To Jake’s surprise she found the Minister agreeing with her. ‘That’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard all day,’ said Mrs Miles.
‘Minister—’
She turned her handsome profile to Waring and silenced him with a wave of her heavily-ringed hand. Jake noticed a manicure that looked less than Ministerial. Mrs Miles had fingernails that were the shape and colour of pieces of orange peel.
‘No, Norman, the Chief Inspector’s correct. Perhaps that’s what this investigation really needs — a woman’s perspective, just as the Chief Inspector was telling us in her lecture this morning. After all, we don’t seem to have got very far with a man in charge of it, do we?’ Mrs Miles ignored Professor Waring’s attempt to interrupt her again. ‘Perhaps some of that attention to fine detail for which women are so distinguished is just what has been lacking until now.’ She smiled as she added, ‘And a little less phallocentrism around here certainly wouldn’t do any harm.’ She turned to the Assistant Police Commissioner.
‘John,’ she said. ‘I want you to make sure that Chief Inspector Jakowicz is assigned to take charge of this investigation. Is that clear?’
Gilmour nodded uncomfortably. He hated being told how to handle an inquiry by anyone, least of all a politician, and more especially, the Minister herself. But at the same time Gilmour had the feeling that what Jake had said was right and that she was indeed the right person for the job.
‘Is that all right with you, Chief Inspector?’ said Mrs Miles.
Jake, who was slightly taken aback at the speed of the Minister’s decision and the imperious way in which it had been communicated to herself and Gilmour, shrugged uncertainly. She thought of the enormous case-load waiting for her back at the Yard and of the consternation her new assignment would cause her superior, Chief Superintendent Challis. She thought of the pleasure that Challis’s consternation at being removed from the case would afford her and found herself nodding. ‘Fine by me, ma’am,’ she said. ‘However, I would like to keep my finger on the pulse of one particular investigation I’ve been handling.’ Jake was thinking of the lipstick on Mary Woolnoth’s body, her face battered to a pulp, and how much she’d like to catch the man who had killed her. ‘In fact, I should insist on it.’
Mrs Miles smiled broadly, revealing a row of perfect white teeth. It was a good smile. The sort of smile that won votes. The sort of smile that had helped Mrs Miles capitalise on her athletic career as a 100- and 200-metre Olympic Gold medallist and put her into the House of Commons at the early age of twenty-nine.
‘I have no problems with that,’ she said. ‘Good. That’s settled then. Mark?’
‘Minister?’
‘I want you to call Professor Gleitmann and tell him that he’s to extend the Chief Inspector and her team whatever cooperation she deems appropriate. You too, Norman? You got that?’
Waring nodded sullenly.
Mrs Miles stood up and walked like a big strong cat to the impossibly tall door, attended by her secretary. Waring followed at an embittered distance. On her way out, the Minister turned on her high heel, tightening the material of her already tight skirt against the curve of her muscular buttock and her pantieline.
‘Oh and Chief Inspector?’
‘Yes?’ said Jake.
‘Please don’t disappoint me. I want results. And I want them quickly. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that I usually get my way. But when I don’t I’m apt to be rather vindictive. Do you understand me?’
‘I think so, Minister,’ said Jake. She didn’t doubt that Grace Miles would make sure Jake’s career was effectively blocked and re-directed into one dead-end or another.
‘Well,’ said the APC when he and Jake were alone. ‘You walked right into that one.’
She smiled wryly. ‘Looks like it, sir.’
‘Oh I don’t doubt that you may have the right idea about this investigation and exactly how it should proceed. But I would hate to lose one of my best detectives merely because of the whim of a Junior Minister with a nettle down her panties. She doesn’t seem to like you very much. She might like to see you fall flat on your face with this particular inquiry.’
‘Maybe.’ Jake shrugged.
‘You know, I could always have a word with Sir MacDonald when we get back to London. Have him persuade Mrs Miles that he would rather someone else handled this.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘What am I talking about? Someone else is handling this.’
‘Challis.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like to get this collar, sir,’ she said. ‘If I can.’
‘She affected you that much eh? The bitch. Well, if you’re sure you want to. I’ll back you all the way. But what am I going to tell Challis?’
‘How about telling him you want me to take charge of the day-to-day enquiries?’ Jake suggested. ‘That you think a fresh viewpoint is required. That you think he’s too important to get involved in the inquiry itself. Perhaps he could continue to exercise some kind of executive role.’
Gilmour grunted. ‘Doesn’t sound all that convincing,’ he said. ‘Never mind. I’ll think of something.’ He picked up his briefcase and placed it on his lap, before rummaging in its contents and withdrawing a box of computer disks. He thumbed one out and handed it to Jake.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘This’ll tell you everything you need to know about the Lombroso Program.’
For me, the realisation that I am a freak was not the result of a childhood’s accumulation of unkind remarks about my appearance. Nor, for that matter, was it the consequence of an inadvertently-placed mirror, a job-offer in a circus-sideshow, a horrified plastic-surgeon, or a callously disinterested schoolgirl. Rather the dawning was the outcome of an esoterically designed medical test for which I volunteered following a severe attack of the law and orders. One minute I was, to all intents and purposes, normal. Fifteen minutes later I was a medical curiosity occurring in only three cases in a hundred thousand.
The order of the number series is not governed by an external relation but by an internal relation.
Yes, indeed, internal. The essence of my freakishness cannot be perceived by the sense-data of others any more than I can perceive it myself. But of course it has been established empirically and therefore, from a phenomenological point of view, my freakish state is not a matter of simple apriorism, even if it has had the existential result of revealing my true situation in the world.
Of course, I always knew I was different. Nothing so ordinary as somatype — I am in fact the classic ectomorph. Were you to see me naked, you would be confronted with a thin, male body, of delicate build, and lightly muscled. It is possible that this may have been a contribtcting factor. According to Sheldon’s hypothesis, the dimensions of my ectomorphic, sand-kicked-in-my-face physique make me temperamentally inclined to the cerebrotonial personality type, which is characterised by self-consciousness, overreactiveness, and a preference for privacy. But then I also exhibit a few of the characteristics of the average somatotonial personality type, which is characterised by a desire for power and dominance, and which Sheldon associates with the more muscular, mesomorphic physical type. So let’s forget about anything so crude as my physical characteristics. Let’s agree that it has nothing to do with the kind of guy I am. This sort of thing really only works in Shakespeare.