Elizabeth George - This Body of Death

“That’ll do, Inspector.”

“No, it won’t. We’d have an arrest if you hadn’t run this bugger into traffic and then hung about waiting to find out he wasn’t the killer in the first place. You’ve bloody well mishandled this case from the first. You’ve-”

“Give it a rest, John.” Of all people, it was Philip Hale speaking. Winston Nkata joined him, saying, “Hang on, man.”

“You lot might start thinking about what’s going on,” was Stewart’s reply. “You’ve been tiptoeing round every mad thing this woman’s said, like we owe the bloody slag allegiance.”

“Jesus, man…” This came from Hale.

“You pig!” was the cry from one of the female constables.

“And you wouldn’t know a killer if he stuck his in you and tickled you with it,” was Stewart’s reply to her.

At this, chaos erupted. Aside from Isabelle, there were five young women in the room, three constables and two typists. The nearest constable came out of her chair as if propelled, and one typist threw her coffee cup at Stewart. He shot up and went for her. Philip Hale held him back. He swung at Hale. Nkata grabbed him. Stewart turned on him.

“You fucking nig-”

Nkata slapped his face. The blow was hard, fast, and loud like a crack. Stewart’s head flew back.

“When I say hang on, I mean it,” Nkata told him. “Sit down, shut your gob, act like you know something, and be glad I didn’t punch your lights and break your goddamn nose.”

“Well done, Winnie,” someone called out.

“That’ll do, all of you,” Isabelle said. She could see that Lynley was watching her from his place by the china board. He hadn’t moved. She was grateful for this. The last thing she wanted was his intervention. It was bad enough that Hale and Nkata had had to sort out Stewart when it was her job to do the sorting. She said to Stewart, “In my office. Wait there.” She said nothing more until he’d slammed his way out of the room. Then, “What else do we have, then?”

Jemima Hastings had possessed a gold coin-currently missing from her belongings-and a carnelian that were Roman in origin.

Barbara Havers had recognised the murder weapon and-

“Where is Sergeant Havers?” Isabelle asked, realising for the first time that the dowdy woman wasn’t among the officers in the room. “Why isn’t she here?”

There was silence before Winston Nkata said, “Gone to Ham’shire, guv.”

Isabelle felt her face go rigid. She said, “Hampshire,” simply because she could not think of another response in the circumstances.

Nkata said, “Murder weapon’s a crook. Barb an’ I, we saw ’ em in Ham ’shire. It’s a thatcher’s tool. We got two thatchers on our radar down there, and Barb thought-”

“Thank you,” Isabelle said.

“’Nother thing is crooks’re made by blacksmiths,” Nkata continued. “Rob Hastings’s a blacksmith and since-”

“I said thank you, Winston.”

The room was silent. Phones were ringing in another area, and the sudden sound of them served as an unwelcome reminder of how out of control their afternoon briefing had become. Into this silence, Thomas Lynley spoke, and it became immediately apparent that he was defending Barbara Havers.

“She’s unearthed another connection among Ringo Heath, Zachary Whiting, and Gordon Jossie, guv,” he said.

“And how do you come to know this?”

“I spoke with her on her way to Hampshire.”

“She rang you?”

“I rang her. I managed to catch her when she’d stopped on the motorway. But the important thing is-”

“You’re not in charge here, Inspector Lynley.”

“I understand.”

“By which I take it that you also understand how out of order you were to encourage Sergeant Havers to do anything other than to get her bum back to London. Yes?”

Lynley hesitated. Isabelle locked eyes with him. The same silence came over the room again. God, she thought. First Stewart, now Lynley. Havers gallivanting to Hampshire. Nkata coming to blows with another officer.

Lynley said carefully, “I see that. But there’s another connection Barbara’s come up with, and I think you’ll agree it’s worth looking at.”

“And this connection is?”

Lynley told her about a magazine and its photos of the opening of the Cadbury Photographic Portrait of the Year show. He told her about Frazer Chaplin in those pictures, and there, in the background, Gina Dickens. He concluded with, “It seemed best to let her go to Hampshire. If nothing else, she can get us photos of Jossie, Ringo Heath, and Whiting to show round Stoke Newington. And to show to Matsumoto. But, knowing Barbara, she’s likely to come up with more than that.”

“Is she indeed,” Isabelle said. “Thank you, Inspector. I’ll chat with her later.” She looked at the rest of them and read on their faces the varying degrees of discomfort. She said to them, “The lot of you have your activities for tomorrow. We’ll speak again in the afternoon.”

She left them. She heard her name called as she strode to her office. She recognised Lynley’s voice but she waved him off. “I need to deal with DI Stewart,” she told him, “and then with Hillier. And that, believe me, is all I can cope with today.” She turned quickly before he could reply. She’d not made it to her office door when Dorothea Harriman told her that the assistant commissioner had personally just phoned-the emphasis she placed on personally expressing the urgency of the communication-and he was giving the superintendent a choice: She could either come to his office at once or he could come to hers.

“I took the liberty…,” Dorothea said meaningfully. “Because with all due respect, Detective Superintendent Ardery, you don’t want the assistant commissioner coming-”

“Tell him I’m on my way.”

John Stewart, Isabelle decided, would have to wait. Briefly, she wondered how her day could possibly become worse, but she reckoned she was about to find out.

THE KEY WAS to hold things together for another hour or so. Isabelle told herself she was capable of that. She didn’t need to fortify herself for a final sixty minutes at the Yard. She might have wanted to but she didn’t need to. Want and need were completely different.

At AC Hillier’s office, Judi MacIntosh told her to go straight in. The assistant commissioner was expecting her, she said, and did she want tea or a coffee? Isabelle accepted tea with milk and sugar. She reckoned that being able to drink it without her hands shaking would make a statement about the control she was maintaining over the situation.

Hillier was sitting behind his desk. He nodded towards his conference table, and he told her they would wait for Stephenson Deacon’s arrival. Hillier joined her there when Isabelle sat. He had several telephone messages in his hand, slips of paper that he laid out on the table in front of him and made a show of studying. The office door opened after two minutes’ tense silence, and Judi MacIntosh came in with Isabelle’s tea: cup and saucer, milk jug and sugar, stainless steel spoon. These would be trickier to handle than a plastic or Styrofoam cup. This teacup would rattle on its saucer when she lifted it, sounding a betrayal. Very clever, Isabelle thought.

“Please enjoy your tea,” Hillier told her. She reckoned his tone was similar to that which Socrates heard prior to the hemlock.

She took milk but decided against the sugar. Sugar would have required her dexterous use of the spoon, and she didn’t think she could manage that. As it was, when she stirred the milk into the tea, the sound of steel hitting china seemed earsplitting. She didn’t dare raise the cup to her lips. She set the spoon in the saucer and waited.

It was less than five minutes before Stephenson Deacon joined them although it seemed much longer. He nodded at her and sank into a chair, placing a manila folder in front of him. His hair was thin and the colour of mouse fur and he ran his hands through it as he said, “Well,” after which he leveled a gaze at her and added, “We do have something of a problem, Superintendent Ardery.”