This Body of Death

by Elizabeth George

  “This is a murder suspect,” Isabelle Ardery informed the doctor. “We’re going to want to speak with him before anything is done to make him incommunicado.”

  “He’s not in any condition—,” the doctor began, to be interrupted by both the brother and the brother’s solicitor.

  One said, “My brother did not kill that woman,” as the other said, “You’re not speaking to anyone but me, madam, and let’s make certain that’s very clear. And if you so much as approach Yukio Matsumoto without my knowledge—”

  “Don’t you threaten me,” Isabelle Ardery cut in.

  “What I’ll do—what I intend to do—is to find out exactly what led to this unbelievable development and when I find out, you’ll be under a legal scrutiny the likes of which you have never seen. I hope I’m being completely clear.”

  The doctor snapped, “My interest is in the injured and not on whatever quarrel you two are having. He’s going into surgery and there’s an end to the matter.”

  “Please,” Hiro Matsumoto said quietly. His eyes were liquid. “My brother. He’ll live?”

  The doctor’s expression softened. “It’s a traumatic injury, Mr. Masumoto. We’ll do our very best.”

  When he departed, Isabelle Ardery spoke, saying to Lynley, “We need to collect his clothing for forensics.”

  “I’ll have something to say about that,” Zaynab Bourne snapped.

  “He’s a principal suspect in a murder investigation,” Ardery snapped back. “We’ll have the appropriate paperwork and we’ll take the clothing and if you have a problem with that, you can take it up via the proper channels.” To Lynley, “I’ll want someone posted here as well, someone capable of staying on top of every development. The moment he’s able to speak, we want an officer in the room with him.” She turned to Hiro Matsumoto and asked if he could tell them where his brother had his digs.

  His solicitor was winding up to protest, but Matsumoto said, “No, please, Mrs. Bourne. I believe it is in Yukio’s best interests to clear this matter up.”

  “Hiro, you can’t …” Mrs. Bourne drew him away from Lynley and Ardery. She spoke urgently into his ear and he listened gravely. But the end result was no different. He shook his head. A few more words passed between them and Zaynab Bourne made for the outer doorway, flipping open her mobile phone as she went. Lynley had little doubt the solicitor had resources upon whom she was calling to light a fire under the feet of the Met.

  Hiro Matsumoto returned to the police. He said, “Come. I’ll take you there.”

  ISABELLE FIELDED A phone call from AC Hillier as they crossed the river, heading up Victoria Embankment to avoid Parliament Square. Previously, she’d spoken only to the AC’s secretary, grateful for the opportunity to rehearse the passing along of information that was likely to send Hillier into orbit. He said, “Tell me,” as a means of greeting. Isabelle, cognizant of Hiro Matsumoto’s presence in the backseat of the car, gave him as little information as possible. She concluded her recitation with, “He’s in the operating theatre and his brother is with us. We’re heading to his digs.”

  “Have we got our man?”

  “It’s very possible.”

  “Considering the situation, I don’t need possible. I need probable. I need yes.”

  “We should know quite soon.”

  “God knows, we had better. Get to my office when you’re done out there. We need a meeting with Deacon.”

  She didn’t know who the hell Deacon was, but she wasn’t about to ask Hillier to identify him. She said she’d be there as soon as she could and when she ended the call, she asked Lynley the question.

  He said, “Head of the press bureau. Hillier’s lining up the cavalry.”

  “How do I prepare?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve never known.”

  “Philip cocked this up, Thomas.”

  “Do you think so.”

  The fact that he said those words as a statement was, she decided, a declaration of his own opinion, not to mention of his judgement. And, perhaps, a declaration of his loyalties as well.

  They said nothing more, merely riding in a tense silence to Charing Cross Road where Hiro Matsumoto directed them to its intersection with Denmark Street. There a redbrick structure of eight floors housed living accommodation that was called Shaldon Mansions, which appeared to be flats that filled a building whose ground floor comprised a line of shops. These carried on a theme of music that extended down Denmark Street—which itself appeared to comprise nothing but outlets for guitars, drums, and various types of horns—and combined this theme with news agents, luggage shops, cafés, and bookstores. The entrance to the flats consisted of an opening tucked between Keira News and Mucci Bags, and as they walked towards it, Isabelle sensed Lynley’s steps slowing, so she turned to find he was gazing intently at the building. She said, “What?” and he said, “Paolo di Fazio.”

  “What about him?”

  “This is where Jemima Hastings took him.” He gave a nod to the entrance to the flats. “That first night they met. He said she took him to a flat above Keira News.”

  Isabelle smiled. “Well done, Thomas. So we know how Yukio came to meet her.”

  Hiro Matsumoto said, “Knowing they might have met does not mean—”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” Isabelle said grimly. Anything to keep him moving. Anything to get him to take them to the flat, as there appeared to be no concierge to direct them.

  Unfortunately, the cellist had no key. But as things turned out, a few bells rung, followed by a few knocks upon doors and a few questions here and there led them into Keira News. There Isabelle’s identification produced a master key to every flat in Shaldon Mansions, held by the shop’s owner who did double duty as a recipient of packages and emergency contact should a crisis arise within the building.

  They definitely had a crisis on their hands, as Isabelle explained to the man. He handed over the key and they were about to set out when Lynley paused to ask him about Jemima Hastings. Did he know her? Did he remember her? Unusual eyes, one green and one brown?

  The eyes did it. She had indeed lived in Shaldon Mansions, in a bed-sit quite similar to the one into which they were seeking entrance.

  This confirmed another connection between Yukio Matsumoto and Jemima Hastings, and the fact gratified Isabelle hugely. It was one thing to connect them by means of Covent Garden. It was quite another to connect them through their living accommodation. Things were looking up.

  Yukio’s bed-sit was on the fifth floor of the building, a point at which the spaciousness of the floors below gave way to crow-stepped gables and a mansard roof. As much accommodation as possible had been crammed into the space, and these rooms opened off a narrow corridor where the air was so close it had probably gone unrefreshed since the first Gulf War.

  Inside Yukio Matsumoto’s bed-sit, the atmosphere was oppressively hot, and the place was quite disturbingly fitted out with floor-to-ceiling figures that had been drawn on the walls with marker pens. They loomed everywhere, dozens of them. A scrutiny indicated they depicted angels.

  “What in God’s name … ,” Isabelle murmured as next to her Lynley fished out his reading glasses to give the scrawled figures closer scrutiny. Behind her, she heard Hiro Matsumoto sigh tremulously. She glanced his way. He looked infinitely sad.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  The cellist’s gaze went from one drawing to the next to the next. “He thinks they speak to him. The celestial host.”

  “The what?”

  “All the different kinds of angels,” Lynley put in.

  “There’s more than one kind?”

  “There are nine different kinds.”

  And he could no doubt list them, Isabelle thought grimly. Well, she didn’t want to know—nor did she need to know—the categories of celestial whatever-they-were. What she needed to know was what, if anything, they had to do with Jemima Hastings’ death. She reckoned nothing. But Hiro said, “They battle for him. In his
head, of course, but he hears them and he sometimes thinks he sees them. What he sees are people, but angels have come in human guise in the past. And of course they are always depicted in a human form in art and in books and because of this, he thinks he’s one with them. He believes they’re waiting for him to declare his intention. It’s the very heart of his illness. Yet it proves, doesn’t it, that he harmed no one?”

  Isabelle took in the drawings as Lynley moved along them slowly. There were angels descending into pools of water where humans lay crumpled with arms extended in supplication; there were angels driving demons before them to work on a temple in the distance; there were angels with trumpets, angels holding books, angels with weapons, and one enormous wing-spread creature leading an army, while nearby another cast destruction upon a biblical-looking town. And one entire section appeared to be given to a struggle between two types of angels: one armed with weapons and one with wings spread to cover cowering humans below.

  “He believes he must choose,” Hiro Matsumoto said.

  “Choose what?” Isabelle asked. Lynley, she saw, had moved to a narrow single bed, where a bedside table held a lamp, a book, and a filmy-looking glass of water. The book he picked up and opened. A card fell out and he bent to take it up from the floor as Hiro Matsumoto answered.

  “Between guardian angel and warrior angel,” he said. “To protect or to …” He hesitated, so Isabelle finished the thought.

  “To punish,” she said. “Well, it seems he made his choice, doesn’t it?”

  “Please, he did not—”

  “Guv.” Lynley was looking at the card. She crossed the room to him. It was, she saw, yet another of the National Portrait Gallery postcards featuring the photograph of Jemima Hastings. It also bore “Have You Seen This Woman?” upon it but over the image of the sleeping lion had been scrawled an angel like those in the room. It had its wings spread out to create a shield but no weapons were in its hands. “It looks as if he was leaning towards guarding, not punishing,” Lynley said.

  Isabelle was about to tell him it didn’t look like anything of the sort when Yukio’s brother cried out. She swung round. She saw that he’d approached the room’s basin and he was staring at something lying on its edge. She said sharply, “Keep away from it!” and she strode across the room to see what he’d stumbled upon.

  Whatever it was, it was crusted with blood. Indeed it was crusted with so much blood that other than its shape, it was indefinable.

  “Ah,” Isabelle said. “Yes indeed. Don’t touch that thing, Mr. Matsumoto.”

  THE TIME OF day limited his options for parking in Chelsea. Lynley had to make do with a hike over from Carlyle Square. He crossed the King’s Road and walked towards the river via Old Church Street. As he did so, he considered the various ways in which he might avoid AC Hillier over the next few days and the other various ways in which he might colour what he’d been experiencing at Isabelle Ardery’s side should he be forced into conversation with the assistant commissioner.

  He wanted to give Ardery leeway. New to the job of superintendent, she would be anxious to prove her worth. But he also wanted the appropriate arrest made when the time came to make an arrest, and he was unconvinced Yukio Matsumoto was guilty of the crime of murder. Guilty of something, there could be little doubt. But murder …Lynley couldn’t see it.

  “That’s because of the brother,” Isabelle had told him brusquely upon their return to the Yard. “You hold him in awe, so you want to believe whatever he says. I don’t.”

  There was an unnatural hush in the incident room for their final meeting of the day. The other officers knew what had earlier happened to Yukio Matsumoto in the street, so this would have been one source of their reticence. The other, however, would have been Isabelle Ardery’s confrontation with Philip Hale at St. Thomas’ Hospital. It was a clear case of telegraph, telephone, tell-a-cop. Even if Philip had said nothing to the others, they would have known something was up simply by noting his demeanour.

  By the end of the afternoon, there had been no additional information from the hospital about Yukio Matsumoto’s condition, so they were operating from a no-news-is-good-news perspective. SOCO had been dispatched to the violinist’s digs and the bloody object found on his washbasin had been sent to forensics for complete analysis. Everything was clicking along and checking out: Marlon Kay’s wood-carving tools were clean; all the sculpting tools from the studio near Clapham Junction were clean as well. Frazer Chaplin’s whereabouts had been confirmed for the day of the murder by his colleagues at the ice rink, by his colleagues at Duke’s Hotel, and by Bella McHaggis. Her whereabouts had been confirmed by a yoga studio and her neighbours. There was still some question about where and if Abbott Langer had actually done the dog walking he’d claimed to be doing, and Paolo di Fazio’s presence in Jubilee Market Hall could have applied to any day or to no day because no one really paid that much attention. But it was likely he’d been there, and likely was good enough for Detective Superintendent Ardery. She had high hopes that charges could be brought against Yukio Matsumoto as soon as the rest of the forensic reports were in.

  Lynley had his doubts about this, but he said nothing. When the meeting concluded, he approached the china boards and spent a few minutes studying what was on them. He examined one of the photographs in particular, and when he left Victoria Street, he took a copy of this with him. It was, at least in part, his reason for coming to Chelsea instead of heading directly home.

  St. James wasn’t in, as things turned out. But Deborah was, and she ushered Lynley into the dining room. There she’d laid out afternoon tea, but not for consumption. She was trying to decide whether she wanted to pursue food photography, she told him. First approached with the idea of doing so, she’d thought it was “rather an insult to achieving the exceedingly high art of my dreams,” she said. “But as the exceedingly high art of my dreams isn’t exactly bringing in vast sums of money, and as I hate the thought of poor Simon supporting his arty wife into her dotage, I thought that photographing food might be the very thing until I’m discovered as the next Annie Leibovitz.”

  Success in this arena, she told him, was all about lighting, props, colours, and shapes. Additionally, there were considerations having to do with overcrowding the pictures, with suggesting that the viewer was actually part of the scene, and with focusing on the food without overlooking the importance of mood.

  “I’m actually just thrashing about,” she admitted. “I’d say you and I can consume all this when I’m done, but I wouldn’t recommend it as I made the scones myself.”

  She’d created quite a scene, Lynley saw, something straight out of the Ritz, with everything from a silver tray of sandwiches to a bowl piled high with clotted cream. There was even an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne tucked away in one corner and as Deborah chatted about everything from the angle of the photograph to the manner in which one created what looked like beads of water on the strawberries, Lynley recognised in her conversation the effort to bring normality back into their relationship.

  He said, “I’m quite all right, Deb. It’s difficult, as you might expect, but I’m finding my way.”

  Deborah averted her gaze. A rose in a bud vase needed adjusting, and she made this adjustment before she replied quietly, “We miss her terribly. Particularly Simon. He doesn’t like to say. I think he believes he’ll make it worse. Worse for me, and for him. He won’t, of course. How could he possibly? But it’s all mixed up.”

  Lynley said, “We’ve always been something of a tangle, the four of us, haven’t we?”

  She looked up then although she didn’t reply.

  He said, “It’ll sort itself out.” He wanted to tell her that love was an odd thing, that it bridged divides, it faded, and it rediscovered itself. But he knew she understood this already because she was living it, as was he. So instead he said, “Simon’s not here? I’ve something I wanted to show him.”

  “He’s on his way home. He’s been in a meeting at G
ray’s Inn. What’ve you got for him?”

  “A picture,” he said, and even as he said it he realised that there could exist additional pictures that might come to his aid. He went on to ask, “Deb, have you any photos of your opening at the Portrait Gallery?”

  “D’you mean my own photos? I didn’t take my camera.”

  No, he told her. He meant publicity photos. Had there been anyone at the National Portrait Gallery that night, taking pictures of the opening of the Cadbury show? Perhaps for use in a brochure, perhaps for a magazine or a newspaper.

  “Ah,” she said. “You’re talking about pictures of celebrities and celebrities-to-be? The beautiful people holding champagne flutes and showing off their spray tans and dental work? I can’t say we had an enormous number of those turn up, Tommy. But there were some photos being taken. Come with me.”

  She took him to Simon’s study, at the front of the house. There, from an old Canterbury next to Simon’s desk, she unearthed a copy of Hello! She made a face and said, “It was a rather slow day for glamorous events in town.”

  Hello!, he saw, had done its usual business with those who might be considered the Beautiful People. These individuals had posed obligingly. It was a gratifying two-page spread of pictures.

  There had been quite a crowd at the photographic exhibit. Lynley recognised a few movers and shakers of London society in addition to those longing to become one of this ilk. Among the pictures, there were candid shots as well, and within these, he found Deborah and Simon in conversation with Jemima Hastings and a saturnine man who looked like trouble. He expected to learn that the bloke was one of the men connected in some way to the dead girl, but he was surprised to learn he was looking upon Matt Jones, the new partner of Sidney St. James, Simon’s younger sister.

  “Sidney’s quite mad about him,” Deborah said. “Simon, on the other hand, thinks she’s merely mad. He’s rather a mystery—this is Matt, not Simon, of course. He disappears for weeks at a time and says he’s off working for the government. Sidney thinks he’s a spy. Simon thinks he’s a hit man.”