Barbara swung around, perplexed by what appeared to be the other DCs inexplicable generosity. Another man in his position would have left her hanging in the wind, the better to improve his own position, and to hell with what she might have to face. That Nkata wasn't doing so made her doubly cautious.
He was saying, “It's computer work the guv wants. On CRIS. Not your thing, I know. But I thought if you wanted to come to Shoreditch with me—which is why I was in your neighbourhood in the first place—I could drop you at the Yard afterwards and you could get onto Crime Recording straightaway. If you pull something good from the records quick, who knows?” Nkata shifted on his feet. His air of ease diminished slightly as he concluded. “It could go some distance to setting you right.”
Barbara found an unopened packet of cigarettes wedged between the crumb-dusted toaster and a box of watermelon Pop-Tarts. She lit up, using one of the gas burners on the cooker, and she tried to make sense of what she was hearing. “I don't get it. This is your chance, Winston. Why don't you take it?”
“My chance for what?” he said, looking blank.
“You know for what. To climb the ladder, to ascend the mountain, to fly to the moon. My stock with Lynley couldn't be much lower. Now's your chance to break out of the pack. Why aren't you taking it? Or better said, why're you taking the risk that I might do something to untarnish myself?”
“The spector told me to bring in another DC,” Nkata said. “I thought of you.”
And there they were, those two ugly letters once again. DC. And there was the nasty reminder as well: of what she had been and what she had become. Of course Nkata would have thought of her. What better way to rub her face in her loss of position and authority than by bringing her in as a fellow DC, his superior no longer?
“Ah,” she said. “Another DC. As to that …” She scooped up the note from where she'd left it on the dining table next to her necklace. She said, “I guess I've got to thank you for this, haven't I? I'd been thinking about taking out an advert in the paper to inform the general public, but you've saved me the trouble.”
Nkata's eyebrows knotted. “What're you on about?”
“The note, Winston. Did you honestly think I might forget my position? Or did you just want to remind me that we're equals now, players on a level pitch, lest I forget?”
“Hang on. You've got it dead wrong.”
“Have I?”
“Right.”
“I don't think so. What other reason could there possibly be for you to address me as DC Havers? C for Constable. Just like you.”
“Most obvious reason in the world,” Nkata said.
“Really? What's that?”
“I've never called you Barb.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I've never called you Barb,” he repeated. “Just Sarge. Always that. And then this …” He used his wide hands in a gesture that encompassed the room but meant the day, as she very well knew. “I didn't know what else. The name and everything.” He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck, which lowered his head and ended eye contact. He said, “DCs only your title anyway. It's not who you are.”
Barbara was struck dumb. She stared at him. His attractive face with its nasty scar looked unsure at the moment, which had to be a first. She thought back and relived in an instant the cases on which she'd worked with Nkata. And in reliving them, she was a witness to the truth.
She covered her confusion with her cigarette, inhaling, exhaling, studying the ash, flicking grey flakes of it into the sink. When the silence between them became too much for her, she sighed and said, “Jesus. Winston. Sorry. Bloody hell.”
“Right,” he said. “So are you in or out?”
“I'm in,” she answered.
“Good,” he said.
“And, Winnie,” she added, “I'm Barbara as well.”
CHAPTER 6
t was dark by the time they cruised into Chart Street in Shoreditch and sought out a parking space along a pavement that was lined with Vauxhalls, Opels, and Volkswagens. Barbara had felt a distinct twinge in her gut when Nkata had led her to Lynley's sleek silver car, a possession so prized by the inspector that merely to have been handed its keys was an eloquent statement of Lynley's confidence in his subordinate officer. She herself had been casually tossed that key ring on only two occasions, but both had come long after she'd worked her first case as the inspector's partner. Indeed, reflecting upon her association with Lynley, she found that she couldn't begin to imagine him passing his car keys over to the person she'd been on the first investigation they'd worked together. That he'd given them so easily to Nkata spoke volumes about the nature of their relationship.