Read Online This Body of Death by Elizabeth George - Free Book Online

less confirmation than calculation. “You’re right, of course. Good that you have a civilised relationship with the ex, as well. High marks for that. It can’t be easy.”
    “We’ve tried to remain friendly throughout the years,” Isabelle told him, again with that curve of her lips. “It seemed best for the boys. Warring parents? That’s never good for anyone, is it.”
    “Glad to hear it, glad to hear it.” Hillier looked towards the doorway as if expecting someone to enter. No one did. He seemed ill at ease, and Isabelle didn’t consider this a bad thing. Ill at ease could work to her advantage. It suggested that the AC wasn’t as dominant a male as he thought he was. “I expect,” he said, in the tone of a man concluding their interview, “you’d like to get to know the team. Be introduced formally. Get down to work.”
    “I would,” she said. “I’m going to want individual conversations with them.”
    “No time like the present,” Hillier said with a smile. “Shall I take you down to them?”
    “Brilliant.” She smiled back and held his gaze long enough to see him colour. He was a florid man already, so he coloured easily. She tried to imagine what he looked like in a rage. “If I can just pop into the ladies’, sir … ?”
    “Of course,” he said. “Take your time.”
    Which, naturally, was the very last thing he actually wanted her to do. She wondered if he did that often, making remarks he didn’t mean. Not that it mattered, as it wasn’t her intention to spend a great deal of time with the man. But it was always helpful to know how people operated.
    Hillier’s secretary—a severe-looking woman with five unfortunate facial warts in need of dermatological exploration—directed Isabelle towards the ladies’. Once inside, she checked carefully to ensure that she had the room to herself. She ducked into the stall farthest from the door and there she did her business. But this was merely for effect. Her real purpose lay within her shoulder bag.
    She found the airline bottle where she’d earlier stowed it, and she opened it, drinking down the contents in two swift gulps. Vodka. Yes. It had long been just the ticket. She waited a few moments till she felt it take hold.
    Then she left the stall and went to the basin, where she fished in her bag for her toothbrush and toothpaste. She brushed thoroughly, her teeth and her tongue.
    Finished, she was ready to face the world.
     
     
    T HE TEAM OF detectives she’d be supervising worked in close confines, so Isabelle met them together first. They were wary of her; she was wary of them. This was natural, and she wasn’t bothered by it. Introductions were made by Hillier and he offered them her background chronologically: community liaison officer, burglary, vice, arson investigation, and more recently MCIT. He didn’t add the period of time she’d spent in each of her positions. She was on the fast track, and they would know it by reckoning her age, which was thirty-eight although she liked to think she looked younger, the result of wisely having stayed away from cigarettes and out of the sun for most of her life.
    The only one of them who looked impressed with her background was the departmental secretary, a princess-in-waiting type called Dorothea Harriman. Isabelle wondered how any young woman could look so put together on what her salary had to be. She reckoned Dorothea found her clothing in charity shops of the type where one could dig out timeless treasures if one was persistent, had an eye for quality, and looked hard enough.
    She told the team she would like to have a word with each of them. In her office, she said. Today. She would want to know what each of them was working on at present, she added, so do bring your notes.
    It went much as she expected. DI Philip Hale was cooperative and professional, possessing a wait-and-see attitude that Isabelle could not fault, his notes at the ready, currently at work with the CPS