Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

correct term. “It’s improv.”
    Charlie’s face brightened. “C’n I do the Voice?”
    “If you must. Come with me.”
    Together, then, they approached Kickarse Electra. She was in conversation with London’s Leaning Tower of Lisa, an impressive Amazonian who stood at least six feet five inches tall in her roller skates. She would have been an imposing presence anywhere, and she was particularly striking next to Kickarse Electra, who, even in her skates, was some seven inches shorter.
    Leaning Tower of Lisa first saw Lynley and Denton. She said, “You two look like trouble of the very best kind. I claim the smaller one.” And she rolled over to Denton and put her arm round his shoulders. She kissed his temple. He became the colour of pomegranate seeds.
    Daidre Trahair turned. She’d taken off her helmet and she’d raised a pair of plastic goggles to the top of her head. They now held back wisps of her sandy hair, which had escaped from the French braid that contained it. She was wearing her spectacles beneath her goggles, but they were badly smudged. She could see through them perfectly well, though, a fact Lynley ascertained by the colour that her skin took on when she looked at him. He could only just see this colour through her makeup, however. Like the other skaters, she was heavily painted, with an emphasis on glitter and lightning bolts.
    “My God,” she said.
    “I’ve been called worse.” He held up the handbill advertising this event. “We thought to take up the offer. Brilliant, by the way. We quite enjoyed it.”
    Leaning Tower of Lisa said, “This your first?”
    “It is,” Lynley told her. And then to Daidre, “You’re far more skilled than you let on when we first met. You do this as well as you throw darts, I see.”
    Daidre’s colour deepened. Leaning Tower of Lisa said to her, “You
know
these blokes?”
    Daidre said inarticulately, “Him. I know him.”
    Lynley extended his hand to the other skater. “Thomas Lynley,” he told her. “You’ve got your arm round my friend Charlie Denton.”
    “Charlie, is it?” Leaning Tower said. “He’s awfully sweet-looking. Are you sweet in character as well as in looks, Charlie?”
    “I believe he is,” Lynley told her.
    “Does he like big women, then?”
    “I expect he takes them as they come.”
    “He doesn’t talk much, does he?”
    “You might be an overpowering presence.”
    “Isn’t that always the case?” Leaning Tower released Denton with a laugh and another solid kiss on his temple. “You change your mind, you know where to find me,” she said to him as she rolled away to join her mates.
    Daidre Trahair had apparently used the duration of this exchange to come to her wits. She said, “Thomas. You’re the last person I would have thought to see at a roller derby match.” Then she turned to Denton and extended her hand, saying, “Charlie, I’m Daidre Trahair. How’d you like the match?” She offered this question to them both.
    “I’d no idea women could be so ruthless,” Lynley said.
    “There’s Lady Macbeth,” Denton pointed out.
    “There is that.”
    Lynley’s mobile vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and gave it a glance as before. As before, the caller was Barbara Havers. He let it go to message as Daidre said, “Work?” Before he could reply, she added, “You
are
back at it, aren’t you?”
    “I am,” he told her. “But not tonight. Tonight Charlie and I would like you to join us for a postgame . . . whatever. If you’ve a mind for it.”
    “Oh.” She looked from him to the milling skaters. She said, “It’s only that . . . the team usually go out. It’s rather a tradition. Would you like to join us? Apparently this group”—with a nod at the Electric Magic—“go to Famous Three Kings on North End Road. Everyone’s invited. It’ll be a bit of a crowd scene.”
    “Ah,” Lynley said. “I was rather hoping—
we
were hoping—for something more conducive to conversation. Can you possibly break with this tradition for once?”
    She said regretfully, “I do wish . . . It’s only that we’ve come by coach, you see. It would be rather difficult. I have to return to Bristol.”
    “Tonight?”
    “Well, no. We’re in a hotel for the night.”
    “We can take you there whenever you’re ready,” he offered. And when she still hesitated, he added, “We’re actually quite harmless, Charlie and I.”
    Daidre looked from him to Denton and back to him. She fingered back