This Body of Death (56 page)

“Now,” she said, “this is what I recommend. Incredulity.”

Hillier didn’t reply at once. Isabelle could feel her heart beating—it was
slamming
, really—against her rib cage. She reckoned it could have been seen in the pulse on her temples had she worn her hair differently and she knew it probably was evident on her neck. But that, too, was somewhat out of Hillier’s view, and as long as she said nothing more, merely waiting for his reply, obviously communicating to him nothing but confidence in the decisions she’d made …She merely needed to keep her eyes on his, which were icy and rather soulless, weren’t they, and she hadn’t actually noticed that before this moment.

“Incredulity,” Hillier finally repeated. His telephone rang. He snatched it up, listened for a moment, and said, “Tell him to hang on. I’m nearly finished here.” Then to Isabelle, “Go on.”

“With?” She made it sound as if she assumed he’d followed her logic, all surprise that he needed her to clarify.

His nostrils moved, not a flare so much as a testing of the air. For prey, no doubt. She held her ground. He said, “With your point, Superintendent Ardery. Just how do you see this playing out?”

“With our astonishment that someone’s mental condition—unfortunate though it may be—would ever trump the safety of the general public. Our officers went to the site unarmed. The man in question panicked for reasons we haven’t yet ascertained. In our possession is hard evidence—”

“Most of which was gathered after the fact of his accident,” Hillier noted.

“Which is beside the point, of course.”

“The point being?”

“That we have our hands on a person of serious interest who can, as the phrase goes, ‘help us with our inquiries’ in a fashion that no one else can. What we’re looking for, good people of the press, is—might I remind you—whoever is responsible for the brutal murder of an innocent woman in a public park, and if
this
gentleman can lead us to that party, then that’s what we’re going to demand he do. The press will fill in the blanks. The last thing they’ll ask is the order in which events occurred. Evidence is evidence. They’ll want to know what it is, not when we found it. And even if they unearth the fact that we found it after the accident on Shaftesbury Avenue, the point is the murder, the park, and our belief that the public might prefer we protect them from madmen wielding weapons rather than tiptoe round someone who might or might not be hearing Beelzebub muttering in his ear.”

Hillier considered this. Isabelle considered Hillier. She wondered idly what he’d received his knighthood for because it was odd that someone in his position would be given an honour that generally went to the higher-ups. That he’d been knighted spoke not so much of a service to the public heroically rendered but rather to Hillier’s knowing of people in high places and, more important, knowing how to use those people in high places. He was, thus, not a man to cross. But that was fine. She didn’t intend to cross him.

He said to her, “You’re a wily one, aren’t you, Isabelle? I’ve not missed the fact that you’ve managed to swing this meeting your way.”

“I wouldn’t in the least expect you to miss that fact,” Isabelle said. “A man like you doesn’t rise to the position you have because things get by him. I quite understand that. I quite admire it. You’re a political animal, sir. But so am I.”

“Are you.”

“Oh yes.”

A moment passed between them during which they were locked in an assessing look. It had about it the air of the distinctly sexual, and Isabelle allowed herself to imagine going at it with David Hillier, the two of them locked in an entirely different kind of combat on her bed. She reckoned he imagined much the same. When she was as certain of that as she could be, she dropped her gaze.

She said, “I assume Mr. Deacon’s waiting outside, sir. Would you like me to stay for that meeting?”

Hillier didn’t reply until she raised her eyes. Then he said slowly, “That won’t be necessary.”

She rose. “Then I’ll get back to work. If you want me”—her choice of verb was deliberate—“Ms. MacIntosh has my mobile number. As, perhaps, do you?”

“I do,” he said. “We’ll speak again.”

S
HE WENT DIRECTLY TO THE LADIES’
. T
HE ONLY PROBLEM
was that she hadn’t thought to bring her bag with her to Hillier’s office, so at the moment she was without resources and she was left relying on what was available, which was water from the tap. This was hardly an efficacious substance for what ailed her. But she used it for want of anything else, on her face, her hands, her wrists.

Thus she felt little improved when she left Tower Block and made her way back to her office. She heard her name called by Dorothea Harriman—who for some reason seemed incapable of referring to her in any terms briefer than Acting Detective Superintendent Ardery—but this she ignored. She closed her office door and went directly to her desk, where she’d left her bag. Upon opening it, she discovered in short order that she had three messages on her mobile phone. She ignored them as well. She thought, Yes yes yes as she brought forth one of her airline bottles of vodka. In her rush to have it, she dropped the bottle onto the lino floor. She scrambled on her knees beneath her desk to fetch it, and she downed it as she rose to her feet. It wasn’t enough, of course. She emptied her bag on the floor to find the other. She downed this and went for the third one. She
deserved
it
.
She’d survived an encounter that by all rights she shouldn’t have survived at all. She’d avoided the participation of Stephenson Deacon and the Directorate of Public Affairs in that encounter. She’d argued her case, and she’d won, if only for the moment. And because it
was
only for the moment, she bloody well needed a drink, she bloody well deserved one, and if there was anyone between here and hell who didn’t understand that—

“Acting Detective Superintendent Ardery?”

Isabelle spun towards the door. She knew, of course, who’d be standing there. What she didn’t know was how long she’d been there or what she’d seen. She snapped, “Don’t you
ever
come into this office without knocking!”

Dorothea Harriman looked startled. “I did knock. Twice.”

“And did you hear me reply?”

“No. But I—”

“Then do
not
enter. Do you understand that? If you ever do that again …” Isabelle heard her own voice. To her horror, she sounded like a termagant. She realised she still had the third airline bottle in her hand, and she closed her fingers round it in a concealing fist. She drew a breath.

Harriman said, “Detective Inspector Hale’s rung from St. Thomas’ Hospital, ma’am.” Her tone was formal and polite. She was, as ever, the consummate professional, and her being so at such a moment as this reduced Isabelle to feeling like a scrofulous cow. “I’m sorry to disturb,” Harriman said, “but he’s phoned twice. I did tell him you were with the assistant commissioner, but he said it was urgent and you’d want to know and to tell you the moment you returned to your office. He said he’d rung your mobile but couldn’t reach you—”

“I’d left it here, in my bag. What’s happened?” Isabelle said.

“Yukio Matsumoto’s conscious. The detective inspector said you were meant to know the moment you returned.”

W
HEN
I
SABELLE ARRIVED,
the first person she saw was DI Philip Hale who, she mistakenly presumed, was pacing down the pavement to meet her. As things turned out, however, he was instead on his way back to the Yard, having reached the infuriating conclusion that he’d followed her orders sufficiently by remaining at the hospital until their principal suspect had regained consciousness, whereupon he’d made the call to inform her. He had gone on, he told her, to bring in two uniformed constables to stand guard at Matsumoto’s doorway. Now he was heading to the incident room to get back to the checks he and his constables had been making on—

“Inspector Hale,” Isabelle interrupted him. “
I
tell
you
what you’ll be doing. You do not tell me. Are we clear on that?”

Hale frowned. “What?”

“What do you mean by ‘what’? You’re not a stupid man, are you? You certainly don’t look stupid.
Are
you stupid?”

“Look, guv, I was—”

“You were at this hospital, and here at this hospital you shall remain until ordered otherwise. You’ll be at the doorway to Matsumoto’s room—seated or standing and I don’t care which. You’ll be holding the patient’s hand if necessary. But what you won’t be doing is going off on your own and ringing up constables to take your place. Until you’re directed otherwise, you’re here. Is that clear?”

“Due respect, guv, this isn’t the best use of my time.”

“Let me point something out to you, Philip. We’re where we are at this precise moment because of your earlier decision to confront Matsumoto when you were told to keep your distance from the man.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“And now,” she went on, “despite being told to remain here at the hospital, you’ve taken it upon yourself to arrange for your own replacement. Is this not true, Philip?”

He shifted his weight. “It is, in part.”

“And which part isn’t?”

“I didn’t confront him at Covent Garden, guv. I didn’t say a word to the bloke. I may have got too close to him, I may have …whatever. But I didn’t—”

“Were you told to approach him? To get close to the man? To breathe the same air in his vicinity? I think not. You were told to find him, report back, and keep him in sight. In other words, you were told to keep your distance, which you did not do. And now here we are,
where
we are, because you took a decision you weren’t meant to take. Just as you’re doing now. So get back into that hospital, get back to Matsumoto’s doorway, and until you hear otherwise from me, remain there. Am I being clear?”

As she’d been speaking, she’d watched the muscle in Hale’s jaw jumping. He didn’t reply and she barked, “Inspector! I’m asking you a question.”

To which he finally said, “As you wish, guv.”

At that she went towards the hospital entrance and he followed as she preferred him to follow: several paces behind her. She wondered at the fact of these detectives under her command all wanting to go their own way in the investigation and what this said about the leadership provided first by the former superintendent, Malcolm Webberly, and by everyone subsequent to him, including Thomas Lynley. Discipline was called for, but having to administer that in the midst of everything else going on was particularly maddening. Changes were going to have to be made with this lot. There was no question about that.

As she reached the door with Hale as her shadow, a taxi arrived. Hiro Matsumoto stepped out, a woman in his company. This was, thank God, not his solicitor but a Japanese woman close to his own age. The third Matsumoto sibling, Isabelle concluded, Miyoshi Matsumoto, the Philadelphia flautist.

She was correct. She paused, jerking her thumb at the door for Hale to go ahead into the hospital. She waited till Matsumoto had paid for the taxi, whereupon he introduced her to his sister. She had arrived from America on the previous evening, he said. She had not yet seen Yukio. But they’d had word this morning from Yukio’s doctors—

“Yes,” Isabelle said. “He’s conscious. And I must speak with him, Mr. Matsumoto.”

“Not without his attorney.” It was Miyoshi Matsumoto who replied, and her tone was nothing like her brother’s. Obviously, she’d been in big city America long enough to know that
lawyer-up
was rule number one when dealing with the police force. “Hiro, call Mrs. Bourne right now.” And to Isabelle, “Keep away. I don’t want you near Yukio.”

Isabelle wasn’t unaware of the irony of being told exactly what she herself had told Philip Hale in the moments leading up to Yukio Matsumoto’s flight. She said, “Ms. Matsumoto, I know you’re upset—”

“You’ve got that much right.”

“—and I don’t disagree that this is a mess.”

“
That’s
what you call it?”

“But what I ask you to see—”

“Get away from me.” Miyoshi Matsumoto pushed past Isabelle and stalked towards the hospital doors. “Hiro, call that lawyer. Call someone. Keep her
out
of here.”

She went within, leaving Isabelle outside with Hiro Matsumoto. He looked at the ground, his arms crossed on his chest. She said to him, “Please intercede.”

He seemed to consider her request and Isabelle felt momentarily hopeful until he said, “This is something I can’t do. Miyoshi feels much as I do.”

“Which is?”

He looked up. Behind his gleaming spectacles, his eyes looked bleak. “Responsible,” he said.

“You didn’t do this.”

“Not for what happened,” he said, “but for what didn’t happen.” He nodded at Isabelle and moved towards the hospital doors.

She followed him at first, then walked at his side. They entered the hospital and began to make their way to Yukio Matsumoto’s room. Isabelle said, “No one could have anticipated this. I’ve been reassured by my officer on the scene that he didn’t approach your brother, that instead Yukio saw something or heard something or perhaps
felt
something—we can’t even work out which it was—and he simply bolted. As you’ve said yourself—”

“Superintendent, that’s not what I mean.” Matsumoto paused. Round them, people went on their way: visitors bearing flowers and balloons to loved ones, members of the hospital’s staff striding purposefully from one corridor to another. Above their heads the public address system asked Dr. Marie Lincoln to report to the operating theatre, and next to them pardon was requested by two orderlies whisking a patient somewhere on a trolley. Matsumoto seemed to take all of this in before he went on. “We did what we could for Yukio for many years, Miyoshi and I, but it was not enough. We had our own careers, and it was easier to let him drift so that we could pursue our music. With Yukio to concern ourselves with, to weigh us down …” He shook his head. “How could we have climbed so far, Miyoshi and I? And now this. How could we have sunk so low? I am most deeply shamed.”

“You’ve no need to be,” Isabelle told him. “If he’s sick, as you say, and without medication, if he’s got a mental condition that caused him to do something, you bear absolutely no responsibility.”

He’d walked on as she was speaking and he’d rung for the lift and then faced her. When the doors opened in near silence, he turned and she followed him inside. He said to her quietly, “Again, you misunderstand me, Superintendent. My brother did not kill that poor woman. There is an explanation for everything: for the blood on him, for that …that thing you found in his lodgings—”

“Then for God’s sake, let him give me the explanation,” Isabelle said. “Let him tell me what he
did
do, what he knows, what actually happened. You can be present, right at his bedside. Your sister can be present. I’m not in uniform. He won’t know who I am, and you don’t need to tell him if you think he’ll panic. You can speak to him in Japanese if that would make it easier for him.”

“Yukio speaks perfect English, Superintendent.”

“Then speak to him in English.
Or
Japanese. Or both. I don’t care. If, as you say, he’s guilty of nothing but being in the cemetery, then he may have seen something that can help us find Jemima Hastings’ killer.”

They reached the floor he’d rung for and the doors slid open. In the corridor, Isabelle stopped him a final time. She said his name in such a way that even she could hear the desperation in her voice. And when he looked at her gravely, she went on to say, “We’re in a time crunch here. We can’t wait for Zaynab Bourne to show up. If we
do
wait, you and I both know she’s not going to let me speak to Yukio. Which means if, as you say, he’s guilty of nothing more than being in Abney Park Cemetery when Jemima Hastings was attacked and murdered, he himself could well be in danger because the killer will know from every newspaper in town that Yukio is a person of interest because he was there. And
if
he was there, he likely saw something and he’s likely to tell us. Which he won’t be able to do if your solicitor shows up.” She was more than desperate at this point, she realised. She was verging on babbling and it made no difference to her what she said or whether she believed what she said—which she didn’t, actually—because the only thing that mattered just then was bending the cellist’s will to hers.

She waited. She prayed. Her mobile phone rang and she ignored it.

Finally, Hiro Matsumoto said, “Let me speak to Miyoshi,” and he went to do so.

B
ARBARA DISCOVERED THAT
Dorothea Harriman had hidden talents. From Harriman’s appearance and demeanor, she’d always reckoned that the departmental secretary had no real trouble pulling men, and this was, of course, true. What she hadn’t known was the length of time Harriman evidently managed to linger in the memories of her victims and to produce within them a willingness to cooperate with anything she desired.

Within ninety minutes of Barbara’s making the request, Dorothea was back with a slip of paper fluttering from her fingers. This was their “in” at the Home Office, the flatmate of the sister of the bloke who was, apparently, still lost within Dorothea’s thrall. The flatmate was a minor cog in the well-oiled machine that was the Home Office, her name was Stephanie Thompson-Smythe, and—“This is what’s truly excellent,” Dorothea breathed—
she
was dating a bloke who apparently had access to whatever codes, keys, or magical words were necessary to create an open sesame situation with an individual policeman’s employment records.

“I had to tell her about the case,” Dorothea confessed. She was, Barbara found, rather full of her success and desirous of waxing eloquent on the topic, which Barbara reckoned she owed her, so she listened cooperatively and waited for the slip of paper to be handed over. “Well, of course, she
knew
about it. She reads the papers. So I told her—well, I had to bend the truth just a
bit
, naturally—that a trail seems to be leading to the Home Office, which of course made her think that
perhaps
the guilty party is there somewhere and being protected by one of the higher-ups. Rather like Jack the Ripper or something? Anyway, I told her that anything she could help us out with would be brilliant and I swore her name wouldn’t come up at all anywhere.
But
, I told her, she would be doing an
heroic
service to help us out even in the smallest way. She seemed to like that.”