That was not the case at the barricade, however. More gawkers had gathered. Lynley waited while the sawhorse was moved once more, and he was thinking about what they’d seen in Queen’s Wood when Havers muttered, “Bloody hell, sir. He did it again,” and roused him from his thoughts.
He quickly saw what she was talking about. Just to the other side of the barricade, Hamish Robson gestured to them. At least, Lynley thought grimly, they’d managed to thwart AC Hillier in this: The constable standing watch had followed Lynley’s orders to the letter. Robson had no police identification; he would not be allowed beyond the barrier no matter what Sir David Hillier had told him to do.
Lynley lowered the window, and Robson worked his way over to the car. He said, “The constable here wouldn’t-”
“Those were my orders. You can’t go onto this crime scene, Dr. Robson. You shouldn’t have been allowed onto the last one.”
“But the assistant commissioner-”
“I’ve no doubt he rang you, but it’s just not on. I know you mean well. I also know you’re caught in the middle, one of us a rock and the other a hard place. I apologise for that. For that and the inconvenience to you, coming all this way. But as it is-”
“Superintendent.” Robson shivered, shoved his hands into his pockets. He’d obviously come in a hurry, without umbrella or raincoat. Great patches of damp extended across his shoulders, his spectacles were spotted with rain, and what little hair he had was sagging wetly round his face and into his forehead. “Let me help,” he said urgently. “It’s completely pointless to send me back to Dagenham when I’m already here, available to you.”
“That’s something you’ll have to take up with AC Hillier,” Lynley said, “the pointlessness of it.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.” Robson glanced round and nodded a few yards down the road. “Will you pull over there for a moment so we can talk about this?”
“I have nothing more to say.”
“Understood. But I have, you see, and I’d very much like you to hear me out.” He stepped back from the car in what seemed like a gesture of goodwill, one that left the decision up to Lynley: Drive off or cooperate. Robson said, “A few words. That’s all,” and he gave a wry smile. “I wouldn’t mind getting out of this rain. If you’ll let me get in the car, I promise to be gone the moment I’ve said my bit and heard your response to it.”
“And if I have no response?”
“You’re not that sort. So may I…?”
Lynley considered, then nodded sharply once. Havers said, “Sir,” in that uncharacteristically beseeching manner she used when she disapproved of a decision he’d taken. He said, “We may as well, Barbara. He’s here. He may have something we can use.”
“Crikey, are you-” She bit off her words as the back door opened and Hamish Robson sank into the car.
Lynley drove a short distance away, beyond the crowd. He pulled to the kerb, the engine still running and the wipers still moving rhythmically across the windscreen.
Robson didn’t fail to take notice of this. He said, “I’ll be quick, then. “I’d expect this crime scene to be different to the others. Not in all ways but in some. Am I right?”
“Why?” Lynley asked. “Were you anticipating as much?”
“Is it different?” Robson persisted. “Because, you see, with profiling, we often see-”
“With respect, Dr. Robson, your profiling has got us nowhere so far. Nowhere important, and not one step closer to the killer.”
“Are you sure?” Before Lynley could answer, Robson leaned forward in his seat. He went on, his voice kind. “I can’t imagine having your job. It must be more draining than anyone can picture. But you must not blame yourself for this death, Superintendent. You’re doing your best. No one could ask more of you than that, so you mustn’t ask more than your best of yourself. That’s the road to madness.”
“Professional opinion?” Lynley asked sardonically.
Robson took the two words at their face value and ignored Lynley’s tone, saying, “Completely. So let me give you a fuller opinion. Let me see the crime scene. Let me give you some guidance that you’ll be able to use. Superintendent, in a psychopath the compulsion to kill only grows stronger. With each crime, it escalates; it does not subside. But each time, to achieve pleasure it takes more and more of whatever the killer’s been doing during the commission of the crime to fulfill himself. So understand me. There’s profound danger here. To young men, to boys, to little children, to…we don’t know for sure, so for God’s sake let me help you.”
Lynley had been watching Robson through his rearview mirror, Havers from her seat where she’d turned to observe the psychologist as he spoke. The man looked as if he’d shaken himself with the passion of his words, and he turned from them to look out of the window when he’d finally finished speaking.
Lynley said, “What’s your own background, Dr. Robson?”
Robson was gazing to his left, in the direction of a yew hedge dripping small pools of water onto the pavement. He said, “Sorry. I can’t abide what’s done to children in the name of love. Or play. Or discipline. Or whatever.” Then he was silent. Only the soft whirr of the wipers brushing off the windscreen and the purr of the Bentley’s engine broke the quiet. He finally said, “For me it was my maternal uncle. Wrestling, he called it. But it wasn’t. That sort of thing rarely is between an adult and a male child when it’s the adult’s idea. But the child, of course, never understands.”
“I’m sorry,” Lynley said. He too turned in his seat then and looked at the psychologist directly. “But perhaps that makes you less objective than-”
“No. Believe me, it makes me someone who knows exactly what to look for,” Robson said. “So let me see the crime scene. I’ll tell you what I think and what I know. The decision to act is up to you.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“God damn it-”
“The body’s been moved, Dr. Robson,” Lynley cut in. “The only crime scene for you to look at is a fallen beech tree and a hollow beneath it.”
Robson sank back into the seat. He gazed out at the street, where an ambulance had come along Wood Lane up to the barrier erected by the police. It drove without lights whirling or siren blaring. One of the constables went out into the street and halted traffic-already slowed to a curious crawl anyway-long enough for the ambulance to pass. It did so unhurriedly; there was no urgency to get its burden to hospital quickly. This gave the photojournalists time to record the moment for the newspapers. Perhaps it was the sight of them that prompted Robson to ask his next question.
“Will you let me look at the photos, then?”
Lynley considered this. The police photographer had completed his work by the time he and Havers had arrived on the scene, and a videographer had been recording the body, the site, and the ensuing activity round the body and the site when they’d descended the slope. The incident caravan was not that far from where they were sitting at this moment. Doubtless, in that caravan there would be a visual record of the crime scene already suitable for Robson’s viewing.
It wouldn’t hurt at this point to let the profiler look at what they had: video footage, digital pictures, or whatever else the murder squad had so far produced. It would also act as a compromise between what Hillier wanted and what Lynley was determined not to give him.
On the other hand, the psychologist wasn’t wanted here. No one at the scene had requested him and it was only down to Hillier’s interference and his desire for something to feed to the media that had brought Robson here in the first place. If Lynley gave in to Hillier now, the AC would probably bring in a psychic next. And after that, what? Someone to read tea leaves? Or the entrails of a lamb? It couldn’t be allowed to happen. Someone had to gain control over the lurching, runaway wagon of this entire situation, and this was the moment to do it.