In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(41)

“Everyone needs something.” Azhar reached into his shirt pocket again. Barbara thought he was going to offer his cigarettes another time. But instead, he extended to her a folded piece of paper. “A gentleman was here looking for you earlier, Barbara. He asked me to make sure you got this note. He tried to fix it to your door, he said, but it wouldn't stay in place.”

“Gentleman?” Barbara knew only one man to whom that word would automatically be applied by a stranger after a mere moment's conversation. She took the piece of paper, scarcely daring to hope. Which was just as well, because the writing on the note—a sheet of paper removed from a small spiral notebook—wasn't Lynley's. She read the eight words: Page me as soon as you get this. A number followed them. There was no signature.

Barbara refolded the note. Doing so, she saw what was written on the outside of it, what Azhar himself must have seen, interpreted, and understood the moment it had been handed over. DC Havers was printed in block capitals across it. C for Constable. So Azhar knew.

She met his gaze. “Looks like I'm back in the game already,” she said as heartily as she could manage. “Thanks, Azhar. This bloke say where he'd be waiting for the page?”

Azhar shook his head. “He said only that I should make sure you had the message.”

“Okay Thanks.” She gave him a nod and turned to walk away.

He called her name—sounding urgent—but when she stopped and glanced back, he was studying the street. He said, “Can you tell me …” and then his voice died away. He drew his eyes back to her as if the effort cost him.

“Tell you what?” she asked, though she felt apprehension dance along her spine when she said the words.

“Tell me … How is your mother?” Azhar asked.

“Mum? Well … She's a bloody disaster when it comes to jigsaw puzzles, but otherwise I think she's okay.”

He smiled. “That's good to know.” And with a quiet goodnight, he slipped into the house.

Barbara went to her own lodgings, a tiny cottage that sat at the bottom of the back garden. Sheltered by the limbs of an old false acacia, it was not much larger than a potting shed with mod cons. Once inside, she peeled herself out of her linen jacket, tossed the string of faux pearls onto the table that served purposes as diverse as dining and ironing, and went to the phone. There were no messages on her machine. She wasn't surprised. She punched in the number for the pager, punched in her own number, and waited.

Five minutes later, someone phoned. She made herself wait through four of the double-rings before she answered. There was no reason to sound desperate, she decided.

Her caller, she discovered, was Winston Nkata, and her back went up the instant she heard that unmistakable mellifluous voice with its mixed flavours of Jamaica and Sierra Leone. He was in the Load of Hay tavern just round the corner on Chalk Farm Road, he told her, finishing up a plate of lamb curry and rice that “was not, do believe me, something my mum would ever put on the table for her favourite son, but it's better than McDonald's although not by much.” He would set off straightaway for her digs. “Be there in five minutes,” he said, and rang off before she had a chance to tell him that his mug was just about the last one she wanted to see putting in an appearance on her doorstep. She hung up the phone, muttered an expletive, and went to the refrigerator to graze.

Five minutes stretched to ten. Ten minutes to fifteen. He didn't show up.

Bastard, Barbara thought. Fine idea of a joke.

She went to the bathroom and turned on the shower.

Lynley tried to adjust quickly to the astonishing fact that Andy Maiden hadn't told his wife that their daughter had been the victim of a crime. Since Calder Moor was a location replete with potential sites of accidents, Lynley's former colleague had apparently and unaccountably allowed his wife to believe that their daughter had fractured her skull in a fall.

When she learned otherwise, Nan Maiden crumpled forward, elbows pressed into her thighs, and fists raised to her mouth. Either shocked, too stricken with grief to comprehend, or comprehending something only too well, she didn't weep further. She merely muttered a guttural “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

DI Hanken appeared to take a fairly quick measure of what was implied by her reaction. He was observing Andy Maiden with a decidedly unsympathetic eye. He asked no questions in response to Nan's revelation though. Like a good cop, he merely waited.

In the aftermath of all this, Maiden waited as well. Still, he apparently reached the conclusion that something was required of him by way of explanation for his incomprehensible behaviour. “Love, I'm sorry,” he said to Nan. “I couldn't … I'm sorry. Nan, I could barely cope with the fact that she'd died, let alone tell … let alone have to face … have to begin to deal with …” He spent a moment rigidly marshaling the inner resources a policeman learned to develop in order to live through the worst of the worst. His right hand—still in possession of the ball his wife had given him—clutched and released it spasmodically. “I'm so sorry,” he said brokenly “Nan.”

Nan Maiden raised her head. She watched him for a moment. Then her hand—shaking as it was—reached out and closed over his arm. She spoke to the police.

“Would you …” Her lips quivered. She didn't go on until she had the emotion under control. “Tell me what happened.”