Elizabeth George - A Great Deliverance

“Of course.” Webberly nodded. “Call a cab for Father Hart,” he told Harriman.

“Oh, but I haven’t enough-”

Webberly held up a restraining hand. “It’s on the Yard, Father.”

On the Yard . The priest mouthed the words, coloured with pleasure at the implication of brotherhood and acceptance behind them. He allowed the superintendent’s secretary to shepherd him from the room.

★ ★ ★

“What do you drink when you do drink, Sergeant Havers?” Webberly asked when Father Hart had gone.

“Tonic water, sir,” she replied.

“Right,” he muttered and opened the door again. “Harriman,” he barked, “fi nd a bottle of Schweppes for Sergeant Havers… Don’t pretend you haven’t the slightest idea where to get one. Just get one.” He slammed the door, went to the cabinet, and brought out the bottle of whisky.

Lynley rubbed his forehead and pressed tightly at both sides of his eyes. “God, what a headache,” he murmured. “Have either of you any aspirin?”

“I do,” Havers replied crisply and rooted through her handbag for a small tin. She tossed it across the table to him. “Take as many as you like, Inspector.”

Webberly regarded them both thoughtfully. He wondered, not for the first time, if this partnership of two such antipodal personalities had even the ghost of a chance for success. Havers was like a hedgehog, curling herself into a protective ball of thistle at the least provocation. Yet underneath that prickly exterior of hers was a fine, probing mind. What was left to question was whether Thomas Lynley was the right combination of patience and congeniality to encourage that mind to overcome the wrangling of the termagant personality that had made it impossible for Havers to work in successful partnership with anyone else.

“Sorry to take you out of the wedding, Lynley, but there was no other way. This is the second run-in Nies and Kerridge have had up North. The first one was a disaster: Nies was right all along, and crisis ensued. I thought,” he fingered the rim of his glass and chose his words carefully, “that your presence might serve to remind Nies that he can sometimes be wrong.”

Webberly watched carefully for a reaction from the younger man-a stiffening of muscles, a movement of the head, a fl icker behind the eyelids. But there was nothing to betray him. It was no particular secret among his superior offi cers at the Yard that Lynley’s single run-in with Nies nearly five years before in Richmond had resulted in his own arrest. And however premature and ultimately spurious that arrest had been, it was the only black mark on an otherwise admirable record of service, a denigration that Lynley would have to live with for the rest of his career.

“It’s fine, sir,” Lynley replied easily. “I understand.”

A knock on the door announced Miss Harriman’s successful quest for the Schweppes, which she placed triumphantly on the table in front of Sergeant Havers. She glanced at the clock. Its hands were nearing six.

“As this isn’t a regularly scheduled workday, Superintendent,” she began, “I thought I might-”

“Yes, yes, go on home.” Webberly waved.

“Oh no, it isn’t that at all,” Harriman said sweetly. “But I think in Regulation Sixty-fi ve-A regarding compensatory time…”

“Take Monday and I’ll break your arm, Harriman,” Webberly said with equivalent sweetness. “Not in the middle of this Ripper business.”

“Wouldn’t think of it, sir. Shall I just put it on the tick? Regulation Sixty-fi ve-C indicates that-”

“Put it anywhere , Harriman.”

She smiled understandingly at him. “Absolutely, Superintendent.” The door closed behind her.

“Did that vixen wink at you as she left the room, Lynley?” Webberly demanded.

“I didn’t notice, sir.”

It was half past eight when they began gathering together the papers from the table in Webberly’s office. Darkness had fallen and the fluorescent lighting did nothing to hide the room’s genial air of disarray. If anything, it was worse now than it had been before, with the additional files from the North spread out on the table and an acrid cirrus of cigarette and cigar smoke that, in conjunction with the mixed scents of whisky and sherry, produced the effect of being in a rather down-at-heel gentlemen’s club.

Barbara noticed the deep lines of exhaustion that were drawn on Lynley’s face and judged that the aspirin had done him little good. He had gone to the wall of Ripper photographs and was inspecting them, moving from one to the next. As she watched, he lifted a hand to one of them-it was the King’s Cross victim, she noted needlessly-and traced a finger along the crude incision that the Ripper’s knife had made.

“‘Death closes all,’” he murmured. “He’s black and white, flesh with no resilience. Who could ever recognise a living man from this?”

“Or from this, for that matter,” Webberly responded. He brusquely gestured to the photographs that Father Hart had brought.

Lynley rejoined them. He stood near Barbara but was, she well knew, oblivious of her. She watched the expressions pass quickly across his face as he sorted through the photographs one last time: revulsion, disbelief, pity. His features were so easy to read that she wondered how he ever managed to conduct a successful investigation without giving everything away to a suspect. But he did it all the time. She knew his record of success, the string of follow-up convictions. He was the golden boy in more ways than one.

“We’ll head up there in the morning, then,” he said to the superintendent. He picked up a manila envelope and tucked all the materials inside.

Webberly was examining a train schedule which he had unearthed from the jumble on his desk. “Take the eight-forty-fi ve.”

Lynley groaned. “Have a bit of mercy, sir. I’d like at least the next ten hours to get rid of this migraine.”

“Then the nine-thirty. And no later than that.” Webberly glanced round his offi ce one last time as he shrugged into a tweed overcoat. Like his other clothing, it was becoming threadbare in spots, and a small patch was worked poorly into the left lapel where, no doubt, cigar ash had done its worst. “Report in on Tuesday,” he said as he left.

The superintendent’s absence seemed to rejuvenate Lynley at once, Barbara noted, for he moved with amazing alacrity of spirit to the telephone the moment the man was gone. He dialled a number, tapped his fi ngers rhythmically against the desk top, and peered at the face of the clock. After nearly a minute, his face lit with a smile.

“You did wait, old duck,” he said into the phone. “Have you broken it off with Jeffrey Cusick at last?…Ha! I knew it, Helen. I’ve told you repeatedly that a barrister can’t possibly make you happy. Did the reception end well?… He did ? Oh Lord, what a scene that must have been. Has Andrew ever cried in his life?…Poor St. James. Was he absolutely slain with mortification?…Well, it’s the champagne does it, you know. Did Sidney recover?…Yes, well, she did look for a while as if she’d get a bit maudlin at the end. She’s never made a secret of it that Simon’s her favourite brother… Of course dancing’s still on. We promised ourselves, didn’t we?…Can you give me, say, an hour or so?…Hmm, what was that?…Helen! My God, what a naughty little girl!” He laughed and dropped the phone back onto its cradle. “Still here, Sergeant?” he asked when he turned from the desk.

“You’ve no car, sir,” she replied stonily. “I thought I’d wait to see if you needed a ride home.”

“That’s awfully good of you, but we’ve all been kept here long enough for one evening, and I’m sure you’ve far better things to do on a Saturday night than see me home. I’ll catch a cab.” He bent over Webberly’s desk for a moment, writing quickly on a piece of paper. “This is my address,” he said, handing it to her. “Be there at seven tomorrow morning, will you? That should give us some time to make more sense of all this before we head to Yorkshire. Good evening, then.” He left the room.