In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(211)

“It's going to take a team of twenty to go through that place,” Hanken said. “If we have to, we'll do it. But I'll put money on the square that says we won't have to.”

They had the hotel records in their possession in extremely short order. While Lynley phoned London to track down Nkata for a fax of Havers' SO 10 findings, Hanken took the hotel's registration cards through to the bar, where pork with baked apples was on offer for lunch. When Lynley joined him with the fax of Havers' report, the other DI was dipping into the day's speciality with one hand and going through the registration cards with the other. A second plate—steaming with a similar meal—was set opposite him, a pint of lager next to it.

“Thanks,” Lynley said, handing over the report.

“Always go with the special of the day,” Hanken advised him and nodded at the paperwork Lynley was holding. “What've we got?”

Lynley didn't think they had anything, but he remembered three names that he had to admit, even beyond his own prejudices in the matter, bore looking into. One of them was a former snout of Maiden s. Two others were secondary shadowy figures who'd operated at the periphery of Maiden's investigations but never served time at their monarch's pleasure. Ben Venables was the snout. Clifford Thompson and Gar Brick were the others.

On their way back to the Black Angel, Hanken had perfected a new theory. Maiden, he said, had far too much nouse to be such a fool as to kill his own daughter personally, no matter how much he wanted her dead. He'd have hired the job out to one of the blighters from his past, and he'd have then misdirected the police by telling them it was a vengeance killing to keep them focused on the louts either in prison or on parole while all the others who'd rubbed elbows with Maiden but had no reason to revenge themselves upon him would escape police notice. It was a clever ploy. So Hanken wanted that SO 10 report to see if any names on it matched up with anyone who'd registered at the hotel.

“You see how it could happen, don't you?” Hanken asked Lynley. “All Maiden would need to do after hiring this bloke would be to put him in the picture where the girl was camping. And he knew where she was camping, Thomas. We've seen that from the first.”

Lynley wanted to argue, but he didn't. Andy Maiden, of all people, would understand how risky it was to arrange a contract killing. That he might have done so to rid himself of a child whose lifestyle he found intolerable was an unthinkable proposition. If the man had wanted to eliminate Nicola because he couldn't force her to change her ways, he wouldn't have looked for someone else to do the job, especially someone who might break easily under interrogation and point the finger back at him. No. If Andy Maiden had wanted to eliminate his daughter, Lynley knew, he would have done so himself. And they had sod all evidence to suggest that he'd done it.

Lynley picked at his food as Hanken read the report. The other DI wolfed down his own meal. He finished the report and the meal simultaneously and said, “Venables, Thompson, and Brick,” in an impressive show of reaching the same conclusion as Lynley himself had drawn. “But I say we check them all against the records.”

Which was what they did. They took the records for the previous week and checked the names of all the hotel's residents during that time against the names that were in Havers’ report. As the report covered more than twenty years of Andy Maiden's police experience, the project took some time. But the end of their endeavour left them in the same position as they'd been in in the beginning. No names matched.

It was Lynley who pointed out that someone coming to kill Nicola Maiden would hardly have registered in a local hotel and used his own name. Hanken saw the reason in this. But rather than use it to dismiss altogether the idea of a hired killer who'd stayed at the hotel and left the jacket and waterproof behind, he said obscurely, “Of course. Let's get on to Buxton.”

But what about Broughton Manor? Lynley wanted to know.

Were they going to let that slide in favour of … what? A chase for someone who might not exist?

“The killer exists, Thomas,” Hanken replied as he stood. “And I've an idea we'll track him down through Buxton.”

Barbara looked at Helen and said, “But why'd you phone me? Why not the inspector?”

Helen said, “Thank you, Charlie. Will you see about getting those wallpaper books back to Peter Jones? I've made my choice. It's marked.”

Denton nodded, saying, “Will do,” and took himself up the stairs after switching off the stereo and removing his CD.

“Thank God Charlie loves West End extravaganzas,” Helen said when she and Barbara were alone. “The more I get to know him, the more invaluable I find he's becoming. And who would have thought it, because when Tommy and I married, I wondered how I'd feel having my husband's valet—or whatever Charlie Denton actually is—lurking about like a nineteenth-century retainer. But he's indispensable. As you've just seen.”

“Why, Helen?” Barbara asked, not put off by the other woman's light remarks.

Helen's face softened. “I love him,” she said. “But he's not always right. No one is.”

“He won't like your having shared this with me.”

“Yes. Well. I'll deal with that as it comes.” Helen gestured to the music. “What do you make of it?”