She’d said, “I’m not prepared to say a word about a word over the phone. C’n you meet?”
That had done the trick. She hated to use Lynley that way— she hated to use him any way if it came down to it— but as he himself was the one who was asking her for information, she reckoned she was on the safe side of what was appropriate between friends.
Isabelle Ardery had been more difficult to deal with. When Barbara phoned to ask for the time off that she was owed, Ardery had been at once suspicious, as her questions of “Why? Where are you going?” indicated. Barbara had known the acting detective superintendent was probably going to be the difficult nail to pound into the board, so she’d had her excuse ready.
“Haircut,” she said. “Or perhaps I should say hairstyle. I’ve found a place in Knightsbridge.”
“So you just need the day,” Ardery had clarified.
“So far,” Barbara replied.
“What’s that supposed to mean, Sergeant?” There was that suspicion again. The super needed to do something about the sharpness in her voice if she wanted to hide her paranoia, Barbara thought.
She said, “Have some mercy, guv. If I end up looking like last night’s dinner, I’ll have to find someone to repair the damage. I’ll be in touch. I’m owed the time anyway.”
This was no lie, and Ardery knew that. Besides, she herself had been the one to order— in the guise of making a recommendation— an improvement in Barbara’s personal appearance. The superintendent had reluctantly agreed, although she’d added, “No more than two days,” to make certain Barbara knew which one of them was in charge.
On her way to the pub, Barbara had taken care of another of Lynley’s requests. She’d searched out the latest edition of Conception magazine, finding it at King’s Cross Station, where a WH Smith provided every journal imaginable in the railway terminal. That had been convenient since Barbara’s underground route from Chalk Farm took her through King’s Cross Station anyway. So all it had involved was a brief stop there, not to mention putting up with an evaluative glance from the young man behind the till when she paid for the journal. She could see it in his eyes and in the ever-so-slightly-amused movement of his mouth: Conception? You? Not bloody likely. She’d wanted to pull him over the counter by the neck of his white shirt, but the dirty ring round its collar stopped her. No need to expose herself so closely to someone whose personal hygiene didn’t extend to washing his clothes regularly, she’d decided.
She was leafing through Conception as she waited in the pub. She was wondering where they found all the perfect babies to photograph, along with all the mothers who looked dewy fresh and not at all like what they probably were, which was haggard with lack of sleep. She’d ordered herself a jacket potato topped with chili con carne and she was dipping into this and reading about the care of one’s nipples during breast-feeding— who knew it was so painful? she wondered— when her inside guy at The Source showed up.
Mitchell Corsico came into the pub in his usual getup. He always wore a Stetson, jeans, and cowboy boots, but Barbara saw he’d added a fringed leather jacket. God, she thought, chaps and six-guns were probably next. He saw her, jerked his head in a nod, and approached the bar to place his order. He looked at the menu for a moment, tossed it down, and told the publican what he wanted. He paid for it as well, and this Barbara took for a positive sign till he walked to her table and said, “Twelve pounds fifty.”
She said, “Bloody hell, what did you order?”
“Did I have a limit?”
She muttered and pulled out her purse. She dug for the cash and shoved it over as he reached for a chair and mounted it like a cowboy onto a horse. She said, “Where’s Trigger?”
“Say what?”
“Never mind.”
“That’s bad for your arteries,” he noted with a nod at her potato.
“And you ordered…?”
“All right. Never mind. What’s up?”
“Back-scratch situation.”
She saw the wariness across his features. Who could blame him? Corsico was the one who was usually coming to the cops for information and not the reverse. But hope passed crossed his features as well because he knew his stock was very low at the Yard. He’d been embedded with the police during the hunt for a serial killer nearly a year earlier, and he wasn’t popular because of that.
Still, he was careful. He said, “I don’t know. Let’s see. What d’you need?”
“A name.”
He remained noncommittal.
“There’s a reporter from The Source been sent up to Cumbria. I need to know who he is and why he’s there.” At this, he began to reach into his jacket pocket, so she said, “Uh, we haven’t started scratching yet, Mitch. Hold Trigger’s rein, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh. A horse.”
“Yeah. Just like Silver. Hi ho, and all that. I’d expect you to know this, all things considered. So who’s gone up there? And why?”
He considered. After a moment during which his meal arrived— roast beef and Yorkshire bloody pud and all the trimmings, and Barbara reckoned he didn’t eat like that unless someone else was footing the bill— he said, “I need to know what’s in it for me.”
“That’s going to depend on the value of your information.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” he said.
“Not usually. But things have changed. New super looking over my shoulder. I have to be careful.”
“An exclusive with DI Lynley would do.”
“Ha! Not bloody likely.”
He started to rise. Barbara knew it was show because there was no way in hell he was going to walk off and leave his roast beef and Yorkshire pud languishing uneaten at the table. But she played along and said, “All right. I’ll do what I can. So you do what you can. Who’s been sent to Cumbria?”
He spilled the beans as she reckoned he would. He gave her everything: Zedekiah Benjamin, a story on Nicholas Fairclough, a rejection by the editor, and a reporter’s determination to mould the story into something suitable for The Source instead of what he’d turned in at first, which appeared to be a puff piece that belonged in Hello! He’d been up to Cumbria at least three times now— maybe four— trying to sex up the story enough for Rodney Aronson, but he was apparently slow on the uptake. He’d not been getting anywhere till Ian Cresswell drowned.
This was an interesting bit, Barbara thought. She asked for the dates of Zedekiah Benjamin’s sojourns in Cumbria and she learned that two of those sojourns had occurred in advance of the Cresswell drowning. The second of these had ended just three days prior to the death, at which point Benjamin had apparently returned to London with his tail between his legs, having failed to suss out the sex that his editor required.
She said, “What happens to this bloke if he doesn’t find the sex?”
Corsico did the knife-across-the-throat business and topped that by flipping his thumb over his shoulder in case Barbara was too dim to work out what he meant. She nodded and said, “Know where he’s staying up there?”