Free Playing for the Ashes by Elizabeth George Page B

interrupted anything particularly interesting in your life.”
    “No. I was heading out to see Mum. And hoping for dinner.”
    “The first, I can’t help you with, rota being what it is. The second can be remedied with a quick sashay through the officers’ canteen.”
    “Now there’s a real stimulant to the appetite.”
    “I’ve always seen it that way. How much time do you need?”
    “A good thirty minutes if the traffic’s bad near Tottenham Court Road.”
    “And when isn’t it?” he asked pleasantly. “I’ll keep your beans on toast warm at this end.”
    “Great. I love spending time with a real gent.”
    He laughed and rang off.
    Barbara did likewise. Tomorrow, she thought. First thing in the morning. Tomorrow she would make the trip out to Green-ford.
    She left her Mini in the underground car park of New Scotland Yard after fla shing her identification at the uniformed constable who looked up from his magazine long enough to yawn and make sure he wasn’t entertaining a visit from the IRA. She pulled next to Lynley’s silver Bentley. She managed to squeeze in as close as possible, snickering at how he would shudder at the idea of her car door possibly nicking the precious paint job on his.
    She punched the button for the lift and rustled up a cigarette. She smoked it as furiously as possible, to bulk up on the nicotine before she was forced to enter Lynley’s piously smoke-free domain. She’d been trying to woo him back to the siren weed for more than a year, believing that it would make their partnership so much easier if they shared at least one loathsome habit. But she’d got no further than one or two moans of addicted anguish when she blew smoke in his face during the fir st six months of his abstinence. It had been sixteen months now since he’d given up tobacco, and he was beginning to act like the newly converted.
    She found him in his office, elegantly dressed for his aborted romantic evening with Helen Clyde. He was sitting behind his desk, drinking black coffee. He wasn’t alone, however, and at the sight of his companion, Barbara frowned and paused in the doorway.
    Two chairs were drawn up to the front of his desk, and a woman sat in one of them. She was youthful looking, with long legs that she kept uncrossed. She wore fawn trousers and a herringbone jacket, she wore an ivory blouse and well-polished pumps with sensible heels. She sipped something from a plastic cup and watched gravely as Lynley read through a sheaf of papers. As Barbara took stock of her and wondered who the hell she was and what the hell she was doing in New Scotland Yard on a Friday night, the woman paused in her drinking to shake from her cheek a wing-shaped lock of amber hair that had fallen out of place. It was a sensual gesture that raised Barbara’s hackles. Automatically, she looked to the row of filing cabinets against the far wall, assuring herself that Lynley had not surreptitiously removed the photograph of Helen prior to waltzing Miss Deluxe Fashionplate into his office. The photo was in place. So exactly what the hell was going on?
    “Evening,” Barbara said.
    Lynley looked up. The woman turned in her chair. Her face betrayed nothing, and Barbara noticed that Miss Deluxe Fashionplate didn’t bother to evaluate her appearance the way another woman might. Even Barbara’s red high-top trainers went completely disregarded.
    “Ah. Good,” Lynley said. He set down his paperwork and took off his spectacles. “Havers. At last.”
    She saw that a sandwich wrapped in cellophane, a packet of crisps, and a cup with a lid sat waiting for her on the desk in front of the empty chair. She sauntered over to it and picked up the sandwich, which she unwrapped and sniffed suspiciously. She lifted the bread.
    The mixture inside looked like liver paste blended with spinach. It smelled like fis h. She shuddered.
    “It was the best I could do,” Lynley said.
    “Ptomaine on whole wheat?”
    “With an antidote of Bovril