In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

that's got to stop. I've assigned you a task, which you've largely ignored because you don't like it. You've gone your own way to the detriment of the team-”

“That's not fair!” she protested. “I did the report. I put it on your desk.”

“Yes. And I've read it.” Lynley rooted out the paperwork. He picked it up and used it to emphasise his words as he went on. “Barbara, do you think I'm stupid? Do you suppose I'm incapable of reading between the lines of what's posing as the work of a professional?”

She lowered her eyes. She was still holding some of the photographs of Vi Nevin's destroyed home, and she fastened her gaze upon these. Her fingers whitened as her grasp on them tightened, and her colour deepened its revealing hue.

Thank God, Lynley thought. He finally had her attention. He warmed to his theme. “When you're given an assignment, you're expected to complete it. Without question or argument. And when you complete it, you're expected to turn in a report that reflects the dispassionate language of the disinterested professional. And after that you're expected to await your next assignment with a mind that remains open and capable of assimilating information. What you're not expected to do is create a disguised commentary on the wisdom of the investigation's course should you happen to disagree with it. This”-he slapped her report against his palm-“is an excellent illustration of why you're in the position you're in right now. Given an order that you neither like nor agree with, you take matters into your own hands. You go your own way with complete disregard for everything from the chain of command to public safety. You did that three months ago in Essex, and you're doing it now. When any other DC would be toeing the line in the hope of redeeming his name and reputation if not his career, you're still pig-headedly trotting along on whatever path pleases you most at the moment. Aren't you?”

Head still lowered, she made no reply. But her breathing had altered, becoming shallow with the effort to hold back emotion. She seemed, at least for the moment, suitably chastened. He was gratified to see it.

“All right,” he said. “Now hear me well. I want a warrant to tear Reeve's house apart. I want a team of four officers to do the tearing. I want from that house a single pair of shoes with hexagons on the soles and every scrap of evidence you can find on the escort service. May I put you on this and be assured that you'll carry through as directed?”

She made no reply.

He felt exasperation plague him. “Havers, are you listening to me?”

“A search.”

“Yes. That's what I said. I want a search warrant. And when you've got it, I want you on the team that goes to Reeve's house.”

She raised her head from the pictures. “A bloody search,” she said, and her face was unaccountably altered now, bright with a smile. “Yes. Yes. Bloody hell, Inspector. By God. That's absolutely it.”

“That's what?”

“Don't you see?” She shook one of the pictures in her excitement. “Sir, don't you see? You're thinking of Martin Reeve because his motive's been established and it's so bloody obvious that any other motive is small beans in comparison. And because his motive's so out there for you, everything you come across ends up getting attached to it, whether it belongs attached or not. But if you forget about Reeve for a moment, you can see in these pictures that-”

“Havers.” Lynley fought against the tide of his own incredulity. The woman was unquashable, unsinkable, and ungovernable. For the first time, he wondered how he'd ever managed to work with her at all. “I'm not going to repeat your assignment after this. I'm going to give it to you. And you're going to do it.”

“But I only want you to see that-”

“No! God damn it! Enough. Get the warrant. I don't care what you have to do to get it. But get it. Put together a team from CID. Go to that house. Tear it apart. Bring me shoes with hexagonal markings on the sole and evidence of the escort service. Better yet, bring me a weapon that could have been used on Terry Cole. Is that clear? Now, go.”

She stared at him. For a moment he believed she would actually defy him. And in that moment he knew how DO Barlow must have felt out on the North Sea in pursuit of a suspect and having her every decision second- guessed by a subordinate who was incapable of keeping her opinions to herself. Havers was damned lucky Barlow hadn't been the officer with the gun in that boat. Had the DO been armed, that North Sea chase might have come to a very different conclusion.

Havers rose. Carefully, she placed the photographs of Vi Nevin's maisonette on his desk. She said, “A warrant, a search. A team of four officers. I'll see to it, Inspector.”

Her tone was measured. It was utterly polite, deeply respectful, and completely proper.

Lynley chose to ignore what all of that meant.

Martin Reeve's palms itched. He pressed his fingernails into them. They began to burn. Tricia had backed him when he needed her to back him with that butthole of a cop, but he couldn't depend on her to hold to the story. If someone promised her enough of the beast at a moment when her stash was low and she wanted to crank up, she'd say or do anything. All the cops had to do was to get her alone, get her away from the house, and she'd be butter on their toast in less than two hours. And he couldn't watch over her every frigging minute of every God damn day for the rest of their lives to make sure that didn't happen.

Whattaya wanna know? Gimme the stuff.

Just sign on the line, Mrs. Reeve, and you'll have it.

And it would be done. No. Better. He would be done. So he had to firm up his story.

On the one hand, he could muscle a lie from someone who already knew firsthand what could come from refusing his request. On the other hand, he could demand the truth from someone else who might take an appeal for common veracity as a sign of weakness. Go the first way, and he ended up owing a favour, which handed the reins of his life to someone else. Go the second way, and he looked like a pantywaist who could be dissed without fear of reprisal.

So the situation was a basic no-winner: Caught between a rock and a hard place, Martin wanted to find enough dynamite to blast a passageway while keeping the damage from falling stones to a minimum.

He went to Fulham. All his current troubles had their genesis there, and it was there that he was determined to find the solutions as well.

He got into the building on Rostrevor Road the easy way: He rang each bell in rapid succession and waited for the fool who would buzz him inside without asking him to identify himself over the intercom.

He dashed up the stairs, but at the landing he paused. A sign was affixed to the maisonette's door, and even from where he stood, he could read it. Crime Scene, it announced. Do Not Enter.

“Shit,” Martin said.

And he heard the cop's low, terse voice once again, as clearly as if he were on the landing as well. “Tell me about Vi Nevin.”

“Fuck,” Martin said. Was she dead?

He dug up the answer by descending the stairs and knocking up the residents of the flat directly beneath Vi Nevin's front door. They'd been giving a party on the night before, but they hadn't been too occupied with their guests-or too smashed-to take note of the arrival of an ambulance. Much had been done by the paramedics to shield the shrouded form they carried out of the building, but the haste with which they removed her and the subsequent appearance of what had seemed like a score of policemen who began asking questions throughout the building suggested that she'd been the victim of a crime.

“Dead?” Martin grabbed onto the young man's arm when he would have turned back into his flat to catch up on more of the sleep of which Martin's appearance at his door had robbed him. “Wait. Damn it. Was she dead?”

“She wasn't in a body bag” was the indifferent reply. “But she might've popped her clogs in hospital during the night.”

Martin cursed his luck and, back in his car, got out his London Streetfinder. The nearest hospital was the Chelsea and Westminster on the Fulham Road, and he drove there directly If she was dead, he was done for.

The nurse in casualty informed him that Miss Nevin had been moved. Was he a relative?

An old friend, Martin told her. He'd been to her home and discovered there'd been an accident… some sort of