In Pursuit Of The Proper Sinner (28 page)

Barbara's shoulders sagged.

“Yeah. She's writing—”

Lynley cut in. “Didn't you tell me she was going through Maiden's past arrests?”

“She was doing, yeah.”

“Have you completed that search, Havers?” Lynley asked.

Barbara blew out a breath. Lie or truth? she wondered. A lie would serve her immediate purposes, but it would sink her ship at the end of the day. “Winston suggested I trek out to Battersea,” she told Lynley. “I was just about to go back to CRIS, when he showed up with the information on the girl. I was thinking, sir, that her working for Upman doesn't make sense when you look at the fact that she'd dropped out of law college and had another job in London that she'd apparendy taken leave from for some reason, if she even had another job at all, because we've yet to check that out. And anyway, if there's a lover, as you've said, and if she was getting herself ready to be supported by him, why the hell would she be spending a summer working in the Peaks?”

“You need to get back on CRIS” was Lynley's reply. “I've had a word with Maiden and he's given us some possibilities to look into from his time with SO 10. Take down these names and deal with them, Havers.” He began reciting, spelling when necessary. There were fifteen names in all.

When she had them, Barbara said, “But, sir, don't you think that this Terry Cole business—”

What he thought, Lynley interrupted, was that as an SO 10 officer, Andrew Maiden would have overturned rocks and uncovered slugs, worms, and insects from all walks of life. He could have struck up an acquaintance during his time in undercover who had proved fatal years later. Thus, once Barbara was done looking for the obvious vengeance seekers, she was to read the files again for a more subtle connection: like a disappointed snout whose efforts hadn't been sufficiently rewarded by the police.

“But don't you think—”

“I've told you what I think, Barbara. I've given you an assignment. I'd like you to get on with it.”

Barbara got the message. She said, “Sir,” in reply, a polite affirmative. She nodded to Nkata and left the office. But she took no more than two steps from the doorway,

“Get on to the financial management firm” Lynley said. “I'm going to have a look at the girl's car. If we can find that pager and if the lover's phoned in, the number will put us on to him.”

“Right,” Winston said, and rang off.

Barbara slid back into Lynley's office, sidling along the wall casually as if she'd never had an order to do anything else. “So who is it who told her in Islington that he'd see her dead before he'd let her do it? The lover? Her dad? Britton? Cole? Upman? Or someone we haven't got on to yet? And what's the it anyway, when it's at home? Settling in to be some heavy punter's fluffy bit on the side? Going for the dosh with a bit of blackmail against the lover—that's always nice, isn't it? Having it off with more than one man? What d'you think?”

Nkata looked up from his notebook as she spoke. His glance went beyond her to the corridor, where she'd remained in mild defiance of Lynley's instructions to her. He said, “Barb …” in a monitory fashion. You heard the guv's order remained unsaid.

Barbara said breezily, “There may even be more at MKR Financial Management. Nicola could have been a bird who fancied a regular bonk when she wasn't getting it from the boyfriend in the Peaks and when the London lover was taken up with his wife. But I don't think we want to go at that angle directly at MKR, do you, what with sexual harassment all the rage.”

Nkata didn't miss the plural pronoun. He said, a model of patience and delicacy, “Barb, the guv did say you're to get back on to CRIS.”

“Bollocks to CRIS. Don't tell me you think some lag on the loose squared it with Maiden by taking the cosh to his daughter. That's stupid, Winston. It's a waste of time.”

“Might be. But when the 'spector tells you what road to take, you'd be a wise bird to take it. Right?” And when she didn't reply, “Right, Barb?”

“Okay, okay.” Barbara sighed. She knew that she'd been given a second chance with Lynley through the good graces of Winston Nkata. She just didn't want the second chance to materialise as a lengthy assignment to sit at a computer. She tried a compromise. “What about this, then? Let me go with you to Notting Hill, let me work it with you, and I'll do the computer business on my own time. I promise. I give you my word of honour.”

“The guv's not going to go for that, Barb. And he'll be bloody cheesed off when he twigs what you're doing. And then where'll you be?”

“He won't know about it. I won't tell him. You won't tell him. Look, Winston, I've got a feeling about this. The information we've got is all knotted up, and it wants unknotting, and I'm good at that. You need my input. You'll need it more once you get more details from this MKR place. I'm promising to do the computer slog—I'm swearing to do it—so just let me have a bigger piece of the case.”

Nkata frowned. Barbara waited. She chewed her gum more vigorously.

Nkata said, “When'll you do it, then? Early morning? Night? Weekends? When?”

“Whenever,” she replied. “I'll squeeze it in between tea dancing engagements at the Ritz. My social life's a real whirl, as you know, but I think I can carve out an hour here and there to obey an order.”

“He'll be checking to see you're doing what he says,” Nkata pointed out.

“And I'll be doing it. Wearing bells, if necessary. But in the meantime, don't waste my brain and experience by advising me to spend the next twelve hours at a computer terminal. Let me be part of this while the scent's still fresh. You know how important that is, Winston.”

Nkata slid the notebook into his pocket and observed her evenly. “You're a pit bull sometimes,” he said, defeated.

“It's one of my finer attributes,” she replied.

ynley pulled into the car park in front of Buxton police station, untangled his lengthy frame from the small police vehicle, and examined the convex brick facade of the building. He was still astounded at Barbara Havers.

He had suspected that Nkata might put Havers on to the task of tracing Andy Maiden's investigations via computer. He knew the black man was fond of her. And he hadn't forbade it because, in part, he was willing to see if—after her demotion and disgrace—she would complete a simple assignment that she was sure not to like. True to form, she'd gone her own way in it, proving once again what her commanding officer believed to be the case: She had no more respect for a chain of command than a bull had respect for Wedgwood china. No matter that Winston had asked her to see to the Battersea end of things, she'd been given a prior assignment and she very well knew she was supposed to complete it before taking on something else. Christ. When would the woman learn?

He strode inside the building and asked for the officer in charge of evidence from the crime scene. After speaking to Andy Maiden, he'd tracked down Nicola's Saab at the pound, where he'd spent a fruitless fifty minutes doing himself what had already been done with exemplary efficiency by Hanken's team: going over every inch of the car, inside and out, stem to stern. The object of his search had been the pager. He'd come up empty-handed. So if Nicola Maiden had indeed left it in the Saab when she'd set off across the moors, the only place remaining to look for it would be among whatever evidence had been taken from her car.

The officer in question was called DC Mott, and he presided over the cardboard boxes, paper bags, plastic containers, clipboards, and record books that constituted the evidence so far linked to the investigation. He gave Lynley the wariest of welcomes into his lair. He was in the middle of tucking into an enormous jam tart onto which he'd just poured a liberal helping of custard and—spoon in hand—he didn't look like a man who wished to be disturbed in the midst of indulging in one of his vices. Munching happily away, Mott leaned back in a metal folding chair and asked Lynley exactly what he wanted to “mess about with.”

Lynley told the constable what he was looking for. Then, hedging his bets, he went on to add that while the pager might well have been left in Nicola Maiden's car, it might also have been left at the crime scene itself, in which case he wouldn't want to limit his search to evidence taken from the Saab. Would Mott mind his having a look through everything?

“Pager, you say?” Mott spoke with the spoon wedged into his cheek. “Didn't come across nowt like that, 'm afraid.” And he dipped his head to the tart with devotion. “Best you have a look through the records book first, sir. No sense sifting through everything till you see what we've got Usted, is there?”

Fully aware of the degree to which he was treading on another man's patch, Lynley sought the most cooperative route. He found a vacant spot to lean against a metal-topped barrel, and he skimmed through the lists in the records book while Mott's spoon clicked energetically against his bowl.

Nothing in the records book came close to resembling a pager, so Lynley asked if he might have a look through the evidence for himself. Taking time to polish off tart and custard with gusto—Lynley half expected the man to lick the sides of the bowl—Mott reluctantly gave Lynley permission to look through the evidence. Once Lynley managed to obtain a pair of latex gloves from the DC, he started with the bags marked Saab. He got only as far as the second bag, however, when DI Hanken came charging into the evidence room.

“Upman's lied to us, the sod,” he announced, flipping Mott a cursory nod. “Not that I'm surprised. Smarmy bastard.”

Lynley went on to the third bag from the Saab. He set it on the top of the barrel, but he didn't open it, saying, “Lied about what?”

“About Friday night. About his supposed”—heavy irony on the word—“guv-to-subordinate relationship with our girl.” Hanken scrambled in his jacket and brought out his Marlboros, at which Constable Mott said, “Not in here, sir. Fire hazard.”

To which Hanken said, “Hell,” and shoved them back into his pocket. He went on. “They were in the Chequers, all right. I even had a word with their waitress, a girl called Margery, who remembered them at once. Seems our Upman's taken more than one dolly bird to the Chequers in the past, and when he does, he asks that Margery serve them. Likes her, she says. And tips like an American. Bloody fool.”

Lynley said, “The lie? Did they ask for a room?”

“Oh no. They left, like Upman said. What he failed to tell us was where they went afterwards.” Hanken smiled thinly, clearly delighted at having caught the solicitor out. “They went from the Chequers to chez Upman,” he announced, “where the Maiden girl checked in for a lengthy visit.”

Hanken warmed to his story. Having learned never to believe the first thing a lawyer said, he'd done a little more scavenging once he'd spoken to Margery. A brief stint in the solicitor's neighbourhood had been enough to unearth the truth. Upman and Nicola Maiden had apparently arrived at the solicitor's house round eleven forty-five, seen by a neighbour who was taking Rover out for his last-of-the-evening. Ana they'd been friendly enough with each other to suggest that a little more existed between them than the employer-employee relationship depicted by Mr. Upman.

“Tongues on the porch,” Hanken said crudely. “Our Will was examining her dental work closely.”

“Ah.” Lynley opened the evidence bag and lifted its contents onto the barrel top. “And do we know it was Nicola Maiden Upman was with? What about the divorcee girlfriend? Joyce?”

“It was Nicola all right,” Hanken said. “When she left—this was at half past four the next morning—the bloke next door was taking a piss. He heard voices, had a look out the window, and got a fine glimpse of her when the light went on in Upman's car. So”—and here he took out his Marlboros once more—“what d'you think they were up to for five hours?”

Mott said again, “Not in here, sir.”

Hanken said, “Shit,” and returned the Marlboros to their place.

“Another talk with Mr. Upman appears to be in order,” Lyn-ley said.

The expression on Hanken's face said that he couldn't wait.

Lynley summarised for his colleague the information that Nkata and Havers had gleaned in London. He concluded by saying thoughtfully, “But no one here in Derbyshire seems to know that the girl had no intention of completing her law course. Curious, don't you think?”

“No one knew or someone's lying to us,” Hanken said pointedly. He seemed to note for the first time that Lynley was sifting through evidence. He said, “What're you doing, then?”

“Satisfying myself that Nicola's pager isn't here. D'you mind?”

“Satisfy away.”

The contents of the third bag appeared to be articles from the Saab's boot. Among the items lying on the barrel top were the car's jack, a box spanner, a wheel brace, and a set of screwdrivers. Three spark plugs looked as if they'd been rolling round the boot since its factory days, and a set of jump leads were curled round a small chrome cylinder. Lynley lifted this last up and looked it over under the light.

“What've we got?” Hanken asked.

Lynley reached for his glasses and slipped them on. He'd been able to identify every other item that had been taken from the car, but what the cylinder was, he couldn't have said. He turned the object over in his hand. Little more than two inches long, the cylinder was perfectly smooth both inside and out, and either end of it was curved and polished, suggesting that as it was, it was all of a piece. It opened to fall precisely in half by means of a hinge. Each half had a hole bored into it. Through each hole an eyebolt was screwed.

“Looks like something from a machine,” Hanken said. “A nut. A cog. Something like that.”

Lynley shook his head. “It hasn't any interior grooves. And if it had, we'd be looking at a machine the size of a space ship, I dare say.”

“Then what? Here. Let me have a look.”

“Gloves, sir,” Mott barked, vigilance in action. He tossed a pair to Hanken, who put them on.

In the meantime, Lynley gave the cylinder a closer scrutiny. “It's got something on the inside. A deposit of some kind.”

“Motor oil?”

“Not unless motor oil solidifies these days,” Lynley said.

Hanken took it from him and had his own go with it. He turned it in his palm and said, “Substance? Where?”