He said, “DI Hanken believed that the killer stayed at the Black Angel Hotel the night of the murders. He ran the cards of all the hotel guests through the DVLA to see if any of them were driving cars that were registered to a name different from the name they had put on the card. That was the one that didn't match up.”
“Davidson,” Barbara said, examining the card. “Oh yes. I see. David's son. So Matthew King-Ryder stayed at the Black Angel.”
“Not far from the moor, not far from Peak Forest, where the knife was found. Not far, as it turns out, from anything.”
“And the DVLA showed this Audi as registered to him,” Barbara concluded. “And not to an M. R. Davidson.”
“Things happened so quickly yesterday that we didn't actually see the report from the DVLA till late in the afternoon. The Buxton computers were down, so the information had to be compiled by phone. If they hadn't been down …” Lynley looked through the windscreen and spoke meditatively. “I want to believe that the fault lies in technology, that had we only got our hands on the DVLA information quickly enough, Andy Maiden would still be alive.”
“What?” Barbara breathed the word, astounded. “Still be alive? What happened to him?”
Lynley told her. He spared himself nothing, Barbara saw. But then, that was his way.
He concluded with “It was a judgement call on my part not to talk directly about Nicola's prostitution when her mother was present. It was what Andy wanted and I went along. Had I simply done what I should have done …” He gestured aimlessly. “I let my feelings for the man get in the way. I made the wrong call, and as a result he died. His blood is on my hands as indelibly as if I'd wielded the knife.”
“That's being a little rough on yourself,” Barbara said. “You didn't exactly have time to ponder the best way to handle things once Nan Maiden barged into your interview.”
“No. I could see that she knew something. But what I thought she knew—or at least believed—was that Andy had murdered their daughter. And even then I didn't bring the truth to light because I couldn't believe he'd murdered their daughter.”
“And he hadn't,” Barbara said. “So your decision was right.”
“I don't think you can separate the decision from the outcome,”
Lynley said. “I'd thought so before, but I don't think so now. The outcome exists because of the decision. And if the outcome is an unnecessary death, the decision was wretched. We can't twist the facts into a different picture no matter how much we'd like to do so.”
It sounded like a conclusion to Barbara. She treated it as such. She reached for her seat belt and pulled it round her. She was about to fasten it, when Lynley spoke again.
“You made the right decision, Barbara.”
“Yeah, but I had the advantage over you,” Barbara said. “I'd talked to Cilia Thompson in person. You hadn't. I'd talked to King-Ryder in person as well. And when I saw that he'd actually bought one of her gruesome paintings, it was easy for me to reach the conclusion that he was our man.”
“I'm not talking about this case,” Lynley said. “I'm talking about Essex.”
“Oh.” Barbara felt herself grow unaccountably small. “That,” she said. “Essex.”
“Yes. Essex. I've tried to separate the judgement call you made that day from its outcome. I kept insisting that the child might have lived had you not interfered. But you didn't have the luxury to make calculations about the boat's distance from the child and someone's ability to throw a life belt to her, did you, Barbara? You had an instant in which to decide what to do. And because of the decision you made, the little girl lived. Yet given the luxury of hours to think about Andy Maiden and his wife, I still made the wrong call in their case. His death's on my shoulders. The child's life is on yours. You can examine the situations any way you want to, but I know which outcome I'd prefer to be responsible for.”
Barbara looked away, in the direction of the house. She didn't quite know what to say. She wanted to tell him that she had lain awake nights and paced away days waiting for the moment when he'd say he understood and approved what she'd done that day in Essex, but now that the moment had finally come, she found that she couldn't bring herself to say the words. Instead, she muttered, “Thanks. Inspector. Thanks,” and she swallowed hard.
“Barbara! Barbara!” The cry came from the flagstone area in front of the ground floor flat. Hadiyyah was standing there, not on the stones but on the wooden bench in front of the french windows to the flat she shared with her dad. “Look, Barbara!” she crowed, and danced a little jig. “I got my new shoes! Dad said I didn't have to wait till Guy Fawkes. Look! I got my new shoes!”
Barbara lowered her window. “Excellent.” she called. “You're a picture, kiddo.”
Kiddo whirled and laughed.
“Who is that?” Lynley asked next to her.
“The child in question,” Barbara replied. “Let's get going, Inspector Lynley. We don't want to be late for work.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS