Barbara Havers knew that she could have purchased some take-away from Uncle Tom's Cabin, a food stall on the corner of Portslade and Wandsworth roads. It occupied little more than a niche at the near end of the railway arches, and it looked just the sort of unhygienic place where one might purchase enough cholesterol-laden grub to guarantee concrete arteries within the hour. But she resisted the impulse—virtuously, she liked to think—and instead took herself to a pub near Vauxhall Station, where she indulged in the bangers and mash upon which she'd been meditating earlier. These went down a treat, eased on their way with half a pint of Scrumpy Jack. Sated with the food and drink and satisfied with the information she'd gathered during her morning in Battersea, she returned to the north side of the Thames and skimmed her way along the river. Traffic moved well on Horseferry Road. She was pulling into the underground car park at New Scotland Yard before she'd smoked her second Player.
She had two professional options at this point, she decided. She could return to CRIS and the hunt for a suitable ticket-of-leaver out for the blood of a Maiden. Or she could compile the information she'd gathered so far into a report. The former activity—boring and subservient though it was—would demonstrate her ability to take the medicine which certain officers of the law believed she ought to be swallowing. The latter activity, however, appeared to be the one likelier to take them towards some answers in the case. She opted for the report. It wouldn't take that long, it would allow her to set down information in a concrete and thought-provoking order, and it would postpone having to face the glowing screen for at least another hour. She took herself off to Lynley's office—no harm in using the space since it was going empty at the moment, right?—and set to work.
She was thoroughly into it, just coming up to the salient points made by Cilia Thompson concerning Terry Cole's paternity and his propensity towards questionable means of support—BLACKMAIL? she'd just typed—when Winston Nkata strode into the room. He was wolfing down the last of a Whopper, the container of which he sailed into the rubbish. He wiped his hands thoroughly with a paper napkin. He popped an Opal Fruit into his mouth.
“Junk food'll kill you,” Barbara said sanctimoniously.
“But I'll die smiling” was Nkata's reply. He swung one long leg over a chair and took out his leather-bound notebook as he sat. Barbara glanced at a wall clock and then at her colleague. “Just how fast're you driving up and down the Ml? You're setting land speed records from Derbyshire, Winston.”
He avoided answering, which was answer in itself. Barbara shuddered to think what Lynley would say had he known that Nkata was roaring along in his beloved Bentley at just under the speed of sound. “Been to the College of Law,” he told her. “Guv told me to look into the Maiden girl's doings in town.”
Barbara stopped typing. “And?”
“She dropped out.”
“She dropped out of law college?”
“That's how it looks.” Nicola Maiden, he told her, had apparently dropped out of law college on the first of May, approaching exam time. She'd done it responsibly, making appointments to see all the appropriate instructors and administrators before leaving. Several of them had tried to talk her out of it—she'd been near the top of her class and they'd considered it madness to leave when her successful future in law was assured—but she'd been politely adamant. And she'd disappeared.
“Muffed her exams?” Barbara asked.
“Didn't ever take them. Left before she laid eyes on them.”
“Was she scared? Developing nerves like her dad? Getting ulcers? Losing sleep? Realising she'd have to swot and wasn't up to the challenge?”
“Decided she just didn't fancy the law, was what she told her personal tutor.”
She'd been working for eight months part-time at a firm in Notting Hill called MKR Financial Management, Nkata went on. Most of the law students did that sort of thing: worked part-time during the day to support themselves, taking instruction at the college in the late afternoons and at night. She'd been offered a full-time placement at the Notting Hill firm, and as she liked the work, she decided to take it. “And that was that,” Nkata said. “No one at the college heard a word from her since.”
“So what was she doing in Derbyshire if she'd taken a full-time position in Notting Hill?” Barbara asked. “Was she having a holiday first?”
“Not 'ccording to the guv, and this is where it starts getting dodgy. She was working for a solicitor on a summer job, getting ready for the future and all that bit. That's why he put me onto the College of Law in the first place.”
“So she's employed in finance in London but takes a summer job doing law in Derbyshire?” Barbara clarified. “That's a new one on me. Does the inspector know she left law college?”
“Haven't rung him yet. I wanted to have a chat with you first.”
Barbara felt a rush of pleasure at this remark. She shot Nkata a look. As always, his face was ingenuous, pleasant, and perfectly professional. “Should we ring him, then? The inspector, I mean.”
“Let's chew on it a bit.”
“Right. Okay. Well, forget what she was doing in Derbyshire for the moment. The London bit at MKR Financial Management must've brought her some decent dosh, right? Because she wouldn't have been hurting for it at the end of the day had she stayed in law, so why drop out of law college unless there was some decent—and immediate—lolly involved? How does all that sound?”