Below this were the names of the sportswomen, and Lynley couldn’t stop himself from reading through the list, from looking for one name in particular, a name he had certainly never thought he’d see again. And there it was: Kickarse Electra, the nom de guerre of a large animal veterinarian from the zoo in Bristoclass="underline" one Daidre Trahair, a woman who took the occasional country weekend in Cornwall, where he had met her.
Lynley smiled at this. Then he chuckled. Denton looked up from the scrambling of eggs and said, “What?”
“What do you know about flat track roller derby?”
“What in hell is that, if one might ask?” Denton enquired.
“I think we ought to find out, you and I. Shall I purchase tickets for us, Charlie?”
“Tickets?” Denton looked at Lynley as if he’d gone half-mad. But then he fell back against the stove, and he struck a pose, one arm lifted to his forehead. He said, “My God. Has it actually come to this? Are you— dare I say— asking me out on a date?”
Lynley laughed in spite of himself. “I appear to be doing so.”
“What have we come to?” Denton sighed.
“I’ve absolutely no idea,” Lynley answered.
15 NOVEMBER
CHALK FARM
LONDON
The day hadn’t been an easy one for Barbara Havers. It had largely depended upon the use of two skills that she possessed, alas, in minuscule proportion. The first was an ability to ignore the obvious. The second was the production of compassion for persons unknown.
Ignoring the obvious meant saying nothing to DI Lynley about whatever it was that had happened between him and Superintendent Ardery. From what Barbara could tell, their personal relationship was finished. There was a sadness in both of them that they each attempted to mask with courtesy and kindness, and from this Barbara took the fact that their breakup was a mutual decision, which was, at least, all to the good. It would have been a real nightmare in the workplace had one of them wished to end their affair while the other continued to cling like a starfish to a piling. At least this way, they both could forge onward without blameful glances and meaningful remarks being flung about by the aggrieved party for the next six months. But they were feeling the end of things. There was so much melancholy in the air round them that Barbara decided that avoidance was the better part of valour in this situation.
Her lack of skill in the compassion department didn’t relate to Lynley and Superintendent Ardery, though. Neither of them was about to unburden a heavy heart onto her shoulders, so she was relieved about that. She was less relieved when she met Engracia in the wine bar near Gower Street a second time and asked the Spanish student to place another phone call to Argentina.
While Engracia spoke to Carlos, the brother of Alatea Vasquez y del Torres, Barbara fed her the information. He happened to be there at his parents’ home, making a call upon his mother, and in his company was his cousin Elena Maria, with whom Engracia also spoke. She went between what Barbara was telling her and what the Argentines were saying in reply, and in this manner they navigated the waters of a family’s sorrow.
Please tell them Alatea has drowned… please let them know that as of yet there is no body… because of the conditions in Morecambe Bay where she was lost… the sands shift due to the tide… it has to do with various elements… rivers running into it, something that’s called the tidal bore, mudflats, quicksand… we do believe the body will turn up and we’ve been given a good idea where… will be buried by her husband… yes, she was married… yes, she was very happy… she’d merely gone for a walk… so terribly sorry… I’ll see about photos, yes… so understandable that you’d want to know… definitely an accident… definitely an accident… absolutely no doubt that it was a terrible and tragic accident.
Whether it was or wasn’t an accident didn’t matter, Barbara thought. In the final analysis, dead was dead.
She and Engracia parted outside the wine bar, both of them feeling the regret of having to pass along the news of Alatea’s death. Engracia had wept as she’d spoken to Carlos and then to Elena Maria, and Barbara had marvelled at this: at the idea of weeping over the death of someone she had never met, in fellow feeling with individuals thousands of miles away whom she would also never meet. What was it that prompted such a rush of compassion within one? she wondered. What was wrong with her that she didn’t feel it? Or was this separation of self from event merely part and parcel of the career she’d chosen?
She didn’t want to think about any of it: Lynley’s gloom, Isabelle Ardery’s melancholy, an Argentine family’s grief. So on the way home that evening, she thought instead of something more pleasant, which was her upcoming dinner. This would comprise steak and kidney suet-topped pie thrown into the microwave, a can of red wine popped open, toffee cheesecake, and a cup of reheated morning coffee afterwards. Then an evening propped up on the daybed with Passion’s Sweet Promise open on her lap and an hour or two to discover if Grey Mannington would finally embrace his love for Ebony Sinclair in typical romance novel fashion having much to do with heaving bosoms, muscular thighs, probing tongues, and searing pleasures. She’d turn the electric fire on within the mousehole fireplace as well, she thought. For it had been bitterly cold all day, and the promise of a deadly winter was being made each morning, written in the frost on her windowpanes. It was going to be a bad one and a long one, she thought. Best get out the woolies and prepare to sleep nightly between brushed cotton sheets.
At home, she saw that Azhar’s car was in the driveway, but the lights were not on in the family’s flat. They were probably out to dinner, she reckoned, having walked the short distance to Chalk Farm Road or Haverstock Hill. Perhaps everything had worked out after all, she thought. Perhaps Azhar’s other children and his never-divorced wife were at this moment dining en famille at the local Chinese with Azhar, Hadiyyah, and Angelina. Perhaps they’d all come to terms with a brilliant way to share in each other’s lives, the wife forgiving the husband for having walked out on her for a university student whom he’d impregnated, the husband abjuring guilt for having done so, the former university student proving her worth as mother and quasi-stepmother to all of the children, everyone living in one of the odd family situations becoming so prevalent in their society …It could have happened, Barbara thought. Of course, all the pigs in England could have taken to the air today as well.
Meantime, it was as cold as the heart of a serial killer and she hurried down the path alongside the Edwardian house. It was very dimly lit as two of the five garden lights had burnt out and no one had replaced them yet, and it was darker still at the front of her bungalow since she’d not thought to turn the porch light on when she’d left that morning.
There was enough illumination, however, to see that someone was sitting on the single step in front of her door. This was a hunched figure, forehead on knees, fists raised to temples. The figure rocked slightly and when he raised his head at her approach, Barbara saw that it was Taymullah Azhar.