When he returned from the shower, he found her at his desk, perusing the notes he had written on the previous night. She’d made herself at home, scattering her belongings across the room, one scarf on the bed, another draped across the armchair, her coat on the floor. Her shoulder bag gaped upon the desk top, spilling out pencils, chequebook, a plastic comb with missing teeth, and an orange lapel button printed with the message Chicken Little Was Right. Somewhere in this wing of the building, she’d managed to find a stocked gyp room, for she’d made a pot of tea, some of which she was pouring into a gold-rimmed cup.
“I see you’ve brought out the best china,” he said, towelling off his hair.
She tapped her finger against it. The sound snapped sharply rather than sang. “Plastic,” she said. “Can your lips endure the insult?”
“They’ll soldier through.”
“Good.” She poured a cup for him. “There was milk as well, but there were white globs floating in it so I left its future to science.” She dropped in two sugar cubes, stirred the brew with one of her pencils, and handed him the cup. “And would you please put on a shirt, Inspector? You’ve got lovely pectorals, but I tend to go light-headed at the sight of a man’s chest.”
He obliged her by completing the dressing which he’d begun in the icy bathroom down the corridor. He took his tea to the armchair where he saw to his shoes.
“What do you have?” he asked her.
She pushed his notebook to one side and swivelled the desk chair so that she was facing him. She rested her right ankle on her left knee, which gave him his first glimpse of her socks. They were red.
“We’ve got fibres,” she said, “on both armpits of her track jacket. Cotton, polyester, and rayon.”
“They could have come from something in her cupboard.”
“Right. Yes. They’re checking for a match.”
“So we’re wide open there.”
“No. Not exactly.” He saw she was holding back a satisfied smile. “The fibres were black.”
“Ah.”
“Yes. My guess is that he dragged her by the armpits onto the island and left the fibres that way.”
He swam by that hook of potential culpability. “What about the weapon? Have they made any headway with what was used to beat her?”
“They keep coming up with the same description. It’s smooth, it’s heavy, and it left no trace deposit on the body. The only change in what we knew before is that they’ve moved off calling it your standard blunt object. They’ve deleted the adjectives, but they’re looking like the dickens for some others. Sheehan was talking about bringing in help to have a go with the body because apparently his two pathologists have a history of being incapable of coming to a clear conclusion—not to mention an agreement—on anything.”
“He indicated there might be trouble with forensic,” Lynley said. He thought about the weapon, pondered the location, and said, “Wood seems possible, doesn’t it, Havers?”
As usual, she was with him. “An oar, you mean? A paddle?”
“That would be my guess.”
“Then we’d have trace evidence. A splinter, a speck of varnish. Something left behind.”
“But they’ve absolutely nothing?”
“Not a sprat.”
“That’s hell.”
“Right. We’re nowhere with trace evidence if we’re hoping to build a case out of that. But there’s good news otherwise. Lovely news, in fact.” She brought forth several folded sheets of paper from her shoulder bag. “Sheehan fielded the autopsy results while I was there. We may not have trace, but we’ve got ourselves a motive.”
“You’ve been saying that ever since we met Lennart Thorsson.”
“But this is better than being turned in for sexual harassment, sir. This is the real thing. Turn him in for this and he’s had it for good.”
“Turn him in for what?”
She handed him the report. “Elena Weaver was pregnant.”