This Body of Death

Chapter Nine

THE STOKE NEWINGTON HOUSE-TO-HOUSE TURNED UP nothing, as did the perimeter search of the environs of the chapel and gridding off the whole blooming cemetery and conducting a search that way. They had enough manpower to carry it all off-both from the local station and from officers on loan from other areas-but the end result was no witness, no weapon, no handbag, no shoulder bag, no purse, and no identification. Just an admirable rubbish cleanup of the cemetery. On the other hand, they’d had phone calls aplenty, and a description shuffled to SO5 had actually produced a possible lead. In this, they were assisted by the fact that the body in question had unusual eyes: one green and one brown. Once they plugged that into the computer, the field of missing persons narrowed down to one.

She’d been reported as having disappeared from her lodgings in Putney, and it was to Putney that Barbara Havers was sent two days after the discovery of the body; specifically she was sent to Oxford Road, which was equidistant from Putney High Street and Wandsworth Park. There she parked illegally in a residents-only space, propped a police ID in plain sight, and rang the bell on a terrace house whose front garden appeared to be the street’s recycling centre, if the bins and plastic containers were anything to go by. She was admitted to the house by an older woman with a military haircut and a bit of a military moustache. She wore exercise clothing and pristine white trainers done up with pink and purple laces. She said that she was Bella McHaggis and it was bloody well time a cop’d shown up and was this sort of incompetence what her taxes paid for and the bloody government can’t do a thing right, can they, because just look at the condition of the streets, not to mention the Underground, and she’d phoned the cops two days ago, and…

Blah, blah, blah, Barbara thought. While Bella McHaggis gave vent to her feelings, she herself had a look round the place: uncarpeted wood floor, hall stand with umbrellas and coats, and on the wall a framed document announcing itself as HOUSE RULES FOR OCCUPANTS, with a sign saying LANDLADY ON PREMISES posted beneath it. “With lodgers, one can’t bang on about the rules enough,” Bella McHaggis asserted. “I’ve got them everywhere. The rules, that is. It helps, I find, if people know what’s what.”

She led Barbara into a dining room, through a large kitchen, and into a sitting room at the back of the house. There she announced that her lodger-who was called Jemima Hastings-had gone missing and if the body that had been found in Abney Park had one brown eye and one green eye…Here, Bella stopped. She seemed to try to read Barbara’s face.

Barbara said, “Have you got a picture of the young lady?”

Yes, yes indeed, Bella said.

She said to “come this way,” and she led Barbara out of a door on the far side of the sitting room, which took them to a narrow corridor that ran in the direction of the front door of the house. To one side of this corridor, the reverse side of a staircase rose, and facing them beneath it was a door otherwise hidden from anyone entering the building. On this door was a poster. The lighting was dim but Barbara could see that the poster featured a black-and-white photograph of a young woman, light hair blowing across her face. She was sharing the picture with three-quarters of a lion’s head, somewhat out of focus behind her. The lion was male, marble, slightly streaked from weather, and asleep. The poster itself was an advertisement for the Cadbury Photographic Portrait of the Year. Evidently, it was some sort of contest, and its winners comprised an ongoing show at the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square.

“So is it Jemima?” Bella McHaggis said. “It’s not like her to be gone without telling any of us. When I saw the story in the Evening Standard, I reckoned if the girl had eyes like those-two different colours…” Her words tapered off as Barbara turned to her.

“I’d like to see her room,” Barbara said.

Bella McHaggis made a small sound, something between a sigh and a cry. Barbara saw that she was a decent soul. She said, “I’m not actually sure, Mrs. McHaggis.”

“It’s just that they become rather like family,” Bella said. “Most of my lodgers…”

“You’ve others, then? I’ll want to speak with them.”

“They’re not here at present. At work, you know. There’re just two of them, beyond Jemima, that is. Young men, they are. Quite nice young men.”

“Any possibility she could have been involved with either of them?”

Bella shook her head. “Against the rules. I find it’s not a good thing if my gentlemen and ladies begin keeping company while living under the same roof. I had no rule about it at first, once Mr. McHaggis died and I started with lodgers. But I found…” She looked at the poster on the door. “I found things became unnecessarily complicated if the lodgers…Shall we say if they fraternized? Unspoken tensions, the possibility of breakups, jealousy, tears? Rows over the breakfast table? So I made the rule.”

“And how do you know if the lodgers abide by it?”

“Believe me,” Bella said, “I know.”

Barbara wondered if this meant an examination of the bedsheets. “But Jemima was acquainted with the male lodgers, I assume?”

“’Course. She knew Paolo best, I expect. He brought her here. That’s Paolo di Fazio. Born in Italy but you wouldn’t know it. No accent at all. And no…well, no odd Italian habits, if you know what I mean.”

Barbara didn’t, but she nodded helpfully. She wondered what odd Italian habits might be. Putting tomato sauce on the Weetabix?

“-room nearest to hers,” Bella was saying. “She worked in a shop somewhere round Covent Garden and Paolo has a stall in Jubilee Market Hall. I had a vacant room; I wanted a lodger; I hoped for another female; he knew she was looking for permanent lodgings.”

“And your other lodger?”

“Frazer Chaplin. He’s got the basement flat.” She nodded at the door on which the poster hung.

“So that’s his? The poster?”

“No. That’s just the way to his flat. She brought the poster to me, Jemima did. I suppose she wasn’t altogether happy that I hung it here, where it’s out of sight. But…well, there you have it. There wasn’t really another suitable space.”

Barbara wondered about that. It seemed to her that there was space aplenty, even with the plethora of signs depicting the household rules. She gave the poster a final quick glance before asking once again to see Jemima Hastings’ room. She looked like the young woman whose autopsy pictures Barbara had seen Isabelle Ardery put up only that morning in the incident room. But it was, as always, incredible to see the difference between someone in life and someone in death.

She followed Bella to the next floor, where Jemima had a bedroom at the front of the house. Paolo’s room was just along the corridor at the back, Bella said, while her own room was yet another floor above.

She opened the door to Jemima’s room. It had not been locked, and there was no key stuck in the keyhole on the inside. But that was not to say there wouldn’t be a key somewhere in the room, Barbara saw, although it would be a challenge worthy of Hercules in the Augean Stables to find it.

“She was something of a hoarder,” Bella said, which was like declaring that Noah was something of a rowing-boat builder.

Barbara had never seen such clutter. The room was a nice size, but it contained masses of belongings. Clothes strewn on the unmade bed and across the floor and drooping from drawers in the chest; magazines and tabloids and maps and brochures and handouts from people in the street; decks of playing cards mingling with business cards and postcards; stacks of photographs bound with rubber bands…

“How long did she live here?” Barbara asked. It was inconceivable to her that one person could amass so much clobber in anything less than five solid years.

“Nearly seven months,” Bella said. “I did speak to her about this. She said she’d get round to it, but I think…”

Barbara looked at the woman. Bella was pulling thoughtfully at her lower lip. “What?” Barbara asked.

“I think it gave her some sort of comfort. At the end of the day I daresay she couldn’t let any of it go.”

“Yeah. Well.” Barbara gave a sigh. “All of it’s got to be gone through.” She dug out her mobile and flipped it open. “I’m going to have to ring for backup,” she told Bella.

LYNLEY USED THE car as an excuse because that was the easiest thing to tell both himself and Charlie Denton, not that he generally told Denton where he was going but he knew the young man had not yet stopped worrying about his state of mind. So he popped into the kitchen where Denton was applying his considerable culinary skills to making a marinade for a piece of fish and he said, “I’m off for a bit, Charlie. Over to Chelsea for an hour or so,” and he didn’t miss the look of delight that briefly touched on the other’s features. Chelsea could mean a hundred different destinations, but Denton would reckon there was only a single one that was taking Lynley out of Belgravia. Lynley added, “Thought I’d show off the new motor,” and Denton said, “Mind how you go, then. You don’t want anything marring that paint job.”

Lynley promised he’d do whatever was necessary to prevent such a tragedy, and he walked to the mews where he kept the car that he’d finally bought to replace his Bentley, which had been reduced to a tangle of metallic rubble five months earlier at the hands of Barbara Havers. He unlocked the garage and there it was, and the truth of the matter was that he did feel the slightest thrill of ownership to look upon the copper beauty of the thing. Four wheels and it was only transportation, but there was transportation and there was Transportation and this was definitely Transportation.

Owning the Healey Elliott gave him something to think about when he was driving, besides thinking of the subjects he didn’t want to think about. That had been one of the reasons he’d purchased it. One had to consider issues like where to park it and which route to choose from point A to point B in order to keep it safe from run-ins with cyclists, taxis, buses, and pedestrians pulling wheeled suitcases without a mind for where they were going. Then there was the critical issue of keeping it clean, of keeping it well within sight when parking it in a slightly less than salubrious area, of keeping its oil pristine and its spark plugs practically sterilized and its wheels balanced and its tyres filled to the appropriate degree. It was, thus, a vintage English car like all vintage English cars. It required constant vigilance and just as much maintenance. In short, it was exactly what he required at this juncture in his life.

The distance from Belgravia to Chelsea was so minimal that he could have walked it, no matter the heat and the crowds of shoppers along the King’s Road. Less than ten minutes from the moment he closed the front door of his house, he was crawling along Cheyne Row in the hope of finding a spot to park near to the corner of Lordship Place. As luck would have it, a spot was vacated by a van making a delivery to the King’s Head and Eight Bells as he approached the pub. He was at last walking towards the tall brick house on the corner of Lordship Place and Cheyne Row when he heard his name called out by a woman’s voice, crying, “Tommy! Hullo!”

This came from the direction of the pub where, he saw, his friends were just rounding the corner from Cheyne Walk and the Embankment beyond it. Likely they’d been for a walk along the river, he decided, for Simon St. James was carrying their dog-a long-haired dachshund who hated the heat as much as she hated walkies-and his wife, Deborah, was at his side, her hand through his arm and a pair of sandals dangling from her fingers.

“Isn’t the pavement hot on your feet?” he called back.

“Absolutely horrible,” she admitted cheerfully. “I wanted Simon to carry me but given the choice between Peach and myself, the wretch chose Peach.”

“Divorce is the only answer,” Lynley said. They came up to him then, and Peach-recognising him as she would do-squirmed to be put down so that she could jump up and demand to be held again. She barked, wagged her tail, and jumped a few more times as Lynley shook St. James’s hand and accepted Deborah’s fierce hug. He said, “Hullo, Deb,” against her hair.

She said, “Oh, Tommy,” in reply. And then stepping back and scooping up the dachshund who continued to writhe, bark, and demand to be noticed, “You’re looking very well. It’s so good to see you. Simon, doesn’t Tommy look well?”

“Almost as well as the car.” St. James had gone to have a look at the Healey Elliott. He gave an admiring whistle. “Have you brought it by to gloat?” he said to Lynley. “My God, it’s a beauty. Nineteen forty-eight, isn’t it?”

St. James had long been a lover of vintage cars and himself drove an old MG, modified to cope with his braced left leg. It was a TD classic, circa 1955, but the age of the Healey Elliott along with its shape made it rare and a virtual eyeful. St. James shook his head-dark hair overlong as always and doubtless Deborah was banging on daily about his need for a haircut-and gave a long sigh. “Where’d you find it?” he asked.

“Exeter,” Lynley said. “I saw it advertised. Poor bloke spent years of his life restoring it but his wife considered it a rival-”

“And who can blame her?” Deborah said pointedly.

“-and wouldn’t let go of the matter till he’d sold it.”

“Complete madness,” St. James murmured.

“Yes. Well. There I was with cash in hand and a Healey Elliott in front of me.”

“You know, we’ve been to Ranelagh Gardens having a chat about some new adoption possibilities,” St. James said to Lynley. “That’s where we were coming from just now. But truth to tell? Babies be damned. I’d like to adopt this motor instead.”

Lynley laughed.

“Simon!” Deborah protested.

“Men will be men, my love,” St. James told her. And then to Lynley, “How long’ve you been back, Tommy? Come inside. We were just talking about a Pimm’s in the garden. Will you join us?”

“Why else live in summer?” Lynley replied. He followed them into the house, where Deborah placed the dog on the floor and Peach headed towards the kitchen in the eternal dachshund search for food. “Two weeks,” he said to St. James.

“Two weeks?” Deborah said. “And you’ve not phoned? Tommy, does anyone else know you’re back?”

“Denton’s not killed the fatted calf for the neighbourhood, if that’s what you’re asking,” Lynley said dryly. “But that’s at my request. He’d have hired skywriters if I’d allowed it.”

“He must be glad you’re home. We’re glad you’re home. You’re meant to be home.” Deborah clasped his hand briefly and then called out to her father. She threw her sandals at the base of a coat rack, said over her shoulder, “I’ll ask Dad to do us that Pimm’s, shall I?” and went in the same direction as the dog, down to the basement kitchen at the back of the house.

Lynley watched her go, realising he’d lost touch with what it was like to be around a woman he knew well. Deborah St. James was nothing like Helen, but she matched her in energy and liveliness. That understanding brought with it sudden pain. Briefly, it took his breath.

“Let’s go outside, shall we?” St. James said.

Lynley saw how well his old friend read him. “Thank you,” he said.

They found a place beneath the ornamental cherry tree, where worn wicker furniture sat round a table. There Deborah joined them. She carried a tray on which she’d placed a jug of Pimm’s, a bucket of ice, and glasses displaying the requisite spears of cucumber. Peach followed her and in her wake came the St. Jameses’ great grey cat Alaska, who immediately took up slinking along the herbaceous border in pursuit of imagined rodents.

Around them were the sounds of Chelsea in summer: distant cars roaring along the Embankment, the twittering of sparrows in the trees, people calling out from the garden next door. On the air the scent of a barbecue rose, and the sun continued to bake the ground.

“I’ve had an unexpected visitor,” Lynley said. “Acting Superintendent Isabelle Ardery.” He told them the substance of his visit from Ardery: her request and his indecision.

“What will you do?” St. James asked. “You know, Tommy, it might be time.”

Lynley looked beyond his friends to the flowers that comprised the herbaceous border at the base of the old brick wall defining the edge of the garden. Someone-likely Deborah-had been giving them a great deal of care, likely by recycling the washing-up water. They looked better this year than they had in the past, bursting with life and colour. He said, “I managed to cope with the nursery at Howenstow and her country clothing. Some of the nursery here as well. But I’ve not been able to face her things in London. I thought I might be ready when I arrived two weeks ago, but it seems I’m not.” He took a drink of his Pimm’s and gazed at the garden wall on which clematis climbed in a mass of lavender blooms. “It’s all still there, in the wardrobe and the chest of drawers. In the bathroom as well: cosmetics, her scent bottles. The hairbrush still has strands of her hair…It was so dark, you know, with bits of auburn.”

“Yes,” St. James said.

Lynley heard it in Simon’s voice: the terrible grief that St. James would not express, believing as he did that, by rights, Lynley’s own grief was so much greater. And this despite the fact that St. James, too, had loved Helen dearly and had once intended to marry her. He said, “My God, Simon-” but St. James interrupted. “You’re going to have to give it time,” he said.

“Do,” Deborah said, and she looked between them. And in this, Lynley saw that she, too, knew. And he thought of the ways one mindless act of violence had touched on so many people and three of them sat there in the summer garden, each of them reluctant to say her name.

The door from the basement kitchen opened, and they turned to anticipate whoever was about to come out. This turned out to be Deborah’s father, who had long run the household and just as long been an aide to St. James. Lynley thought at first he meant to join them but instead Joseph Cotter said, “More company, luv,” to his daughter. “Was wondering…?” He inclined his head a fraction towards Lynley.

Lynley said, “Don’t please turn someone away on my account, Joseph.”

“Fair enough,” Cotter said, and to Deborah, “’Cept I thought his lordship might not want-”

“Why? Who is it?” Deborah asked.

“Detective Sergeant Havers,” he said. “Not sure what she wants, luv, but she’s asking for you.”

THE LAST PERSON Barbara expected to see in the back garden of the St. James home was her erstwhile partner. But there he was and it took her only a second to process it: The amazing motor out in the street had to be his. It made perfect sense. He suited the car and the car suited him.

Lynley looked much better than when she’d last seen him two months earlier in Cornwall. Then, he’d been the walking wounded. Now, he looked more like the walking contemplative. She said to him, “Sir. Are you back as in back or are you just back?”

Lynley smiled. “At the moment, I’m merely back.”

“Oh.” She was disappointed and she knew her face showed it. “Well,” she said. “One step at a time. You finished the Cornwall walk?”

“I did,” he said. “Without further incident.”

Deborah offered Barbara a Pimm’s, which Barbara would have loved to toss back. Either that or pour over her head because the day was broiling her inside her clothing and she was cursing DI Ardery once again for directing her to alter her manner of dress. This was just the sort of weather that called for drawstring trousers in linen and a very loose T-shirt, not for a skirt, tights, and a blouse courtesy of another shopping event with Hadiyyah, this one more quickly accomplished because Hadiyyah was persistent and Barbara was, if not amenable to Hadiyyah’s persistence, then at least detrited by Hadiyyah’s persistence. The small favour for which Barbara thanked God was that her young friend had chosen a blouse without a pussy bow.

She said to Deborah, “Ta, but I’m on duty. This is a police call, actually.”

“Is it?” Deborah looked at her husband and then at Barbara. “Are you wanting Simon, then?”

“You, actually.” There was a fourth chair near the table, and Barbara took it. She was acutely aware of Lynley’s eyes on her, and she knew what he was thinking because she knew him. She said to him, “Under orders, more or less. Well, more like under serious advice. You can believe I wouldn’t’ve otherwise.”

He said, “Ah. I did wonder. Whose orders, more or less?”

“The newest contestant for Webberly’s old job. She didn’t much like the way I looked. Unprofessional, she told me. She advised me to do some serious shopping.”

“I see.”

“Woman from Maidstone, she is. Isabelle Ardery. She was that-”

“The DI from arson.”

“You remember. Well done. Anyway, it was her idea that I ought to look…whatever. This is how I look.”

“I see. Pardon me for asking, Barbara, but are you wearing…?” He was far too polite to go further, and Barbara knew it.

“Makeup?” she asked. “Is it running down my face? What with the heat and the fact that I’ve not the first clue how to put the bloody stuff on…”

“You look lovely, Barbara.” Deborah was merely being supportive, Barbara knew, because she herself wore nothing at all on her freckled skin. And her hair, unlike Barbara’s own, comprised masses of red curls that suited her even in their habitual disarray.

“Cheers,” Barbara said. “But I look like a clown and there’s more to come. I won’t go into it, though.” She heaved her shoulder bag onto her lap and blew a breath upward to cool her face. She was carrying rolled beneath her arm a second poster from the Cadbury Photographic Portrait of the Year exhibition. This one had been tacked to the back of the bedroom door belonging to Jemima Hastings, which Barbara had seen once she’d shut that door to get a better look at the room. The ambient light had afforded her the opportunity to study both the portrait and the information written beneath it. That information had brought Barbara to Chelsea. She said, “I’ve got something here that I’d like you to take a look at,” and she unrolled the poster for Deborah’s inspection.

Deborah smiled when she saw what it was. “Have you been to the Portrait Gallery for the show, then?” She went on to speak to Lynley, telling him what he’d missed in his time away from London, a photographic competition in which her entry had been selected as one of the six pictures used for marketing the resulting exhibition. “It’s still on at the gallery,” Deborah said. “I didn’t win. The competition was deadly. But it was brilliant to be among the final sixty chosen to be hung, and then she”-with a nod at the picture-“was selected to be on posters and postcards sold in the gift shop. I was quite over the moon about that, wasn’t I, Simon?”

“Deborah’s had some phone calls,” St. James told them. “From people wanting to see her work.”

Deborah laughed. “He’s being far too kind. It was one phone call from a bloke asking me if I’m interested in doing photo shoots of food for a cookbook his wife is writing.”

“Sounds good to me,” Barbara noted. “But then anything involving food, you know…”

“Well done, Deborah.” Lynley leaned forward and looked at the poster. “Who’s the model?”

“She’s called Jemima Hastings,” Barbara told him, and to Deborah, “How did you meet her?”

Deborah said, “Sidney-Simon’s sister…I was looking for a model for the portrait contest and I’d thought at first that Sidney would be perfect, with all the modeling she does. I did try with her but the result was too professional looking…something about the way Sidney deals with facing a camera? With showing off clothing instead of being a subject? Anyway, I wasn’t happy with it and I was casting about afterwards, still looking for someone, when Sidney showed up with Jemima in tow.” Deborah frowned, obviously putting any number of things together at once. She said in a cautious voice, “What’s this about, Barbara?”

“The model’s been murdered, I’m afraid. This poster was in her lodgings.”

“Murdered?” Deborah said. Lynley and St. James both stirred in their chairs. “Murdered, Barbara? When? Where?”

Barbara told her. The other three exchanged looks, and Barbara said, “What? Do you know something?”

“Abney Park.” Deborah was the one to reply. “That’s where I took the picture in the first place. That’s where this is.” She indicated the weather-streaked lion whose head filled the frame to the left of the model. “This is one of the memorials in the cemetery. Jemima had never been there before we took the picture. She told us as much.”

“Us?”

“Sidney went as well. She wanted to watch.”

“Got it. Well, she went back,” Barbara said. “Jemima did.” She sketched a few more details, just enough to put them all in the picture. She said to Simon, “Where is she these days? We’re going to need to speak to her.”

“Sidney? She’s living in Bethnal Green, near Columbia Road.”

“The flower market,” Deborah added helpfully.

“With her latest partner,” Simon said, dryly. “Mother-not to mention Sid-is hoping this will also be her final partner, but frankly, it’s not looking that way.”

“Well, she does rather like them dark and dangerous,” Deborah noted to her husband.

“Having been affected in adolescence by a plethora of romance novels. Yes. I know.”

“I’ll need her address,” Barbara told him.

“I hope you don’t think Sid-”

“You know the drill. Every avenue and all that.” She rolled the poster back up and looked among them. Certainly there was something going on. She said, “Beyond meeting her with Sidney and then taking the picture, did you see her again?”

“She came to the opening at the Portrait Gallery. All the subjects-the models?-were invited to do that.”

“Anything happen there?”

Deborah looked at her husband as if seeking information. He shook his head and shrugged. She said, “No. Not that I…Well, I think she had a bit too much champagne, but she had a man with her who saw she got home. That’s really all-”

“A man? Do you know his name?”

“I’ve forgotten, actually. I didn’t think I’d need to…Simon, do you remember?”

“Just that he was dark. And I remember that mostly…” He hesitated, clearly reluctant to complete the thought.

Barbara did it for him. “Because of Sidney? You said she likes them dark, didn’t you?”

BELLA MCHAGGIS HAD never before been placed in the position of having to identify a body. She’d seen dead bodies, of course. She’d even, in the case of the departed Mr. McHaggis, doctored the setting in which death had occurred so as to protect the poor man’s reputation prior to phoning 999. But she’d never been ushered into a viewing room where a victim of violent death lay, covered by a sheet. Now that she had done, she was more than ready to engage in whatever sort of activity would scour from her mind the mental image.

Jemima Hastings-not a single doubt that it was Jemima-had been stretched out on a trolley with her neck wrapped up in thick swathes of gauze like a winter scarf, as if she needed protection from the chilly room. From that, Bella had concluded the girl had had her throat cut and she’d asked if this was the case, but the answer had come in the form of a question, “Do you recognise…?” Yes, yes, Bella had said abruptly. Of course it’s Jemima. She’d known the minute that woman officer had come to her house and had peered at that poster. The policewoman-Bella couldn’t remember her name at the moment-hadn’t been able to keep her expression blank, and Bella had known that the girl in the cemetery was indeed the lodger gone missing from her house.

So to wipe it all away, Bella became industrious. She could have gone to a session of hot yoga, but she reckoned industry was the better ticket. It would get her mind away from the mental picture of poor dead Jemima on that cold steel trolley at the same time as it would prepare Jemima’s room for another lodger now the cops had carted away all her belongings. And Bella wanted another lodger, soon, although she had to admit that she hadn’t had very much luck with the female variety. Still, she wanted a woman. She liked the sense of balance another woman gave to the household, though women were far more complicated than men and even as she considered this, she wondered if perhaps another male would keep things simpler and prevent the males already in place from preening so. Preening and strutting, that’s what they did. They did it unconsciously, like roosters, like peacocks, like virtually every male from every species on earth. The calculated dance of notice-me was something Bella generally found rather amusing, but she realised that she had to consider whether it might be easier on everyone concerned if she removed from their household the necessity for it.

Upon her return from viewing Jemima’s body, she’d put up her ROOM TO LET sign in the dining room window, and she’d made her phone call to Loot to run the advertisement. Then she’d gone up to Jemima’s room and she’d begun a thorough clean. With the boxes and boxes and boxes of her belongings already removed from the house, this was a job that didn’t take long. Hoovering, dusting, changing sheets, an application of furniture polish, a beautifully washed window-Bella prided herself particularly on the state of her windows-scented drawer liners removed from the chest and new ones placed there, curtains taken down for cleaning, every piece of furniture moved away from the wall to give the hoover access…No one, Bella thought, cleaned a room the way she did.

She moved on to the bathroom. Generally, she left their bathrooms to her lodgers, but if she was going to have a new lodger soon, it stood to reason that Jemima’s drawers and shelves were going to have to be emptied of anything left behind by the police. They’d not removed every item from the bathroom since not everything within had belonged to Jemima, so Bella concentrated on straightening the room as she cleaned it, which was why she found-not in Jemima’s drawer but in the top drawer marked for the other lodger-a curious item that certainly did not belong there.

It was the result of a pregnancy test. Bella knew that the second she clapped her eyes on it. What she didn’t know was whether the result was positive or negative, being of an age at which she would, of course, never have used such a test herself. Her own children-long gone to Detroit and to Buenos Aires-had announced their conception in the old-fashioned manner of wracking her body with morning sickness almost from the instant of sperm-meets-egg, which itself had been achieved in the old-fashioned manner, thank you very much, Mr. McHaggis. So Bella, retrieving the incriminating plastic tab from the drawer, wasn’t sure about what the indicator meant. Blue line. Was that negative? Positive? She would have to find out. She would also have to find out what it was doing in the drawer of her other lodger because surely he hadn’t brought it home from a celebratory dinner-or, what was more likely, a confrontational cup of coffee-with the mother-to-be. If a woman he’d been bonking had fallen pregnant and had presented him with the evidence, why would he keep it? A souvenir? Certainly, the coming infant was going to be souvenir enough. No, it stood to reason that the pregnancy test was Jemima’s. And if it hadn’t been in Jemima’s belongings or with Jemima’s rubbish, there was a reason. There seemed several possibilities, but the one that Bella didn’t want to consider was the one telling her that once again, two of her lodgers had pulled the wool over her eyes about what was going on between them.

Bloody hell damn, Bella thought. She had rules. They were everywhere. They were signed and sealed and delivered in the contract she made each lodger read and affix his or her name to the bottom of. Were young people so randy that they couldn’t stop themselves from jumping in and out of each other’s knickers at the first opportunity despite her very clear rules about fraternizing with other members of the household? It appeared they were. It appeared they could not. Someone, she decided, was going to be talked to.

Bella was going through the mental preparation for such a conversation when the bell went on the front door down below. She gathered up her cleaning supplies, removed her Marigolds, and huffed down the stairs. The bell rang again, and she shouted, “Coming,” and she opened it to see a girl on her porch, rucksack at her feet, hopeful expression on her face. She didn’t look English to Bella, and when she spoke, her voice gave her away as someone from what had once probably been Czechoslovakia but was now any one of a number of countries with many syllables, even more consonants, and few vowels, because Bella could not keep track of them and no longer tried.

“You have room?” the girl said hopefully, gesturing in the direction of the dining room window where the room-to-let sign was displayed. “I see your notice there…?”

Bella was about to tell her yes, she had a room to let, and how are you at obeying rules, missy? But her attention shifted to movement on the pavement as someone dodged behind what shrubbery managed to grow in her front garden among the plethora of recycling bins. It was a woman moving out of sight, a woman in a tailored wool suit, despite the heat, with a brightly patterned scarf-her sodding trademark, that was, Bella thought-folded into a band and holding back masses of dyed orange hair.

“You!” Bella shouted at her. “I’m ringing the cops, I am! You’ve been bloody told to stay away from this house and this is the limit!”

WHETHER THE ACTIVITY was going to eat up time or not-and Barbara Havers knew which alternative was actually the case-there was no way she was going to face the sister of Simon St. James in her current getup and with her face attempting to divest itself of its smear of makeup through the means of excessive perspiration. So instead of heading from Chelsea directly to Bethnal Green, she drove home to Chalk Farm first. She scrubbed her face, breathed a sigh of relief, and decided to compromise with the weeest bit of blusher. She then went for a change of apparel-hallelujah to drawstring trousers and T-shirts-and having thus resumed her normal state of dishabille, she was ready to face Sidney St. James.

Her conversation with Sidney was not effected immediately, however. Upon leaving her tiny bungalow, Barbara heard her name called out by Hadiyyah, crying from above, “Hullo, oh hullo, Barbara!” as if she hadn’t seen her in an eon or so. The little girl went on enthusiastically with, “Mrs. Silver is teaching me how to polish silver today,” and Barbara followed the sound of the voice to see Hadiyyah hanging out of a window on the second floor of the Big House. “We’re using baking powder, Barbara,” she announced and then she turned as someone within the flat said something to which the little girl corrected herself with, “Oh! Baking soda, Barbara. ’Course Mrs. Silver doesn’t ackshully have any silver, so we’re using her cutlery, but it makes the cutlery shine so. Isn’t that brilliant? Barbara, why’ve you not got on your new skirt?”

“End of day, kiddo,” Barbara said. “It’s mufti time.”

“And are you-” Hadiyyah’s attention was caught by something beyond Barbara’s line of vision because she interrupted herself with, “Dad! Dad! Hullo! Hullo! Sh’ll I come home now?” She sounded even more enthusiastic about this prospect than she had about seeing Barbara, which gave Barbara an idea of how much the little girl was actually enjoying learning yet another of Mrs. Silver’s “housewifely skills,” as she called them. So far in the summer they’d done starching, ironing, dusting, hoovering, removing scale from toilet bowls, and learning the myriad uses of white vinegar, all of which Hadiyyah had obediently mastered and then dutifully reported to Barbara and demonstrated either for her or for her father. But the bloom had faded from the rose of acquiring domestic skills-how could it be otherwise, Barbara thought-and while Hadiyyah was far too polite to complain to the elderly woman, who could blame her for embracing the thought of escape with a joy that daily increased?

Barbara heard Taymullah Azhar’s response, muted, from the direction of the street. Hadiyyah’s hand fluttered in farewell to Barbara, she disappeared within the flat, and Barbara herself continued down the path that followed the side of the house, emerging from beneath an arbour fragrant with star jasmine to see Hadiyyah’s father coming through the front gate, several carrier bags dangling from one hand and his worn leather briefcase in the other.

“Polishing silver,” Barbara said to him by way of greeting. “I’d no idea baking soda worked a trick on tarnish. You?”

Azhar chuckled. “There appears to be no end to the domestic knowledge of that good woman. Had I had it in mind that Hadiyyah should spend her life in housekeeping, I could not have found her a better instructor. She’s quite mastered scones, by the way. Have I mentioned that?” He gestured with the hand that held the carrier bags. “Will you join us for dinner, Barbara? It’s chicken jalfrezi with pilau rice. And as I recall”-with a smile that showed the sort of white teeth that made Barbara swear she would see the dentist in the near future-“those are among your favourites.”

Barbara told her neighbour she was sorely tempted, but duty called. “Just on my way out,” she said. Both of them turned as the front door of the old house opened and Hadiyyah clattered down the steps. She was followed closely by Mrs. Silver, tall and angular, ensconced in an apron. Sheila Silver, Barbara had learned from Hadiyyah, possessed an entire wardrobe of aprons. They were not only seasonal, they were celebratory as well. She had Christmas aprons, Easter aprons, Halloween aprons, New Year’s aprons, birthday aprons, and aprons commemorating everything from Guy Fawkes Night to the ill-fated marriage of Charles and Diana. Each of these was complemented by a matching turban. Barbara reckoned the turbans had been fashioned from tea towels by their wearer, and she had little doubt that when the list of housewifely duties had been mastered by Hadiyyah, turban making would be among them.

As Hadiyyah flung herself in the direction of her father, Barbara waved a farewell. Her last sight of them was of Hadiyyah-arms round Azhar’s slender waist-and Mrs. Silver in gangly pursuit of her, as if the girl’s escape had been preemptive and more information about baking soda needed to be imparted.

In her car, Barbara gave a thought to the time of day and concluded that only a bout of creative rat running would get her to Bethnal Green before nightfall. She skirted as much of the City as she could, ultimately coming on Bethnal Green from Old Street. This was an area that had altered much over the years, as young professionals unable to afford the prices of central London’s housing moved in an ever-widening circle to embrace parts of town long considered undesirable. Bethnal Green was hence a combination of the old and the new, where sari shops mingled with computer sales centres, and ethnic enterprises like Henna Weddings stood next door to estate agents flogging properties to growing families.

Sidney lived in Quilter Street, a terrace of plain-fronted houses constructed of London brick. A mere two storeys tall, they comprised the south side of a triangle at the centre of which was a common area called Jesus Green. Unlike so many small parks in town, this one was neither locked nor barred. It was fenced in wrought iron, which was typical of London’s squares, but the fence was only waist high and its gate stood open to admit anyone who wanted access to its wide lawn and to the pools of shade offered by the leafy trees that towered over it. Children were playing noisily on the green near to where Barbara parked her old Mini. In one corner a family was having a picnic, and in another a guitarist was entertaining a young adoring female. It was a very good place to escape the heat.

Sidney answered the door to Barbara’s knock, and Barbara tried not to feel what she indeed was in the presence of St. James’s younger sister: a frightening contrast. Sidney was quite tall, she was slender, and she was naturally in possession of the sort of cheekbones that women happily went under the knife to acquire. She had the same coal-coloured hair as her brother and the same blue-today-and-grey-tomorrow eyes. She was wearing capris, which emphasised legs that went from here to China, and a cropped tank top that showed off her arms, disgustingly tan like the rest of her. Large hoop earrings dangled from her ears, and she was removing them as she said, “Barbara. I expect the traffic was a nightmare, wasn’t it?” and admitted her into the house.

This was small. All the windows were open, but that was doing little to mitigate the heat inside. Sidney appeared to be one of those loathsome women who did not perspire, but Barbara was not among their number, and she could feel the sweat popping out on her face the moment the front door closed behind her. Sidney said sympathetically, “Terrible, isn’t it? We complain and complain about the rain, and then we get this. There should be some middle ground, but there never is. I’m just this way, if you don’t mind.”

Just this way turned out to be a staircase. This rose towards the back of the little house, where a door stood open to a small garden from which the sound of vicious pounding was emanating. Sidney went to the door, saying over her shoulder to Barbara, “That’s just Matt.” And into the garden, “Matt, darling, come and meet Barbara Havers.”

Barbara looked past her to see a man-burly, shirtless, and sweating-who was standing with sledgehammer in hand, apparently in the process of beating a sheet of plywood into submission. There seemed to be no reason for this unless, Barbara thought, he was going for a rather inefficient means of creating mulch for the single, sun-parched herbaceous border. At Sidney’s call, he didn’t stop what he was doing. Rather, he glanced over his shoulder and nodded curtly. He was wearing dark glasses, and his ears were pierced. His head was shaved to the skull, and like the rest of him it shone with sweat.

“Gorgeous, isn’t he?” Sidney murmured.

It wouldn’t have been Barbara’s word of choice. “What’s he doing, exactly?” she said.

“Letting it out.”

“What?”

“Hmmm?” Sidney gazed at the man appreciatively. He didn’t appear particularly handsome, but he had a body completely defined by muscle: an eye-catching chest, narrow waist, serious lats, and a bum that would have got him pinched just about anywhere on the planet. “Oh. Aggression. He’s letting it out. He hates it when he’s not working.”

“Unemployed, is he?”

“Good heavens, no. He does…oh, something or other for the government. Come up above, Barbara. D’you mind if we talk in the bathroom? I was giving myself a facial. Is it all right if I get on with it?”

Barbara said it was fine by her. She’d never seen a facial being given and now that she was on her relentless course of self-improvement, who knew what tips she might pick up from a woman who’d been a professional model since she was seventeen? As she followed Sidney up the stairs, she said, “Like what?”

“Matt?” Sidney clarified. “It’s all top secret, according to him. I expect he’s a spy or something. He won’t say. But he goes off for days or weeks and when he comes home, he fetches the plywood and beats the dickens out of it. He’s between jobs at the moment.” She glanced back in the direction of the pounding, concluding with a casual, “Matthew Jones, man of mystery.”

“Jones,” Barbara noted. “Interesting name.”

“It’s probably his whatever…his cover, eh? Makes it all rather exciting, don’t you think?”

What Barbara thought was that sharing lodgings and a bed with someone who pounded upon wood with a sledgehammer, possessed shady employment, and had a name that might or might not be his own was akin to playing Russian roulette with a rusty Colt.45, but she kept that to herself. Everyone’s boat floated on different water and if the bloke below rang Sidney’s chimes-not to mix too many metaphors, Barbara thought-then who was she to point out that men of mystery were frequently men of mystery for reasons having nothing at all to do with James Bond. Sidney had three brothers who were doubtless doing their share of pointing that out to her.

She followed Sidney into the bathroom where an impressive lineup of jars and bottles awaited them. Sidney began with the removal of her makeup, chattily explaining the process-“I like to tone, first, before I exfoliate. How often d’you exfoliate, Barbara?”-as she went along.

Barbara murmured appropriate responses, although toning sounded like something one did in a gym and exfoliating surely had to do with gardening, didn’t it? When Sidney at last had smoothed on a mask-“My T zone is just bloody murder,” she confessed-Barbara brought up the reason for her journey to Bethnal Green. She said, “Deborah tells me you introduced Jemima Hastings to her.”

Sidney acknowledged this. Then she said, “It was her eyes. I’d posed for Deborah-for the Portrait Gallery competition, you know?-but when the pictures weren’t what she wanted, I thought of Jemima. Because of her eyes.”

Barbara asked how she’d come to be acquainted with the young woman, and Sidney said, “Cigars. Matt likes Havanas-God, they smell awful-and I’d gone there to get him one. I remembered her later because of her eyes, and I reckoned she’d make an interesting face for Deborah’s portrait. So I went back and asked her and then took her along to meet Deborah.”

“Went back where?”

“Oh. Sorry. To Covent Garden. There’s a tobacconist in one of the courtyards? Round the corner from Jubilee Market Hall? It’s got cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, pipes, cigarette holders…all the bits one associates with smoking. Matt and I stopped there one afternoon, which is how I knew where it was and what he bought. Now whenever he’s due back from one of his man-of-mystery jaunts, I pop in and get him a welcome-home cigar.”

Bleagh, Barbara thought. She was a smoker herself-always intending to give it up although never quite intending enough-but she drew the line at anything whose scent reminded her of burning dog poo.

Sidney was saying, “Anyway, Deborah quite liked the look of her when I introduced them, so she asked her to pose. Why? Are you looking for her?”

“She’s dead,” Barbara said. “She was murdered in Abney Park Cemetery.”

Sidney’s eyes darkened. Exactly as her brother’s did when he was struck by something, Barbara thought. Sidney said, “Oh Lord. She’s the woman in the paper, isn’t she? I’ve seen the Daily Mail…” And when Barbara confirmed this, Sidney went on. She was the sort of woman who chatted compulsively-utterly unlike Simon whose reserve was sometimes completely unnerving-and she sketched in every relevant and irrelevant detail pertaining to Jemima Hastings and Deborah St. James’s photograph of her.

Sidney couldn’t make out why Deborah had chosen Abney Park Cemetery, as it wasn’t exactly easy to get to, but you know Deborah. When she set her mind to something, there was no suggesting an alternative. She’d apparently scouted locations for weeks in advance of the photo shoot and she’d read about the cemetery-“something to do with conservation?” Sidney wondered aloud-and had done an initial recce there, where she’d found the sleeping lion monument and decided it was just the thing she wanted for background in the photo. As it turned out, Sidney had accompanied Deborah and Jemima-“I admit it. I was a bit put out that my photo hadn’t suited, you know?”-and she’d watched the subsequent photo shoot, wondering why she had failed as a subject for the portrait where Jemima was possibly going to succeed. “As a professional, you know, one needs to know…If I’m losing my edge, I must get on top of my game…?”

Right, Barbara agreed. She asked had Sidney seen anything that day in the cemetery, had she noticed anything…Did she remember anything? Something unusual? Had anyone watched the photo shoot, for example?

Well, yes of course, there were always people…And lots of men, if it came down to it. Only Sidney couldn’t remember any of them because it had been ages ago and she’d certainly not thought that she’d have to remember and God it was dreadful that Deborah’s picture might have been the means…I mean, wasn’t it possible that someone had tracked down Jemima by using that picture, had found Jemima, had followed her to that cemetery…except what was she doing there, did they know?…or perhaps someone had kidnapped her and taken her there? And how had she died?

“Who?” It was Matt Jones speaking. Somehow he’d come silently up the stairs-Barbara wondered when he’d ceased pounding on the plywood and how long he’d been listening-and he was a looming, sweating presence in the bathroom doorway, which he filled up in a fashion that Barbara would have called menacing had she not also wanted to call it curious. Close to him now, she had a sense of both danger and anger emanating from him. He was sort of a Mr. Rochester type, had Mr. Rochester been in possession of heavy weaponry in the attic and not a mad wife.

Sidney said, “That girl from the cigar shop, darling. Jemima…What was her surname, Barbara?”

“Hastings,” Barbara said. “She was called Jemima Hastings.”

“What about her?” Matt Jones asked. He crossed his arms beneath a set of pectorals that were tanned, hairless, impressive, and decorated with a tattoo that said MUM and was surrounded by a wreath of thorns. He possessed three scars on his chest as well, Barbara saw, a puckering of the flesh that had the suspicious look of healed bullet holes. Who was this bloke?

“She’s dead,” Sidney told her lover. “Darling, Jemima Hastings was murdered.”

He was silent. Then he grunted once. He moved away from the doorway and rubbed the back of his neck. “What about dinner?” he asked.

The West Town Road Arcade’s CCTV tapes from that day are grainy, making absolute identification of the boys who took John Dresser impossible, should such identification rely on the tapes alone. Indeed, had it not been for Michael Spargo’s overlarge mustard anorak, there is a chance that John’s abductors might have gone unapprehended. But enough people had seen the three boys and enough people were willing to come forward and identify them that the tapes consequently act as confirmation of their identities.

The films show John Dresser walking away quite willingly with the boys, as if he knows them. As they near the arcade exit, Ian Barker takes John’s other hand and he and Reggie swing the child between them, perhaps in the promise of more play to come. While they walk, Michael catches them up with a childlike skip and hop, and he seems to offer the toddler some of the French fries he’s been eating. This offer of food to a child who was waiting hungrily for his lunch appears to have been what kept John Dresser happy to go with them, at least at first.

It’s interesting to note that when the boys leave the Barriers, they do not do so by the exit that would take them to the Gallows, i.e., by the exit most familiar to them. Instead, they choose one of the lesser-used exits, as if they already have planned to do something with the toddler and wish to remain as unseen as possible when they make off with him.

In his third interview with the police, Ian Barker claims that their intention was just to “have a bit of fun” with John Dresser, while Michael Spargo says that he didn’t know “what them other two wanted with that baby,” a term (“the baby”) that Michael uses throughout his conversations with the police in reference to John Dresser. For his part, Reggie Arnold will not come close to discussing John Dresser until his fourth interview. Instead, he attempts to obfuscate, making repeated references to Ian Barker and his own confusion about “what he wanted that kitten for,” attempting to direct the course of the conversation on to his siblings, or assuring his mother-who was present for nearly all interviews-that he “didn’t nick nothing, never ever, Mum.”

Michael Spargo claims that he wanted to return the toddler to the shopping arcade once they had him outside the Barriers. “I told them we could drop him back inside, just leave the baby by the door or something, but they were the ones didn’t want to. I said we’d get into trouble for nicking him, wouldn’t we [note the objectifying use of nicking, as if John Dresser were something they’d pinched from a shop] but they called me a wanker and asked me did I want to grass them up, then.”

Whether this actually happened remains open to doubt as neither of the other two boys refers to Michael having second thoughts. And later nearly every witness-who came to be known collectively as the Twenty-Five-confirms that their sightings of the boys involved all three of them and John Dresser, and all three of them seemed to be actively involved with the little boy.

Considering his past, it seems reasonable to conclude that Ian Barker was the one to suggest they see what would happen if they swung John Dresser as they had been doing but dropped him instead of landing him safely on his feet. This they did, releasing him at the apex of the swing and projecting him ahead of them at some speed, with the apparent and expected effect of John’s beginning to cry when he hit the pavement. This fall caused the first of the bruises to John’s bottom and, possibly, the first of the ultimately extensive damage done to his clothing.

With a clearly distressed toddler on their hands, the boys made their first attempt to settle him down by offering him the jam roll that Michael Spargo had taken from his home that morning. That John accepted it is clear not only from the extensive report of Dr. Miles Neff of the Home Office, but also from witness evidence, for it was at this point that the boys had their first encounter with someone who not only saw them with John Dresser but who also stopped to question them about him.

Trial transcripts show that when seventy-year-old Witness A (all witness names will be withheld from this document for their own protection) saw the boys, John was upset enough to concern her:

“I asked them what was wrong with that baby,” she says, “and one of them-I think it was the fat one [a reference to Reggie Arnold]-told me he’d fallen and banged his bum. Well, children do fall, don’t they? I didn’t think…I did offer to help. I offered them my handkerchief for his face ’cause he was crying so. But then the taller boy [referring to Ian Barker] said it was his baby brother and they were taking him home. I asked them how far they had to go and they said not far. Just over in Tideburn, they said. Well, as the baby began eating a jam roll they offered him, I couldn’t see there would be further trouble.”

She goes on to say that she asked the boys why they weren’t at school, and they told her school was finished for the day. This apparently mollified Witness A, who told them to “get the baby home then” because “he’s obviously wanting his mum.”

She doubtless was additionally mollified by the boys’ inspired use of Tideburn as their putative habitation. Tideburn was then and is now safely middle class to upper middle class. Had they said the Gallows-with all that saying the Gallows implied-her concerns might have been triggered.

Much has been made of the fact that the boys could have turned John Dresser over to Witness A at that moment, saying they’d found him wandering outside the Barriers. Indeed, much has been said of the fact that the boys had repeated moments when they could have handed John Dresser to an adult and gone on their way. That they didn’t suggests that somewhere along the line at least one of them was working on a larger plan. Either that or a larger plan had been earlier discussed among the three of them. But if this latter is the case, it is also something that not one of the boys has ever been willing to reveal.

The police were phoned once the CCTV tapes had been viewed by the Barriers’ head of security. By the time they arrived to look at the tapes themselves and to mount a search, however, John Dresser was approximately one mile away. In the company of Ian Barker, Michael Spargo, and Reggie Arnold, he had crossed two heavily trafficked roadways and he was both tired and hungry. He had fallen several more times, apparently, and had cut his cheek on a raised piece of the pavement.

It was becoming trying to be in his company, but still the boys did not release John Dresser to anyone. According to Michael Spargo’s fourth interview, it was Ian Barker who first kicked the toddler when he fell and it was Reggie Arnold who hauled the little boy back on his feet and began to drag him. John Dresser was apparently quite hysterical at this point, but this appears to have caused passersby to believe more firmly in the tale told by the boys that they were attempting to take “my little brother” home. Whose little brother John Dresser supposedly was was a detail that became a shifting target, dependent solely upon the speakers (Witnesses B, C, and D), and while Michael Spargo denies in every interview that he ever claimed John Dresser as a sibling, this assertion is contradicted by Witness E, a postal worker who encountered the boys midway to the Dawkins building site.

Witness E’s testimony has him asking the boys what’s wrong with the toddler, why’s he crying so, and what’s happened to his face?

“He said-this was the one in the yellow anorak, mind-that it was his brother and that Mum was doing the business with her boyfriend at the house and they were meant to keep the little ’un busy till she was finished. They said they’d walked a bit too far and could I drive them home in my van?”

This was, if anything, an inspired request. Surely the boys knew that Witness E would not be able to accommodate them. He was on his route, and even if that had not been the case, there was probably inadequate room within his vehicle. But the fact that this request had been made gave legitimacy to their story. Witness E reports that he “told them to take the tyke directly home, then, ’cause he was blubbing like nothing I ever seen and I got three of my own,” and the boys agreed to do this.

It appears possible that their intentions towards John Dresser, while inchoate when they first snatched him, began to develop with the consecutive string of successful lies they were able to tell about him, as if the easy belief of the witnesses whetted the boys’ appetite for abuse. Suffice it to say that they continued on their way, managing to walk the toddler more than two miles despite his protests and his cries of “Mummy” and “Da,” which were heard, and ignored, by more than one person.

Michael Spargo claims that during this period he asked again and again what they were going to do with John Dresser. “I told them we couldn’t take him home with us. I told them. I did,” the transcript of his fifth interview has him declaring. He also declares that it was at this point that he brought up the idea of leaving John at a police station. “I said we could leave him on the steps or something. We could leave him inside the door. I said his mum and dad’re going to be worried. They’re going to think something’s happened to him.”

Ian Barker, Michael says, declared that something had happened to the toddler. “He said, ‘Stupid git, something did happen.’ And he asked Reg did he think the baby’d make a splat when he hit the water.”

Was Ian considering the canal at that point? Possibly. But the fact of the matter was that the boys were nowhere near the Midlands Trans-Country Canal and they were not going to be able to get an exhausted John Dresser there unless they carried him, which they apparently did not wish to do. But had Ian Barker been harbouring a desire to inflict some sort of injury upon John Dresser in the environs of the canal, he had now been thwarted and John himself was the reason why.

John Dresser’s company becoming progressively more difficult, the boys made the decision to “lose the baby in a supermarket somewheres” according to Michael Spargo, because the entire affair had become “dead boring, innit.” There was no supermarket in the immediate vicinity, however, and the boys set out to find one. It was on their way that Ian, as Michael and Reggie report in separate interviews with the police, pointed out that in a shop they might be seen and even documented on CCTV. He indicated he knew of a much safer location. He led them to the Dawkins building site.

The site itself was a grand idea gone bad through loss of funding. Originally intended as three stylishly modern office blocks within “a lovely, parklike setting of trees, gardens, paths, and copious outdoor seating,” it had been intended to infuse money into the surrounding community in order to bolster a faltering economy. But poor management on the part of the contractor resulted in the project being called to a halt before the first tower was completed.

On the day that Ian Barker ushered his companions to the site, it had languished untouched for nineteen months. It was fenced by chain link, but it was not inaccessible. Although signage on the fence warned that the site was “under surveillance 24 hours a day” and that “trespassers and vandals will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” regular incursions into the property made by children and adolescents indicated otherwise.

It was a tempting area both for playing and for clandestine rendezvous. There were dozens of places to hide; heaps of earth offered launching pads for mountain bikers; discarded boards, tubes, and pipes could stand in for weapons in games of war; small chunks of concrete substituted nicely for hand grenades and bombs. While it was a dubious location in which “to lose the baby” if the boys intended someone to come across him and take him to the nearest police station, it was a perfect spot in which the rest of the day’s horrors could play out.