“Such as?”

“I don’t know. Sit on boards of hospitals and universities? Breed thoroughbred horses? Manage property-his own, naturally-and collect rent from farmers wearing flat caps and Wellingtons?”

“Those would be the ones who come to the kitchen door and keep their eyes cast downward? The ones who hastily remove those flat caps in my presence? Pulling on their forelocks and all the rest?”

“What in God’s name is a forelock?” she asked. “I’ve always wondered. I mean, it’s clear that it’s hair and it’s in the front but how much of it constitutes a ‘fore’ of it and why on earth would someone pull it?”

“It’s all part of the bowing and scraping,” he said solemnly. “Part of the general peasant-and-master routine that comprises life for my sort of man.”

She looked at him. “Damn you, your eyes are actually twinkling.”

He said, “Sorry,” and he smiled.

She said, “It’s bloody hot, isn’t it. Look, I need something cool to drink, Thomas. And we could use the time to talk. There’s got to be a pub nearby.”

He reckoned there was, but he also wanted to have a look at the spot where the body had been found. They’d arrived back at her car at the front of the cemetery, and he made his request: Would she take him to the chapel where Jemima Hastings’ body had been found? Even as he spoke the words, he recognised another step being taken. Five months since his wife’s murder on the front steps of their house. In February even a hint that he might be willing to look upon a place where someone had died had been unthinkable.

As he reckoned she might, the superintendent asked why he wanted to see it. She sounded suspicious, as if she thought he was checking up on her work. She pointed out that the site had been checked, had been cleared, had been reopened to the public, and he told her that it was curiosity and nothing more. He’d seen the pictures; he wanted to see the place.

She acquiesced. He followed her inside the cemetery and along paths that twisted into the trees. It was cooler here, with foliage sheltering them from the sun and no concrete pavements sending the heat upward in unavoidable waves. He noticed that she was what once would have been called “a fine figure of a woman” as she strode ahead of him, and she walked as she seemed to do everything else: with confidence.

At the chapel, she directed him round the side. There the shelter stood and beyond it the baked grass of a clearing gave onto more of the graveyard, a stone bench on the edge of this. Another stone bench was across from the first, with three overgrown tombs and one crumbling mausoleum behind it.

“Fingertip, perimeter, and a grid, producing a diligent search,” Ardery told him. “Nothing except what you’d expect in this kind of place.”

“Which would be…?”

“Soft drink cans and other assorted rubbish, pencils, pens, plans of the park, crisp bags, chocolate wrappers, old Oyster cards-yes, they’re being checked into-and enough used condoms to give one hope that sexually transmitted diseases might one day be a thing of the past.” And then, “Oh. Sorry. That wasn’t appropriate.”

He’d been standing in the doorway to the shelter, and he turned to see that a dark flush was climbing up her neck.

She said, “The condom thing. Other way round, it could be construed as sexual harassment. I apologise for the comment.”

“Ah,” he said. “Well, no offence taken. But I’ll be on guard in the future, so take care, guv.”

“Isabelle,” she said. “You can call me Isabelle.”

“I’m on duty,” he said. “What d’you make of the graffito?” He indicated the wall of the shelter where GOD GOES WIRELESS and the eye in the triangle were rendered in black.

“Old,” she said. “Placed here long before her death. And smacking of the Masons. You?”

“We’re of the same mind.”

“Good,” she said. And when he turned back to her, he saw that the flush on her skin was receding. She said, “If you’ve seen enough, then, I’d like that drink. There’re cafés on Stoke Newington Church Street, and I expect we can find a pub as well.”

They left the cemetery by a different route, this one taking them past the monument which Lynley recognised as the background that Deborah St. James had used for her photograph of Jemima Hastings. It sat at the junction of two paths: a marble life-size male lion on a plinth. He paused and read the monument’s inscription that they “would all meet again on some happy Easter morning.” Were that only the truth, he thought.

The superintendent was watching him, but she said nothing other than, “It’s this way, Thomas,” and she led him to the street.

They found both a café and a pub in very short order. Ardery chose the pub. Once inside, she disappeared into the ladies’, telling him to order her a cider and saying, “For God’s sake, it’s mild, Thomas,” when he apparently looked surprised at her choice, as they would be on duty for hours. She told him that she wasn’t about to police her team regarding their choice of liquid refreshment. If someone wanted a lager in the middle of the day, she didn’t care. It’s the work that matters, she informed him, and the quality of that work. Then off she went to the ladies’. For his part, he ordered her cider-“And make it a pint, please” she’d said-and got a bottle of mineral water for himself. He took these to a table tucked away in a corner, then he changed his mind and chose another one, more suitable, he thought, for two colleagues at work.

She proved herself a typical woman, at least in matters pertaining to her disappearance into the ladies’. She was gone at least five minutes and when she returned, she’d rearranged her hair. It was behind her ears now, revealing earrings, he saw. They were navy, edged in gold. The navy matched the colour of her dress. He wondered about the little vanities of women. Helen had never merely dressed in the morning: She had put together entire ensembles.

For God’s sake, Helen, aren’t you only going out to buy petrol?

Darling Tommy, I might actually be seen!

He blinked, poured water into his glass. There was lime with it, and he squeezed the wedge hard.

Ardery said, “Thank you.”

He said, “They had only one brand.”

“I didn’t mean the cider. I meant thank you for not standing up. I expect you usually do.”

“Ah. That. Well, the manners are beaten into one from birth, but I reckoned you’d rather I eschewed them at work.”

“Have you ever had a female superior officer before?” And when he shook his head, “You’re coping rather well.”

“It’s what I do.”

“You cope?”

“Yes.” When he said it, though, he saw how it could lead to a discussion he didn’t want to have. So he said, “And what about you, Superintendent Ardery?”

“You won’t call me Isabelle, will you?”

“I won’t.”

“Whyever not? This is private, Thomas. We’re colleagues, you and I.”

“On duty.”

“Will that be your answer for everything?”

He thought about this, how convenient it was. “Yes. I expect it will.”

“And should I be offended?”

“Not at all. Guv.”

He looked at her and she held the look. The moment became a man-woman thing. That was always the risk when the sexes mixed. With Barbara Havers it had always been something so far out of the question as to be nearly laughable. With Isabelle Ardery, this was not the case. He looked away.

She said lightly, “I believed him. You? I realise he could have been going back to the scene of the crime, checking on the body to see if she’d been found yet, but I don’t think it’s likely. He doesn’t seem clever enough to have thought it all through.”

“You mean taking the magazine with him so it would appear he had a reason to duck into the shelter?”

“That’s what I mean.”

Lynley agreed with her. Marlon Kay was an unlikely killer. The superintendent had gone the way of wisdom in dealing with the situation, though. Before they’d left the boy and his surly father, she made the arrangements for his fingerprints to be taken and his mouth to be swabbed, and she’d had a look through his clothing. There was nothing yellow among it. As for the trainers he’d worn that day in the cemetery, they were devoid of visible signs of blood but would be sent to forensics anyway. In all of this Marlon had been completely cooperative. He seemed anxious to please them at the same time as he was eager to show he had nothing to do with the death of Jemima Hastings.