their choice of liquid refreshment. If someone wanted a lager in the middle of the day, she didn't care. It's the work that matters, she informed him, and the quality of that work. Then off she went to the ladies'. For his part, he ordered her cider - "And make it a pint, please" she'd said - and got a bottle of mineral water for himself. He took these to a table tucked away in a corner, then he changed his mind and chose another one, more suitable, he thought, for two colleagues at work.
She proved herself a typical woman, at least in matters pertaining to her disappearance into the ladies'. She was gone at least five minutes and when she returned, she'd rearranged her hair. It was behind her ears now, revealing earrings, he saw. They were navy, edged in gold. The navy matched the colour of her dress. He wondered about the little vanities of women. Helen had never merely dressed in the morning: She had put together entire ensembles.
For God's sake, Helen, aren't you only going out to buy petrol?
Darling Tommy, I might actually be seen !
He blinked, poured water into his glass. There was lime with it, and he squeezed the wedge hard.
Ardery said, "Thank you."
He said, "They had only one brand."
"I didn't mean the cider. I meant thank you for not standing up. I expect you usually do."
"Ah. That. Well, the manners are beaten into one from birth, but I reckoned you'd rather I eschewed them at work."
"Have you ever had a female superior officer before?" And when he shook his head,
"You're coping rather well."
"It's what I do."
"You cope?"
"Yes." When he said it, though, he saw how it could lead to a discussion he didn't want to have. So he said, "And what about you, Superintendent Ardery?"
"You won't call me Isabelle, will you?"
"I won't."
"Whyever not? This is private, Thomas. We're colleagues, you and I."
"On duty."
"Will that be your answer for everything?"
He thought about this, how convenient it was. "Yes. I expect it will."
"And should I be offended?"
"Not at all. Guv."
He looked at her and she held the look. The moment became a man-woman thing. That was always the risk when the sexes mixed. With Barbara Havers it had always been something so far out of the question as to be nearly laughable. With Isabelle Ardery, this was not the case.
He looked away.
She said lightly, "I believed him. You? I realise he could have been going back to the scene of the crime, checking on the body to see if she'd been found yet, but I don't think it's likely. He doesn't seem clever enough to have thought it all through."
"You mean taking the magazine with him so it would appear he had a reason to duck into the shelter?"
"That's what I mean."
Lynley agreed with her. Marlon Kay was an unlikely killer. The superintendent had gone the way of wisdom in dealing with the situation, though. Before they'd left the boy and his surly father, she made the arrangements for his fingerprints to be taken and his mouth to be swabbed, and she'd had a look through his clothing. There was nothing yellow among it. As for the trainers he'd worn that day in the cemetery, they were devoid of visible signs of blood but would be sent to forensics anyway. In all of this Marlon had been completely cooperative. He seemed anxious to please them at the same time as he was eager to show he had nothing to do with the death of Jemima Hastings.
"So we're left with the sighting of the Oriental man, and let's hope that something comes of it," Ardery said.
"Or that something comes of this bloke in Hampshire," Lynley noted.
"There's that as well. How d'you expect Sergeant Havers will cope with that part of the investigation, Thomas?"
"In her usual fashion," he replied.
Chapter Thirteen
"BLOODY INCREDIBLE. I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT." This was Barbara Havers' reaction to the New Forest and the herds of ponies running wild upon it. There were hundreds of them - thousands perhaps - and they grazed freely wherever they had a mind to graze. On the vast swatches of the grassland, they munched on greenery with their foals nearby. Beneath primeval oaks and beeches and wandering among both rowan and birch, they fed on the scrub growth and left in their wake a woodland floor dappled with sunlight; spongy with decomposing leaves; and devoid of weeds, bushes, and brambles.