Too much, she thought.
“I only ate half my toffee apple last night,” Hadiyyah informed her, a blessed diversion. She'd begun to swing on the open door of the Fiat, hanging from the lowered window with her legs dangling and her feet kicking energetically to keep up the momentum. She was wearing socks as white as angel's wings. “We c'n eat it for tea. If you like, Barbara.”
“That'd be nice.”
“I have my sewing lesson tomorrow. Did you know? I'm making something awfully special, but I can't say what it is right now. Because.” She cast a meaningful look at her father. “But you can see it, Barbara. Tomorrow, if you like. Do you want to see it? I'll show it to you if you say you want to see it.”
“That sounds just the ticket.”
“But only if you can keep a secret. Can you?”
“Mum's the absolute word,” Barbara vowed.
During this exchange, Azhar had been regarding her. His professional field was microbiology, and Barbara was beginning to feel like one of his specimens, so intense was his scrutiny. Despite their conversation of the previous night and the conclusion he'd reached upon seeing her manner of dress, he'd witnessed her setting off in her normal work togs long enough to know that the alteration in her get-up had a significance beyond a woman's fancying a fashion make-over. He said, “How content you must be, on a case again. After the weeks of idleness, it's always gratifying to engage one's mind, isn't it?”
“It's definitely the cat's jim-jams.” Barbara dropped her cigarette to the ground and crushed it out, kicking the dog end into the flower bed. “Biodegradable,” she said to Hadiyyah, who was obviously about to reprimand her. “Aerates the soil. Feeds the worms.” She settled the strap of her bag more comfortably on her shoulder. “Well. I'm off. Keep that toffee apple fresh for me, okay?”
“Maybe we can watch a video as well.”
“No damsels in distress though. Let's do The Avengers. Mrs. Peel's my idol. I like a woman who can show off her legs and kick gentlemen's bottoms simultaneously.”
Hadiyyah giggled.
Barbara nodded her goodbye. She was on the pavement, making her escape when Azhar spoke again. “Is Scotland Yard undergoing a reduction in force, Barbara?”
She stopped, puzzled, and answered without thinking of the intent behind the question. “Good grief, no. What made you ask that?”
“Autumn, perhaps,” he said. “And the changes it brings.”
“Ah.” She sidestepped the implication behind the word changes. She avoided his eyes. She took the statement at its most superficial and dealt with it accordingly. “The bad guys want nabbing no matter the season. You know the wicked. They never rest.” She smiled brightly and went on her way. As long as he never confronted her directly with the word constable, she knew that she wouldn't have to explain to him how it had come to be attached to her name. She wanted to avoid that explanation as long as possible, forever if she could, because explaining to Azhar ran the risk of wounding him. And for reasons she didn't care to speculate upon, wounding Azhar was unthinkable to her.
Now, in the stairwell of New Scotland Yard, Barbara strove to put the thought of her neighbours out of her mind. That's all they were at the end of the day anyway: a man and a child whom she had come to know by chance.
She glanced at her watch. It was half past ten. She groaned. The thought of six or eight more hours staring at a computer screen was less than exciting. There had to be a more economical way to delve into DI Maiden's professional history. She tossed round several possibilities and decided to try the most likely one.
In her perusal of the files, she'd come across the same name time and again: DCI Dennis Hextell, with whom Maiden had worked in partnership as an undercover cop. If she could locate Hextell, she thought, he might be able to put her onto a lead that was stronger than something she would have to interpret from reading twenty years of files. That was the ticket, she decided: Hextell. She shoved herself off the stairs and went in search of him.
It turned out to be easier than she had anticipated. A phone call to SO 10 gained her the information that DCI Hextell was still in the department, although now, as detective chief superintendent he directed operations instead of taking part in them on the street.
Barbara found him at a small table in the cafeteria on the fourth floor. She introduced herself, asking if she could join him. The DCS looked up from a set of photographs. His face, Barbara saw, wasn't so much lined as it was gouged, and gravity had taken its toll on his muscles. The years certainly hadn't been good to him.
The chief superintendent gathered his photographs together and didn't answer. Barbara said helpfully, “I'm working on the Maiden killing in Derbyshire, sir. Andy Maiden's daughter. You were a team with him, right?”