Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

She gathered herself together. “All right. If I give you a name-if I give you the name-it can't have come from me. Is that understood? Because if word gets out about an indiscretion committed at this end of the business…” She let the rest of the sentence hang.

Indiscretion was a unique way of labeling it, Lynley thought. And why in God's name did she think that she was in any position to bargain with him? He said, “Mrs. Reeve, the business-as you call it-is finished.”

“Martin,” she said, “won't see it that way.”

“Martin,” Lynley countered, “will find himself held on charges if he doesn't.”

“And Martin will ask for bail. He'll be out on the street in twenty-four hours. Where will you be by then, Inspector? No closer to the truth, I expect.” She might have looked like Barbie, she might have sautéed part of her brain in drugs, but somewhere along the line she'd learned a bit about bargaining, and she was doing it now with a fair amount of expertise. Lynley reckoned that her husband would have been proud of her. She had no legal leg to stand on, and she stood there anyway, pretending she had. He had to admire her chutzpah, if nothing else. She said, “I can give you a name- the name, as I've said-and you can go on your way. I can say nothing and you can search the house, cart me off to gaol, arrest my husband, and be not an inch closer to Nicola's killer. Oh, you'll have our books and our records. But you can't expect that we're so stupid as to list our punters by name. So what will you gain? And how much time will you lose?”

“I'm prepared to be reasonable if the information's good. And in the time it takes me to ascertain the information's viability, I would assume you and your husband would be considering where to relocate your business. Melbourne comes to mind, what with the change in law.”

“That might take some time.”

“As will the verification of information.”

Tit for tat. He awaited her decision. She finally made it and took up a pencil from the top of the desk. “Sir Adrian Beattie,” she said as she wrote. “He was mad about Nicola. He was willing to pay whatever she wanted if he could keep her all to himself. I don't expect he much liked the thought of her expanding her business, do you?”

She handed over the address. It was in the Boltons.

It appeared, Lynley thought, that they had the London lover at last.

When Barbara Havers found the note on her door upon her arrival home that evening, she remembered the sewing lesson with a jolt. She said, “Bloody hell. Damn it,” and berated herself for having forgotten. True, she was involved in a case, and Hadiyyah would surely understand that. But Barbara hated to think that she might have been the cause of disappointment to her little friend.

You are cordially invited to view the work of Miss Jane Bateman's Beginning Seamstresses, the note announced. It was meticulously printed in a childish hand that Barbara recognised. A drooping cartoonish sunflower was sketched on the bottom. Alongside this was the date and time. Barbara made a mental note to enter both on her calendar.

She'd put in another couple of hours at the Yard after her conversation with Neil Sitwell. She'd been champing at the bit to start phoning the numbers of every employee listed under King-Ryder Productions on the roster she'd been given earlier, but she trod the path of caution lest Inspector Lynley turn up and demand to know what she'd gathered from the Yard computer. Which was sod bloody all in spades, of course. To hell with him, she'd begun to think during her eighth cumulative hour at the terminal. If he wanted a flaming report on every bleeding individual with whom DI Andrew Maiden might have rubbed elbows in his years undercover, she'd damn well give it to him by the shovelful. But the information was going to get him bugger all that would lead him to the Derbyshire killer. She would have bet her own life on that.

She'd left the Yard round half past four, stopping at Lynley's office to drop off a report and a personal note. The report made her point, she liked to think, without stooping to rub his nose or otherwise dabble in the obvious. I'm right, you're wrong, but I'll play your stupid game were not words that she needed to say to him. Her time would come, and she thanked her stars that the manner in which Lynley was orchestrating the case actually left her more of a free hand than he realised. The personal note that she left with the report assured Lynley in the most polite of terms that she was taking to Chelsea the post-mortem file prepared by Dr. Sue Myles in Derbyshire. Which was what Barbara did as soon as she left New Scotland Yard.

She found Simon St. James and his wife in the back garden of their Cheyne Row house, where St. James was watching Deborah crawl on her hands and knees along the brick path edging a herbaceous border that ran the length of the garden wall. She had a pump action sprayer that she was dragging along as she moved, and every few feet she stopped and energetically attacked the ground with a rainfall of pungent insecticide.

She was saying, “Simon, there are billions of them. And even when I spray, they keep moving about. Lord. If there's ever a nuclear war, ants will be the only survivors.”

St. James, reclining on a chaise longue with a wide-brimmed hat shading his face, said, “Did you get that section by the hydrangeas, my love? It looks as if you missed that bit by the fuchsia as well.”

“Honestly. You're maddening. Would you rather do this yourself? I hate to be disturbing your peace of mind with such a slapdash effort.”

“Hmm.” St. James appeared to consider her offer. “No. I don't think so. You've been getting so much better at it recently. Doing anything well takes practise, and I hate to rob you of the opportunity.”

Deborah laughed and mock-sprayed him. She caught sight of Barbara just outside the kitchen door. She said, “Brilliant. Just what I need. A witness. Hullo, Barbara! Please take note of which partner is slaving away in the garden and which is not. My solicitor will want a statement from you later.”

“Don't believe a word she says,” St. James said. “I've only sat down this moment.”

“Something about your posture says you're lying,” Barbara told him as she crossed the lawn to the chaise longue. “And your father-in-law just suggested that I light a stick of dynamite under your bum, by the way.”

“Did he?” St. James enquired, frowning at the kitchen window through which Joseph Cotter's form could be seen moving round.

“Thanks, Dad,” Deborah called out in the direction of the house.

Barbara smiled at their quiet, fond sparring. She pulled a deck chair up and sank into it. She handed over the file to St. James, saying, “His Lordship would like you to make a study of this.”

“What is it?”

“The Derbyshire post-mortems. Both the girl and the boy. The inspector'd tell you to have the closer look at the data on the girl, by the way.”

“You wouldn't tell me that?”

Barbara smiled grimly. “I think my thoughts.”

St. James opened the file. Deborah crossed the lawn to join them, trailing the spray pump behind her. “Pictures,” St. James warned her.

She hesitated. “Bad?”

“Multiple stab wounds on one of the victims,” Barbara told her.

She blanched and sat on the chaise longue near to her husband's feet. St. James gave the photographs a glance only, before he placed them face down on the lawn. He flipped through the report, pausing to read here and there. He said, “Is there something particular that Tommy's looking for, Barbara?”

“The inspector and I aren't communicating directly. I'm currently his gofer. He told me to bring you the report. I tugged my forelock and did his bidding.”