This Body of Death: An Inspector Lynley Novel

by Elizabeth George

  There was no Sheldon Pockworth, nor had there ever been. There was instead one James Dugué, who looked more like a technocrat than a purveyor of coins and military medals from the Napoleonic Wars. When Lynley entered that morning, he found Dugué leafing through a heavy volume set upon a spotless glass counter. Beneath this gleamed gold and silver coins on a rotating rack. When Dugué looked up, his chic steel-rimmed spectacles caught the light. He wore a crisp pink shirt and a navy tie striped diagonally in green. His trousers were navy as well and, when he moved from beyond the counter to a second display case, Lynley saw that he had on blindingly white trainers and no socks. Brisk was a very good word to describe him. So, as things turned out, was certain.

  Lynley had come to the shop directly from his home rather than going into the Yard. He lived so close that it made more sense, and he’d phoned Isabelle on her mobile to tell her this as a courtesy. They’d spoken briefly, haltingly, and politely. The ground had slightly shifted beneath them.

  At the end of their dinner on the previous night, he’d walked with her to her car although she’d told him such a show of good breeding was hardly necessary as she was perfectly adept at defending herself in the unlikely event that she should be accosted in the fashionble Chelsea neighbourhood. Then she seemed to realise exactly what she’d said because she’d stopped completely on the pavement, turned to him, impulsively put her hand on his arm, and murmured, “Oh my God. I am so sorry, Thomas,” which told him she’d connected her remarks to what had happened to Helen, murdered in a neighbourhood not so different from this one and less than a mile away.

  He’d said, “Thank you. But you’ve no need, really …,” and he hesitated about saying more, stumbling rather with, “It’s only that …,” before he stopped again, in a search for words.

  They stood in the deep shadows of a leafy beech, the pavement beneath it already beginning to collect its leaves, fallen in the hot, dry summer. Once again he was aware of being nearly eye to eye with Isabelle Ardery: a tall woman, slender without being thin, cheekbones prominent—a fact he hadn’t noticed before—and eyes large, which he also hadn’t noticed. Her lips parted as if to say something.

  He held her gaze. A moment passed. A car door slammed nearby. He looked away. He said, “I do want people to have less care with me.”

  She made no reply.

  He said, “They’re afraid they’ll say something and I’ll be reminded. I understand that. I’d probably feel the same. But what I don’t understand is how anyone might think I actually need reminding or am afraid of being reminded.”

  Still, she said nothing.

  “What I mean is that she’s always there anyway. She’s a constant presence. How could she not be? She was doing such a simple thing, bringing in her shopping, and there they were. Two of them. He was twelve years old, the one who shot her. He did it for no reason really. Just because she was there. They’ve caught him but not the other and he—the boy—won’t name him. He won’t say a word about what happened. He hasn’t done since they found him. But the truth is, all I want to know was what she might have said to them before they …Because somehow I think I might feel …If I knew …” He suddenly found his throat was so tight that he knew he would, to his horror, weep if he did not stop speaking. He shook his head and cleared his throat. He kept his gaze on the street.

  Her hand was extraordinarily soft when she touched his. She said, “Thomas. You’ve no need. Really. Walk along with me.”

  As if she thought he might not do so, she put her hand at his elbow and with her other hand she held on to his arm. She brought him close to her side and it was oddly comforting. He realised that other than his immediate family and Deborah St. James, no one had touched him for months, aside from shaking his hand. It was as if people had become frightened of him, as if by touching him they believed the tragedy that had visited his life would somehow visit theirs. He found he felt such relief at her touch that he walked with her, and their steps fell into a natural rhythm.

  “There,” she said when they reached her car. She faced him. “I’ve had a pleasant evening. You’re very good company, Thomas.”

  “I’ve my doubts about that,” he said quietly.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. And it’s Tommy, actually. That’s what most people call me.”

  “Tommy. Yes. I’ve noticed.” She smiled and said, “I’m going to hug you now and you’re meant to know that this is in friendship.” She did so. She held him close to her—but only for a moment—and she also brushed her lips against his cheek. “I think I shall call you Thomas for now, if that’s all right,” she said before she left him.

  Now in the coin shop Lynley waited while the proprietor put his heavy volume away. Lynley handed him the card they’d found in Jemima Hastings’ bag, and he showed Dugué the Portrait Gallery photo of Jemima. He also showed his police identification.

  Surprisingly, after Dugué examined the warrant card, he said to Lynley, “You’re the policeman who lost his wife last February, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “I remember these things,” Dugué told him. “Terrible business, that. How can I help you?” And when Lynley nodded at the Portrait Gallery picture of Jemima, he said, “Yes. I remember her. She’s been into the shop.”

  “When?”

  Dugué considered the question. He looked out of the shop, which was mostly windows, and studied the corridor beyond it. He said, “Round Christmas. I can’t be more exact than that, but I do remember the decorations. Seeing her backlit by the fairy lights we put up in the corridor. So it would have been round Christmas, give or take two weeks in either direction. Unlike some establishments, we don’t keep our decorations up all that long. We all of us loathe them, to be honest. Along with the carols. Bing Crosby may dream of snow. I, for one, dream of strangling Bing Crosby at the end of one week having to listen to him.”

  “Did she make a purchase?”

  “As I recall, she wanted me to look at a coin. It was an aureus, and she thought it might be worth something.”

  “‘Aureus.’” Lynley considered his schoolboy Latin. “Gold, then. Was it worth a great deal?”

  “Not as much as one would think.”

  “Despite its being gold?” It seemed to Lynley that the price of gold alone would make it valuable. “Did she want to sell it?”

  “She just wanted to know what it was worth. And what it was, actually, because she’d no idea. She reckoned it was old and she was right about that. It was old. Round one-fifty AD.”

  “Roman, then. Did she say how she came to have it?”

  Dugué asked to look at the picture of Jemima again, as if this would stimulate his memory. After studying it for a moment he said slowly, “I believe she said it was among her father’s things. She didn’t tell me exactly, but I reckoned he’d died recently and she’d been going through his belongings the way one does, trying to sort out what to do with this and that.”

  “Did you offer to buy it?”

  “As I said, aside from the gold itself, it wasn’t worth enough. On the open market, I wouldn’t have been able to get a lot for it. You see …Here, let me show you.”

  He went to a desk behind the counter where he opened a drawer that had been fashioned to hold books. He ran his fingers along them and brought out one, saying, “What she had was an aureus minted during the reign of Antoninus Pius, the bloke who came to be emperor directly after Hadrian. Know about him?”

  “One of the Five Good Emperors,” Lynley said.

  Dugué looked impressed. “Not the sort of knowledge I’d think a copper would have.”

  “I read history,” Lynley admitted. “In another life.”

  “Then you know his was an unusual reign.”

  “Only that it was peaceful.”

  “Right. As one of the good guys, he wasn’t …Well, let’s say he wasn’t sexy. Or, at least, he’s not sexy now, not to collectors. He was intelligent, well educated, experienced, protective of Chr
istians, clement towards conspirators, and happy to stay in Rome and delegate responsibility to his provincial leaders. Loved his wife, loved his family, assisted the poor, practised economy.”

  “In a word, boring?”

  “Certainly compared to Caligula or Nero, eh?” Dugué smiled. “There’s not been a lot written about him, so I think collectors tend to dismiss him.”

  “Which makes his coins of less value on the market?”

  “That and the fact that there were two thousand different coins minted during his reign.” Dugué found what he was looking for in the volume, and he swung it to face Lynley.

  The page, Lynley saw, displayed both the obverse and the reverse of the aureus in question. The former depicted the emperor in profile, draped in the fashion of a bust, with CAES and ANTON-INVS in relief, parenthesising the emperor’s head. The latter showed a woman enthroned. This was Concordia, Dugué explained, a patera in her right hand and cornucopiae beneath her. These images were fairly standard stuff, the coin dealer went on, which was what he’d also told Jemima. He’d explained to her that although the coin itself was rare enough—“One generally comes across coins of baser metals because they were minted more regularly than the aureus”—its true value would come from the marketplace. That was defined by the demand for the coin among collectors.

  “So what are we talking about, exactly?” Lynley asked.

  “The value?” Dugué considered this, tapping his fingers against the top of the display case. “I’d say between five hundred and a thousand quid. If someone wanted it and if that person were bidding against someone else who wanted it. What you must remember,” Dugué concluded, “is that a coin needs to be—”

  “Sexy,” Lynley said. “I understand. The bad boys are the sexy ones, aren’t they?”

  “Sad,” Dugué confimed, “but true.”

  Could he then assume, Lynley asked, that Sheldon Pockworth Numismatics did not have an aureus from the period of Antoninus Pius among its stock?

  He could, Dugué said. If the inspector wanted to look at an actual aureus from that time, he would likely find one in the British Museum.

  BARBARA HAVERS HAD been forced to begin her day by shaving her legs, which hadn’t done much to elevate her mood. She was fast discovering that there was a domino effect to altering her physical appearance: For example, the wearing of a skirt—A-line or otherwise—dictated either the wearing of tights or going bare legged, and either choice demanded that something be done about the condition of her legs. This required the application of razor to skin. That required shaving cream or some other kind of lather, which she did not possess, so she used a dollop of Fairy Liquid instead to develop some suds activity. But the entire operation led to the excavation of a plaster from her medicine cabinet when she sliced into her ankle and blood gushed forth. She shrieked then cursed. What the flaming hell, she wondered, did how she dressed have to do with what she was able to accomplish as a cop anyway?

  There was no question, however, that she would wear the skirt. That had been dictated not only by the acting superintendent’s pointed suggestion but more by the fact that Hadiyyah had gone to such an extreme to make it ready for her. Indeed, what was also demanded of the morning was that Barbara stop at the Big House upon leaving her bungalow, her purpose to show Hadiyyah how she looked. She had on the new bracelet and the blouse as well, but she’d eschewed the scarf. Too hot, she reasoned. She’d save it for autumn.

  Azhar came to the door. Hadiyyah appeared behind him at once when she heard Barbara’s voice. They both exclaimed over the dubious alteration in Barbara’s appearance. “You look lovely!” Hadiyyah cried, hands clasped beneath her chin as if to keep herself from bursting into applause. “Dad, doesn’t Barbara look lovely?”

  Barbara said, “Not exactly the word, kiddo, but thanks all the same.”

  “Hadiyyah is right,” Azhar said. “All of it suits you, Barbara.”

  “And she’s got on makeup,” Hadiyyah said. “See how she’s got on makeup, Dad? Mummy always says makeup’s just to enhance what you got, and Barbara’s used it just like Mummy. Don’t you think so, Dad?”

  “Indeed.” Azhar put his arm round Hadiyyah’s shoulders. “You’ve both done very well, khushi,” he told her.

  Barbara felt the pleasure of their compliments. She knew they were due to kindness and friendship and nothing more—she was not nor would she ever be a remotely attractive woman—but still, she fancied that their gazes remained fixed on her as she went to the garden gate for the walk to her car.

  Once at work, she put up with the hoots and good-natured teasing of her colleagues. She suffered their remarks in silence as she looked round for Lynley and found him missing. As was the acting superintendent, she learned. First thing that had happened that day: Hillier had demanded Isabelle Ardery’s presence in his office.

  Had Lynley gone with her? She asked the question of Winston Nkata. She tried to make it casual, but he wasn’t deceived.

  “Got to wait and see, Barb,” was how he put it. “Anyt’ing else, you make yourself crazy.”

  She scowled. She hated the fact that Winston Nkata knew her so well, and she couldn’t reckon how he’d managed the accomplishment. Was she that bloody obvious about everything? What else had Nkata worked out?

  She asked, abruptly, if anyone had gathered any useful information about Zachary Whiting. Was there anything besides the fact that he was once or twice too enthusiastic about being a cop, whatever that meant when it was home for supper? But there was nothing. Everyone was working on something else. Barbara sighed. It seemed that if anything was to be dug out about anyone in Hampshire, she was going to have to do the digging.

  This was down to what SO7 had reported about the hairs found clasped in Jemima Hastings’ hand. With Oriental hairs on the body, stacked alongside a murder weapon in the possession of a Japanese violinist, and the victim’s blood on his clothing, and witnesses seeing him in the vicinity wearing that clothing on the day of her death, it wasn’t going to appear to be a matter of urgency to go digging deeper into the background of one marginally suspicious cop. And this despite the discovery of a yellow, bloodstained shirt in a recycling bin across the river in Putney. That had to mean something, as did the presence of the victim’s handbag in that same bin.

  Barbara went for Whiting first. Since someone had reported him being rather too enthusiastic with his work, surely there were going to be records somewhere that further defined exactly what his enthusiasm had been about. One merely had to follow the trail of Whiting’s career to find someone willing to talk frankly about the bloke. Where, for example, had he been before Lyndhurst? He could hardly have spent his entire career climbing the ranks in a single station. That just didn’t happen.

  The Home Office was going to be the likeliest source of information, but excavating for it was not going to be quick or easy. The hierarchy of the place constituted a labyrinth, and it was peopled by the Under-Secretary, the Deputy Under-Secretaries, the Assistant Under-Secretaries, and the Assistant Secretaries. Most of these individuals commanded their own staffs, and these staffs manned all of the different departments that were responsible for policing in the country. Of all the departments, the section that dealt with powers and procedure seemed the best option to Barbara. The question was: Whom did she ring, pay a call upon, invite out for a coffee, arm-twist, bribe, or beg? That was a real problem because unlike other cops who cultivated connections the way farmers grow their crops, Barbara had never possessed the social skills to rub elbows with people who might later be useful to her. But there had to be someone who did have those skills, who’d used them, who could come up with a name …

  She considered her colleagues. Lynley was the best possibility, but he wasn’t there. Philip Hale was also likely, but he remained at St. Thomas’ Hospital under Ardery’s orders, ill conceived though they were. John Stewart was out of the question as he was the last person on the planet from whom Barbara would ask a favour. Winston Nkata’s connecti
ons were street oriented as a result of the time he’d spent as chief battle counsel for the Brixton Warriors. This left the constables and the civilian staff, which in turn left the most obvious person of all. Barbara wondered that she hadn’t reckoned from the first that Dorothea Harriman could be of assistance in this matter.

  She located the departmental secretary in the copy room, where in lieu of copying she appeared to be applying nail enamel to her tights for some reason. She was wearing one of her stylish pencil skirts—Barbara felt she was becoming something of an expert in the matter of skirts—which was appropriate to her lanky figure, and she had this hiked to the middle of her thighs as she used the nail polish against her tights.

  “Dee,” Barbara said.

  Harriman started. “Oh my goodness,” she said. “What a fright, Detective Sergeant Havers.”

  For a moment, Barbara thought she was referring to her own appearance. Then she realised what Harriman actually meant, and she said, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to surprise you. What’re you doing with that?”

  “This?” Harriman held up the bottle of nail enamel. “Ladder,” she said. And when Barbara looked at her blankly, “On my tights? It stops ladders from going further. Didn’t you know?”

  Barbara said hastily, “Oh yeah. Ladders. Sorry. Don’t know what I was thinking. Have a moment, then?”

  “Well, of course.”

  “C’n we … ?”

  Since she was going her own way in matters, Barbara knew the wisdom of keeping this situation strictly entre nous. She tilted her head towards the corridor and Harriman followed her. They went along it and into the stairwell.

  Barbara explained what she wanted: a snout at the Home Office, someone willing to do a little snoop-and-talk about one Chief Superintendent Zachary Whiting of the Hampshire Constabulary. She reckoned this potential snout had to be employed within the powers and procedures section of the Home Office because that was where information about criminal records, regional crime squads, detective work, and complaints was housed. She had a feeling that within one of those areas there was going to be some tiny detail—possibly something that might seem otherwise insignificant to a person not actually looking for it—that would put her on to what Whiting was up to out in Hampshire. Surely, she said, Dorothea Harriman knew someone who might be able to direct them to another someone who in turn could find a third someone … ?