Playing for the Ashes (76 page)

“Spare me. You know we had a row. I don’t accuse you of listening at key holes, but as you arrived hard upon its heels, you know we were engaged in a disagreement. So answer my question. How did she seem?”

“Well, actually, she seemed the same as always.”

At least, Lynley thought, he had the kindness to look regretful as he imparted the information. But Denton wasn’t one to read nuances from a woman, as any examination of his heavily chequered love life would attest. So Lynley went on with “She wasn’t in a temper? She didn’t seem…” What was the word he wanted? Thoughtful? Disheartened? Determined? Exasperated? Wretched? Anxious? Any one of them could apply at this point.

“She seemed like herself,” Denton said. “She seemed like Lady Helen.”

Which was, Lynley knew, to seem unruffled. Which was, in its turn, Helen Clyde’s forte. She wielded composure as usefully as if it were a Purdey shotgun. He’d been caught in the line of fire more than once with her, and her consistent refusal to stoop to a show of temper infuriated him.

To hell with it, he thought, and drank down his whisky. He wanted to add, To hell with her, but he couldn’t do so.

“Will that be all, then, my lord?” Denton asked. His face had composed itself into a blank and he’d altered his voice to an irritating demonstration of your-every-wish and all the etceteras.

“For Christ’s sake. Leave Jeeves in the kitchen,” Lynley said. “And yes, that’s all.”

“Very good, my—”

“Denton,” Lynley said.

Denton grinned. “Right.” He returned to Lynley’s chair and deftly appropriated the whisky glass. “I’ll pop off to bed now. How’d you like your eggs in the morning, then?”

“Cooked,” Lynley said.

“Not a bad idea.”

Denton adjusted the Bach concerto to its previous volume and left Lynley to his music and to his thoughts.

Lynley had each of the morning’s newspapers spread out across his desk, and he was leaning over them in the process of evaluating their contents when Superintendent Malcolm Webberly joined him. He was accompanied by the acrid scent of cigar smoke, which preceded him by several feet. Indeed, without looking up from his newspapers and before his superior officer spoke, Lynley murmured, “Sir,” in greeting as he compared the
Daily Mail’s
page one coverage of the murder investigation to the story’s position in
The Times
(page three), the
Guardian
(page seven), and the
Daily Mirror
(front page with a half-page accompanying photograph of Jean Cooper dashing to Lynley’s car with the Tesco’s bag in her hand). He still had the
Independent
, the
Observer
, and the
Daily Telegraph
to peruse, and Dorothea Harriman was out doing her best to unearth copies of the
Sun
and the
Daily Express
. So far all of the newspapers were walking the
fin
e line dictated by the Contempt of Court Act. No clear picture of Jimmy Cooper. No mention of his name in connection with the heretofore unidentified sixteen-year-old boy who was “helping the police with their enquiries.” Just a careful recitation of details, presented in such an order that anyone with a modicum of intelligence could read between the lines for the facts.

Webberly came to his side. With him, the smell. It permeated his suit jacket and wafted off him in waves. Lynley had no doubt that the superintendent still reeked of it after he’d bathed, brushed his teeth, gargled with mouth wash, and scrubbed his hair.

“Who’s controlling the information
flo
w?” Webberly asked.

“I am,” was Lynley’s reply.

“Don’t cock things up.” Webberly picked up the
Daily Mirror
, gave it a look, muttered, “Carrion eaters,” and dropped it back onto Lynley’s desk. He struck a match. Lynley raised his head as Webberly applied it to a half-burnt cigar he had removed from his jacket pocket. Lynley looked pained and went back to his papers.

Webberly moved restlessly round the office. He fingered a stack of folders. He took a copy of a PSI report from the filing cabinet. He replaced it. He sighed. He finally said, “See here, lad. I’m bothered.” Lynley raised his head again. Webberly went on. “You’ve got a pack of newshounds barking at the press office and a second pack prowling round outside. That seems intentional, if you ask me. So where’s it all heading? I ask, mind you, because Hillier’s going to want to know if he and his latest Henry Poole happen to arrive while the pack’s still baying for a fox. They may go after him as well, lad, which as I don’t need to remind you, is a situation we’d do well to head off before it happens.”

There was truth in that. Sir David Hillier was Chief Superintendent and he liked his CID to work like a well-oiled machine: efficiently, cost effectively, and as silently as possible. The presence of the press would suggest to Hillier a cog in the works or at least in the making. He wouldn’t be pleased.

“It’s to be expected,” Lynley said, folding
The Times
and replacing it with the
Independent
. “Fleming was a sportsman, a national figure. One can’t expect an investigation into his murder to go unaccompanied by numerous queries from the press.”

A noxious cloud of smoke ballooned between him and his newspapers. Lynley coughed discreetly. Webberly ignored him.

“You mean that’s what I’m to tell Hillier,” the superintendent said.

“If he asks.” Lynley leafed open the
Independent
and said, “Ah,” at the sight of the photograph on page three. The shape of Jimmy Cooper’s head was framed in the window of the Bentley. And in the reflection on the glass winked the discernible and unmistakable silver letters on the revolving sign in front of the Yard.

Looking over his shoulder, Webberly sighed. “I don’t like this, lad. If you aren’t careful, you’ll sink your own case before it gets to court.”

“I’m taking care,” Lynley replied. “But it’s a matter of basic chemistry, whether we like it or not.”

“Meaning?”

“If you increase the pressure, you alter the temperature,” Lynley said.

“That’s liquids, Tommy. These are people. They don’t boil.”

“You’re right. They break.”

With a breathless “I’ve managed to get the lot, Detective Inspector Lynley,” Dorothea Harriman whipped into the office, a final stack of newspapers over her arm. She said, “
Sun, Express
, yesterday’s
Telegraph
, yesterday’s
Mail
,” and with a pointed look at Webberly, “Sigmund Freud smoked twelve cigars a day. Did you know that, Superintendent Webberly? He ended up with cancer in the roof of his mouth.”

“But I’ll wager he died with a smile on his face,” Webberly retorted.

Harriman rolled her eyes expressively. “Anything else, Detective Inspector Lynley?”

Lynley considered telling her to stop using his full title, but he knew that the directive would be useless. “That’s it, Dee.”

“Press office wants to know if you plan to speak to the reporters this morning. What shall I tell them?”

“That I’ll leave the pleasure to my higher-ups today.”

“Sir?” Sergeant Havers appeared in the doorway, in a crumpled brown suit that looked as if it had also once served hard time as a dish cloth. The contrast between her and Webberly’s secretary—neatly turned out in cream crepe with black piping unmarred by newsprint despite her recent expeditions for Lynley—was wince-producing. “We’ve got the boy.”

Lynley glanced at his watch. Four minutes after ten. “Fine,” he said, removing his glasses. “I’ll be along directly. Is his solicitor with him?”

“A bloke called Friskin. He’s saying our Jimmy has nothing more to offer the police at this time.”

“Is he?” Lynley took his jacket from the back of his chair and the Fleming
fil
es from beneath the newspapers. “We’ll see about that.”

They set off to the interview room, dodging DIs, clerks, secretaries, and messengers along the corridors, Havers bobbing along quickly at Lynley’s side. She was referring to her notebook and ticking off items as she related them to him. Nkata was checking the video shop in Berwick Street, and another DC was snooping round Clapham where the Wednesday-night stag party was allegedly held. There was still no word from Inspector Ardery about her forensic team’s evaluation of the evidence. Should Havers phone Maidstone and rattle the cage?

“If we don’t hear something by noon,” Lynley said.

“Right,” Havers said and hurried on her way to the incidents room.

At the interview room, Friskin was on his feet the moment Lynley opened the door. He strode to meet him, saying, “I’d like a word, Inspector,” and stepped into the corridor where a file clerk nearly ran into him. “I’ve serious reservations about your interview with my client yesterday. Judges Rules require a civilian adult be present. Why weren’t those rules adhered to?”

“You’ve heard the tape, Mr. Friskin. The boy was offered a solicitor.”

Friskin’s grey eyes narrowed. “How far do you honestly expect to take that ridiculous confession in a court of law?”

“At the moment, I’m not concerned with a court of law. I’m concerned with getting to the bottom of Kenneth Fleming’s death. His son is connected to that death—”

“Circumstantially. Circum
stan
tially only. You haven’t one piece of hard evidence to place my client inside that cottage on Wednesday night and you bloody well know it.”

“I’d like to hear what he has to say about his movements and his whereabouts on Wednesday night. So far we’ve got an incomplete story. As soon as he completes it, we’ll know where to go. Now may we proceed or would you like to discuss it further?”

Friskin blocked the door by putting his hand on the knob. “Tell me, Inspector. Are you responsible for this morning’s gauntlet as well? Don’t look at me as if you don’t understand. The press went after my car like feeding sharks. They’d been told we were coming. Who’s throwing out the chum?”

Lynley unhooked his pocket watch and flipped it open. “They won’t print anything that could cause themselves trouble.”

Friskin stabbed a finger into his face. “Don’t think I’m a fool, Inspector Lynley. You play it that way and I’ll see to it you don’t get another word from the boy. You can attempt to intimidate a teenager, if you wish, but hear me well. You won’t intimidate me. Have I made myself clear?”

“Perfectly, Mr. Friskin. Now may we begin?”

“As you bloody wish.” Friskin shoved the door open and stalked back to his client.

Jimmy was slouched where he had been slouched yesterday, picking at the unravelling hem of the same T-shirt he’d been wearing then. Everything about him was the same as it had been before, with the exception of his shoes. He now wore a pair of unlaced trainers in place of the Doc Martens, which had been taken for evidence.

Lynley offered him a drink. Coffee, tea, milk, juice. Jimmy flipped his head to the left as refusal. Lynley switched on the tape recorder, gave the time, the date, and the people present as he took his own chair.

“Let me be clear,” Mr. Friskin said, seizing the advantage adroitly. “Jim, you needn’t say anything more. The police are giving you the impression that they’re in charge because they’ve brought you here. That’s to frighten you. That’s to make you believe they’ve got the upper hand. The truth is that you haven’t been arrested, charges haven’t been brought, you’ve only been cautioned. And there is a distinct legal difference between each one of those conditions. We’re here to assist the police and to cooperate to the extent that we deem appropriate, but we’re not here at their behest. Do you understand? If you don’t want to talk, you don’t need to talk. You don’t need to tell them anything.”

Jimmy’s head was down but he gave what went for a nod. Having said his piece, Friskin yanked loose his floral tie and leaned back in his chair. “Then go ahead, Inspector Lynley,” he said, but his expression declared that the inspector would do well to keep his expectations at ground level or below.

Lynley reviewed everything that Jimmy had told them on the previous day. The phone call from his father, the excuses Fleming had made, the motorbike ride out to Kent, the pub’s empty car park, the footpath to Celandine Cottage, the key from the potting shed. He went over the story Jimmy had told them about setting the fire itself. He concluded with, “You said the cigarette was a JPS. You said you put it in an armchair. That’s as far as we got. Do you recall that, Jim?”

CHAPTER
20

A
telephone call located Chris Faraday. He wasn’t in Little Venice but working instead in Kilburn, in a lock-up midway down a mews called Priory Walk. This wasn’t much more than an alleyway, sided by abandoned buildings with boarded windows and graf
fit
i-covered, dingy brick walls. Aside from a Ladbrokes on the corner and a Chinese take-away next door to it called Dump-Ling’s Exotic Foods, the only truly booming enterprise in the area appeared to be the Platinum Gym and Aerobic Studio, whose “especially designed cushioned flooring which reduces impact to your knees and ankles” was at the moment bearing the weight and the sweating gyrations of a veritable herd of after-work aerobic enthusiasts. A vocal by Cyndi Lauper encouraged them whenever their instructor paused in her relentless counting to take a breath.