In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(87)

“Confusion,” Vi said. “She hadn't yet made up her mind about her life. Nikki liked to keep her options open.”

“Leaving college? Quitting her job? Telling tales unsupported by the facts? Her options weren't open. They were manufactured. Everyone we've talked to has a different idea of what she intended to do with herself.”

“I can't explain it. I'm sorry. I don't know what you want me to say.”

“Did she have a job lined up?” Nkata looked up from his notebook.

“I don't know.”

“Did she have a source of income lined up?” Barbara asked.

“I don't know that either. She paid her share of the expenses here before she left for the summer, and—”

“Why'd she leave?”

“And as it was in cash” Vi plunged on, “I had no reason to question her source of income. Really, I'm sorry, but that's all I can tell you.”

Fat chance, Barbara thought. She was lying through her pretty, baby-sized white teeth. “How did you come to know each other? Are you at the College of Law yourself?”

“We met through work.”

“MKR Financial?” And when Vi nodded, “What d'you do for them?”

“Nothing any longer. I left in April as well.” What she had done, she told them, was work as Tricia Reeve's personal assistant. “I didn't much care for her,” she said. “She's a bit … peculiar. I handed in my notice in March and left once they found a replacement for me.”

“And now?” Barbara asked.

“Now?”

“What d'you do now?” Nkata clarified. “Where d'you work?”

She'd taken up modeling, she told them. It had long been her dream, and Nikki had encouraged her to go for it. She produced a portfolio of professional photographs which depicted her in a variety of guises. In most of the pictures she looked like a waif: thin and large-eyed with the sort of vacant expression that was currently de rigueur in fashion magazines.

Barbara nodded at the photos, aiming for appreciation but inwardly wondering for a fleeting moment when Rubenesque figures—such as her own, frankly—would ever be in vogue. “You must be doing well. A place like this … I don't expect it comes cheap, does it? Is it your own, by the way? This maisonette?”

“It's rented.” Vi gathered up her pictures. She tapped them together and replaced them in their portfolio.

“From who?” Nkata asked the question without looking up from his meticulous note-taking.

“Does it matter from whom?”

“Tell us and we'll make up our minds,” Barbara said.

“From Douglas and Gordon.”

“Mates of yours?”

“Its an estate agency.”

Barbara watched as Vi replaced the portfolio on a shelf beneath the television. She waited till the young woman had turned back to them before she went on. “Mr. Reeve told us that Nicola Maiden had a problem with the truth and a bigger problem keeping her mouth shut about his clients’ finances. He said he was going to sack her, when she left.”

“That's not true.” Vi remained standing, arms folded beneath diminutive breasts. “If he was going to sack her, which he wasn't, it would've been because of his wife.”

“Why?”

“Jealousy. Tricia wants to eliminate every woman he looks at.”

“And he looked at Nicola?”

“I didn't say that.”

“Listen. We know she had a lover,” Barbara said. “We know he's in London. Could that have been Mr. Reeve?”

“Tricia doesn't give him ten minutes out of her sight.”

“But it's possible?”

“No. Nikki was seeing someone, it's true. But not here. There. In Derbyshire.” Vi went into the kitchen and returned with a handful of picture postcards. They depicted various sites in the Peak District: Arbor Low, Peveril Castle, Thor's Cave, the stepping stones in Dovedale, Chatsworth House, Magpie Mine, Little John's Grave, Nine Sisters Henge. Each was addressed to Vi Nevin, and each bore an identical message: Oooh-laAa. This was followed by the initial N. That was all.

Barbara handed the postcards over to Nkata. She said to Vi, “Okay. I'll bite. Clue me in on the meaning behind these.”

“Those are the places she had sex with him. Every time they did it in a new location, she bought a postcard and sent it along to me. As a joke.”

“A real scream,” Barbara agreed. “Who's the bloke?”

“She never said. But I expect he's married.”

“Why?”

“Because aside from the postcards, she never once mentioned him when we talked on the phone. That's how I'd expect her to act if she had a relationship that wasn't on the up and up.”

“Made a habit of that, did she?” Nkata set the cards on the coffee table and made a note in his book. “She did other married blokes?”

“I didn't say that. Just that I think this one was married. And he wasn't in London.”

But someone was, Barbara thought. Someone had to be. If Nicola Maiden had intended a return to town at the end of the summer, she would have been coming with some means of supporting herself once she got here. With this ultramodern, recently redecorated, plush, posh, and pleasant maisonette having try sting place written all over it, how unreasonable was it to assume that a punter deep in dosh had set her up in style to be at his disposal day and night?