Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

new case developing and a team beginning to work upon it. This was something different, so Barbara approached her fellow detective sergeant. There, in short order, the news broke over her. John Stewart was gone, and someone would soon be promoted to replace him. It was that or bring in a different DI. The DCs present round Winston’s desk were telling him he was all but poised to be the man of the hour. They had no ethnic DI under Ardery’s command. “Go for it, mate” was how they put it.
    Nkata, ever the gentleman like his mentor Lynley, would make no move without Barbara’s blessing, and he asked her, “Have a word, Barb?” in order to get it. After all, she’d been a DS far longer than he, and just as they had no ethnic DI under the command of Isabelle Ardery, so also had they no female DI.
    Nkata took her to the stairwell for a natter. He descended two steps to mitigate the great difference in their heights. What he had to say needed to come from an equal and height was a metaphor for this, she supposed.
    He said, “Took the exam a while back. I di’n’t talk about it cos . . . Seemed like I would jinx it, eh? I passed, though, but I got to say it: You been a sergeant for a long time, Barb. I’m not goin for this if you want it.”
    Barbara found this oddly charming, that Winston would defer to her when the likelihood of her even keeping her job at this point was more remote than the moon. Besides, it had to be said that Winston Nkata would always be the better choice to lead a team of coppers. He played by the rules. She did not. At the end of the day, that was a critical difference.
    “Do it,” she told him.
    “You sure, Barb?”
    “Never more than now.”
    He flashed his brilliant smile.
    Then she went on, heading for the superintendent’s office to learn her fate. For she’d been spared by Mitchell Corsico, but her sins were still great nonetheless. Away without leave was among the worst of them. There was a price to pay, and she would pay it.
    BELSIZE PARK
    LONDON
    Lynley found a parking space midway down the street, in front of the long line of terrace houses. It was in an area undergoing gentrification. The house in question, alas, had not been touched by this particular brand of architectural magic. He wondered—as he always did when it came to areas in transition—about the safety of this part of town. But then what was the point of such wondering when his own wife had been gunned down on the front steps of their house in a pricey neighbourhood unknown for anything other than a house alarm accidentally blaring when an owner stumbled home too inebriated to think about disarming it?
    He grabbed up what he had brought with him to Belsize Park: a bottle of champagne and two long-stemmed flutes. He got out of the car, locked it, hoped for the best as he always did when he parked the Healey Elliott in the street, and climbed the front steps to a shallow porch where the Victorian tiles that lined it had, gratifyingly, remained unmolested.
    He was a little late. A conversation with Barbara Havers had resulted in his offer to drive her home. Since driving her home put him in the area to which he was going anyway, it seemed the reasonable thing to do. But traffic had been bad.
    She’d spent ninety minutes in Isabelle Ardery’s office. She’d emerged, according to that most reliable source Dorothea Harriman, white-faced and seeming . . . Was it humbled? chastened? humiliated? surprised? stunned by her good fortune? Dee didn’t know. But she could tell, Detective Inspector Lynley, that no voices were raised during the colloquy that Detective Superintendent Ardery had with Detective Sergeant Havers. She’d overheard the detective superintendent say, “Sit down, Barbara, because this is going to take a while,” before the door closed. But that was it.
    Barbara reported very little to him. Other than “She did it for you,” she didn’t appear to wish to talk about it. But his “I assure you, she didn’t” prompted further discussion between them because what he wanted to know was why she had refused to take his calls when his calls were meant to prepare her for what was going on at the Yard.
    She said, “Guess I didn’t want to know. Guess I didn’t trust you, sir. Guess I don’t trust anyone, not even myself. Not really.”
    She was silent after that and, knowing her as he did, he could tell she wanted to light a cigarette. He also knew she wouldn’t do so in the Healey Elliott.