynley thought. But how many maâtre d s’ would recall on what particular day they'd had a row with a demanding customer who'd failed to book and also thus failed to provide himself with a reliable alibi? He said, “Nicola Maiden worked for you.”

She said, “Martin didn't kill Nicola! I know that's why you've come, so don't let's pretend otherwise. He was with me on Tuesday night. We went to the Star of India for a meal. We were home by ten, and we stayed in the rest of the evening. Ask our neighbours. Someone will have seen us either going out or coming back. Now, do you want the address of the mews house or not? Because if not, I'd like you to leave.” Another agitated glance at her watch.

Lynley decided to press her. He said to Nkata, “We're going to need a search warrant, Winnie.”

Tricia cried, “What for? I've told you everything. You can phone the restaurant. You can talk to our neighbours. How can you get a search warrant when you haven't bothered to see if I'm telling you the truth in the first place?” She sounded horrified. Better yet, she sounded afraid. The last thing she wanted, Lynley expected, was to have a team of police going through her belongings, no matter what they were looking for. She may have had no hand in the death of Nicola Maiden, but possession of narcotics wasn't going to go down a treat with the Crown Prosecutors, and she knew that.

“We sometimes cut corners,” Lynley said pleasantly. “This looks like a good time to do so. We've a murder weapon missing as well as a piece of clothing from the dead girl and the boy, and if either article turns up in this house, we'll want to know why.”

“Sh'll I phone, then, Guv?” Nkata enquired blandly.

“Martin didn't kill Nicola! He hasn't seen her in months! He didn't even know where she was! If you're looking for someone who might have wanted to see her dead, there are plenty of men who-” She stopped herself.

“Yes?” Lynley asked. “Plenty of men?”

She brought up her left arm to cradle her right elbow, just as her right had been cradling her left. She walked the length of the reception room and back.

Lynley said, “Mrs. Reeve, we know exactly what MKR Financial Management is fronting. We know that your husband hires students to work as escorts and prostitutes for him. We know that Nicola Maiden was one of those students and that she left your husband's employ along with Vi Nevin to set up in business on her own. The information we have right now can lead directly to charges against you and your husband, and I expect you're well aware of that. So if you'd like to avoid being charged, tried, sentenced, and locked up, I suggest you cooperate straightaway.”

She looked rigid. Her lips hardly moved when she said, “What do you want to know?”

“I want to know about your husband's relationship with Nicola Maiden. Pimps are known for-”

“He isn't a pimp!”

“-frequently displaying displeasure if one of their stable decides to break away from them.”

“That's not what it's like. That's not how it was.”

“Really?” Lynley asked. “How was it, then? Vi and Nicola decided to start their own business, which cut out your husband. But they did so without informing him. He can't have liked that very much, once he sussed it out.”

“You're getting it wrong.” She went to the ornate desk and out of a drawer she took a packet of Silk Cut. She shook one out and lit it. The phone began to ring. She glanced down at it, reached forward to press a button, stopped herself at the final moment. After twenty double rings, it was silent. But less than ten seconds later it started up again. She said, “The computer should be getting that. I can't think why…” And with an uneasy look in the direction of the police, she snatched up the receiver and said tersely, “Global,” into it. Then after a moment of listening, and spoken in the most pleasant of tones she said, “It depends what you want, actually… Yes. That shouldn't be a problem at all. May I have your number, please? I'll ring you back shortly.” She scribbled on a paper. That done, she looked up defiantly as if to say Prove it, to what Lynley was thinking about the conversation that she'd just had.

He was happy to oblige her. “Global,” Lynley said. “That's the name of the escort agency, Mrs. Reeve? Global what? Global Dating? Global Desires? What?”

“Global Escorts. And providing an educated escort to a businessman in town for a conference isn't illegal.”

“Living off immoral earnings, however, is. Mrs. Reeve, do you really want the police to take possession of your account books? Assuming, of course, that there are account books for MKR Financial Management in the first place? We can do that, you know. We can ask for documentation of every pound you've made. And once we're through with our bit of research, we can hand everything over to the Inland Revenue so that their chaps can make certain you've donated your fair share to the support of the government. How does that sound to you?”

He gave her time to ponder. The telephone went again. After three double rings, it switched onto another line with a soft click. An order being taken elsewhere, Lynley thought. By mobile, remote control, or satellite. Wasn't progress a wonderful thing.

Tricia seemed to reach some sort of realisation. Obviously, she knew that Global Escorts and the position of the Reeves were compromised at this point: One word from Lynley to the Inland Revenue or even to the Ladbroke Grove police stations vice boys, and the Reeves’ entire way of life was on the chopping block. And that didn't even begin to address what could happen to them once a search of the premises unearthed whatever mood-altering substance was squirreled away somewhere in the house, waiting to work its magic on Tricia. All this knowledge seemed to settle upon her like soot from a fire she'd lit herself.