Elizabeth George - This Body of Death

He’d been called up to Hillier’s office, she was informed. Stewart did the informing, and he looked as if nothing could have pleased him more than to be the person sharing that bit of news with her.

She might otherwise have avoided her meeting with Hillier, but because Lynley had been there-doubtless making his own report on the goings-on of the previous day-she had no choice but to take herself to the assistant commissioner’s office. She refused to fortify herself before heading there. Lynley’s impertinent question about her drinking still plagued her.

She met him in the corridor near Hillier’s office. He said, “You look like you’ve had no sleep.”

She told him she’d returned to the hospital and remained there long into the night. “How are things?” she asked in conclusion, with a nod towards the AC’s office.

“As expected. It could have gone better with Matsumoto yesterday. He wants to know why it didn’t.”

“Does he see that as your position, Thomas?”

“What?”

“Making those sorts of determinations. Making reports to him about my performance. Official snout. Whatever.”

Lynley gazed at her in a fashion she found disconcerting. It wasn’t sexual. She could have dealt with that. It was, instead, rather more than intolerably kind. He said quietly, “I’m on your side, Isabelle.”

“Are you?”

“I am. He’s thrown you headfirst into the investigation because he’s being pressured from above to fill Malcolm Webberly’s position and he wants to know how you do the job. But what’s going on with him is only partially about you. The rest is politics. Politics involve the commissioner, the Home Office, and the press. As you’re feeling the heat, so is he.”

“I wasn’t wrong, the situation yesterday wasn’t mismanaged.”

“I didn’t tell him it was. The man panicked. No one knows why.”

“That’s what you told him?”

“That’s what I told him.”

“If Philip Hale hadn’t-”

“Don’t throw Philip into the midst of feeding sharks. That sort of thing will return to haunt you. The best position to take is no one’s to blame. That’s the position that will serve you in the long run.”

She thought about this. She said, “Is he alone?”

“When I went in, he was. But he’s phoned for Stephenson Deacon to come to his office. There’s got to be a briefing and the Directorate of Public Affairs wants it as soon as possible. That will mean today.”

Isabelle acknowledged a fleeting wish that she’d tossed back at least one of the bottles of vodka. There was no telling how long the coming meeting would take. But then she assured herself that she was up to the challenge. This wasn’t about her, as Lynley had said. She was merely present to answer questions.

She said to Lynley, “Thank you, Thomas,” and it was only when she was approaching the desk of Hillier’s secretary that she realised Lynley had earlier used her Christian name. She turned back to say something to him, but he was already gone.

Judi MacIntosh made a brief call into the sanctum sanctorum of the assistant commissioner. She said, “Superintendent Ardery-,” but got no further. She listened for a moment and said, “Indeed, sir.” She told Isabelle that she was to wait. It would be a few minutes. Did the superintendent want a cup of coffee?

Isabelle declined. She knew she was supposed to sit, so that was what she did, but she didn’t find it easy. As she was waiting, her mobile rang. Her ex-husband, she saw. She wouldn’t talk to him now.

A middle-aged man came into the area, a litre bottle of soda water tucked into his arm. Judi MacIntosh said to him, “Do go in, Mr. Deacon,” so Isabelle knew she was looking at the head of the Press Bureau, sent by the Directorate of Public Affairs to get to grips with the situation. Oddly, Stephenson Deacon had a football stomach although the rest of him was thin as a towel in a third-rate hotel. This inadvertently gave the impression of a pregnant woman blindly determined to watch her weight.

Deacon disappeared into Hillier’s office, and Isabelle spent an agonising quarter of an hour waiting to see what would happen next. What happened was Judi MacIntosh’s being asked to send Isabelle within, although how Judi MacIntosh received this information was a mystery to Isabelle as nothing had seemed to intrude upon what the woman was doing-which was beavering away at some typing on her computer-when she looked up and announced, “Do go inside, Superintendent Ardery.”

Isabelle did so. She was introduced to Stephenson Deacon and she was asked to join him and Hillier at the conference table to one side of the AC’s office. There she was subjected to a thorough grilling by both men on the topic of what had happened, when, where, why, who did what to whom, what sort of chase, how many witnesses, what had been the alternatives to giving chase, did the suspect speak English, did the police show their identification, was anyone in uniform, etc., etc.

Isabelle explained to them that the suspect in question had bolted, out of the absolute blue. They’d been watching him when something apparently spooked him.

Any idea what? Hillier wanted to know. Any idea how?

None at all. She’d sent men there with strict instructions not to approach, not to have uniforms with them, not to cause a scene-

Fat lot of good that did, Stephenson Deacon put in.

But somehow he was frightened anyway. It seems that he might have taken the police for invading angels.

Angels? What the-

He’s a bit of an odd egg, sir, as things turned out. Had we known about that, had we known he was likely to misinterpret anyone’s approaching him, had we even thought he would take the sight of someone coming near to mean he was in danger-

Invading angels? Invading angels? What the bloody hell do angels have to do with what happened?

Isabelle explained the condition of Yukio Matsumoto’s digs. She described the drawings on the walls. She gave them Hiro Matsumoto’s interpretation of the depiction of the angels his brother had drawn, and she concluded with the connection that existed between the violinist and Jemima Hastings as well as what they’d found in the room itself.

At the end, there was silence, for which Isabelle was grateful. She had her hands clasped tightly in her lap because she’d realised they’d begun shaking. When her hands trembled it was always a signal that thinking was going to become difficult for her in very short order. It was a result of not eating breakfast, she decided, a simple matter of blood sugar.

Finally, Stephenson Deacon spoke. The solicitor for Hiro Matsumoto, he informed her with a glance at what appeared to be a phone message, would be holding a press conference in just three hours. The cellist would be with her, but he wouldn’t speak. Zaynab Bourne was going to lay blame for what had occurred in Shaftesbury Avenue directly at the feet of the Met.

Isabelle started to speak, but Deacon held up a hand to stop her.

They themselves would prepare for a counter press conference-he referred to it as a preemptive strike-and they would hold it in exactly ninety minutes.

At this, Isabelle felt a sudden dryness develop in her throat. She said, “I expect you want me there?”

Deacon said they did not. “We want no such thing,” was how he put it. He would give out the relevant information that he’d just gathered from the superintendent. If she was wanted further, he said, he would let her know.

She was thus dismissed. As she left the room, she saw the two men lean towards each other in the sort of huddle that indicated an evaluation being made. It was an unnerving sight.

“WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” Bella McHaggis demanded. She didn’t like surprises in general, and this one in particular disturbed her. Paolo di Fazio was supposed to be at work. He was not supposed to be coming through her garden gate at this time of day. The juxtaposition of Paolo’s being there in Putney with her having just discovered Jemima’s handbag caused a frisson of warning to run through Bella’s body.