For the Sake of Elena Read Online Free PDF

said.
    “Whales in Cambridge?” Stewart asked. “What sort of whales? Where? Have they opened an aquarium?”
    “Wales as in princes of,” Phillip Hale barked.
    “The Prince of Wales is in Cambridge?” Stewart asked. “But that should be handled by Special Branch, not by us.”
    “Jesus.” Webberly took Stewart’s report from him and used it to gesture with as he spoke. Stewart winced when Webberly rolled it into a tube. “No Prince. No Wales. Just Cambridge. Got it?”
    “Sir.”
    “Thank you.” Webberly noted with gratitude that MacPherson had put away his pocket knife and that Lynley was regarding him evenly with those unreadable dark eyes that were so much at odds with his perfectly clipped blond hair.
    “There’s been a killing up in Cambridge that we’ve been asked to take on,” Webberly said and brushed away both their objections and their comments with a quick, vertical chopping motion of his hand. “I know. Don’t remind me. I’m eating my own words. I don’t much like it.”
    “Hillier?” Hale asked astutely.
    Sir David Hillier was Webberly’s Chief Superintendent. If a request for the involvement of Webberly’s men came from him, it was no request at all. It was law.
    “Not altogether. Hillier approves. He knows about the case. But the request came directly to me.”
    Three of the DI’s looked at each other curiously. The fourth, Lynley, kept his eyes on Webberly.
    “I temporised,” Webberly said. “I know your plates are full at the moment, so I can get one of the other divisions to take this. But I’d rather not do that.” He returned Stewart his report, and watched as the DI assiduously smoothed the pages against the table top to remove the curled edges. He continued speaking. “A student’s been murdered. A girl. She was an undergraduate at St. Stephen’s College.”
    All four men reacted to that. A movement in the chair, a question cut off quickly, a sharp look in Webberly’s direction to read his face for signs of worry. All of them knew that the superintendent’s own daughter was a junior member of St. Stephen’s College. Her photograph—giggling as she inexpertly punted both parents in an endless circle on the River Cam—stood on one of the filing cabinets in the room. Webberly saw the concern on their faces.
    “It’s nothing to do with Miranda,” he reassured them. “But she knew the girl. That’s part of the reason I got the call.”
    “But not the only reason,” Stewart said.
    “Right. The calls—there were two of them—didn’t come from Cambridge CID. They came from the Master of St. Stephen’s College and the University’s Vice Chancellor. It’s a tricky situation as far as the local police are concerned. The killing didn’t occur in the college, so Cambridge CID have the right to pursue it on their own. But since the victim’s a college girl, they need the University’s cooperation to investigate.”
    “Th’ University won’t gie it?” MacPherson sounded incredulous.
    “They prefer an outside agency. From what I understand, they got their feathers ruffled over the way the local CID handled a suicide last Easter term. Gross insensitivity towards everyone concerned, the Vice Chancellor said, not to mention some sort of leaking of information to the press. And since this girl is apparently the daughter of one of the Cambridge professors, they want everything handled with delicacy and tact.”
    “Detective Inspector Empathy,” Hale said with a curl of his lip. It was, they all knew, a poorly veiled attempt to imply antagonism and lack of objectivity. None of them were unaware of Hale’s marital troubles. The last thing he wanted at the moment was to be sent out of the city on a lengthy case.
    Webberly ignored him. “Cambridge CID aren’t happy about the situation. It’s their patch. They prefer to handle it. So whoever goes can’t expect them to start killing the fatted calf. But I’ve spoken briefly to their superintendent—a bloke