Elizabeth George - This Body of Death

“Acting Detective Superintendent Ardery?”

Isabelle spun towards the door. She knew, of course, who’d be standing there. What she didn’t know was how long she’d been there or what she’d seen. She snapped, “Don’t you ever come into this office without knocking!”

Dorothea Harriman looked startled. “I did knock. Twice.”

“And did you hear me reply?”

“No. But I-”

“Then do not enter. Do you understand that? If you ever do that again…” Isabelle heard her own voice. To her horror, she sounded like a termagant. She realised she still had the third airline bottle in her hand, and she closed her fingers round it in a concealing fist. She drew a breath.

Harriman said, “Detective Inspector Hale’s rung from St. Thomas’ Hospital, ma’am.” Her tone was formal and polite. She was, as ever, the consummate professional, and her being so at such a moment as this reduced Isabelle to feeling like a scrofulous cow. “I’m sorry to disturb,” Harriman said, “but he’s phoned twice. I did tell him you were with the assistant commissioner, but he said it was urgent and you’d want to know and to tell you the moment you returned to your office. He said he’d rung your mobile but couldn’t reach you-”

“I’d left it here, in my bag. What’s happened?” Isabelle said.

“Yukio Matsumoto’s conscious. The detective inspector said you were meant to know the moment you returned.”

WHEN ISABELLE ARRIVED, the first person she saw was DI Philip Hale who, she mistakenly presumed, was pacing down the pavement to meet her. As things turned out, however, he was instead on his way back to the Yard, having reached the infuriating conclusion that he’d followed her orders sufficiently by remaining at the hospital until their principal suspect had regained consciousness, whereupon he’d made the call to inform her. He had gone on, he told her, to bring in two uniformed constables to stand guard at Matsumoto’s doorway. Now he was heading to the incident room to get back to the checks he and his constables had been making on-

“Inspector Hale,” Isabelle interrupted him. “I tell you what you’ll be doing. You do not tell me. Are we clear on that?”

Hale frowned. “What?”

“What do you mean by ‘what’? You’re not a stupid man, are you? You certainly don’t look stupid. Are you stupid?”

“Look, guv, I was-”

“You were at this hospital, and here at this hospital you shall remain until ordered otherwise. You’ll be at the doorway to Matsumoto’s room-seated or standing and I don’t care which. You’ll be holding the patient’s hand if necessary. But what you won’t be doing is going off on your own and ringing up constables to take your place. Until you’re directed otherwise, you’re here. Is that clear?”

“Due respect, guv, this isn’t the best use of my time.”

“Let me point something out to you, Philip. We’re where we are at this precise moment because of your earlier decision to confront Matsumoto when you were told to keep your distance from the man.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“And now,” she went on, “despite being told to remain here at the hospital, you’ve taken it upon yourself to arrange for your own replacement. Is this not true, Philip?”

He shifted his weight. “It is, in part.”

“And which part isn’t?”

“I didn’t confront him at Covent Garden, guv. I didn’t say a word to the bloke. I may have got too close to him, I may have…whatever. But I didn’t-”

“Were you told to approach him? To get close to the man? To breathe the same air in his vicinity? I think not. You were told to find him, report back, and keep him in sight. In other words, you were told to keep your distance, which you did not do. And now here we are, where we are, because you took a decision you weren’t meant to take. Just as you’re doing now. So get back into that hospital, get back to Matsumoto’s doorway, and until you hear otherwise from me, remain there. Am I being clear?”

As she’d been speaking, she’d watched the muscle in Hale’s jaw jumping. He didn’t reply and she barked, “Inspector! I’m asking you a question.”

To which he finally said, “As you wish, guv.”

At that she went towards the hospital entrance and he followed as she preferred him to follow: several paces behind her. She wondered at the fact of these detectives under her command all wanting to go their own way in the investigation and what this said about the leadership provided first by the former superintendent, Malcolm Webberly, and by everyone subsequent to him, including Thomas Lynley. Discipline was called for, but having to administer that in the midst of everything else going on was particularly maddening. Changes were going to have to be made with this lot. There was no question about that.

As she reached the door with Hale as her shadow, a taxi arrived. Hiro Matsumoto stepped out, a woman in his company. This was, thank God, not his solicitor but a Japanese woman close to his own age. The third Matsumoto sibling, Isabelle concluded, Miyoshi Matsumoto, the Philadelphia flautist.

She was correct. She paused, jerking her thumb at the door for Hale to go ahead into the hospital. She waited till Matsumoto had paid for the taxi, whereupon he introduced her to his sister. She had arrived from America on the previous evening, he said. She had not yet seen Yukio. But they’d had word this morning from Yukio’s doctors-

“Yes,” Isabelle said. “He’s conscious. And I must speak with him, Mr. Matsumoto.”

“Not without his attorney.” It was Miyoshi Matsumoto who replied, and her tone was nothing like her brother’s. Obviously, she’d been in big city America long enough to know that lawyer-up was rule number one when dealing with the police force. “Hiro, call Mrs. Bourne right now.” And to Isabelle, “Keep away. I don’t want you near Yukio.”

Isabelle wasn’t unaware of the irony of being told exactly what she herself had told Philip Hale in the moments leading up to Yukio Matsumoto’s flight. She said, “Ms. Matsumoto, I know you’re upset-”

“You’ve got that much right.”

“-and I don’t disagree that this is a mess.”

“That’s what you call it?”

“But what I ask you to see-”

“Get away from me.” Miyoshi Matsumoto pushed past Isabelle and stalked towards the hospital doors. “Hiro, call that lawyer. Call someone. Keep her out of here.”

She went within, leaving Isabelle outside with Hiro Matsumoto. He looked at the ground, his arms crossed on his chest. She said to him, “Please intercede.”

He seemed to consider her request and Isabelle felt momentarily hopeful until he said, “This is something I can’t do. Miyoshi feels much as I do.”

“Which is?”

He looked up. Behind his gleaming spectacles, his eyes looked bleak. “Responsible,” he said.

“You didn’t do this.”

“Not for what happened,” he said, “but for what didn’t happen.” He nodded at Isabelle and moved towards the hospital doors.

She followed him at first, then walked at his side. They entered the hospital and began to make their way to Yukio Matsumoto’s room. Isabelle said, “No one could have anticipated this. I’ve been reassured by my officer on the scene that he didn’t approach your brother, that instead Yukio saw something or heard something or perhaps felt something-we can’t even work out which it was-and he simply bolted. As you’ve said yourself-”

“Superintendent, that’s not what I mean.” Matsumoto paused. Round them, people went on their way: visitors bearing flowers and balloons to loved ones, members of the hospital’s staff striding purposefully from one corridor to another. Above their heads the public address system asked Dr. Marie Lincoln to report to the operating theatre, and next to them pardon was requested by two orderlies whisking a patient somewhere on a trolley. Matsumoto seemed to take all of this in before he went on. “We did what we could for Yukio for many years, Miyoshi and I, but it was not enough. We had our own careers, and it was easier to let him drift so that we could pursue our music. With Yukio to concern ourselves with, to weigh us down…” He shook his head. “How could we have climbed so far, Miyoshi and I? And now this. How could we have sunk so low? I am most deeply shamed.”