Elizabeth George - This Body of Death

“But I love it,” Hadiyyah said. “I knew I would. Oh, I just knew it.”

She zipped inside. There was nothing for Barbara to do but follow.

THEY SPENT A grueling ninety minutes in Topshop, where lack of air-conditioning-this was London, after all, where people still believed that there were only “four or five hot days each year”-and what seemed like a thousand teenagers in search of bargains made Barbara feel as if she’d definitely paid for every earthly sin she’d ever committed, far beyond those that she’d committed against the name of haute couture. They went from there to Jigsaw, and from Jigsaw to H & M, where they repeated the Topshop experience with the addition of small children howling for their mothers, ice cream, lollies, pet dogs, sausage rolls, pizza, fish and chips, and whatever else came into their feverish minds. At Hadiyyah’s insistence-“Barbara, just look at the name of the shop, please!”-they followed these experiences with a period of time in Accessorize, and finally they found themselves in Marks & Spencer, although not without Hadiyyah’s sigh of disapproval. She said, “This is where Mrs. Silver buys her knickers, Barbara,” as if that information would stop Barbara cold and dead in her tracks. “Do you want to look like Mrs. Silver?”

“At this point, I’ll settle for looking like Dame Edna.” Barbara ducked inside. Hadiyyah trailed her. “Thank God for small mercies,” Barbara noted over her shoulder. “Not only knickers but air-conditioning as well.”

All they’d managed to accomplish so far was a necklace from Accessorize that Barbara thought she wouldn’t feel too daft wearing and a purchase of makeup from Boots. The makeup consisted of whatever Hadiyyah told her to buy although Barbara sincerely doubted she’d ever wear it. She’d only given in to the idea of makeup at all because the little girl had been utterly heroic in facing Barbara’s consistent refusals to purchase anything Hadiyyah had fished out of the racks of clothing they’d seen so far. Thus it seemed only fair to give in on something, and makeup appeared to be the ticket. So she’d loaded her basket with foundation, blusher, eye shadow, eye liner, mascara, several frightening shades of lipstick, four different kinds of brushes, and a container of loose powder that was supposed to “fix it all in place,” Hadiyyah told her. Apparently, the purchases Hadiyyah directed Barbara to make were heavily dependent upon her observation of her mother’s daily morning rituals, which themselves seemed to be heavily dependent upon “pots of this and that…She always looks brilliant, Barbara, wait till you see her.” Seeing Hadiyyah’s mother was something that had not happened in the fourteen months of Barbara’s acquaintance with the little girl and her father, and the euphemism she’s gone to Canada on holiday was beginning to take on a significance difficult for Barbara to continue to ignore.

Barbara groused about the excessive expense, saying, “Can’t I make do with blusher by itself?” To this, Hadiyyah scoffed most heartily. “Really, Barbara,” she said, and she left it at that.

Once in Marks & Spencer, Hadiyyah wouldn’t hear of Barbara’s trailing off towards racks of anything the child deemed “suitable for Mrs. Silver…you know.” She had in mind that staple of all wardrobes-the aforementioned A-line skirt-and declared herself content with the fact that at least as it was high summer, the autumn clothing had just been brought in. Thus, she explained, what was on offer hadn’t yet been picked over by countless “working mums who wear this sort of thing, Barbara. They’ll be on holiday with their kids just now, so we don’t have to worry about having only the pickings left.”

“Thank God for that,” Barbara said. She was drifting towards twin sets in plum and olive green. Hadiyyah took her arm firmly and steered her elsewhere. She declared herself content when they found “separates, Barbara, which we can put together to make suits. Oh, and look, they’ve blouses with pussy bows. These’re rather sweet, aren’t they?” She lifted one for Barbara’s inspection.

Barbara couldn’t imagine herself in a blouse at all, let alone one with a voluminous bow at the neck. She said, “Don’t think that’s suitable for my jawline, do you? What about this?” and she pulled a jumper off a neatly folded pile.

“No jumpers,” Hadiyyah told her. She replaced the blouse on the rack with, “Oh, all right. I s’pose the bow’s a bit much.”

Barbara praised the Almighty for that declaration. She began to browse through the rack of skirts. Hadiyyah did likewise, and they ultimately came up with five upon which they could agree although they’d had to compromise each step of the way, with Hadiyyah firmly returning to the rack anything she considered Mrs. Silverish and Barbara shuddering at anything that might draw attention to itself.

Off they went to the changing rooms, then, where Hadiyyah insisted upon acting the part of Barbara’s dresser, which exposed her to Barbara’s undergarments, which she declared, “Shocking, Barbara. You got to get those string-back kind.” Barbara wasn’t willing to wander even for a moment in the land of knickers, so she directed Hadiyyah to dwell on the skirts they’d chosen. To these the little girl flicked her hand in dismissal of anything “unsuitable, Barbara,” declaring this one to be rucked round the hips, that one to be tight across the bum, another to be a bit nasty looking, and a fourth something that even someone’s gran wouldn’t wear.

Barbara was considering what punishment she might be able to inflict upon Isabelle Ardery for the suggestion that she get herself into this glamorous position in the first place when deep within her shoulder bag, her mobile phone rang, bleating out the musical equivalent of the first four lines of “Peggy Sue” that she’d gleefully downloaded from the Internet.

“Buddy Holly,” Hadiyyah said.

“I remain gratified to have taught you something.” Barbara fished out the mobile and looked at the number of the caller. She was either saved by the literal bell or her movements were being tracked. She flipped it open. “Guv,” she said.

“Where are you, Sergeant?” Isabelle Ardery asked.

“Shopping,” Barbara told her, “for clothes. As recommended.”

“Tell me you’re not in a charity shop and I’ll be a happy woman,” Ardery said.

“Be a happy woman, then.”

“Do I want to know where…?”

“Probably not.”

“And you’ve managed what?”

“A necklace so far.” And lest the superintendent protest the oddity of this purchase, “and makeup as well. Lots of makeup. I’ll look like…” She racked her brain, seeking a suitable image. “I’ll look like Elle Macpherson when next we meet. And at the moment I’m standing in a changing room having my knickers disapproved of by a nine-year-old.”

“Your companion is nine years old?” Ardery said. “Sergeant-”

“Believe me, she has definite thoughts on what I ought to be wearing, guv, which is why we’ve only managed a necklace so far. I expect we’re about to compromise on a skirt, though. We’ve been at it for hours and I think I’ve worn her down.”

“Well, effect the compromise and get in gear. Something’s come up.”

“Something…?”

“We’ve got a dead body in a cemetery, Sergeant, and it’s one that’s not supposed to be there.”

ISABELLE ARDERY DIDN’T want to think of her boys, but her first sight of Abney Park Cemetery made it nearly impossible to think of anything else. They were of an age when having adventures trumped everything save Christmas morning, and the cemetery was decidedly a place for adventures. Wildly overgrown, with gloomy Victorian funerary statues draped in ivy, with fallen trees providing imaginative spots for forts and caches, with tumbling tombstones and crumbling monuments…It was like something out of a fantasy novel, complete with the occasional gnarled tree that had been carved at shoulder height to display huge cameos in the shape of moons, stars, and leering faces. All this, and it was just off the high street, behind a wrought-iron railing, accessible to anyone through various gates.