Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act Read Online Free PDF Page B

Detective Sergeant Havers having more time off to engage in an extracurricular round of policing with all the enthusiasm of a woman being asked to dance the Viennese waltz with a porcupine.
    “Take off the hat,” Isabelle repeated. “Now.”
    Barbara knew that way would lead to a very dark place. So she said, “Guv, this is an emergency. This is personal. This is family.”
    “What part of your family would ‘this’ be? As I understand matters, you have one member to your family, Sergeant, and she’s in a nursing home in Greenford. You can’t be saying your mother wants some policing done for her, can you?”
    “It’s not a nursing home. It’s a private residence.”
    “Is there a carer present? And does she require care?”
    “Of course there is and of course she does,” Barbara told her. “Obviously, you know that.”
    “So the policing matter involving your mother is what, exactly?”
    “All right.” Barbara sighed. “So it’s not my mother.”
    “You said a family matter?”
    “All right. It’s not my family either. It’s a friend, and he’s in trouble.”
    “As are you. Now am I going to have to ask you again to remove that ridiculous hat?”
    There was nothing for it. Barbara pulled the ski cap from her head.
    Isabelle stared. She raised a hand as if to ward off an apocalyptic vision. “What,” she said tersely, “am I to make of this? A momentary slip of the scissors leading to a fatal disaster? Or an unspoken message to your superior officer, in this case that officer being me?”
    “Guv, that’s not on,” Barbara said. “And it’s not why I’ve come to talk to you.”
    “That’s obvious enough. But it’s what
I
wish to talk about. And we’re back to our previous manner of dress as well, I see. Let me ask again: What sort of message are you sending me, Sergeant? Because the one I’m getting has to do with your future as a traffic warden in the Shetland Islands.”
    “You know you can’t make an issue of this,” Barbara told her. “My hair, my clothes. What difference do they make if I’m doing the job?”
    “That’s just it, isn’t it?” Isabelle countered. “
If
you’re doing the job. Which, as it happens, you haven’t been doing. Which, as it happens, you’ve just walked in here proposing
not
to do for a few more days or perhaps weeks. While, I expect, you plan to continue collecting your wages in order to keep the only member of your family ensconced in the care home into which she’s been placed. Now what is it
exactly
that you want, Sergeant? To continue to be employed and to be paid for being employed or to chase round aiding some nonexistent member of your family in an objective about which, by the way, you are being remarkably closemouthed.”
    They were face-to-face across the acting superintendent’s desk. Outside her office, the buzz of activity rose and fell. Conversations were going on up and down the corridor. The occasional hush among Barbara’s fellow officers told her that sound of her argument with Superintendent Ardery was being heard. More gossip for the water cooler, she thought. DS Havers has blotted her copybook again.
    She said, “Look, guv, a friend of mine has lost his kid. She’s been taken by her mother—”
    “So she’s hardly lost, is she? And if she’s been taken against a ruling of the court, then this ‘friend’ of yours can ring up his solicitor or his local nick or anyone else who comes to mind because it is
not
your job to swan round the country assisting people in distress unless you are ordered to do so by your commanding officer. Have I made myself clear, Sergeant Havers?”
    Barbara was silent. She was also steaming. Her brain was racing with what she
wanted
to say, which was along the lines of “What’s twisting your knickers, you bloody cow?” But she knew where a remark like that could get her. The Shetland Islands would seem like paradise compared to where she’d end up. She said reluctantly, “I s’pose