it maternal? God, no. She was not in the least a maternal sort of woman.
She'd said, "Thomas, if we're to be lovers - "
"I can't just now," had been his reply. Not that he couldn't conceive of himself as the lover of Isabelle Ardery, but that he could conceive of it only too well, and that frightened him for all it implied. "I ought to leave," he said.
"We'll speak later," she had responded.
He'd arrived home quite late. He'd slept very little. In the morning he spoke by mobile to Barbara Havers, a conversation he'd have preferred to avoid. As soon as he was able afterwards, he set upon the work of Frazer Chaplin and his alibi.
DragonFly Tonics had its offices in a mews behind Brompton Oratory and Holy Trinity Church. It faced the churchyard, although a wall, a hedge, and a path separated the two. Across the alley from the establishment, he saw that two Vespas were parked. One bright orange and the other fuchsia, each bore transfers with DragonFly Tonics printed upon them, much like those he'd seen on Frazer Chaplin's motor scooter outside Duke's Hotel.
Lynley parked the Healey Elliott directly in front of the building. He paused to look at the array of goods that were displayed in its front window. These consisted of bottles of substances with names like Wake-up Peach, Detox Lemon, and Sharpen-up Orange. He inspected these and thought wryly of the one he'd choose had they only manufactured it: Show Some Sense Strawberry came to mind. So did Get a Grip Grapefruit. He could have used two of those, he reckoned.
He went inside. The office was quite spare. Aside from some cardboard boxes with the DragonFly Tonics logo printed on the side, there was only a reception desk with a middle-aged woman sitting behind it. She wore a man's seersucker suit. At least it looked like a man's since its jacket hung loosely round her. It was a size that would have fitted Churchill.
She was stuffing brochures into envelopes, and she continued with this as she said, "Help you?" She sounded surprised. It seemed that her day was rarely interrupted by someone wandering in off the street.
Lynley asked her about their method of advertising, and she jumped to the conclusion that he meant to cover the Healey Elliott - visible through the window from within the reception area - with DragonFly Tonics transfers. He shuddered inwardly at the thought of such a desecration. He wanted to demand in outrage, "Are you quite mad, woman?" but instead he maintained an expression of interest. She pulled from her desk a crisp manila folder, from which she slid what appeared to be a contract. She spoke of rates paid for the size and number of transfers applied and the typical mileage expected from the driver of the vehicle. Obviously, she noted, black cabs received the most money, followed quite closely by motorcycle and motor scooter couriers. What sort of driving did he do? she asked Lynley.
This prompted him to correct her notion. He showed her his identification, and he asked her about the records kept of people who had vehicles of one sort or another decorated - and he used that term loosely - with the transfers from DragonFly Tonics. She told him that, of course, there were records because how else were people meant to be paid for swanning round London and regions beyond with advertising plastered to their vehicles?
Lynley was hoping to discover that there was no Frazer Chaplin with a contract to advertise DragonFly Tonics at all. From this, he had decided, it could be assumed that the Vespa Frazer had shown to Lynley outside Duke's Hotel was not his at all but one produced on a moment's inspiration and declared to be a Chaplin possession. He gave the receptionist Frazer's name and asked if she could produce his contract.
Unfortunately, she did just that, and all of it was as Frazer had avowed. The Vespa was his. It was lime green. To it, transfers had been applied. They were, in fact, applied professionally in Shepherd's Bush since DragonFly Tonics hardly wanted a slapdash job done with them. They were put on to last, not to be easily removed, and when they were removed at the end of the contract, the vehicle would be repainted.
Lynley sighed when he saw this. Unless Frazer had used a different vehicle to get up to Stoke Newington, they were back to any and all CCTV films from the area