This Body of Death

  “Ponies,” he said.

  “There’s a difference?”

  “They went back on the forest, I presume. I wasn’t here when he fetched them.”

  “Who?”

  “Rob Hastings. He said he’d come for them. Now they’re gone. I reckon it’s safe to assume he returned them to the forest, as they weren’t likely to let themselves out of the paddock, were they.”

  “Why were they here?”

  He turned to her. “Prime Minister’s question time,” he said, “is over.”

  For the first time he sounded menacing, and Barbara saw a glimpse of the real man beneath the exterior that he kept so controlled. She drew in on her cigarette and wondered about her personal safety. She concluded he was unlikely to dispatch her right there in his kitchen, so she approached him, flicked cigarette ash into the sink, and said, “Sit down, Mr. Jossie. I have something to show you.”

  His face hardened. He looked as if he’d refuse at first, but then he went to the table and dropped into a chair. He’d not removed his cap or his sunglasses, but he did so now. “What,” he said. Not even a question. He sounded tired to the bone.

  Barbara unrolled the magazine. She found the pages of social photos. She sat down opposite him and turned the magazine so that he could see it. She said nothing.

  He glanced at the pictures and then at her. “What?” he said again. “Posh folk drinking champagne. Am I supposed to care about this?”

  “Have a closer look, Mr. Jossie. This is the opening of the photo show at the Portrait Gallery. I think you know which show I’m talking about.”

  He looked again. She saw that he was giving his attention to the picture of Jemima posing with Deborah St. James, but that was not the picture of interest. She indicated the one in which Gina Dickens appeared.

  “We both know who this is, don’t we, Mr. Jossie?” Barbara said to him.

  He said nothing. She saw him swallow, but that was his only reaction. He didn’t look up and he didn’t move. She looked at his temple but saw no wild pulsing. There was nothing at all. Not what she’d expected, she thought. Time for a bit of a push.

  She said, “Personally, I believe in coincidence. Or synchronicity. Or whatever. These things happen and there’s no doubt about that, eh? But let’s just say that it wasn’t coincidence that Gina Dickens was at the portrait gallery for the opening of this show. That would mean she had a reason to be there. What d’you expect that reason was?”

  He didn’t reply, but Barbara knew his mind must be racing.

  “P’rhaps she’s wild for photography,” Barbara said. “I s’pose that’s possible. I rather like it myself. P’rhaps she happened to be wandering by and thought she could score a glass of the bubbly and a cheese stick or something. I could see that, as well. But there’s another p’rhaps and I reckon you and I know what it is, Mr. Jossie.”

  “No.” He sounded a little hoarse. This was good, Barbara thought.

  “Yes,” she said. “P’rhaps she had a reason for being there. P’rhaps she knew Jemima Hastings.”

  “No.”

  “She didn’t? Or you can’t believe she did?”

  He said nothing.

  Barbara took out her card, wrote her mobile number on the back, and slid it across the table towards him. “I want to talk to Gina,” she said. “I want you to ring me when she gets home.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ISABELLE HAD REMAINED AT ST. THOMAS’ HOSPITAL FOR MOST of the afternoon, excavating for information in the twisted passageways that comprised the mind of Yukio Matsumoto when she wasn’t sparring with his solicitor and making promises that she was not remotely authorised to make. The result was that, by the end of the day, she had a disjointed scenario of what had happened in Abney Park Cemetery along with two e-fits. She also had twelve voice messages on her mobile.

  Hillier’s office had rung three times, which wasn’t good. Stephenson Deacon’s office had rung twice, which was just as bad. She skipped those five messages plus two from Dorothea Harriman and one from her ex-husband. That left her with messages from John Stewart, Thomas Lynley, and Barbara Havers. She listened to Lynley’s. He’d phoned twice, once about the British Museum, once about Barbara Havers. Although she took note of the fact that the sound of the inspector’s well-bred baritone was vaguely comforting, Isabelle paid scant attention to the messages. For unrelated to the fact of his messages was the additional fact that her insides felt as if they wanted to become her outsides, and while she knew very well that there was one quick way to settle both her stomach and her nerves, she did not intend to employ it.

  She drove back to Victoria Street. On the way she phoned Dorothea Harriman and told her to have the team in the incident room for her return. Harriman tried to bring up the subject of AC Hillier—as Isabelle reckoned she might—but Isabelle cut her off with, “Yes, yes, I know. I’ve heard from him as well. But first things first.” She rang off before Harriman told her the obvious: that in Hillier’s head first things first meant attending to Sir David’s desires. Well, that couldn’t matter at the moment. She had to meet with her team, and that took priority.

  They were assembled when she arrived. She said, “Right,” as she walked into the room, “we’ve got e-fits on two individuals who were in the cemetery and seen by Yukio Matsumoto. Dorothea’s running them through the copier, so you’ll each have one shortly.” She went over what Matsumoto had told her about that day in Abney Park Cemetery: Jemima’s actions, the two men he’d seen and where he had seen them, and Yukio’s attempt to help Jemima upon finding her wounded in the chapel annex. “Obviously, he made the wound worse when he removed the weapon,” she said. “She would have died anyway, but removing the weapon hastened things. It also got him drenched in her blood.”

  “What about his hair in her hand?” It was Philip Hale who asked the question.

  “He doesn’t remember her reaching up to him, but she may have done.”

  “And he may be lying,” John Stewart noted.

  “Having talked to him—”

  “Sod talking to him.” Stewart threw a balled-up piece of paper onto his desk. “Why didn’t he phone the police? Go for help?”

  “He’s a paranoid schizophrenic, John,” Isabelle said. “I don’t think we can expect rational behaviour from him.”

  “But we can expect usable e-fits?”

  Isabelle clocked the restless movement among those gathered in the room. Stewart’s tone was, as usual, bordering on snide. He was going to have to be sorted out eventually.

  Harriman entered the room, the stack of duplicated e-fits in hand. She murmured to Isabelle that AC Hillier’s office had phoned again, apparently with the knowledge that Acting Superintendent Ardery was now in the building. Should she … ?

  She was in a meeting, Isabelle told her. Tell the assistant commissioner she would get to him in good time.

  Dorothea looked as if that way lies madness was the response on the tip of her tongue, but she scurried off as well as she could scurry on her ridiculous high heels.

  Isabelle handed out the e-fits. She’d already anticipated the reactions she was going to get once the officers looked at what Yukio Matsumoto had come up with, so she began talking to head them off. She said, “We’ve got two men. One of them our victim met in the vicinity of the chapel, in the clearing, on a stone bench where she apparently had been waiting for him. They spoke at some length. He then left her and when he left her, she was alive and unharmed. Matsumoto says that Jemima took a phone call from someone at the conclusion of her conversation with this bloke. Shortly after that she disappeared round the side of the chapel, out of Yukio’s view. It was only when man number two appeared, coming from the same direction that Jemima had herself taken, that Yukio went to see where she was. That was when he saw the annex to the chapel and discovered her body within it. Where are we with the mobile phone towers, John? If we can triangulate where that phone call came from just before she was attacked—”

  “Jesus
. These e-fits—”

  “Hang on,” Isabelle cut in. John Stewart was the one who had spoken—no surprise there that he went his own way rather than answer her question—but she could tell from the expression on Winston Nkata’s face that he wished to speak as well. Philip Hale moved restlessly and Lynley had gone to stand by the china boards for a look at something or, perhaps, to hide his own expression, which she had no doubt was deeply concerned. As well he might be. She was concerned herself. The e-fits were nearly useless, but that was not a subject she intended to countenance. She said, “This second man is dark. Dark is consistent with three of our suspects: Frazer Chaplin, Abbott Langer, and Paolo di Fazio.”

  “All with alibis,” Stewart managed to put in. He counted them off with his fingers. “Chaplin at home, confirmed by McHaggis; di Fazio inside Jubilee Market at his regular stall, confirmed by four other stall holders and no doubt seen by three hundred people; Langer walking dogs in the park, confirmed by his customers.”

  “None of whom saw him, John,” Isabelle snapped. “So we’ll break the goddamn alibis. One of these blokes put a spike through a young woman’s neck, and we’re going to get him. Is that clear?”

  “’Bout that spike,” Winston Nkata said.

  “Hang on, Winston.” Isabelle continued her previous line of thought. “Let’s not forget what we already know about the victim’s mobile phone calls either. She’s rung Chaplin three times and Langer once on the day of her death. She’s taken one call from Gordon Jossie, another from Chaplin, and another from Jayson Druther—our cigar shop bloke—on the same day and within our window of time when she was killed. After her death, her mobile took messages from her brother, Jayson Druther again, Paolo di Fazio, and Yolanda, our psychic. But not Abbott Langer and not Frazer Chaplin, both of whom fit the description of the man seen leaving the area of the murder. Now, I want the neighbourhoods canvassed again. I want those e-fits shown at every house. Meantime, I want the CCTV films we’ve got from the area looked over once again for a Vespa motorbike, lime green, with transfers advertising DragonFly Tonics on it. And I want that to be part of the house to house as well. Philip, coordinate the house to house with the Stoke Newington station. Winston, I want you on the CCTV films. John, you’ll—”

  “Bloody hell, this is stupid,” John Stewart said. “The sodding e-fits are worthless. Just look at them. Are you trying to pretend there’s a single defining characteristic … ? The dark bloke looks like a villain in a television drama and the one in the cap and glasses could be a bloody woman, for all we know. D’you actually believe this slant-eye’s tale that—”

  “That’ll do, Inspector.”

  “No, it won’t. We’d have an arrest if you hadn’t run this bugger into traffic and then hung about waiting to find out he wasn’t the killer in the first place. You’ve bloody well mishandled this case from the first. You’ve—”

  “Give it a rest, John.” Of all people, it was Philip Hale speaking. Winston Nkata joined him, saying, “Hang on, man.”

  “You lot might start thinking about what’s going on,” was Stewart’s reply. “You’ve been tiptoeing round every mad thing this woman’s said, like we owe the bloody slag allegiance.”

  “Jesus, man …” This came from Hale.

  “You pig!” was the cry from one of the female constables.

  “And you wouldn’t know a killer if he stuck his in you and tickled you with it,” was Stewart’s reply to her.

  At this, chaos erupted. Aside from Isabelle, there were five young women in the room, three constables and two typists. The nearest constable came out of her chair as if propelled, and one typist threw her coffee cup at Stewart. He shot up and went for her. Philip Hale held him back. He swung at Hale. Nkata grabbed him. Stewart turned on him.

  “You fucking nig—”

  Nkata slapped his face. The blow was hard, fast, and loud like a crack. Stewart’s head flew back.

  “When I say hang on, I mean it,” Nkata told him. “Sit down, shut your gob, act like you know something, and be glad I didn’t punch your lights and break your goddamn nose.”

  “Well done, Winnie,” someone called out.

  “That’ll do, all of you,” Isabelle said. She could see that Lynley was watching her from his place by the china board. He hadn’t moved. She was grateful for this. The last thing she wanted was his intervention. It was bad enough that Hale and Nkata had had to sort out Stewart when it was her job to do the sorting. She said to Stewart, “In my office. Wait there.” She said nothing more until he’d slammed his way out of the room. Then, “What else do we have, then?”

  Jemima Hastings had possessed a gold coin—currently missing from her belongings—and a carnelian that were Roman in origin.

  Barbara Havers had recognised the murder weapon and—

  “Where is Sergeant Havers?” Isabelle asked, realising for the first time that the dowdy woman wasn’t among the officers in the room. “Why isn’t she here?”

  There was silence before Winston Nkata said, “Gone to Ham’shire, guv.”

  Isabelle felt her face go rigid. She said, “Hampshire,” simply because she could not think of another response in the circumstances.

  Nkata said, “Murder weapon’s a crook. Barb an’ I, we saw ’em in Ham’shire. It’s a thatcher’s tool. We got two thatchers on our radar down there, and Barb thought—”

  “Thank you,” Isabelle said.

  “’Nother thing is crooks’re made by blacksmiths,” Nkata continued. “Rob Hastings’s a blacksmith and since—”

  “I said thank you, Winston.”

  The room was silent. Phones were ringing in another area, and the sudden sound of them served as an unwelcome reminder of how out of control their afternoon briefing had become. Into this silence, Thomas Lynley spoke, and it became immediately apparent that he was defending Barbara Havers.

  “She’s unearthed another connection among Ringo Heath, Zachary Whiting, and Gordon Jossie, guv,” he said.

  “And how do you come to know this?”

  “I spoke with her on her way to Hampshire.”

  “She rang you?”

  “I rang her. I managed to catch her when she’d stopped on the motorway. But the important thing is—”

  “You’re not in charge here, Inspector Lynley.”

  “I understand.”

  “By which I take it that you also understand how out of order you were to encourage Sergeant Havers to do anything other than to get her bum back to London. Yes?”

  Lynley hesitated. Isabelle locked eyes with him. The same silence came over the room again. God, she thought. First Stewart, now Lynley. Havers gallivanting to Hampshire. Nkata coming to blows with another officer.

  Lynley said carefully, “I see that. But there’s another connection Barbara’s come up with, and I think you’ll agree it’s worth looking at.”

  “And this connection is?”

  Lynley told her about a magazine and its photos of the opening of the Cadbury Photographic Portrait of the Year show. He told her about Frazer Chaplin in those pictures, and there, in the background, Gina Dickens. He concluded with, “It seemed best to let her go to Hampshire. If nothing else, she can get us photos of Jossie, Ringo Heath, and Whiting to show round Stoke Newington. And to show to Matsumoto. But, knowing Barbara, she’s likely to come up with more than that.”

  “Is she indeed,” Isabelle said. “Thank you, Inspector. I’ll chat with her later.” She looked at the rest of them and read on their faces the varying degrees of discomfort. She said to them, “The lot of you have your activities for tomorrow. We’ll speak again in the afternoon.”

  She left them. She heard her name called as she strode to her office. She recognised Lynley’s voice but she waved him off. “I need to deal with DI Stewart,” she told him, “and then with Hillier. And that, believe me, is all I can cope with today.” She turned quickly before he could reply. She’d not made it to her office door when Dorothea Harriman told her that the assistant commissio
ner had personally just phoned—the emphasis she placed on personally expressing the urgency of the communication—and he was giving the superintendent a choice: She could either come to his office at once or he could come to hers.

  “I took the liberty …,” Dorothea said meaningfully. “Because with all due respect, Detective Superintendent Ardery, you don’t want the assistant commissioner coming—”

  “Tell him I’m on my way.”

  John Stewart, Isabelle decided, would have to wait. Briefly, she wondered how her day could possibly become worse, but she reckoned she was about to find out.

  THE KEY WAS to hold things together for another hour or so. Isabelle told herself she was capable of that. She didn’t need to fortify herself for a final sixty minutes at the Yard. She might have wanted to but she didn’t need to. Want and need were completely different.

  At AC Hillier’s office, Judi MacIntosh told her to go straight in. The assistant commissioner was expecting her, she said, and did she want tea or a coffee? Isabelle accepted tea with milk and sugar. She reckoned that being able to drink it without her hands shaking would make a statement about the control she was maintaining over the situation.

  Hillier was sitting behind his desk. He nodded towards his conference table, and he told her they would wait for Stephenson Deacon’s arrival. Hillier joined her there when Isabelle sat. He had several telephone messages in his hand, slips of paper that he laid out on the table in front of him and made a show of studying. The office door opened after two minutes’ tense silence, and Judi MacIntosh came in with Isabelle’s tea: cup and saucer, milk jug and sugar, stainless steel spoon. These would be trickier to handle than a plastic or Styrofoam cup. This teacup would rattle on its saucer when she lifted it, sounding a betrayal. Very clever, Isabelle thought.

  “Please enjoy your tea,” Hillier told her. She reckoned his tone was similar to that which Socrates heard prior to the hemlock.

  She took milk but decided against the sugar. Sugar would have required her dexterous use of the spoon, and she didn’t think she could manage that. As it was, when she stirred the milk into the tea, the sound of steel hitting china seemed earsplitting. She didn’t dare raise the cup to her lips. She set the spoon in the saucer and waited.