he's known to have followed her. So frankly, sir, whether he's a mental case or not is incidental. I didn't consider mentioning it when I met with you and Mr. Deacon because in light of everything else we knew about the man, the fact that he has a mental condition - which hasn't been attested to by anyone save his own brother and his brother's solicitor, by the way - is a minor point. If anything at all, it's yet another detail that weighs against him: He wouldn't be the first untreated mental patient to murder someone in the midst of an episode of some sort and, sad to say, he won't be the last." She stirred in her seat, leaning forward and placing her arms along Hillier's desk in a gesture to show that her assumption was that she was his equal, and the two of them - and by extension, the Met - were in this together.
"Now," she said, "this is what I recommend. Incredulity."
Hillier didn't reply at once. Isabelle could feel her heart beating - it was slamming, really - against her rib cage. She reckoned it could have been seen in the pulse on her temples had she worn her hair differently and she knew it probably was evident on her neck. But that, too, was somewhat out of Hillier's view, and as long as she said nothing more, merely waiting for his reply, obviously communicating to him nothing but confidence in the decisions she'd made ...She merely needed to keep her eyes on his, which were icy and rather soulless, weren't they, and she hadn't actually noticed that before this moment.
"Incredulity," Hillier finally repeated. His telephone rang. He snatched it up, listened for a moment, and said, "Tell him to hang on. I'm nearly finished here." Then to Isabelle, "Go on."
"With?" She made it sound as if she assumed he'd followed her logic, all surprise that he needed her to clarify.
His nostrils moved, not a flare so much as a testing of the air. For prey, no doubt. She held her ground. He said, "With your point, Superintendent Ardery. Just how do you see this playing out?"
"With our astonishment that someone's mental condition - unfortunate though it may be - would ever trump the safety of the general public. Our officers went to the site unarmed.
The man in question panicked for reasons we haven't yet ascertained. In our possession is hard evidence - "
"Most of which was gathered after the fact of his accident," Hillier noted.
"Which is beside the point, of course."
"The point being?"
"That we have our hands on a person of serious interest who can, as the phrase goes,
„help us with our inquiries' in a fashion that no one else can. What we're looking for, good people of the press, is - might I remind you - whoever is responsible for the brutal murder of an innocent woman in a public park, and if this gentleman can lead us to that party, then that's what we're going to demand he do. The press will fill in the blanks. The last thing they'll ask is the order in which events occurred. Evidence is evidence. They'll want to know what it is, not when we found it. And even if they unearth the fact that we found it after the accident on Shaftesbury Avenue, the point is the murder, the park, and our belief that the public might prefer we protect them from madmen wielding weapons rather than tiptoe round someone who might or might not be hearing Beelzebub muttering in his ear."
Hillier considered this. Isabelle considered Hillier. She wondered idly what he'd received his knighthood for because it was odd that someone in his position would be given an honour that generally went to the higher-ups. That he'd been knighted spoke not so much of a service to the public heroically rendered but rather to Hillier's knowing of people in high places and, more important, knowing how to use those people in high places. He was, thus, not a man to cross. But that was fine. She didn't intend to cross him.
He said to her, "You're a wily one, aren't you, Isabelle? I've not missed the fact that you've managed to swing this meeting your way."
"I wouldn't in the least expect you to miss that fact," Isabelle said. "A man like you doesn't rise to the position you have because things get by him. I quite understand that. I quite admire it. You're a political