In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(201)
Lynley wasn't mistaken, he acknowledged. Tideswell sat on the east edge of Calder Moor. A decent hiker with murder in mind could start out from the Black Angel Hotel, climb to the top of the town, and set off across the moor to Nine Sisters Henge. It would take a few hours, considering the size of the moor, and it wouldn't be as efficient as simply following the route the girl herself had taken from the site just beyond the hamlet of Sparrowpit. But it could be done. On the other hand, that same killer could arguably have accomplished everything by car: parking in the same spot where Nicola had left her Saab behind the stone wall and, after the killings, returning home by way not only of the Black Angel Hotel but also by way of the hamlet of Peak Forest near which he got rid of the knife.
“Exactly,” Lynley said. “That's my point exactly. So you do see—”
But, Hanken argued, if his colleague would take a closer look at the map, he would see that the same short detour of less than two miles that their killer would have taken to drop the leather jacket at the Black Angel and then proceed homeward to the south towards Bakewell and Broughton Manor was the identical short detour of less than two miles that their killer would have taken to drop the leather jacket at the Black Angel and then proceed homeward to the north to Padley Gorge and Maiden Hall.
Lynley followed the two routes that Hanken indicated. He had to admit that the other DI had a point. He could see how their killer—having left the murder site, having driven through Peak Forest to dump the knife in the grit dispenser, having detoured briefly to Tideswell to place the jacket where it would hang unnoticed—could then have driven onwards to the junction that marked Wardlow Mires. From there, one road led towards Padley Gorge and the other towards Bakewell. And when means and opportunity aligned for two suspects in an investigation, the police were bound by everything from logic to ethics to look first at the stronger suspect. So a search of Maiden Hall was called for.
The event would be hell for Andy and his wife, but Lynley had to conclude that it was an unavoidable hell. Still, a remnant of the old loyalty he felt towards Andy prompted him to ask Hanken for a single assurance. The Maidens wouldn't be told, of course, what it was that the police were looking for in their search of Maiden Hall. It stood to reason, therefore, that there was no need to make any further discussion of Nicola's London life part of that inspection.
“You're only postponing the inevitable, Thomas. Unless Nan Maiden's dead before we make an arrest and go to trial, she's eventually going to know the worst about the girl. Even—and I don't believe this, but I'll give it to you for the moment—even if Dad didn't chop her. If Britton did the business on her …” Hanken made an aimless gesture with his hand.
The worst will still out, Lynley finished silently. He knew that. But if he couldn't save his former colleague from the humiliation of a formal search of his home and his business, at least he could spare him for the moment the added grief of having to be witness to the suffering of the only person left in his world.
“We'll set it for tomorrow,” Hanken said, folding the map and taking up the bag with its incriminating contents. “I'll take this to the lab. You get some sleep.”
It was hardly a directive he'd be able to comply with, Lynley thought.
In London, Lynley's wife also slept fitfully and awakened in a thoughtful mood on the following morning. Sleeping fitfully was an anomaly for Helen. Generally, she sank into something resembling unconsciousness shortly after her head touched her pillow, and she remained in that condition until morning. Thus, Helen found the fact of having slept poorly a sure indication that something was vexing her, and she didn't have to excavate very far into her psyche to uncover what that something was.
Tommy's reactions to and dealings with Barbara Havers had been, for the last few days, like a very small splinter festering beneath the surface of Helen's skin: something that she didn't necessarily have to confront in her normal routine, but something that was both troubling and painful when brought to her awareness. And brought to her awareness it had been—in neon lights, actually—during her husband's final confrontation with Barbara.
Helen understood Tommy's position: He'd given Barbara a series of directives, and Barbara had been less than cooperative in carrying them out. Tommy had seen this as an acid test which his former partner had failed; Barbara had seen this as an unfair punishment. Neither of them wished to acknowledge the other's point of view, and Barbara was the one who stood upon the less solid ground when it came to arguing her perspective. So Helen found no difficulty in admitting that Tommy's ultimate reaction to Barbara's defiance of his orders was justified, and she knew his superior officers would agree with the action he'd taken.
But that same action, when considered in conjunction with his earlier decision to work with Winston Nkata and not Barbara Havers, was what bothered Helen. What, she wondered as she rose from her bed and donned her dressing gown, was really at the heart of her husband's animus towards Barbara: the fact that she had defied him or the fact that she was a woman who'd defied him? Of course, Helen had asked him a variation on this very question prior to his departure on the previous day, and unsurprisingly he'd hotly denied that gender had anything to do with how he was reacting towards Barbara. But didn't Tommy's entire history give the He to any denial he might make? Helen wondered.
She washed her face, ran a brush through her hair, and thought about the question. Tommy had a past that was littered with women: women he'd wanted, women he'd had, women with whom he'd worked. His very first lover had been a school friend's mother with whom he'd carried on a tumultuous affair for more than a year, and, prior to his relationship with Helen, his most passionate attachment of the heart had been to the woman who was now the wife of his closest friend. Aside from that latter connection, all Tommy's associations with women had one characteristic in common as far as Helen could see: It was Tommy who directed the course of the action. The women cooperatively went along for the ride.