By the time the press briefing was over, Lynley’s jaw was clenched so tightly that his ears had begun to pound. He said nothing till he, Hillier, and Deacon were out of the room and on their own. Then it was, “If you ever do that to me again—”
Which Hillier cut off with a sharp, “You’d do well to remember who you’re talking to.”
To which Lynley concluded with, “—I’ll walk off this job so quickly, your head will spin.”
“Now see here,” Stephenson Deacon began.
At which point, Lynley had walked away. But it had taken two doses of the Macallan and a deep immersion into Tchaikovsky before he’d felt capable of speaking to another soul. And even then, it was only Charlie Denton with whom he’d been willing or able to exchange words. Did he want wine with dinner? Denton wanted to know. It was boeuf bourguignon.
Yes, Lynley wanted wine. He probably could do with an entire bottle.
He’d managed to recover his equilibrium by morning. He was rather later than usual to New Scotland Yard, a very long hot shower followed by a very brief cold shower having eaten up a good bit of time, so everyone was assembled when he arrived. They’d divided into two groups. Nkata was talking to some of them while Havers was talking to the others.
His “Where are we?” brought them into order.
The first report concerned Standing Warrior. All consignment shops had now been contacted, and the bronze sculpture was not in any of them nor had it been in the weeks between Teo Bontempi’s death and now. This proved true for all the charity shops as well. To this Barbara Havers added that all owners of the other twelve editions of the warrior were still in possession of them. It was only number 10 that remained missing, the sculpture that Ross Carver had given his estranged wife. That would be before the estranged bit, she added. She said all this in an unusual tone, Lynley thought. He looked at her curiously and caught her in the midst of what he could only receive as a hostile glare, directed at him.
“Is there something else?” he asked her.
“It can wait,” she said shortly.
Nkata’s group of DCs had been busy, both with CCTV footage and the location of the lock-up to which Women’s Health of Hackney’s contents had been taken. They also had made contact with the building’s owner and uncovered the lease on the clinic. The name on the lease was Easter Lange. It turned out that Easter Lange had also signed for the storage unit. She’d paid in cash as well, for three months of storage. They would need a search warrant for Mercy Hart’s lock-up, then, Lynley told them. If Standing Warrior had not been found in any of the shops, that was where it well might be, tucked into everything that had been removed from the clinic.
“Monifa Bankole’s given us a statement, as well.” Nkata handed a manila folder to Lynley. “She’s fingered Mercy Hart, guv. She admits it was FGM she was there for.”
Lynley took his spectacles from his jacket, opened the folder, and gave it a look. He read a bit of it and then flipped to the final page, where he saw her signature and the date. “We’ll want her picked up again,” he said. “Mercy Hart, that is. Arrange for that, Winston. If we can get her into a custody suite closer to town, that would be helpful. I expect her solicitor would appreciate that as well.”
Nkata nodded and then said, “She’s asking to see the kids, Monifa Bankole, guv.”
“Arrange that, then. But the kids stay where they are for now. There’s no telling where she’ll disappear to if she’s allowed to take them, and we’re going to need her. The CPS is going to need her as well.” To the rest of them, he said, “All eyes on the CCTV footage, then. We want anyone Teo as Adaku speaks to in Kingsland High Street. I daresay that footage remains the best route to her killer.”
He left them to it and headed for his office.
WESTMINSTER
CENTRAL LONDON
Barbara followed him. She’d been shooting daggers at him from the second he’d walked into the meeting. She knew he’d seen them hurled in his direction. She knew he was aware that something was off with her. Now she was going to let him know exactly what it was.
He hadn’t sat down at his desk before she was on him with, “I want a word with you. Now.”
He set the manila folder with Monifa Bankole’s statement on his desk. He said, “Something’s happened.”
“Oh, too right, that. Something’s bloody well happened. I thought you would probably want to know how it all turned out.”