Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

access that no one else has and I swear to God, Barb, if you don’t get off the bleeding fence on this one—”
    “I’ll speak to Inspector Lynley directly,” she lied. “That satisfy you? Now, Superintendent Ardery is asking to see me and while I’d love to continue this bloody well
stim
ulating discussion with you, I’ve got to ring off.”
    “As long as you know that I’m holding off on this other story for a quarter hour, Barb. That time passes and I hit send and you look for it in tomorrow’s paper.”
    “As always, my timbers are shivering,” she said. She banged down the phone and said to Dorothea, “What’s her nibs want with me? Any idea?”
    “Detective Inspector Stewart is with her.” She sounded regretful. This wasn’t good.
    Barbara thought of fortifying herself with a fag in the stairwell, but she decided that keeping Isabelle Ardery waiting when she had been summoned wasn’t a particularly wise move. So she followed Dorothea to the superintendent’s office, and there she found Ardery in conversation with John Stewart, who’d brought a pile of manila folders with him for some reason that probably wasn’t going to be good.
    Barbara joined them. She glanced from Stewart to Ardery to Stewart. She nodded but made no other greeting. Her brain went into high gear, however. She didn’t see how Stewart could have known that she’d been to see Dwayne Doughty in advance of jumping to do his bidding and conducting the interviews he’d assigned to her. And even if he
had
made that discovery, she’d got the bloody interviews done. What more did the sodding bloke want of her?
    As it happened, Stewart wanted nothing of her. He’d apparently been summoned into Isabelle Ardery’s office as well, and just like Barbara, he was in the dark about why the superintendent had called him in to a meeting.
    Ardery didn’t waste time to bring them both into the picture. She said, “John, I’m reassigning Barbara for a few days. There’s a branch of the investigation in—”
    “
What?
” Stewart looked like someone whose balloon had just got popped. He was staring, outraged, at Ardery as if she’d been the person wielding the pin that had popped it.
    The superintendent took a moment. She let his tone act like an echo in the room. Then she said carefully, “I’d no idea your hearing was undergoing a change. As I said, I’m reassigning Barbara to another investigation.”
    “What bloody other investigation?” he demanded.
    Ardery’s spine underwent a minute adjustment. “I’m not certain you require that knowledge,” she pointed out.
    “You put her on my team,” he countered. “And that’s where she stays: on my team.”
    “I beg your pardon?” Ardery had been sitting behind her desk with Stewart in front of it, the manila folders still in a neat pile on his lap. She rose now and leaned her height of six feet in his direction, her well-groomed fingertips on a set of reports. “I don’t think you’re in a position to make those kinds of declarations,” she pointed out. “Perhaps you need a moment to sort yourself? I’d take that moment, if I were you.”
    “Where’re you putting her?” he demanded. “Every team’s got enough manpower on it. If this is a power play you’ve decided to engage in, it’s not on.”
    “You’re out of order.”
    “Oh, I’m always out of order with you. D’you know what I’ve got here? Right here in these folders?” He lifted one and shook it at her. Barbara felt her arms go limp.
    “I’m not the least interested in what you’ve got there unless it’s the documentation for an arrest in one of the cases you’ve been handling.”
    “Oh, too right,” Stewart said. “You’re not the least interested in
anything
other than—” He stopped himself directly on the brink. He said, “Just forget it. All right. She’s reassigned. Have her. We all know who she’s going to be working with—as he’s the only person who
ever
wants her on his team—and all of us know why you’re only too happy to hand her to him.”
    Barbara drew in a sharp breath. She waited to see what the superintendent would do with this one.
    Ardery said steadily, “What are you implying, John?”
    “I think you know.”
    “And I think you’d be wise to reconsider the route you’re taking. As it happens, Barbara will be working directly for me on a matter involving another police officer. And that, John, concludes what you need to know about why I require her.