In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

CHAPTER 25

It was nearly midday before Simon St. James was able to give his time to the Derbyshire post-mortem reports that Lynley had sent him via Barbara Havers. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be looking for. The examination of the Maiden girl appeared in order. The conclusion of epidural haematoma was consistent with the blow to her skull. That it had been administered by a right-handed person attacking her from above was consistent with the hypothesis that she'd been running and had tripped-or been tackled-in her flight across the moor in the darkness. Apart from the blow to her head and the scrapes and contusions one would expect to find after a rough fall on uneven ground, there was nothing on her body that suggested anything curious. Unless, of course, one wanted to consider the extraordinary number of holes she'd had pierced in everything from her eyebrows to her genitals as a point of interest. And that hardly seemed a reasonable route to go when driving needles through various body parts had long ago become one of the relatively few acts of defiance left to a generation of young people whose parents had already engaged in them all.

From his reading of the Maiden report, it seemed to St. James that all the bases had been covered: from the time, cause, and mechanism of death to the evidence-or lack thereof-of a struggle. X-rays and photographs had been duly taken, and the body had been examined from top to bottom. The various organs had been studied, removed, and commented upon. Samples of body fluids had been sent to toxicology for their findings. At the end of the report, the opinion was stated briefly and clearly: The girl had died as the result of a blow to the head.

St. James went through the findings once more to make sure he hadn't missed any pertinent detail. Then he turned to the second report and immersed himself in the death of Terence Cole.

Lynley had phoned him with the information that one of the wounds on the boy hadn't been inflicted by the Swiss Army knife that had apparently been responsible for the others, including the fatal piercing of the femoral artery. After reading through the basic facts in the report, St. James gave a more careful scrutiny to everything related to this particular wound. He noted its size, its position on the body, and the marking left on the bone beneath it. He stared at the words and then walked contemplatively to the window of his lab, where he watched as Peach rolled blissfully below him in a patch of garden sunlight, exposing her furry dachshund belly to the twelve o'clock heat.

The Swiss Army knife, he knew, had been found in a grit dispenser. Why hadn't the secondary weapon been left in the same place? Why cache one weapon but not the other? Those questions, of course, belonged in the realm of the case detectives and not the scientists, but he believed they needed to be asked nonetheless.

Once they were asked, there seemed to be only two possible answers: Either the second weapon identified the killer too closely to be left at the scene or the second weapon had been left at the scene and the police had mistaken it for something else.

If the first supposition was the case, he could be of no assistance in the matter. If the second was the case, a more detailed study of the crime scene evidence was in order. He had no access to that evidence and he knew he wouldn't be welcome in Derbyshire to finger through it. So he returned to the post-mortem report and he sought anything within it that might give him a clue.

Dr. Sue Myles hadn't missed a thing: from the insects that had taken up residence in and on both of the bodies during the hours they'd lain undiscovered on the moor to the leaves, flowers, and twigs that had become caught up in the hair of the girl and the wounds on the boy.

It was this final detail-a sliver of wood some two centimeters long found on the body of Terence Cole-that St. James closed in on curiously. The sliver had been sent on to the lab for analysis, and someone had appended a note in pencil in the margin of the report, identifying it. From a phone call, doubtless. When officers were pressed, they didn't always wait for official word from the police lab before they moved on.

Cedar, someone had printed neatly in the margin. And next to it in parentheses the words Port Orford. St. James was no botanist, so Port Orford illuminated nothing for him. He knew it was unlikely that he'd be able to track down on a Sunday the forensic botanist who'd identified the wood, so he gathered up his paperwork and descended the stairs to his study.

Deborah was within, absorbed in the Sunday Times magazine. She said, “Trouble, love?”

He replied, “Ignorance. Which is trouble enough.”

He found the book he was looking for among the dustier of his volumes. He began leafing through the pages as Deborah joined him by the shelves.

“What is it?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Cedar. And Port Orford. Mean anything to you?”

“Sounds like a place. Port Isaac, Port Orford. Why?”

“A sliver of cedar was found on Terence Cole's body. The boy on the moors.”

“Tommy's case?”

“Hmm.” St. James flipped to the back of the book and ran his finger down the index under cedar. “Atlas, blue, Chilean incense. Did you know there were so many kinds of cedar?”

“Is it important?”

“I'm beginning to think it could be.” He ran his gaze further down the page. And then he saw the two words Port Orford. They were listed as a variety of the tree.

He turned to the indicated page, where first he took note of the picture which featured a sample of the coniferous tree's foliage and then read the entry itself. “This is curious,” he said to his wife.

“What?” she asked, sliding her arm through his.

He told her what the post-mortem had claimed: that a wooden sliver identified by the forensic botanist as Port Orford cedar had been found in one of the wounds on the body of Terence Cole.

Deborah looked thoughtful as she shrugged back a heavy mass of her hair. “Why's that curious? They were killed out of doors, weren't they? Out on the moors?” And then her eyes widened. “Oh yes. I do see.”

“Exactly,” St. James said. “What kind of moor has cedars growing on it? But it's more curious than that, my love. This particular cedar grows in America, in the States. Oregon and northern California, it says.”

“The tree could have been imported, couldn't it?” Deborah asked reasonably. “For someone's garden or for a park? Or even a greenhouse or conservatory. You know what I mean: like palm trees or cactuses.” She smiled, her nose wrinkling. “Or is that cacti?”

St. James walked to his desk and put the book down. He lowered himself slowly into his chair, thinking. “All right. Let's say it was imported for someone's garden or a park.”

“Of course.” She was with him, tagging her own thought onto his. “That still begs the obvious question, doesn't it? How did a cedar tree meant for someone's garden or a park get to the moor?”

“And how did it get to a part of the moor that's nowhere near someone's garden or a park in the first place?”

“Someone planted it there for religious reasons?”

“More likely no one planted it at all.”

“But you said…” Deborah frowned. “Oh yes. I see. I suppose the forensic botanist must have made an error, then.”

“I don't think so.”

“But, Simon, if there was only a sliver to work with-”

“That's all a good forensic botanist would need.” St. James went on to explain. Even a fragment of wood, he told her, bore the pattern of tubes and vessels that transported fluids from the bottom to the top of a tree. Soft-wood trees-and all conifers, he told her, are among the soft woods-are less developed evolutionary and consequently easier to identify. Placed under microscopic analysis, a sliver would reveal a number of key features that distinguish its species from all other species. A forensic botanist would catalogue these features, plug them into a key-or a computer identification system, for that matter-and derive from the information and the key an exact identification of the tree. It was a faultlessly accurate process, or at least as accurate as any other identification made from microscopic, human, and computer analysis.

“All right,” Deborah said slowly and with some apparent doubt. “So it's cedar, yes?”

“Port Orford cedar. I think we can depend on that.”

“And it's a piece of cedar that's not from a tree growing in the area, yes?”

“Yes as well. So we're left with asking where that piece of cedar came from and how it came to be on the boy's body.”

“They were camping, weren't they?”

“The girl was, yes.”

“In a tent? Well, what about a tent peg from the tent? What if the peg was made from cedar?”

“She was hiking. I doubt it was that kind of tent.”

Deborah crossed her arms and leaned against the desk, considering this. “What about a camp stool, then? The legs, for instance.”

“Possibly. If a stool was among the items at the site.”

“Or tools. She would have had camping tools with her. An axe for wood, a trowel, something like that. The sliver could be from one of the handles.”

“Tools would have to be lightweight, though, if she was carrying them in a rucksack.”

“What about cooking utensils? Wooden spoons?”

St. James smiled. “Gourmets in the wilderness?”

“Don't laugh at me,” she said, laughing herself. “I'm trying to help.”

“I've a better idea,” he told her. “Come along.”

He led her upstairs to the laboratory, where his computer hummed quietly in a corner near the window. There he sat down and, with Deborah at his shoulder, he accessed the Internet, saying, “Let's consult the Great Intelligence on-line.”

“Computers always make my palms sweat.”

St. James took her palm, unsweaty, and kissed it. “Your secret's safe with me.”

In a moment the computer screen came to life, and St. James selected the search engine he generally used. He typed the word cedar into the search field and blinked with consternation when the result was some six hundred thousand entries.

“Good Lord,” Deborah said. “That's not very helpful, is it?”

“Let's narrow our options.” St. James altered his selection to Port Oxford cedar. The result was an immediate change to one hundred and eighty-three. But when he began to scroll through the listing, he saw he'd come up with everything from an article written about Port Or-ford, Oregon, to a treatise on wood rot. He sat back, reflected for a moment, and typed in the word usage after cedar, adding the appropriate inverted commas and addition signs. That gleaned him absolutely nothing at all. He switched from usage to market and hit the return. The screen altered and gave him his answer.

He read the very first listing and said, “Good God,” when he saw what it was.

Deborah, whose attention had drifted towards her darkroom, came back to him. “What?” she said. “What?”

“It's the weapon,” he said, and pointed to the screen.

Deborah read for herself and drew in a sharp breath. “Shall I get in touch with Tommy?”

St. James considered. But the request to study the post-mortem reports had been relayed to him from Lynley via Barbara. And that served as sufficient indication of a chain of command, which gave him the excuse he needed in order to attempt to make peace where there was strife.

“Let's track down Barbara,” he told his wife. “She can be the one to take the news to Tommy.”

Barbara Havers zoomed round the corner of Anhalt Road and hoped her luck would hold for another few hours. She'd managed to find Cilia Thompson in her railway arch studio applying her talents to a canvas on which a cavernous mouth with tonsils like bellows opened upon a three-legged girl skipping rope on a spongy-looking tongue. A few questions had been enough to ascertain fuller information about the “gent with good taste” who'd purchased one of Cilia's master-works the previous week.

Cilia couldn't remember his name off the top of her head. Come to think of it, she reported, he'd never told her. But he'd written her a cheque which she'd photocopied, the better-Barbara thought-to prove to the world of artistic doubting Thomases that she'd actually managed to sell a canvas. She had that photocopy taped to the inside of her wooden paintbox, and she showed it off willingly, saying, “Oh yeah, the blokes name's right here. Gosh. Look at this. I wonder if he's any relation?”

Matthew King-Ryder, Barbara saw, had paid an idiotically exorbitant amount for one dog of a painting. He'd used a cheque drawn on a bank in St. Helier on the island of Jersey. Private Banking was embossed above his name. He'd scrawled the amount as if he'd been in a hurry. As perhaps he had been, Barbara thought.

How had Matthew King-Ryder happened to turn up in Portslade Street? she'd asked the artist. Cilia herself would admit, wouldn't she, that this particular row of railway arches wasn't exactly heralded throughout London as a hotbed of modern art.

Cilia shrugged. She didn't know how he'd happened upon the studio. But obviously, she wasn't the sort of girl who looked at a gift horse cross-eyed. When he'd shown up, asked to have a look about, and demonstrated an interest in her work, she was as happy as a duck in the sun to let him browse right through it. All she could report in the end was that the bloke with the chequebook had spent a good hour looking at every piece of art in the studio-Terry's as well? Barbara wanted to know. Had he asked about Terry's art? Using Terry's name?

No. He just wanted to see her paintings, Cilia explained. All of them. And when he couldn't find anything he liked, he asked if she had any others tucked away that he could see. So she'd sent him round to the flat, having phoned Mrs. Baden and told her to show him up when he arrived. He went straight there and made his selection from one of those paintings. He sent her a cheque promptly by post on the following day. “Gave me the asking price as well,” Cilia said proudly. “No dickering about it.”

And that point alone-that Matthew King-Ryder had gained access to the digs of Terry Cole, for whatever reason-made Barbara push the accelerator floorward as she whipped through Battersea back to Cilia's flat.

She didn't give a thought to what she was supposed to be doing instead of reversing into a parking space at the end of Anhalt Road. She'd got the search warrant as directed, and she'd put together a team. She'd even met them in front of Snappy Snaps in Notting Hill

Gate and put the whole boiling kettle of them in the picture on what the inspector wanted them to look for in Martin Reeve's home. She'd merely omitted the information that she was supposed to accompany them. It was easy enough to justify this omission. The team she'd assembled-two members of which were amateur boxers in their free time-could shake up a house and intimidate its inhabitants far better if they had no female presence among them, diluting the threat implied by their imposing physiques and their tendency to communicate in monosyllables. Besides, wasn't she killing two birds-three or four, perhaps-by sending officers to Notting Hill to shake up and shake down the Reeves without her? While they were doing that, she would be using the time to see what information could be harvested from the Battersea end of things. Delegation of responsibility and the mark of an officer with leadership potential, she called the situation. And she pushed from her mind the nasty little voice that kept trying to call it something else.

She pressed the bell for Mrs. Baden's ground floor flat. The faint sound of hesitantly played piano music halted abruptly. The sheer curtains in the bay window flicked an inch to one side.

Barbara called out, “Mrs. Baden? Barbara Havers again. New Scotland Yard CID.”

The buzzer sounded to release the lock. Barbara scurried inside.

Mrs. Baden said graciously, “Goodness me. I'd no idea detectives were expected to work on Sundays. I hope they give you the time to go to church.”

She herself had attended the early service, the woman confided without waiting for a response from Barbara. And afterwards she'd joined a meeting of the wardens in order to put forward her opinions on the subject of establishing bingo nights to raise money to replace the roof of the chancel. She was in favour of the idea, although in general she didn't approve of gambling. But this was gambling for God, which was altogether different to the sort of gambling that lined the secular pockets of casino owners who made their fortunes by offering games of chance to the avaricious.

“So I've no cake to offer you, I'm afraid,” Mrs. Baden concluded regretfully. “I took the rest with me to serve at the wardens' meeting this morning. It's far more pleasant engaging in debate over cake and coffee than over grumbling stomachs, don't you agree? Especially”- and here she smiled at her witticism-“when grumbling enough is already going on.”

For a moment Barbara looked at her blankly. Then she recalled her previous visit. “Oh, the lemon cake. I expect that went down a real treat with the wardens, Mrs. Baden.”

The elderly woman lowered her gaze shyly. “I think it's important to make a contribution when one's part of a congregation. Before these dreadful shakes of mine began”-here, she held up her hands, whose tremors today were making her look like a victim of ague-“I used to play the organ at services. I liked the funerals best, frankly, but of course I wouldn't have admitted that to the wardens, as they might have found my taste a bit macabre. When the shakes started, I had to give all that up. Now I play the piano instead for the infant school's choir, where it doesn't much matter if I hit a wrong note from time to time. The children are quite forgiving about that. But I suppose people at funerals have far less reason to be understanding, don't they?”

“That makes sense,” Barbara agreed. “Mrs. Baden, I've just seen Cilia.” She went on to explain what she'd learned from the artist.

As she spoke, Mrs. Baden went to the old upright piano at one side of the room, where a metronome was tick-tocking rhythmically and a timer whirred. She ceased the metronome's movement and turned off the timer. She put the piano's bench back into place, tapped several sheets of music neatly together, replaced them on their holder, and sat with her hands folded, looking attentive. Across from the piano, the finches twittered in their enormous cage as they flew from one perch to another. Mrs. Baden glanced at them fondly as Barbara went on.

“Oh yes, he was here, that gentlemen, Mr. King-Ryder,” Mrs. Baden said when Barbara had concluded. “I recognised his name when he introduced himself, of course. I offered him a piece of chocolate cake, but he didn't accept, didn't even step over my threshold. He was quite intent on seeing those pictures.”

“Did you let him into the flat? Terry and Cilia's, I mean.”

“Cilia phoned me and said that a gentleman was coming round to look at her pictures and would I unlock the door for him and let him see them? She didn't give me his name-the silly child hadn't even asked him, can you imagine?-but as there's not generally a queue of art collectors ringing my bell and asking to see her work, when he showed up, I assumed he was the one. And anyway, I didn't let him stay in the flat alone. At least not until I'd checked with Cilia.”

“So he was alone upstairs? Once you'd checked with her?” Barbara rubbed her hands together mentally. Now, at last, they were getting somewhere. “Did he ask to be alone?”

“Once I took him up to the flat and he saw how very many paintings are in it, he said that he'd need some time to really study them before he made his selection. As a collector, he wanted-”

“Did he say he was a collector, Mrs. Baden?”

“Art is his abiding passion, he told me. But as he isn't a wealthy man, he collects the unknowns. I remember that especially, because he talked about the people who'd bought Picasso's work before Picasso was… well, before Picasso was Picasso. ‘They just went on faith and left the rest to art history,’ he said. He told me that he was doing the same.”

So Mrs. Baden had left him alone in the flat upstairs. And for more than an hour he'd contemplated Cilia Thompson's work until he'd made his choice.

“He showed it to me after he'd locked up and returned the key,” she told Havers. “I can't say I understood his choice. But then… well, I'm not a collector, am I? Aside from my little birds, I don't collect anything at all.”

“Are you sure he was up there as long as an hour?”

“More than an hour. You see, I practise my piano in the afternoons. Ninety minutes every day. Not very much use at this point, of course, with my hands getting so bad. But I believe in trying no matter what. I'd just wound up the metronome and set the timer when Cilia rang to say he'd be coming. I decided not to start my practise till he'd come and gone. I deplore interruptions… but, of course, please don't take that personally, dear. This conversation is an exception to the rule.”

“Thanks. And…?”

“And when he said he wanted to take his time having a good long look at the paintings, I decided to go ahead with my practise. I'd been at it-not very successfully, I'm afraid-for an hour and ten minutes when he knocked at my door a second time. He had a painting under his arm, and he asked would I tell Cilia that he'd be sending her a cheque in the post. Oh my goodness.” Mrs. Baden suddenly straightened, one hand at her throat, where a quadruple-strand choker of knobby beads circled her crepey neck. “Did he not send Cilia that cheque, my dear?”

“He sent the cheque.”

The hand dropped. “Thank heavens. I'm so relieved to know it. Granted, I was terribly preoccupied with my music that day because I wanted to play at least one piece for dear Terry by the end of the week. After all, it was a sweet present. Not my birthday or Mothering Sunday or anything and there he was… Not that I'd expect something on Mothering Sunday from a boy not my son, mind you, but he was a dear and always so generous, and I felt I ought to show him how much I appreciated his generosity by being able to play it. But it hadn't been going well at all-my practise, that is-because my eyes aren't what they used to be and reading music that's been handwritten is rather a problem. So I was quite preoccupied, you see. But the young man-Mr. King-Ryder, this is-seemed honest and truthful, so when it came to taking his word about a cheque, why, I didn't once think that he might be untruthful. And I'm glad to know that he wasn't.”

Barbara only half heard her final comments. She was transfixed, instead, by the woman's earlier words. She said, “Mrs. Baden,” quite slowly, drawing in a breath carefully, as if to do it with too much energy might frighten away the facts which she believed she was about to coax from the older woman. “Are you telling me that Terry Cole gave you some piano music?”

“Certainly, my dear. But I believe I mentioned that the other day when you were here. Such a lovely boy, Terry. Such a good boy, really. He was always willing to do the odd job or two round the house if I needed him. He fed my little birds if I was out as well. And he loved to wash windows and hoover the rugs. At least that's what he always said.” She smiled gently.

Barbara dragged the old woman away from her carpets and back to the topic. “Mrs. Baden, do you still have that music?” she asked.

“Well, certainly, I do. I have it right here.”

Lynley had Martin Reeve delivered to one of the Yard's interview rooms. He'd refused to talk to him on the phone when DC Steve

Budde from the search warrant team had placed a call to the Yard from the pimp's Notting Hill home, relaying Reeve's offer to strike a deal. Reeve, Budde said, wished to produce information that might be valuable to the police in exchange for the opportunity to emigrate to Melbourne, a city that Reeve appeared newly eager to embrace. What did DI Lynley want done about the matter? Scotland Yard, Lynley said, didn't make deals with killers. He told DC Budde to relay that message and to bring the pimp in.

As Lynley had hoped, Reeve arrived without his solicitor in tow. He was haggard, unshaven, and wearing jeans and a boxy Hawaiian shirt. This gaped open on a pallid chest, the sanguinolent path of someone's fingernails still fresh upon it.

“Call off your goons,” Reeve said without preamble when Lynley joined him. “This dickhead's pals”-with a jerk of his head at DC Budde-“are still trashing my house. I want them out of there pronto or I'm not cooperating.”

Lynley nodded Constable Budde into a seat against the wall, where he assumed a watchful position. The DC was the size of Bigfoot, and the metal chair creaked beneath him.

Lynley and Reeve took places at the table, where Lynley said, “You're not in a position to make demands, Mr. Reeve.”

“The fuck I'm not. I am if you want information. Get those assholes out of my house, Lynley.”

In response, Lynley put a fresh cassette into the tape player, pushed the record button, and gave the date, the time, and the names of everyone present. He recited the formal caution for Reeve's benefit, saying, “Are you waiving your right to a solicitor?”

“Jesus. What is this? D'you guys want the truth or a tap dance?”

“Just answer me, please.”

“I don't need a solicitor for what I'm here for.”

“The suspect waives his right to legal representation,” Lynley said for the record. “Mr. Reeve, were you acquainted with Nicola Maiden?”

“Let's cut to the chase, all right? You know I knew her. You know she worked for me. She and Vi Nevin quit last spring, and I haven't seen either one of them since. End of story. But that's not what I'm here to talk-”

“How long was it after their departure before Shelly Platt informed you that the Maiden girl and Vi Nevin had set themselves up privately in prostitution?”

Reeve's eyes became hooded. “Who? Shelly what?”

“Shelly Platt. You can't be denying that you know her. According to my man at the hospital, she recognised you the moment she saw you this morning.”

“Lots of people recognise me. I get around. So does Tricia. Our faces must be in the papers once a week.”

“Shelly Platt states that she told you about the two girls' going into business for themselves. You can't have liked that. It can't have done much to enhance your reputation as a man with his stable under control.”

“Look. If a flatbacker wants to go it alone, I could give a shit, all right? They find out soon enough how much work and money's involved in attracting the calibre of clients they're used to. Then they come back, and if they're lucky and I'm in the mood, I take them back. It's happened before. It'll happen again. I knew it would happen to Maiden and Nevin if I waited them out long enough.”

“And if they didn't want back in? If they were more of a success than you anticipated? What then? And what can you do to prevent the rest of your girls from trying their luck as independents?”

Reeve leaned back in his chair. “Are we here to talk about the pussy game in general or do you want some straight answers to last night's questions? Your choice, Inspector. But make it quick. I don't have the time to sit here and chew the fat with you.”

“Mr. Reeve, you're not in a bargaining position. One of your girls is dead. The other-her partner-has been beaten and left for dead. Either this is a remarkable coincidence or the events are related. The link appears to be you and their decision to leave you.”

“Which makes them not my girls any longer,” Reeve said. “I'm not involved.”

“So you'd like us to believe that a call girl can leave you, set herself up in business in competition with you, and not expect any reprisal. Free market economy, with the spoils going to him or her with the superlative product. Is that it?”

“I couldn't have put it better.”

“The best man wins? Or the best woman, for that matter?”

“The first precept of business, Inspector.”

“I understand. So you'll have no objection to telling me where you were yesterday while Vi Nevin was being assaulted.”

“As my half of the deal, I'm happy to tell you. Once I learn what your half's going to be.”

Lynley felt weary with the pimp's manoeuvring. “Put him on the charge sheet,” he said to DC Budde. “Assault and murder.” The constable rose.

“Hey! Wait a minute! I came here to talk. You offered a deal to Tricia yesterday. I'm claiming it today. All you need to do is put it on the table so we both know what we're agreeing to.”

“That's not how things work.” Lynley got to his feet.

DC Budde took the pimp's arm. “Let's go.”

Reeve shook him off. “Fuck that shit. You want to know where I was? All right. I'll tell you.”

Lynley sat again. He hadn't switched the recorder off, and the pimp in his agitation hadn't noticed. “Go on.”

Reeve waited until Budde had returned to his seat. He said, “Keep a collar on Rufus. I don't like being manhandled.”

“We'll take note of that.”

Reeve rubbed his arm as if contemplating a future suit charging policy brutality. He said, “All right. I wasn't at home yesterday. I went out in the afternoon. I didn't get back till night. Nine or ten o'clock.”

“Where were you, then?”

Reeve looked as if he was calculating the damage he was about to inflict upon himself. He said, “I went there. I admit it. But I wasn't there when-”

For the record, Lynley said, “You went to Fulham? To Rostrevor Road?”

“She wasn't there. I'd been trying to track them down all summer, Vi and Nikki. When those two cops-the black and the dumpy broad with chipped front teeth-came round for a chat with me on Friday, I had a feeling they could lead me to Vi if I played it right. So I had them followed. I went back the next day.” He grinned. “Something of a turn-around, huh? Tailing the cops instead of the reverse.”

“For the tape, Mr. Reeve: You went to Rostrevor Road yesterday.”

“And she wasn't there. No one was there.”

“Why did you go to see her?”

Reeve examined his nails. They looked freshly buffed. His knuckles, however, were swollen and bruised. “Let's say I went to make a point.”

“In other words, you beat Vi Nevin.”

“No way. I said I didn't get the chance. And you sure as hell can't arrest me for what I wanted to do. If I even wanted to beat her in the first place, which I'm not admitting to, by the way.” He adjusted his position in his chair, more comfortable now, more sure of himself. “Like I said, she wasn't there. I went back three times during the afternoon, but my luck didn't change and I started getting antsy. When I get like that…” Reeve used his fist against his palm. “I do. I act. I don't go home like a limp dick pantywaist and wait for somebody else to screw me over.”

“Did you try to find her? You must have had a list of her clients, at least those she serviced when she worked for you. If she wasn't at home, it stands to reason that you'd begin a search for her. Especially if you were-how did you put it?-getting antsy.”

“I said I do, Lynley. I act when I'm getting riled, okay? I wanted to make a point with the whore and I couldn't do it and that pissed me off. So I decided to make a point with someone else.”

“I don't see how that served your needs.”

“It served my needs of the moment just fine because I started thinking it was time to put a tighter rein on the rest of them. I don't want them even beginning to think about taking a page from the Nikki-Vi book. Whores think men are cocksuckers. So if you want to run them, you'd better be willing to do what it takes to keep their respect.”

“It takes violence, I'd assume.” Lynley marveled at Reeve's hubris. How could the pimp not know he was digging his own grave with every sentence he spoke? Did he actually think he was ameliorating his position with his declarations?

Reeve went on. He'd begun paying visits to his employees during the afternoon, he said, surprise visits that were designed to reinforce his authority over them. He appropriated their bank books, diaries, and bills with the intention of comparing them to his own records. He listened to messages on their answer machines to learn if they'd encouraged their clients to bypass Global Escorts when booking a session. He went through their wardrobes checking for clothing that revealed a higher income than he was shelling out to them. He examined their supplies of condoms, lubricating jellies, and sex toys to see if everything matched what he knew of each girl's clientele.

“Some of them didn't like what I was doing,” Reeve said. “They complained. So I straightened them out.”

“You beat them.”

“Beat them?” Reeve laughed. “Hell no. I fucked them. That's what you saw on my face last night. I call it fingernail foreplay.”

“There's another word for it.”

“I didn't rape anyone, if that's where you're heading. And there's not a single one among them who'll say that I did. But if you want to bring them in-the three I fucked-and grill them, go right ahead and do it. I've come to give you their names anyway. They'll back my story.”

“I'm sure they will,” Lynley said. “Obviously, the woman who doesn't is inclined to experience your brand of… What did you call it? Straightening out?” He got to his feet and ended the taped interview. He said to DC Budde, “I want him charged. Get him to a telephone, because he'll be howling for his solicitor before we've even begun to-”

“Hey!” Reeve jumped up. “What're you doing? I didn't touch either one of those cunts. You've got nothing on me.”

“You're a pimp, Mr. Reeve. I have your own admission of that on tape. It's a decent start.”

“You offered a deal. I'm here to collect it. I'm talking and then I'm clearing out to Melbourne. You put that on the table for Tricia and-”

“And Tricia may collect it if she chooses to do so.” Lynley said to Budde, “We'll want to send a team from vice back to Lansdowne Road. Phone over there and tell Havers to wait till they arrive.”

“Hey! Listen to me!” Reeve came round the table. DC Budde grabbed onto his arm. “Get your fucking hands off-”

“She's probably had time to pull together enough evidence to hold him on a pandering charge,” Lynley told Budde. “That'll do for now.”

“You assholes don't know who you're dealing with!”

DC Budde tightened his grip. “Havers? Guv, she's not in Not-ting Hill. Jackson, Stille, and Smiley're doing the search. You want me to track her down anyway?”

Lynley said, “Not there? Then, where-”

Reeve struggled against Budde. “I'll have your butts for this.”

“Steady on, mate. You're not going anywhere.” Budde said to Lynley, “She met us there and handed over the warrant. Do you want me to try to-”

“Fuck this shit!”

The door to the interview room swung open. “'Spector?” It was Winston Nkata. “Need some help in here?”

“It's under control,” Lynley said, and to Budde, “Get him to a phone. Let him call his solicitor. Then get on the paperwork to charge him.”

Budde danced Reeve past Nkata and down the corridor. Lynley remained by the table, fingers on the tape recorder for want of something to ground himself through touch. If he did anything else without taking time to consider the consequences of every possible action, he knew he'd regret it eventually.

Havers, he thought. Christ. What was it going to take? She'd never been the easiest officer to work with, but this was outrageous. It was beyond comprehension that she'd defied a direct order after what she'd already been through. Either she had a death wish or she'd lost her mind. No matter which it was, though, Lynley knew he'd finally reached the end of his tether with the woman.

“-took some time to track down which clamping unit works the area, but it paid off big,” Nkata was saying.

Lynley looked up. “Sorry,” he said. “I was miles away. What've you got, Winnie?”

“I checked Beattie's club. He's in the clear. I went on to Islington,” Nkata said. “I did a talk with the neighbours at the Maiden girl's old digs. No one matched up any visitors with Beattie or Reeve, even when I showed them pictures. Found one of each bloke at the Daily Mail by the way. Always helps to have snouts in the newspaper offices.”

“But no joy from that direction?”

“Not to speak. But while I was there I saw a clamped Vauxhall sitting on double yellow. Which got me to thinking 'bout other possibilities.”

Nkata reported that he'd phoned all the London wheel clamping agencies to see which of them served the Islington streets. It was a shot in the dark, but since no one he'd spoken to had been able to identify either Martin Reeve or Sir Adrian Beattie as visitors to Nicola

Maiden's bed-sit prior to her removal to Fulham, he decided to see if anyone clamped in the area on the ninth of May might match up with anyone connected to Nicola Maiden.

“And that's where I struck gold,” he said.

“Well done, Winnie,” Lynley said warmly. Nkata's initiative had long been one of his finest qualities. “What did you get?”

“Something dicey.”

“Dicey? Why?”

“Because of who got clamped.” The DC looked suddenly uneasy, which should have been a warning. But Lynley didn't see it and, at any rate, he was distracted by feeling too decidedly positive about how things had gone with Martin Reeve.

“Who?” he asked.

“Andrew Maiden,” Nkata said. “Seems he was in town on the ninth of May. He got clamped round the corner from Nicola's digs.”

Lynley felt a tight sickness in the pit of his stomach as he closed his front door and began to climb the stairs. He went to his bedroom, pulled out the same suitcase he'd brought back from Derbyshire on the previous day, and opened it on the bed. He started to pack for the return journey, tossing in pyjamas, shirts, trousers, socks, and shoes without giving a thought to what he'd actually need when he got there. He packed his shaving gear and nicked Helen's bar of soap from the bath.

His wife came in as he was closing the lid on a packing job that would have sent Denton into fits. She said, “I thought I heard you. What's happened? Are you off again so soon? Tommy darling, is something wrong?”

He set the suitcase on the floor and cast about for an explanation. He went with the facts without attaching an interpretation to them. “The trail's leading back to the North,” he told her. “Andy Maiden appears to be involved.”

Helen's eyes widened. “But why? How? Lord, that's terrible. And you admired him so, didn't you?”

Lynley told her what Nkata had discovered. He related what the DC had learned earlier about the argument and the threat heard in May. He added to that what he himself had put together from his interviews with the SO 10 officer and his wife. He finished with the information that Hanken had passed along on the phone. What he didn't embark on was a monologue dealing with the probable reason that Andy Maiden had requested one DI Thomas Lynley-a notable washout from SO 10-as the Scotland Yard officer sent north to assist in the investigation. He would face that subject later, when his pride could stand it.

“It made sense to me at first to look at Julian Britton,” he said in conclusion. “Then at Martin Reeve. I stuck with one and then the other and ignored every detail that pointed anywhere else.”

“But, darling, you may still be right,” Helen said. “Especially about Martin Reeve. He has more of a motive than anyone, hasn't he? And he could have tracked Nicola Maiden to Derbyshire.”

“And out onto the moor as well?” Lynley said. “How could he possibly have managed that?”

“Perhaps he followed the boy. Or had the boy followed by someone else.”

“There's nothing to say Reeve even knew the boy, Helen.”

“But he may have learned about him through the phone box cards. He's someone who watches the competition, isn't he? If he found out who was placing Vi Nevin's cards and began to have him trailed just as he had Barbara and Winston trailed to Fulham… Why couldn't he have tracked down Nicola that way? Someone could have been following the boy for weeks, Tommy, knowing he'd eventually lead the way to Nicola.”

Helen warmed to her theory. Why, she asked, could someone employed by Reeve to trail the boy not have followed him out of London, up to Derbyshire, and onto the moors to meet Nicola? Once the girl was located, a single phone call to Martin Reeve from the nearest pub would have been all that it took. Reeve could have ordered the murders from London at that point, or he could have flown up to Manchester-or driven to Derbyshire in less than three hours-and gone out to the ancient stone circle to settle with them himself.

“It doesn't have to be Andy Maiden,” she concluded.

Lynley touched her cheek. “Thank you for being my champion.”

“Tommy, don't discount me. And don't discount yourself. From what you've told me, Martin Reeve has a motive carved out of marble. Why on earth would Andy Maiden kill his daughter?”

“Because of what she became,” Lynley replied. “Because he couldn't talk her out of becoming it. Because he couldn't stop her by means of reasoning, persuasion, or threat. So he stopped her the only other way he knew.”

“But why not just have her arrested? She and the other girl-”

“Vi Nevin.”

“Yes. Vi Nevin. There were two of them in business. Doesn't it constitute a brothel if there're two? Couldn't he merely have phoned an old friend in the Met and brought her down that way?”

“With all his former colleagues knowing what she'd become? What his own daughter had become? He's a proud man, Helen. He'd never go for that.” Lynley kissed her forehead, then her mouth. He picked up his suitcase. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

She followed him down the stairs. “Tommy, you're harder on yourself than anyone I know. How can you be certain that you're not just being hard on yourself now? And with far more disastrous consequences?”

He turned to answer his wife, but the doorbell rang. The ringing was insistent and repeated, as if someone outside was leaning on the bell.

Their caller turned out to be Barbara Havers, and when Lynley set his suitcase by the door and admitted her into the house, she charged past him with a thick manila envelope in her hand, saying, “Holy hell, Inspector, I'm glad I caught you. We're one step closer to paradise.”

She greeted Helen and went into the drawing room, where she plopped onto a sofa and spilled the contents of her envelope onto a coffee table. “This is what he was after,” she said obscurely. “He spent over an hour at Terry Cole's flat pretending to look at Cilia's paintings. She thought he was in love with her work.” Havers ruffled her hair energetically, the signature gesture of her excitement. “But he was alone in that flat, Inspector, and he had plenty of time to search it stem to stern. He couldn't find what he wanted though. Because Terry had given it to Mrs. Baden when he'd realised he wasn't going to be able to flog it at a Bowers auction. And Mrs. Baden just gave it to me. Here. Have a look.”

Lynley stayed where he was, by the door to the drawing room. Helen joined Barbara and glanced through the numerous sheets of paper that she'd dumped from the envelope.

“It's music,” Barbara told him. “A whole slew of music. A whole bloody slew of Michael Chandler music. Neil Sitwell at Bowers told me he sent Terry Cole to King-Ryder Productions to get the name of the Chandler solicitors. But Matthew King-Ryder denied the whole thing. He said Terry came to get an artistic grant from him. So why the hell has no one we've talked to said a single word about Terry and a grant?”

“You tell me,” Lynley said evenly.

Havers ignored-or didn't notice-the tone. “Because King-Ryder is lying his head off. He followed him. He trailed Terry Cole round London everywhere he went, trying to get his mitts on this music.”

“Why?”

“Because the milk cow's dead.” Havers sounded triumphant. “And King-Ryder's only hope of keeping the ship floating for a few more years was to be able to produce another hit show.”

“You're mixing your metaphors,” Lynley remarked.

“Tommy.” Helen's expression carried an unspoken entreaty. She knew him better than anyone after all, and unlike Havers, she'd noted his tone. She'd also noted his unchanged position at the door to the room, and she knew what that meant.

Oblivious, Havers continued with a grin. “Right. Sorry. Anyway. King-Ryder told me that his dad's will leaves all the profits from his current productions to a special fund that supports theatre types. Actors, writers, designers. That sort. His last wife gets a bequest, but she's the sole beneficiary. Not a penny goes to Matthew or his sister. He'll have some sort of position as chairman or leader or whatever of the Fund, but how can that compare to the lolly he'd be gathering if he mounted another of his dad's productions? A new production, Inspector. A posthumous production. A production not governed by the terms of the will. There's your motive. He had to get his maulers on this music and eliminate the only person who knew Michael Chandler-and not David King-Ryder-had written it.”

“And Vi Nevin?” Lynley enquired. “How does she fit into the picture, Havers?”

Her face grew even brighter. “King-Ryder thought Vi had the music. He hadn't found it at the flat. He hadn't found it when he followed Terry Cole and offed him and tore that camp site apart looking for it. So he came back to London and paid a call on Vi Nevin's flat when she was out. He was tearing it apart looking for that music when she surprised him.”

“That flat was destroyed. It wasn't searched, Havers.”

“No way, Inspector. The pictures show a search. Look at them again. Things're flung round and opened up and shoved onto the floor. But if someone wanted to put Vi out of business, he'd spray-paint the walls. He'd slice up the furniture and cut up the carpets and punch holes in the doors.”

“And he'd batter her face in,” Lynley injected. “Which is what Reeve did.”

“King-Ryder did it. She'd seen him. Or at least he thought she'd seen him. And he couldn't take a chance that she hadn't. For all he knew, she was wise to the music's existence too. because she knew Terry as well. At any rate, what does it matter? Let's haul him in and hold his feet to the flame.” For the first time, she seemed to see the suitcase that stood in the doorway. She said, “Where're you going anyway?”

“To make an arrest. Because while you were larking round London, DC Nkata-in compliance with orders-was doing the footwork he'd been assigned to in Islington. And what he's uncovered has sod all to do with Matthew King-Ryder or anyone else with that surname.”

Havers blanched. Next to her Helen set a sheet of music, which she'd been inspecting, onto the pile. She raised a cautionary hand, resting it at the base of her throat. Lynley recognised the gesture but ignored it.

He said to Havers, “You were given an assignment.”

“I got the warrant, Inspector. I set up a team for the search, and I met them. I told them what they-”

“You were directed to be a part of that team, Havers.”

“But the thing is that I believed… I had this gut feeling-”

“No. There is no thing. There is no gut feeling. Not in your position.”

Helen said, “Tommy…”

He said, “No. Forget it. It's done. You've defied me every inch of the way, Havers. You're off the case.”

“But-”

“Do you want chapter and verse?”

“Tommy.” Helen reached in his direction. He could see that she wanted to intercede between them. She so hated his anger. For her sake, he did his best to control it.

“Anyone else in your position-demoted, having barely escaped criminal prosecution-and with your history of failure in CID-”

“That's low.” Havers’ words sounded faint.

“-would have toed every line that was drawn from the instant AC Hillier pronounced sentence.”

“Hillier's a pig. You know it.”

“Anyone else,” he went doggedly on, “would have dotted every i in sight and double-crossed every t for good measure. In your case, all that was asked of you was a bit of research through some SO 10 cases, research which you had to be ordered back to on more than one occasion in the last few days.”

“But I did it. You got the report. I did it.”

“And after that you went your own way.”

“Because I saw those pictures. In your office. This morning. I saw that the flat in Fulham had been searched, and I tried to tell you, but you wouldn't hear me out. So what could I do?” She didn't wait for an answer, likely knowing what he would say. “And when Mrs. Baden handed over that music and I saw who'd written it, I knew we'd found our man, Inspector. All right. I should have gone with the team to Notting Hill. You told me to go, and I didn't. But can't you please look at how much time I ended up saving us? You're about to trot back up to Derbyshire, aren't you? I've saved you the trip.”

Lynley blinked. He said, “Havers, do you actually think I give credence to this nonsense?”

Nonsense. She mouthed the word rather than to speak it.

Helen looked from one of them to the other. She dropped her hand. Expression regretful, she reached for a sheet of the music. Havers looked at her, which sparked Lynley's anger. He wouldn't have his wife put into the middle.

“Report to Webberly in the morning,” he told Havers. “Whatever your next assignment is, get it from him.”

“You aren't even looking at what's in front of you,” Havers said, but she no longer sounded argumentative or defiant, merely mystified. Which angered him more.

“Do you need a map out of here, Barbara?” he asked her.

“Tommy!” Helen cried.

“Sod you,” Havers said.

She rose from the sofa with a fair amount of dignity. She took up her tattered bag. As she moved past the coffee table and sailed out of the room, five sheets from the Chandler music fluttered to the floor.