In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(213)

That was certainly a problem, Barbara thought. She could prove nothing. The police couldn't get their mitts on King-Ryder's bank records, and even if she herself could do that in some way, what would a hefty deposit made prior to the June phone call prove aside from someone's attempt to avoid the Inland Revenue's prying eyes?

There was that footprint in the muck in Vi Nevin's flat, of course, that shoe sole with its hexagonal markings. But if such a shoe sole proved to be as common as toast on the breakfast table, what did that add to the investigation? Of course, King-Ryder would have left trace evidence all over Vi Nevin's flat. But he wasn't likely to cooperate if the coppers asked him for a few strands of hair or a vial of blood for a DNA match-up. And even if he gave them everything from his toe jam to his dental floss, that did nothing to pin him to the Derbyshire murders unless the rozzers had a packet of trace evidence left at the scene up there as well.

Barbara knew she'd be more than just demoted and off the case if she phoned up DI Lynley for a little discussion about the Derbyshire evidence. She'd defied his orders; she'd gone her own way. He'd thrown her off the investigation. What he'd do if he discovered she'd put herself back on the investigation did not bear thinking of. So to bring King-Ryder down she had to go it more or less alone. There was only the small point of trying to figure out how to do it.

“He's been clever as the dickens,” Barbara said to Helen. “This bloke's no slouch in the brains department—but if I can come up with a way to get a step ahead of him … if I can use something that I know from everything I've gathered …”

“You've got the music,” Helen pointed out. “Which is what he's wanted from the first, isn't it?”

“He sure as bloody hell searched high and low for it. He tore apart that camping site. He went through the flat in Battersea. He ripped up Vis maisonette. He spent enough time in the studio with Cilia to suss out whether there was a hiding place there. I'd say we're safe in assuming he's after that music. And he knows it wasn't with Terry, Cilia, or Vi.”

“But he also knows it's somewhere.”

True, Barbara thought. But where and with whom? Who was it that King-Ryder didn't know who would convince the man that the music had switched hands more than once and that he—King-Ryder—would have to come forward to get that music? And how the hell could the act of just coming forward for some music—which he could deny knowing about once he saw it—also serve as the act that betrayed him as a killer?

Bloody hell, Barbara thought. It felt as if her brain were undergoing nuclear meltdown. What she needed was to talk to another professional. What she needed was a flaming good confab with someone who could not only see all the tentacles of this octopus crime but could also step forward, offer the solution, be part of the solution, and defend himself against King-Ryder should everything go to hell in an instant.

Inspector Lynley was the obvious choice. But he was out of the question. So she needed someone like him. She needed his clone. She needed—Barbara caught herself up and smiled. “Of course,” she said.

Helen raised an eyebrow. “You've got an idea?”

“I've got a bloody inspiration.”

It wasn't until one o'clock that Nan Maiden realised her husband was missing. She'd been occupied with putting the ground floor of Maiden Hall back in order, and she'd been making such an effort to act as if unexpected police searches were part of the normal routine that she hadn't noticed when Andy disappeared.

When he wasn't in the house, she first assumed he was in the grounds. But when she asked one of the kitchen boys to take a message out to Mr. Maiden offering him lunch, the boy told her that Andy had gone off in the Land-Rover not half an hour before.

“Oh. I see,” Nan said, and she tried to look as if this were perfectly reasonable behaviour under the circumstances. She even tried to tell herself as much: because it was inconceivable that Andy would have gone off without a word to her after what they both had been through.

She'd said, “A search?” to DI Hanken's unmoving face. “But a search for what? We've got nothing … we're hiding nothing … you'll find nothing …”

“Love,” Andy had said. He'd asked to see the search warrant and, once he'd seen it, he'd handed it back. “Go on, then,” he told Hanken.

Nan wouldn't consider what they were looking for. She wouldn't consider what their presence meant. When they left empty-handed, she felt such relief that her legs wobbled and she had to sit quickly or risk crumpling to the floor.

Her easing of nerves at the failure of the police to find what they were looking for quickly gave way to anxiety, however, when she learned that Andy was gone. Hanging over their heads was his declared willingness to find someone in the country who would give him a polygraph.

That's where he's gone, Nan decided. He's found someone to give him that bloody test. This search of the Hall pushed him to it. He means to have the test and prove himself to everyone by having it witnessed by someone from the investigation.

She had to stop him. She had to make him see that he was playing into their hands. They'd come with a warrant to search the premises knowing that such an action would unnerve him, and it had done so. It had unnerved them both.

Nan tore at her fingernails. Had she not felt momentarily faint, she could have gone to him, she told herself. They could have talked. She could have drawn him to her and soothed his sore conscience and—no. She would not think of that. Not of conscience. Never of conscience. She would think only of what she could do to turn the tide of her husband's intentions.