the first e-fit," she announced, gesturing to the china board on which hung the e-fit generated from the two adolescents who'd stumbled on the body in the cemetery. "One of the volunteers at the cemetery thinks it's a boy called Marlon Kay.
Inspector Lynley and I will see about him. The rest of you ...You've got your assignments. Any questions? No? All right, then."
They would begin again in the morning, she told them. There were several looks of surprise exchanged: An evening off? What was she thinking?
No one questioned it, however, there being far too few gift horses in the midst of an investigation. The team began their preparations to depart as Ardery said, "Thomas?" to Lynley, and, "A word in my office?"
Lynley nodded. Ardery left the incident room. He didn't follow at once, however.
Instead, he went to the china board to have a look at the photographs assembled there, and Barbara took the opportunity to approach him. He'd put his reading glasses on once again, and he was observing the aerial photographs and comparing them to the drawn diagram of the crime scene.
She said to his back, "Didn't have a chance earlier ...," and he turned round from the china board.
"Barbara," he said, his form of greeting.
She gazed at him intently because she wanted to read him and what she wanted to read was the why and the how and what it all meant. She said, "Glad to have you back, sir. I didn't say before."
"Thank you." He didn't add that it was good to be there, as someone else might have done. It wouldn't be good to be there, she reckoned. It would all be part of just soldiering on.
She said, "I just wondered ...How'd she manage it?"
What she wanted to know was what it really meant that he'd come back to the Met: what it meant about him, what it meant about her, what it meant about Isabelle Ardery, and what it meant about who had power and influence and who had nothing of the kind.
He said, "The obvious. She wants the job."
"And you're here to help her get it?"
"It just seemed like time. She came to see me at home."
"Right. Well." Barbara heaved her shoulder bag into position. She wanted something more from him, but she couldn't bring herself to ask the question. "Bit different, is all," was what she came up with. "I'm off, then. Like I said, it's good that you're - "
"Barbara." His voice was grave. It was also bloody kind. He knew what she was thinking and feeling and he always had done, which she truly, really hated about the bloke. "It doesn't matter," he said.
"What?"
"This. It doesn't matter, actually."
They had one of those dueling eyeball moments. He was good at reading, at anticipating, at understanding ...at all those sodding interpersonal skills that made one person a good cop and another person the metaphorical bull knocking about among Mummy's antique Wedgwood.
"All right," she said, "yeah. Thanks."
Another moment of locked eyes till someone said, "Tommy, will you have a look ... ?" and he turned from her. Philip Hale was approaching and that was just as well. Barbara took the opportunity to make herself scarce. But as she drove home, she wondered if he'd been speaking the truth about things not mattering. For the fact was that she didn't like it that her partner was working with Isabelle Ardery, although she didn't much want to think about why this was the case.
Chapter Twelve
THE NEXT MORNING IT WAS LARGELY BECAUSE OF WHAT Barbara didn't want to think about that she went about packing a bag for the trip she'd been assigned to take by making sure that not a single item she placed within it would have met with Isabelle Ardery's approval. This was a job that took little time and less thought, and she was just finishing up when a knock on her door told her that Winston Nkata had arrived. He'd wisely suggested they take his motor, as hers was notoriously unreliable and, besides, fitting his rangy frame into an ancient Mini would have created an excruciating ride for him.
She said, "'S open," and she lit up a fag because she knew she was going to need to toke up on the nicotine since Nkata was, she also knew, not about to let her foul the interior of his perfectly maintained Vauxhall with cigarette smoke, not to mention - horrors! - a microscopic bit of ash.