Ardery finished making the assignments. She concluded these with the fact that Detective Sergeant Havers would track down a woman called Yolanda the Psychic.
“Yolanda the what?” was Havers’ response.
Ardery ignored her. They’d had a phone call from Bella McHaggis, she said, Jemima Hastings’ landlady in Putney. A Yolanda the Psychic needed to be looked into. It seemed she’d been stalking Jemima-“Bella’s word, not mine”-so they needed to find her and give her a grilling. “I trust you have no difficulty with that, Sergeant?”
Havers shrugged. She glanced at Lynley. He knew what her expectation was. So, apparently, did Isabelle Ardery because she announced to everyone, “Inspector Lynley will work with me for the time being. DS Nkata, you’ll be partnered with Barbara.”
ISABELLE ARDERY HANDED Lynley the keys to her car. She told him where it was, said she’d meet him down below after she popped into the ladies’, and then she popped into the ladies’. She peed and downed her vodka simultaneously, but the vodka went down a bit too fast for her liking, and she was glad she’d brought the other bottle. So as she flushed the toilet she downed the second one. She tucked both bottles back into her bag. She made sure they kept their distance from each other, each one nicely wrapped in a tissue, for it wouldn’t do to go clinking and clanking about like a half-slewed tart with more where that came from. Especially, she thought, since there wasn’t more where that came from unless she stopped off at a convenient off-licence, which she was highly unlikely to do in the company of Thomas Lynley.
She’d said, “You and I will take on Covent Garden,” and neither he nor anyone else had questioned her in the matter. She intended to remain close to any operation if she got the superintendent’s position, and, as far as everyone was concerned, Lynley was there to help her learn the ropes. Having him take her out and about would serve to reinforce the point that she had his support. For her part, she wanted to get to know the man. Whether he realised it or not, he was the competition in more ways than one, and she meant to disarm him in more ways than one.
She paused at the line of basins to wash, and she used the time also to smooth her hair and tuck it neatly behind her ears, to fish her sunglasses out of her bag, and to put on fresh lipstick. She chewed two breath mints and placed a Listerine strip on her tongue for good measure. She went down to the car park where she found Lynley standing alongside her Toyota.
Ever the gentleman-the man had probably learned his manners from the cot-he opened the passenger door for her. She told him sharply not to do that again-“We’re not going on a date, Inspector”-and they set off. He was a very good driver, she noted. From Victoria Street to the vicinity of Covent Garden, Lynley didn’t look at anything other than the roadway, the pavements, or the Toyota’s mirrors, and he didn’t bother to make conversation. That was fine with her. Driving with her former husband had always been torture for Isabelle, as Bob was prone to believing he could multitask, and the tasks he engaged in behind the wheel were disciplining the boys, arguing with her, driving, and frequently having mobile phone conversations. They’d jumped more red lights, sped through more occupied zebra crossings, and made right turns into more oncoming traffic than Isabelle cared to remember. Part of the pleasure of divorce had been the novel security of driving herself.
Covent Garden was no great distance from New Scotland Yard, but their route forced them to cope with the congestion in Parliament Square, which was always worse in the summer months. On this particular day, there was a heavy police presence in the vicinity, since a mass of protestors had gathered near St. Margaret’s Church, and constables wearing bright yellow windbreakers were attempting to herd them in the direction of Victoria Tower Garden.
Things weren’t much better in Whitehall, where traffic was stalled near Downing Street. But this turned out to be not because of another protest but rather due to a plethora of gawkers swarming the iron gates in anticipation of God only knew what. Thus, it was more than half an hour between the time Lynley turned the car from Broadway into Victoria Street and the time he managed to park in Long Acre with a police identification propped in the windscreen.
Covent Garden had long since morphed from the picturesque flower market of Eliza Doolittle fame to the commercial nightmare of globalisation run amok that it now was: largely devoted to anything that tourists might be willing to purchase and largely avoided by anyone of sense who lived in the locality. Day workers from the area doubtless used its pubs, restaurants, and freestanding food stalls, but its myriad doorways were otherwise undarkened by London’s citizenry, unless it was to make a purchase of that which could not easily be purchased elsewhere.
Such was the case with the tobacconist’s, where, according to Barbara Havers’ report, Sidney St. James had first come upon Jemima Hastings. They found this establishment at the south end of the Courtyard Shops, and they wended their way to it through what seemed to be buskers of every shape and form: from individuals artfully posing as statues in Long Acre to magicians, unicycle-riding jugglers, two one-man bands, and one energetic air guitarist. These all vied for donations in virtually every space that was not otherwise occupied by a kiosk, a table, chairs, and people milling about eating ice lollies, jacket potatoes, and falafel. It was just the sort of place the boys would have adored, Isabelle thought. It was just the sort of place that made her want to run screaming for the nearest point of solitude, which was likely the church at the far southwest end of the square that Covent Garden comprised.
Things were marginally improved in the Courtyard Shops, most of which were moderately high end, so the ubiquitous bands of teenagers and tourists in trainers elsewhere were absent here. The quality of busking was elevated as well. In a lower-level courtyard that housed a restaurant with open-air seating, a middle-aged violinist played to the orchestral accompaniment of a boom box.
A sign reading SEGAR AND SNUFF PARLOUR hung above the tobacconist’s multipaned front window, and near its door stood the traditional wooden figure of the Highlander in full kilted regalia, a flask of snuff in his hands. Printed chalkboards leaned against the door and beneath the window, and they advertised exclusive tobaccos and the shop’s daily speciality, which today was the Larranaga Petit Corona.
Five people could not have fitted comfortably within the cigar shop, so tiny was it. Its air fragrant with the perfume of unsmoked tobacco, it comprised a single, old oak display case of pipe-and cigar-smoking paraphernalia, locked glass-fronted oak cabinets of cigars, and a small back room devoted to dozens of glass canisters filled with tobacco and labeled with various scents and flavours. The paraphernalia display case also served as the shop’s main counter, with an electronic scale, a till, and another smaller locked cabinet of cigars standing atop it. Behind this counter, the shop assistant was completing a sale to a woman making a purchase of cigarillos. He called out, “Be with you presently, my dears,” in the sort of singsong voice one might have expected from a fop of an earlier century. As it was, the voice was completely at odds with the age and appearance of the shop assistant. He looked no older than twenty-one and although he was dressed neatly in light-weight summer clothing, he had gauges in his ears and he’d apparently worn them long enough to have stretched his lobes to a skin-crawling size. During the ensuing conversation he had with Isabelle and Lynley, he continually poked his little finger through the holes. Isabelle found the behaviour so repellent that it made her feel rather faint.