Playing for the Ashes (8 page)

Barbara hit the play button on her answering machine and returned to the table where her ham salad waited.

“Hello, Barbie.” The greeting was spoken by the soporific read-me-a-bedtime-story voice of Mrs. Flo. “I wanted to let you know that Mum’s a touch under the weather, dear. I thought it best to phone and tell you at once.”

Barbara hurried back to the telephone, ready to punch in Mrs. Flo’s number. As if anticipating this, Mrs. Flo continued.

“Now, I don’t think a doctor’s visit is called for in the least, Barbie, but Mum’s temperature is up two degrees and she’s had herself a bit of a cough these last few days…” There was a pause during which Barbara could hear one of Mrs. Flo’s other houseguests singing along with Deborah Kerr, who was in the process of inviting Yul Brynner to dance. It had to be Mrs. Salkild.
The King and I
was her favourite video, and she insisted upon seeing it at least once a week. “Actually, dear,” Mrs. Flo went on carefully, “Mum’s been asking for you as well. It’s just been since lunchtime, so I don’t want you to put yourself into a dither over this, but since she so rarely mentions anyone by name, I thought it might cheer Mum up to hear your voice. You know how it is when one’s not quite feeling one hundred percent, don’t you, dear? Do ring if you can. Cheerie bye, Barbie.”

Barbara reached for the phone.

“How lovely that you called, dear,” Mrs. Flo said when she heard Barbara’s voice, as if she hadn’t telephoned first to prompt the call.

“How is she?” Barbara asked.

“I’ve just now come from having a peep in her room, and she’s sleeping like a lamb.”

Barbara held her wrist up to the dim cottage light. It was not yet eight o’clock. “Sleeping? But why’s she in bed? She doesn’t usually go to bed this early. Are you sure—”

“She was off her food at dinner, dear, so we both decided that a bit of a lie down with the music box playing would be just the thing to settle her tummy. So she had herself a nice listen and drifted off as sweet as could be. You know how she loves that music box.”

“Look,” Barbara said, “I could be out there by half past eight. Or quarter to nine. Traffic didn’t look so bad this evening. I’ll drive it.”

“After a long day at work? Don’t be foolish, Barbie. Mum’s fine as can be and since she’s asleep, she won’t even know that you’re here, will she? But I’ll tell her you’ve phoned.”

“She won’t know who you mean,” Barbara protested. Unless she was given the visual stimulus of a photograph or the auditory stimulus of a voice on the phone, the name Barbara meant virtually nothing to Mrs. Havers at this point. Even with visual or auditory back-up, whether she recognised her only daughter was still a coin toss.

“Barbie,” Mrs. Flo said with gentle
fir
mness, “I shall make certain she knows who I mean. She mentioned you several times this afternoon, so she’ll know who Barbara is when I tell her you rang.”

But knowing who Barbara was on Friday afternoon didn’t mean Mrs. Havers would have any idea who Barbara was on Saturday morning over poached eggs and toast. “I’ll be out tomorrow,” Barbara said. “In the morning. I’ve collected some brochures on New Zealand. Will you tell her that? Tell her we’ll plan another holiday for her album.”

“Of course, my dear.”

“And ring if she asks for me again. I don’t care what time it is. Will you ring me, Mrs. Flo?”

Of course she would ring, Mrs. Flo said. Barbie was to eat a nice meal, to put her feet on the hassock, to have a quiet evening so that she would be right as rain to make the trip out to Greenford tomorrow.

“Mum will look forward to that,” Mrs. Flo said. “I dare say that’ll take care of her tummy.”

They rang off. Barbara went back to her meal. The slice of ham looked even less appealing than it had done when she first slapped it onto the plate. The beetroot, spooned from the tin and arranged like a hand of five-card stud, appeared in the light to bear a greenish tinge. And the leaves of lettuce, which lay like open palms cradling both the ham and the beetroot, were limp from exposure to water and black at the edges from too close contact with the ice in the pail. So much for dinner, Barbara thought. She shoved the plate away and thought about walking to the falafel house back on Chalk Farm Road. Or treating herself to a Chinese dinner, sitting at a table in the restaurant like a real person. Or going back to that pub for bangers or shepherd’s pie….

She brought herself up sharply. What the hell was she thinking of? Her mother wasn’t well. No matter Mrs. Flo’s words, her mother needed to see her. Now. So she would climb in the Mini and drive to Greenford. And if her mother was still asleep, she’d sit by the bed until she awoke. Even if it took until morning. Because that’s what daughters did for their mothers, especially if more than three weeks had passed since they’d last laid eyes on them.

As Barbara reached for her shoulder bag and her keys, the phone rang again. She froze for an instant. She thought inanely, No, my God, she couldn’t have, not that quickly. And she walked with dread to answer it.

“We’re on,” Lynley said at the other end of the line when he heard her voice.

“Hell.”

“I agree. I hope I’ve not interrupted anything particularly interesting in your life.”

“No. I was heading out to see Mum. And hoping for dinner.”

“The first, I can’t help you with, rota being what it is. The second can be remedied with a quick sashay through the officers’ canteen.”

“Now there’s a real stimulant to the appetite.”

“I’ve always seen it that way. How much time do you need?”

“A good thirty minutes if the traffic’s bad near Tottenham Court Road.”

“And when isn’t it?” he asked pleasantly. “I’ll keep your beans on toast warm at this end.”

“Great. I love spending time with a real gent.”

He laughed and rang off.

Barbara did likewise. Tomorrow, she thought. First thing in the morning. Tomorrow she would make the trip out to Green-ford.

She left her Mini in the underground car park of New Scotland Yard after
fla
shing her identification at the uniformed constable who looked up from his magazine long enough to yawn and make sure he wasn’t entertaining a visit from the IRA. She pulled next to Lynley’s silver Bentley. She managed to squeeze in as close as possible, snickering at how he would shudder at the idea of her car door possibly nicking the precious paint job on his.

She punched the button for the lift and rustled up a cigarette. She smoked it as furiously as possible, to bulk up on the nicotine before she was forced to enter Lynley’s piously smoke-free domain. She’d been trying to woo him back to the siren weed for more than a year, believing that it would make their partnership so much easier if they shared at least one loathsome habit. But she’d got no further than one or two moans of addicted anguish when she blew smoke in his face during the
fir
st six months of his abstinence. It had been sixteen months now since he’d given up tobacco, and he was beginning to act like the newly converted.

She found him in his office, elegantly dressed for his aborted romantic evening with Helen Clyde. He was sitting behind his desk, drinking black coffee. He wasn’t alone, however, and at the sight of his companion, Barbara frowned and paused in the doorway.

Two chairs were drawn up to the front of his desk, and a woman sat in one of them. She was youthful looking, with long legs that she kept uncrossed. She wore fawn trousers and a herringbone jacket, she wore an ivory blouse and well-polished pumps with sensible heels. She sipped something from a plastic cup and watched gravely as Lynley read through a sheaf of papers. As Barbara took stock of her and wondered who the hell she was and what the hell she was doing in New Scotland Yard on a Friday night, the woman paused in her drinking to shake from her cheek a wing-shaped lock of amber hair that had fallen out of place. It was a sensual gesture that raised Barbara’s hackles. Automatically, she looked to the row of filing cabinets against the far wall, assuring herself that Lynley had not surreptitiously removed the photograph of Helen prior to waltzing Miss Deluxe Fashionplate into his office. The photo was in place. So exactly what the hell was going on?

“Evening,” Barbara said.

Lynley looked up. The woman turned in her chair. Her face betrayed nothing, and Barbara noticed that Miss Deluxe Fashionplate didn’t bother to evaluate her appearance the way another woman might. Even Barbara’s red high-top trainers went completely disregarded.

“Ah. Good,” Lynley said. He set down his paperwork and took off his spectacles. “Havers. At last.”

She saw that a sandwich wrapped in cellophane, a packet of crisps, and a cup with a lid sat waiting for her on the desk in front of the empty chair. She sauntered over to it and picked up the sandwich, which she unwrapped and sniffed suspiciously. She lifted the bread.

The mixture inside looked like liver paste blended with spinach. It smelled like
fis
h. She shuddered.

“It was the best I could do,” Lynley said.

“Ptomaine on whole wheat?”

“With an antidote of Bovril to wash it down.”

“You’re spoiling me with your thoughtfulness, sir.” To the woman, Barbara gave a nod designed to acknowledge her presence at the same time as it communicated disapproval. That social nicety taken care of, she plopped into the chair. At least the crisps were salt and vinegar. She ripped open the bag and began to munch.

“So what’s up?” she asked. Her voice was casual but her meaningful look in the direction of the other woman said the rest: Who the hell is the beauty queen and what the hell is she doing here and where the dickens is Helen if you need a companion on the very Friday night when you meant to ask her to marry you and did she refuse again and is this how quickly you’ve managed to rebound from the disappointment you blighter you dog?

Lynley received the message, pushed back his chair, and regarded Havers evenly. After a moment he said, “Sergeant, this is Detective Inspector Isabelle Ardery, Maidstone CID. She’s been good enough to bring us some information. Can you tear yourself away from speculations entirely unrelated to the case and listen to the facts?” Beneath the question she read his unspoken response to her unspoken allegations: Give me a modicum of credit, please.

Barbara winced and said, “Sorry, sir.” She wiped her hand on her trousers and extended it to Inspector Ardery.

Ardery shook. She glanced between them but didn’t pretend to understand their exchange. In fact, she didn’t seem interested in it. Her lips curved fractionally in Barbara’s direction, but what went for a smile was merely a cool, professional obligation. Perhaps she wasn’t Lynley’s type after all, Barbara decided.

“What have we got?” She unlidded her Bovril and took a sip.

“Arson,” Lynley said. “A body as well. Inspector, if you’d put my sergeant in the picture….”

In a formal, steady tone Inspector Ardery listed the details: a
fif
teenth-century restored cottage not far from a market town called Greater Springburn in Kent, a woman in residence, the milkman making his morning delivery, the newspaper and post gone uncollected, a peek through the windows, a burned chair, a trail of deadly smoke against window and wall, a stairway that acted—as all stairways do when a fire breaks out—like a chimney, a body upstairs, and
fin
ally the source of ignition.

She opened her shoulder bag which lay on the floor next to her foot. From it, she brought forth a packet of cigarettes, a box of wooden matches, and an elastic band. For a moment Barbara thought, with a rush of delight, that the inspector was actually going to light up, giving Barbara herself an excuse to do likewise. But instead, she spilled six matches from the box onto the desk and shook a cigarette on top of them.

“The fire raiser used an incendiary device,” Ardery said. “It was primitive but nonetheless quite effective.” Approximately an inch from the tobacco end of the filtered cigarette, she created a shea
fin
g of matches, their heads up. She fastened them in place with the elastic band and held the contrivance in the palm of her hand. “It acts like a timer. Anyone can make one.”

Barbara took the cigarette from Ardery’s palm and examined it. The inspector continued to speak. “The fire raiser lights the tobacco and places the cigarette where he wants the blaze, in this case tucked between the cushion and the arm of a wingback chair. He leaves. In four to seven minutes, the cigarette burns down and the matches flame. The
fir
e starts.”

“Why the exact time span?” Barbara asked.

“Each brand of cigarette burns at a different rate.”

“Do we know the brand?” Lynley had replaced his spectacles on his nose. He was glancing through the report again.

“Not at the moment. My lab has the works—the cigarette, the matches, and the band that held them together. We’ll—”

“You’re testing for saliva and latent prints?”

She offered another half-smile. “As you’d expect, Inspector, we’ve a fine lab in Kent and we do know how to use it. But as far as prints go, we’re unlikely to come up with anything more than partials, so I’m afraid you can’t expect too much help there.”