She said, “You’re referring to Inspector Lynley’s wife? Yes. I know what happened to her. I daresay everyone in the force knows what happened. How is he? Where is he?”
“Still in Cornwall, as far as I know. But the team want him back, and you’re going to feel it. Havers, Nkata, Hale…All of them. Even John Stewart. From detectives to filing clerks. The lot. Custodians as well, I have no doubt. He’s a popular figure.”
“I know. I’ve met him. He’s quite the gent. That would be the word, wouldn’t it? Gent.”
Hillier eyed her in a way she didn’t much like, suggesting he had some thoughts on the wheres and hows of her acquaintance with Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley. She considered an elucidation on the subject, but she rejected the idea. Let the man think what the man would think. She had her chance to capture the job she wanted, and all that mattered was proving to him that she was worthy to be named permanent and not just acting detective superintendent.
“They’re professionals, the lot of them. They won’t make your life a misery,” Hillier said. “Still, there’re strong loyalties among them. Some things die hard.”
And some don’t die at all, she thought. She wondered if Hillier intended to sit or whether this interview was going to be conducted entirely in the headmaster/recalcitrant pupil mode that his present position seemed to indicate. She also wondered if she’d made some sort of professional faux pas in sitting herself, but it seemed to her that he had made an unambiguous gesture towards one of the two chairs that were positioned in front of his desk, hadn’t he?
“…won’t give you a problem. Good man,” Hillier was saying. “But John Stewart’s another matter. He still wants the superintendent’s position, and he didn’t take it well when he wasn’t named permanent superintendent at the end of his trial period.”
Isabelle brought herself round with a mental jolt. The mention of DI John Stewart’s name told her that Hillier had been speaking of the others who had worked temporarily in the detective superintendent’s job. He’d have been talking about the in-house officers, she concluded. Mentioning those who, like her, had auditioned-there was no other word for it-from outside the Met would have been pointless as she was unlikely to run into them in one or another of the endless, lino-floored corridors in Tower Block or Victoria Block. DI John Stewart, on the other hand, would be part of her team. His feathers were going to need smoothing out. This wasn’t one of her strengths, but she would do what she could.
“I understand,” she told Hillier. “I’ll tread carefully with him. I’ll tread carefully with them all.”
“Very good. How are you settling in? How are the boys? Twins, aren’t they?”
She made her lips curve as one would normally do when “the children” were mentioned, and she forced herself to think about them exactly like that, in inverted commas. The inverted commas kept them at a distance from her emotions, which was where she needed them. She said, “We’ve decided-their father and I-that they’re better off remaining with him for now, since I’m only here on trial. Bob’s not far from Maidstone, he has a lovely property in the countryside, and as it’s their summer holidays, it seemed wisest to have them live with their father for a while.”
“Not easy for you, I expect,” Hillier noted. “You’ll be missing them.”
“I’ll be busy,” she said. “And you know what boys are like. Eight years old? They need supervising and plenty of it. As both Bob and his wife are at home, they’re in a good position to keep them on the straight and narrow, a far better position than I’ll be in, I daresay. It should be fine.” She made the situation sound ideaclass="underline" herself hard at work in London, nose to the metaphorical grindstone, while Bob and Sandra breathed copious amounts of fresh air in the countryside, all the time doting on the boys and feeding them home-cooked chicken pies filled with everything organic and served with ice-cold milk. And, truth be told, that wasn’t too far from how it likely would be. Bob, after all, adored his sons and Sandra was perfectly lovely in her own way, if a bit too school-marmish for Isabelle’s taste. She had her own two children, but that hadn’t meant she had no room in her home and her heart for Isabelle’s boys. For Isabelle’s boys were Bob’s boys as well, and he was a good dad and always had been. He kept his eye on the ball, did Robert Ardery. He asked the right questions at just the right time, and he never made a threat that didn’t sound like an inspiration he’d just been struck by.
Hillier seemed to be reading her, or at least attempting to, but Isabelle knew she was more than a match for anyone’s effort to see beyond the role she played. She’d made a virtual art of appearing cool, controlled, and completely competent, and this façade had served her so well for so many years that it was second nature by now to wear her professional persona like chain mail. Such was the result of having ambition in a world dominated by men.
“Yes.” Hillier drew out the word, making it less confirmation than calculation. “You’re right, of course. Good that you have a civilised relationship with the ex, as well. High marks for that. It can’t be easy.”
“We’ve tried to remain friendly throughout the years,” Isabelle told him, again with that curve of her lips. “It seemed best for the boys. Warring parents? That’s never good for anyone, is it.”
“Glad to hear it, glad to hear it.” Hillier looked towards the doorway as if expecting someone to enter. No one did. He seemed ill at ease, and Isabelle didn’t consider this a bad thing. Ill at ease could work to her advantage. It suggested that the AC wasn’t as dominant a male as he thought he was. “I expect,” he said, in the tone of a man concluding their interview, “you’d like to get to know the team. Be introduced formally. Get down to work.”
“I would,” she said. “I’m going to want individual conversations with them.”
“No time like the present,” Hillier said with a smile. “Shall I take you down to them?”
“Brilliant.” She smiled back and held his gaze long enough to see him colour. He was a florid man already, so he coloured easily. She tried to imagine what he looked like in a rage. “If I can just pop into the ladies’, sir…?”
“Of course,” he said. “Take your time.”
Which, naturally, was the very last thing he actually wanted her to do. She wondered if he did that often, making remarks he didn’t mean. Not that it mattered, as it wasn’t her intention to spend a great deal of time with the man. But it was always helpful to know how people operated.
Hillier’s secretary-a severe-looking woman with five unfortunate facial warts in need of dermatological exploration-directed Isabelle towards the ladies’. Once inside, she checked carefully to ensure that she had the room to herself. She ducked into the stall farthest from the door and there she did her business. But this was merely for effect. Her real purpose lay within her shoulder bag.
She found the airline bottle where she’d earlier stowed it, and she opened it, drinking down the contents in two swift gulps. Vodka. Yes. It had long been just the ticket. She waited a few moments till she felt it take hold.
Then she left the stall and went to the basin, where she fished in her bag for her toothbrush and toothpaste. She brushed thoroughly, her teeth and her tongue.
Finished, she was ready to face the world.
THE TEAM OF detectives she’d be supervising worked in close confines, so Isabelle met them together first. They were wary of her; she was wary of them. This was natural, and she wasn’t bothered by it. Introductions were made by Hillier and he offered them her background chronologically: community liaison officer, burglary, vice, arson investigation, and more recently MCIT. He didn’t add the period of time she’d spent in each of her positions. She was on the fast track, and they would know it by reckoning her age, which was thirty-eight although she liked to think she looked younger, the result of wisely having stayed away from cigarettes and out of the sun for most of her life.