This was no Leadenhall Market: busy in the morning, at noon, and at the end of a workday, but otherwise not busy at all in the dead of winter. This was a place alive with people, probably well into the early hours of the morning. But nothing was insurmountable. The pub would close, the tube station would be locked and barred eventually, the taxi drivers would go home for the night, and the buses would run far less frequently. By three-thirty, the square would be His. All He had to do, really, was wait.
And anyway, what He had in mind for this location would not take long. He was regretful about the game rails in Leadenhall Market, which He now could not use to make the statement He wished to make, but this was far better. For benches lined the path from the fountain to the war memorial-wrought iron and wood gleaming in the milky sunlight-and He was actually able to picture how it was going to be.
He could see their bodies in this place: one of them redeemed and released and the other not. One of them the observer and the other the observed, so consequently, one of them laid out and the other positioned in an air of watchful…solicitude. But both of them deliciously, delightfully dead.
The plans were in motion inside His head, and He felt filled, as He always did. He felt free. There was no room for the maggot at a time like this. The wormlike thing shrank back, as if trying to escape the sun, which was represented to the hateful creature by His presence and His plan. See, see? He wanted to demand. But that could not come now, and it would have no reason to come till He had the two of them-observer and observed-within the circle that was His power.
All that remained was the waiting, now. Following and finding the moment to strike.
LYNLEY EXAMINED the e-fit, product of Muwaffaq Masoud’s memory of the man who’d bought his van in the summer. He’d been looking at it for a good few minutes, trying to find points of comparison with the sketch they already had of the man who’d visited Square Four Gym in the days before Sean Lavery was murdered. He finally looked up-decision made-picked up the phone, and asked for an alteration in each drawing. On a copy of each, add a peaked cap, spectacles, and a goatee, he said. He wanted to see both individuals thus altered. He knew it was a stab in the dark, but there were times when a stab found flesh.
When that was in hand, Lynley finally had a moment to phone Helen. He’d thought much about his conversation with the serial killer, and he’d considered whether the best course of action was to send Helen home from her wanderings round London, with constables posted at front and back doors. But he knew how unlikely his wife was to embrace this move, and he also knew that overreacting to this could be playing into the killer’s hands. At the moment, their man had no idea where the Lynley home actually was. Far better to put Eaton Terrace itself under surveillance-from rooftops, from the Antelope Pub-and cast out a net into which the killer might well wander. That would take several hours to set up. All he had to do was make sure that Helen took care in the meantime while she was out in the streets.
He reached her in a babble of noise: crockery, cutlery, and women’s chatting. “Where are you?” he asked.
“Peter Jones,” she said. “We’ve paused for sustenance. I’d no idea that hunting for christening garments would be so grueling.”
“You’ve not made much progress if you’ve only got as far as Peter Jones.”
“Darling, that’s completely untrue.” And then obviously to Deborah, “It’s Tommy wondering how far we’ve managed to…Yes, I’ll tell him.” To Lynley, “Deborah says you might demonstrate a bit more faith in us. We’ve already made three stops and we’ve plans to go on to Knightsbridge, Mayfair, Marylebone, and a dear little shop Deborah’s managed to unearth in South Kensington. Designer wear for infants. If we can’t find something there, we’ll not find it anywhere.”
“You’ve a full day planned.”
“At the end of it all, we intend to have tea at Claridge’s, the better to look decorative among all that art deco. That was Deborah’s idea, by the way. She seems to think I’m not getting out enough. And, darling, we’ve found one christening outfit already, did I say?”
“Have you?”
“It’s terribly sweet. Although…well, your aunt Augusta might have a seizure watching her great-grandnephew-is that what Jasper Felix will be?-being ushered into Christianity in a miniature dinner jacket. But the nappies are so precious, Tommy. How could anyone complain?”
“It would be unthinkable,” Lynley agreed. “But you know Augusta.”
“Oh pooh. We’ll search on. I do want you to see the dinner jacket, though. We’re buying every outfit we think suitable, so you can help decide.”
“Fine, darling. Let me talk to Deborah.”
“Now, Tommy, you aren’t going to tell her to restrain me, are you?”
“Wouldn’t think of it. Put her on.”
“We’re behaving ourselves…more or less,” was what Deborah said to him when Helen handed over her mobile.
“I’m depending on that.” Lynley gave a moment’s thought to how he wanted to phrase things. Deborah, he knew, was incapable of dissembling. One word from him alluding to the killer and it would be written all over her face, in plain sight for Helen to see and to worry about. He sought a different tack. “Don’t let anyone approach you while you’re out today,” he said. “People in the street…Don’t let yourselves become engaged with anyone. Will you do that for me?”
“Of course. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, really. I’m being a mother hen. Flu going round. Colds. God only knows what else. Just keep an eye out and take care.”
She said nothing on the other end. He could hear Helen chatting to someone.
“Keep an adequate distance from people,” Lynley said. “I don’t want her falling ill when she’s finally got beyond morning sickness.”
“Of course,” Deborah said. “I’ll fend everyone off with my umbrella.”
“Promise?” he asked her.
“Tommy, is there something-”
“No. No.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes. Have a good day.”
He rang off then, depending upon Deborah’s discretion. Even if she told Helen exactly what he’d said, he knew it would seem to his wife that he was merely being overprotective about her health.
“Sir?”
He looked towards the door. Havers was standing there, her spiral notebook in hand. “What’ve you got?”
“Sod all in a bun,” she said. “Miller’s clean.” She went on to report what she’d managed to unearth on the bath-salts vendor, which was, as she’d said, nothing at all. She finished with, “So here’s what I’ve been thinking. P’rhaps we should consider him more carefully as someone likely to drop Barry Minshall in it. If he knows what we’ve got on Barry-I mean exactly-he might be willing to help. If nothing else, he could maybe identify some of the boys in the Polaroids we found in Barry’s digs. We find those boys, and we’ve got a way to break up MABIL.”
“But not necessarily a way to get the killer,” Lynley pointed out. “No. Turn the MABIL information over to TO9, Havers. Give them Miller’s name and his details as well. They’ll give it all to the relevant Child Protection team.”
“But if we-”
“Barbara,” he said, stopping her before she could get into it, “that’s the best we can do.”
Dorothea Harriman came into the office as Havers groused about letting even part of the investigation go. The departmental secretary had several pieces of paper in her hand, which she turned over to Lynley. She departed in a breeze of perfume, saying, “New e-fits, Acting Superintendent. Straightaway, I was told. He said to let you know he’s done several since you couldn’t tell him what the glasses were like or how thick the goatee was. The peaked cap, he said, is the same on them all.”