than an erstwhile fifth-form student who'd decided not to continue at school, tapped away at a word processor with impossibly long magenta-coloured fingernails. Her hair was dyed to match.
Out of the corner of her eye, she appeared to see St James approach, for she did not turn from her word processing screen. Rather she wiggled her fingers vaguely in the direction of a stack of papers on her desk and popped her chewing gum before saying, 'Take an application form.'
‘I’ve not come about a job.'
When the girl didn't respond, St James noticed that she was wearing the small kind of headset earphones that are usually attached to a tape recorder either giving dictation or blaring out rock-and-roll music that, mercifully, no-one else has to hear. He repeated his statement, louder this time. She looked up, removing the headset hastily.
'Sorry. One gets used to the automatic response.' She pulled a ledger towards her. 'Have an appointment?'
'Do people generally have appointments when they come here?'
She chewed her gum more thoughtfully for a moment and looked him over as if searching for hidden meanings. 'Generally,' she said. 'Right.'
'So no-one would come to make a purchase?'
The gum snapped in her mouth. 'The sales force goes out. No-one comes here. There's the odd telephone order, isn't there, but it's not like a chemist's shop.' She watched as St James took the folded materials from his jacket pocket and produced the photograph of Mick Cambrey. He gave it to her, his hand making contact with her talon nails which, glistening wetly, grazed his skin. She wore a tiny gold musical note glued on to the nail of her ring finger, like a piece of odd jewellery.
'Has this man had an appointment to see anyone?' he asked.
She smiled when her eyes dropped to the picture. 'He's been here all right.'
'Lately?'
She tapped her nails on the desk top as she thought. 'H'm. That's a bit difficult, isn't it? A few weeks past, I think.'
'Do you know who he saw?' 'His name?'
'Mick – Michael – Cambrey.'
'Let me check.' She opened the ledger on her desk and scanned several pages – an activity which seemed to allow her the opportunity of showing off her fingernails to their best advantage, since every time she turned a page, she used a new nail to guide her eyes down the column of times and names.
'A visitor's log?' St James asked.
'Everybody signs in and out. Security, you know.'
'Security?'
'Drugs research. You can't be too careful. Something new comes out and everyone in the West End's hot to try it with drinks that night. Ah. Here it is. He's signed into Project Testing, Department Twenty-Five.' She flipped back through several more pages. 'Here he is again. Same department, same time. Just before lunch.' She slipped back several months. 'Quite a regular, he was.'
'Always the same department?'
'Looks that way.'
'May I speak to the department head?'
She closed the ledger and looked regretful. 'That's a bit rough. No appointment, you see. And poor Mr Malverd's balancing two departments at once. Why don't you leave your name?' She shrugged noncommittally.
St James wasn't about to be put off. 'This man, Mick Cambrey, was murdered on Friday night.'
The receptionist's face sharpened with immediate interest. 'You're police?' she asked; and then, sounding hopeful, 'Scotland Yard?'
St James gave a moment's thought to how easily it could all have been managed had Lynley only come with him. As it was, he removed his own card and handed it over. 'This is a private endeavour,' he told her.
She glanced at the card, moved her lips as she read it, and then turned it over as if more information might be printed on the back. 'A murder,' she breathed. 'Just let me see if I can reach Mr Malverd for you.' She punched three buttons on the switchboard and pocketed his card. 'Just in case I need you myself,' she said with a wink.
Ten minutes later, a man came into the reception area, swinging shut a heavy panelled door behind him. He introduced himself as Stephen Malverd, offered his hand in an abbreviated greeting, and pulled on his earlobe. He was wearing a white lab coat which hung below his knees, directing attention to what he wore upon his feet. Sandals, rather than shoes, and heavy argyle socks. He was very busy, he said, he could spare only a few minutes, if Mr St James would come this way…
He strode briskly back into the heart of the building. As he walked, his hair – which sprang up round his head wild and unruly like a pad of steel wool – fluttered and bounced, and his lab coat blew open like a cape. He slowed his pace only when he noticed St James' gait, but even then he looked at the offending leg accusingly, as if it too robbed him of precious moments away from his job.
They rang for the lift at the end of a corridor given over to administrative offices. Malverd said nothing until they were on their way to the building's third floor. 'It's been chaos round here for the last few days,' he said. 'But I'm glad you've come. I thought there was more involved than I heard at first.'
'Then, you remember Michael Cambrey?'
Malverd's face was a sudden blank. 'Michael Cambrey? But she told me-' He gestured aimlessly in an indication of the reception area and frowned. 'What's this about?'
'A man named Michael Cambrey visited Project Testing, Department Twenty-Five, several times over the past few months. He was murdered last Friday.'
'I'm not sure how I can help you.' Malverd sounded perplexed. 'Twenty-Five isn't my regular patch. I've only stepped in briefly. What is it that you want?'
'Anything you – or anyone else – can tell me about why Cambrey was here.'
The lift doors opened. Malverd didn't exit at once. He appeared to be trying to decide whether he wanted to talk to St James or merely to dismiss him and get back to his own work.
'This death has something to do with Islington? With an Islington product?'
That certainly was a possibility, St James realized, although not in the manner that Malverd obviously thought. 'I'm not sure,' St James said. 'That's why I've come.'
'Police?'
He took out another card. 'Forensic science.'
Malverd looked moderately interested at this piece of information. At least, his expression indicated, he was talking to a fellow. 'Let's see what we can do,' he said. 'It's just this way.'
He led St James down a linoleum-tiled corridor, a far cry from the reception and administration offices below. Laboratories opened to either side, peopled by technicians who sat on tall stools at work areas that time, the movement of heavy equipment, and the exposure to chemicals had bleached from black-topped to grey.
Malverd nodded at colleagues as they walked, but he said nothing. Once he removed a schedule from his pocket, studied it, glanced at his watch, and cursed. He picked up speed, dodged past a tea cart round which a group of technicians gathered for an afternoon break, and in a second corridor he opened a door. 'This is Twenty- Five,' he said.
The room they entered was a large, rectangular laboratory, brightly illuminated by long ceiling tubes of fluorescent lights. At least six incubators sat at intervals on a worktop that ran along one wall. Interspersed among them, centrifuges squatted, some open, some closed, some humming at work. Dozens of pH meters lay among microscopes, and everywhere glass-fronted cabinets held chemicals, beakers, flasks, test tubes, pipettes. Among all these accoutrements of science, two technicians copied the orange digital numbers which flickered on one of the incubators. Another worked at a hood, from which a glass cover had been pulled down to protect cultures from contamination. Four others peered into microscopes while another prepared a set of specimens on slides.
Several of them looked up as Malverd led St James towards a closed door at the far end of the lab, but none of them spoke. When Malverd rapped once sharply upon that door and entered without waiting for a reply, the few who had given him their attention lost interest.
A secretary, who appeared as harried as Malverd, turned from a filing cabinet as they entered. A desk, a chair, a computer and a laser printer hemmed her in on all sides.
