This Body of Death (62 page)

“And what are you basing this inference upon?”

“That was Ringo Heath I was talking to. You know. The bloke—”

“—under whom Gordon Jossie learned his trade. Yes. I know who he is.”

“Right. Well. Seems our Ringo’s had more than one visit from Chief Superintendent Whiting over the years, and the first of them came
before
Gordon Jossie ever signed on as Ringo’s apprentice.”

Lynley considered what Havers was saying. To him, she was sounding rather more triumphant than the information seemed to call for. He replied with, “And this is important because … ?”

“Because of what he wanted to know when he first came to see him: Did Ringo Heath take on apprentices. And, by the way, what was Mr. Heath’s familial situation?”

“Meaning?”

“Did he have a wife, kids, dogs, cats, mynah birds, the whole cricket match. Two weeks later—p’rhaps three or four, but who knows as it was a long time ago, he says—along comes this bloke Gordon Jossie with, it turns out and we bloody well know
this
, phony letters from Winchester Technical College Two in hand. So Ringo—who’s already told Whiting he takes on apprentices, remember—hires our Gordon and that should’ve been that.”

“I take it that that wasn’t that?”

“Too bloody right. On the odd occasion, Whiting shows up. Sometimes he runs into Ringo at his local, even. Which, you can bet, isn’t Whiting’s local. He makes enquiries, casual ones. They’re in the nature of how’s-the-work-coming-along-my-friend, but Ringo isn’t exactly dead between the ears, is he, so he reckons this has to do with more than just a friendly enquiry from one of the local rozzers as he hoists a pint. ’Sides, who likes to have the local rozzers being friendly? That’d make
me
dead nervous and I’m one of them.” She drew in a breath. It seemed to Lynley the first time she’d done so. Clearly, she was heading for the peroration of her remarks because she said, “Now. Like I told you, I’ve got a snout in place at the Home Office looking into our Zachary Whiting. Meantime, there’s the thatching crook to be dealt with. None of the principles in London’re going to have got their mitts on a thatching tool—”

“Hang on,” Lynley said. “Why not?”

That stopped her in her tracks. She said, “What d’you mean ‘Why not?’ You can’t expect these things to be growing in flower beds.”

“Havers, this particular tool was old and rusty,” Lynley said. “What does that suggest to you?”

“That it was old and rusty. Left lying about. Taken from an old roof. Discarded in a barn. What else is it supposed to mean?”

“Sold in a London market by a dealer in tools?”

“No bloody way.”

“Why not? You know as well as I do that there are antique markets in every part of town, from formal markets to casual affairs set up on Sunday afternoons. If we come down to it, there’s a market right inside Covent Garden where one of the suspects—you do remember Paolo di Fazio, don’t you?—actually has a stall. The crime was committed in London, not Hampshire, and it stands to reason—”

“No bloody way!” Havers’ voice was loud. Several diners in the Little Chef glanced in their direction. She saw them do so and said, “Sorry,” to Lynley, adding in a hiss, “Sir.
Sir.
You can’t be telling me that the use of a thatching tool to kill Jemima Hastings was an absolute and completely incredible coincidence. You can’t, you just
can’t
, be saying that our killer conveniently picked out something to do away with her and that ‘something’ just happened to be one of the very same somethings that Gordon Jossie uses in his work?
That
horse won’t run once round the track, and you bloody well know it.”

“I’m not saying that.”

“Then what?
What?”

He considered this. “Perhaps it was used to frame Gordon Jossie. Can we believe that Jemima never told a soul in London about the man she left behind in Hampshire, about the fact that her former lover was a master thatcher? Once Jossie came looking for her, once he began putting up those cards with his phone number on them round the streets, doesn’t it stand to reason that she would have told someone—Paolo di Fazio, Jayson Druthers, Frazer Chaplin, Abbott Langer, Yolanda, Bella McHaggis…
someone
—who this person was?”

“What would she have told them?” Havers said. “Okay, my ex-boyfriend, p’rhaps. I’ll give you that. But my ex-boyfriend the thatcher? Why would she tell someone he was a thatcher?”

“Why wouldn’t she?”

Havers threw herself back in her seat. She’d been leaning forward, intent upon making her every point, but now she observed him. Round them, the noise of the Little Chef rose and fell. When Havers finally spoke again, Lynley was unprepared for the direction she took.

She said, “It’s Ardery, isn’t it, sir?”

“What’s Ardery? What are you talking about?”

“You know bloody well. You’re talking like this because of her, because she thinks this’s a London situation.”

“It
is
a London situation. Havers, I hardly need remind you that the crime was committed in London.”

“Right. Excellent. Bloody brilliant of you. You
don’t
need to remind me. And I don’t think I need to remind you that we aren’t living in the age of transportation by horseback. You seem to think that no one from Hampshire—and for that you c’n read Jossie or Whiting or Hastings or Father Bleeding Christmas—could’ve got up to London in any number of ways, done the deed, and then gone home.”

“Father Christmas hardly comes from Hampshire,” Lynley said dryly.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“Havers, listen. Don’t be—”

“What? Absurd? That’s the word you’d use, isn’t it. But at the end of the day the real issue here is you’re protecting her and we
both
know it although only one of us knows why you’re doing it.”

“That’s outrageous and untrue,” Lynley replied. “And, might I add, although it’s never stopped you before, now you’re out of order.”

“Don’t you bloody pull rank on me,” Barbara told him. “From the first, she’s wanted to think this is a London case. She had it that way when she decided Matsumoto did it, and she’ll have it that way once she gets an e-fit off him, just you wait for that. Meantime, Hampshire’s crawling with nasties that no one’s beginning to want to look at—”

“For the love of God, Barbara, she
sent
you to Hampshire.”

“And she ordered me back before I was finished. Webberly would’ve never done that. You wouldn’t have done it. Even that wanker Stewart wouldn’t
ever
have done it. She’s wrong, wrong, wrong, and—” Havers stopped abruptly. She seemed to have run out of steam. She said, “I need a fag,” and she grabbed up her belongings. She strode towards the doors of the place. He followed her, weaving between the tables of onlookers who’d become understandably curious about what was going on between them.

Lynley thought he knew. It was a logical leap that Havers was making. It was just the wrong one.

Outside, she was striding towards her car, on the far side of the car park in the direction of the petrol pumps. He was parked nearer the Little Chef than she, so he got into the Healey Elliott and drove after her. He came up alongside her. She was smoking furiously, muttering to herself. She tossed a glance his way and increased her speed.

He said, “Havers, get in.”

“I’d rather walk.”

“Don’t be stupid. Get in. That’s an order.”

“I don’t obey orders.”

“You will now, Sergeant.” And then, seeing her face and reading the pain that he knew was at the heart of why she was acting as she was, he said, “Barbara, please get into the car.”

She stared at him. He stared at her. Finally, she tossed away her cigarette and climbed into the car. He said nothing until he’d driven across the car park to the only spot of shade available, provided by an enormous lorry the driver of which was likely inside the Little Chef as they themselves had just been.

Havers groused, “This car must’ve cost you a mint. Why’s it not got air-conditioning, for God’s bloody sake?”

“It was built in 1948, Barbara.”

“Stupid excuse.” She didn’t look at him, nor did she look straight ahead of them into the shrubbery beyond which the M3 offered a broken view of traffic whizzing towards the south. Instead, she looked out of her side window, offering him the sight of the back of her head.

“You’ve got to stop cutting your own hair,” he told her.

“Shut up,” she said quietly. “You sound like her.”

A moment passed. He raised his head and looked at the pristine ceiling of the car. He thought about praying for guidance, but he didn’t really need it. He knew what had to be said between them. Yet it constituted the Great Unmentionable that had been governing his life for months. He didn’t want to mention it. He just wanted to get on.

He said quietly, “She was the light, Barbara. That was the most extraordinary thing about her. She had this …this ability that was simply at the core of who she was. It wasn’t that she made light of
things
—situations, people, you know what I mean—but that she was able to
bring
light with her, to uplift merely by virtue of who she was. I saw her do this time and again, with Simon, with her sisters, with her parents, and then of course with me.”

Havers cleared her throat. Still she did not look at him.

He said, “Barbara, do you believe—do you honestly believe—that I could walk away from that so easily? That, so desperate to get out of the wilderness, because I admit I
am
desperate to get out of it, I would take any route that appeared before me? Do you believe that?”

She didn’t reply. But her head lowered. He heard a small sound emanate from her, and he knew what it meant. God, how he knew.

He said, “Let it go, Barbara. Stop worrying so. Learn to trust me, because if you don’t, how will I learn to trust myself?”

She began to weep in earnest, then, and Lynley knew what her show of emotion was costing her. He said nothing else, for there was, indeed, nothing more to say.

Moments passed before she turned to him, and then it was to say, “I don’t have a damn tissue.” She began to scramble round her seat, as if looking for something. He fished out his handkerchief and handed it over. She used it, saying, “Ta. Trust you to have the linen ready.”

“The curse of my upbringing,” he told her. “It’s even ironed.”

“I noticed,” she said. “I expect you didn’t iron it, though.”

“God, no.”

“Figures. You don’t even know how.”

“Well, I admit that ironing isn’t among my talents. But I expect if I knew where the iron was kept in my house—which, thank God, I don’t—I could put it to use. On something simple like a handkerchief, mind you. Anything more complicated would completely defeat me.”

She chuckled wearily. She leaned back in the seat and shook her head. Then she seemed to examine the car itself. The Healey Elliott was a saloon with room for four, and she squirmed round for a look in the back. She noted, “This’s the first time I’ve been in your new motor.”

“The first of many, I hope, as long as you don’t smoke.”

“Wouldn’t dare. But I can’t promise I won’t eat. Nice bit of fish and chips to make the insides smell sweet. You know what I mean. What’s this then? Up for some light reading?” She fished something from the backseat and brought it to the front. It was, he saw, the copy of
Hello!
he’d had from Deborah St. James. Havers looked from it to him and cocked her head. “Checking up on the social scene, are you? Not what I’d expect you to do ’less you take this with you when you go for your manicures. You know. Something to read while the nails are being buffed?”

“It’s Deborah’s,” he said. “I wanted to have a look at the photos from the Portrait Gallery opening.”

“And?”

“Lots of people holding champagne glasses and looking well turned out. That’s about it.”

“Ah. Not my crowd, then?” Havers opened the magazine and began flipping through it. She found the appropriate set of pages, where the photos of the portrait competition’s opening show were spread out. “Right,” she said, “not a hoisted pint anywhere, more’s the pity. ’Cause a decent ale’s better than some thimbleful of champagne any day of the—” Her hand tightened on the magazine. She said, “Holy hell,” and she turned to him.

“What is it?” Lynley asked.

“Frazer Chaplin was there,” Havers said, “and in the picture—”

“Was he?” Then Lynley remembered how in person Frazer had seemed so familiar to him. That was it, then. He’d obviously seen the Irishman in one of the pictures of the Gallery opening, forgetting about it later. Lynley glanced at the magazine and saw that Havers was indeed indicating a photo of Frazer. He’d been the swarthy man in the picture of Sidney St. James. “More evidence he was involved with Jemima,” Lynley said, “no matter that he’s posing with Sidney.”

“No, no,” Havers said. “Frazer’s not the point. It’s her.
Her
.”

“Sidney?”

“Not Sidney.
Her.
” Havers pointed to the rest of the crowd and specifically to another woman, this one young, blond, and very attractive. Some socialite, he reckoned, the wife or daughter of a gallery sponsor, likely. But Havers disabused him of that notion when next she spoke. “It’s Gina Dickens, Inspector,” she said, and she added unnecessarily, because at that point he knew quite well who Gina Dickens was, “She lives in Hampshire, with Gordon Jossie.”