In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

“And you didn't ask one of them to check on Andy during the evening?”

“I checked on him myself.”

“So you see the difficulty, don't you?”

“No, I don't. Because I'm telling you that Andy didn't…” She clenched her fists at her throat and squeezed her eyes shut. “He didn't kill her!”

So the words were said at last. But even as they were said, the one logical question that Nan Maiden might have asked went completely unspoken. She never said the words, “Why? Why would my husband have killed his own daughter?” And that was a telling omission.

The question was the single best way that Nan Maiden could have challenged the police conjectures about her husband; it was a gauntlet that she could have thrown down, one which called upon the police to give a credible reason why an unthinkable crime against human nature had been committed. But she didn't ask it. And like most people who don't ask questions when questions are called for, she gave herself away. For to ask the question gave Lynley an opening to plant in her mind the seeds of a doubt that she obviously couldn't afford to let grow there. Better to deny and avoid than to have to think the unthinkable first, than to have to learn to accept it second.

“How much did you know about your daughter's plans for her future?” Lynley said to both of them, giving Andy Maiden the opportunity of revealing to his wife the worst there was to know about their only child.

“Our daughter has no future,” Nan answered. “So her plans-whatever they might have been-are irrelevant, aren't they?”

“I'll arrange to take a polygraph,” Andy Maiden said abruptly. Lynley saw in his offer how keen he was to keep his wife from hearing an account of their daughter's London life. “That can't be so difficult to set up, can it? We can find someone… I want to take one, Tommy.”

“Andy, no.”

“I'll arrange for both of us to take one, if you like,” Maiden said, ignoring his wife.

“Andy!”

“How else can we make him see that he's got it all?” Maiden asked her.

“But with your nerves,” she said, “with the state you're in… Andy, they'll turn you and twist you. Don't do it.”

“I'm not afraid.”

And Lynley could see that he wasn't. Which was a point he clung to all the way back to Tideswell and the Black Angel Hotel.

Now, with his meal in front of him, Lynley considered that lack of fear and what it might mean: innocence, bravado, or dissimulation. It could be any one of the three, Lynley thought, and despite everything he'd learned about the man, he knew which one he still hoped it was.

“Inspector Lynley?”

He looked up. The barmaid stood there, frowning down at his uneaten meal. He was about to apologise for ordering that which he hadn't been able to consume, when she said, “You've a call from London. The phone's behind the bar if you want to use it.”

The caller was Winston Nkata, and the constable's words were urgent. “We got it, Guv,” he said tersely when he heard Lynley's voice. “Post-mortem showed a piece of cedar found on the Cole boy's body. St. James says th'first weapon was an arrow. Shot in the dark. The girl took off running, so he couldn't shoot at her. Had to chase her down and cosh her with the boulder.”

Nkata explained: exactly what St. James had seen on the report, how he had interpreted the information, and what he-Nkata-had learned about arrows and long bows from a fletcher in Kent.

“Killer would've taken the arrow with him from the scene because most long bows're used in competitions,” Nkata finished, “and all the long bow arrows're marked to identify them.”

“Marked in what way?”

“With the shooter's initials.”

“Good God. That puts a signature on the crime.”

“Isn't that true. These initials c'n be carved or burned into the wood or put on with transfers. But in any case, at a crime scene, they'd be as good as dabs.”

“Top marks, Winnie,” Lynley said. “Excellent work.”

The DC cleared his throat. “Yeah. Well. Got to do the job.”

“So if we find the archer, we've got our killer,” Lynley said.

“Looks that way.” Nkata asked the next logical question: “You talk to the Maidens, spector?”

“He wants to take a polygraph.” Lynley told him about his interview with the dead girl's parents.

When he'd finished, Nkata said, “Make sure he gets asked if he plays the Hundred Years’ War on his free afternoons.”

“Sorry?”

“That's what they do with long bows. Competitions, tournaments, and reenactments. So is our Mr. Maiden fighting the French for a lark up there in Derbyshire?”

Lynley drew in a breath. He felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders at the very same moment that a fog bank cleared from his brain. “Broughton Manor,” he said.

“What?”

“Where I'll find a long bow,” Lynley explained. “And I've a very good idea who knows how to shoot it.”

In London, Barbara watched as Nkata rang off. He looked at her somberly.

“What?” She felt a clenching round her heart. “Don't tell me he didn't believe you, Winnie.”

“He believed me.”

“Thank God.” She looked at him more closely. He seemed so grave. “Then what?”

“'S your work, Barb. I don't like taking credit.”

“Oh. That. Well, you can't be thinking he'd have listened to me if I'd phoned him with the news. It's better this way.”

“Puts me in a better light than you. I don't much like it when I've done nothing to get there.”

“Forget it. It was the only way. Leave me out of it so his nibship can keep his knickers from twisting. What's he going to do?”

She listened as Nkata related Lynley's plans to seek the long bow at Broughton Manor. She shook her head at the futility of his thinking. “He's on a goose chase, Winnie. There's not going to be a long bow in Derbyshire.”

“How c'n you be so sure?”

“I can feel it.” She gathered up what she'd brought into Lynley's office. “I may phone in with the flu for a day or two, but you didn't hear that from me. Okay?”

Nkata nodded. “What'll you be up to, then?”

Barbara held up what Jason Harley had given her before she left his shop in Westerham. It was a lengthy mailing list of individuals who received his quarterly catalogues. He'd generously handed this over, along with the records of everyone who had placed orders with Quiver Me Timbers in the last six months. He'd said, “I don't expect these will be much help because there're plenty of archery shops in the country that your man might've ordered his arrows from. But if you'd like to have a go, you're welcome to take them.”

She'd jumped at the offer. She'd even taken along two of his catalogues for good measure. For some Sunday- evening light reading, she'd thought as she'd tucked them into her bag. As things were now, she certainly had Sweet FA. else to do.

“What about you?” she asked Nkata. “The inspector give you another assignment?”

“Sunday night off with my mum and dad.”

“Now, there's an assignment.” She saluted him and was about to stride off, when the phone rang on Lynley's desk. She said, “Uh-oh. Forget Sunday night, Winston.”

“Hell,” he grumbled, and reached for the phone.

His side of the conversation consisted of: “No. Not here. Sorry… Up in Derbyshire… DC Winston Nkata… Yeah. Right. Pretty much, but it's not 'xactly the same case, I'm 'fraid…” A lengthier pause as someone went on and on, followed by, “She is?” and a smile. Nkata looked at Barbara and, for some reason, gave her a thumbs-up. “Good news, that. Best news there is. Thanks.” He listened a moment longer and looked at the wall clock. “Right. Will do. Say thirty minutes?… Yeah. Oh, we definitely got someone who can take a statement.” He rang off a second time