“Why were you checking the bin?” Lynley asked.

“To see how soon it would need emptying, obviously,” was her withering reply. It seemed, not unreasonably, that the other bins collected recycling matter far more quickly than did the Oxfam bin. While they were emptied twice each month, the Oxfam bin was not.

“She’d have no way of knowing that,” Bella said.

“We’ll want to go through this bin,” Isabelle said. “You’ve not done anything with its contents, have you?”

She hadn’t done, for which Isabelle praised God. She told the woman that someone would fetch the bin from her and in the meantime, she wasn’t to open it again or even touch it.

“It’s important, isn’t it?” Bella looked quite pleased with herself. “I knew it was important, didn’t I.”

There was no doubt of that, although how to interpret the handbag’s importance was something over which Isabelle found herself at odds with Lynley. As they rode the lift on their return to the incident room, she said to him, “He had to have known where she lived, Thomas.”

Lynley said, “Who?” and the way he said it told her he was thinking in another direction entirely.

“Matsumoto. It would have been a simple matter for him to put the handbag in that bin.”

“And keep the murder weapon?” Lynley asked. “How d’you reckon his thinking went on that one?”

“He’s mad as a hatter. He isn’t thinking. He wasn’t thinking. Or if he was thinking, he was thinking about doing what the angels told him to do. Get rid of this, hold on to that, run, hide, follow her, whatever.” She glanced at him sharply. He was gazing at the floor of the lift, his brow furrowed and the knuckle of his index finger to his lips in a posture that suggested consideration of her words and of everything else. She said, “Well?”

He said, “We’ve Paolo di Fazio inside that house. We’ve Frazer Chaplin inside it as well. And then there’s the matter of Yolanda.”

“You can’t mean to suggest another woman killed Jemima Hastings. By driving a spike into her carotid artery? Heavens, Thomas, the entire means of murder isn’t the least bit feminine, and I daresay you know it.”

“I agree it’s unlikely,” Lynley said. “But I don’t want to discount the fact that Yolanda might be protecting someone who handed the bag over to her and asked her to be rid of it. She wants talking to.”

“Oh, for God’s bloody sake…” And then she saw his expression. She knew from it that he was assessing her, and she also knew what he was assessing. She felt a bubble of anger that any man should stand in judgement of her in a situation in which he would not stand in judgement of another male. She said, “I want to have a close look at the contents of that bag before we hand it over to forensics. And don’t bloody tell me that’s irregular, Thomas. We don’t have time to wait round for those blokes to tell us every fingerprint is useless. We need a result.”

“You’re-”

“We’ll wear gloves, all right? And the bag won’t leave my sight or yours. Does that please or do you want more guarantees?”

“I was going to say you’re in charge. You give the orders,” he replied. “I was going to say it’s your case.”

She doubted that. He was as smooth as icing on a cake, he was. She said, “It is. Mind you remember that,” as they left the lift together.

The most important belonging of Jemima Hastings inside the bag was the mobile phone, and this Isabelle handed over to John Stewart with orders to deal with it, to listen to voice messages, to trace calls, to read and make note of any and all texts, and to get his hands on the mobile’s records. “We’ll want to use the mobile phone towers as well,” she added. “The pinging, or whatever the hell they call it.” The rest of the contents she and Lynley went through together, most of it seeming to be perfectly straightforward: a small folding map of London, a paperback novel showing a predilection for historical mysteries, a wallet holding thirty-five pounds along with two credit cards; three biros, a broken pencil, a pair of sunglasses in a case, a hairbrush, a comb, four lipsticks, and a mirror. There was also a list of products from the cigar shop, along with an advertisement for Queen’s Ice and Bowl-“Great Food! Birthday Parties! Corporate Events!”-an offer for membership to a Putney gym and spa, and business cards from Yolanda the Psychic, London Skate Centre, Abbott Langer Professional Ice Instructor, and Sheldon Pockworth Numismatics.

This last gave Isabelle pause as she tried to recall what numismatics referred to. She came up with stamps. Lynley said coins.

She told him to check it out. He said, “Along with Yolanda? Because I still think-”

“All right. Along with Yolanda. But I swear she has nothing to do with this, Thomas. A woman did not commit this crime.”

LYNLEY FOUND YOLANDA the Psychic’s place of business in Queensway with little trouble although he had to wait outside the faux mews building where she plied her trade because a sign on the door declared IN SESSION! NO ENTRY!, and from this he assumed that Yolanda was in the process of doing whatever it was that psychics did for their clients: tea leaves, tarot cards, palms, or the like. He fetched himself a take-away coffee from a Russian café tucked in the junction of two of the indoor market’s corridors, and he returned to Psychic Mews with cup in hand. By that time, the sign had been removed from the door, so he finished the coffee quickly and let himself in.

“That you, dearest?” Yolanda called from an inner room, shielded from the reception area by a beaded curtain. “Bit early, aren’t you?”

“No,” Lynley replied to her first question. “DI Lynley. New Scotland Yard.”

She came through the curtain. He took in her startling orange hair and her tailored suit that he recognised-with thanks to his wife-as either vintage Coco Chanel or a Coco Chanel knockoff. She wasn’t what he had expected.

She stopped when she saw him. “It throbs,” she said.

He blinked. “Pardon?”

“Your aura. It’s taken a terrible blow. It wants to regain its strength but something’s got in the way.” She held her hand up before he could reply. She cocked her head as if listening to something. “Hmm. Yes,” she said. “It’s not for nothing, you know. She intends to return. In the meantime your part is to become ready for her. That’s a dual message.”

“From the great beyond?” He asked the question lightly but, of course, he thought at once of Helen, no matter the irrationality of applying the idea of return to someone so completely gone.

Yolanda said, “You’d be wise not to make light of these matters. Those who make light generally regret it. What’d you say your name was?”

“DI Lynley. Is that what happened to Jemima Hastings? Did she make light?”

Yolanda ducked behind a screen for a moment. Lynley heard the scratch of a match. He thought she was lighting incense or a candle-either seemed likely and there was already a cone of incense burning at the crossed legs of a seated Buddha-but she emerged with a cigarette. She said to him, “It’s good that you gave it up. I don’t see you dying because of your lungs.”

He absolutely refused to be seduced. He said, “As to Jemima?”

“She didn’t smoke.”

“That didn’t much help her in the end, did it?”

Yolanda took a heavy hit from the tobacco. “I already talked to the cops,” she said. “That black man. Strongest aura I’ve seen in years. P’rhaps ever, to tell you the truth. But that woman with him? The one with the teeth? I’d say she has issues impeding her growth, and they aren’t exactly dental. What would you say?”

“May I call you Mrs. Price?” Lynley asked. “I understand that’s your real name.”

“You may not. Not on these premises. Here, I’m Yolanda.”

“Very well. Yolanda. You were in Oxford Road earlier today. We must talk about that, about Jemima Hastings as well. Shall we do it here or elsewhere?”