“The nicest there is.”
“So I must listen when he says, 'Five minutes, khushi! It's a way of saying thank-you to him.”
“Ah. Okay. Then you'd better scoot.”
“But you do like the heart?”
“Better than anything in the world,” Barbara said.
Once the child had left, Barbara approached the table. She walked carefully, as if the heart were a diffident creature who might be frightened away by sudden movement. With her eyes on the red velvet and the lace, she felt for her shoulder bag, rooted out her cigarettes, and set a match to one. She smoked moodily and she studied the heart.
A frog won't do for our friend, little khushi.
Never had nine words seemed so portentous.
CHAPTER 28
anken treated the black leather jacket with something akin to reverence: He donned latex gloves before handling the bag into which Lynley had deposited the garment, and when he laid the jacket onto one of the tables in the empty dining room of the Black Angel Hotel, he did it with the sort of ecclesiolatry that was generally reserved for religious services.
Lynley had phoned his colleague shortly after his futile interview with the Black Angel's employees. Hanken had taken the phone call at dinner and vowed that he'd be in Tideswell within the half hour. He was as good as his word.
Now he bent over the leather jacket and examined the hole in the back of it. Fresh-looking, he noted to Lynley, who stood across the table from him and watched the other DI scrutinise each millimeter of the perforation's circumference. Of course, they wouldn't know for certain until the jacket was placed under a microscope, Hanken continued, but the hole appeared recent because of the condition of the surrounding leather, and wasn't it going to be a treat if forensic came up with even a microscopic amount of cedar right on the edge of that hole?
“Once we have a match on that blood with Terry Cole's, any more cedar is academic, isn't it?” Lynley pointed out. “We've got the sliver from the wound, after all.”
“We have,” Hanken said. “But I like my cake with icing.” He bagged the jacket after examining its blood-soaked lining. “This'll do to get us a warrant, Thomas. This'll do a flaming treat to get us a warrant.”
“It'll make things easier,” Lynley agreed. “And the fact that he allows the manor to be used for tournaments and the like ought to be enough to allow us to—”
“Hang on. I'm not talking about a warrant to shovel through the Brittons' territory. This”—Hanken lifted the bag—“gives us another nail to pound into Maiden's coffin.”
“I don't see how.” And then, when he saw that Hanken would expatiate on his reasons for seeking a warrant to search Maiden Hall, Lynley said quickly, “Hear me out for a moment. Do you agree that a long bow's probably our third weapon?”
“When I compare that suggestion to the hole in this jacket, I do,” Hanken said. “What're you getting at?”
“I'm getting at the fact that we already know of a location where long bows have probably been used. Broughton Manor's been the site for tournaments, hasn't it? For reenactments and fetes, from what you've told me. That being the case, and Julian being the man who hoped to marry a woman who—as we know—betrayed him in Derbyshire alone with two other men, why would we want to search Maiden Hall?”
“Because the dead girl's dad was the man who threatened her in London,” Hanken countered. “Because he was shouting that he'd see her dead before he'd let her do what she wanted to do. Because he took out a bloody bank loan to bribe her into living the way he wanted her to live, and she pocketed that money, played the game by his rules for three short months, and then said, ‘Right. Well, thanks mounds for the corn. It's been great fun, Dad, but I'm off to London to squeeze blokes' bollocks in a cylinder for a living. Hope you understand.’ And he didn't. Understand, that is. What dad would?”
Lynley said, “Peter, I know it looks bad for Andy …”
“Any way you rotate the roast on the spit, it looks bad for Andy.”
“But when I asked the hotel employees if any of them knew the Brittons, the answer was yes. Frankly, it was more than yes. It was ‘we know the Brittons by sight.’ Now, why would that be?” Lynley didn't wait for Hanken to respond. “Because they come here. Because they drink in the bar. Because they eat in the dining room. And it's easy enough for them to do that because Tideswell's practically on a direct route between Broughton Manor and Calder Moor. And you can't go charging off to search Maiden Hall without stopping to consider what all of that means.”