“Not the thing for young ladies,” her mother had sniffed.
No indeed. Not the thing for young ladies.
“Barbie? Lovey?”
Her door was half-closed and Barbara heard her mother’s fingernails scratching against it. If she was absolutely quiet, she knew there was a slight chance that her mother would go away. But it seemed an unnecessary cruelty after what she’d been through that day. So she said:
“I’m awake, Mum. I’ve not gone to bed.”
The door swung inward. Light from the passage behind her acted as accent to Mrs. Havers’ gaunt frame. Especially her legs, human spindles with bulbous knees and ankles that were emphasised by the fact that her housecoat was rucked up and her nightdress too short. She toddled into the room.
“I did a bad today, Barbie, didn’t I?” she said. “Mrs. Gustafson was to spend the night with me here. I remember you said that this morning, didn’t you? You were going to Cambridge. So I must have done a bad if you’re home.”
Barbara welcomed the moment of rare lucidity. She said, “You got confused.”
Her mother stopped a few feet away from her. She’d managed a bath on her own—with just two quick supervisory visits—but she hadn’t done as well with the post-ablutionary rites, for she’d doused herself with so much cologne that it seemed to surround her like a psychic aura.
“Is it near Christmas, lovey?” Mrs. Havers asked.
“It’s November, Mum, the second week of November. It’s not too far from Christmas.”
Her mother smiled, obviously relieved. “I thought it was near. It gets cold round Christmas, doesn’t it, and it’s been like that these past few days, so I thought it must be Christmastime. With the fairy lights on Oxford Street and those lovely displays in Fortnum and Mason. And seeing Father Christmas talking to the children. I thought it was near.”
“And you were right,” Barbara said. She was feeling enormously weary. Her eyelids seemed pricked by thousands of pins. But at least the burden of further dealings with her mother seemed lifted for a moment. She said, “Ready for bed, Mum?”
“Tomorrow,” her mother said. She nodded as if satisfied with her decision. “We’ll do it tomorrow, lovey.”
“Do what?”
“Speak to Father Christmas somewhere. You must tell him what you want.”
“I’m a bit old for Father Christmas. And at any rate, I’ve got to go back to Cambridge in the morning. Inspector Lynley’s still there. I can’t leave him on his own. But you remember that, don’t you? I’m on a case in Cambridge. You remember that, Mum.”
“And we’ve all the invitations to sort through and the gifts to decide upon. We’ll be busy tomorrow. And busy, busy, busy as bees until after the new year.”
The respite had been brief indeed. Barbara took her mother by her bony shoulders and began to guide her gently from the room. She chattered on.
“Daddy’s the hardest to buy for, isn’t he? Mum’s no problem. She’s got such a sweet tooth that I always know if I can just find chocolates—you know the kind she loves—I’ll be all right. But Dad’s a trick. Dorrie, what’re you going to get Dad?”
“I don’t know, Mum,” Barbara said. “I just don’t know.”
They managed the passage to her mother’s bedroom where the duck-shaped light she loved was burning on the bedside table. Her mother continued her Christmas conversation, but Barbara tuned it out, feeling a tumour of depression begin its slow growth in her chest.
She fought it off by telling herself that there was a purpose behind it all. She was being tested. This was her Golgotha. She tried to convince herself that if nothing else the day had taught her that she couldn’t leave her mother for the night with Mrs. Gustafson, and having that knowledge now, under circumstances when she had been close enough to get back home quickly, was so much better than..
Than what? she wondered. Than if she had been called home from an exotic holiday she would never take, in a place she would never see, with a man she would never know, in whose arms she would never lie?
She shoved the thought aside. She needed to get back to work. She had to have a focal point for her thoughts that was anywhere else but in this house in Acton.
“Perhaps,” her mother was saying as Barbara pulled the covers up and tucked them under the mattress, hoping the gesture would seem like concern for her warmth rather than a desire to keep her anchored to the bed, “perhaps we should take a holiday at Christmas and not worry about a thing. What d’you think of that?”
“It’s a grand idea. Why don’t you work on it tomorrow? Mrs. Gustafson can help you sort through your brochures.”
Mrs. Havers’ face clouded. Barbara removed her spectacles and laid them on the table by the bed. “Mrs. Gustafson?” her mother said. “Barbie, who’s she?”
14
Lynley saw Sergeant Havers’ old Mini trundling its way down Trinity Lane at seven-forty the next morning. He had just left his room in Ivy Court and was walking to his car, which he’d parked in a small space on Trinity Passage, when the familiar rust-eaten sardine-tin-on-wheels that served as Havers’ transportation made the turn at the far end of Gonville and Caius College, sending out a noxious cloud of exhaust fumes into the cold air as Havers changed gear round the curve. Seeing him, she tooted the horn once. He lifted a hand in acknowledgement and waited for her to pull to a stop. When she did so, he opened the passenger door without word or ceremony and folded his lengthy frame into the confines of the cramped front seat. Its upholstery was shiny with age and wear. A broken spring bulged against the material.
The Mini’s heater was roaring with ineffectual enthusiasm against the morning cold, creating a palpable pool of warmth that rose from the floor to the level of his kneecaps. From his waist up, however, the air was ice tinctured with the odour of the cigarette smoke which had long ago altered the vinyl ceiling from beige to grey. Havers, he saw, was doing her best to contribute to the vinyl’s continuing metamorphosis. As he banged the car door shut, she stubbed one cigarette out in the ashtray and immediately lit another.
“Breakfast?” he asked mildly.
“Nicotine on toast.” She inhaled with pleasure and brushed some fallen ash off the left leg of her worsted trousers. “So. What’s up?”
He didn’t answer at once. Rather, he cracked the window a few inches to let in a bit of fresh air and turned back to observe her frankly earnest gaze. Her expression was resolutely cheerful, her manner of dress appropriately haphazard. Every necessary sign was there, painting the picture of all’s-right-with-the-world. But her hands gripped the steering wheel far too tightly and a tension round her mouth belied her casual tone.
“What happened at home?” he asked her.
She drew in on her cigarette again and gave its glowing tip her attention. “Nothing much. Mum had a spell. Mrs. Gustafson panicked. It was no big deal.”
“Havers—”
“Look, Inspector, you could reassign me and ask Nkata to come up and assist. I’d understand. I know it’s rotten with me coming and going and heading back to London so early in the evening. Webberly won’t like it much if you sack me on this, but if I make an appointment and go at it with him privately, he ought to understand.”
“I can cope, Sergeant. I don’t need Nkata.”
“But you’ve got to have someone. You can’t do it all alone. This flaming job requires assistance and you’ve every right to ask for it.”
“Barbara, this isn’t about the job.”
She stared out into the street. At the gatehouse of St. Stephen’s College, the porter came out to help a middle-aged woman in a heavy coat and scarf who had climbed off a bicycle and was attempting to manoeuvre it into position among dozens of other bikes against the wall. She gave the handlebars over to him and watched, chatting with great animation, as he shoved the bike among the others and locked it up. They went inside the gatehouse together.
Lynley said, “Barbara.”
Havers stirred. “I’m dealing with it, si
r. At least, I’m trying to. Let’s just get going, shall we?”
He sighed, reached for the seat belt, and brought it over his shoulder. “Head for the Fulbourn Road,” he said. “I want to drop in on Lennart Thorsson.”
She nodded, reversed the car into Trinity Passage, and turned them in the direction from which she’d come only moments before. All round them the city was coming to life. The occasional early-rising student pedalled off to begin a day of study, as bedders arrived to see to the rooms. On Trinity Street two sweepers unloaded brooms and dustpans from a yellow trolley while three workmen climbed a scaffolding nearby. The merchants in Market Hill were setting up their stalls for the day’s business, laying out fruit and vegetables, setting up bolts of bright material, folding T-shirts, blue jeans, and Indian dresses, gathering autumn flowers into dazzling bouquets. Buses and taxis vied for position on Sidney Street, and as Lynley and Havers headed out of town, they passed the morning commuters coming in from Ramsey Town and Cherry Hinton, no doubt ready to take their places behind desks, in the libraries, in the gardens, and before the kitchen stoves of the University’s twenty-eight colleges.
Havers didn’t speak until they were rumbling their way—with an extensive emission of exhaust and accompanying sputters and belches from the engine—past Parker’s Piece, across whose extensive green the police station squatted like an impassive guardian. Its double row of windows, reflecting the cloudless sky, turned it to a draughtboard of blue and grey.
“You got my message, then,” Havers said. “About Thorsson. You didn’t see him last night?”
“He was nowhere to be found.”
“Does he know we’re on our way?”
“No.”
She crushed her cigarette out, did not light another. “What do you think?”
“Essentially that he’s too good to be true.”
“Because we’ve got black fibres on the body? Because we’ve caught him with motive and opportunity?”
“He does seem to have both. And once we have an idea of what was used to bludgeon her, we may find he had the means as well.” He reminded her of the wine bottle which Sarah Gordon had said was left at the scene and told her of the impression of that same bottle which he had seen in the damp earth on the island. He offered his theory of how the bottle might have been used and left behind among the rest of the rubbish.
“But still you don’t like Thorsson as our killer. I can see it on your face.”
“It seems too clean a case, Havers. I’ve got to admit I’m not comfortable with that.”
“Why?”
“Because murder in general—and this one in particular—is a dirty business.”
She slowed for a traffic light and watched as a back-gnarled woman wearing a long black coat slowly negotiated her way across the street. Her eyes were on her feet. She pulled a collapsible luggage trolley behind her. Nothing was in it.
When the light changed, Havers spoke again. “I think Thorsson’s dirty as a dog, Inspector. It surprises me that you can’t see it as well. Or is seducing school girls not dirty to another man as long as the girls don’t complain?”
He was unruffled by the indirect challenge to argue. “These aren’t school girls, Havers. We can call them that for want of a better word. But that’s not what they are.”
“All right. Young women, then, in subordinate positions. Does that make it right?”
“No. Of course not. But we’ve no direct proof of seduction yet.”
“She was pregnant, for God’s sake. Someone seduced her.”
“Or she seduced someone. Or they seduced each other.”
“Or—as you said yourself yesterday—she was raped.”
“Perhaps. But I’m having second thoughts about that.”
“Why?” Havers’ tone was belligerent, a suggestion that Lynley’s response implied impossibility. “Or are you of the typical male opinion that she would have lain back and enjoyed the experience?”
He glanced in her direction. “I think you know better than that.”
“Then what’s your point?”
“She reported Thorsson for sexual harassment. If she was willing to do that and face the possibility of a potentially embarrassing investigation into her own behaviour, I can’t see that she’d let a rape go unmentioned.”
“What if it was date rape, Inspector? Some bloke she was seeing but didn’t expect or want to get involved with?”
“Then you’ve just put Thorsson out of the picture, haven’t you?”
“You do think he’s innocent.” Her fist hit the steering wheel. “You’re looking for a way to exonerate him, aren’t you? You’re trying to pin this on someone else. Who?” She flashed a knowing look at him a second after she asked the question. “Oh no! You can’t be thinking—”
“I’m not thinking anything. I’m looking for the truth.”
She swung the car to the left in the direction of Cherry Hinton, passing a common that was rich with yellow-leaved horse chestnuts wearing a new winter’s growth of moss on their trunks. Beneath them, two women pushed prams side by side, their heads tilted together, their eager conversation sending out rapid puffs of steam in the air.
It was just after eight when they drove into Thorsson’s housing estate. In the narrow drive of his house on Ashwood Court, a fully restored TR-6 was sitting, its bulbous green wings gleaming in the morning light. They pulled up behind it, so close that the front of the Mini nosed into its boot like a careful insult.
“Nice bit, that,” Havers said as she looked it over. “Just the sort of thing one expects one’s local Marxist to drive.”
Lynley got out and went to inspect the car. Aside from the windscreen, it was beaded with moisture. He pressed his hand to the smooth surface of the bonnet. He could feel the remnants of the engine’s warmth. “Another morning arrival,” he said.
“Does that make him innocent?”
“It certainly makes him something.”
They went to the door where Lynley rang the bell as his sergeant dug through her shoulder bag and brought forth her notebook. When there was no immediate answer and no apparent movement in the house, he rang the bell a second time. A distant shout drifted down to them, a man’s voice calling out the words, “A moment.” More than one moment passed as they stood waiting on the sliver of concrete that served as the front step, watching two sets of neighbours hurry off to work and a third usher two children into an Escort that idled in the drive. Then behind the five opaque shafts of glass in the door, a shadow moved as someone approached.
The deadbolt turned. Thorsson stood in the entry. He wore a black velour dressing gown which he was in the process of belting. His hair was damp. It hung loose round his shoulders. He had nothing on his feet.
“Mr. Thorsson,” Lynley said by way of greeting.
Thorsson sighed, looked from Lynley to Havers. “Christ,” he said. “Wonderful. We’ve got snuten again.” Roughly, he ran a hand back through his hair. It fell onto his forehead in a boyish tangle. “What is it with you two? What do you want?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he turned from the door and walked down a short corridor towards the rear of the house where a door opened into what appeared to be the kitchen. They followed and found him pouring himself a mug of coffee from an impressive-looking coffee maker that sat on the work top. He began to drink, making a great deal of noise, first blowing then slurping. His moustache quickly became beaded with the liquid.
“I’d offer you some, but I require the whole pot to wake up in the morning.” That said, he added more to his cup.
Lynley and Havers took places at a glass and chrome table sitting in front of French doors. These led into a small rear garden where flagstones formed a terrace which held a set of outdoor furniture. One of the pieces was a wide chaise longue. A rumpled blanket lay across it, limp with the damp.
Lynley looked thoughtfully from the chaise to Thorsson. The other man glanced out the kitchen window in the direction of the furnit
ure. Then he looked back to Lynley, his face a perfect blank.
“We seem to have taken you from your morning bath,” Lynley said.
Thorsson swallowed some coffee. He was wearing a flat gold chain round his neck. It glittered like snakeskin against his chest.
“Elena Weaver was pregnant,” Lynley said.
Thorsson leaned against the work top, holding his coffee mug balanced against his arm. He looked uninterested, overcome with ennui. “And to think I had no opportunity to join her in celebrating the future blessed event.”
“Was a celebration in order?”
“I wouldn’t know, would I?”
“I thought you might.”
“Why?”
“You were with her Thursday night.”
“I wasn’t with her, Inspector. I went to see her. There’s a difference. Perhaps too subtle for you to grasp, but a difference all the same.”
“Of course. But she’d got the results of the pregnancy test on Wednesday. Did she ask to see you? Or did you take it upon yourself to see her?”
“I went to see her. She didn’t know I was coming.”
“Ah.”
Thorsson’s fingers tightened their grip on the mug. “I see. Of course. I was the anxious father-to-be waiting to hear the results. Did the rabbit live, precious, or should we start stockpiling disposable nappies? Is that how you have it?”
“No. Not exactly.”
Havers flipped over a page in her notebook. She said, “You’d want to know about the test results, I imagine, if you were the father. All things considered.”
“What things considered?”
“The harassment charges. A pregnancy is rather convincing evidence, wouldn’t you say?”
Thorsson barked a laugh. “What am I supposed to have done, dear Sergeant? Rape her? Tear off her knickers? Ply her with drugs and have at her afterwards?”
“Perhaps,” Havers said. “But seduction seems so much more in your line.”
“No doubt you could fill volumes with your knowledge of that subject.”