thought about the implications behind the pictures. The right cheek's condition suggested a left-handed assailant. But the wound on the forehead was on the left, which itself suggested either ambidexterity on the part of the killer or an accomplice.
Emily handed her another photograph, saying,
"Are you familiar with the Nez?"
"I haven't been there in years," Barbara replied.
"But I remember the cliffs. A caff of some sort. An old watch tower." The additional picture was an aerial shot. It included the pillbox, the cliff looming above it, the columnar watch tower, the L-shaped cafe. A car park to the southwest of the cafe contained police vehicles that surrounded a hatchback. But it was what was missing from the picture that Barbara took note of, what otherwise might have loomed above the car park, washing it with illumination after dark. "Em," she said, "are there any lights out there? On the Nez?
On the clifftop? Are there lights?" She looked up and found Emily watching her, an eyebrow raised to acknowledge the direction in which she was heading. "Hell.
There aren't, are there? And if there aren't any lights . . . ?" Barbara went back to studying the picture and she directed her next question to it.
"Then what the dickens was Haytham Querashi _L8 doing out on the Nez in the dark?"
She raised her head once more to see Emily saluting her with her Heineken. "That's certainly the question, Sergeant Havers," she said, and upended the beer into her mouth.
Chapter 4
"Sh'll I help you up to bed, Mrs. Shaw? It's gone past ten, and the doctor said I was to mind that you got your rest."
Mary Ellis's voice was pitched at precisely that diffident tone which made Agatha Shaw want to claw the girl's eyes out. She restrained herself, however, turning slowly from the three large easels that Theo had assembled for her in the library. On them were representations of BalfordeNez in the past, the present, and the future.
She'd been studying them for the last thirty minutes, using them as a means of harnessing the rage she'd been feeling ever since her grandson had informed her of the means by which her carefully planned and specially called town council meeting had been derailed.
So far it had been quite a fine evening of rage, with her anger escalating over dinner as Theo went through the council meeting and its aftermath for her step by step.
"Mary," she said, "do I look as if I need to be treated like a poster girl for terminal senility?"
Mary considered the question with a concentration that puckered her spotty face.
"Pardon?" she said, and she wiped her hands against the sides of her skirt. The skirt was cotton, a pale and hideously anaemic blue. Her palms left splodges of damp against it.
"I'm aware of the time," Agatha clarified. "And when I'm ready to retire for the evening, I shall call for you."
"But as it's gone near half ten, Mrs. Shaw ..."
Mary's voice drifted off, and the way her teeth pulled at the centre of her lower lip was supposed to convey the rest of her remark.
Agatha knew this. She hated being manipulated.
She realised the girl wanted to be on her way - no doubt with the intention of allowing some equally spotty-faced hooligan access to her questionable charms - but the very fact that she wouldn't come out and say what was on her mind provoked Agatha into baiting her. It was the girl's own fault. She was nineteen years old, which was quite old enough to be able to say what she meant. At her age, Agatha had already been a Wren for a year and had lost the only man she'd ever loved in a bombing raid on Berlin. In those days, if a woman wasn't able to say what she meant, chances were very good that she wouldn't have the opportunity to say anything to anyone next time round. Because chances were excellent that there wouldn't be a next time round at all.
"Yes?" Agatha encouraged her pleasantly. "As it's gone near half past ten, Mary . . . ?"
"I thought . . . don't you want . . . it's just that my hours's supposed to be just till nine. We agreed on that, you and me, right?"
Agatha waited for more. Mary squirmed, look121 ing as if a centipede were crawling up her thigh.
"It's just that ... As it's getting late ..."
Agatha raised an eyebrow.
Mary looked defeated. "Give me call when you're ready, ma'm."
Agatha smiled. "Thank