cheerfully. "When a bloke gets along in years, things take a bit of time to heat up, don't they? I understand." She scrambled on the floor. "Seen my 'and-bag? Oh, 'ere it is. I'm off then. P'raps we'll 'ave a go on Sunday? My Jim'll be back on the road by then." That being her sole form of farewell, she made her way to the door and left him in the dark.
My age, he thought, and he could hear his mother's cackle of ironic laughter. She would light one of her foul Turkish cigarettes, regard him speculatively, and try to keep her face vacant. It was her analyst's expression. He hated her when she wore it, cursing himself for having been born to a Freudian. What we're dealing with, she would say, is typical in a man your age, Robert. Midlife crisis, the sudden realisation of impending old age, the questioning of life's purpose, the search for renewal. Coupled with your over-active libido, this propels you to seek new ways of defi ning yourself. Always sexual, I'm afraid. That appears to be your dilemma. Which is unfortunate for your wife, as she seems to be the only steadying influence available to you. But you are afraid of Irene, aren't you? She's always been too much woman for you to cope with. She made demands on you, didn't she? Demands of adulthood that you simply couldn't face. So you sought out her sister-to punish Irene and to keep yourself feeling young. But you couldn't have everything, lad. People who want everything generally end up with nothing.
And the most painful fact was that it was true. All of it. Gabriel groaned, sat up, began the search for his clothes. The dressing-room door opened.
He had only time to look in that direction, to see a thick shape against the additional darkness of the hallway outside his door. He had only a moment to think, Someone's shut off all the corridor lights, before a fi gure stormed across the room.
Gabriel smelled whisky, cigarettes, the acrid stench of perspiration. And then a rain of blows fell, on his face, against his chest, savagely pounding into his ribs. He heard, rather than felt, the cracking of bones. He tasted blood and ate the torn tissue in his mouth where his cheek was driven into his teeth.
His assailant grunted with effort, spewed spittle with rage, and finally rasped on the fourth vicious blow between Gabriel's legs, "Keep your soddin' piece in your trousers from now on, man."
Gabriel thought only, Absolutely no teenagers next time, before he lost consciousness.
LYNLEY REPLACED the telephone and looked at Barbara. "No answer," he said. Barbara saw the muscle in his cheek contract. "What time did Nkata first phone in?"
"A quarter past eight," she replied.
"Where was Davies-Jones?"
"He'd gone into an off-licence near Kensington Station. Nkata was in a call box outside."
"And he was alone? He hadn't taken Helen with him? You're certain of that?"
"He was alone, sir."
"But you spoke to her, Havers? You did speak to Helen after Davies-Jones left her fl at?"
Barbara nodded, feeling a growing concern for him that she would have rather lived without. He looked completely worn out. "She phoned me, sir. Right after he'd left."
"Saying?"
Barbara patiently repeated what she had told him once already. "Only that he'd gone. I did try to keep her on the line for thirty minutes when I first phoned, just as you asked. But she wouldn't have it, Inspector. She only said that she'd got company and could she telephone me later. And that was it. I don't think she wanted my help, frankly." Barbara watched the play of anxiety cross Lynley's face. She finished by saying: "I think she wanted to handle it alone, sir. Perhaps...well, perhaps she doesn't see him as a killer yet."
Lynley cleared his throat. "No. She understands." He pulled Barbara's notes across his desk towards him. They contained two sets of data, the results of her interrogation of Stinhurst and the fi nal information from Inspector Macaskin at Strathclyde CID. He put on his spectacles and gave himself over to reading. Outside his office, night subdued the normal jangle of noises in the department. Only the occasional ringing of a telephone, the quick raising of a voice, the congenial burst of laughter told them that they were not alone. Beyond, snow muffled the sounds of the city.
Barbara sat opposite him, holding Hannah Darrow's diary in one hand and the playbill from The Three Sisters in the other. She