In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(18)

At this, Lynley moved his chair away from the desk and stood at the window, looking out at its indifferent view of Tower Block. Barbara saw a muscle move in his jaw. She was about to venture into the arena of gratitude—his uncharacteristic reserve suggested the price he'd paid interceding on her behalf—when he finally spoke, introducing the topic himself by saying, “Barbara, I'm wondering if you know what had to be gone through to keep you from getting the sack. The meetings, the phone calls, the agreements, the compromises.”

“I reckoned as much. Which is why I wanted to say—”

“And all of it to keep you from getting what half of Scotland Yard think you richly deserve.”

Barbara shifted uncomfortably on her feet. “Sir, I know you put yourself out for me. I know I would have been given the sack if you hadn't interceded. And I just wanted to tell you how grateful I am that you recognised my actions for what they were. I wanted to tell you that you won't have any reason to regret taking my part. I won't give you a reason. Or anyone else, for that matter. I won't give anyone a reason.”

“I wasn't the one,” Lynley said, turning back to her.

Barbara looked at him blankly. “You … ? What?”

“I didn't take your part, Barbara.” To his credit after making the admission, he kept his eyes on hers. She would think of that later and grudgingly admire it. Those brown eyes of his—so kind and so at odds with his head of blond hair—settled on hers and just stayed there, openly.

Barbara frowned, trying to assimilate what he'd said. “But you … you know all the facts. I told you the story. You read the report. I thought … You just now said the meetings and the phone calls—”

“They weren't mine,” he cut in. “In conscience, I can't let you think that they were.”

So she'd jumped to a conclusion. She'd presumed their years of partnership meant that Lynley would automatically take her part. She said, “Are you with them, then?”

“Them? Who?”

“The half of the Yard that thinks I got what I deserve. I only ask because I s'pose we ought to know where we stand with each other. I mean, if we're going to work—” Her words were starting to tumble together, and she forced herself to slow down, to be deliberate. “So are you? With them? That half? Sir?”

Lynley went back to his desk and sat. He regarded her. She could easily read the regret on his face. She just couldn't tell where it was directed. And that frightened her. Because he was her partner. He was her partner. She said again, “Sir?”

He said, “I don't know if I'm with them.”

She felt deflated. Just a shriveled bit of her skin remained, lying quietly on the office floor.

Lynley must have read this because he continued, his voice not unkind. “I've looked at the situation from every angle. All summer long, I've examined it, Barbara.”

“That's not part of your job,” she told him numbly. “You investigate murders, not … not what I did.”

“I wanted to understand. I still want to understand. I thought if I went at it on my own, I could see how it happened, through your eyes.”

“But you couldn't manage that.” Barbara tried to keep the desolation from her voice. “You couldn't see that a life was at stake. You couldn't get your mind round the fact that I wasn't able to let an eight-year-old drown.”

“That's not the case,” Lynley told her. “I understood that much and I understand it now. What I couldn't get round was that you were out of your jurisdiction, and, given an order to—”

“So was she,” Barbara broke in. “So was everyone. The Essex police don't patrol the North Sea. And that's where it happened. You know that. On the sea.”

“I do know that. All of it. Believe me. I know. How you were chasing a suspect, how that suspect dropped a child from his boat, what you were ordered to do when he took that action, and how you reacted when you heard the order.”

“I couldn't just toss her a life belt, Inspector. It wouldn't have reached her. She would have drowned.”

“Barbara, please hear me out. It wasn't your place—or your responsibility—to make decisions or to reach conclusions. That's why we have a chain of command. Arguing about the order you'd been given would have been bad enough. But once you fired a weapon at a superior officer—”

“I expect you're afraid I'll do that to you next, given half a chance,” she said bitterly.

Lynley let the words hang there between them. In the silence, Barbara found herself wanting to reach into the air and unspeak them, so untrue did she know them to be. “Sorry,” she said, feeling that the huskiness in her voice was a worse betrayal than any action she herself had taken earlier that summer.

“I know,” he said. “I do know you're sorry. I'm sorry as well.”

“Detective Inspector Lynley?”

The quiet interruption came from the door. Lynley and Barbara swung to the voice. Dorothea Harriman, secretary to their divisional superintendent, stood there: well-coifed with a helmet of honey-blonde hair, well-dressed in a pin-striped suit that would have done service in a fashion advert. Barbara all at once felt what she always was in the presence of Dorothea Harriman, a sartorial nightmare.