As they watched, the figure came back into view, too distant and, even on the enhanced film, too grainy to be distinguishable. He climbed into the van and it rolled smoothly forward. Before it disappeared behind the wall, Stewart paused the film. He said, “Have a look at that lovely little picture, Tommy.” He sounded pleased.
As well he might, Lynley thought. For on the film, they’d managed to capture writing on the side of the van. The miracle would have been a complete identification, which was more than they got. But half of a miracle would do. Three partial lines of faded printing were visible:
waf
bile
chen
Below them a number was rendered: 873-61.
“That last looks like part of a phone number,” Nkata said.
“My money says the rest is the name of a business,” Stewart added. “Question is: Do we go with it on Crimewatch?”
“Who’ve you got working on the van right now?” Lynley asked. “What are they doing?”
“Trying to get something on that partial phone number from BT, checking business licences to see if we can find a match for those letters we can see in the name, running things through Swansea another time.”
“That’ll take a century,” Nkata pointed out. “But how many million people see this ’f we put it on the telly?”
Lynley considered the ramifications of running the video on Crimewatch. Millions watched the show, and it had been useful on dozens of occasions in accelerating the speed of an investigation. But there were inherent risks in broadcasting the film countrywide, not the least of which was tipping their hand to the killer. For there was every chance that their man would be watching and would put the van through such a high-powered cleaning and scouring that all evidence of any of their dead boys having been in it would be forever obliterated. And there was the additional chance that their man would dump the van immediately, taking it to one of a hundred places far out of London where it wouldn’t be found for years. Or he might put it in a lockup somewhere with the same result.
It was Lynley’s decision. He decided to hold off making it. He said, “I want to think about this,” and to Winston, “Tell Crimewatch we may have something for them, but we’re working on it.”
Nkata looked uneasy, but he went for the phone. Stewart looked pleased as he returned to his desk.
Lynley nodded to Havers, an I’ll-see-you-now look. She grabbed up what looked like a pristine notebook and followed him out of the incident room.
“Good work,” he told her. He noted that she’d even dressed more suitably today, in a tweed suit and brogues. The suit had a stain on the skirt and the brogues weren’t polished, but it was otherwise a remarkable change in a woman who usually favoured drawstring trousers and T-shirts bearing groan-inducing puns.
She shrugged. “I’m capable of taking the hint when I’m clubbed with it, sir.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Get your things and come with me.”
Her face altered, its hopeful brightness betraying her even as it deeply touched him. He wanted to tell her not to wear her professional heart on her sleeve, but he held his tongue. Havers was who Havers was.
SHE DIDN’T ASK where they were going till they were in the Bentley and heading in the direction of Vaux-hall Bridge Road. Then she said, “Are we doing a runner, sir?”
He said, “Believe me, I’ve thought about it more than once. But Webberly tells me there’s a route to dealing with Hillier. I’ve just not discovered it yet.”
“That must be like searching for the Holy Grail.” She examined her brogues and appeared to note their sad condition. She wet her fingers on her tongue and rubbed the damp against a scuff, without result. She said, “How is he, then?”
“Webberly? Slow progress, but progress.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
“Everything but the slow part. We need him back before Hillier self-destructs and takes us all down with him.”
“D’you think it’ll come to that?”
“Sometimes,” he said, “I don’t know what to think.”
At their destination, parking was its usual nightmare. He squeezed the Bentley in front of the entrance to the Kings Head and Eight Bells pub, directly beneath a “Do NOT Block This Entrance” sign, to which “You Will Die If You Do” had been added. Havers raised her eyebrow.
“What’s life without risk?” Lynley asked. But he put a police placard prominently on the dashboard.
“Now that’s living dangerously,” Havers noted.
They walked the few yards up Cheyne Row to the house at the corner of Lordship Place, where they found St. James being regaled by both Deborah and Helen, who were leafing through magazines as they chatted about “The absolute solution to everything. Simon, you’ve married a genius.” They were all in the lab.
“Logic,” Deborah replied. “It was nothing more.” She looked up and saw Lynley and Havers in the doorway. She said, “Just in time. Look who’s here. You won’t even have to go home to talk him into it, Helen.”
“Talk me into what?” Lynley went to his wife, tilting back her chin to examine her face. “You’re looking tired.”
“Don’t be a mother hen,” she chided. “You’ve got worry lines coming out on your forehead.”
“That’s down to Hillier,” Havers said. “We’ll all look ten years older in another month.”
“Isn’t he due to retire?” Deborah asked.
“Assistant commissioners don’t retire, my love,” St. James told his wife. “Not until the last hope of being made commissioner is finally beaten out of them.” He looked at Lynley. “I take it that doesn’t seem likely to happen soon?”
“You take it correctly. Have you got anything for us, Simon?”
“I expect you mean information and not whisky,” St. James said. He added, “Fu.”
“Phoo?” Havers said. “As in…what? Phooey? Typhoo tea?”
“As in the letters F and U.” On a china board, St. James had been working on a diagram with splotches of faux blood, but he left it and went to his desk where he took from the top drawer a paper on which was drawn the same symbol that had been on the bottom of the note they’d received at the Yard, purporting to be from the serial killer. “It’s a Chinese symbol,” St. James explained. “It means authority, divine power, and the ability to judge. It stands, in fact, for justice. And it’s pronounced Fu.”
Helen said, “Is that helpful, Tommy?”
“It’s in keeping with the message of the note he sent. And to some extent, with the mark on Kimmo Thorne’s forehead as well.”
“Because it is a mark?” Havers asked.
“I expect that would be Dr. Robson’s point.”
“Even if the other mark’s from alchemy?” Deborah asked the last question of her husband.
“It’s the fact of the marking, I daresay,” St. James replied. “Two distinct symbols with interpretations readily available. Is that what you mean, Tommy?”
“Hmm. Yes.” Lynley studied the piece of paper on which the mark had been reproduced and an explanation of the mark appeared. He said, “Simon, where did you get the information?”
“Internet search,” he said. “It wasn’t difficult.”
“So our boy’s got access to a computer as well,” Havers noted.
“That narrows it down to half the population of London,” Lynley said grimly.
“I think I can eliminate at least a portion of that group. There’s something else.” St. James had moved to a worktable where he was laying out a line of photographs. Lynley and Havers joined him, while Deborah and Helen remained at the other worktable, a selection of magazines open between them.
“I had these from SO7,” St. James said, in reference to the pictures, which Lynley saw were of each of the dead boys, along with respective enlargements of one small portion of each boy’s torso. “D’you recall the autopsy reports, Tommy, how they all mention a specific area of what they called ‘woundlike bruising’ on every one of the bodies? Well, have a look at this. Deborah did the enlargements for me last night.” He reached for one of the larger photos.