In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

were surprised to hear a woman's voice on the speaker, asking them to identify themselves.

There was a pause once Nkata made it clear that Scotland Yard had come calling. After a moment, the disembodied voice said, “I'll be down shortly,” in the cultured accent of a woman who spent her free time reading for parts in costume dramas on the BBC. Barbara expected her to appear in full Jane Austen regalia: done up in a slender Regency dress with ringlets round her face. Some five minutes later-“Where's she coming from, exactly?” Nkata wanted to know, with a glance at his watch, “Southend-on-Sea?”-the door opened and a twelve-year-old in a vintage Mary Quant mini-dress stood before them.

“Vi Nevin,” the child said by way of introduction. “Sorry. I'd just got out of the bath and had to pull on some clothes. May I see your identification, please?”

The voice was the same as the woman's on the speaker, and coming from the pixielike creature in the doorway, it was quite disconcerting, as if a female ventriloquist were lurking somewhere nearby, throwing her voice into a pre-adolescent child for a bit of a lark. Barbara caught herself sneaking a glimpse round the door jamb to see if someone was hiding there. The expression on Vi Nevin's face said that she was used to such a reaction.

After looking over their warrant cards to her satisfaction, she handed them back and said, “Right. What can I do for you?” And when they told her that her rooms had been given as a forwarding address for the post when a student from the College of Law had moved house from Islington, she said, “There's nothing illegal in that, is there? It sounds the responsible thing to do.”

Did she know Nicola Maiden, then? Nkata asked her.

“I don't make a habit of taking up lodgings with strangers” was her reply. And then, glancing from Nkata to Barbara, “But Nikki isn't here. She hasn't been for weeks. She's up in Derbyshire till next Wednesday evening.”

Barbara saw that Nkata was reluctant to do the dubious honours of announcing death to the unsuspecting yet another time. She decided to show mercy upon him, saying, “Is there a place we can talk privately?”

Vi Nevin heard something beyond the simple question, as her eyes indicated. “Why? Have you a warrant or a decree or something? I know my rights.”

Barbara sighed inwardly. What damage the last few revelations of police malfeasance had done to public trust. She said, “I'm sure you do. But we're not here to conduct a search. We'd like to talk to you about Nicola Maiden.”

“Why? Where is she? What's she done?”

“May we come in?”

“If you tell me what you want.”

Barbara exchanged a glance with Nkata. Oh well, her look told him. There was nothing for it but to give the young woman the nasty news on her own front step. “She's dead,” Barbara informed her. “She died in the Peak District three nights ago. Now, may we come in, or should we keep talking out here in the street?”

Vi Nevin looked completely uncomprehending. “Dead?” she repeated. “Nikki's dead?. But she can't be. I spoke to her on Tuesday morning. She was going hiking. She isn't dead. She can't be.”

She searched their faces as if looking for evidence of a joke or a lie. Apparently not finding it, she stood back from the door. She said, “Please come in,” in a hushed and altered voice.

She led them up a flight of stairs to a door that stood gaping on the first floor. This gave into an L-shaped living room, where french windows opened onto a balcony. Below it, water played in a garden fountain, and a hornbeam threw late-afternoon shadows on a pattern of flagstones.

At one side of the room, a sleek chrome and glass trolley held at least a dozen bottles of spirits. Vi Nevin chose an unsealed Glenlivet, and she poured herself three fingers in a tumbler. She took it neat, and any lingering doubts that Barbara had had about her age were put to rest when she tackled the whisky.

While the young woman gathered herself together, Barbara took stock of the living situation… what she could see of it. On the first floor of the maisonette were the living room, the kitchen, and a loo. The bedrooms would be above them, accessed via a staircase that rose along one wall. From where she was standing just inside the front door, she could see to the top of the stairs as well as into the kitchen. This was fitted out with a surfeit of mod cons: refrigerator with ice maker, microwave oven, espresso machine, gleaming copper-bottomed pots and pans. The work tops were granite, and the cupboards and the floor were bleached oak. Nice, Barbara thought. She wondered who was paying for it all.

She glanced at Nkata. He was taking in the low, butter-coloured sofas with their profusion of green and gold cushions tumbling across them. His gaze went from there to the luxurious ferns by the window to the large abstract oil above the fireplace. It was a bloody far cry from Loughborough estate, his expression said. He looked Barbara's way. She mouthed La-dee-dah. He grinned.

Having downed her drink, Vi Nevin appeared to do nothing more than slowly breathe. Finally, she turned to them. She smoothed back her hair-this was blonde and breast-length-and she fixed it in place with a hair band that made her look like Alice in Wonderland.

She said, “I'm sorry. No one phoned. I've not had the television on. I had no idea. I talked to her only Tuesday morning and… for God's sake, what happened?”

They gave her two pieces of information. Her skull had been fractured. Her death hadn't been an accident.

Vi Nevin said nothing. A tremor passed through her.

“Nicola was murdered,” Barbara finally said when Vi requested no details. “Someone beat in her skull with a boulder.”

The fingers of Vis right hand closed tightly on the hem of her mini-dress. She said, “Sit down,” and motioned them to the sofas. She herself sat rigidly on the edge of a deep armchair opposite, knees and ankles together like a well-trained schoolgirl. Still, she didn't ask any questions. She was clearly stunned by the information, but she was equally clearly waiting.

What for? Barbara wanted to know. What was going on? “We're working the London end of the case,” she told Vi. “Our colleague-DI Lynley-is in Derbyshire.”

“The London end,” Vi murmured.

“There was a bloke found dead with the Maiden girl.” Nkata removed the leather notebook from his jacket and twirled a bit of lead from his propelling pencil. “Name's Terry Cole. He's got digs in Battersea. You acquainted with him?”

“Terry Cole?” Vi shook her head. “No. I don't know him.”

“An artist. A sculptor. He's got a studio in some railway arches in Portslade Road. He shares that and a flat with a girl called Cilia Thompson,” Barbara said.

“Cilia Thompson,” she echoed. And shook her head again.

“Did Nicola ever mention either of them? Terry Cole? Cilia Thompson?” Nkata asked.

“Terry or Cilia. No,” she said.

Barbara wanted to point out that there was no Narcissus present, so she could abjure her role in the mythical drama, but she thought the allusion might fall on unappreciative ears. She said, “Miss Nevin, Nicola Maiden's skull was smashed in. This might not break your heart, but if you could cooperate with us-”

“Please” she said as if she couldn't bear to hear the news again. “I haven't seen Nikki since the beginning of June. She went north to work for the summer, and she was due back in town next Wednesday, like I said.”

“To do what?” Barbara asked.

“What?”

“To do what when she got back into town?”

Vi gave no answer. She looked at both of them as if searching the waters for hidden piranhas.

“To work? To take up a life of leisure? To what?” Barbara asked. “If she was coming back here, she must have intended to do something with her time. As her flatmate, I expect you'd know what that was.”

She had intelligent eyes, Barbara saw. They were grey with black lashes. They studied and assessed while her brain doubtless weighed every possible consequence to every answer. Vi Nevin knew something about what had happened to Nicola; that was a certainty.

If she'd learned nothing else from working with Lynley for nearly four years, Barbara had learned that there were times to play hardball and times to give. Hardball produced the intimidation card. Giving offered an exchange of information. Having nothing to use as intimidation with the other woman, the interview was beginning to look like a time to give. Barbara said, “We know she dropped out of law college round the first of May, telling them she'd taken a full-time job with MKR Financial Management. But Mr. Reeve-that's her guv-informed us that she left the