Elizabeth George - This Body of Death

It must be said that had Adrienne Cooper gone for the security guard at once, John Dresser might never have come to the attention of the boys. But her failure-if it can even be called a failure, because how, indeed, was she even to imagine the horrors to follow-is minor compared to the failure of those individuals who later saw a progressively more and more distressed John Dresser in the company of the three boys and yet made no move either to alert the police or to take him from them.

“YOU’RE UP TO SPEED ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO DI Lynley, I take it?” Hillier asked, and Isabelle Ardery considered the man as well as the question before she replied. They were in his office at New Scotland Yard, where banks of windows looked out on the rooftops of Westminster and some of the costliest real estate in the country. Sir David Hillier was standing behind his oceanic desk, looking crisp and clean and remarkably fit for a man his age. He had to be somewhere in his middle sixties, she decided.

At his insistence, she herself was seated, which she thought quite clever of him. He wanted her to feel his dominance on the chance that she might think herself his superior. This would be physically, of course. She was unlikely to conclude that she had some other sort of ascendancy over the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. She was taller than he by a full three inches-even more if she wore higher heels-however, there her advantage ended.

She said, “You’re referring to Inspector Lynley’s wife? Yes. I know what happened to her. I daresay everyone in the force knows what happened. How is he? Where is he?”

“Still in Cornwall, as far as I know. But the team want him back, and you’re going to feel it. Havers, Nkata, Hale…All of them. Even John Stewart. From detectives to filing clerks. The lot. Custodians as well, I have no doubt. He’s a popular figure.”

“I know. I’ve met him. He’s quite the gent. That would be the word, wouldn’t it? Gent.”

Hillier eyed her in a way she didn’t much like, suggesting he had some thoughts on the wheres and hows of her acquaintance with Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley. She considered an elucidation on the subject, but she rejected the idea. Let the man think what the man would think. She had her chance to capture the job she wanted, and all that mattered was proving to him that she was worthy to be named permanent and not just acting detective superintendent.

“They’re professionals, the lot of them. They won’t make your life a misery,” Hillier said. “Still, there’re strong loyalties among them. Some things die hard.”

And some don’t die at all, she thought. She wondered if Hillier intended to sit or whether this interview was going to be conducted entirely in the headmaster/recalcitrant pupil mode that his present position seemed to indicate. She also wondered if she’d made some sort of professional faux pas in sitting herself, but it seemed to her that he had made an unambiguous gesture towards one of the two chairs that were positioned in front of his desk, hadn’t he?

“…won’t give you a problem. Good man,” Hillier was saying. “But John Stewart’s another matter. He still wants the superintendent’s position, and he didn’t take it well when he wasn’t named permanent superintendent at the end of his trial period.”

Isabelle brought herself round with a mental jolt. The mention of DI John Stewart’s name told her that Hillier had been speaking of the others who had worked temporarily in the detective superintendent’s job. He’d have been talking about the in-house officers, she concluded. Mentioning those who, like her, had auditioned-there was no other word for it-from outside the Met would have been pointless as she was unlikely to run into them in one or another of the endless, lino-floored corridors in Tower Block or Victoria Block. DI John Stewart, on the other hand, would be part of her team. His feathers were going to need smoothing out. This wasn’t one of her strengths, but she would do what she could.

“I understand,” she told Hillier. “I’ll tread carefully with him. I’ll tread carefully with them all.”

“Very good. How are you settling in? How are the boys? Twins, aren’t they?”

She made her lips curve as one would normally do when “the children” were mentioned, and she forced herself to think about them exactly like that, in inverted commas. The inverted commas kept them at a distance from her emotions, which was where she needed them. She said, “We’ve decided-their father and I-that they’re better off remaining with him for now, since I’m only here on trial. Bob’s not far from Maidstone, he has a lovely property in the countryside, and as it’s their summer holidays, it seemed wisest to have them live with their father for a while.”

“Not easy for you, I expect,” Hillier noted. “You’ll be missing them.”

“I’ll be busy,” she said. “And you know what boys are like. Eight years old? They need supervising and plenty of it. As both Bob and his wife are at home, they’re in a good position to keep them on the straight and narrow, a far better position than I’ll be in, I daresay. It should be fine.” She made the situation sound ideal: herself hard at work in London, nose to the metaphorical grindstone, while Bob and Sandra breathed copious amounts of fresh air in the countryside, all the time doting on the boys and feeding them home-cooked chicken pies filled with everything organic and served with ice-cold milk. And, truth be told, that wasn’t too far from how it likely would be. Bob, after all, adored his sons and Sandra was perfectly lovely in her own way, if a bit too school-marmish for Isabelle’s taste. She had her own two children, but that hadn’t meant she had no room in her home and her heart for Isabelle’s boys. For Isabelle’s boys were Bob’s boys as well, and he was a good dad and always had been. He kept his eye on the ball, did Robert Ardery. He asked the right questions at just the right time, and he never made a threat that didn’t sound like an inspiration he’d just been struck by.

Hillier seemed to be reading her, or at least attempting to, but Isabelle knew she was more than a match for anyone’s effort to see beyond the role she played. She’d made a virtual art of appearing cool, controlled, and completely competent, and this façade had served her so well for so many years that it was second nature by now to wear her professional persona like chain mail. Such was the result of having ambition in a world dominated by men.

“Yes.” Hillier drew out the word, making it less confirmation than calculation. “You’re right, of course. Good that you have a civilised relationship with the ex, as well. High marks for that. It can’t be easy.”

“We’ve tried to remain friendly throughout the years,” Isabelle told him, again with that curve of her lips. “It seemed best for the boys. Warring parents? That’s never good for anyone, is it.”

“Glad to hear it, glad to hear it.” Hillier looked towards the doorway as if expecting someone to enter. No one did. He seemed ill at ease, and Isabelle didn’t consider this a bad thing. Ill at ease could work to her advantage. It suggested that the AC wasn’t as dominant a male as he thought he was. “I expect,” he said, in the tone of a man concluding their interview, “you’d like to get to know the team. Be introduced formally. Get down to work.”

“I would,” she said. “I’m going to want individual conversations with them.”

“No time like the present,” Hillier said with a smile. “Shall I take you down to them?”

“Brilliant.” She smiled back and held his gaze long enough to see him colour. He was a florid man already, so he coloured easily. She tried to imagine what he looked like in a rage. “If I can just pop into the ladies’, sir…?”