Believing the Lie

least, the women were engaged in nothing that even looked suspicious. “Aha! What’re you two doing together?” was a very likely route to “None of your business.”

Zed saw that, although he made it clear to Deborah that he also didn’t like it. It wasn’t his style, he told her, to sit and wait. Journalists didn’t do that. Journalists dug and confronted and got the story. That was at the very core of what a journalist was. That was part of the rich tradition of the profession.

Deborah wanted to scoff at that one, but she made various murmurs of assent. Too right, yes indeed, I understand. But at the moment they didn’t even know the name of the woman with whom Alatea had come to the university, and without this at the very least, neither one of them could dig for anything.

She brought Zed round to her way of thinking, albeit reluctantly. He finally said he would meet her at the same spot where she’d hopped out of the car earlier. They’d head back to the disabled soldiers’ home and there they would wait for the return of Alatea Fairclough and her companion. They’d lay their plans during their wait, he said. And there would be a plan, Sergeant Cotter. No way was he going to miss out on this story because of some double dealing at her end.

“There’ll be no double dealing,” Deborah said. “I recognise that you’ve got me in a tricky spot if I don’t work with you, Zed.”

He chuckled. “That’s what good reporters do.”

“Yes, I’m definitely learning that,” she told him.

They rang off. Deborah waited a few more minutes to see if Alatea and her companion might emerge. They did not. From Deborah’s recollection of the notice board inside the building’s lobby, there were no lecture halls within. It was given over to offices and laboratories. This meant that Alatea and the other woman were probably not there as mature students, as Zed had suggested. And since reproductive science was one of the disciplines studied there, Deborah was certain she was on the track of what Alatea Fairclough had to hide.

VICTORIA LONDON

Barbara Havers had to return to the Yard. She needed Winston Nkata’s expertise, and other than a return to Victoria Street, the only way she reckoned she could get it was to convince him to disappear for a few hours and to meet her somewhere with access to the Web. She didn’t have that at her bungalow. She didn’t even own a laptop, having long considered them a drain on the time of the individuals who possessed them. The whole world of the information superhighway was too bloody much for her. She’d liked things better when everything had been controlled simply by on and off switches and when the push-button telephone and telly remotes were as far as technology had gone. Make a few calls and put the burden of information searching on someone else. That was the ticket.

Now, however, things were different. It was the investigator’s mental shoe leather that got worn down, not the real thing. But while she was finally, albeit reluctantly, developing her capabilities in the area of digging through the ether of the World Wide Web, she was nowhere close to Winston’s level. How did one locate naughty underwear ads featuring a specific model? That was the question. He would have the answer.

She reckoned she could phone him, but that wouldn’t be the same. She needed to see what was on the screen as a result of his relentless Googling, clicking, and double-clicking.

So she took herself back to New Scotland Yard. She rang him from the lobby. Meet me in the library, she told him. They had a cloak-and-dagger state of affairs going on. The guv needed to be kept in the dark.

“Barb…,” he replied.

Barbara knew exactly what it meant when Winston used that tone. But she also knew how to quell his concerns.

“The inspector needs some information,” she said. Winnie, she knew, would do anything for Lynley. “You c’n break away, can’t you? It won’t take long.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Looking up dirty pictures.”

“On a Met computer? You gone dead mad?”

“Hillier’s orders,” she said. “Really, Winnie, d’you think I actually want to do this? The inspector’s following up on something. It’ll probably turn out to be a fat old cow modelling bras and knickers.”

He said he’d meet her in the library. But he also said — and this was Winston through and through — that if he ran into the guv and she wanted to know where he was heading, he would tell her the truth.

“But you will try to avoid her, won’t you?” Barbara clarified. “The inspector’s already in trouble with her for bringing me into this. I bring you into it as well and she’s going to go for his jugular.”

That did it, as she hoped it would. He would avoid Isabelle Ardery as best he could.

He was, apparently, successful in this. When Barbara reached the Met’s library on the twelfth floor, Nkata was waiting. He confessed that he’d run into Dorothea Harriman, however, and this wasn’t good news. The departmental secretary had methods of discovery so advanced that she’d probably read Winston’s intentions about the library by looking at his shoelaces. Well, it couldn’t be helped.

They set to work. Winston’s capable fingers flew across the keys. Once he had the spelling of Alatea Fairclough’s lengthy birth name, he was unstoppable. Screen after screen flashed by. Barbara didn’t attempt to keep up. Winston didn’t explain what he was doing or where they were heading on the Web. He just glanced at things, made a decision of some sort, hit a few more keys, and off they went. He would have done fine in forensic computer work, Barbara reckoned. She was about to tell him this, when a furious “Sergeants Havers and Nkata,” told her that Dorothea Harriman had let something drop and Isabelle Ardery had managed to unearth them.

Nkata swung round from the computer. If a black man could have been said to go pale, that was what happened. Barbara herself went empty. What was it with the bloody superintendent? she wondered. Was this about Lynley and where he was and why he wasn’t performing nightly between her legs? Or was it about holding the rest of them beneath her thumbnail, like insects about to be pinned to a board?

Winston stood slowly. He looked at Barbara. She said, “I borrowed Winston for a few minutes, guv. Something I needed to look up and he’s clever with this stuff. I can do it, but it takes me forever and I’m generally hopeless when it comes to figuring where to go next.”

Isabelle looked her over. Her gaze rested most meaningfully on Barbara’s tee-shirt, which was perfectly readable since she’d flung her donkey jacket on a nearby chair. Christ died for our sins… Let’s not disappoint him clearly did not amuse.

Ardery said, “Holiday’s over, Sergeant Havers. I want you back at work and wearing something appropriate within an hour.”

Barbara said, “Due respect, guv — ”

“Don’t push this, Barbara,” Isabelle told her. “You may have six days, six weeks, or six months of holiday time due, but it seems rather obvious that you’re not on holiday. That being the case, get back to work.”

“I was only going to say — ”

“Sergeant Havers!” Isabelle barked this time. “Do it now.”

Barbara said it in a rush. “Guv, I can’t get home and change my clothes and be back in an hour. It’s impossible. Plus I need to get over to University College. If you’ll let me have a day — this day, this one day more, I swear — I’m out of here in thirty seconds and I’m back tomorrow dressed like…” She couldn’t come up with a name. “Like whoever.” She wanted to add “Picture me gorgeous” but she reckoned the superintendent would respond with “I’d rather picture you dead,” so she let that one go. She did add, “I twisted Winston’s arm, guv. Please don’t take things out on him.”

“Things?” the superintendent snapped. “What things would those be, Sergeant Havers?”

Next to her, Barbara heard Winston moan, just a small sound that the superintendent didn’t take note of, thank God. She said, “I don’t know. Just… whatever… things. Stress of the job. Life.”

“Referring to what?” Isabelle was furious now. Barbara wondered how much