getup for someone at work with clay, particularly the dress shoes, as he somehow managed to keep them perfectly clean. They would have passed muster at a military inspection. He said, "I'm at work here, as you can see." He gestured with his coffee in the direction of a shrouded piece.
Isabelle said, "And may we look at your work?"
He apparently needed to think about this for a moment before he shrugged and removed its swaddling of plastic and cloth. It was another elongated, knobby-limbed piece, apparently male and apparently in agony if the expression was anything to go by. A mouth gaped open, limbs stretched out, the neck curved back, and the shoulders arched. At its feet lay a grill of some sort, and to Isabelle it looked for all the world as if the figure were in anguish over a broken barbecue. She reckoned it all meant something deep and she readied herself to hear Lynley make an insufferably illuminating remark about it. But he said nothing, and di Fazio himself didn't shed any light on matters for Isabelle when he identified the figure only as St. Lawrence. He went on to tell them that he was doing a series of Christian martyrs for a Sicilian monastery, by which Isabelle took it that St. Lawrence's gruesome means of death had actually been by barbecue. This made her wonder what belief, if any, she'd be willing to die for, and this in turn made her wonder how or if the deaths of martyrs tied in with Jemima Hastings' own end.
"I've done Sebastian, Lucy, and Cecilia for them," di Fazio was saying. "This is the fourth of a series of ten. They'll be placed in the niches in the monastery chapel."
"You're well known in Italy, then," Lynley said.
"No. My uncle is well known in the monastery."
"Your uncle's a monk?"
Di Fazio gave a sardonic laugh. "My uncle is a criminal. He thinks he can buy his way into heaven if he makes enough donations to them. Money, food, wine, my art. It is all the same to him. And as he pays me for the work, I don't question the ..." He looked thoughtful, as if seeking the proper word. "...the effectiveness of his actions."
At the street end of the studio, a figure appeared in the double doorway, silhouetted by the light outside. It was a woman, who called out, "Ciao, baby," and strode over to one of the other work areas. She was short and rather plump, with an enormous shelflike bosom and coils of espresso-coloured hair. She whipped the protective covering off her piece of sculpture and set to work without another look in their direction. Nonetheless, her presence seemed to make di Fazio uneasy, for he suggested that they continue their conversation elsewhere.
"Dominique didn't know Jemima," he told them, with a nod at the woman. "She'd have nothing to add."
But she knew di Fazio, Isabelle reckoned, and she might come in useful down the line.
She said, "We'll keep our voices down, if that's what worries you, Mr. di Fazio."
"She will want to concentrate on her work."
"I daresay we won't prevent her from doing so."
Behind his gold-framed spectacles, the sculptor's eyes narrowed. It was just a fractional movement, but Isabelle did not miss it. She said, "This actually won't take long. It's about your argument with Jemima. And about an at-home pregnancy test."
Di Fazio gave no reaction to the remark. He looked briefly from Isabelle to Lynley as if evaluating the nature of their relationship. Then he said, "I had no argument with Jemima that I remember."
"You were overheard. It would have taken place in your lodgings in Putney, and chances are very good it might have had to do with that pregnancy test, which was, by the way, found among your belongings."
"You have no warrant - "
"As it happens, we aren't the ones who found it."
"Then it's not evidence, is it. I know how these things work. There's a procedure that must be followed. And this was not followed, so this pregnancy test or whatever it is cannot be evidence against me."
"I applaud your knowledge of the law."
"I've read enough of injustice in this country, madam. I've read how the British police work. People who have been unjustly accused and unjustly convicted. The Birmingham gentlemen. The Guildford group."
"You may have done." Lynley was the one to speak, and Isabelle noted that he didn't bother to lower his voice to prevent Dominique from hearing. "So you'll also know that in