This Body of Death

Chapter Seventeen

“HE’S CALLED YUKIO MATSUMOTO,” ISABELLE ARDERY TOLD Lynley when he walked into her office. “His brother saw the e-fit and phoned in.” She fingered through some paperwork on her desk.

Lynley said, “Hiro Matsumoto?”

She looked up. “That’s the brother. D’you know him?”

“I know of him. He’s a cellist.”

“In a London orchestra?”

“No. He’s a soloist.”

“Well known?”

“If you follow classical music.”

“Which you do, I take it?” She sounded marginally piqued, as if he’d been intent upon demonstrating knowledge that she considered both arcane and offensive. She also seemed on edge. Lynley wondered if this had to do with whatever she might be thinking about his meeting with Hillier. He wanted to tell her to have no fear on that score. While he and Hillier had reached a point of personal rapprochement after Helen’s death, he had a feeling it wouldn’t last and soon enough they’d be back on their previous footing, which was at each other’s throats.

He said, “I’ve heard him play. If, indeed, that’s the Hiro Matsumoto who phoned you.”

“I can’t think there’re two blokes with that name, and anyway, he wouldn’t come to the Yard. He said he’d speak to us at his solicitor’s office. Some backing and forthing over that and we compromised with the bar at the Milestone Hotel. Not far from the Albert Hall. Do you know it?”

“It can’t be difficult to find,” he said. “But why not at his solicitor’s office?”

“I don’t like the image of cap in hand.” She looked at her watch. “Ten minutes,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the car.” She tossed him her keys.

It was actually fifteen minutes later when she joined him. In the closer confines of the car, she smelled of mint. “Right,” she said as they headed up the ramp. “Tell me, Thomas.”

He glanced at her. “What?”

“Don’t be coy. Did Hillier order you to watch me and give him reports?”

Lynley smiled to himself. “Not in so many words.”

“But it was about me, wasn’t it, this meeting with Sir David.”

At the street he braked and looked in her direction. “You know, in some situations that conclusion would smack of narcissism. The appropriate response would be, ‘The world is not all about you, guv.’”

“Isabelle,” she said.

“Guv,” he repeated.

“Oh bother, Thomas. I don’t intend to let that go. The Isabelle bit. As to the other, are you going to tell me or shall I just assume? I want loyalists working for me, by the way. You’ll have to choose sides.”

“And if I don’t wish to?”

“Out on your handsome ear. You’ll be back to traffic warden in the blink of an eye.”

“I was never a traffic warden in the first place, guv.”

“Isabelle. And you damn well know what I mean, behind those impeccable manners of yours.”

He pulled out into Broadway and considered his route. He settled on making for Birdcage Walk and weaving over to Kensington from there.

The Milestone Hotel was one of the many boutique establishments that had been springing up round town in the last few years. Fashioned from one of the distinguished redbrick mansions that faced Kensington Gardens and the palace, it was oaken, quiet, and discreet, an oasis from the bustle of High Street Kensington, not far from the hotel’s front door. It was also air-conditioned, a real blessing.

The hotel’s staff wore expensive uniforms and spoke in the hushed voices of people at a religious service. The moment that Lynley and Isabelle Ardery walked into the place, they were approached by a pleasant concierge who asked if he could be of assistance to them.

They wanted the bar, Ardery told him. She was brisk and official. Where is it? she asked.

The man’s moment of hesitation was something Lynley recognised as an indication of a disapproval that he wouldn’t voice. For all he knew, she was a hotel inspector or someone getting ready to write about the Milestone in one of the myriad guides to London. It would serve everyone’s interests if he cooperated as blandly as possible with only a minuscule display of his judgment of her manners. He said, “Of course, madam,” and he took them personally to the bar, which turned out to be an intimate setting for a colloquy.

Before he left them, Isabelle asked him to fetch the bartender and when that individual arrived, she ordered a vodka and tonic. To Lynley’s carefully expressionless face, she said, “Are you going to tell me about Sir David or not,” which surprised him as he thought she’d likely remark about the drink.

“There’s little to report. He’s interested in filling the position soon. It’s been too long without someone permanently in Webberly’s place. You’ve a good shot at it as-”

“As long as I keep my nose clean, wear tights to the office, don’t ruffle anyone’s feathers, and walk the straight and narrow,” she said. “Which I suppose includes not having a vodka and tonic during working hours, whatever the temperature of the day.”

“I was going to say ‘as far as I can tell,’” he told her. He’d ordered a mineral water for himself.

She narrowed her eyes at him and frowned at the bottle of Pellegrino when it arrived. “You disapprove of me, don’t you?” she said. “Will you tell Sir David?”

“That I disapprove? I don’t, actually.”

“Not even of the fact that I have the occasional drink on duty? I’m not a lush, Thomas.”

“Guv, you’ve no need to explain yourself to me. And as to the rest, I’m not eager to become Hillier’s snout. He knows that.”

“But your opinion counts with him.”

“I can’t think why. If it does now, it never did before.”

The sound of quiet conversation came in their direction, and in a moment two people entered the room. Lynley recognised the cellist at once. His companion was an attractive Asian woman in a smartly tailored suit and stiletto heels that clicked like whip cracks against the floor.

She glanced at Lynley but spoke to Ardery. “Superintendent?” she said. At Ardery’s nod, she introduced herself as Zaynab Bourne. “And this is Mr. Matsumoto,” she told them.

Hiro Matsumoto bent fractionally from the waist although he also extended his hand. He gave a firm handshake and murmured a conventional greeting. He had, Lynley thought, a quite pleasant face. Behind his wire-rimmed spectacles, his eyes appeared kind. For an international celebrity in the world of classical music, he seemed inordinately humble as well, asking politely for a cup of tea. Green tea if they had it, he said. If not, black tea would do. He spoke without an apparent accent. Lynley recalled that he’d been born in Kyoto, but he’d studied and played abroad for many years.

He was appearing now at the Albert Hall, he said. He was in London for only a fortnight, also teaching a master class at the music college. It was purest chance that he’d seen the e-fit-which he called the artist’s rendition-of his brother in the newspaper and also on the television news.

“Please believe me,” Hiro Matsumoto said quietly, “when I assure you that Yukio did not kill this woman the papers are speaking of. He could not have done so.”

“Why?” Ardery said. “He was in the vicinity-we’ve a witness to that-and he seems to have been running from the scene.”

Matsumoto looked pained. “There will be an explanation. Whatever else he might be, whatever else he does, my brother Yukio is not a killer.”

Zaynab Bourne said as if to explain, “Mr. Matsumoto’s younger brother suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, Superintendent. Unfortunately, he won’t take medication. But he’s never been in trouble with the police since he first came to London-if you check your records you’ll find this is true-and he leads a quiet life in general. My client”-with a brief, proprietary touch on Hiro Matsumoto’s arm-“is identifying him so that you can concentrate your efforts elsewhere, where they belong.”

“That may be the case-the schizophrenia bit,” Ardery said, “but as he was seen running from the area of a murder and as some of his clothing appeared to have been removed and was balled up-”

“It’s been hot weather,” the solicitor cut in.

“-he’s going to have to be questioned. So if you know where he is, Mr. Matsumoto, you do need to tell us.”

The cellist hesitated. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and used it on his glasses. Unshielded by them, his face looked quite young. He was in his late forties, Lynley knew, but he could have passed for a man fifteen years younger.

He said, “First, I must explain to you.”

Ardery looked as if the last thing she wanted was an explanation for anything, but Lynley himself was curious. As secondary officer to Ardery, it wasn’t his place but still he said, “Yes?”

His brother was a gifted musician, Hiro Matsumoto said. They were a musical family, and the three of them-there was also a sister who was a flautist in Philadelphia-had all been given instruments as children. They were expected to learn, to practise long and hard, to play well, and to excel. Towards this end they were educated in music at great cost to their parents and at personal sacrifice of them all.

“Obviously,” he said, “there is not a normal childhood when one has this sort of…focus.” He chose the last word carefully. “In the end, I went to Juilliard, Miyoshi studied in Paris, and Yukio came to London. He was fine at first. There was no indication that anything was wrong. It was only later that the illness appeared. And because of this-because it happened in the midst of his studies-our father believed he was malingering. Out of his depth, perhaps, and unable to admit it or to cope with it. This was not the case, of course. He was seriously ill. But in our culture and in our family-” Matsumoto had continued polishing his glasses as he spoke, but now he paused, put them on, and adjusted them carefully on his nose. “Our father is not a bad man. But his beliefs are firm, and he could not be convinced that Yukio needed more than merely a good talking to. He came here from Kyoto. He made his wishes known to Yukio. He gave him instructions, and he expected them to be followed. Since his instructions had always been obeyed, he thought he’d done enough. And at first it seemed so. Yukio drove himself hard, but the illness…This is not something you can wish away or work away. He had a collapse, he left the college, and he simply disappeared. For ten years he was lost to us. When we located him, we wanted to help him, but he would not be forced. His fears are too great. He distrusts the medicines. He has a terror of hospitals. He manages to survive on his music, and my sister and I do what we can to watch over him when we come to London.”

“And do you now know where he is? Exactly where he is?”

Matsumoto looked to his solicitor. Zaynab Bourne took up the thread of the conversation. “I hope Mr. Matsumoto has made it clear that his brother is ill. He wants an assurance that nothing will be done that might frighten him. He understands that Yukio will need to be questioned, but he insists that your approach be cautious and that any interview be conducted in my presence and in the presence of a mental health professional. He also insists upon your acknowledgement and assurance that, as his brother is someone diagnosed with untreated paranoid schizophrenia, his words-whatever they might be once you speak to him-can hardly be used against him.”

Lynley glanced at Ardery. She had her hands clasped round her vodka and tonic, and her fingers tapped against the cool sides of the glass. She’d drunk most of it during their conversation, and now she drained the rest. She said, “I acknowledge that we’ll take care. You’ll be there. A specialist will be there. The Pope, the Home Secretary, and the Prime Minister will be there if you want it. You’ll have as many witnesses as you like if that’s your pleasure, but if he admits to murder, he’s going to be charged.”

“He’s seriously ill,” the solicitor said.

“And we have a legal system that will make that determination.”

There was a little silence as the cellist and his solicitor thought this over. Ardery leaned back in her chair. Lynley waited for her to remind them that they were at the moment sheltering someone who could be a material witness to a crime or, worse, the actual killer. But she didn’t play that card and she looked as if she knew she didn’t need to.

Instead she said, “There’s a simple reality you must face, Mr. Matsumoto. If you don’t give your brother up to us, someone else will eventually.”

Another silence before Hiro Matsumoto spoke. He looked so pained that Lynley felt a powerful surge of compassion for him, a surge so strong that he wondered if he was actually meant to do police work at this juncture in his life. The whole point was to manoeuvre people into a corner. Ardery was perfectly willing to do this, he could see, but he thought he himself might not have the stomach for it any longer.

Matsumoto said quietly, “He is in Covent Garden. He plays his violin there, as a busker, for money.” He dropped his head, as if the admission were somehow a humiliation, as perhaps it was.

Ardery rose. She said, “Thank you. I have no intention of frightening him.” And to his solicitor she went on with, “When we have him in custody, I’ll ring you and tell you where he is. We won’t speak to him until you’re there. Contact whatever mental health expert you need and bring her along.”

“I will want to see him,” Hiro Matsumoto said.

“Of course. We’ll arrange that as well.” She gave him a nod and indicated to Lynley that they needed to be off.

Lynley said to the cellist, “You’ve done the right thing, Mr. Matsumoto. I know it wasn’t easy.” He found he wanted to go on, forging a fellowship with the man because his own brother had in the past been deeply troubled. But Peter Lynley’s difficulties with both alcohol and drugs were insignificant compared to this, so he said nothing else.

ISABELLE MADE THE phone call once they were on the pavement in front of the hotel, heading back to her car. They had their man, she told DI Hale brusquely. Get over to Covent Garden at once and take a team with you. Five blokes should do it. Fan out when you get there, look for a middle-aged Japanese man sawing away on a violin. Box him in. Do not approach him. He’s barking mad and just as dangerous. Phone me with his exact location. I’m on my way.

She snapped her phone off and turned to Lynley. “Let’s pick up the miserable shite.”

He looked surprised or taken aback or something that she couldn’t quite make out. She said, “This bloke is very likely a killer, Thomas.”

“Right, guv.” He spoke politely.

She said, “What? I’ll give them their bloody psycho-whatever-they-want-kind-of-expert and I’ll not say a word to him till Ms. Stiletto Heels is sitting in his lap, if necessary. But I’m not about to risk his getting away from us when we’ve finally got him.”

“You’ll get no objection from me.”

But she knew he objected to something and she pressed him. “I daresay you have a better approach?”

“Not at all.”

“God damn it, Thomas, if we’re to work together, you’re going to be frank with me even if I have to twist your arm.”

They were at the car and he hesitated before unlocking his door. At least, she thought, she’d apparently cured him of opening her door for her. He said, “You’re certain about that?”

“Well, of course I’m certain. Why else would I say it? I want to know what you think and I want to know it when you think it.”

“Have you a drinking problem, then?” he asked her.

It wasn’t what she’d been expecting, but she knew she should have been prepared. The fact that she hadn’t been caused her to explode. “I had a bloody vodka and tonic. Do I look like I’m staggering drunk to you?”

“And before the vodka and tonic?” he asked. “Guv, I’m not a fool. I expect you’ve got it in your bag. Likely it’s vodka because most people think that has no odour. You’ve got breath mints as well, or chewing gum, or whatever else you use to hide the smell.”

She said in automatic response, gone icy to her fingertips, “You’re out of order, Inspector Lynley. You are so bloody far out of order that I ought to send you packing to walk a patch in South London.”

“I can understand that.”

She wanted to strike him. It came to her that it didn’t matter to him and that likely it had never mattered to him: what threats were used against him to control him as a cop. He was unlike the rest because he didn’t need the job, so if they took it from him or threatened to take it from him or acted in a way that met with his aristocratic displeasure, he could walk away and do whatever it was that earls of the bloody realm did if they were not otherwise gainfully employed. And this was more than maddening, she realised. It made him a loose cannon, with loyalties to no one.

“Get in the car,” she told him. “We’re going to Covent Garden. Now.”

They drove in absolute silence, along the south side of Kensington Gardens and then Hyde Park. And she wanted a drink. The vodka and tonic had been a typical hotel bar vodka and tonic: a meagre finger and a half of vodka in the glass with the tonic provided alongside in a bottle so she could make the drink as strong or as weak as she wished. Because of Lynley’s presence, she’d used the entire tonic, and now she regretted it. She bloody, sodding regretted it. She also went over her movements feverishly, in her mind. She’d been perfectly careful. He was making a guess and waiting to see what she would do about it.

She said to him, “I’m going to forget we had that exchange on the pavement, Thomas.”

He said, “Guv,” in a tone that telegraphed as you wish.

She wanted to go further. She wanted to know what, if anything, he would say to Hillier. But to make any additional mention of the topic could give it a credence she couldn’t afford.

They were attempting to negotiate Piccadilly Circus when her mobile rang. She barked, “Ardery,” into it, and Philip Hale spoke. They’d found the Japanese bloke with the violin, he told her. “Down a set of stairs in a courtyard just beyond-”

“The cigar shop,” Isabelle said, for she recalled that she and Lynley had seen the damn busker themselves. He’d been playing to the accompaniment of a boom box. With long salt-and-pepper hair, he’d been wearing a tuxedo and standing in the lower courtyard in front of a wine bar. Why the hell hadn’t she remembered the man?

That was the bloke, Philip Hale said when she’d described him.

“Have you uniforms with you?”

No. Everyone was in plainclothes. Two blokes were sitting at tables in the courtyard and the rest were-

Hale broke off. Then he said, “Damn. Guv, he’s packing up. He’s shut off the boom box and he’s putting the violin…You want us to nab him?”

“No. No. Do not approach him. Follow him, but keep everyone away. And keep well back. Do not let him see he’s being tailed, all right?”

“Right.”

“Good man, Philip. We’ll be there presently.” She said to Lynley, “He’s on the move. Get us there, for God’s sake.”

She could feel her nerves jangling to the tips of her toes. He, on the other hand, was perfectly calm. But once they made it through Piccadilly Circus, a tailback of taxis seemed to stretch into infinity.

She cursed. She said, “Bloody hell, Thomas. Get us out of here.”

He gave no reply. But he made the virtue of being a longtime Londoner apparent when he began to take side streets, coolly, as if in possession of the Knowledge. He finally parked as Isabelle’s mobile rang again.

Philip Hale’s voice said, “There’s a church at the southwest end of the square.”

“Has he gone inside?”

He hadn’t, Hale said. In front of the church was a garden and he had begun to play there, in the middle of the central path. There were benches lining this and people were listening and, “Guv, there’s quite a crowd gathered.”

Isabelle said, “We’ll be there.” And to Lynley, “A church?”

“That would be St. Paul’s Covent Garden.” As they came into the vicinity of the old flower market, he took her arm briefly and pointed her towards it. She saw the building over the heads of the crowd, a classical structure of brick with quoins of pale stone. She headed towards it, but the route wasn’t easy. There were buskers everywhere and hundreds of people enjoying them: magicians, balloon sellers, tap dancers, even a group of grey-haired women playing marimbas.

Isabelle was thinking it was the perfect spot for something dreadful to happen-anything from a terrorist attack to a runaway vehicle-when a sudden commotion to one side of the church caught her attention just as her mobile rang. A shout went up, and she snapped, “What’s going on?” into the phone. For it was clear to her that something was happening and it wasn’t what she wanted to happen and even as she thought this, she saw Yukio Matsumoto tearing through the crowd, his violin in one hand and sheer unmitigated panic on his face.

On the mobile Philip Hale said, “He clocked us, guv. Don’t know how. We’ve got-”

“I see him,” she said. “Get in pursuit. If we lose him here, we’ve lost him for good.” And to Lynley, “Damn. Damn,” as the violinist broke into a crowd. Cries of protest were followed almost at once by shouts of “Police! Stop! Stop that man!” and afterwards a form of madness ensued. For part of the dark history of the Metropolitan police in pursuit of anyone was a history that included the shooting death of an unarmed and innocent civilian in an underground train, and no one wanted to be in the line of fire. No matter that these plainclothes cops were not armed, the crowd wouldn’t know that. People began running in all directions as mothers grabbed children, husbands grabbed wives, and those individuals with a score to settle against the police did what they could to get in the way.

“Where’s he gone?” Isabelle demanded of Lynley.

He said, “There!” and indicated roughly the north. She followed his gesture and saw the bobbing head of the man and then the black of his tuxedo coat, and she set off after him, shouting into her phone, “Philip, he’s going north on…What is it?” to Lynley.

“James Street,” Lynley said. “In the direction of Long Acre.”

“James Street,” she repeated. “In the direction…where?” to Lynley. And then, “Bloody hell. You talk to him.” She thrust her mobile at Lynley and began to run, forcing her way through the crowd with shouts of “Police! Police! Get out of the way!”

Matsumoto had made it to the top of the street, charging down the middle of it with no regard for whom or what he ran into. Fallen children, one upended kiosk, and trampled shopping bags lay in his wake, but to her cries of “Stop him!” no one did a thing.

In pursuit, she and Lynley had the advantage over Philip Hale and his men. But Matsumoto was fast. He was driven by fear and by whatever demons were inside his head. In front of her, she saw him dash directly into Long Acre, where the blast of a horn told her he’d nearly missed being hit by a car. She redoubled her speed in time to see him go roaring up another street. He ran as if his life depended upon escape, his violin clutched to his chest, its bow long discarded. Isabelle cried, “Where does that go?” to Lynley. “Where’s he heading?”

“Shaftesbury Avenue,” Lynley told her, and into the phone, “Philip, can you head him off by another route? He’s about to cross Shelton Street. He’s not attending to where he’s running or what’s around him. If he makes it as far as Shaftesbury…Yes. Yes. Right.” And to Isabelle, “There’ll be uniforms somewhere nearby. He’s got the Met on it.”

“Christ, we don’t want uniforms, Thomas.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

They raced after him. Matsumoto knocked pedestrians right and left. He stumbled against a placard for the Evening Standard. She thought they had him because the vendor jumped forward and managed to grab his arm, yelling, “Just you bloody wait.” But he shoved the irate man into the window of a shop front with tremendous force. The glass cracked, then exploded and showered the pavement in shards.

He made it into Shaftesbury Avenue. He veered to the right. In vain, Isabelle hoped for a uniformed constable or anything else because as she and Lynley rounded the corner, she could see the danger, and she understood in a flash what was likely to happen if they didn’t stop him at once.

Which they could not do. They could not do.

“What is this place?” she called to Lynley. He’d gained upon her and was surging ahead, but she was close after him.

“High Holborn, Endell, New Oxford…” His breathing was heavy. “We can’t let him cross.”

She saw that well enough. Cars, taxis, lorries, and buses were all debouching into this one spot and from every direction.

But cross he intended and cross he attempted, without a glance to the right or the left, as if he were running in a park and not upon a congested street.

The taxi that hit him had no chance to stop. It came from the northeast, and like every other means of transport in the vast confluence of streets that hurled vehicles by the dozens and in every direction, it came fast. Matsumoto flung himself off the pavement, intent upon crossing, and the taxi slammed into him, sending his body in a horrifying arc of flight.

“Jesus God!” Isabelle heard Lynley cry. And then he was shouting into her mobile, “Philip! Philip! He’s been hit. Get an ambulance at once. Top of Shaftesbury Avenue, near St. Giles High Street,” as everywhere round them the screech of brakes and the blaring of horns filled the air, as the taxi driver burst out of his vehicle and-hands to his head-ran towards the crumpled body of Yukio Matsumoto as a bus driver joined him and then three others, till the violinist was hidden from view as Lynley shouted, “Police! Keep back! Don’t move him!”

And as she herself realised, she’d made the wrong decision-the very worst decision-to have a team go after the man.

WHEN HE’D AGREED to be part of Isabelle Ardery’s murder squad for this investigation, the last spot Lynley would have considered as one of the locations in which he might have to put in an appearance was St. Thomas’ Hospital, Accident and Emergency, the very rooms and corridors in which he’d had to make the decision to let go of Helen and their child. But that was where the ambulance took Yukio Matsumoto, and when Lynley walked through the doors into the hushed urgency of the casualty ward, it was as if no time at all had passed between this moment and the aftermath of what had happened to his wife. The smells were the same: antiseptics and cleansers. The sights were as they had been before: the institutional blue chairs linked together and lining the walls, the notice boards about AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, and the importance of frequent hand washing. The sounds remained universal: the arrival of ambulances, the rush of feet, exigent orders being barked as trolleys wheeled the injured into examining areas. Lynley saw and heard all of this and was swept back to the moment he’d walked in and learned that his wife had been shot on the front steps of their house, that help did not arrive for twenty minutes, and that in that time Helen had gone without oxygen as her heart pumped blood uselessly into the cavity of her chest. It was all so real that he gasped, stopped abruptly, and did not come round till he heard Isabelle Ardery say his name.

Her tone cleared his head. She was saying to him, “…uniforms down here, round the clock, wherever he is, wherever they move him. Christ, what a cock-up. I bloody well told him not to approach.”

He noticed that she was wringing her hands and he thought inanely how he’d never seen someone do that although he’d read the expression often enough in books as an indication of someone’s anxiety. Doubtless, she’d be feeling anxiety in spades. The Metropolitan police in pursuit of someone who ends up in hospital? No matter that they were identifying themselves as they pursued him. It wouldn’t play that way in the newspapers, and she’d know that. She would also know that the ultimate head to roll-if it came down to it-was going to be hers.

The doors opened. Philip Hale came in, his expression distraught. Sweat made rivulets from his temples and beaded on his forehead. He’d removed his jacket. His shirt clung to his body.

Ardery moved. She had him by the arm and then against the wall and she was inches from his face before he had even noted her location in the room. She hissed, “Do you ever bloody listen? I told you not to approach the man.”

“Guv, I didn’t-”

“If we lose him, Philip, you’re taking the blame. I’ll see to it personally.”

“But, guv-”

“Under review, in the dock, in the box. Whatever it takes to get your attention because when I say you are not to approach a suspect, I do not sodding mean anything else, so you tell me-you God damn bloody tell me, Philip-which part of that you didn’t understand because we’ve got a man who’s been hit by a car and likely to die and if you think anyone’s about to let this go and pretend it didn’t happen, then you’d better have another God damn think about the matter and you’d better do it now.”

The DI glanced Lynley’s way. There could not be, Lynley knew, a better cop and more decent person than Philip Hale. Given an order, he’d follow it to the letter, which was what he’d done and all of them knew it.

Hale said, “Something spooked him, guv. One moment he was playing the violin and the next he was on the run. I don’t know why. I swear to God-”

“You swear to God, do you?” She shook his arm. Lynley could see the tension in her fingers, and her grasp had to be a raw one because the tips of her fingers were red and the skin beneath her nails had gone crimson. “Oh, that’s very pretty, Philip. Step onto the pitch. Take responsibility. I’ve no time for men who snivel like-”

“Guv,” Lynley intervened quietly. “That’ll do.”

Ardery’s eyes widened. He saw that she’d eaten the lipstick from her mouth and what replaced it for colour on her face were two circles of red fury high on her cheeks. Before she could reply, he said to her urgently, “We need to get to his brother and let him know what’s happened.”

She began to speak and he added, “We don’t want him to hear this from a news report. We don’t want anyone significant learning it that way.” By which he meant Hillier and she had to know that, even as she was driven by demons he well recognised but had never actually understood.

She released Hale’s arm. “Get back to the Yard,” she said and then to Lynley, “That’s twice now. You’re warned.”

“Understood,” he said.

“And it makes no bloody difference, does it?” Then she swung on Philip Hale once again. “Are you an idiot, Philip? Did you not hear me? Get back to the Yard!”

Philip Hale looked from Ardery to Lynley and back to Ardery. He said, “Guv,” with a nod and he left them. Lynley saw him shake his head as he went.

Ardery said to Lynley, “Get on to the brother, then,” and she began to pace. As Lynley made the necessary calls, he watched her and he wondered at what point she’d make another trip to the ladies’, because there was little doubt in his mind that she desperately needed a drink.

However, during the forty minutes they waited for Hiro Matsumoto’s solicitor to find the cellist and to bring him to St. Thomas’ Hospital, the acting superintendent remained in the waiting area and Lynley developed a reluctant respect for the manner in which she mastered herself. She made the appropriate phone calls to the Yard, putting the press office into the picture and passing along information to AC Hillier’s office as well. Hillier, Lynley reckoned, would ultimately give Isabelle Ardery an earful. There was nothing the assistant commissioner hated more than bad press. Half of London could shoot the other half in the street and Hillier would not be as bothered as he would be by a tabloid screaming MORE BRUTALITY FROM THE MET.

When they finally arrived, Hiro Matsumoto was far calmer than his solicitor, who breathed fire and threatened lawsuits, neither of which was unexpected. She was interrupted only when they were joined by the physician who’d initially seen to the violinist’s injuries. He was a gnomelike man with overlarge and oddly translucent ears and a nametag reading HOGG. He spoke directly to Hiro Matsumoto, obviously recognising him as the party probably most intimately connected to the injured man. He ignored the others.

A broken shoulder and a broken hip constituted the initial information, which sounded hopeful considering how bad things could have been. But then Mr. Hogg added fractured skull and acute subdural haematoma to the mix, as well as the fact that the size of the injury was going to cause a dangerous increase in intracranial pressure, which in turn would result in damage to delicate brain tissue if something was not done immediately. That something was decompression, effected only by surgery, and Yukio Matsumoto was being prepared for the operating theatre as they spoke.

“This is a murder suspect,” Isabelle Ardery informed the doctor. “We’re going to want to speak with him before anything is done to make him incommunicado.”

“He’s not in any condition-,” the doctor began, to be interrupted by both the brother and the brother’s solicitor.

One said, “My brother did not kill that woman,” as the other said, “You’re not speaking to anyone but me, madam, and let’s make certain that’s very clear. And if you so much as approach Yukio Matsumoto without my knowledge-”

“Don’t you threaten me,” Isabelle Ardery cut in.

“What I’ll do-what I intend to do-is to find out exactly what led to this unbelievable development and when I find out, you’ll be under a legal scrutiny the likes of which you have never seen. I hope I’m being completely clear.”

The doctor snapped, “My interest is in the injured and not on whatever quarrel you two are having. He’s going into surgery and there’s an end to the matter.”

“Please,” Hiro Matsumoto said quietly. His eyes were liquid. “My brother. He’ll live?”

The doctor’s expression softened. “It’s a traumatic injury, Mr. Masumoto. We’ll do our very best.”

When he departed, Isabelle Ardery spoke, saying to Lynley, “We need to collect his clothing for forensics.”

“I’ll have something to say about that,” Zaynab Bourne snapped.

“He’s a principal suspect in a murder investigation,” Ardery snapped back. “We’ll have the appropriate paperwork and we’ll take the clothing and if you have a problem with that, you can take it up via the proper channels.” To Lynley, “I’ll want someone posted here as well, someone capable of staying on top of every development. The moment he’s able to speak, we want an officer in the room with him.” She turned to Hiro Matsumoto and asked if he could tell them where his brother had his digs.

His solicitor was winding up to protest, but Matsumoto said, “No, please, Mrs. Bourne. I believe it is in Yukio’s best interests to clear this matter up.”

“Hiro, you can’t…” Mrs. Bourne drew him away from Lynley and Ardery. She spoke urgently into his ear and he listened gravely. But the end result was no different. He shook his head. A few more words passed between them and Zaynab Bourne made for the outer doorway, flipping open her mobile phone as she went. Lynley had little doubt the solicitor had resources upon whom she was calling to light a fire under the feet of the Met.

Hiro Matsumoto returned to the police. He said, “Come. I’ll take you there.”

ISABELLE FIELDED A phone call from AC Hillier as they crossed the river, heading up Victoria Embankment to avoid Parliament Square. Previously, she’d spoken only to the AC’s secretary, grateful for the opportunity to rehearse the passing along of information that was likely to send Hillier into orbit. He said, “Tell me,” as a means of greeting. Isabelle, cognizant of Hiro Matsumoto’s presence in the backseat of the car, gave him as little information as possible. She concluded her recitation with, “He’s in the operating theatre and his brother is with us. We’re heading to his digs.”

“Have we got our man?”

“It’s very possible.”

“Considering the situation, I don’t need possible. I need probable. I need yes.”

“We should know quite soon.”

“God knows, we had better. Get to my office when you’re done out there. We need a meeting with Deacon.”

She didn’t know who the hell Deacon was, but she wasn’t about to ask Hillier to identify him. She said she’d be there as soon as she could and when she ended the call, she asked Lynley the question.

He said, “Head of the press bureau. Hillier’s lining up the cavalry.”

“How do I prepare?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never known.”

“Philip cocked this up, Thomas.”

“Do you think so.”

The fact that he said those words as a statement was, she decided, a declaration of his own opinion, not to mention of his judgement. And, perhaps, a declaration of his loyalties as well.

They said nothing more, merely riding in a tense silence to Charing Cross Road where Hiro Matsumoto directed them to its intersection with Denmark Street. There a redbrick structure of eight floors housed living accommodation that was called Shaldon Mansions, which appeared to be flats that filled a building whose ground floor comprised a line of shops. These carried on a theme of music that extended down Denmark Street-which itself appeared to comprise nothing but outlets for guitars, drums, and various types of horns-and combined this theme with news agents, luggage shops, cafés, and bookstores. The entrance to the flats consisted of an opening tucked between Keira News and Mucci Bags, and as they walked towards it, Isabelle sensed Lynley’s steps slowing, so she turned to find he was gazing intently at the building. She said, “What?” and he said, “Paolo di Fazio.”

“What about him?”

“This is where Jemima Hastings took him.” He gave a nod to the entrance to the flats. “That first night they met. He said she took him to a flat above Keira News.”

Isabelle smiled. “Well done, Thomas. So we know how Yukio came to meet her.”

Hiro Matsumoto said, “Knowing they might have met does not mean-”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Isabelle said grimly. Anything to keep him moving. Anything to get him to take them to the flat, as there appeared to be no concierge to direct them.

Unfortunately, the cellist had no key. But as things turned out, a few bells rung, followed by a few knocks upon doors and a few questions here and there led them into Keira News. There Isabelle’s identification produced a master key to every flat in Shaldon Mansions, held by the shop’s owner who did double duty as a recipient of packages and emergency contact should a crisis arise within the building.

They definitely had a crisis on their hands, as Isabelle explained to the man. He handed over the key and they were about to set out when Lynley paused to ask him about Jemima Hastings. Did he know her? Did he remember her? Unusual eyes, one green and one brown?

The eyes did it. She had indeed lived in Shaldon Mansions, in a bed-sit quite similar to the one into which they were seeking entrance.

This confirmed another connection between Yukio Matsumoto and Jemima Hastings, and the fact gratified Isabelle hugely. It was one thing to connect them by means of Covent Garden. It was quite another to connect them through their living accommodation. Things were looking up.

Yukio’s bed-sit was on the fifth floor of the building, a point at which the spaciousness of the floors below gave way to crow-stepped gables and a mansard roof. As much accommodation as possible had been crammed into the space, and these rooms opened off a narrow corridor where the air was so close it had probably gone unrefreshed since the first Gulf War.

Inside Yukio Matsumoto’s bed-sit, the atmosphere was oppressively hot, and the place was quite disturbingly fitted out with floor-to-ceiling figures that had been drawn on the walls with marker pens. They loomed everywhere, dozens of them. A scrutiny indicated they depicted angels.

“What in God’s name…,” Isabelle murmured as next to her Lynley fished out his reading glasses to give the scrawled figures closer scrutiny. Behind her, she heard Hiro Matsumoto sigh tremulously. She glanced his way. He looked infinitely sad.

“What is it?” she asked.

The cellist’s gaze went from one drawing to the next to the next. “He thinks they speak to him. The celestial host.”

“The what?”

“All the different kinds of angels,” Lynley put in.

“There’s more than one kind?”

“There are nine different kinds.”

And he could no doubt list them, Isabelle thought grimly. Well, she didn’t want to know-nor did she need to know-the categories of celestial whatever-they-were. What she needed to know was what, if anything, they had to do with Jemima Hastings’ death. She reckoned nothing. But Hiro said, “They battle for him. In his head, of course, but he hears them and he sometimes thinks he sees them. What he sees are people, but angels have come in human guise in the past. And of course they are always depicted in a human form in art and in books and because of this, he thinks he’s one with them. He believes they’re waiting for him to declare his intention. It’s the very heart of his illness. Yet it proves, doesn’t it, that he harmed no one?”

Isabelle took in the drawings as Lynley moved along them slowly. There were angels descending into pools of water where humans lay crumpled with arms extended in supplication; there were angels driving demons before them to work on a temple in the distance; there were angels with trumpets, angels holding books, angels with weapons, and one enormous wing-spread creature leading an army, while nearby another cast destruction upon a biblical-looking town. And one entire section appeared to be given to a struggle between two types of angels: one armed with weapons and one with wings spread to cover cowering humans below.

“He believes he must choose,” Hiro Matsumoto said.

“Choose what?” Isabelle asked. Lynley, she saw, had moved to a narrow single bed, where a bedside table held a lamp, a book, and a filmy-looking glass of water. The book he picked up and opened. A card fell out and he bent to take it up from the floor as Hiro Matsumoto answered.

“Between guardian angel and warrior angel,” he said. “To protect or to…” He hesitated, so Isabelle finished the thought.

“To punish,” she said. “Well, it seems he made his choice, doesn’t it?”

“Please, he did not-”

“Guv.” Lynley was looking at the card. She crossed the room to him. It was, she saw, yet another of the National Portrait Gallery postcards featuring the photograph of Jemima Hastings. It also bore “Have You Seen This Woman?” upon it but over the image of the sleeping lion had been scrawled an angel like those in the room. It had its wings spread out to create a shield but no weapons were in its hands. “It looks as if he was leaning towards guarding, not punishing,” Lynley said.

Isabelle was about to tell him it didn’t look like anything of the sort when Yukio’s brother cried out. She swung round. She saw that he’d approached the room’s basin and he was staring at something lying on its edge. She said sharply, “Keep away from it!” and she strode across the room to see what he’d stumbled upon.

Whatever it was, it was crusted with blood. Indeed it was crusted with so much blood that other than its shape, it was indefinable.

“Ah,” Isabelle said. “Yes indeed. Don’t touch that thing, Mr. Matsumoto.”

THE TIME OF day limited his options for parking in Chelsea. Lynley had to make do with a hike over from Carlyle Square. He crossed the King’s Road and walked towards the river via Old Church Street. As he did so, he considered the various ways in which he might avoid AC Hillier over the next few days and the other various ways in which he might colour what he’d been experiencing at Isabelle Ardery’s side should he be forced into conversation with the assistant commissioner.

He wanted to give Ardery leeway. New to the job of superintendent, she would be anxious to prove her worth. But he also wanted the appropriate arrest made when the time came to make an arrest, and he was unconvinced Yukio Matsumoto was guilty of the crime of murder. Guilty of something, there could be little doubt. But murder…Lynley couldn’t see it.

“That’s because of the brother,” Isabelle had told him brusquely upon their return to the Yard. “You hold him in awe, so you want to believe whatever he says. I don’t.”

There was an unnatural hush in the incident room for their final meeting of the day. The other officers knew what had earlier happened to Yukio Matsumoto in the street, so this would have been one source of their reticence. The other, however, would have been Isabelle Ardery’s confrontation with Philip Hale at St. Thomas’ Hospital. It was a clear case of telegraph, telephone, tell-a-cop. Even if Philip had said nothing to the others, they would have known something was up simply by noting his demeanour.

By the end of the afternoon, there had been no additional information from the hospital about Yukio Matsumoto’s condition, so they were operating from a no-news-is-good-news perspective. SOCO had been dispatched to the violinist’s digs and the bloody object found on his washbasin had been sent to forensics for complete analysis. Everything was clicking along and checking out: Marlon Kay’s wood-carving tools were clean; all the sculpting tools from the studio near Clapham Junction were clean as well. Frazer Chaplin’s whereabouts had been confirmed for the day of the murder by his colleagues at the ice rink, by his colleagues at Duke’s Hotel, and by Bella McHaggis. Her whereabouts had been confirmed by a yoga studio and her neighbours. There was still some question about where and if Abbott Langer had actually done the dog walking he’d claimed to be doing, and Paolo di Fazio’s presence in Jubilee Market Hall could have applied to any day or to no day because no one really paid that much attention. But it was likely he’d been there, and likely was good enough for Detective Superintendent Ardery. She had high hopes that charges could be brought against Yukio Matsumoto as soon as the rest of the forensic reports were in.

Lynley had his doubts about this, but he said nothing. When the meeting concluded, he approached the china boards and spent a few minutes studying what was on them. He examined one of the photographs in particular, and when he left Victoria Street, he took a copy of this with him. It was, at least in part, his reason for coming to Chelsea instead of heading directly home.

St. James wasn’t in, as things turned out. But Deborah was, and she ushered Lynley into the dining room. There she’d laid out afternoon tea, but not for consumption. She was trying to decide whether she wanted to pursue food photography, she told him. First approached with the idea of doing so, she’d thought it was “rather an insult to achieving the exceedingly high art of my dreams,” she said. “But as the exceedingly high art of my dreams isn’t exactly bringing in vast sums of money, and as I hate the thought of poor Simon supporting his arty wife into her dotage, I thought that photographing food might be the very thing until I’m discovered as the next Annie Leibovitz.”

Success in this arena, she told him, was all about lighting, props, colours, and shapes. Additionally, there were considerations having to do with overcrowding the pictures, with suggesting that the viewer was actually part of the scene, and with focusing on the food without overlooking the importance of mood.

“I’m actually just thrashing about,” she admitted. “I’d say you and I can consume all this when I’m done, but I wouldn’t recommend it as I made the scones myself.”

She’d created quite a scene, Lynley saw, something straight out of the Ritz, with everything from a silver tray of sandwiches to a bowl piled high with clotted cream. There was even an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne tucked away in one corner and as Deborah chatted about everything from the angle of the photograph to the manner in which one created what looked like beads of water on the strawberries, Lynley recognised in her conversation the effort to bring normality back into their relationship.

He said, “I’m quite all right, Deb. It’s difficult, as you might expect, but I’m finding my way.”

Deborah averted her gaze. A rose in a bud vase needed adjusting, and she made this adjustment before she replied quietly, “We miss her terribly. Particularly Simon. He doesn’t like to say. I think he believes he’ll make it worse. Worse for me, and for him. He won’t, of course. How could he possibly? But it’s all mixed up.”

Lynley said, “We’ve always been something of a tangle, the four of us, haven’t we?”

She looked up then although she didn’t reply.

He said, “It’ll sort itself out.” He wanted to tell her that love was an odd thing, that it bridged divides, it faded, and it rediscovered itself. But he knew she understood this already because she was living it, as was he. So instead he said, “Simon’s not here? I’ve something I wanted to show him.”

“He’s on his way home. He’s been in a meeting at Gray’s Inn. What’ve you got for him?”

“A picture,” he said, and even as he said it he realised that there could exist additional pictures that might come to his aid. He went on to ask, “Deb, have you any photos of your opening at the Portrait Gallery?”

“D’you mean my own photos? I didn’t take my camera.”

No, he told her. He meant publicity photos. Had there been anyone at the National Portrait Gallery that night, taking pictures of the opening of the Cadbury show? Perhaps for use in a brochure, perhaps for a magazine or a newspaper.

“Ah,” she said. “You’re talking about pictures of celebrities and celebrities-to-be? The beautiful people holding champagne flutes and showing off their spray tans and dental work? I can’t say we had an enormous number of those turn up, Tommy. But there were some photos being taken. Come with me.”

She took him to Simon’s study, at the front of the house. There, from an old Canterbury next to Simon’s desk, she unearthed a copy of Hello! She made a face and said, “It was a rather slow day for glamorous events in town.”

Hello!, he saw, had done its usual business with those who might be considered the Beautiful People. These individuals had posed obligingly. It was a gratifying two-page spread of pictures.

There had been quite a crowd at the photographic exhibit. Lynley recognised a few movers and shakers of London society in addition to those longing to become one of this ilk. Among the pictures, there were candid shots as well, and within these, he found Deborah and Simon in conversation with Jemima Hastings and a saturnine man who looked like trouble. He expected to learn that the bloke was one of the men connected in some way to the dead girl, but he was surprised to learn he was looking upon Matt Jones, the new partner of Sidney St. James, Simon’s younger sister.

“Sidney’s quite mad about him,” Deborah said. “Simon, on the other hand, thinks she’s merely mad. He’s rather a mystery-this is Matt, not Simon, of course. He disappears for weeks at a time and says he’s off working for the government. Sidney thinks he’s a spy. Simon thinks he’s a hit man.”

“What do you think?”

“I can never get ten words out of him, Tommy. To be honest, he makes me a bit nervous.”

Lynley found a picture of Sidney, then: tall, lithe, striking a pose with champagne in hand and her head thrown back. It was supposed to be candid-indeed, she was in conversation with a swarthy bloke tossing his drink down his throat-but it was not for nothing that Sidney was a professional model. Despite the crowd round them, she knew when a camera was on her.

There were other pictures, posed and candid. They needed a closer scrutiny. Indeed, the magazine itself would likely have a score of photos on file that hadn’t even been printed in these pages and Lynley realised they might be valuable and that they might want tracking down. He asked Deborah if he could keep the magazine. She said of course, but did he think that Jemima’s killer had been there?

He said anything was possible. So everything had to be explored.

St. James arrived then. The front door opened, and they heard his uneven footsteps in the entry. Deborah went to the door of his study, saying, “Tommy’s here, Simon. He’s wanting you.”

St. James joined them. There was an awkward moment in which Lynley’s old friend assessed his state-with Lynley wondering when the time would arrive that awkward moments with friends would be a thing of the past-and then St. James said, “Tommy. I’m in need of a whisky. You?”

Lynley wasn’t, but he obliged with, “I wouldn’t say no.”

“Lagavulin, then?”

“Am I that special an occasion?”

St. James smiled. He went to the drinks trolley beneath the window and poured two glasses as well as a sherry for Deborah. He handed them round and then said to Lynley, “Have you brought me something?”

“You know me too well.” Lynley handed over the copy of the picture he’d brought from the incident room. As he did so, he told St. James something of what had happened that day: Yukio Matsumoto, the chase through the streets, the accident in Shaftesbury Avenue. Then he told of the implement they’d found in the violinist’s room, ending with Ardery’s conclusion that they had their man.

“Hardly unreasonable, all things considered,” St. James said. “But you’re reluctant to agree?”

“I find motive a difficulty.”

“Obsessive love? God knows that happens enough.”

“If obsession’s involved, it seems more likely he’s obsessed with angels. He’s got them all over the walls in his room.”

“Has he indeed? That’s curious.” St. James gave his attention to the picture.

Deborah joined him. She said, “What is this, Tommy?”

“It was found in Jemima’s pocket. SO7’s saying it’s carnelian, but that’s as far as we’ve got. I was hoping you might have some thoughts on it. Or failing that-”

“That I might know someone who’d be able to suss it out? Let me have a closer look.” St. James carried the picture to his desk, where he used a magnifying glass on it. He said, “It’s well worn, isn’t it? The size suggests a stone from a man’s ring or perhaps a woman’s pendant. Or a brooch, I suppose.”

“Jewellery, in any case,” Lynley agreed. “What d’you make of the carving?”

St. James bent over the photo. He said, after a moment, “Well, it’s pagan. That much is obvious, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I thought. It doesn’t appear Celtic.”

“No, no. Definitely not Celtic.”

“How d’you know?” Deborah asked.

St. James handed over the magnifying glass to her. “Cupid,” he said. “One of the carved figures. He’s kneeling in front of the other. And she’s…Minerva, Tommy?”

“Or Venus.”

“But the armour?”

“Something belonging to Mars?”

Deborah looked up. “That makes this…how old, then, Simon? A thousand years?”

“Bit more, I daresay. Third or fourth century, likely.”

“But how did she get it?” Deborah asked Lynley.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“Could this be why she was killed?” Deborah asked. “For a carved bit of stone? It must be valuable.”

“It does have value,” Lynley said. “But if her killer wanted it, he’d hardly have left it on her body.”

“Unless he didn’t know she was carrying it,” Deborah said.

“Or was interrupted before he could make the search,” St. James added.

“As to that…” Lynley told them more about the murder weapon, or at least what they were assuming was the murder weapon. It was, he said, saturated in blood.

“What is it?” St. James asked.

“We’re not entirely sure,” Lynley told him. “All we have to go on at the moment is the shape.”

“Which is…?”

“Deadly sharp at one end, perhaps nine inches long, a curved handle. Very like an oddly shaped spike.”

“Used for what?”

“I’ve no idea.”

With the presence of police vehicles, forensic vehicles, an ambulance, and dozens of officers of the law in the vicinity of the Dawkins building site, it was only a matter of minutes before the press arrived and the community as a whole became aware that a body had been found. While local police efforts to control the flow of information were admirable, the nature of the crime was difficult to conceal. Thus the superficial condition of John Dresser’s body and exactly where the body had been found were details both widely reported and widely known within four hours. Also widely known and reported was the arrest of three boys (their names withheld for obvious reasons) who were “helping the police with their enquiries,” which of course had long been a euphemism for “suspects in the case.”

Michael Spargo’s mustard anorak had made him identifiable not only to those individuals in the Barriers who, having seen him that day, recognised both the anorak and him on the CCTV film, and not only to the witnesses who came forward with descriptions of him, but also to his neighbourhood. In short order, community outrage led a threatening mob to the front door of the Spargo home. Within thirty-six hours, this resulted in the entire family’s being removed from the Gallows altogether and established in another part of town (and after the trial to another part of the country) under an assumed name. When the police came for Reggie Arnold and Ian Barker, it was with much the same consequences, and their families were moved to other locations as well. Of them all, only Tricia Barker has ever spoken to the press in the intervening years, having resolutely refused to change her name. There is some speculation that her cooperation has to do with garnering publicity for a hoped-for appearance on reality television.

It could well be said that the hours of interviews with the three boys in the subsequent days reveal much about their psychopathology and the dysfunction of their families. Of the three, it would appear on the surface that Reggie Arnold came from the strongest home situation because in his every interview both Rudy and Laura Arnold were present, along with the interviewing detective and a social worker. But of the three boys, Reggie-it must be remembered-displayed the most overt symptoms of inner turmoil according to his teachers, and the tantrums, hysteria, and self-destructive activities that characterised his classroom experience became more pronounced as the days of interviews wore on and as it became more evident to him that whatever manipulations he’d used in the past to get himself out of trouble were not going to work in the situation in which he found himself.

On the tape his voice wheedles at first. Then it whines. His father instructs him to sit up straight and “be a man not a mouse” and his mother weeps about what Reggie is “doing to us all.” Their focus remains consistently upon themselves: how the exigency of Reggie’s situation is affecting them. They seem oblivious not only to the nature of the crime about which he’s being questioned and what the nature of this crime indicates about the state of his mind, but also to the jeopardy he faces. At one point Laura tells him that she “can’t sit here all day while you whinge, Reg,” because she has Reggie’s “brother and sister to think of, don’t you understand that? Who d’you think’s taking care them while I’m here with you? While your dad’s here with you?” Even more troubling, neither of the parents seems to notice when the questions directed at Reggie begin to home in on the Dawkins building site, on the body of John Dresser, and on what the evidence found at the site suggests happened to John Dresser there. Reggie’s behaviour escalates-even repeated breaks and interventions by the social worker do not settle him-and although it’s clear that he was very likely involved in something horrendous, his parents don’t take note of that, as they continue to attempt to mould his behaviour to something that they themselves will approve of. In this we see the very essence of the narcissistic parent, and in Reggie we see the extreme to which a child’s reaction to such parenting can take him.

Ian Barker faces a situation not unlike Reggie’s, although he remains stoic throughout. It is only through his later drawings during sessions with a child psychiatrist that the extent of his participation in the crime will be revealed. While interviewed, he maintains his story that he knows “nothing about no baby” even when shown the CCTV film and read the statements of the witnesses who saw him in the company of the other boys and John Dresser. During all of this, his grandmother weeps. One can hear her on the tape, as her ululations rise periodically and the social worker’s murmurs of “Please, Mrs. Barker” fail to calm her. Her only remarks are, “I’ve a duty here,” but there is no indication that she sees communication with her grandson as part of that duty. While she understandably must have felt a tremendous sense of guilt for having abandoned Ian to his mother’s inadequate and often abusive care, she does not appear to connect this abandonment and the emotional and psychological abuse that followed to what happened to John Dresser. For his part, Ian never asks for his mother. It’s as if he knows in advance that he will stand alone throughout the investigation, supported mainly by a social worker who was unknown to him before the crime.

As for Michael Spargo, we have already seen that Sue Spargo’s abandonment of him occurred almost at once, during his first encounter with the police. This was also consistent with the rest of his life: His father’s departure from the home would have had a profound effect on all of the Spargo boys; his mother’s drinking and her other inadequacies would only have exacerbated Michael’s sense of desertion. Sue Spargo had already been incapable of putting a stop to the hand-me-down abuse that was going on among her nine sons. Michael likely had no expectation that his mother would be able to stop anything else that was going to happen to him.

Once they were arrested, Michael, Reggie, and Ian were interviewed repeatedly, up to seven times in a single day. As can be imagined, considering the enormity and the horror of the crime committed, each of them pointed a finger at the others. There were certain events that none of the boys would discuss at all-particularly those having to do with the hairbrush they had stolen from Items-for-a-Pound-but suffice it to say that both Michael Spargo and Reggie Arnold were aware of the iniquitous nature of what they had done. Their initial protestations of innocence notwithstanding, the multitudinous references to “stuff what was done to that baby” along with their growing distress when certain topics were brought up (and, in the case of Reggie Arnold, the repeated hysterical begging of his parents not to hate him) tell us that they were fully cognizant of every line of propriety and humanity that was crossed during their time with John Dresser. To the end, on the other hand, Ian Barker remained unmoved, stoic, as if his life circumstances had bled from him not only conscience but also every feeling of empathy he might otherwise have had towards another human being.

“Do you understand what forensic evidence is, lad?” were the words that cracked open the door to confession, for a confession was what the police wanted from the boys, just as a confession is what police want from all criminals. Upon their arrests, the boys’ school uniforms, their shoes, and their outer-wear had all been gathered for examination, and the trace evidence from these articles would later not only place them at the Dawkins building site but also put them in the company of John Dresser in the final terrible moments of his life. Shoes belonging to all three boys were spattered with the toddler’s blood; fibres from their clothing were caught up not only in John’s snowsuit but also in his hair and on his body; their fingerprints were on the back of the hairbrush, on copper tubing from the building site, on the door of the Port-a-Loo, on the seat of the commode inside, and on John Dresser’s little white trainers. The case against them was open and shut, but in the earliest interviews the police, of course, would not have known that as the evidence had not yet been analysed.

As the police ultimately saw it and as the social workers agreed, a confession from the boys would serve a number of purposes: It would trigger the recently passed Contempt of Court Act, putting an end not only to the growing, hysterical press speculation about the case but also to any possibility of details prejudicial to the trial being leaked to the public; it would allow the police to focus their attention on building whatever sort of case against the boys that they intended to present to the Crown Prosecutors; it would give psychologists the necessary material for an evaluation of the boys. The police did not as a whole consider the value of a confession as it pertained to the boys’ own healing. That there was “something deeply wrong in all of the families” (the words of Detective Superintendent Mark Bernstein in an interview two years after the trial) was obvious to everyone, but the police did not see it as their duty to mitigate the psychological and emotional damage done to Michael Spargo, Ian Barker, and Reggie Arnold within their own homes. One can certainly not fault them for this, despite the fact that the frenzied nature of the ultimate crime speaks of deep psychopathology in all of them. For the brief of the police was to bring someone to justice for the murder of John Dresser and to give, through this, some small measure of relief to his suffering parents.

As might be suspected, the boys begin by accusing each other, once they are informed that John Dresser’s body has been located and that, in the vicinity of the Port-a-Loo, everything from footprints to faecal matter has been found and is going to be analysed by criminologists and, doubtless, connected to his abductors. “Was Ian’s idea to nick the kid,” comes from Reggie Arnold, who addresses this cry not to the police interviewer but rather to his mother, to whom he says, “Mum, I never. I never took that kid.” Michael Spargo accuses Reggie, and Ian Barker says nothing until he’s told of Reggie’s accusation, at which point he says, “I wanted that kitten, is all.” All of them begin with protestations that they did not “hurt no baby” and Michael is the first to admit that they “might’ve took him outside the Barriers for a walk or something but that was cause we didn’t know where he belonged.”

All of the boys are urged throughout to tell the truth. “The truth is better than lying, son,” Michael Spargo is told repeatedly by his interviewer. “You’ve got to say. Please, luv, you’ve got to say,” is what Ian Barker hears from the grandmother. Reggie is counseled by his parents to “spit it out, now, like something bad from your tummy that you’ve got to get rid of.” But the full truth is clearly a form of abomination that the boys are afraid to touch upon, and their reactions to the aforementioned injunctions illustrate the various degrees to which they raise their defences against having to speak it.