[Inspector Lynley 16] • This Body of Death · an Inspector Lynley Novel by George, Elizabeth -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

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Reports from the investigating officers who interviewed both Michael Spargo and his mother prior to charges being filed against him all suggest that the morning of the boy’s tenth birthday began badly. While such reports might well be deemed suspect, considering the nature of Michael’s crime and the strength of the antipathy felt towards him by police and by members of his community, one cannot ignore the fact that the extensive document written by the social worker who sat with him during his interrogations and his subsequent trial reveal the same information. There will always be details that remain unavailable to the student of childhood abuse, family dysfunction, and the psychopathology that such abuse and dysfunction ultimately engender, but major facts cannot be hidden because they will necessarily be witnessed or directly experienced by those who come into contact with individuals in the midst of displaying—whether consciously or unconsciously—their mental, psychological, and em CHANCE ALONE BROUGHT HER INTO HIS ORBIT. LATER HE would think that had he not looked down from the scaffolding at that precise moment, had he taken Tess directly home and not to the wood that afternoon, she might not have come into his life. But that idea comprised the very substance of what he was supposed to think, which was a realisation he would only come to once it was far too late. The time was midafternoon, and the day was hot. June generally prompted torrents of rain, mocking anyone’s hope for summer. But this year, the weather was setting itself up to be different. Days of sun in a cloudless sky made the promise of a July and an August during which the ground would bake, and the vast lawns within the Perambulation would brown over, sending the New Forest ponies deep within the woodlands to forage. He was high up on the scaffolding, getting ready to climb to the peak of the roof where he’d begun to apply the straw. Far more pliable than the reeds that comprised the rest of the Chapter One WHEN MEREDITH POWELL AWAKENED AND SAW THE DATE on her digital alarm clock, she absorbed four facts in a matter of seconds: It was her twenty-sixth birthday; it was her day off from work; it was the day for which her mum had suggested a gran-spoils-the-only-grandchild adventure; and it was the perfect opportunity for apologising to her best and oldest friend for a row that had kept them from being best and oldest friends for nearly a year. This last realisation came about because Meredith shared her birthday with that best and oldest of friends. She and Jemima Hastings had been thick as thieves from the time they were six years old, and they’d celebrated their birthdays together from their eighth one on. Meredith knew that if she didn’t make things right with Jemima today, she probably wouldn’t ever do it, and if that happened, a tradition that she’d long held dear was going to be destroyed. She didn’t want that. Dear friends weren’t easy to come by. The how of the apology t Chapter One In looking at everything that happened to John Dresser, one must begin with the canal. Part of the nineteenth century’s means of transporting goods from one area of the UK to another, the particular section of the Midlands Trans-Country Canal that concerns us bisects the city in such a way as to create a divide between socioeconomic areas. Three-quarters of a mile of its length runs along the north boundary of the Gallows. As is the case with most of the canals in Great Britain, a towpath gives walkers and cyclists access to the canal, and various types of housing back onto the waterway. One might harbour romantic images invoked by the word canal or by canal life, but there is little romantic about the length of the Midlands Trans-Country Canal that flows just north of the Gallows. It’s a greasy strip of water uninhabited by ducks, swans, or any other sort of aquatic life, and there are no reeds, willow trees, wildflowers, or grasses growing along the towpath. What bobs at the canal’s Chapter Two “YOU’RE UP TO SPEED ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO DI Lynley, I take it?” Hillier asked, and Isabelle Ardery considered the man as well as the question before she replied. They were in his office at New Scotland Yard, where banks of windows looked out on the rooftops of Westminster and some of the costliest real estate in the country. Sir David Hillier was standing behind his oceanic desk, looking crisp and clean and remarkably fit for a man his age. He had to be somewhere in his middle sixties, she decided. At his insistence, she herself was seated, which she thought quite clever of him. He wanted her to feel his dominance on the chance that she might think herself his superior. This would be physically, of course. She was unlikely to conclude that she had some other sort of ascendancy over the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. She was taller than he by a full three inches—even more if she wore higher heels—however, there her advantage ended. She said, “You’re ref Chapter Two Chapter Three HER NAME WAS GINA DICKENS, MEREDITH LEARNED, AND it seemed that she was Gordon Jossie’s new partner, although she didn’t actually refer to herself as that. She didn’t use new because, as things turned out, she had no idea there was an old partner or a former partner or whatever one wanted to call Jemima Hastings. She also didn’t use partner as such, as she didn’t quite live there in the cottage although she “had hopes,” she said with a smile. She was there on the holding more than she was at her own place, she confided, which was a tiny bed-sit above the Mad Hatter Tea Rooms. They were in Lyndhurst High Street, she said, where, frankly, the noise from dawn to dusk was appalling. And, come to think of it, the noise went on far beyond dusk because it was summer and there were several hotels, a pub, restaurants …and with all the tourists at this time of year …she was lucky to average four hours of sleep a night when she was there. Which, to be honest, she tried not to be. Th Chapter Three Chapter Four DAVID EMERY CONSIDERED HIMSELF ONE OF STOKE NEWINGTON’S very few Cemetery Experts, which he always thought of in uppercase letters, David being an Uppercase sort of bloke. He’d made an understanding of Abney Park Cemetery his Life’s Work (another uppercase situation for him), and it had taken him ages of wandering and getting lost and refusing to be cowed by the general creepiness of the area before he was willing to call himself its Master. He’d been locked in more times than he could begin to count, but he’d never let the cemetery’s nightly closure impinge upon his plans while he was there. If he arrived at any of the gates and found them chained against his wishes, he didn’t bother to ring the Hackney police for rescue as the sign on the gate recommended he do. For him, it was no huge matter just to hoist himself up the railings and over the top, landing either in Stoke Newington High Street or, preferably, in the back garden of one of the terrace houses that lined the Chapter Four From Alan Dresser’s account, later confirmed by the takeaway’s employees, McDonald’s was unusually crowded that day. It may be that other parents of young children were also using the break in the weather to get out of the house for the morning, but whatever the case, most of them seem to have converged on McDonald’s at the same time. Dresser had a querulous toddler in tow, and he was, he admits, anxious to appease him, to feed him, and to be on his way in order to put him down for a nap. He established the boy at one of the three remaining available tables—second in from the doorway—and he went to place their order. Although hindsight demands one castigate Dresser for leaving his son unattended for so much as thirty seconds, at least ten mothers were present in McDonald’s at that moment and, in their company, at least twenty-two small children. In such a public setting in the middle of the day, how was he to assume that inconceivable danger was approaching? Indeed, if one thinks of da Chapter Five BARBARA HAVERS HAD TO USE HER ID TO CONVINCE THE constable that she was a cop. He’d barked at her, “Hey! Cemetery’s closed, madam,” as she’d approached the main entrance, having finally found a place for her decrepit Mini just behind a skip, where a building was being renovated in Stoke Newington Church Street. Barbara chalked it up to the outfit. She and Hadiyyah had managed the purchase of that staple of all women’s wardrobes—the A-line skirt—but that was it. After returning Hadiyyah to Mrs. Silver, Barbara had donned the skirt in a hurry, had seen it was several inches too long, had decided to wear it anyway, but had done nothing else about her appearance other than to loop the necklace from Accessorize round her neck. She said, “The Met,” to the constable, who gaped at her before he managed to gather his wits enough to say, “Inside,” and to offer her the sign-in sheet on a clipboard. How bloody helpful, Barbara thought. She replaced her ID in her shoulder bag, fished o Chapter Five Chapter Six ISABELLE ARDERY WASN’T PLEASED THAT AC HILLIER PUT IN an appearance at the morning meeting of her team on the following day. It smacked of checking up on her, which she didn’t like, although his claim was that he’d merely wanted to say well done in reference to the news conference she’d held the previous afternoon. She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t a fool: She understood exactly why he’d turned up to stand importantly at the back of the incident room and she also understood that the head of an investigation—that would be me, sir—was meant to listen to whatever the duty press officer advised regarding information to be imparted to the media, so she hardly needed to be congratulated on having done her job. But she took the compliment with a formal thank you, sir, and she eagerly anticipated his immediate departure. He’d said Do keep me apprised, won’t you, Acting Superintendent? and again the message was received as intended. Acting Superintendent. She didn’t need remind Chapter Six Chapter Seven MEREDITH FINALLY TRACKED GORDON JOSSIE TO FRITHAM. She’d assumed he’d still be working on the building in Boldre Gardens where Gina Dickens had met him, but when she got there it was obvious from the state of the roof that he was long gone to another job. The thatch had been dressed and Gordon’s signature piece was in place on the ridge: an elegant peacock whose tail protected the vulnerable corner of the ridge and trailed in sculpted straw several feet down the roof. Meredith muttered a disappointed expletive—low so that Cammie couldn’t hear it—and said to her daughter, “Let’s wander over to the duck pond, shall we, ’cause there’s supposed to be a pretty green bridge over it that we can walk on.” The duck pond and the bridge ate up an hour, but it turned out to be well spent as things happened. They stopped at the refreshment kiosk afterwards and while purchasing a Cornetto for Cammie and a bottle of water for herself, Meredith learned where she could find Gordon Jossie Chapter Seven Chapter Eight GORDON LAY IN BED THE NEXT MORNING WITH THE SWEATS come upon him, and their source had nothing to do with the summer heat, as it was early—shortly after six—and the day was not yet baking. He’d suffered through another nightmare. He always woke with a start, a gasp for air, a weight on his chest like a test for witchery, and then the sweats. These regularly drenched him, the pyjamas he wore in winter, and the bedsheets. And when he was drenched, he began to shiver, which woke Gina up as it had once awakened Jemima. Their reactions were completely different, though. Jemima always wanted answers to the whys. Why do you have nightmares? Why are you not talking to someone about them? Why haven’t you seen a doctor about the sweats? There could be something wrong, she told him. A sleep disorder, a lung disorder, a weakness of the heart …God only knew. But whatever the reason, he needed to take an action because this kind of thing could kill him. Which was how Jemima always thou Chapter Eight Chapter Nine THE STOKE NEWINGTON HOUSE-TO-HOUSE TURNED UP nothing, as did the perimeter search of the environs of the chapel and gridding off the whole blooming cemetery and conducting a search that way. They had enough manpower to carry it all off—both from the local station and from officers on loan from other areas—but the end result was no witness, no weapon, no handbag, no shoulder bag, no purse, and no identification. Just an admirable rubbish cleanup of the cemetery. On the other hand, they’d had phone calls aplenty, and a description shuffled to SO5 had actually produced a possible lead. In this, they were assisted by the fact that the body in question had unusual eyes: one green and one brown. Once they plugged that into the computer, the field of missing persons narrowed down to one. She’d been reported as having disappeared from her lodgings in Putney, and it was to Putney that Barbara Havers was sent two days after the discovery of the body; specifically she was sent to Oxf Chapter Nine The West Town Road Arcade’s CCTV tapes from that day are grainy, making absolute identification of the boys who took John Dresser impossible, should such identification rely on the tapes alone. Indeed, had it not been for Michael Spargo’s overlarge mustard anorak, there is a chance that John’s abductors might have gone unapprehended. But enough people had seen the three boys and enough people were willing to come forward and identify them that the tapes consequently act as confirmation of their identities. The films show John Dresser walking away quite willingly with the boys, as if he knows them. As they near the arcade exit, Ian Barker takes John’s other hand and he and Reggie swing the child between them, perhaps in the promise of more play to come. While they walk, Michael catches them up with a childlike skip and hop, and he seems to offer the toddler some of the French fries he’s been eating. This offer of food to a child who was waiting hungrily for his lunch appears to have bee Chapter Ten WHEN THOMAS LYNLEY PULLED UP TO THE KIOSK AT NEW Scotland Yard the next morning, he began the process of steeling himself. The constable in charge stepped forward, not recognising the car. When he saw Lynley inside it, he hesitated before bending to the lowered window and saying huskily, “Inspector. Sir. It’s very good to have you back.” Lynley wanted to say that he wasn’t back. But instead he nodded. He understood then what he should have understood before: that people were going to react to his appearance at the Yard and that he was going to have to react to their reacting. So he readied himself for his next encounter. He parked and went up to a set of offices in Victoria Block as familiar to him as his own home. Dorothea Harriman saw him first. It had been five months since he’d encountered the departmental secretary, but neither time nor circumstances were ever likely to alter her. She was, as always, kitted out to perfection, today in a red pencil skirt and breezy blou Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven YOLANDA THE PSYCHIC HAD AN ESTABLISHMENT IN A MARKET area just off Queensway in Bayswater. Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata found it without too much trouble once they unearthed the market itself, which they accessed by means of an unmarked entry between a tiny newsagent and one of the ubiquitous cheap luggage shops that seemed to pop up in every corner of London. The market was the sort of place one would walk right past without noticing: a low-ceilinged, ethnic-oriented, locals-only warren of passages in which Russian cafés vied with Asian bakeries, and shops selling hookahs sat next to kiosks blaring African music. A question asked in the Russian café produced the information that there was within the environs of the market a location called Psychic Mews. There, Barbara and Nkata were told, Yolanda the Psychic operated and, considering the hour of the day, she was likely to be present. A little more wandering brought them to Psychic Mews. This turned out to be what se Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve THE NEXT MORNING IT WAS LARGELY BECAUSE OF WHAT Barbara didn’t want to think about that she went about packing a bag for the trip she’d been assigned to take by making sure that not a single item she placed within it would have met with Isabelle Ardery’s approval. This was a job that took little time and less thought, and she was just finishing up when a knock on her door told her that Winston Nkata had arrived. He’d wisely suggested they take his motor, as hers was notoriously unreliable and, besides, fitting his rangy frame into an ancient Mini would have created an excruciating ride for him. She said, “’S open,” and she lit up a fag because she knew she was going to need to toke up on the nicotine since Nkata was, she also knew, not about to let her foul the interior of his perfectly maintained Vauxhall with cigarette smoke, not to mention—horrors!—a microscopic bit of ash. “Barbara Havers, you know you’re meant to stop smoking,” Hadiyyah announced. Barbara swung roun Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen “BLOODY INCREDIBLE. I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT.” This was Barbara Havers’ reaction to the New Forest and the herds of ponies running wild upon it. There were hundreds of them—thousands perhaps—and they grazed freely wherever they had a mind to graze. On the vast swatches of the grassland, they munched on greenery with their foals nearby. Beneath primeval oaks and beeches and wandering among both rowan and birch, they fed on the scrub growth and left in their wake a woodland floor dappled with sunlight; spongy with decomposing leaves; and devoid of weeds, bushes, and brambles. It was nearly impossible not to be enchanted by a place where ponies lapped water in splashes and ponds and thatched cottages of whitewashed cob looked like buildings scrubbed on a daily basis. Grand vistas of hillsides displayed a patchwork in which the green of the bracken had begun to brown and the yellow of gorse was giving way to the increasing purple of heather. “Almost makes me want t Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen “’COURSE HE WAS HERE,” HAD BEEN CLIFF COWARD’S CONFIRMATION of Gordon Jossie’s alibi. “Where else’s he s’posed to be, eh?” A short cocky little bloke wearing crusty blue jeans and a sweat-stained headband, he’d been leaning against the bar at his regular watering hole in the village of Winstead, a pint in front of him and an empty crisp bag balled up next to his fist. He played with this as they spoke. He gave few details. They were working on a pub roof near Frith and he expected he’d know well enough if Gordon Jossie hadn’t been there six days ago as it was only the two of them and someone was up on that scaffold grabbing the bundles of reeds as he’d hoisted them up. “’Spect that was Gordon,” he’d said with a grin. “Why? What’s he s’posed to’ve done? Mugged some old lady in Ringwood market square?” “It’s more a question of murder,” Barbara told him. Cliff’s face altered, but his story did not. Gordon Jossie had been with him, he said, and Gordon Jossie was no murdere Chapter Fourteen By the time John Dresser’s body was found two days after his disappearance, he was national news. What was known to the public at that point was what was seen in the CCTV films from the Barriers, in which a toddler seems to walk off happily hand in hand with three little boys. The still photos released by the police thus offered images that could be interpreted in one of two ways: as children having found the toddler wandering and setting out to take him to an adult who ultimately did him harm or as children intent upon the abduction and possible terrorising of another child. These images played across the front page of every national tabloid, of every broadsheet, of the local newspaper, and on the television. With Michael Spargo wearing that unmistakable, overlarge mustard anorak, his identity was quickly established by his own mother. Sue Spargo took her son straight to the police station. That he’d been beaten beforehand was evident by the heavy bruising on his face, although there Chapter Fifteen “WHAT’S THE DECISION ABOUT SUNDAY LUNCH, ISABELLE? I’ve mentioned it to the boys, by the way. They’re quite keen.” Isabelle Ardery pressed her fingers to her forehead. She’d taken two paracetamol but they’d done nothing to ease her headache. Nor had they done much for her stomach. She knew she should have eaten something before gulping them down, but the thought of food on top of an already roiling gut was more than she could have managed. She said, “Let me speak to them, Bob. Are they there?” He said, “You don’t sound quite yourself. Are you unwell, Isabelle?” Which wasn’t what he meant, of course. Unwell was a euphemism, and only barely. Unwell stood in place of everything else he didn’t intend to ask but fully intended to communicate. She said, “I was up late last night. I’m on a case. You might have read about it. A woman’s been murdered in a North London cemetery … ?” He clearly wasn’t interested in that part of her life, only in the other. He said, “Hitting it rat Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen BARBARA HAVERS DID THE TELEPHONE WORK AND WINSTON Nkata did the route planning. Without much difficulty, she was able to track down Jonas Bligh and Keating Crawford, the two instructors at Winchester Technical College II—no one was shedding any light on whether there was actually a Winchester Technical College I—and both of these individuals agreed to speak to the Scotland Yard detectives. Both of them also asked what the coming visit from Scotland Yard was about. When she said it was about a bloke called Gordon Jossie for whom a letter of reference had been written, the response of “Who?” was identical. Barbara repeated Jossie’s name. This would have been eleven years ago, she told them. Again they were virtual echoes in reply. Eleven years? One could hardly be expected to remember a student from such a long time ago, Sergeant. But each went on to assure her he would be waiting for the detectives to show up. Meanwhile, Nkata was studying the map to get them up to Winch Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen “HE’S CALLED YUKIO MATSUMOTO,” ISABELLE ARDERY TOLD Lynley when he walked into her office. “His brother saw the e-fit and phoned in.” She fingered through some paperwork on her desk. Lynley said, “Hiro Matsumoto?” She looked up. “That’s the brother. D’you know him?” “I know of him. He’s a cellist.” “In a London orchestra?” “No. He’s a soloist.” “Well known?” “If you follow classical music.” “Which you do, I take it?” She sounded marginally piqued, as if he’d been intent upon demonstrating knowledge that she considered both arcane and offensive. She also seemed on edge. Lynley wondered if this had to do with whatever she might be thinking about his meeting with Hillier. He wanted to tell her to have no fear on that score. While he and Hillier had reached a point of personal rapprochement after Helen’s death, he had a feeling it wouldn’t last and soon enough they’d be back on their previous footing, which was at each other’s throats. He said, “I’ve heard him play. If, i Chapter Seventeen With the presence of police vehicles, forensic vehicles, an ambulance, and dozens of officers of the law in the vicinity of the Dawkins building site, it was only a matter of minutes before the press arrived and the community as a whole became aware that a body had been found. While local police efforts to control the flow of information were admirable, the nature of the crime was difficult to conceal. Thus the superficial condition of John Dresser’s body and exactly where the body had been found were details both widely reported and widely known within four hours. Also widely known and reported was the arrest of three boys (their names withheld for obvious reasons) who were “helping the police with their enquiries,” which of course had long been a euphemism for “suspects in the case.” Michael Spargo’s mustard anorak had made him identifiable not only to those individuals in the Barriers who, having seen him that day, recognised both the anorak and him on the CCTV film, and not only to Chapter Eighteen HE DROVE ONTO THE PROPERTY ONCE AGAIN WHILE GORDON was watering the ponies. Ten minutes more and Gordon would have been off for the day, working on the roof of the Royal Oak pub. As it was, he was trapped. He stood inside the paddock with a hosepipe in his hand and Gina watching him from the fence. She’d not wanted to enter the paddock this time. The ponies seemed skittish this morning, she’d said. She’d lost her nerve for the moment. Over the sound of the water burbling into the trough, Gordon didn’t notice the car’s engine as the vehicle rumbled onto the driveway. Gina, however, was near the edge of it, and she tentatively called his name at the same moment as the car door slamming caught his attention. He saw the sunglasses. They caught the morning light like the wings of misplaced bats. Then he was coming towards the fence, and the movement of his lips told Gordon that whatever was to happen next, the other man was determined to enjoy it. The man said to Gina in a Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen ALTHOUGH BELLA MCHAGGIS LIKED TO THINK THAT HER lodgers would scrupulously do their own recycling, she’d learned over time that they were far more likely to toss items into the rubbish. So weekly, she made rounds inside her house. She found broadsheets and tabloids piled here and there, old magazines under beds, Coke cans crushed inside wastepaper baskets, and all sorts of otherwise valuable articles in nearly every location. It was for this reason that she emerged from her house with a laundry basket whose contents she intended to deposit among the many receptacles she had long ago placed in her front garden for this purpose. On the step, however, basket in arms, Bella halted abruptly. For after their previous encounter, the last person she expected to see just inside her front gate was Yolanda the Pyschic. She was in the midst of waving in the air what looked like a large green cigar. A plume of smoke rose from it, and as she waved it, Yolanda chanted sonorously in h Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty “I THINK YOUR BEST COURSE IS GOING TO BE TO GET SOMEONE from Christie’s to look at it,” St. James said. “Or, failing that, someone at the BM. You can check it out from the evidence officer, can’t you?” “I’m not exactly in a position to take that decision,” Lynley said. “Ah. The new superintendent. How does it go?” “A bit unevenly, I’m afraid.” Lynley glanced around. He and St. James were speaking via phone. References to Isabelle Ardery had to be circumspect, of necessity. Besides, he felt for the acting superintendent’s position. He didn’t envy her, having to cope with Stephenson Deacon and the Directorate of Public Affairs so soon into her employment at the Yard. Once the press came howling into the picture in an investigation, the pressure for a result mounted. With someone now in hospital, Ardery was going to feel that pressure from every quarter. “I see,” St. James said. “Well, if not the stone itself, what about the photo you showed me? It’s quite clear and you can Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One WHEN ROBBIE HASTINGS PULLED ONTO GORDON JOSSIE’S holding, he wasn’t sure what he intended to do, for Jossie had lied to him not only about wanting to remain with Jemima, but also—as things turned out—about when he’d last seen her. Rob had had this latter piece of information from Meredith Powell, and it was a phone call from her that had sent him to Jossie’s property. She’d been to see the police in Lyndhurst; she’d given them proof positive that Gordon had traveled into London on the morning of Jemima’s death. He’d even stayed the night in a hotel, she told Rob, and she’d given the police that information as well. “But, Rob,” she had said and through his mobile he could hear anxiety in her voice, “I think we’ve made a mistake.” “‘We’?” Half of we turned out to be Gina Dickens, in whose company Meredith had been ushered into the presence of Chief Superintendent Whiting—“because we said, Rob, that we wouldn’t talk to anyone but the man at the top”—and there they’d dem Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two LYNLEY TOOK A CALL FROM ISABELLE ARDERY AS HE EMERGED from Psychic Mews. Luckily, he’d set his phone on vibrate or he wouldn’t have heard it, as the noise from a shop playing Turkish music made hearing anything else impossible. He said, “Hang on, I’ve got to get out of here,” and he went outside. “—has to be the quickest work he’s managed to do,” Isabelle Ardery was saying as he brought the mobile to his ear once he reached the pavement. At Lynley’s question, she repeated what she’d been telling him: that DI John Stewart, in an admirable display of what he was actually capable of when he wasn’t being deliberately difficult, had tracked down all of the phone calls made to and from Jemima Hastings’ mobile in the days leading up to her death, on the day of her death, and in the days after her death as well. “We’ve one call from the cigar shop on the day she died,” Ardery said. “Jayson Druther?” “And he confirms. He says it was about an order for Cuban cigars. He couldn’ Chapter Twenty-Two When the police ask Ian Barker on tape, “Why did you make the baby naked?” he does not reply at first. His grandmother keens in the background, a chair scrapes the floor, and someone taps on the tabletop. “You know that baby was naked, don’t you? When we found him, he was naked. You know that, don’t you, Ian?” are the next questions, and they are followed by, “You yourself made him naked before you used the hairbrush on him. We know that because your fingerprints are on that hairbrush. Were you angry, Ian? Had Johnny done something to make you angry? Did you want to sort him out with the hairbrush?” Ian finally says, “I didn’t do nothing to that kid. You ask Reggie. You ask Mikey. Mikey was the one changed his nappy, anyways. He knew how. He got brothers. I don’t. And Reg was the one nicked the bananas, eh?” Michael says in response to the first mention of the hairbrush, “I never. I never. Ian told me he poohed. Ian said I was meant to change him. But I never,” and when asked about the Chapter Twenty-Three WHOEVER HAD KILLED JEMIMA HASTINGS, AS THINGS TURNED out, was someone who’d worn a yellow shirt to do it. Lynley learned the details of this article of clothing upon his return to New Scotland Yard, where the team was meeting in the incident room and a photo of the shirt—now in the possession of forensics—was newly up on one of the china boards. Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata had arrived from the New Forest, Lynley saw, and he also saw from Barbara’s expression that she wasn’t happy about being recalled to London, blood-stained yellow shirt or not. She was fighting back a need to speak, which in her case meant fighting back a need to argue with the acting superintendent. Nkata, on the other hand, seemed acquiescent enough, displaying the easiness of disposition that had long been an integral part of his character. He lounged at the back of the room, sipping from a plastic cup. He nodded at Lynley and tilted his head towards Havers. He, too, knew she was itching t Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four AN ESTABLISHMENT CALLED SHELDON POCKWORTH NUMISMATICS had sounded to Lynley like a place tucked away in an alley in Whitechapel, a shop whose proprietor was a Mr. Venus type, articulating bones instead of dealing in medals and coins. The reality he found was far different. The shop itself was clean, sleek, and brightly lit. Its location was not far from Chelsea’s Old Town Hall, in a spotless brick building on the corner of the King’s Road and Sydney Street where it shared what was doubtless expensive space with a number of dealers in antique porcelain, silver, jewellery, paintings, and fine china. There was no Sheldon Pockworth, nor had there ever been. There was instead one James Dugué, who looked more like a technocrat than a purveyor of coins and military medals from the Napoleonic Wars. When Lynley entered that morning, he found Dugué leafing through a heavy volume set upon a spotless glass counter. Beneath this gleamed gold and silver coins on a rotating rack. Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five SHE WENT DIRECTLY TO THE LADIES’. THE ONLY PROBLEM was that she hadn’t thought to bring her bag with her to Hillier’s office, so at the moment she was without resources and she was left relying on what was available, which was water from the tap. This was hardly an efficacious substance for what ailed her. But she used it for want of anything else, on her face, her hands, her wrists. Thus she felt little improved when she left Tower Block and made her way back to her office. She heard her name called by Dorothea Harriman—who for some reason seemed incapable of referring to her in any terms briefer than Acting Detective Superintendent Ardery—but this she ignored. She closed her office door and went directly to her desk, where she’d left her bag. Upon opening it, she discovered in short order that she had three messages on her mobile phone. She ignored them as well. She thought, Yes yes yes as she brought forth one of her airline bottles of vodka. In her rush to have Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six ROBBIE HASTINGS HAD ENCOUNTERED NO DIFFICULTY WHEN he went to the Lyndhurst police station. His thought had been to insist on quick action, but that wasn’t necessary as it turned out. Upon identifying himself, he’d been escorted into the chief superintendent’s office, where Zachary Whiting had offered him mid-morning coffee and heard him out with not a single interruption. As Rob spoke, Whiting frowned in concern, but the frown turned out to be about Rob’s upset rather than about the questions he was asking or the demands for action he was making. At the conclusion of Rob’s recitation of concerns, Whiting had said, “Good God, it’s all in hand, Mr. Hastings. You should have been informed of this, and I can’t think why you weren’t.” Rob wondered what was in hand, and this he asked, adding that there were train tickets, there was a hotel receipt. He knew that these had been given to Whiting and what had Whiting done about them? What had he done about Jossie, as a matter Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven LYNLEY TOOK THE FIRST OF THE PHONE CALLS ON HIS MOBILE as he left Sheldon Pockworth Numismatics, heading for his car on his way to the British Museum. It was from Philip Hale. Initially, his message was positive. Yukio Matsumoto, he reported, was conscious, and Isabelle Ardery was interviewing him in the presence of his brother and sister. However, there was something more, and as Hale was the last of the detectives ever to raise a protest in the midst of an investigation, when he did so, Lynley knew the situation was serious. Ardery was ordering him to stay at the hospital when he could better be used elsewhere, he told Lynley. He’d tried to explain to her that guarding the suspect was something better left to constables so that he could return to more useful occupation, but she wouldn’t hear of it, he said. He was a team player as much as anyone, Tommy, but there came a time when someone had to protest. Obviously, Ardery was a micromanager and she was never going Chapter Twenty-Seven Much has been made not only of the British criminal justice system but also of the trial that followed the boys’ confessions. Words such as barbaric, Byzantine, archaic, and inhuman have been used, and commentators around the globe have taken strong positions on both sides of the matter, some of them passionately arguing that inhumanity, no matter its source, should be met with like inhumanity (invoking Hammurabi), and others of them just as passionately contending that nothing is served by the public pillorying of children and, indeed, further damage is done to them. What remains is this singular fact: Governed by a law that makes children responsible for their behaviour at the age of ten in the case of capital crimes, Michael Spargo, Reggie Arnold, and Ian Barker had to be tried as adults. Thus, they faced trial by judge and jury. What is also worthy of note is that, when a serious crime has been committed by children, they are forbidden by law to have any therapeutic access to psych Chapter Twenty-Eight THE PONY LAY THRASHING ON THE GROUND ON MILL LANE, which was just outside Burley. It writhed on the ground with both of its back legs broken, desperately attempting to rise and run from the group of people who gathered at the rear end of the car that had hit it. Every few moments it shrieked horribly as it arched its back and flailed its legs. Robbie Hastings pulled over to the narrow bit of verge. He told Frank to stay, and he got out of the vehicle and into the noise: pony, conversation, cries. As he approached the scene, one of the group broke away and strode to meet him, a man in jeans, Wellingtons, and T-shirt. The jeans were worn and stained brown at the knees. Rob recognised him from his occasional nights at the Queen’s Head. Billy Rodin, he was called, and he worked as a full-time gardener at one of the large homes along the road. Rob didn’t know which one. “American.” Billy winced at the noise from the stallion and jerked his thumb at the rest of the group Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine ISABELLE HAD REMAINED AT ST. THOMAS’ HOSPITAL FOR MOST of the afternoon, excavating for information in the twisted passageways that comprised the mind of Yukio Matsumoto when she wasn’t sparring with his solicitor and making promises that she was not remotely authorised to make. The result was that, by the end of the day, she had a disjointed scenario of what had happened in Abney Park Cemetery along with two e-fits. She also had twelve voice messages on her mobile. Hillier’s office had rung three times, which wasn’t good. Stephenson Deacon’s office had rung twice, which was just as bad. She skipped those five messages plus two from Dorothea Harriman and one from her ex-husband. That left her with messages from John Stewart, Thomas Lynley, and Barbara Havers. She listened to Lynley’s. He’d phoned twice, once about the British Museum, once about Barbara Havers. Although she took note of the fact that the sound of the inspector’s well-bred baritone was vaguely comfort Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty GORDON HADN’T PHONED THE SCOTLAND YARD DETECTIVE when Gina returned home on the previous night. He wanted instead to watch her. He had to learn exactly what she was doing here in Hampshire. He had to know what she knew. He was rotten at acting, but that couldn’t be helped. She’d realised something was wrong the moment she’d come onto the property and found him sitting in the front garden at the table in the darkness. She was very late, and he was grateful for this. He let her think that the hour of her return was the reason for his silence and his observation of her. She said she’d got caught up in things, but she was vague when it came to what those things were. She’d lost track of time, she said, and there she was in a meeting with a social worker from Winchester and another from Southampton, and there was a very, very good chance that from a special programme established for immigrant girls, funding could be diverted for the use of …On and on she chattered. Gordon won Chapter Thirty In the U.K. “detention at the pleasure of the reigning monarch”—a euphemism for imprisonment for life—is the only sentence that can be given to someone who is convicted of murder. But that is the law as it is applied to murderers over twenty-one years old. In the case of John Dresser, the killers were children. This, as well as the sensational nature of the crime, could not but have had an impact on Mr. Justice Anthony Cameron as he considered what recommendations he would make upon intoning the required sentence. The climate that surrounded the trial was hostile, with an undercurrent of hysteria that could be seen most often in the reaction of those gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice. Whereas within the courtroom, there was tension but no overt display of aggression towards the three boys, outside the courtroom, this was not the case. Initial displays of rage towards the three defendants—characterised first by the moblike gatherings at their homes and then by repeated attemp Chapter Thirty-One SHE’D SAID AFTERWARDS, “I’M NOT IN LOVE WITH YOU. IT’S just something that happened.” He’d replied, “Of course. I understand completely.” She’d gone on with, “No one can know about this.” He’d said, “I think that might be the most obvious point.” She’d said, “Why? Are there others?” “What?” “Obvious points. Other than I’m a woman, and you’re a man, and these things sometimes happen.” Of course there were other points, he’d thought. Aside from raw animal instinct, there was his motivation to consider. There was hers as well. There was also what now, what next, and what do we do when the ground has shifted beneath our feet. “Regret, I suppose,” he’d told her. “And do you? Because I don’t. As I said, these things happen. You can’t say they haven’t happened to you, of all people. I won’t believe that.” He wasn’t quite as she seemed to think him, but he didn’t disagree with her. He swung himself out of her bed, sat on the edge, and considered her question. The answer was Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two SHE WAS IN BIG TROUBLE, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT. SHE WAS already so late for work that Meredith knew she was going to have to come up with an excuse for her absence that was akin to an alien abduction. Anything less was unlikely to result in her continued employment. And it was going to be absence at this point, not mere tardiness. That was certain. For once she saw Zachary Whiting in conversation with Gina Dickens, Meredith felt afire to take action, and the action she felt afire to take had nothing to do with driving over to Ringwood and sitting obediently within her cubicle at Gerber & Hudson Graphic Design. Still, she didn’t ring Mr. Hudson. She knew she ought, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. He was going to be livid, and she reckoned if she could somehow sort out Gina Dickens, Zachary Whiting, Gordon Jossie, and Jemima’s death by the end of the day, emerging as a heroine who wrestles villains into submission would bring her enough glory to translate into a ch Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three LATER BARBARA HAVERS WOULD THINK WITH SOME ASTONISHMENT that everything ultimately had come down to the fact that Lyndhurst had a one-way traffic system in the heart of the village. It formed a nearly perfect triangle, and the direction from which she was traveling forced her to follow the triangle’s northern side. This put her into the high street where, midway down the street and just beyond the half-timbered front of the Crown Hotel, she was meant to turn into the Romsey Road, which would take her to the police station. Because of the traffic light at the Romsey Road junction, a tailback formed during most hours of the day. This was the case when Barbara followed the curve round the expanse of lawn and thatched cottages comprising Swan Green and set her course into and through the village. She found herself caught behind a lorry belching a hideous amount of exhaust fumes through her open windows. She reckoned she might as well have a smoke as she waited for the Chapter Thirty-Three Michael Spargo, Reggie Arnold, and Ian Barker went into “secure units” for the first part of their custodial sentences. For obvious reasons, they remained separated, and units in different parts of the country were used to house them. The purpose of the secure unit is education and—frequently but not always and generally “dependent upon the cooperation of the detainee”—therapy. Information as to how well the boys did in these units is unavailable to the public, but what is known is that at the age of fifteen, their time in these secure units ended, whereupon they were moved to a “youth facility,” which has always been a euphemism for prison for young offenders. At eighteen, they were moved from their separate youth facilities and sent on to different maximum-security prisons where they served the remainder of the term determined by the Luxembourg courts. Ten years. That time has, of course, long since passed. All three of the boys—men now—were returned to the community. As was the case Chapter Thirty-Four JUDI MACINTOSH TOLD LYNLEY TO GO STRAIGHT IN. THE assistant commissioner was waiting for him, she said. Did he want a coffee? Tea? She sounded grave. As she would do, Lynley thought. Word, as always and especially when it had to do with death, had traveled quickly. He demurred politely. He wouldn’t actually have minded a cup of tea but he hoped he wouldn’t be spending a long enough time in Hillier’s office to drink it down. The assistant commissioner rose to meet him. He joined Lynley at the conference table. He dropped into a chair and said, “What a bloody cock-up. Do we at least know how the hell he got his hands on a gun?” “Not yet,” Lynley said. “Barbara’s working on that.” “And the woman?” “Meredith Powell? She’s in hospital. The wound was very bad but not fatal. It came close to the spinal cord, so she could have been crippled. She was lucky.” “And the other?” “Georgina Francis? In custody. All in all, it wasn’t exactly textbook, sir, but it was a good result. Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five TWELVE DAYS WENT BY BEFORE ROB HASTINGS COULD BRING himself to call upon Meredith. During that time, he rang the hospital daily till she was at last released into the care of her parents, but he found he could do no more than merely ask for information about her condition. What he gathered from these phone calls was little enough, and he knew he could have learned more had he gone in person. He could, indeed, have seen her for himself. But it was too much for him and even if it hadn’t been, he found he had no clear idea how to talk to her any longer. In those twelve days, he discovered who had taken the pistol from his Land Rover and what had been done with that gun. It had since been returned to him, but it was a black mark on his career that he’d managed to have the weapon taken in the first place. Two people were dead because of this, and had he not been a Hastings with the Hastings history of service to the New Forest behind him, he’d likely have been given the Chapter Thirty-Five

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