“Isn’t the pavement hot on your feet?” he called back.

“Absolutely horrible,” she admitted cheerfully. “I wanted Simon to carry me but given the choice between Peach and myself, the wretch chose Peach.”

“Divorce is the only answer,” Lynley said. They came up to him then, and Peach-recognising him as she would do-squirmed to be put down so that she could jump up and demand to be held again. She barked, wagged her tail, and jumped a few more times as Lynley shook St. James’s hand and accepted Deborah’s fierce hug. He said, “Hullo, Deb,” against her hair.

She said, “Oh, Tommy,” in reply. And then stepping back and scooping up the dachshund who continued to writhe, bark, and demand to be noticed, “You’re looking very well. It’s so good to see you. Simon, doesn’t Tommy look well?”

“Almost as well as the car.” St. James had gone to have a look at the Healey Elliott. He gave an admiring whistle. “Have you brought it by to gloat?” he said to Lynley. “My God, it’s a beauty. Nineteen forty-eight, isn’t it?”

St. James had long been a lover of vintage cars and himself drove an old MG, modified to cope with his braced left leg. It was a TD classic, circa 1955, but the age of the Healey Elliott along with its shape made it rare and a virtual eyeful. St. James shook his head-dark hair overlong as always and doubtless Deborah was banging on daily about his need for a haircut-and gave a long sigh. “Where’d you find it?” he asked.

“Exeter,” Lynley said. “I saw it advertised. Poor bloke spent years of his life restoring it but his wife considered it a rival-”

“And who can blame her?” Deborah said pointedly.

“-and wouldn’t let go of the matter till he’d sold it.”

“Complete madness,” St. James murmured.

“Yes. Well. There I was with cash in hand and a Healey Elliott in front of me.”

“You know, we’ve been to Ranelagh Gardens having a chat about some new adoption possibilities,” St. James said to Lynley. “That’s where we were coming from just now. But truth to tell? Babies be damned. I’d like to adopt this motor instead.”

Lynley laughed.

“Simon!” Deborah protested.

“Men will be men, my love,” St. James told her. And then to Lynley, “How long’ve you been back, Tommy? Come inside. We were just talking about a Pimm’s in the garden. Will you join us?”

“Why else live in summer?” Lynley replied. He followed them into the house, where Deborah placed the dog on the floor and Peach headed towards the kitchen in the eternal dachshund search for food. “Two weeks,” he said to St. James.

“Two weeks?” Deborah said. “And you’ve not phoned? Tommy, does anyone else know you’re back?”

“Denton’s not killed the fatted calf for the neighbourhood, if that’s what you’re asking,” Lynley said dryly. “But that’s at my request. He’d have hired skywriters if I’d allowed it.”

“He must be glad you’re home. We’re glad you’re home. You’re meant to be home.” Deborah clasped his hand briefly and then called out to her father. She threw her sandals at the base of a coat rack, said over her shoulder, “I’ll ask Dad to do us that Pimm’s, shall I?” and went in the same direction as the dog, down to the basement kitchen at the back of the house.

Lynley watched her go, realising he’d lost touch with what it was like to be around a woman he knew well. Deborah St. James was nothing like Helen, but she matched her in energy and liveliness. That understanding brought with it sudden pain. Briefly, it took his breath.

“Let’s go outside, shall we?” St. James said.

Lynley saw how well his old friend read him. “Thank you,” he said.

They found a place beneath the ornamental cherry tree, where worn wicker furniture sat round a table. There Deborah joined them. She carried a tray on which she’d placed a jug of Pimm’s, a bucket of ice, and glasses displaying the requisite spears of cucumber. Peach followed her and in her wake came the St. Jameses’ great grey cat Alaska, who immediately took up slinking along the herbaceous border in pursuit of imagined rodents.

Around them were the sounds of Chelsea in summer: distant cars roaring along the Embankment, the twittering of sparrows in the trees, people calling out from the garden next door. On the air the scent of a barbecue rose, and the sun continued to bake the ground.

“I’ve had an unexpected visitor,” Lynley said. “Acting Superintendent Isabelle Ardery.” He told them the substance of his visit from Ardery: her request and his indecision.

“What will you do?” St. James asked. “You know, Tommy, it might be time.”

Lynley looked beyond his friends to the flowers that comprised the herbaceous border at the base of the old brick wall defining the edge of the garden. Someone-likely Deborah-had been giving them a great deal of care, likely by recycling the washing-up water. They looked better this year than they had in the past, bursting with life and colour. He said, “I managed to cope with the nursery at Howenstow and her country clothing. Some of the nursery here as well. But I’ve not been able to face her things in London. I thought I might be ready when I arrived two weeks ago, but it seems I’m not.” He took a drink of his Pimm’s and gazed at the garden wall on which clematis climbed in a mass of lavender blooms. “It’s all still there, in the wardrobe and the chest of drawers. In the bathroom as well: cosmetics, her scent bottles. The hairbrush still has strands of her hair…It was so dark, you know, with bits of auburn.”

“Yes,” St. James said.

Lynley heard it in Simon’s voice: the terrible grief that St. James would not express, believing as he did that, by rights, Lynley’s own grief was so much greater. And this despite the fact that St. James, too, had loved Helen dearly and had once intended to marry her. He said, “My God, Simon-” but St. James interrupted. “You’re going to have to give it time,” he said.

“Do,” Deborah said, and she looked between them. And in this, Lynley saw that she, too, knew. And he thought of the ways one mindless act of violence had touched on so many people and three of them sat there in the summer garden, each of them reluctant to say her name.

The door from the basement kitchen opened, and they turned to anticipate whoever was about to come out. This turned out to be Deborah’s father, who had long run the household and just as long been an aide to St. James. Lynley thought at first he meant to join them but instead Joseph Cotter said, “More company, luv,” to his daughter. “Was wondering…?” He inclined his head a fraction towards Lynley.

Lynley said, “Don’t please turn someone away on my account, Joseph.”

“Fair enough,” Cotter said, and to Deborah, “’Cept I thought his lordship might not want-”

“Why? Who is it?” Deborah asked.

“Detective Sergeant Havers,” he said. “Not sure what she wants, luv, but she’s asking for you.”

THE LAST PERSON Barbara expected to see in the back garden of the St. James home was her erstwhile partner. But there he was and it took her only a second to process it: The amazing motor out in the street had to be his. It made perfect sense. He suited the car and the car suited him.

Lynley looked much better than when she’d last seen him two months earlier in Cornwall. Then, he’d been the walking wounded. Now, he looked more like the walking contemplative. She said to him, “Sir. Are you back as in back or are you just back?”

Lynley smiled. “At the moment, I’m merely back.”

“Oh.” She was disappointed and she knew her face showed it. “Well,” she said. “One step at a time. You finished the Cornwall walk?”

“I did,” he said. “Without further incident.”

Deborah offered Barbara a Pimm’s, which Barbara would have loved to toss back. Either that or pour over her head because the day was broiling her inside her clothing and she was cursing DI Ardery once again for directing her to alter her manner of dress. This was just the sort of weather that called for drawstring trousers in linen and a very loose T-shirt, not for a skirt, tights, and a blouse courtesy of another shopping event with Hadiyyah, this one more quickly accomplished because Hadiyyah was persistent and Barbara was, if not amenable to Hadiyyah’s persistence, then at least detrited by Hadiyyah’s persistence. The small favour for which Barbara thanked God was that her young friend had chosen a blouse without a pussy bow.