Mostly, he’d kept his eyes on Kickarse Electra throughout the match-up between London and Bristol. She, he discovered, was quite a jammer. She skated aggressively, like a woman to the roller skates born. Lynley wouldn’t have thought it possible of the quiet, thoughtful veterinarian he’d met seven months earlier on the coast of Cornwall. He knew she was practically unbeatable at darts. But this . . . ? He never would have guessed it.
His pleasure in the wild sport had been interrupted only once, in the middle of a power jam. He’d felt his mobile vibrate in his pocket, and he’d dug it out to see who was ringing him. His first thought was that the Met was calling him back to work. For the caller was his usual partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. Still, she was ringing from her home phone and not from her mobile so perhaps, he thought, he was in luck and nothing had occurred that wanted his attention.
He’d answered, but he’d not been able to hear her. The noise was far too intense. He’d shouted that he would ring her back as soon as he was able to do so, and he’d shoved the mobile back into his pocket and forgotten about the matter.
The Electric Magic won the bout twenty minutes later. The two groups of skaters congratulated each other. Athletes mingled with spectators then, cheerleaders mingled with athletes, referees mingled with each other. No one was in a hurry to leave, which was all to the good since Lynley intended to do a little mingling himself.
He turned to Denton. “I’m not sir.”
Denton said, “Pardon?”
“We’re here as friends. Make it school chums. You can do that, can’t you?”
“What, me? Eton?”
“It’s well within your skill set, Charlie. And call me either Thomas or Tommy. It doesn’t matter which.”
Denton’s round eyes got even rounder behind his spectacles. He said, “You want me to . . . I’ll probably choke if I try to say it.”
“Charlie, you’re an actor, yes?” Lynley said. “This is your BAFTA moment. I’m not your employer, you’re not my employee. We’re going to talk to someone, and you’re going to pose as my friend. It’s . . .” He sought the correct term. “It’s improv.”
Charlie’s face brightened. “C’n I do the Voice?”
“If you must. Come with me.”
Together, then, they approached Kickarse Electra. She was in conversation with London’s Leaning Tower of Lisa, an impressive Amazonian who stood at least six feet five inches tall in her roller skates. She would have been an imposing presence anywhere, and she was particularly striking next to Kickarse Electra, who, even in her skates, was some seven inches shorter.
Leaning Tower of Lisa first saw Lynley and Denton. She said, “You two look like trouble of the very best kind. I claim the smaller one.” And she rolled over to Denton and put her arm round his shoulders. She kissed his temple. He became the colour of pomegranate seeds.
Daidre Trahair turned. She’d taken off her helmet and she’d raised a pair of plastic goggles to the top of her head. They now held back wisps of her sandy hair, which had escaped from the French braid that contained it. She was wearing her spectacles beneath her goggles, but they were badly smudged. She could see through them perfectly well, though, a fact Lynley ascertained by the colour that her skin took on when she looked at him. He could only just see this colour through her makeup, however. Like the other skaters, she was heavily painted, with an emphasis on glitter and lightning bolts.
“My God,” she said.
“I’ve been called worse.” He held up the handbill advertising this event. “We thought to take up the offer. Brilliant, by the way. We quite enjoyed it.”
Leaning Tower of Lisa said, “This your first?”
“It is,” Lynley told her. And then to Daidre, “You’re far more skilled than you let on when we first met. You do this as well as you throw darts, I see.”
Daidre’s colour deepened. Leaning Tower of Lisa said to her, “You
Daidre said inarticulately, “Him. I know him.”
Lynley extended his hand to the other skater. “Thomas Lynley,” he told her. “You’ve got your arm round my friend Charlie Denton.”
“Charlie, is it?” Leaning Tower said. “He’s awfully sweet-looking. Are you sweet in character as well as in looks, Charlie?”
“I believe he is,” Lynley told her.
“Does he like big women, then?”
“I expect he takes them as they come.”
“He doesn’t talk much, does he?”
“You might be an overpowering presence.”
“Isn’t that always the case?” Leaning Tower released Denton with a laugh and another solid kiss on his temple. “You change your mind, you know where to find me,” she said to him as she rolled away to join her mates.
Daidre Trahair had apparently used the duration of this exchange to come to her wits. She said, “Thomas. You’re the last person I would have thought to see at a roller derby match.” Then she turned to Denton and extended her hand, saying, “Charlie, I’m Daidre Trahair. How’d you like the match?” She offered this question to them both.
“I’d no idea women could be so ruthless,” Lynley said.
“There’s Lady Macbeth,” Denton pointed out.
“There is that.”
Lynley’s mobile vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and gave it a glance as before. As before, the caller was Barbara Havers. He let it go to message as Daidre said, “Work?” Before he could reply, she added, “You
“I am,” he told her. “But not tonight. Tonight Charlie and I would like you to join us for a postgame . . . whatever. If you’ve a mind for it.”
“Oh.” She looked from him to the milling skaters. She said, “It’s only that . . . the team usually go out. It’s rather a tradition. Would you like to join us? Apparently this group”—with a nod at the Electric Magic—“go to Famous Three Kings on North End Road. Everyone’s invited. It’ll be a bit of a crowd scene.”
“Ah,” Lynley said. “I was rather hoping—
She said regretfully, “I do wish . . . It’s only that we’ve come by coach, you see. It would be rather difficult. I have to return to Bristol.”
“Tonight?”
“Well, no. We’re in a hotel for the night.”
“We can take you there whenever you’re ready,” he offered. And when she still hesitated, he added, “We’re actually quite harmless, Charlie and I.”
Daidre looked from him to Denton and back to him. She fingered back some of the hair that had come undone from the braid. She said, “I’m afraid I have nothing special . . . I mean, we don’t generally dress for going out.”
“We shall find a place entirely suitable for whatever state of dishabille you demonstrate,” Lynley told her. “Do say yes, Daidre,” he added in a quiet voice.
Perhaps it was the use of her name. Perhaps it was the change in his tone. She thought for a moment and then said all right. But she would have to change and perhaps she ought to get rid of the glitter and the lightning bolts as well?
“I find them rather compelling,” Lynley told her. “What about you, Charlie?”
“It all makes a certain statement,” Denton said.
Daidre laughed. “Don’t tell me what that statement is. I’ll be a few minutes. Where shall I meet you?”
“We’ll be just outside. I’ll pull my car round the front.”
“How will I know . . . ?”
“Oh, you’ll know,” Denton told her.
