She had intelligent eyes, Barbara saw. They were grey with black lashes. They studied and assessed while her brain doubtless weighed every possible consequence to every answer. Vi Nevin knew something about what had happened to Nicola; that was a certainty.
If she'd learned nothing else from working with Lynley for nearly four years, Barbara had learned that there were times to play hardball and times to give. Hardball produced the intimidation card. Giving offered an exchange of information. Having nothing to use as intimidation with the other woman, the interview was beginning to look like a time to give. Barbara said, “We know she dropped out of law college round the first of May, telling them she'd taken a full-time job with MKR Financial Management. But Mr. Reeve—that's her guv—informed us that she left the company just before that, telling him she was moving home to Derbyshire. Yet when she moved house, she gave this address—not a Derbyshire address—to her landlady in Islington. And, from what we've been able to gather, no one in Derbyshire had an inkling that she was up there for anything more than a summer's visit. What does this suggest to you, Miss Nevin?”
“Confusion,” Vi said. “She hadn't yet made up her mind about her life. Nikki liked to keep her options open.”
“Leaving college? Quitting her job? Telling tales unsupported by the facts? Her options weren't open. They were manufactured. Everyone we've talked to has a different idea of what she intended to do with herself.”
“I can't explain it. I'm sorry. I don't know what you want me to say.”
“Did she have a job lined up?” Nkata looked up from his notebook.
“I don't know.”
“Did she have a source of income lined up?” Barbara asked.
“I don't know that either. She paid her share of the expenses here before she left for the summer, and—”
“Why'd she leave?”
“And as it was in cash” Vi plunged on, “I had no reason to question her source of income. Really, I'm sorry, but that's all I can tell you.”
Fat chance, Barbara thought. She was lying through her pretty, baby-sized white teeth. “How did you come to know each other? Are you at the College of Law yourself?”
“We met through work.”
“MKR Financial?” And when Vi nodded, “What d'you do for them?”
“Nothing any longer. I left in April as well.” What she had done, she told them, was work as Tricia Reeve's personal assistant. “I didn't much care for her,” she said. “She's a bit … peculiar. I handed in my notice in March and left once they found a replacement for me.”
“And now?” Barbara asked.
“Now?”
“What d'you do now?” Nkata clarified. “Where d'you work?”
She'd taken up modeling, she told them. It had long been her dream, and Nikki had encouraged her to go for it. She produced a portfolio of professional photographs which depicted her in a variety of guises. In most of the pictures she looked like a waif: thin and large-eyed with the sort of vacant expression that was currently de rigueur in fashion magazines.
Barbara nodded at the photos, aiming for appreciation but inwardly wondering for a fleeting moment when Rubenesque figures—such as her own, frankly—would ever be in vogue. “You must be doing well. A place like this … I don't expect it comes cheap, does it? Is it your own, by the way? This maisonette?”
“It's rented.” Vi gathered up her pictures. She tapped them together and replaced them in their portfolio.
“From who?” Nkata asked the question without looking up from his meticulous note-taking.
“Does it matter from whom?”
“Tell us and we'll make up our minds,” Barbara said.
“From Douglas and Gordon.”
“Mates of yours?”
“Its an estate agency.”
Barbara watched as Vi replaced the portfolio on a shelf beneath the television. She waited till the young woman had turned back to them before she went on. “Mr. Reeve told us that Nicola Maiden had a problem with the truth and a bigger problem keeping her mouth shut about his clients’ finances. He said he was going to sack her, when she left.”
“That's not true.” Vi remained standing, arms folded beneath diminutive breasts. “If he was going to sack her, which he wasn't, it would've been because of his wife.”
“Why?”
“Jealousy. Tricia wants to eliminate every woman he looks at.”
“And he looked at Nicola?”
“I didn't say that.”
“Listen. We know she had a lover,” Barbara said. “We know he's in London. Could that have been Mr. Reeve?”
“Tricia doesn't give him ten minutes out of her sight.”
“But it's possible?”
“No. Nikki was seeing someone, it's true. But not here. There. In Derbyshire.” Vi went into the kitchen and returned with a handful of picture postcards. They depicted various sites in the Peak District: Arbor Low, Peveril Castle, Thor's Cave, the stepping stones in Dovedale, Chatsworth House, Magpie Mine, Little John's Grave, Nine Sisters Henge. Each was addressed to Vi Nevin, and each bore an identical message: Oooh-laAa. This was followed by the initial N. That was all.
Barbara handed the postcards over to Nkata. She said to Vi, “Okay. I'll bite. Clue me in on the meaning behind these.”
“Those are the places she had sex with him. Every time they did it in a new location, she bought a postcard and sent it along to me. As a joke.”
“A real scream,” Barbara agreed. “Who's the bloke?”
“She never said. But I expect he's married.”
“Why?”
“Because aside from the postcards, she never once mentioned him when we talked on the phone. That's how I'd expect her to act if she had a relationship that wasn't on the up and up.”
“Made a habit of that, did she?” Nkata set the cards on the coffee table and made a note in his book. “She did other married blokes?”
“I didn't say that. Just that I think this one was married. And he wasn't in London.”
But someone was, Barbara thought. Someone had to be. If Nicola Maiden had intended a return to town at the end of the summer, she would have been coming with some means of supporting herself once she got here. With this ultramodern, recently redecorated, plush, posh, and pleasant maisonette having try sting place written all over it, how unreasonable was it to assume that a punter deep in dosh had set her up in style to be at his disposal day and night?
That begged the question of what the hell Vi Nevin was doing there. But perhaps that had been part of the deal. A flatmate with whom the mistress could while away the boring hours while waiting for her lord and master to appear.
It was a stretch. But no more than that which was needed to accommodate the vision of Nicola Maiden as Sir Richard Burton, hiking across the moors to discover new and exciting bonking locations to share with a married lover.
What the hell am I doing in police work, Barbara wondered acerbically, when the rest of the world is having so much fun?
They'd like to have a look at Nicola Maiden's room and belongings, she told Vi Nevin. Somewhere there was going to be concrete evidence that Nicola was up to something, and she was determined to find it.
CHAPTER 12
e squirmed. The flaming bastard bloody well squirmed!’ DI Peter Han-ken leaned back in his chair and savoured the moment, arms locked behind his head. A lit cigarette dangled from his mouth, and he talked round it with the expertise of a man long practised in the art. Lynley stood at a set of filing cabinets, spreading out on their tops the photographs of both dead bodies. He studied these while doing his best to keep clear of Hanken's tobacco smoke. A former victim of the weed himself, he found cause for celebration in the fact that he experienced the smoke as an irritant at long last, when months before he would have queued just to lick Hanken's ashtray. Not that the other DI was using the ashtray. When the burnt tobacco needed dislodging, he merely turned his head and let the ashes fall to the floor. It was a gesture out of character in the otherwise compuls
ively neat DI. It spoke of the level of his excitement.
Hanken was recounting his interview with Will Upman. The gusto with which he told the tale was growing as he reached its climax. Metaphorically speaking, it seemed. Because according to Hanken, the solicitor apparently hadn't been able to perform to his usual standards.
“But he said popping his cork doesn't matter to him when he's with a woman,” Hanken scoffed. “Said what matters is ‘the fun of it all.’”
“I'm intrigued,” Lynley said. “How did you manage to get that admission from him?”
“That he shagged her or that he didn't go the distance once he had her on the skewer?”
“Either. Both.” Lynley selected the clearest picture of Terry Cole's face and set it next to the clearest of the wounds on his body. “I trust you didn't use thumb-screws, Peter.”
Hanken laughed. “Didn't have to. I just told him what his neighbours had reported, and he sent the white flag straight up the pole.”
“Why had he lied?”
“Claims he hadn't. Claims he would have told us straight out if we'd asked straight out.”
“That's splitting hairs.”
“Lawyers.” The single word said it all.
Will Upman, Hanken had reported concisely, confessed to a single fling with Nicola Maiden and that fling had occurred on her last night in his employ. He'd felt a strong attraction to her for the entire summer, but his position as her employer had prevented him from making a move.
“Being involved elsewhere didn't prevent him?” Lynley clarified.
Not at all. Because how could he be truly, madly, and deeply in love with Joyce—and consequently legitimately “involved” with her—when he felt so wildly attracted to Nicola? And if he was wildly attracted to Nicola, didn't he owe it to himself to see what that attraction was all about? Joyce had been pressing him for a commitment—she'd had her mind set on their living together—but he couldn't take the next step with her until he cleared his head about Nicola.
“May I assume he dashed off straightaway and proposed to Joyce once his head was cleared with regard to the Maiden girl?” Lynley asked.
Hanken guffawed appreciatively. Upman had oiled the wheels with drinks, dinner, and wine, the DI reported. He took her to his home. More drinks there. Some music. Several cappuccinos. He had candles set up round his bathtub—“Lord.” Lynley shuddered. The man was a victim of Hollywood cinema.
—and he got her undressed and in the water without any trouble.
“Her wanting it as bad as he did, according to Upman,” Han-ken said.
They played in the tub till they looked like prunes, at which point they adjourned to the bedroom.
“Which is where,” Hanken concluded, “the rocket didn't launch.”
“And on the night of the murder?”
“Where was he, you mean?” Hanken recounted that as well. At lunch on Tuesday, Upman had had another set-to with the girlfriend on the topic of cohabitation. Rather than go home after work and run the risk of a phone call from her, he went for a drive. He ended up at Manchester Airport, where he checked into a hotel for the night and had a massage therapist come to his room to relieve him of his tension.
“Even had the receipts to wave in front of me,” Hanken said. “Seems he intends to claim it as a business expense.”
“You're checking it out.”
“I plan to, as I breathe,” Hanken said. “Your end of things?”
This was where he had to tread carefully, Lynley thought. So far, despite his encounter with Upman, Hanken hadn't appeared to be wedded irrevocably to any particular scenario. Still, what he was about to suggest was a contravention of the DI's main conjecture. He wanted to lead into it carefully so that his colleague might be open to its logic.
He hadn't found the pager, he said. But he'd had a rather long look round the site and an even longer think about the two bodies. He wanted to propose an altogether different hypothesis to the one they'd been working with. Would Hanken hear him out?
The DI lowered his chair and smashed out his cigarette. Mercifully, he didn't light another. He ran his tongue over his teeth, eyes speculatively fixed on Lynley. He finally said, “Let's have it,” and settled back as if expecting a lengthy monologue.
“I think we've got one killer,” Lynley said. “And no accomplice. No phone call for reinforcements when our man—”
“Or woman? Or are you giving that up as well?”
“Or woman,” Lynley replied, and he used the opportunity to inform Hanken of his encounter with Samantha McCallin on Calder Moor.
The other DI said, “That puts her back in the running, I'd say.”
“She was never out of it.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“No call for reinforcements when the killer saw there were two targets instead of one.”
Hanken folded his hands over his stomach and said, “Continue.”
Lynley used the photograph of Terry Cole as he did so. Burns on the face but no defensive wounds on the body, Lynley said, indicated that Cole hadn't been held in the fire but, rather, that he had fallen into it. The damage to his skin indicated that contact with the flames had been more than brief. There was no contusion to the head to suggest that he'd been clubbed, knocked unconscious, and left in the fire. So he had to have been wounded or disabled in some way as he sat by the fire in the first place.
“One killer,” Lynley said, “goes out there after the girl. When he arrives at the site—”
“Or she,” Hanken cut in.
“Yes. Or she. When he or she arrives at the site, it's to find that Nicola isn't alone. So Cole has to be eliminated. First, because he's capable of protecting her should the killer go after her, and second, because he's a potential witness. But the killer faces a dilemma. Does he—or she, yes, I see that, Peter—kill Cole at once and run the risk of losing Nicola if she escapes while he's dispatching Cole? Or does he kill Nicola and run the risk of being thwarted by Cole? He has surprise on his side, but that's all he has aside from his weapon.” Lynley sorted through the photographs and pulled out one that showed the trail of blood most clearly. “If you consider all that and take into account the deposits of blood at the site—”
Hanken raised his hand to stop the words. He moved his gaze from Lynley to the window where the unappealing prospect of Buxton football stadium across the street resembled a concentration camp. He said thoughtfully, “The killer rushes forward with his knife and wounds the boy in an instant. The boy topples into the fire, where he's burned. The girl takes to her heels. The killer follows.”
“But his weapon is lodged in the boy.”
“Hmm. Yes. I see how it works.” Hanken turned from the window, eyes cloudy as he considered the scene he went on to describe. “It's dark outside the ring of the fire. The girl's on the run.”
“So does he take the time to remove the knife from the boy or does he take off after the girl straightaway?”
“He goes after the girl. He has to, hasn't he? He dispatches her with three blows to the head, then returns to finish off the boy.”
“By which time Cole's managed to crawl from the fire to the edge of the stone circle. And that's where the killer finishes him off. The blood tells the tale, Peter. Dripping down the standing stone, pooled on the ground.”
“If you're right,” Hanken said, “we've got a killer covered in blood. It's night and in the middle of the back of beyond, so he has an advantage there. But eventually, he's going to need something to hide his clothes, unless he did the killing in the nude, which isn't likely.”
“He may have brought something with him,” Lynley said.
“Or taken something from the scene itself.” Hanken slapped his hands against his thighs and got to his feet. “Let's get the Maidens to take a look at the girl's belongings,” he said.
Barbara fumed, punched her fist into her palm, and paced as Winston Nkata placed the call to Lynley from inside the Prince of Wales pub. They were across the street from Bat
tersea Park and round the corner from Terry Cole's domicile, and while she wanted to grab the phone from Nkata's hand and make a few points more forcefully than Winston was making them, she knew she had to hold her tongue. Nkata was relaying the source of her agitation to their superior officer, and silence on her part was essential lest Lynley realise that she'd left her post at the computer. “I'll get back to CRIS tonight,” she swore to Nkata when she realised that his reluctance to trot from Fulham to Battersea was directly connected to his worries about her willingness to attend to her assigned duties. “Winston, on my mum's life, I tell you that I'll sit at the screen till I'm blind. Okay? But later. Later. Let's do Battersea first.”
Nkata was relaying to Lynley the results of their visits to Nicola's former employer and to her current flatmate. After reporting on the postcards that Nicola had sent to Vi Nevin and explaining what Vi had claimed their implicit message was, he went on to dwell in particular upon the fact that Nicola's bedroom in the Fulham maisonette had apparently been “seen to” prior to his laying eyes upon it. “How many birds you know have nothing that says who they are sitting round?” Nkata asked. “Man, I say this. That bird Vi kept us waiting on the steps before letting us in 'cause she was shoveling that bedroom clear of something once she heard there were rozzers at the door.”
Barbara winced and held her breath at the plural pronouns. No fool, Lynley. On his end of the line, he jumped at once.
Nkata said in reply with a glance at Barbara, “What? … No. Figure of speech, man … Yeah. Believe me, I got that engraved on my soul.” He listened as Lynley apparently relayed how things were playing out in his part of the world. He laughed outright at a piece of information, saying, “The fun of it? Lord, I believe that like the world is flat,” and toyed with the steel tubing of the telephone cord. After a few moments, he said, “Battersea right now. Barb said that Cole's flatmate'd be in for the evening, so I thought to have a look through his traps. Landlady wouldn't let Barb have a peek earlier and—” He stopped as Lynley interrupted at some length.
Barbara tried to read his expression for an indication of what the inspector was saying. The black man's face was completely blank. She whispered tersely, “What? What?”