A Great Deliverance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,16

And however premature and ultimately spurious that arrest had been, it was the only black mark on an otherwise admirable record of service, a denigration that Lynley would have to live with for the rest of his career.

"It's fine, sir," Lynley replied easily. "I understand."

A knock on the door announced Miss Harriman's successful quest for the Schweppes, which she placed triumphantly on the table in front of Sergeant Havers. She glanced at the clock.

Its hands were nearing six.

"As this isn't a regularly scheduled workday, Superintendent," she began, "I thought I might - "

"Yes, yes, go on home." Webberly waved.

"Oh no, it isn't that at all," Harriman said sweetly. "But I think in Regulation Sixty-five-A regarding compensatory time..."

"Take Monday and I'll break your arm, Harriman," Webberly said with equivalent sweetness. "Not in the middle of this Ripper business."

"Wouldn't think of it, sir. Shall I just put it on the tick? Regulation Sixty-five-C indicates that - "

"Put it anywhere, Harriman."

She smiled understandingly at him. "Absolutely, Superintendent." The door closed behind her.

"Did that vixen wink at you as she left the room, Lynley?" Webberly demanded.

"I didn't notice, sir."

It was half past eight when they began gathering together the papers from the table in Webberly's office. Darkness had fallen and the fluorescent lighting did nothing to hide the room's genial air of disarray. If anything, it was worse now than it had been before, with the additional files from the North spread out on the table and an acrid cirrus of cigarette and cigar smoke that, in conjunction with the mixed scents of whisky and sherry, produced the effect of being in a rather down-at-heel gentlemen's club.

Barbara noticed the deep lines of exhaustion that were drawn on Lynley's face and judged that the aspirin had done him little good. He had gone to the wall of Ripper photographs and was inspecting them, moving from one to the next. As she watched, he lifted a hand to one of them - it was the King's Cross victim, she noted needlessly - and traced a finger along the crude incision that the Ripper's knife had made.

"Death closes all,'" he murmured. "He's black and white, flesh with no resilience. Who could ever recognise a living man from this?"

"Or from this, for that matter," Webberly responded. He brusquely gestured to the photographs that Father Hart had brought.

Lynley rejoined them. He stood near Barbara but was, she well knew, oblivious of her.

She watched the expressions pass quickly across his face as he sorted through the photographs one last time: revulsion, disbelief, pity. His features were so easy to read that she wondered how he ever managed to conduct a successful investigation without giving everything away to a suspect. But he did it all the time. She knew his record of success, the string of follow-up convictions. He was the golden boy in more ways than one.

"We'll head up there in the morning, then," he said to the superintendent. He picked up a manila envelope and tucked all the materials inside.

Webberly was examining a train schedule which he had unearthed from the jumble on his desk. "Take the eight-forty-five."

Lynley groaned. "Have a bit of mercy, sir. I'd like at least the next ten hours to get rid of this migraine."

"Then the nine-thirty. And no later than that." Webberly glanced round his office one last time as he shrugged into a tweed overcoat. Like his other clothing, it was becoming threadbare in spots, and a small patch was worked poorly into the left lapel where, no doubt, cigar ash had done its worst. "Report in on Tuesday," he said as he left.

The superintendent's absence seemed to rejuvenate Lynley at once, Barbara noted, for he moved with amazing alacrity of spirit to the telephone the moment the man was gone. He dialled a number, tapped his fingers rhythmically against the desk top, and peered at the face of the clock. After nearly a minute, his face lit with a smile.

"You did wait, old duck," he said into the phone. "Have you broken it off with Jeffrey Cusick at last?...Ha! I knew it, Helen. I've told you repeatedly that a barrister can't possibly make you happy. Did the reception end well?... He did? Oh Lord, what a scene that must have been. Has Andrew ever cried in his life?...Poor St. James. Was he absolutely slain with mortification?...Well, it's the champagne does it, you know. Did Sidney recover?...Yes, well, she did look for a while as if she'd get a bit maudlin at the