Just One Evil Act

17 April

BELGRAVIA

LONDON

The day had been bloody odd. Barbara Havers was long used to still waters when it came to Lynley, but even she had been surprised that his depths had somehow managed to hide from her the fact that he had been seeing someone. If it could actually be called seeing someone. For it appeared his social life post the Isabelle Ardery entanglement consisted of regular attendance at a sporting event she had never heard of.

He’d insisted that she had to see it. An experience she was unlikely to forget, was how he’d put it. She’d avoided the dubious thrill of this attempt to broaden her social sphere for as long as she could. Ultimately, though, she’d caved in to his insistence. Thus, she’d found herself at a daylong roller derby elimination tournament in which the victors turned out to be a group of extremely athletic women from Birmingham who looked as if eating small children was their other extracurricular activity of choice.

During the event, Lynley had explained all the fine points of the sport—such as they were—to Barbara. He’d named the positions, the responsibilities of the players, the penalties, and the points. He’d talked about the pack and the objective that the pack had in relation to the jammer. And along with everyone else—including her, it had to be said—he’d leapt to his feet in protest when someone got an elbow to the face and a penalty was not called.

After several hours, she reached the point of wondering what the hell this entire experience was all about and she also reached the point of considering that Lynley might have brought her to witness the spectacle as a potential outlet for her aggressions. But then, it transpired that at the end of God only knew which bout it was, because at that point she had lost count, they were approached by a skater with lightning bolts painted on her cheeks, fire-red lipstick on her mouth, and glitter rising from her eyelids to her eyebrows. This vision of athleticism had removed her helmet, said, “How nice to see you again, Sergeant Havers,” and Barbara found herself looking upon Daidre Trahair. At which point things became remarkably clearer.

At first Barbara thought she was meant to play the duenna. She reckoned Lynley needed someone whose presence would soothe the veterinarian into accepting a dinner invitation. But then it turned out that Lynley had been seeing Daidre Trahair regularly since first running into her the previous November. That was where he had been on the night he’d failed to return her phone call. First at a roller derby match and then out for drinks although, from the look of things, matters hadn’t got too much further than that between them lo these many months that had passed, a point that Lynley made clear as they waited for the skaters at the end of the tournament.

Daidre Trahair came to join them. What happened next was, apparently, what had happened each of the times she and Lynley had met. She invited him—and Barbara—to attend a postgame celebration, which would take place in a pub called Famous Three Kings. Lynley demurred and instead invited her—and Barbara—out for an early dinner. Daidre claimed she was hardly dressed for a meal. Lynley—and Barbara twigged that this was the new bit in their routine—said that wouldn’t matter as he’d laid on something at his home. If Daidre—and Barbara, of course—would dance attendance there, he would be only too pleased to drive Daidre to her hotel afterwards.

Clever man. Barbara decided not to be offended by his use of her. She only hoped he hadn’t cooked the food himself or they were in for a meal they would long remember, and for all the wrong reasons.

Daidre hesitated. She looked from Lynley to Barbara. An Amazonian woman approached and asked them all if they were coming to tipple a few at the pub where someone called McQueen was waiting to challenge Daidre at darts again. Her moment of escape was at hand, but Daidre didn’t grasp at it. She said—her gaze flickering to the woman and then back to Lynley—that she would have to beg off. Her friends, she said, were insisting . . . if Lisa would make her excuses? Lisa tossed a knowing look Lynley’s way. Right, she said. Stay safe, not sorry.

Barbara wondered if she was supposed to leg it, now that Daidre’s presence in Lynley’s home was assured, but he made it clear that she was to do nothing of the sort. Besides, she’d left her Mini blocking his garage in a mews round the corner from his digs, so one way or another she was going to have to get to it in order to scarper.

On the way to Belgravia, they made polite conversation in the manner of their countrymen: They talked about the weather. After that, Daidre and Lynley went on to speak of gorillas, for a reason that Barbara couldn’t suss out. Some female gorilla was happily pregnant. On the other hand, something was wrong with the right front foot of one of the elephants. Negotiations were ongoing for a visit from some pandas, and Berlin Zoo still wished to get its hands on a polar bear cub born early last year. Was that difficult, Lynley wanted to know, breeding polar bears in captivity? It was always difficult breeding in captivity, Daidre told him. Then she fell silent, as if she’d accidentally spoken a double entendre.

At Lynley’s house, they parked in the mews. Since Barbara had to move her car to allow Lynley access to his garage, she made noises as if to leave them then. Lynley said, “Don’t be ridiculous, Barbara. I know you’re dying for a meal,” and he shot her a look whose meaning she couldn’t fail to read: She was not to desert him in his hour of need.

Barbara hadn’t a clue how she was supposed to facilitate matters for Lynley. She knew Daidre Trahair’s background. She knew how unlikely it was that the veterinarian would allow things—whatever they were at present—to progress with Lynley. Through no fault of his own, the poor bloke had a title, an ancestral line stretching back to the Domesday Book, and a gargantuan family pile in Cornwall. Sitting at a table laid out with sixteen pieces of silver cutlery, he would know innately which fork to use when and why there were additional spoons and whatevers at the top of his plate, along with those on each side of it. For her part, Daidre’s family probably still ate with knives and their fingers. The niceties of life where she was from did not extend to place settings of heirloom china and a line of wineglasses to the right of one’s dinner plate.

Luckily, Lynley had thought of all this, Barbara saw. Inside the house and laid out in the dining room— although it was a bit of a problem that the bloke actually had a dining room—were three settings of plain white crockery, and the cutlery had handles that looked like Bakelite. Probably purchased for this exact moment, Barbara thought sardonically. She’d seen his regular stuff. It hadn’t been purchased at the local Conran Shop.

The meal itself was simple. Anyone could have put it together, and although Barbara would have laid easy money on that anyone not being Thomas Lynley, she went along with the pretence that he’d actually stood over a hob stirring the soup and had worn an apron over his bespoke suit while he tossed the salad. Even followed a recipe to make the quiche, she decided. What he’d actually done, of course, was hoof it down to Partridges on the King’s Road. If Daidre knew this, though, she didn’t let on.

“Where’s Charlie?” Barbara asked as she and Daidre stood uselessly by with wineglasses clasped in their hands as Lynley went to and from the kitchen.

Charlie Denton had decamped to Hampstead for the day, Lynley told them, attending a matinee production of The Iceman Cometh. But “Back any time now,” he assured them heartily. Daidre was not to feel ill at ease that he might leap upon her should Barbara leave them.

Which was what she did as soon as she could. Lynley was guiding them into the drawing room for postprandial drinks when Barbara decided that she’d done her duty by her superior officer and it was time to go home. Early hours yet, she declared airily, but there you had it. There was something about roller derby, you know. She was knackered.

She saw Daidre wandering to the table between the two front windows. On it stood a silver-framed picture of Lynley and his wife on their wedding day. Barbara glanced at him and wondered why he hadn’t removed it prior to bringing Daidre into his home. He’d thought of everything, but he hadn’t thought of this.

Daidre picked up the picture as anyone might have done. Barbara and Lynley exchanged a look. Before Daidre could turn and mention the picture—the obvious comment being one about how lovely a woman Helen Lynley had been—Barbara said expansively, “So I’ll say an early good-night, sir. And thanks for the meal. Got to dash before I become a pumpkin.” She added, “Or whatever,” when she realised that her Mini would turn into the pumpkin and not herself. She’d never been good with allusions to fairy tales.

Daidre said, “I should go as well, Thomas. Perhaps Barbara can drop me at my hotel?”

Another look between Lynley and Barbara, but he jumped in before she had to come up with the reason on her own. “Nonsense,” he said. “I’m happy to drive you. Whenever you’re ready.”