In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

CHAPTER 20

“We got in straightaway yesterday,” Nkata said when no entry buzzer answered their ringing of the bell next to the white front door. “Could be they got word 'bout us from the Platt bird and did a runner. What d'you think?” “I didn't get the impression that Shelly Platt had any sympathy for the Reeves, did you?” Lynley rang the bell at MKR Financial Management another time. “She seemed happy enough to put a spanner in their works so long as no trail led back to her. Do the Reeves not live here as well as run their business from here, Winnie? It looks like a residence to me.” Lynley moved back from the door, then descended the stairs to the pavement. While the candy-floss building appeared uninhabited, he had the distinct sensation of being watched from within. It could have been his impatience to get Martin Reeve under his thumb for a thorough grilling, but something suggested to him a form just out of sight behind the sheer curtains of a second floor window. Even as he stood gazing up at it, the curtain twitched. He called up, “Police. It's in your interests to let us in, Mr. Reeve. I'd rather not have to phone Ladbroke Grove police station for their assistance.”

A minute passed during which Nkata leaned on the bell and Lynley walked to the Bentley to phone the Ladbroke Grove station. This apparently did the trick, for as he was speaking to the duty sergeant, Nkata called, “We're in, spector,” and shoved the door open. He waited for Lynley inside the hall.

The building was quiet, the air bearing a faint odour of lemons: from polish, perhaps, used to maintain an impressive Sheraton wardrobe in the corridor. As Lynley and Nkata shut the door behind them, a woman descended the stairs.

Lynley's first thought was that she looked like a doll. In fact, she looked like a woman who'd spent considerable time and energy-not to mention money-in moulding herself into a remarkable duplicate of Barbie. She wore black Lycra from head to toe, displaying a body so outrageously perfect that only imagination and silicone could have produced it. This had to be Tricia Reeve, Lynley thought. Nkata had done a fine job of describing her.

Lynley introduced himself, saying, “We'd like a word with your husband, Mrs. Reeve. Will you fetch him for us, please?”

“He's not here.” She'd stopped at the lowest step on the stairs. She was tall, Lynley saw, and she'd made herself taller by refusing to descend completely to their level.

“Where's he gone to, then?” Assiduously, Nkata prepared to take down the information.

Tricia's hand was on the staircase railing, long, skeletal fingers encumbered by rings. She had a formidable grip upon the oak: Her diamonds glittered as her arm trembled with the force she was applying. “I don't know.”

“Try out a few ideas on us,” Nkata said. “I'll take them all down. We're happy to check 'round for him. We got the time.”

Silence.

“Or we could wait here,” Lynley said. “Where might we do that, Mrs. Reeve?”

Her glance flickered. Blue eyes, Lynley saw. Enormous pupils. Nkata had told him that she was a user. It appeared that she was spiked up right now. “Camden Passage,” she said, her pale tongue coming out to lick bee-stung lips. “There's a dealer there. Miniatures. Martin collects. He's gone to look at what's been brought in from an estate sale last week.”

“The name of the dealer?”

“I don't know.”

“Name of the gallery? The shop?”

“I don't know.”

“What time d'he leave?”

“I don't know. I was out.”

Lynley wondered in what sense she was using out. He had a fairly good idea. “We'll wait for him, then. Shall we show ourselves into your reception room? Is it this door, Mrs. Reeve?”

She followed them, saying quickly, “He's gone to Camden Passage. From there to meet some painters who're working on a house of ours in Cornwall Mews. I've the address. Shall I give it to you?”

The switch to cooperation was far too swift. Either Reeve was in the house or she'd come up with a plan to put him on the alert to their search for him. That would be easy enough. Lynley couldn't imagine a man of Reeve's description wandering the byways of London without a mobile phone in his possession. The moment he and Nkata were out the front door and on his trail, Reeve's wife would be at the phone to warn him.

“I think we'll wait all the same,” Lynley said. “Joni us, Mrs. Reeve. I can phone the Ladbroke Grove station for a female constable if you're feeling uncomfortable alone with us. Shall I do that?”

“No!” With her right hand she clasped her left elbow. She looked at her watch, and the muscles in her neck convulsed as she worked her way through a swallow. She was coming down, Lynley speculated, and checking to see when she could next hit up with relative safety. The presence of the police was an obstacle that thwarted her need, and that might be useful. She said insistently, “Martin isn't here. If I knew more, I'd tell you. But the fact is, I don't.”

“I'm unconvinced.”

“I'm telling you the truth!”

“Tell us another, then. Where was your husband on Tuesday night?”

“On Tuesday…?” She looked honestly confused. “I have no… He was here. With me. He was here. We spent the evening in.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

The question obviously rang alarm bells for her. She said in a rush, “We went for curry at the Star of India on Old Brompton Road round half past eight.”

“So you weren't in, then.”

“We spent the rest of the evening here.”

“Did you book a table at the restaurant, Mrs. Reeve?”

“The maître d’ will remember us. He and Martin had words because we hadn't booked in advance and they didn't want to let us have a table at first, even though there were several vacant when we got there. We had a meal. Then we came home. That's the truth. On Tuesday. That's what we did.”

It would be easy enough to confirm their presence at the restaurant, Lynley thought. But how many maâtre d s’ would recall on what particular day they'd had a row with a demanding customer who'd failed to book and also thus failed to provide himself with a reliable alibi? He said, “Nicola Maiden worked for you.”

She said, “Martin didn't kill Nicola! I know that's why you've come, so don't let's pretend otherwise. He was with me on Tuesday night. We went to the Star of India for a meal. We were home by ten, and we stayed in the rest of the evening. Ask our neighbours. Someone will have seen us either going out or coming back. Now, do you want the address of the mews house or not? Because if not, I'd like you to leave.” Another agitated glance at her watch.

Lynley decided to press her. He said to Nkata, “We're going to need a search warrant, Winnie.”

Tricia cried, “What for? I've told you everything. You can phone the restaurant. You can talk to our neighbours. How can you get a search warrant when you haven't bothered to see if I'm telling you the truth in the first place?” She sounded horrified. Better yet, she sounded afraid. The last thing she wanted, Lynley expected, was to have a team of police going through her belongings, no matter what they were looking for. She may have had no hand in the death of Nicola Maiden, but possession of narcotics wasn't going to go down a treat with the Crown Prosecutors, and she knew that.

“We sometimes cut corners,” Lynley said pleasantly. “This looks like a good time to do so. We've a murder weapon missing as well as a piece of clothing from the dead girl and the boy, and if either article turns up in this house, we'll want to know why.”

“Sh'll I phone, then, Guv?” Nkata enquired blandly.

“Martin didn't kill Nicola! He hasn't seen her in months! He didn't even know where she was! If you're looking for someone who might have wanted to see her dead, there are plenty of men who-” She stopped herself.

“Yes?” Lynley asked. “Plenty of men?”

She brought up her left arm to cradle her right elbow, just as her right had been cradling her left. She walked the length of the reception room and back.

Lynley said, “Mrs. Reeve, we know exactly what MKR Financial Management is fronting. We know that your husband hires students to work as escorts and prostitutes for him. We know that Nicola Maiden was one of those students and that she left your husband's employ along with Vi Nevin to set up in business on her own. The information we have right now can lead directly to charges against you and your husband, and I expect you're well aware of that. So if you'd like to avoid being charged, tried, sentenced, and locked up, I suggest you cooperate straightaway.”

She looked rigid. Her lips hardly moved when she said, “What do you want to know?”

“I want to know about your husband's relationship with Nicola Maiden. Pimps are known for-”

“He isn't a pimp!”

“-frequently displaying displeasure if one of their stable decides to break away from them.”

“That's not what it's like. That's not how it was.”

“Really?” Lynley asked. “How was it, then? Vi and Nicola decided to start their own business, which cut out your husband. But they did so without informing him. He can't have liked that very much, once he sussed it out.”

“You're getting it wrong.” She went to the ornate desk and out of a drawer she took a packet of Silk Cut. She shook one out and lit it. The phone began to ring. She glanced down at it, reached forward to press a button, stopped herself at the final moment. After twenty double rings, it was silent. But less than ten seconds later it started up again. She said, “The computer should be getting that. I can't think why…” And with an uneasy look in the direction of the police, she snatched up the receiver and said tersely, “Global,” into it. Then after a moment of listening, and spoken in the most pleasant of tones she said, “It depends what you want, actually… Yes. That shouldn't be a problem at all. May I have your number, please? I'll ring you back shortly.” She scribbled on a paper. That done, she looked up defiantly as if to say Prove it, to what Lynley was thinking about the conversation that she'd just had.

He was happy to oblige her. “Global,” Lynley said. “That's the name of the escort agency, Mrs. Reeve? Global what? Global Dating? Global Desires? What?”

“Global Escorts. And providing an educated escort to a businessman in town for a conference isn't illegal.”

“Living off immoral earnings, however, is. Mrs. Reeve, do you really want the police to take possession of your account books? Assuming, of course, that there are account books for MKR Financial Management in the first place? We can do that, you know. We can ask for documentation of every pound you've made. And once we're through with our bit of research, we can hand everything over to the Inland Revenue so that their chaps can make certain you've donated your fair share to the support of the government. How does that sound to you?”

He gave her time to ponder. The telephone went again. After three double rings, it switched onto another line with a soft click. An order being taken elsewhere, Lynley thought. By mobile, remote control, or satellite. Wasn't progress a wonderful thing.

Tricia seemed to reach some sort of realisation. Obviously, she knew that Global Escorts and the position of the Reeves were compromised at this point: One word from Lynley to the Inland Revenue or even to the Ladbroke Grove police stations vice boys, and the Reeves’ entire way of life was on the chopping block. And that didn't even begin to address what could happen to them once a search of the premises unearthed whatever mood-altering substance was squirreled away somewhere in the house, waiting to work its magic on Tricia. All this knowledge seemed to settle upon her like soot from a fire she'd lit herself.

She gathered herself together. “All right. If I give you a name-if I give you the name-it can't have come from me. Is that understood? Because if word gets out about an indiscretion committed at this end of the business…” She let the rest of the sentence hang.

Indiscretion was a unique way of labeling it, Lynley thought. And why in God's name did she think that she was in any position to bargain with him? He said, “Mrs. Reeve, the business-as you call it-is finished.”

“Martin,” she said, “won't see it that way.”

“Martin,” Lynley countered, “will find himself held on charges if he doesn't.”

“And Martin will ask for bail. He'll be out on the street in twenty-four hours. Where will you be by then, Inspector? No closer to the truth, I expect.” She might have looked like Barbie, she might have sautéed part of her brain in drugs, but somewhere along the line she'd learned a bit about bargaining, and she was doing it now with a fair amount of expertise. Lynley reckoned that her husband would have been proud of her. She had no legal leg to stand on, and she stood there anyway, pretending she had. He had to admire her chutzpah, if nothing else. She said, “I can give you a name-the name, as I've said-and you can go on your way. I can say nothing and you can search the house, cart me off to gaol, arrest my husband, and be not an inch closer to Nicola's killer. Oh, you'll have our books and our records. But you can't expect that we're so stupid as to list our punters by name. So what will you gain? And how much time will you lose?”

“I'm prepared to be reasonable if the information's good. And in the time it takes me to ascertain the information's viability, I would assume you and your husband would be considering where to relocate your business. Melbourne comes to mind, what with the change in law.”

“That might take some time.”

“As will the verification of information.”

Tit for tat. He awaited her decision. She finally made it and took up a pencil from the top of the desk. “Sir Adrian Beattie,” she said as she wrote. “He was mad about Nicola. He was willing to pay whatever she wanted if he could keep her all to himself. I don't expect he much liked the thought of her expanding her business, do you?”

She handed over the address. It was in the Boltons.

It appeared, Lynley thought, that they had the London lover at last.

When Barbara Havers found the note on her door upon her arrival home that evening, she remembered the sewing lesson with a jolt. She said, “Bloody hell. Damn it,” and berated herself for having forgotten. True, she was involved in a case, and Hadiyyah would surely understand that. But Barbara hated to think that she might have been the cause of disappointment to her little friend.

You are cordially invited to view the work of Miss Jane Bateman's Beginning Seamstresses, the note announced. It was meticulously printed in a childish hand that Barbara recognised. A drooping cartoonish sunflower was sketched on the bottom. Alongside this was the date and time. Barbara made a mental note to enter both on her calendar.

She'd put in another couple of hours at the Yard after her conversation with Neil Sitwell. She'd been champing at the bit to start phoning the numbers of every employee listed under King-Ryder Productions on the roster she'd been given earlier, but she trod the path of caution lest Inspector Lynley turn up and demand to know what she'd gathered from the Yard computer. Which was sod bloody all in spades, of course. To hell with him, she'd begun to think during her eighth cumulative hour at the terminal. If he wanted a flaming report on every bleeding individual with whom DI Andrew Maiden might have rubbed elbows in his years undercover, she'd damn well give it to him by the shovelful. But the information was going to get him bugger all that would lead him to the Derbyshire killer. She would have bet her own life on that.

She'd left the Yard round half past four, stopping at Lynley's office to drop off a report and a personal note. The report made her point, she liked to think, without stooping to rub his nose or otherwise dabble in the obvious. I'm right, you're wrong, but I'll play your stupid game were not words that she needed to say to him. Her time would come, and she thanked her stars that the manner in which Lynley was orchestrating the case actually left her more of a free hand than he realised. The personal note that she left with the report assured Lynley in the most polite of terms that she was taking to Chelsea the post-mortem file prepared by Dr. Sue Myles in Derbyshire. Which was what Barbara did as soon as she left New Scotland Yard.

She found Simon St. James and his wife in the back garden of their Cheyne Row house, where St. James was watching Deborah crawl on her hands and knees along the brick path edging a herbaceous border that ran the length of the garden wall. She had a pump action sprayer that she was dragging along as she moved, and every few feet she stopped and energetically attacked the ground with a rainfall of pungent insecticide.

She was saying, “Simon, there are billions of them. And even when I spray, they keep moving about. Lord. If there's ever a nuclear war, ants will be the only survivors.”

St. James, reclining on a chaise longue with a wide-brimmed hat shading his face, said, “Did you get that section by the hydrangeas, my love? It looks as if you missed that bit by the fuchsia as well.”

“Honestly. You're maddening. Would you rather do this yourself? I hate to be disturbing your peace of mind with such a slapdash effort.”

“Hmm.” St. James appeared to consider her offer. “No. I don't think so. You've been getting so much better at it recently. Doing anything well takes practise, and I hate to rob you of the opportunity.”

Deborah laughed and mock-sprayed him. She caught sight of Barbara just outside the kitchen door. She said, “Brilliant. Just what I need. A witness. Hullo, Barbara! Please take note of which partner is slaving away in the garden and which is not. My solicitor will want a statement from you later.”

“Don't believe a word she says,” St. James said. “I've only sat down this moment.”

“Something about your posture says you're lying,” Barbara told him as she crossed the lawn to the chaise longue. “And your father-in-law just suggested that I light a stick of dynamite under your bum, by the way.”

“Did he?” St. James enquired, frowning at the kitchen window through which Joseph Cotter's form could be seen moving round.

“Thanks, Dad,” Deborah called out in the direction of the house.

Barbara smiled at their quiet, fond sparring. She pulled a deck chair up and sank into it. She handed over the file to St. James, saying, “His Lordship would like you to make a study of this.”

“What is it?”

“The Derbyshire post-mortems. Both the girl and the boy. The inspector'd tell you to have the closer look at the data on the girl, by the way.”

“You wouldn't tell me that?”

Barbara smiled grimly. “I think my thoughts.”

St. James opened the file. Deborah crossed the lawn to join them, trailing the spray pump behind her. “Pictures,” St. James warned her.

She hesitated. “Bad?”

“Multiple stab wounds on one of the victims,” Barbara told her.

She blanched and sat on the chaise longue near to her husband's feet. St. James gave the photographs a glance only, before he placed them face down on the lawn. He flipped through the report, pausing to read here and there. He said, “Is there something particular that Tommy's looking for, Barbara?”

“The inspector and I aren't communicating directly. I'm currently his gofer. He told me to bring you the report. I tugged my forelock and did his bidding.”

St. James looked up. “Things still bad between you? Helen did tell me you were on the case.”

“Marginally.”

“He'll come round.”

“Tommy always does,” Deborah added. Husband and wife exchanged a look. Deborah said uneasily, “Well. You know.”

“Yes,” St. James said after a moment, and with a brief, kind smile in her direction. Then to Barbara, “I'll have a look at the paperwork, Barbara. I expect he wants inconsistencies, anomalies, discrepancies. The usual. Tell him I'll phone.”

“Right,” she said. And then she added delicately, “I'm wondering, Simon…”

“Hmm?”

“Could you phone me as well? I mean, if you unearth something.” When he didn't reply at once, she rushed on with “I know it's irregular. And I don't want to get you into a bad spot with the inspector. But he won't tell me much and it's always, ‘Get back to the computer, Constable,’ if I make a suggestion. So, if you were willing to keep me in the picture… I mean, I know he'd be cheesed off if he knew, but I swear I'd never tell him that you-”

“I'll phone you as well,” St. James interrupted. “But there may be nothing. I know Sue Myles. She's nothing if not thorough. Frankly, I don't see why Tommy wants me to look her work over in the first place.”

Neither do I, Barbara wanted to tell him. Still, his promise to phone her buoyed her spirits, so she ended the day in far better a frame of mind than she'd begun it.

When she saw Hadiyyah's note, however, an unhappy twinge pricked at her mood. The little girl had no mother to speak of-at least no mother who was present or likely to become present any time soon-and while Barbara didn't expect to take her mother's place, she had struck up a friendship with Hadiyyah that had been a source of pleasure to them both. Hadiyyah had hoped that Barbara would attend her sewing lesson that afternoon. And Barbara had failed her. It didn't feel good.

So when she'd dropped her bag on the dining room table and listened to her messages-Mrs. Flo reporting on her mum, her mum reporting on a jolly trip to Jamaica, Hadiyyah telling her she'd left a note on the door and did Barbara find it?-she wandered up to the front of the big Edwardian house where the ground floor flat's french windows were open from the sitting room onto the flagstones of the area and within the room itself, a child's voice was declaring, “But they don't fit, Dad. Honest.”

Hadiyyah and her father were just inside, Hadiyyah seated on a cream-puff-shaped ottoman and Taymullah Azhar kneeling next to her like a lovesick Orsino. The object of their attention appeared to be the shoes that Hadiyyah was wearing. These were black lace-ups of school-uniform appearance, and Hadiyyah was squirming round in them as if they were a new device for extracting information from double agents.

“My toes're all squished up. My toe knuckles hurt.”

“And you are certain this pain has nothing to do with the desire to follow a fad of fashion, khushi?.”

“Dad.” Hadiyyah's tone was martyred. “Please. These're school shoes, you know.”

“And as we both recall,” Barbara said from the flagstones, “school shoes are never cool, Azhar. They always defy fashion. That's why they're school shoes.”

Father and daughter looked up, Hadiyyah crying out, “Barbara! I left you a note. On the door. Did you get it? I stuck it with Sellotape,” and Azhar leaning back on his heels to give his daughter's shoes a more objective scrutiny. “She says they no longer fit,” he told Barbara. “I myself am not convinced.”

“Arbitration is called for,” Barbara said. “May I…?”

“Come in. Yes. Of course.” Azhar rose and made a gesture of welcome in his formal fashion.

The flat was fragrant with the smell of curry. Barbara saw that the table was neatly laid for dinner, and she said quickly, “Oh, Sorry. I wasn't thinking about the time, Azhar. You've not eaten yet, and… D'you want me to come back later? I just saw Hadiyyah's note and thought I'd pop round. You know. The sewing lesson this afternoon. I'd promised her…” She brought herself up short. Enough, she thought.

He smiled. “Perhaps you'll join us for our meal.”

“Oh gosh, no. I mean, I haven't eaten yet, but I wouldn't want to-”

“You must!” Hadiyyah said happily. “Dad, say that she must. We're having chicken biryani. And dal. And Dad's special veg curry, which Mummy cries when she eats 'cause it's so spicy. She says, ‘Hari, you make it far too hot’ and her eye makeup runs. Doesn't it, Dad?”

Hari, Barbara thought.

Azhar said, “It does, khushi.” And to Barbara, “It will be our pleasure if you join us, Barbara.”

She thought, Better run, better hide. But, nonetheless, she said, “Thanks. I will, then.”

Hadiyyah crowed. She pirouetted in her ostensibly too-tight shoes. Her father watched her gravely and said with meaning, “Ah. As to your feet, Hadiyyah…”

“Let me check them,” Barbara interposed quickly.

Hadiyyah flew to the ottoman and plopped down upon it. She said, “They pinch and they pinch. Even then, Dad. Really.”

Azhar chuckled and disappeared into the kitchen. “Barbara will decide,” he told his daughter.

“They really pinch awfully” Hadiyyah said. “Feel how my toes're scrunched up in front.”

“I don't know, Hadiyyah,” Barbara said, probing the toecaps tentatively. “What'll you replace these with? More of the same?”

The little girl didn't reply. Barbara looked up. Hadiyyah was sucking in on her lip.

“Well?” Barbara asked. “Hadiyyah, have they changed the style of shoe you can wear with your uniform?”

“These're so ugly” she whispered. “I feel like I got boats on my feet. The new shoes're slip-ons, Barbara. They've the loveliest leather braid round the top and the sweetest little tassel dangling over the toes. They're a bit 'spensive, which is why not everyone has them yet, but I know I could wear them forever if I got them. I really could.” She looked so hopeful, brown eyes the size of old tuppence pieces.

Barbara wondered how her father managed to deny her anything. She said in her position of arbiter, “Will you go for a compromise?”

Hadiyyah's brow scrunched as effectively as had done her toes. She said, “What's compromise?”

“An agreement in which both parties get what they want, just not exactly how they expected to get it.”

Hadiyyah thought this over, bouncing her lace-up-clad feet against the ottoman. She said, “All right. I s'pose. But they're really pretty shoes, Barbara. If you saw them, you'd understand.”

“Doubtless,” Barbara said. “You've probably noticed what a fashion hound I am.” She heaved herself to her feet. With a wink at Hadiyyah, she called into the kitchen, “I'd say she's got several months in these, Azhar.”

Hadiyyah looked stricken. She wailed, “Several months?”

“But she'll definitely need another pair before Bonfire Night,” Barbara said meaningfully. She mouthed compromise in Hadiyyah's direction and watched the little girl do the mental maths from September to November. Hadiyyah looked pleased when she'd counted up the weeks.

Azhar came to the kitchen door. He'd tucked a tea towel into his trousers to serve as an apron. In his hand he held a wooden spoon. “You can be that exact with your shoe analysis, Barbara?” he asked soberly.

“Sometimes my talents amaze even myself.”

Curry in the kitchen was just another thing that Azhar appeared to do effortlessly. He accepted no assistance, even with the washing up, saying, “Your presence is the gift you bring to our meal, Barbara. We require nothing else of you,” to her offers of help. Nonetheless, she bullied her way to clearing the dining table, at least. And while he was scrubbing and drying in the kitchen, she entertained his daughter, which was her pleasure.

Hadiyyah pulled Barbara into her bedroom once the table was cleared, declaring that she had “something special and secret to show,” a just-between-us-girls revelation, Barbara assumed. But instead of a collection of film star photos or a few penciled notes passed to her at school, Hadiyyah pulled from beneath her bed a carrier bag whose contents she lovingly eased out onto her counterpane.

“Finished today,” she announced proudly. “In sewing class. I was s'posed to leave it for the display-did you get my invitation to the sewing show, Barbara?-but I told Miss Bateman I'd bring it back nice and clean but that I had to have it to give to Dad. 'cause he wrecked one pair of trousers already. When he was cooking dinner.”

It was a bib apron. Hadiyyah had crafted it from pale chintz on which was printed an endless pattern of mother ducks leading their broods towards a pond with a stand of reeds. The mother ducks all wore identical bonnets. Their little ones each carried a different beach-going utensil under a tiny wing.

“D'you think he'll like it?” Hadiyyah asked anxiously. “The ducks re so sweet, aren't they, but I s'pose for a man… I especially love ducks, see. Dad and I feed them at Regents Park sometimes. So when I saw this material… But I expect I could've chosen something more mannish, couldn't I?”

The thought of Azhar encased in the apron's folds made Barbara want to smile, but she didn't. Instead, she examined the zigzagging seams and the hem with its lopsided, loving hand stitching. She said, “It's perfect. He'll love it.”

“D'you think so? It's my first project, see, and I'm not very good. Miss Bateman wanted me to start with something simpler, like a hankie. But I knew what I wanted to make 'cause Dad wrecked his trousers like I said and I knew he didn't want to wreck any more trousers cooking. Which's why I brought this home to give to him.”

“Shall we do that now, then?” Barbara asked.

“Oh no. It's for tomorrow,” Hadiyyah said. “We've a special day planned, Dad and I. We're to go to the sea. We're to pack a picnic lunch and eat on the sand. I'll give it to him then. As a thank-you for taking me. And afterwards, we'll ride the roller coaster on the pier, and Dad'll play the crane grab for me. He's quite good at the crane grab, is Dad.”

“Yes. I know. I saw him work it once, remember?”

“That's right. You did,” Hadiyyah said brightly. “Would you like to come with us to the sea, then, Barbara? It'll be such a special day. We're taking a picnic lunch. And we'll go to the pleasure pier. And there's the crane grab as well. I'll ask Dad if you can come.” She scampered to her feet, calling, “Dad! Dad! Can Barbara-”

“No!” Barbara interrupted hastily. “Hadiyyah, no. Kiddo, I can't go. I'm in the middle of a case and I've got mountains of work. I shouldn't even be here right now, with all the calls I should've been making before bed. But thanks for the thought. We'll do it another time.”

Hadiyyah stopped, door knob in hand. “We're going to the pleasure pier,” she coaxed.

“I'll be with you in spirit,” Barbara assured her. And she thought about the resilience of children and she marveled at their capacity for taking what came. Considering what had occurred the last time Hadiyyah had been to the sea, Barbara wondered that she wanted to go again. But children aren't like adults, she thought. What they can't endure, they simply forget.