about the bloke." She slammed the door and locked it, adding, "And that, frankly, comes as something of a relief. I have my concerns about Barbara Havers and her reaction to men."
"Do you?" Lynley walked at her side. He was unused to a woman so tall. Barbara Havers didn't reach to his collarbone and while Helen had been of above-average height, she had not been nearly as tall as Isabelle Ardery. He and the acting superintendent were shoulder to shoulder. He said, "Barbara has very good instincts about people. You can generally rely on her input."
"Ah. What about you, then?"
"My input is, I hope - "
"I meant your instincts, Thomas. How are they?" She looked at him. It was an even gaze.
He wasn't sure what to make of her question. Nor was he sure how he felt about it.
"When the wind is southerly, I generally know my hawks and handsaws," he settled on saying.
Back in the incident room, bits of information were filtering in: Jayson Druther had indeed been present in the cigar shop when Jemima Hastings was killed in Stoke Newington, and he'd provided the names of three customers to confirm this. He'd gone on to alibi his father, if there was interest in that. "Betting lounge," John Stewart reported, "in the Edgware Road."
Abbott Langer had finished up his afternoon lessons at the ice rink, walked dogs in Hyde Park, and then returned to the ice rink for his evening clients. But the dog-walking bit gave him a good-size window to get up to Stoke Newington because there was no dog owner to swear the family canine had been walked. Obviously, a dog walker was employed when no one was at home.
As to background information, progess had been made there as well. Although Yolanda the Psychic had been warned off stalking Jemima Hastings, Jemima Hastings hadn't been the one to report her. That reporting had been done by Bella McHaggis
"McHaggis's husband died at home, but there's nothing suspicious associated with it,"
Philip Hale reported. "His heart gave out while he was on the toilet. Yolanda's daughter is dead.
Starved herself slimming. Same age as Jemima."
"Interesting," Ardery said. "Anything else?"
Frazer Chaplin, born in Dublin, one of seven children, no record and no complaints.
Shows up on time to the job, he reported.
"He has two jobs," Isabelle told him.
Shows up on time to both of his jobs. He seems a bit too interested in money, but then, who isn't? There's something of a joke at Duke's Hotel: him looking for a rich American-Brazilian-Canadian-Russian-Japanese-Chinese- anything to support him. Male or female. He doesn't care. He's a bloke with plans, according to the hotel manager, but no one faults him and he's well liked. "One of those „That's our lad Frazer' types," Hale said.
"Anything on Paolo di Fazio?" Isabelle asked.
It turned out that Paolo had an interesting background: born in Palermo, from which his family fled the Mafia. His sister had been married to a minor Mafioso there only to be beaten to death by him. The husband himself had been found hanged in his cell while awaiting trial, and no one thought it was a suicide.
As to the rest? Isabelle Ardery asked.
There was very little. Jayson Druther had an ASBO, apparently having to do with a relationship that went sour. But this was with a man, not a woman, for whatever good that piece of news could do them. Abbott Langer, on the other hand, was something of a puzzle. It was true that he was an Olympic ice skater turned coach and dog walker. It was completely bogus that he had ever been married, with children. He was fairly close to Yolanda the Psychic, apparently, but this didn't seem to be a sinister connection, as it was looking more and more as if Yolanda the Psychic did as much trolling for surrogate children - adult or otherwise - as she did reading palms or getting in touch with the spirit world.
"We'll want more on this marriage business," Ardery noted. "He's a real person of interest, then."
Lynley slipped out of the meeting as the superintendent was giving further instructions having to do with confirming alibis and with the time of death, which was set between two o'clock and five o'clock. This should make it easy, she was saying. Most of these people have jobs. Someone saw something not quite right somewhere. Let's find out who and what it is.
Lynley crossed over to Tower Block, and he made his way to the assistant commissioner's office. Hillier's