In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

CHAPTER 18

“Sorry, luvs, members only” was how Lynley and Nkata were greeted at a lectern at the top of a staircase in Wandsworth. This led into the dark cavity that appeared to be the entrance to The Stocks, and it was being guarded in the early afternoon by a matronly woman doing needlepoint. Aside from her curious ensemble, which consisted of a black leather sheath with a silver zip lowered to her waist and exposing pendulous breasts of an unappealing chicken-skin texture, she could have been somebody's grandmother, and she probably was. She had grey hair that looked crimped for Sunday's church services and half-moon glasses at the end of her nose. She looked up over them at the two detectives and added, “Unless you're wanting to join. Is that it? Here. Have a look, then.” She handed each of them a brochure.

The Stocks, Lynley read, was a private club for discriminating adults who enjoyed the diversion of domination. For a modest yearly fee they would be offered access to a world in which their most private fantasies could become their most exciting realities. In an atmosphere of light food, drink, and music whilst surrounded by like-minded enthusiasts, they could live out, witness, or participate in the realisation of mankind's darkest dreams. Their identities and professions would be scrupulously protected by a management committed to complete discretion whilst their every desire would be seen to by a staff devoted to accommodating their needs. The Stocks was open from noon until four A.M. from Monday to Saturday, bank holidays included. Sundays were given to worship.

The worship of what? Lynley wondered. But he didn't ask. He slipped the brochure into his jacket pocket, smiled affably, said, “Thank you. I'll keep it in mind,” and took out his warrant card. “Police. We'd like a word with your barman.”

Black Leather Sheath wasn't exactly Cerberus, but she knew her cue. She said, “This is a private club for members only, sir. This isn't a disorderly house by any means. No one gets by me without showing his membership card, and when someone wants to join, he must bring with him a picture ID that includes his date of birth. We only give memberships to consenting adults, and our employees are thoroughly vetted for police records prior to being hired.”

When she drew breath, Lynley spoke. “Madam, if we wanted to close you down-”

“You can't. As I've said, this is a private club. We've got a solicitor from Liberty, so we know our rights.”

Lynley aimed for patience with his reply. “I'm very glad of that. I find that the average man on the average street is remarkably uninformed. But as you're not in that position yourself, you'll know that if we wanted to close you down or even attempt to do so, we'd hardly present ourselves at the entrance with our identifications. My colleague and I are in CID, not in undercover investigations.”

Next to Lynley, Nkata shuffled on his feet. He was looking as if he didn't quite know where to direct his eyes. The elderly woman's décolletage was directly in his line of vision, and he'd probably never had the opportunity to examine flesh less suitable for examination.

“We're trying to locate someone called Shelly Platt,” Lynley explained to the woman. “We were told your barman knows her whereabouts. If you'll fetch him, we can talk to him right here. Or we can go below. The choice is yours.”

“He's working,” she said.

“As are we.” Lynley smiled. “And the sooner we talk to him, the sooner we take our work elsewhere.”

Reluctantly, she said, “Right,” and punched a number on the phone. She spoke into the receiver but she kept her eyes glued to Nkata and Lynley, as if they'd bolt for the staircase otherwise. She said, “I got two busies up here wanting to find a Shelly Platt… They say you know her… No. CID. D'you want to come up or shall I… You're sure? Right. Will do.” She replaced the receiver and inclined her head towards the stairs. “Down you go,” she said. “He can't leave the bar, as we're shorthanded at the moment. He can give you five minutes, he said.”

“His name?” Lynley asked.

“You can call him Lash.”

“Is that Mr. Lash?” Lynley enquired soberly.

To which the woman disciplined a smile from twitching her lips. She said, “You've a pretty enough face, luv, but don't push your luck.”

They descended the stairs into a passageway where red lights hung above bare walls painted black. At the end of this corridor, a black velvet curtain hung over a doorway. And through this, evidently, lay The Stocks.

Music filtered through the velvet like beams of light, not the raucous heavy metal of punk guitars screeching like robots put to the rack but what sounded like a Gregorian devotional chanted by monks on their way to prayer. It was louder than monks would have chanted it, however, as if volume rather than meaning were what was required by the ceremony going on. “Agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi” the voices sang. As if in answer, a whip cracked like a pistol shot.

“Ah. Welcome to the world of's and M,” Lynley said to Nkata as he drew the curtain to one side.

“Lord, what's my mum goin’ t'say to all this?” was the DCs response.

On an early Saturday afternoon, Lynley expected the club to be deserted, but that wasn't the case. Although he suspected that nightfall would bring many more members slithering out from beneath whatever stones they hid during the day, there were still present enough devotees of the dungeon to get an idea of what The Stocks was like when filled to capacity.

Central to the club was the eponymous mediaeval device of public punishment. It had positions for five miscreants, but on this Saturday only one sinner was paying the price for a malefaction: A thickset man with a shiny bald head was being whipped by a barrel-shaped woman shouting “Naughty! Naughty! Naughty!” with every blow. He was naked; she wore a black leather corset to which lace stockings were fastened. On her feet were shoes with heels so high that she could have toe-danced with very little effort.

Up above them, a light fixture revolved. It was fitted with spots, one of which pooled illumination directly downwards round the stocks, and others which were appendant like arms, and which revolved as the fixture did and slowly illuminated the rest of the action within the club.

“Oh my,” Nkata murmured.

Lynley couldn't fault the DC's reaction.

To the rhythms of the Gregorian chant, several men in dog collars attached to leads were being led round the club by fierce-looking women in black body-suits or leather G-strings and thigh-high boots. An elderly gentleman in a Nazi uniform was attaching something to the testicles of a naked younger man manacled to a black brick wall while a woman strapped to a nearby rack writhed and shouted “More!” as a steaming substance was poured from a tin jug onto her bare chest and between her legs. A blowsy blonde in a PVC waistcoat with a cinched-in waist stood arms akimbo on one of the club's tables as a leather-masked man in a metal G-string ran his tongue round the spike heels of her patent leather shoes. And while these activities were going on in nooks, in crannies, and in the open, a costume stall appeared to be doing a satisfactory business with club members who were hiring everything from cardinals’ red cassocks to cats-o’-nine-tails.

Next to Lynley, Nkata took out a snowy handkerchief and pressed it quickly to his forehead.

Lynley eyed him. “For a man who once organised Brixton's knife fights, you've led something of a sheltered existence, Winston. Let's see what Lash has to say for himself.”

The man in question seemed completely oblivious of the activities going on in the club. He didn't acknowledge the presence of the two detectives until he'd counted six shots of gin into a shaker, added vermouth, and dashed into the mix a few splashes of juice from ajar of green olives. He screwed the cap onto the cocktail shaker and began to do the shaking, which was when he looked their way.

As one of the revolving lights hit him, Lynley saw where the man's sobriquet had come from: A ragged scar ran from his forehead and across one of his eyelids, cutting a swathe that had removed the tip of his nose and half his upper lip. Slash would probably have been more appropriate since the scar was obviously the legacy of a knife. But he'd no doubt wished to stay with the theme of the club. Lash suggested that an element of the voluntary had been involved in his maiming.

Lash looked not at Lynley but at Nkata. Abruptly, he set the cocktail shaker to one side. “Fuck,” he snarled. “I should of killed you when I had you, Demon. That ransom idea was bullshit on wheels.”

Lynley looked at his DC curiously. “You two know each other?”

“We-” Clearly, Nkata was seeking a delicate way of framing the information for his superior officer. “We met once or twice in the 'lotments near Windmill Gardens,” Nkata said. “Some years back, this was.”

“Weeding out dandelions from the lettuce patch, I dare say,” Lynley noted dryly.

Lash snorted. “We 'as doing some weeding, true enough,” he said, and then to Nkata, “I always wondered where you wanked off to. I might of guessed it'd be to something like this.” He took a step towards them and peered more closely at Nkata. His misshapen lips suddenly parted in what went for his smile. “You sod!” he cried, giving a bark of happy laughter. “I knew I marked you that night. I swore up and down all that blood wasn't mine.”

“You marked me,” Nkata said congenially, tapping the scar that ran across his cheek. He extended his hand. “How are you, Dewey?”

Dewey? Lynley wondered.

“Lash,” Dewey said.

“Right, then. Lash. You straight? Or what?”

“Or what,” Lash said, and smiled again. He took Nkata's offered hand and shook it, saying, “I just bloody knew I marked you, Deme. You 'as good with a knife. Shit. Just take a look at this mug if you don't believe me.” This last was said to Lynley, and then back to Nkata, “But I was always fast with the razor.”

“True enough, that is,” Nkata said.

“What d'you lot want with Shelly Platt, then?” Lash grinned. “Can't be looking for her usual.”

“We'd like to talk to her about a murder,” Lynley said. “Nicola Maiden. Is the name familiar?”

Lash considered this as he poured martinis into four glasses arranged on a tray. He speared on toothpicks two stuffed green olives per glass and plopped them into the cocktails before replying.

“Sheila!” he barked. “It's up.” And when the barmaid teetered over in platform boots and a fishnet teddy that showed far more than it could ever conceal, he slid the tray to her and turned back to the detectives. “Great name, Maiden. For this sort of place. I'd of remembered. No. Don't know her.”

“Shelly did apparently. And now she's dead.”

“Shelly's no killer. A bitch and a tart with a temper like a cobra. But she's never done harm that I ever heard.”

“We'd like to speak to her nonetheless. I understand she's a habitué of the club. If she's not here now, you might want to tell us where we can find her. I can't think you'd like us hanging about till she arrives.”

Lash glanced at Nkata. “He always talk like that?”

“Born to it, he was.”

“Shit. That must put the mockers on your style.”

“I cope,” Nkata said. “Can you help us out, Dew?”

“Lash.”

“Lash. Right. I forget.”

“Can,” Lash said. “For old times and the like. But you didn't hear it from me. That straight?”

“Got it,” Nkata said, and he took out his neat little leather notebook.

Lash grinned. “Chrisamighty. You are legit, eh?”

“Keep it to yourself, mate, won't you?”

“Shit. Demon of Death a cop.” He chuckled. Shelly Platt worked the streets round Earl's Court Station, he said. But at this time of day they wouldn't find her there. She did the dusk-to-dawn shift, and that being the case, they'd find her kipping in what went for her lodgings. He recited the address.

They nodded their thanks and slipped out of the club, where, once in the black-walled corridor, they saw that a partitioned section of the passage had been opened. What had appeared to be an expanse of plaster painted in funereal hue was now folded to one side, and in its place was a small shop with a counter stretching its width. Behind this stood a ghoulish woman with purple hair worn in a style reminiscent of the Bride of Frankenstein. Her lips and eyelids were highlighted in black. Body studs erupted from her face and her ears like a fatal visitation of the king's evil.

“Off your patch, you lot,” the woman said with a smirk as Lynley and Nkata passed her. “But I c'n make it worth your while calling in, if you've a mind for it.”

Lynley's attention went to the goods she had on offer in her shop. Displayed within was everything from sex toys to pornographic videos. The counter itself was a glass case decorated with an artful arrangement of jars containing Shaft: The Personal Lubricant as well as leather and metal devices of various shapes and sizes, upon whose use Lynley didn't care to speculate. But as he passed, he caught sight of one of these devices, and his footsteps slowed, then halted altogether. He squatted in front of the case.

Nkata said, “'Spector,” in the agonised tone of a schoolboy whose parent has committed an unforgivable indiscretion.

“Hang on, Winnie,” Lynley said. And to the purple-haired woman, “What is this, please?”

He pointed and she brought out a chrome cylinder. It was identical to the one he'd found among the items taken from Nicola Maiden's car.

“This,” she said proudly, “is imported from Paris, this is. Nice, don't you think?”

“Lovely,” Lynley agreed. “What is it?”

“A ball stretcher.”

“A what?”

She grinned. She brought out a life-size, anatomically correct, male blow-up doll from the floor behind the counter and stood him up, saying to Nkata, “Hold him upright, will you? He's generally on his back, but in a pinch and for a demo… Hey. Grab him by the bum or something. He's not going to bite you, luv.”

“I'll keep mum about it,” Lynley said to Nkata, sotto voce. “Your every secret is safe with me.”

“Funny, you are,” Nkata said. “I never touched any bloke's bum. Plastic or otherwise.”

“Ah. First times are always the most anxiety-laden, aren't they?” Lynley smiled. “Please help the lady out.”

Nkata winced but did as she'd asked him, hands on the plastic buttocks of the doll who was turned sideways and stood astride the counter.

“Right,” the shop assistant said. “Watch this, then.”

She took the ball stretcher in hand and unscrewed the two eye-bolts on either side of it. This allowed it to open on its hinge so that it could be fastened neatly round the scrotum of the plastic doll, leaving its testicles dangling beneath. Then she took the eyebolts and replaced them, explaining that the dom screwed them in as far as the sub wanted, increasing the pressure on the scrotum until the sub asked for mercy or said whatever predetermined word had been agreed upon to cease the torture. “You c'n hang weights here as well,” she said pleasantly, indicating the loops of the eyebolts. “It all depends on what you like and how much it takes to get you ready for relief. Most blokes generally want beatings as well. But then, that's blokes, isn't it? Sh'll I wrap one up for you?”

Lynley fought back a smile at the thought of presenting Helen with such a souvenir of his day's activity. “Perhaps another time.”

“Well, you know where to find us,” she told him.

Out on the street once more, Nkata breathed out a gusty sigh. “Never thought I'd see something like that. Whole place gave me the wim-wams, man.”

“‘Demon of Death?’ Who would think that someone meeting Mr. Lash for a bout of knife play would go faint at the sight of a little torture?”

Nkata's lips twitched. Then he grinned outright. “You call me Demon in public, man, our relationship is finished.”

“I stand advised. Come along, then.”

It was, Barbara Havers decided, ridiculous to trek all the way back to the Yard once she'd bought her lunch off a cart selling stuffed pita bread at the end of Walker's Court. After all, Cork Street was so close at hand. Indeed, tucked just to the northwest of the Royal Academy, Cork Street was nothing more than a hop, skip, and jump from the car park where Barbara had deposited her Mini prior to seeking out 31-32 Soho Square. And since she was going to have to pay for a full hour of parking time whether she used the full hour or not, it seemed much more admirably economical to trot over to Cork Street right then while she was in the area rather than to return at the end of the day when she'd dutifully-not to mention uselessly-slogged through a few more hours at the computer terminal.

She dug out the business card that she'd found in Terry Cole's flat and confirmed the name of the gallery that was engraved on it. Bowers, it read, with an address on Cork Street. And Neil Sitwell beneath that. Time to see what Terry Cole had wanted or hoped for when he'd collected the card.

She sauntered along Old Compton Street, crossed over into Brewer Street, and dodged the Saturday shoppers, the traffic surging up from Piccadilly Circus, and the tourists seeking the Café Royal on Regent Street. She found Bowers without any difficulty because an enormous lorry parked directly in front of it in Cork Street was blocking traffic and incurring the ire of a taxi driver who was shouting imprecations at two men unloading a crate onto the pavement.

Barbara ducked inside what appeared to be not a gallery-as she'd originally supposed from the card, the address printed upon the card, and Terry's artistic aspirations-but instead an auction house not unlike Christies. Apparently, an auction was in some stage of preparation and the goods on offer were what was being unloaded from the lorry that was parked outside. These were paintings in ornate gilt frames, and they were everywhere: stacked in crates, propped against counters, hanging on walls, and lying on the floor. Stepping around them and among them, blue-smocked employees with clipboards in their hands made notations which seemed to relegate each piece to areas signposted with the words Frame Damage, Restoration, and Suitable.

Behind a counter, a glass notice board was hung with posters that advertised past and future auctions. In addition to paintings, the house had sold to the highest bidder everything from farms in the Irish Republic to silver, jewelry, and objets d'art.

Bowers was much larger than it looked from the street, where two windows and a door suggested entrance to a humbler establishment. In reality, inside, one room appeared to open into another and that one to another, all the way to the top of Old Bond Street. Barbara wandered through, looking for someone who could point her in the direction of Neil Sitwell.

Sitwell turned out to be the major-domo of the day's activities. He was a rotund figure with a rug on his head that made him look like a bloke wearing yesterday's road kill. When Barbara came upon him, he was on his haunches inspecting a frameless painting of three hunting dogs capering beneath an oak tree. He'd placed his clipboard on the floor and stuck his hand through a large rip in the canvas that ran from the right corner like a bolt of lightning. Or a commentary on the work itself, Barbara thought: It looked to her like a fairly dismal effort.

Sitwell withdrew his hand and called out, “Take this to Restoration. Tell them we'll want it in six weeks,” to a youngish assistant who was rushing by with several other paintings stacked in his arms.

“Right, Mr. Sitwell,” the boy called back. “Will do in a tick. These're going to Suitable. I'll be right back.”

Sitwell shoved himself to his feet. He nodded at Barbara and then at the painting he'd been inspecting. “It'll go for ten thousand.”

“You're joking,” she said. “Is it the painter?”

“It's the dogs. You know the English. Can't abide them myself. Dogs, that is. What can I do for you?”

“I'd like a word, if there's a place we can talk.”

“A word about what? We're overwhelmed at the moment. And we've two more deliveries coming in this afternoon.”

“A word about murder.” Barbara offered him her identification. Presto. His attention was hers.

He ushered her up a cramped stairway, where his office occupied a cubbyhole overlooking the showrooms. It was furnished simply, with a desk, two chairs, and a filing cabinet. Its only decorations-if they could be called such-were the walls. These had been covered with cork board from floor to ceiling and on them were pinned and stapled a veritable history of the enterprise in which Mr. Sitwell worked. It appeared that the auction house had a distinguished past. But like a less noticed child in a home of high-achieving siblings, it needed to shout about itself to be heard above the notoriety given to Sotheby's and Christie's.

Barbara brought Sitwell quickly up to speed with regard to the death of Terry Cole: A young man-found dead in Derbyshire-had evidently kept a business card with Neil Sitwell's name on it among his belongings, she said. Would Mr. Sitwell have any idea why that was the case?

“He was something of an artist,” Barbara added helpfully. “A sculptor. He banged about with gardening tools and farming implements. For his sculptures, I mean. That's how you might have met him. P'rhaps at a show… Does this sound familiar?”

“Not in the least, I'm afraid,” Sitwell said. “I attend openings, naturally. One likes to keep abreast of what's current in the art world. It's rather like honing one's instincts for what will sell and what won't. But that's my avocation-following the latest trends-not my main line of work. Since we're an auction house and not a gallery, I'd've had no reason to give a young artist my business card.”

“Because you don't auction modern art, you mean?”

“Because we don't auction work by unestablished artists. For obvious reasons.”

Barbara mulled this over, wondering if Terry Cole had attempted to present himself as an established sculptor. This seemed unlikely. And while Cilia Thompson had claimed the sale of at least one of her rebarbative pieces, it didn't seem likely that an auction house would be trying to win her over by wooing her flatmate instead. “Could he have come here-or even met you elsewhere-for another reason, then?”

Sitwell steepled his fingertips beneath his chin. “We've been looking for a qualified picture restorer for the past three months. As he was an artist-”

“I'm using the word in its broadest sense,” Barbara cautioned the man.

“Right. I understand. Well, as he considered himself an artist, perhaps he knew something about restoring pictures and came here for an interview with me. Hang on.” He wrestled a black engagement diary from the top middle drawer of his desk. He began going back through the pages, running his index finger down the days as he examined the appointments listed for each. “No Cole, Terry or Terence, I'm afraid. No Cole at all.” He turned next to a dented metal box in which index cards were filed behind dog-eared alphabetical dividers. He explained that it was his habit to keep the names and addresses of individuals whose talents he'd deemed useful to Bowers in one way or another and perhaps Terence Cole was among those individuals… But no. His name wasn't among those on the index cards either. He was terribly sorry, Neil Sitwell said, but it didn't appear that he was going to be able to assist the detective constable with her enquiry at all.

Barbara tried a last question. Was it possible, she asked, that Terry Cole had come across Mr. Sitwell's business card in another way? From what she'd learned from speaking to the boy's mother and sister, he had dreams of opening his own art gallery. So perhaps he'd run into Mr. Sitwell somewhere, got into a conversation with him, and found himself on the receiving end of one of Mr. Sitwell's cards with an invitation to call in sometime for a chat and some advice…

Barbara said it all encouragingly, without much hope of striking gold. But when she said the words “opening his own art gallery,” Sitwell held up an index finger as if a memory had been jarred loose in his brain.

“Yes. Yes. The art gallery. Of course. I remember. It was because you first said he was a sculptor, you see. The young man never identified himself as a sculptor when he came to see me. Or even an artist, for that matter. He only confided that he hoped-”

“You remember him?” Barbara broke in eagerly.

“It seemed like a rather dubious plan for someone who spoke so”-Sitwell glanced at her and quickly shifted gears-“well, who dressed so…” Sitwell hesitated altogether, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Clearly, he realised that he was bordering on giving offence. Barbara's accent betrayed her origins, which were very nearly identical to those of Terry Cole. And as to her manner of dress, she didn't need a full-length mirror to tell her she was no candidate for Vogue.

“Right. He wore black all the time and had a working-class accent,” Barbara said. “Goatee. Cropped hair. A black ponytail.”

Yes. That was the chap, Sitwell confirmed. He'd been at Bowers the previous week. He'd brought along a sample of something that he thought the house might wish to auction. The proceeds of such an auction, he'd confided, would help him fund the gallery that he wished to open.

A sample of something to auction? Barbara's first thought went to the box of call girl cards that she'd found beneath Terry Cole's bed. Stranger things had been sold to the public. But she wasn't sure she could name any of them.

“What was it? Not one of his sculptures?”

“A piece of sheet music,” Sitwell replied. “He said he'd read about someone selling a handwritten Lennon and McCartney song-or a notebook of lyrics, something like that-and he'd hoped to sell a packet of music he had in his possession. The sheet he showed me was part of that packet.”

“Lennon and McCartney music, d'you mean?”

“No. This was a piece by Michael Chandler. The boy told me he'd got a dozen more and was hoping for an auction. I expect he was imagining a scene in which several thousand fans of musical theatre queue up for hours, hoping for the chance to pay twenty thousand pounds for a sheet of paper on which a dead man once made a few pencil smudges.” Sitwell smiled, offering Barbara the sort of expression he must have offered Terry: one of tolerant and paternalistic derision. She itched to smack him. She restrained herself.

“So the music was worthless?” Barbara asked.

“Not at all.” Sitwell went on to explain that the music might have been worth a fortune, but it made no difference because it belonged to the Chandler estate no matter how it happened to come into Terry Cole's possession. So Bowers couldn't auction it off unless the Chandler estate authorised a sale. In which case, the money would go to the surviving Chandlers anyway.

“So how did the music come to be in his possession?”

“Oxfam? Jumble sale? I don't know. People sometimes throw out valuable belongings without realising, don't they? Or they shove them away in a suitcase or a cardboard box and the suitcase or box falls into someone else's hands. At any rate, the boy didn't say and I didn't ask. I did offer to track down the solicitors for the Chandler estate and turn the music over to them, to pass on to the widow and children. But Cole preferred to do that himself, hoping-he said-that there'd be a reward, at least, for handing over found property.”

“Found property?”

“That's what he called it.”

The only question the boy had at the end of their meeting was to enquire how best to find the Chandler solicitors. Sitwell had directed him to King-Ryder Productions since-as everyone who'd been even moderately conscious for the last two decades knew-Michael Chandler and David King-Ryder had been partners until Michael Chandler's untimely death. “I suppose I should have pointed him towards the King-Ryder estate as well, come to think of it,” Sitwell said contemplatively, adding “Poor sod,” in apparent reference to David King-Ryder's suicide earlier that summer. “But as the production company's still up and running, I thought it made sense to start with them.”

What, Barbara thought, an intriguing wrinkle. She wondered if it was on the blanket of the murder or part of another bed entirely.

Into her silence, Sitwell waxed apologetic. He was sorry he couldn't be more helpful. There'd been nothing sinister about the boy's visit. Nothing exceptional about it either. Sitwell had forgotten altogether that he'd ever met him and he still couldn't say how Terry

Cole had come to have his business card because he still couldn't recall ever handing him one.

“He took one,” Barbara said, and indicated a card holder on Sitwell's desk with a nod of her head.

“Oh. I see. I don't remember him doing so, but I suppose he might have. I wonder why.”

“For his chewing gum,” she told him, thinking, And thank God for that.

She made her way back out to the street. There, she dug out of her bag the roster of employees that Dick Long had given her at 31-32 Soho Square. The list was alphabetical by employee surname. It included the office telephone number of the person in question, the home address and phone number, and the organisation for which each individual worked.

Barbara scanned the list till she'd come up with what she was looking for.

King-Ryder Productions, she read next to the tenth name down.

Bingo, she thought.

Security was non-existent at Shelly Platt's address. She lived not far from Earl's Court Station, in a conversion that had once been protected by the sort of door whose lock could be released by a resident pushing a buzzer from within an individual flat. Now, however, the door stood open. When, in an automatic response to seeing it ajar, Lynley paused to examine its locking mechanism, he saw that while the door itself had the requisite parts, the jamb that surrounded it had been destroyed sometime in the past. The door was still capable of swinging shut, but it caught upon nothing. Burgle at Will could have been the building's epigraph.

There was no lift, so Lynley and Nkata headed for the stairs at the far end of the corridor. Shelly lived on the fourth floor, which gave both men an opportunity to assess their physical condition. Nkata's was better, Lynley discovered. His lips had never so much as tasted tobacco. That abstinence-not to mention the man's insufferable youth-showed. But Nkata was considerate enough to mention neither. Although the blasted man did pretend to pause on the second floor mezzanine to admire what passed for a view and to give Lynley a breather, which he would have been damned before taking in front of his subordinate.

There were two flats on the fourth floor, one facing the street and one overlooking what lay behind the building. Shelly Platt lived in this latter accommodation, which proved to be a small bed-sit.

They had to rap on the door several times to get a response from within. When it was finally opened the length of an insubstantial security chain, a squinting face with sleep-modified orange hair peered out at them.

“Wha'? Oh. Two of you, is it? No offence, luv. I don't do black. Not prejudiced, mind you. Jus’ a 'rangement I got with a three-way girl who's getting on in years. I c'n give you her number if you want.” The girl had the distinctly adenoidal accent of a woman who'd spent her formative years just north of the Mersey.

“Miss Platt?” Lynley asked.

“When I'm conscious.” She grinned. Her teeth were grey. “Don't get your type round here much. Wha'd'you have in mind?”

“Conversation.” Lynley produced his warrant card and reacted quickly with his foot when she sought to slam the door. “CID,” he told her. “We'd like a word, Miss Platt.”

“You lot woke me up.” She was suddenly aggrieved. “You c'n come back later, when I've had me kip.”

“I doubt you want us to do that,” Lynley told her. “Especially if you're in the midst of an engagement later. That could put a damper on business. Let us in, please.”

She said, “Oh fook it,” then slid the chain off the door. She left them to open it for themselves.

Lynley pushed it inward to reveal a single room with a transom window covered by the sort of beaded curtain one usually found in doorways. Beneath this window, a mattress on the floor served as a bed, and Shelly Platt shuffled to this on bare feet and then walked across it to a heap of denim that turned out to be a pair of dungarees. These she pulled on over what little she was wearing: an extremely faded T-shirt printed with the instantly recognisable face of the Les Misérables street urchin. She scooped up a pair of moccasins and slid her feet into them. The moccasins had been beaded at one time, but what was left of their decoration consisted of tiny turquoise baubles that trailed along behind her on strings when she walked

The bed was unmade, its counterpane an Indian bedspread of yellow and orange, its single blanket a striped affair of purple and pink with a well-frayed satin border. Shelly left this behind and walked across the room to a wash basin, where she filled a pan. This she set on one of the burners of a hot plate that stood atop a scarred chest of drawers.

There was only a single seat in the room: a black futon marked with stains, which were all of a similar grey hue. Like clouds, these took a variety of shapes. One could use the imagination and see in them everything from unicorns to seals. Shelly nodded towards the futon as she padded back to the bed. “You c'n park it there if you want,” she said indifferently. “One of you'll have to stand.”

Neither of them moved towards the grubby bit of furniture. She said, “Suit yourselfs, then,” and plopped down on the mattress, snatching up one of its two pillows, which she cradled against her stomach. She kicked out of the way another heap of clothing-a red PVC mini-skirt, black net stockings still attached to a suspender belt, and a green top that appeared to carry stains of a colour similar to those on the futon. She observed Lynley and Nkata emotionlessly, from eyes that were notable for their lifelessness, as well as for the skin beneath them, which gave her the unappealing addicted-to-heroin look that fashion magazines had been featuring in their models lately. “Well? What d'you lot want? You said CID, not vice. So this i'n't nothing to do with business, is it?”

Lynley removed from his jacket pocket the anonymous letter that Vi Nevin had shown them earlier in the day. He handed it over. Shelly made much of giving it a thorough perusal, sucking in on her lower lip and pinching it between her teeth thoughtfully.

As she did so, Nkata flipped open his notebook and adjusted the lead in his propelling pencil while Lynley gathered information by allowing his glance the freedom of wandering round the room. It possessed two notable features, aside from the unmistakable odour of sexual intercourse, which was barely covered by the scent of jasmine incense recently burned. One was an old traveling trunk that was open upon its contents of black leather garments, manacles, masks, whips, and the like. The other was a collection of photographs that were pinned to the walls. These were of two subjects only: a youngish lout usually pictured with an electric guitar slung somewhere about his person and Vi Nevin in a variety of poses from seductive to playful: childlike of body and coy of face.

Shelly saw Lynley looking at these when she raised her head from studying the anonymous letter. She said, “So? Wha’ of it anyway?” in apparent reference to what she was holding.

“Did you send it?” Lynley asked her.

“I can't believe she'd call the cops on this. Wha’ a flaming div she's turned out.”

“So you did send it? And others like it?”

“I di'n't say that, did I?” Shelly flung the letter to the floor. She sprawled on her stomach and unearthed a gaily printed box from beneath several yellowed copies of the Daily Express. It contained chocolate truffles, which she picked through to find one to her liking. She used her tongue against its entire surface before easing it slowly into her mouth. Her cheeks moved like bellows as she made much of sucking it. She offered a moan of putative pleasure.

Across the room Nkata looked like a man who'd just begun wondering how his day could possibly get worse.

“Where were you on Tuesday night?” It was largely a pro forma question. Lynley couldn't imagine this girl having the wits-not to mention the strength-to dispatch two able-bodied young adults, no matter what Vi Nevin thought otherwise. Nonetheless, he asked it. There was never any way to know how much information might be obtained by a simple show of police suspicion.

“Where I always am,” she replied, easing herself down so that she was propped on one elbow with her hand supporting her lank-haired orange head. “I hang about Earl's Court Station… so I c'n give directions to anyone lost when he gets off* the tube, natcherly”-this with a smirk-“I was there last night. I'll be there tonight. I was there on Tuesday night as well. Why? Vi saying something different, is she?”

“She's saying you sent her letters. She's saying you've stalked her for a number of months.”

“Listen to her,” Shelly said derisively. “This's a free country last time I looked. I c'n go where I want an’ if she just happens to be there, it's too bloody bad. For her, that is. I don't give a fook one way or th'other.”

“Even if she's with Nicola Maiden?”

Shelly said nothing in reply, merely fingering through her chocolates for another piece. She was skeletally thin beneath her dungarees, and the unappealing condition of her teeth gave mute testimony to how she managed it despite a diet of truffles. She said, “Bitches. Users, those two are. I should of seen it sooner, only I thought being mates meant something to certain people. Which, of course, it di'n't. I hope they pay for how they treated me.”

“Nicola Maiden has done,” Lynley told her. “She was murdered on Tuesday night. Have you someone who can verify your whereabouts between ten and midnight, Miss Platt?”

“Murdered?” Shelly sat up straight. “Nikki Maiden murdered? How? When? I di'n't ever… You saying she was murdered? Fook. Hell. I got to ring Vi. I got to ring Vi.” She popped to her feet and went to the telephone which, like the hot plate, was on the chest of drawers. There, the water in the pan had begun to boil, which offered Shelly a moment's distraction in her quest to contact Vi Nevin. She carried the pan to the basin, where she poured some of the water into a lavender cup, saying, “Murdered. How is she? Vis okay, right? No one did nothing to Vi, did they?”

“She's fine.” Lynley was curious about the sudden change in the young woman: what it said about her, what it said about the case.

“She asked you to come and tell me, di'n't she? Fook. Poor kid.” Shelly opened a cabinet above the wash basin and took from it ajar of Gold Blend, a second jar of coffee creamer, and a box of sugar. She excavated in the coffee creamer for a grimy-looking spoon. She used it to measure everything into her cup, stirring vigorously between each measurement and dipping the spoon liberally into the next ingredient. She performed each step without drying the utensil. By the end it was thickly coated with an unappetising patina the colour of mud. “Well, steady on anyway,” she said, having apparently used the coffee-making time to reflect upon the information Lynley had brought to her. “It's not like I'm going to run right over, am I, no matter what she wants. She did wrong by me, and she bloody well knows it and she can just ask me nice if she wants me back. And I might not go, mind you. I got my pride.”

Lynley wondered if she'd heard his earlier question. He wondered if she understood what his having asked it implied: not only about her place in the investigation into Nicola Maiden's murder but also about the state of her relationship with Vi Nevin. He said, “Your having sent threatening letters puts you under suspicion, Miss Platt. You do understand that, don't you? So you're going to need to produce whoever can verify your whereabouts on Tuesday night between ten and midnight.”

“But Vi knows I'd never…” Shelly frowned. Something apparently made its way into her consciousness, like a mole burrowing towards the roots of a rosebush. Her face illustrated what her mind was assembling: If the police were standing there in her bed-sit, putting the frighteners on her about Nikki Maidens death, there could be only one reason for their visit and only one person who'd pointed them towards her. “Vi sent you to me, didn't she? Vi… sent… you… to… me. Vi thinks I took Nikki for an airing. Fook. That bitch. That rotten little bitch. She'll do anything to get back at me, won't she?”

“To get back for what?” Nkata asked. The guitar-wielding lout leered over his shoulder from an overlarge photograph, tongue hanging out. A line of studs pierced it. A silver chain dangled from one of the studs, looping across his cheek to a ring in his ear. “To get back at you for what?” Nkata repeated patiently, his pencil poised and his face all interest.

“For sneaking to Prongbreath Reeve, that's for what,” Shelly declared.

“MKR Financial Management?” Nkata asked. “Martin Reeve?”

“As ever bloody was.” Shelly marched over to the mattress, her coffee mug in her hand, unmindful of the hot liquid that sloshed onto the floor. She squatted, rooted for a truffle, and plopped it into the mug along with the coffee. Another chocolate she popped into her mouth. She sucked energetically and with intense concentration. This appeared to be directed-at long last-at the moderate peril of her situation. “Okay, so I told him about everything” she announced. “So bloody what? He had a right to know they were lying to him. Oh, he didn't deserve to know, little wanker that he is, but since they were doing to him what they did to me and since they were going to keep bloody doing it to everyone else in sight as long as they could get away with it, then he had a right to know. Because if people just use other people like that, then they bloody ought to pay for the using. One way or another, they bloody ought to pay Just like the punters, is what I say.”

Nkata looked like a man who was listening to Greek and attempting to write a translation in Latin. Lynley didn't feel a great deal more clarity at his end. He said, “Miss Platt, what are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about Prongbreath Reeve, I am. Vi and Nikki milked him like a cow, and when their pockets were full”-obviously, she wasn't a woman who clung to the unity of her figurative language-“they did a bunk on him. Only they made sure they took their punters with them when they scarpered. They were setting themselfs up to cost the Prong dear by going into business for themselfs, Nikki and Vi were, and I didn't think it was fair. So I told him.”

“So Vi Nevin did work for Martin Reeve?” Lynley asked Shelly.

“'Course she did. Both of them did. Tha's how they met.”

“Did you work for him as well?”

She snorted. “Not bloody likely, that. Oh I tried, I did. Right when Vi got hired, I tried. But I wasn't the type he was looking for, Prongbreath said. He wanted refinement, he said. He wanted his girls to make conversation and know which fork to use with the fish knife and watch an opera without falling asleep and go to a drinks party on the arm of some ugly fat bloke who wants to pretend she's his girlfriend for a night and-”

“I think we've got the idea,” Lynley cut in. “But let me make sure so there's no confusion: MKR is an escort service.”

“Posing as a financial management firm,” Nkata added.

“Is that what you're saying?” Lynley asked Shelly. “Are you saying that both Nicola and Vi worked for MKR as escorts until they broke away to form their own business? Is that right, Miss Platt?”

“Right as rain,” she asserted. “Right as a bleeding hurricane. He hires girls, does Martin, and he calls them trainees for some flaming money business that don't even exist in the first place. He sits them down with a slew of books they're supposed to study from to learn the ‘business,’ and after 'bout a week he asks them will they do him a favour and act like the date of one of MKR's big clients in town for a conference and wanting to go to dinner. He'll pay them extra, he says, if they'll do it just this once. And just this once turns into just another time, and by the time they figger what MKR's really about they're seeing they can make a lot more dosh acting like dates for Korean computer salesmen or Arab oil blokes or American políticos or… whoever than they could ever make doing whatever else they was doing when they came to work for Prongbreath in the first place. And they can make even more if they give their companion a bit more than their company for the evening. Which is when the Prong introduces them to what his business really is. Which has sod all to do with investing anyone's money anywhere, believe you me.”

“How did you learn all this?” Lynley asked.

“Vi brought Nikki home once. They were talking. I listened. Vi got hired by the Prong different, and they were telling their stories to each other to compare.”

“Vis was?”

“Different, like I said. She was the only escort he ever hired from the street. The rest were students. College girls who wanted to work part-time. But Vi worked the game by sticking her card in call boxes-”

“With you as her maid?”

“Yeah. Tha's right. And Prongbreath picked up one of her cards, liked the look of her-I s'pose he didn't have another girl who could look ten years old like Vi can when she sets her mind to it-and he rang her up. I booked him in like I always did, but when he showed up, he wanted to talk business.” She lifted her coffee and drank, examining Lynley over the rim. She said, “So Vi went to work for him.”

“And ceased to need you,” Lynley said.

“I stuck by her though. Cooking meals, doing laundry, keeping the flat nice. But then she wanted to take up with Nikki as her mate and her partner, and I was out. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “One day I was washing her knickers. The next day I was pulling mine down to give ten-pound pokes to blokes waiting to catch the District Line to Ealing Broadway.”

“Which was when you decided to inform Martin Reeve what they were up to,” Lynley noted. “It was a good provocation for you to seek revenge.”

“I didn't hurt no one!” Shelly cried. “If you want someone likely to do someone else in-I mean, to kill them-then you look at the Prong, not at me.”

“Yet Vi doesn't point the finger at him,” Lynley said. “Which you think she would do if she suspected him of anything. How do you account for that? She even denies knowing him.”

“Well, she would do, wouldn't she?” Shelly declared. “If that bloke even thought she sneaked on him to the cops about… like… well, about his escort business, on top of her already using him to build up a list of clients and then doing a runner to set up in business on her own…” Shelly drew her thumb across her neck in a mime of throat-slitting. “She wouldn't last ten minutes after he found out, Vi wouldn't. The Prong don't like to be crossed, and he'd see to it she paid for crossing.” Shelly seemed to hear what she was saying and to realise all of the possibilities that could grow out of it. Nervously, she looked towards the door, as if expecting Martin Reeve to come barreling through it, ready to wreak vengeance upon her for the sneaking that she had just done.

“If that's the case,” Lynley said, “if Reeve is indeed responsible for Nicola Maiden's death-which is what I assume you're suggesting when you talk about people paying when they double-cross him-”

“I never said!”

“Understood. You didn't say it directly. I'm drawing the inference.” Lynley waited for her to give a sign of comprehension. She blinked. He decided that would do. He said, “If we infer that Reeve's responsible for Nicola Maiden's death, why would he have waited so long to kill her? She left his employ in April. It's now September. How do you account for the five months he waited to take his revenge?”

“I never told him where they were.” Shelly said it proudly. “I pretended I didn't know. I reckoned he was owed the tale of what they were up to, but he was on his own to track them down. And tha's what he did. Depend on it.”