Believing the Lie

“She’s gathering her information,” Alatea said. “She’s making sure she knows who I am.”

“What do you mean, who you are?”

The instrument of another, she thought, eternally never who I wish to be.

VICTORIA LONDON

Barbara Havers spent the morning keeping her nose to Isabelle Ardery’s assigned grindstone, which had a great deal to do with meeting a clerk from the CPS on the invigorating subject of comparing all the statements taken from everyone connected to the summer death of a young woman in a north London cemetery. She hated this kind of work, but she did everything save salute when Ardery gave it to her. Better to prove herself in ways beyond her manner of dress, she reckoned, which was today letter perfect, as a matter of fact. She’d donned her A-line skirt, navy tights, and perfectly polished court shoes — well, there was one little scuff but some spit had taken care of that — and she’d topped this with a new wool sweater that was finely knitted and not, mind you, of her usual heavy-gauge fisherman’s variety. Over that she’d shrugged into a subtle plaid jacket and she’d even put on the single piece of jewellery she owned, which was a filigree necklace purchased the previous summer at Accessorize in Oxford Street.

Hadiyyah had heartily approved of her ensemble that very morning, which told Barbara she was developing more skill in the putting-oneself-together-professionally department. She’d come to Barbara’s bungalow as Barbara was indulging in the last bit of her Pop-Tart, and heroically she’d ignored the fag smouldering in the ashtray in favour of complimenting Barbara on her growing talents in fashion.

Barbara noted that Hadiyyah was not wearing her school uniform, and she asked about this. “Holiday today?”

Hadiyyah bounced from foot to foot, hands on the back of one of the two chairs at Barbara’s kitchen table, which was little larger than a chopping board and generally did duty as that as well. The little girl said, “Mummy and I… It’s special, Barbara. It’s for Dad and I must take the day off school. Mummy phoned and said I was ill today but it was only the littlest lie because of what we have planned. It’s a surprise for Dad.” She hugged herself in glee. “Oh just wait, wait, wait,” she cried.

“Me? Why? Am I part of the surprise?”

“I want you to be. So Mummy says you can know but you mustn’t say a word to Dad. D’you promise? See, Mummy says she and Dad had a row — well, adults do row sometimes, don’t they — and she wants to give him a cheer-you-up surprise. So that’s what we’re doing today.”

“Taking him somewhere? Surprising him at work?”

“Oh no. The surprise’ll be when he gets home.”

“Special dinner, I’ll bet.”

“Much, much better than that.”

To Barbara’s way of thinking, there wasn’t anything better than a special dinner, especially if she wasn’t the one who had to cook it. She said, “What then? Tell me. I’m sworn to secrecy.”

“D’you promise and double promise?” Hadiyyah asked.

“Triple promise if that will do it.”

Hadiyyah’s eyes danced along with her feet. She pushed away from the table and spun so that her hair flew round her shoulders like a cape. She said, “My brother and sister! My brother and sister! Barbara, did you know I have a brother and a sister?”

Barbara felt the smile melt from her face. She forced it back on. “A brother and sister? Really? You have a brother and a sister?”

“I do, I do,” Hadiyyah cried. “See, Dad was married once before and he didn’t like to tell me ’cause I s’pose he thought I was too young. But Mummy told me and she said it’s not such a bad thing to be married once before, is it, and I said no, of course it isn’t ’cause lots of kids have parents who aren’t married any longer and I know them from school. So Mummy said well that’s what happened with Dad only his family got so cross with him that they didn’t want him to see his children anymore. And that’s not nice, is it?”

“Well, I suppose not,” Barbara said, but she was developing a very bad feeling about where this was heading and what the possible outcome would be. And how the hell had Angelina Upman tracked these people down? she wondered.

“So …” Hadiyyah allowed a dramatic pause.

“Yes?” Barbara prompted.

“So Mummy and I are going to fetch them!” she cried. “Won’t that be a wonderful surprise! I get to meet them, and I’m ever so excited to have a brother and a sister I never knew. And Dad gets to see them next and he’ll be ever so excited as well ’cause Mummy says he’s not seen them in years and she doesn’t know how old they are, even, except she thinks that one of them is twelve and the other is fourteen. Imagine, Barbara, I got an older brother and sister. D’you think they’ll like me? I hope so ’cause I know I’ll like them.”

Barbara’s mouth had gone so dry that she could hardly move her jaw, so tightly were her cheeks adhering to her teeth. She gulped a mouthful of tepid coffee and said, “Well, well, well,” which was just about the only thing she could manage while her brain was racing with thoughts of the bloody-hell-what-should-I-do variety. Friendship demanded that she warn Azhar of the impending disaster about to befall him: Angelina Upman presenting him with a fait accompli that he would have had neither time nor opportunity to prevent. But did friendship extend that far? she asked herself. And if she told him, what would he do and what effect would whatever he did have on Hadiyyah, who was, as far as Barbara could see, the most important person involved?

Ultimately, Barbara had done nothing because she couldn’t come up with a plan that didn’t culminate in utter havoc being wrought upon too many lives. Talking to Angelina felt like a betrayal of Azhar. Talking to Azhar felt like a betrayal of Angelina. It seemed the better course to stay out of it altogether and let nature — or whatever it was — take its course. She’d have to be there to sweep up the pieces but perhaps there would be no pieces to sweep up. Hadiyyah, after all, deserved to know her brother and sister. Perhaps everything would come out of the wash of affairs smelling sweet as roses in June. Perhaps.

Thus Barbara had taken herself to work as usual. She’d made certain Superintendent Ardery got the complete eyeful of her day’s ensemble, although she’d presented herself to Dorothea Harriman for a thumbs-up first. Harriman had been copious in her praise — “Detective Sergeant Havers, your hair… your makeup… stunning…” — although when she’d gone on to talk about a new mineral-based foundation that Barbara had to try and did the detective sergeant want to pop out at lunchtime and see if they could find it locally, Barbara drew the line. She’d said thanks, made her bow to Superintendent Ardery, who’d handed her the demands from the CPS while she spoke to someone on the phone about, “What sort of cock-up is this, anyway? Are you people ever on top of things over there?” which Barbara assumed had to do with SO7 and matters pertaining to forensics. She herself got down to work with the CPS clerk and it was some time later when she was finally able to resume the work she’d been doing for Lynley.

This was easier than before since Ardery had to leave to attend to the cock-up apparently and if it was a forensics cock-up, she’d be across the river for God only knew how long. The moment Barbara learned she was out of the building — it always paid to be on friendly terms with the blokes who manned the Yard’s underground car park access — she was out of there like a cannonball and on her way to the Met’s library, excuses made to the CPS bloke, who was happy enough to take a very long lunch hour.

Barbara took her English/Spanish dictionary with her. Having gathered enough information on the first two sons of Esteban Vega y de Vasquez and Dominga Padilla y del Torres de Vasquez — the first two sons being the priest Carlos and the dentist Miguel — and having seen a good enough photo of Miguel’s wife to know that no amount of plastic surgery in the world could have turned her into Alatea Fairclough, Barbara was ready to move on to Angel, Santiago, and Diego to see what she could unearth. If none of them had a connection with Alatea, then she was going to have to look at the rest of the extended family, and from what the Spanish student had told her on the previous day, there could be hundreds of them.