one thing to have a dream, isn’t it? It’s quite another when it becomes reality.”
She sank back in her chair, staring at him. “Christ,” she said. “How the hell does Helen put up with you?”
He smiled briefly and removed his spectacles which he returned to his pocket. “She doesn’t, at the moment, actually.”
“No trip to Corfu?”
“I’m afraid not. Unless she goes alone. Which, as we both know, she’s been perfectly willing to do before.”
“Why?”
“I upset her equilibrium.”
“I don’t mean why then. I mean why now.”
“I see.” He swivelled the chair, not towards the cabinet and the picture of Helen, but towards the window where the upper fl oors of the dreary post-war construction that was the Home Office nearly matched the colour of the leaden sky. He steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “We fell out over a tie, I’m afraid.”
“A tie?”
As a means of clarification, he gestured to the one he was wearing. “I’d hung a tie on the door knob last night.”
Barbara frowned. “Force of habit, you mean? Like squeezing toothpaste from the middle of the tube? Something that gets on one’s nerves once the stars of romance start twinkling less brightly?”
“I only wish.”
“Then what?”
He sighed. She could tell he didn’t want to go into it. She said, “Never mind. It’s none of my business. I’m sorry it didn’t work out. I mean the holiday. I know you were looking forward to it.”
He played with the knot at his throat. “I’d left my tie on the door knob — outside the door — before we went to bed.”
“So?”
“I didn’t pause to think she might notice, and beyond that it’s something I’m used to doing on occasion.”
“So?”
“And she didn’t notice, actually. But she did ask how it was that Denton has never once disturbed us in the morning since we’ve been…together.”
Barbara saw the dawn. “Oh. I get it. He sees the tie. It’s a signal. He knows that someone’s with you.”
“Well…yes.”
“And you told her that? Jesus, what an idiot, Inspector.”
“I wasn’t thinking. I was wandering like a schoolboy in that blithering state of sexual euphoria when
“That you’d been using the tie to tell Den-ton that Helen was in the bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“And that you’d done it with other women in the past?”
“God no. I’m not that much of an idiot. Although it wouldn’t have made any difference had I said it. She assumed I’d been using it that way for years.”
“And had you?”
“Yes. No. Well, not recently, for God’s sake. I mean, only with her. Which isn’t meant to imply that I didn’t put a tie on the knob for someone else. But there hasn’t been anyone else since she and I…Oh blast it.” He waved off the rest.
Barbara nodded solemnly. “I’m certainly getting the idea of how the old grave was dug.”
“She claims it’s an example of my inherent misogyny: my valet and I exchanging a lubricious chuckle over breakfast about who’s been moaning the loudest in my bed.”
“Which you’ve never done, of course.”
He swung his chair back to her. “What exactly do you take me for, Sergeant?”
“Nothing. Just yourself.” She poked at the hole on her knee with more interest. “Of course, you always could have given up early morning tea all together. I mean, once you started having women spend the night. That way you’d never have needed a signal. Or you could have started brewing morning tea yourself and nipping back up to your bedroom with the tray.” She pressed her lips together at the thought of Lynley stumbling round his kitchen — assuming he even knew where it was in the first place — trying to find the kettle and to work the cooker. “I mean, it would have been sort of liberating for you, sir. You might even have ultimately ventured into toast.”
And then she giggled, although it sounded more like a snort, slipping out from between her pressed lips. She covered her mouth and watched him over the top of her hand, half in shame at her making a joke of his situation and half in amusement at the thought of him — in the midst of frenzied, determined seduction — surreptitiously hanging a tie on his door knob in such a way that his lady love wouldn’t notice and question why he was doing it.
His face was wooden. He shook his head. He fingered the rest of Hillier’s report. “I don’t know,” he said gravely. “I don’t see how I could ever manage toast.”
She guffawed. He chuckled.
“At least we don’t have that sort of trouble in Acton.” Barbara laughed.
“Which is, no doubt, partially why you’re reluctant to leave.”
What a marksman, she thought. He wouldn’t miss an opening if he was wearing a blindfold. She got up from her chair and walked to the window, slipping her fingers into the rear
pockets of her jeans.
“Isn’t that why you’re here?” he asked her.
“I told you why. I was in the area.”
“You were looking for distraction, Havers. As was I.”
She gazed out the window. She could see the tops of the trees in St. James’s Park. Completely bare, rustling in the wind, they looked like sketchings against the sky.
“I don’t know, Inspector,” she said. “It seems like a case of be-careful-what-you-wishfor. I know what I want to do. I’m scared to do it.”
The telephone rang on Lynley’s desk. She started to answer it.
“Leave it,” he said. “We’re not here, remember?” They both watched it as it continued to ring, the way people do when they expect their collective will to have some small infl uence over another’s actions. It fi nally stopped.
“But I suppose you can relate to that,” Barbara went on as if the telephone had not interrupted them.
“It’s something about the gods,” Lynley said. “When they want to make you mad, they give you what you most desire.”
“Helen,” she said.
“Freedom,” he said.
“We’re one hell of a pair.”
“Detective Inspector Lynley?” Dorothea Harriman stood in the doorway, wearing a trim black suit relieved by grey piping on collar and lapels. A pillbox hat was perched on her head. She looked ready for an appearance on the balcony of Buck House on Remembrance Sunday should she be summoned to dwell among the royals. Only the poppy was missing.
“Yes, Dee?” Lynley asked.
“Telephone.”
“I’m not here.”
“But—”
“The sergeant and I are unavailable, Dee.”
“But it’s Mr. St. James. He’s phoning from Lancashire.”
“St. James?” Lynley looked at Barbara. “Haven’t he and Deborah gone on holiday?”
Barbara raised her shoulders. “Haven’t we all?”
