in advance. He frowned. "What is it?"
"Assistant Commissioner Hillier. He's on his way down to see you. He rang me up personally and told me to keep you in your office. I said I would, but I'm happy to pretend you were already gone when I got here to tell you."
Lynley sighed. "Don't risk your own position. I'll see him."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure. God knows I need something to lighten up my day."
THE MIRACLE, Barbara Havers found, was that Wendy was not in the clouds this time round. In fact, when Barbara arrived at the woman's eponymous stall in Camden Lock Market, she was willing to wager that the aging hippie had actually taken the cure. Standing within the confines of her tiny establishment, Wendy still looked like hell on a tricycle-there was something about long grey locks, ashen skin, and multicoloured caftans fashioned from counterpanes of the subcontinent that simply did not appeal-but at least her eyes were clear. The fact that she didn't remember Barbara's earlier visit was something of a worry, but she seemed willing to believe her sister when Petula told her from behind the counter of her own establishment, "You were out of it, luv," at the time of their previous introduction to each other.
Wendy said, "Whoops," and gave a shrug of her fleshy shoulders. Then to Barbara, "Sorry, dear. It must've been one of those days."
Petula confided to Barbara with no small degree of pride that Wendy was "twelve-stepping it, again." She'd tried it before and it "hadn't taken," but the family had hopes it would this time round. "Met a bloke who gave her the ultimatum," Petula added under her breath. "And Wendy'll do anything for a length, you see. Always would. Has the sex drive of a she-goat, that girl."
Whatever it took, Barbara thought. She said, "Ambergris oil," to Wendy. "Have you sold any? This would be recently. Last few days, maybe?"
Wendy shook her grey locks. "Massage oil by the litre," she said. "I've six spas who're my most regular customers. They go in big for relaxants like eucalyptus. But no one's doing ambergris. Which's just as well, if you want to know my opinion. What we do to animals, someone out there will do to us eventually. Like aliens from another planet or something. They might like our fat just fine-the way we like whale blubber-and God only knows what they'll use it for. But just you wait. It's going to happen."
"Wendy, luv," Petula said, with one of those save-it-for-later chimes to her voice. She'd taken out a cloth and was using it to dust candles and the shelves they stood on. "It's okay, dear."
"I don't even know when I last had ambergris oil in stock," Wendy said to Barbara. "If someone asks for it, I tell them what I think."
"And has anyone asked for it?" Barbara brought out the e-fits of their possible suspects. She was finding this part of the routine rather tedious, but who really knew when she was going to strike that vein of gold? "One of these blokes, p'rhaps?"
Wendy looked at the drawings. She frowned and then dug a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles from deep within her copious cleavage. One of the lenses was cracked, so she used the other like a monocle. No, she told Barbara, neither of these blokes looked like anyone who'd come to the Cloud.
Barbara knew how unreliable her information would be-her drug use considered-so she showed the e-fits to Petula as well.
Petula made a study of both of them. Truth was, there were so many people coming into the market, especially at the weekends. She didn't like to say one of these blokes had been in, but at the same time, she didn't like to say neither of them had been in either. They looked a bit like beatnik poets, didn't they? Or clarinet players in a jazz band. One half-expected to see their sort in Soho, didn't one? Course one didn't-not that much any longer-but there was a time-
Barbara created a diversion on Memory Lane with a question about Barry Minshall. "Albino magician" certainly got Petula's attention-Wendy's as well-and there was a moment when Barbara thought that the mention of Minshall's name and a description of him was going to bear fruit. But no, an albino magician dressed in black and wearing dark glasses and a red stocking cap would be fairly memorable, even in Camden Lock Market. Minshall, they both said, was someone they definitely would have remembered.
Barbara realised that