In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(229)

She dumped the rest of her coffee in the sink and quickly did her few morning chores. Teeth cleaned and hair combed, with a smudge of blusher on each cheek in a bow to femininity, she grabbed her shoulder bag, locked the door behind her, and sauntered up the path towards the street.

She went out the front gate but halted when she saw it.

Lynley's silver Bentley was parked in the driveway.

“You're off your patch, aren't you, Inspector?” she asked him as he got out of the car.

“Winston phoned me. He said you'd left your car at the Yard last night and took a taxi home.”

“We'd guzzled a few drinks and it seemed the better course.”

“So he said. It was wise not to drive. I thought you might like a lift into Westminster. There are problems on the Northern Line this morning.”

“When aren't there problems on the Northern Line?”

He smiled. “So … ?”

“Thanks.”

She slung her shoulder bag into the passenger seat and climbed inside. Lynley got in beside her, but he didn't start the car. Instead, he took something from his jacket pocket. He handed it over.

Barbara looked at it curiously. He'd given her a registration card for the Black Angel Hotel. It wasn't a blank card, however, which might have inspired her to think that he was offering her a holiday in Derbyshire. Rather, it was filled in with a name, an address, and other pertinent information about car types, number plates, passports, and nationalities. It had been made out to an M. R. Davidson, who had listed an address in West Sussex and an Audi as the vehicle that had carried him or her to the North.

“Okay,” Barbara said. “I'll bite. What is it?”

“A souvenir for you.”

“Ah.” Barbara anticipated his starting the Bentley. He didn't do so. He merely waited. So she said, “A souvenir of what?”

He said, “DI Hanken believed that the killer stayed at the Black Angel Hotel the night of the murders. He ran the cards of all the hotel guests through the DVLA to see if any of them were driving cars that were registered to a name different from the name they had put on the card. That was the one that didn't match up.”

“Davidson,” Barbara said, examining the card. “Oh yes. I see. David's son. So Matthew King-Ryder stayed at the Black Angel.”

“Not far from the moor, not far from Peak Forest, where the knife was found. Not far, as it turns out, from anything.”

“And the DVLA showed this Audi as registered to him,” Barbara concluded. “And not to an M. R. Davidson.”

“Things happened so quickly yesterday that we didn't actually see the report from the DVLA till late in the afternoon. The Buxton computers were down, so the information had to be compiled by phone. If they hadn't been down …” Lynley looked through the windscreen and spoke meditatively. “I want to believe that the fault lies in technology, that had we only got our hands on the DVLA information quickly enough, Andy Maiden would still be alive.”

“What?” Barbara breathed the word, astounded. “Still be alive? What happened to him?”

Lynley told her. He spared himself nothing, Barbara saw. But then, that was his way.

He concluded with “It was a judgement call on my part not to talk directly about Nicola's prostitution when her mother was present. It was what Andy wanted and I went along. Had I simply done what I should have done …” He gestured aimlessly. “I let my feelings for the man get in the way. I made the wrong call, and as a result he died. His blood is on my hands as indelibly as if I'd wielded the knife.”

“That's being a little rough on yourself,” Barbara said. “You didn't exactly have time to ponder the best way to handle things once Nan Maiden barged into your interview.”

“No. I could see that she knew something. But what I thought she knew—or at least believed—was that Andy had murdered their daughter. And even then I didn't bring the truth to light because I couldn't believe he'd murdered their daughter.”

“And he hadn't,” Barbara said. “So your decision was right.”

“I don't think you can separate the decision from the outcome,”

Lynley said. “I'd thought so before, but I don't think so now. The outcome exists because of the decision. And if the outcome is an unnecessary death, the decision was wretched. We can't twist the facts into a different picture no matter how much we'd like to do so.”

It sounded like a conclusion to Barbara. She treated it as such. She reached for her seat belt and pulled it round her. She was about to fasten it, when Lynley spoke again.

“You made the right decision, Barbara.”

“Yeah, but I had the advantage over you,” Barbara said. “I'd talked to Cilia Thompson in person. You hadn't. I'd talked to King-Ryder in person as well. And when I saw that he'd actually bought one of her gruesome paintings, it was easy for me to reach the conclusion that he was our man.”

“I'm not talking about this case,” Lynley said. “I'm talking about Essex.”

“Oh.” Barbara felt herself grow unaccountably small. “That,” she said. “Essex.”

“Yes. Essex. I've tried to separate the judgement call you made that day from its outcome. I kept insisting that the child might have lived had you not interfered. But you didn't have the luxury to make calculations about the boat's distance from the child and someone's ability to throw a life belt to her, did you, Barbara? You had an instant in which to decide what to do. And because of the decision you made, the little girl lived. Yet given the luxury of hours to think about Andy Maiden and his wife, I still made the wrong call in their case. His death's on my shoulders. The child's life is on yours. You can examine the situations any way you want to, but I know which outcome I'd prefer to be responsible for.”