In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

met-but he turned to face her. She could see his agitation.

“How do I thank you? What can I say that could possibly thank you for the sacrifice you have made for my child?”

“No thanks are needed.”

“This is not true. DCI Barlow-”

“Em Barlow was born with too much ambition, Azhar. That bollocksed up her judgement. It didn't mess with mine.”

“But as a result you have lost your position. You have been disgraced. Your partnership with Inspector Lynley- whom I know you esteem-has been dissolved, has it not?”

“Well, things between us aren't exactly peachy,” Barbara agreed. “But the inspector's got rules and regulations on his side so he's within his rights to be cheesed off at me.”

“But this… all this is due to what you did… to your protection of Hadiyyah when DCI Barlow wanted to leave her, when she called her a ‘Paki brat’ and was indifferent to her drowning in the sea.”

He was so distressed that Barbara wished fervently that Constable Michael Fogarty had been taken ill on Sunday, absenting himself from the police station and leaving DCI Barlow the only one present who could-and would-give a seriously sanitised account of the North Sea chase that had ended with Barbara firing a weapon at her. As it was, she could only be grateful for the single fact that Fogarty, in making his report to Azhar, had mercifully not included the God damn that Emily Barlow had used before the words Paki brat that day.

“I didn't think about the consequences,” Barbara told Azhar. “Hadiyyah was what was important. And she's still what's important. Full stop.”

“I must find a way to show what I feel,” he said despite her words of reassurance. “I must not let you think that your sacrifice-”

“Believe me, it wasn't a sacrifice. And as to thanks… Well, you've given me a heart, haven't you? And that'll do fine.”

“A heart?” He looked confused. Then he followed the direction of Barbara's extended hand and saw the heart that he'd won from the crane grab game. “That. The heart. But that is nothing. I thought only of the words on it, Barbara, and how you might smile when you saw them.”

“The words?”

“Yes. Did you not see…?” And he came to the table and flipped the heart over. On its obverse side-which she'd have seen well enough if she'd had the courage to examine the damn thing when Hadiyyah had given it to her-was embroidered I *… Essex. “It was a joke, you see. Because after what you went through in Essex, you can, of course, hardly love it. But you did not see the words?”

“Oh, those words,” Barbara said hastily with a hearty ha- ha that was designed to illustrate the degree of her complicity in his little joke. “Yes. The old I love Essex routine. Just about the last spot on earth that I want to return to. Thanks, Azhar. This's far better than a stuffed elephant, isn't it?”

“But it's not enough. And there's nothing else that I can give you in thanks. Nothing that is equal to what you gave me.”

Barbara remembered what she'd learned about his people: lenadena. The giving of a gift that was equal to or greater than the one which had been received. It was the way they indicated their willingness to engage in a relationship, an overt manner of declaring one's intentions without the indelicacy of speaking them openly. How sensible they were, the Asians, she thought. Nothing was left to guesswork in their culture.

“Your wanting to find something of equal value is what counts, isn't it?” Barbara asked him. “I mean, we can make the wanting to find something count if we want to, can't we, Azhar?”

“I suppose we can,” he said doubtfully.

“Then consider the equal gift given. And go and plait Hadiyyah's hair. She'll be waiting for you.”

He looked as if he might say more, but instead he came to the table and crushed out his cigarette. “Thank you, Barbara Havers,” he said quietly.

“Cheers,” she replied. And she felt the ghost of a touch on her shoulder as he passed her on the way to the door.

When it was shut behind him, Barbara chuckled wearily at her boundless folly. She picked up the heart and balanced it between her thumbs and index fingers. I love Essex, she thought. Well, there were worse ways he could have joked with her.

She dumped the rest of her coffee in the sink and quickly did her few morning chores. Teeth cleaned and hair combed, with a smudge of blusher on each cheek in a bow to femininity, she grabbed her shoulder bag, locked the door behind her, and sauntered up the path towards the street.

She went out the front gate but halted when she saw it.

Lynley's silver Bentley was parked in the driveway.

“You're off your patch, aren't you, Inspector?” she asked him as he got out of the car.

“Winston phoned me. He said you'd left your car at the Yard last night and took a taxi home.”

“We'd guzzled a few drinks and it seemed the better course.”

“So he said. It was wise not to drive. I thought you might like a lift into Westminster. There are problems on the Northern Line this morning.”

“When aren't there problems on the Northern Line?”

He smiled. “So…?”

“Thanks.”

She slung her shoulder bag into the passenger seat and climbed inside. Lynley got in beside her, but he didn't start the car. Instead, he took something from his jacket pocket. He handed it over.

Barbara looked at it curiously. He'd given her a registration card for the Black Angel Hotel. It wasn't a blank card, however, which might have inspired her to think that he was offering her a holiday in Derbyshire. Rather, it was filled in with a name, an address, and other pertinent information about car types, number plates, passports, and nationalities. It had been made out to an M. R. Davidson, who had listed an address in West Sussex and an Audi as the vehicle that had carried him or her to the North.

“Okay,” Barbara said. “I'll bite. What is it?”

“A souvenir for you.”

“Ah.” Barbara anticipated his starting the Bentley. He didn't do so. He merely waited. So she said, “A souvenir of what?”

He said, “DI Hanken believed that the killer stayed at the Black Angel Hotel the night of the murders. He ran the cards of all the hotel guests through the DVLA to see if any of them were driving cars that were registered to a name different from the name they had put on the card. That was the one that didn't match up.”

“Davidson,” Barbara said, examining the card. “Oh yes. I see. David's son. So Matthew King-Ryder stayed at the Black Angel.”

“Not far from the moor, not far from Peak Forest, where the knife was found. Not far, as it turns out, from anything.”

“And the DVLA showed this Audi as registered to him,” Barbara concluded. “And not to an M. R. Davidson.”

“Things happened so quickly yesterday that we didn't actually see the report from the DVLA till late in the afternoon. The Buxton computers were down, so the information had to be compiled by phone. If they hadn't been down…” Lynley looked through the windscreen and spoke meditatively. “I want to believe that the fault lies in technology, that had we only got our hands on the DVLA information quickly enough, Andy Maiden would still be alive.”

“What?” Barbara breathed the word, astounded. “Still be alive? What happened to him?”

Lynley told her. He spared himself nothing, Barbara saw. But then, that was his way.

He concluded with “It was a judgement call on my part not to talk directly about Nicola's prostitution when her mother was present. It was what Andy wanted and I went along. Had I simply done what I should have done…” He gestured aimlessly. “I let my feelings for the man get in the way. I made the wrong call, and as a result he died. His