referred to. She came up with stamps. Lynley said coins.
She told him to check it out. He said, "Along with Yolanda? Because I still think - "
"All right. Along with Yolanda. But I swear she has nothing to do with this, Thomas. A woman did not commit this crime."
LYNLEY FOUND YOLANDA the Psychic's place of business in Queensway with little trouble although he had to wait outside the faux mews building where she plied her trade because a sign on the door declared IN SESSION! NO ENTRY!, and from this he assumed that Yolanda was in the process of doing whatever it was that psychics did for their clients: tea leaves, tarot cards, palms, or the like. He fetched himself a take-away coffee from a Russian cafe tucked in the junction of two of the indoor market's corridors, and he returned to Psychic Mews with cup in hand. By that time, the sign had been removed from the door, so he finished the coffee quickly and let himself in.
"That you, dearest?" Yolanda called from an inner room, shielded from the reception area by a beaded curtain. "Bit early, aren't you?"
"No," Lynley replied to her first question. "DI Lynley. New Scotland Yard."
She came through the curtain. He took in her startling orange hair and her tailored suit that he recognised - with thanks to his wife - as either vintage Coco Chanel or a Coco Chanel knockoff. She wasn't what he had expected.
She stopped when she saw him. "It throbs," she said.
He blinked. "Pardon?"
"Your aura. It's taken a terrible blow. It wants to regain its strength but something's got in the way." She held her hand up before he could reply. She cocked her head as if listening to something. "Hmm. Yes," she said. "It's not for nothing, you know. She intends to return. In the meantime your part is to become ready for her. That's a dual message."
"From the great beyond?" He asked the question lightly but, of course, he thought at once of Helen, no matter the irrationality of applying the idea of return to someone so completely gone.
Yolanda said, "You'd be wise not to make light of these matters. Those who make light generally regret it. What'd you say your name was?"
"DI Lynley. Is that what happened to Jemima Hastings? Did she make light?"
Yolanda ducked behind a screen for a moment. Lynley heard the scratch of a match. He thought she was lighting incense or a candle - either seemed likely and there was already a cone of incense burning at the crossed legs of a seated Buddha - but she emerged with a cigarette. She said to him, "It's good that you gave it up. I don't see you dying because of your lungs."
He absolutely refused to be seduced. He said, "As to Jemima?"
"She didn't smoke."
"That didn't much help her in the end, did it?"
Yolanda took a heavy hit from the tobacco. "I already talked to the cops," she said. "That black man. Strongest aura I've seen in years. P'rhaps ever, to tell you the truth. But that woman with him? The one with the teeth? I'd say she has issues impeding her growth, and they aren't exactly dental. What would you say?"
"May I call you Mrs. Price?" Lynley asked. "I understand that's your real name."
"You may not. Not on these premises. Here, I'm Yolanda."
"Very well. Yolanda. You were in Oxford Road earlier today. We must talk about that, about Jemima Hastings as well. Shall we do it here or elsewhere?"
"Elsewhere being ... ?"
"They'll have an interview room at the Ladbroke Grove station. We can use that if you prefer."
She chuckled. "Cops. You best be careful how you act else it'll disappear altogether.
There's such a thing as karma, Mr. Lynley. That's what you said your name is, didn't you?"
"That's what I said."
She examined him. "You don't look like a cop. You don't talk like a cop. You don't belong."
How true, he thought. But this was hardly a startling deduction for her to have made. He said, "Where would you like to talk, Yolanda?"
She went through the beaded curtain. He followed her.
There was a table in the centre of the inner room, but she didn't sit there. Instead, she went to an overstuffed armchair that faced a Victorian fainting sofa. She lay upon this latter and closed her eyes, although she still managed to smoke her cigarette unimpeded. He took the chair and said to her, "Tell me about Oxford Road first. We'll get to Jemima in a