In Pursuit Of The Proper Sinner (27 page)

The aftershocks of brutality are happening to you, Lynley wanted to reply. But instead he repeated, “Has she gone out to Calder Moor, Andy?”

“She'll be on Hathersage Moor. It's closer. A few miles. The other … ? No. She won't be on Calder.”

“Has she ever ridden there?”

“On Calder?”

“Yes. On Calder Moor. Has she ever ridden there?”

“Of course she has. Yes.”

Lynley hated to do so, but he had to ask. Indeed, he owed it both to himself and to his Buxton colleague to ask: “You as well, Andy? Or just your wife?”

Andy Maiden looked up slowly at this, as if finally seeing the road they were travelling. He said, “I thought you were pursuing the London angle. SO 10. And what goes along with SO 10.”

“I am pursuing SO 10. But I'm after the truth, all of the truth. As you are, I expect. Do both of you ride on Calder Moor?”

“Nancy's not—”

“Andy, help me out. You know what the job's like. The facts generally come out one way or another. And sometimes the how of their coming out becomes more intriguing than the facts themselves.

That can easily divert an otherwise simple investigation, and I can't believe you want that.”

Maiden understood: An attempt at obfuscation could ultimately become more arresting than the information one sought to withhold. “Both of us ride on Calder Moor. All of us, in fact. But it's too far to bike there from here, Tommy.”

“How many miles?”

“I don't know exactly. But far, too far. We take the bikes out in the Land-Rover when we want to ride there. We park in a lay-by. Or in one of the villages. But we don't ride all the way to Calder Moor from here.” He canted his head in the direction of the bedroom window, adding, “The Land Rover's still out there. She won't have gone onto Calder this afternoon.”

Not this afternoon, Lynley thought. He said, “I did see a Land Rover when I came through the car park.”

Maiden hadn't been a police officer for thirty years without being capable of a simple act of mind reading. He said, “Running the Hall's a demanding life. It drains our time. We take our exercise when we can. If you want to track her on Hathersage Moor, there's a map in Reception that'll show you the way.”

That wouldn't be necessary, Lynley told him. If Nancy Maiden had ridden her bike out onto the moors, she probably was seeking some time alone. He was happy enough to let her have it.

Barbara Havers knew that she could have purchased some take-away from Uncle Tom's Cabin, a food stall on the corner of Portslade and Wandsworth roads. It occupied little more than a niche at the near end of the railway arches, and it looked just the sort of unhygienic place where one might purchase enough cholesterol-laden grub to guarantee concrete arteries within the hour. But she resisted the impulse—virtuously, she liked to think—and instead took herself to a pub near Vauxhall Station, where she indulged in the bangers and mash upon which she'd been meditating earlier. These went down a treat, eased on their way with half a pint of Scrumpy Jack. Sated with the food and drink and satisfied with the information she'd gathered during her morning in Battersea, she returned to the north side of the Thames and skimmed her way along the river. Traffic moved well on Horseferry Road. She was pulling into the underground car park at New Scotland Yard before she'd smoked her second Player.

She had two professional options at this point, she decided. She could return to CRIS and the hunt for a suitable ticket-of-leaver out for the blood of a Maiden. Or she could compile the information she'd gathered so far into a report. The former activity—boring and subservient though it was—would demonstrate her ability to take the medicine which certain officers of the law believed she ought to be swallowing. The latter activity, however, appeared to be the one likelier to take them towards some answers in the case. She opted for the report. It wouldn't take that long, it would allow her to set down information in a concrete and thought-provoking order, and it would postpone having to face the glowing screen for at least another hour. She took herself off to Lynley's office—no harm in using the space since it was going empty at the moment, right?—and set to work.

She was thoroughly into it, just coming up to the salient points made by Cilia Thompson concerning Terry Cole's paternity and his propensity towards questionable means of support—BLACKMAIL? she'd just typed—when Winston Nkata strode into the room. He was wolfing down the last of a Whopper, the container of which he sailed into the rubbish. He wiped his hands thoroughly with a paper napkin. He popped an Opal Fruit into his mouth.

“Junk food'll kill you,” Barbara said sanctimoniously.

“But I'll die smiling” was Nkata's reply. He swung one long leg over a chair and took out his leather-bound notebook as he sat. Barbara glanced at a wall clock and then at her colleague. “Just how fast're you driving up and down the Ml? You're setting land speed records from Derbyshire, Winston.”

He avoided answering, which was answer in itself. Barbara shuddered to think what Lynley would say had he known that Nkata was roaring along in his beloved Bentley at just under the speed of sound. “Been to the College of Law,” he told her. “Guv told me to look into the Maiden girl's doings in town.”

Barbara stopped typing. “And?”

“She dropped out.”

“She dropped out of law college?”

“That's how it looks.” Nicola Maiden, he told her, had apparently dropped out of law college on the first of May, approaching exam time. She'd done it responsibly, making appointments to see all the appropriate instructors and administrators before leaving. Several of them had tried to talk her out of it—she'd been near the top of her class and they'd considered it madness to leave when her successful future in law was assured—but she'd been politely adamant. And she'd disappeared.

“Muffed her exams?” Barbara asked.

“Didn't ever take them. Left before she laid eyes on them.”

“Was she scared? Developing nerves like her dad? Getting ulcers? Losing sleep? Realising she'd have to swot and wasn't up to the challenge?”

“Decided she just didn't fancy the law, was what she told her personal tutor.”

She'd been working for eight months part-time at a firm in Not-ting Hill called MKR Financial Management, Nkata went on. Most of the law students did that sort of thing: worked part-time during the day to support themselves, taking instruction at the college in the late afternoons and at night. She'd been offered a full-time placement at the Notting Hill firm, and as she liked the work, she decided to take it. “And that was that,” Nkata said. “No one at the college heard a word from her since.”

“So what was she doing in Derbyshire if she'd taken a full-time position in Notting Hill?” Barbara asked. “Was she having a holiday first?”

“Not 'ccording to the guv, and this is where it starts getting dodgy. She was working for a solicitor on a summer job, getting ready for the future and all that bit. That's why he put me onto the College of Law in the first place.”

“So she's employed in finance in London but takes a summer job doing law in Derbyshire?” Barbara clarified. “That's a new one on me. Does the inspector know she left law college?”

“Haven't rung him yet. I wanted to have a chat with you first.”

Barbara felt a rush of pleasure at this remark. She shot Nkata a look. As always, his face was ingenuous, pleasant, and perfectly professional. “Should we ring him, then? The inspector, I mean.”

“Let's chew on it a bit.”

“Right. Okay. Well, forget what she was doing in Derbyshire for the moment. The London bit at MKR Financial Management must've brought her some decent dosh, right? Because she wouldn't have been hurting for it at the end of the day had she stayed in law, so why drop out of law college unless there was some decent—and immediate—lolly involved? How does all that sound?”

“I'll go with it for now.”

“Okay. So did she need cash quick? And if so, why? Was she making a big purchase? Paying off a debt? Taking a trip? Wanting to live an easier life?” Barbara thought about Terry Cole and added with a snap of her fingers, “Ah. How about being blackmailed by someone? By a London someone who zipped up to Derbyshire wanting to know why her payment was late?”

Nkata flipped his hand back and forth, his who-knows gesture. “Could just be that the MKR gig looked more exciting than a life of wig-wearing at the Old Bailey. Not to mention more profitable in the long run.”

“What did she do for MKR, exactly?”

Nkata referred to his notes. “Money management trainee,” he said.

“Trainee? Come on, Winston. She couldn't've dropped out of law college for that.”

“Trainee's where she started round October last year. I'm not saying that's where she ended up.”

“But then, what was she doing in Derbyshire working for a solicitor? Had she changed her mind about the law? Was she going to go back to it?”

“If she did, she never told the college.”

“Hmm. That's odd.” As she considered the apparent contradictions in the dead girl's behaviour, Barbara reached for her packet of Players, saying, “Mind if I do a fag, Winnie?”

“Not in my breathing zone.”

She sighed and settled for a stick of Juicy Fruit, which she found in her shoulder bag adhered to a stub from her local cinema. She picked off the thin shreds of cardboard and folded the gum into her mouth. “Right. So what else do we know?”

“She left her digs.”

“Why wouldn't she, if she was up in Derbyshire for the summer?”

“I mean she left them permanently. Just like she left the college.”

“Okay. But that doesn't sound like news from the burning bush.”

“Hang on, then.” Nkata reached in his pocket and brought forth another Opal Fruit. He unwrapped it and tucked the sweet into the pocket of his cheek. “The college had her address—this is the old one—so I went there and had a chat with the landlady. In Islington. She had a bed-sit.”

“And?” Barbara encouraged him.

“She moved house—the girl, not the landlady—when she left law college. This was on the tenth of May. No notice given. Just packed her belongings, left behind an address in Fulham to send the post on, and vanished. Landlady wasn't happy about that. She wasn't happy about the row either.” Nkata smiled as he offered this last bit of information.

Barbara acknowledged the manner in which her colleague had played out the bits and pieces he'd gathered by cocking a finger at him and saying, “You rat. Give me the rest, Winston.”

At which Nkata chuckled. “Some bloke and her. They went at it like paddies in the peace talks, landlady said. This was on the ninth.”

“The day before she moved house?”

“Right.”

“Violence?”

“No, just shouting. And some nasty language.”

“Anything we can use?”

“Bloke said, ‘I won't have it. I'll see you dead before I'll let you do it.’”

“Now, that's a nice bit. Dare I hope we have a description of the bloke?” Nkata's expression told her. “Damn.”

He said, “But it's something to note.”

“P'rhaps. Or not.” Barbara considered what he'd told her earlier. She said, “But if she moved house right after the threat, why'd the murder come along so much later?”

“If she moved house to Fulham and then left town, he'd have to track her down,” Nkata pointed out. Then he said, “What'd you get at this end?”

Barbara told him what she'd gathered from her conversations with Mrs. Baden and Cilia Thompson. She concentrated on Terry's source of income and on the contrasting descriptions of him as provided by his flatmate and his landlady. “Cilia says he never sold a thing and wasn't likely to, and I wouldn't disagree. So then, how did he support himself?”

Nkata thought about this, moving his sweet from one side of his mouth to the other. He finally said, “Let's phone the guv,” and he went to Lynley's desk, where he punched in the number. In a moment the connection went through and he had Lynley on the inspector's mobile. He said, “Hang on,” and punched another button on the phone. Over the speaker, Barbara heard Lynley's pleasant baritone saying, “What'Ve we got so far, Winnie?”

Just the sort of thing he would have said to her. She got up and strode to the window. There was nothing to see but Tower Block, of course. It was just something to do.

Winston quickly brought Lynley up to speed on Nicola Maiden's abrupt departure from the College of Law, on her employment at MKR Financial Management, on her moving house without giving notice, on the row that preceded her moving house, and on the particular threat to her life that had been overheard.

“There's apparently a lover in London,” Lynley said in reply. “Upman's given us that. But not a word about her having left law college.”

“Why'd she keep it a secret?”

“Because of the lover, perhaps.” Barbara could tell from Lynley's voice that he was chewing this over mentally. “Because of plans they had.”

“Some married bloke, then?”

“Check out the financial management firm. He could be there.” Lynley related his own information. He concluded with “If the lover in London is a married chap who'd set Nicola up as a permanent mistress in Fulham, it's not the sort of thing she'd want to broadcast in Derbyshire. I can't see her parents feeling pleased with the news. And Britton would have been cut up as well.”

“But what was she doing in Derbyshire in the first place?” Barbara whispered to Nkata. “Her actions are contradicting themselves all over the map. Tell him, Winston.”

Nkata nodded and raised his hand to indicate that he'd heard her. He didn't argue with the inspector's points, however. Instead, he took notes. At the conclusion of Lynley's remarks, he offered the details about Terry Cole. Considering the scope of them in conjunction with the brevity of time Nkata had been back in town, Lynley's comment upon the constable's conclusion was “Good God, Winnie. How have you managed all this? Are you working telepathically?”

Barbara turned from the window to get Nkata's attention, but she didn't manage it before he spoke. He said, “Barb's on to the boy. She did Battersea this morning. She talked to—”

“Havers?” Lynley's voice sharpened. “Is she with you, then?”