In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

by Elizabeth George

  Barbara mused. When, she asked, had the visit from Terry Cole occurred?

  Matthew thought for a moment and left the room to fetch his diary, which he carried back to the sitting room, open upon his palm. He hadn't recorded the visit since the Cole boy hadn't phoned for an appointment in advance. But it had been a day when Ginny—his father's widow—had been in the office and he had made note of that. Matthew gave Barbara the date. It was the very day of Terry Cole's death.

  “Of course, I didn't tell him what I actually thought of his work. There would have been no point in that. And besides, he seemed so earnest about it.”

  “Cole never mentioned music? A piece of sheet music? Or Michael Chandler? Or even your dad?”

  “Not at all. Of course, he knew who my father was. He did say that. But that could have been merely because he was hoping to get some money off the Fund. Oiling his way with the odd compliment or two, if you know what I mean. But that was it.” Matthew sat down again, closed his diary, and took up his mug. “Sorry. I haven't helped much, have I?”

  “I don't know,” Barbara replied thoughtfully.

  “May I ask why you're collecting information on the boy? Has he done something … ? I mean, you are the police.”

  “Something's been done to him. He was murdered the same day he saw you.”

  “The same … ? God. That's nasty. You're on the trail of his killer?”

  Barbara wondered about that. It had certainly felt like a trail. It had looked like, smelled like, and acted like a trail. But for the first time since Inspector Lynley had directed her back to the Criminal Record Information System with the order to explore Andrew Maiden's past cases for a potential connection to his daughter's death, and for the first time since she'd rejected that line of enquiry as useless to the case, she was forced to wonder if she was following a fox or a herring, cured and dyed. She couldn't have said.

  So she dug her car keys out of her bag and told Matthew King-Ryder she would be in touch if she had further questions. And if he should happen to recall anything more from his time with Terry Cole …. She handed over her number. Would he phone? she asked him.

  Certainly, Matthew King-Ryder told her. And in case Terry Cole had unearthed the name of the Chandler solicitors without the aid of King-Ryder, he wanted the police to have the name of the firm and their telephone number. He flipped to the back of his diary, accessed a directory, and ran his finger down a page of names and numbers. Finding the one he wanted, he recited the information. Barbara took it down. She thanked the young man for his cooperation and wished him luck in his move south of the river. He saw her to the door. In the manner of all wise Londoners, he bolted it behind her.

  Alone in the corridor outside his flat, Barbara considered what she'd heard, and she pondered how—and if—the information she was gathering fitted into the puzzle of Terry Coles death. Terry had talked about his big commission, she recalled. Could he have been speaking about his hopes for a grant from the King-Ryder Fund? She'd leapt to the conclusion that his visit to King-Ryder must have had to do with the Michael Chandler music in his possession. But if he'd been informed that the music was worthless to him, why would he have gone to the trouble of tracking down solicitors and turning the music over to Chandler's family? Certainly, he might have hoped for a reward from the Chandlers. But even if he'd been given one, could it possibly have matched an artistic grant from King-Ryder which would have allowed him to pursue his questionable career in sculpting? Hardly, Barbara decided. Far better to make an attempt to impress an established benefactor with his talent than to hope for the generosity of unknown people grateful to have their own property returned.

  Yes. There was sense in this. And chances were that Terry Cole had shrugged off every consideration of making money from Chandler's handwritten score once he knew how necessary were the kindness and generosity of strangers to the successful fulfillment of his ambition. After speaking to Sitwell, he'd probably chucked the music out or taken it home and left it somewhere among his things. Which, of course, begged the question of why she and Nkata hadn't come across it when they'd searched the flat. But would they even have noticed a sheet of music among his gear? Especially when one considered the bombardment their senses had taken with the art of both the occupants of the flat.

  Art. There was a point of connection for all the details in the case, she thought. Art. Artists. The King-Ryder Fund. Matthew had said that grants were given only to artists connected with the theatre. But what was to prevent an artist switching to the theatre just to cut in on some money? If Terry Cole had twigged to this idea, if he'd actually presented himself as a designer and not a sculptor, if indeed his big commission was in reality a fraud perpetrated against a fund that was intended as a lasting memorial to a giant of the theatre …

  No. She was getting ahead of herself. She was mixing too many possibilities into the brew. She was going to give herself a headache, and she was going to turn cloudy water to mud. She needed to think, to get out in the air, to have a brisk walk in Regent's Park so she could sort out everything that was piling up in—Barbara's thoughts stopped their tumble as her gaze settled on the collection of rubbish outside King-Ryder's door. She hadn't given it any notice on the way in, but now she did. They'd talked about artists, about not knowing much about modern art. And what she saw outside King-Ryder's door intruded upon her notice because they'd had that conversation.

  A canvas was among the rubbish that King-Ryder was discarding. It leaned with its face against the wall, rubbish bags piled up against it.

  Barbara looked left and right. She made the decision to see what went for art—discarded or otherwise—to Matthew King-Ryder. She eased the rubbish bags away from the canvas and eased the canvas away from the wall.

  “Bloody hell,” she whispered when she saw what she'd uncovered: a grotesque blonde woman, her huge mouth gaping open to display a cat defecating on her tongue.

  Barbara had seen a dozen or more variations on this questionable theme already. She'd seen and talked to the artist as well: Cilia Thompson, who'd announced proudly that she'd sold a painting “to a gent with good taste only last week.”

  Barbara examined the closed door to Matthew King-Ryder's digs. A chill ran through her. A killer lived within, she decided. And she determined then and there that she was just the rozzer who would bring him to justice.

  Lynley found Barbara Havers’ report on his desk when he arrived at the Yard at ten o'clock that morning. He read the summaries and conclusions she'd developed regarding the files she'd explored on CRIS, and he took note of the implication of grievance which coloured her choice of words. At the moment, though, he couldn't afford to give weight to her thinly veiled criticism of the orders he'd given her. The morning had already been a wrenching one, and he had other more pressing matters on his mind than a DCs unhappiness with her assignment.

  He'd taken a detour from his normal route from Eaton Terrace to Victoria Street, dropping down to Fulham, where he checked on Vi Nevin's condition at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. The young woman's doctors had granted him quarter of an hour with her. But she'd been deeply sedated and during that time she hadn't stirred. A plastic surgeon had arrived to examine her, which necessitated the removal of her bandages, and she slept through this activity as well.

  In the midst of the surgeon's attention to her friend, Shelly Platt arrived at the hospital in a linen trouser suit and sandals, her orange hair hidden beneath a wide-brimmed raffia hat and her eyes concealed by a pair of sunglasses. With the excuse of offering sympathy upon the death of Nicola Maiden, she'd been phoning Vi repeatedly since Lynley's visit to her Earl's Court bed-sit. Unable to raise her, she'd finally gone to Rostrevor Road, where the attack on her old flatmate was the talk of the neighbourhood.

  “I got t'see her!” was what Lynley heard from within as the plastic surgeon studied the ruin of Vi's face and talked quietly about bones shattered like glass, skin grafts, and scar tissue with the disinterested air of a man
more suited to medical research than to the treatment of patients. Recognising the glottal stops if not the voice itself coming from the corridor, Lynley excused himself and went out to find Shelly Platt trying to elbow past the police guard and a nurse from the floor.

  “He did it, di'n't he?” Shelly Platt cried when she saw him. “I tol’ him and he found her, di'n't he? He did. And he got her just like I thought he would. And now he'll come for me if he knows I tol’ you the truth about his business. How is she? How's Vi?? Lemme see her. I got to.”

  Her voice rose towards hysteria, and the nurse asked if “this creature” was a relative of the patient. Shelly took off her sunglasses, exposing bloodshot eyes that she rolled towards Lynley in mute appeal.

  “She's her sister,” Lynley informed the nurse, guiding Shelly by the arm. “She's allowed inside.”

  Within, Shelly threw herself at the bed, where another nurse was replacing Vi Nevin's bandages as the plastic surgeon washed his hands at the basin and then departed. Shelly began to cry. She said, “Vi. Vi. Vi, baby doll. I di'n't mean none of it. Not one single word,” and she took up the limp hand that lay on the bedclothes and pressed it to her heart as if the beating within her bony chest would somehow confirm what she was saying. “Wha's the matter with her?” she demanded of the nurse. “Wha've you done to her?”

  “She's sedated, miss.” The nurse pursed her lips in disapproval as she put the final bit of tape on the gauze.

  “But she'll be all right, won’ she?”

  Lynley glanced at the nurse before saying, “She'll recover.”

  “Bu’ her face. All them bandages. Wha's he done t'her face?”

  “That's where he beat her.”

  Shelly Platt wept harder. “No. No. Oh Vi. I'm that sorry. I di'n't mean no real harm on you. I was cheesed off, tha's all. You know how I am.”

  The nurse crinkled her nose at this display of emotion. She left the room.

  “She's going to need plastic surgery,” Lynley told Shelly when they were alone. “And then …” He sought a clear but compassionate way of explaining to the girl what the future was likely to hold for Vi Nevin. “There's a very good chance she's going to find her professional options narrower than they were before.” He waited to see if Shelly would understand without a more graphic explanation. Un-pretty as she was but still on the game, she would have to know what facial scars presaged for a woman who'd earned her substantial keep by playing Lolita for her clients.

  Shelly moved an anguished gaze from Lynley to her friend. “I'll take care of her, then. F'm now on, and every single minute. I'll take care of my Vi.” She kissed Vis hand and clutched it harder and wept harder still.

  “She needs to rest now,” Lynley told her.

  “I'm not leaving Vi till she knows I'm here.”

  “You can wait with the constable. I'll see to it that he allows you in the room once an hour.”

  Shelly parted with Vi's hand only reluctantly In the corridor she said, “You'll go affer him, won’ you? You'll cart him off to the nick straightaway?” And it was those two questions that haunted Lynley all the way to the Yard.

  Martin Reeve had it all in the attack on Vi Nevin: motive, means, and opportunity. He had a lifestyle to maintain and a wife whose drug habit needed feeding. He couldn't afford to lose any income. If one girl managed to leave him successfully, there was nothing to prevent another girl—or ten girls—from following suit. And if he allowed that to happen, he'd soon be out of business altogether. Because the two necessary participants in prostitution are the prostitutes themselves and their willing punters. Pimps are expendable. And Martin Reeve was aware of that fact. He would rule over his women by example and fear: by illustrating the extremes he was willing to go to to protect his domain and by implying—through those extremes—that what happened to one girl could easily happen to another. Vi Nevin had served as an object lesson for the rest of Reeve's women. The only question was whether Nicola Maiden and Terry Cole were object lessons as well.

  There was one way to find out: get Reeve to the Yard without a solicitor in tow and outsmart him once he was present. But to do that, Lynley knew that he was going to need to outmanoeuvre the man, and his options in that particular realm were limited.

  Lynley looked for a means of manipulation in the photographs of the maisonette, which the police photographer had rushed to him that morning. He studied in particular a shoe print on the kitchen floor, and he wondered if the pattern of hexagons on the shoe's sole was rare enough to count for something. Certainly, it ought to be sufficient to get a warrant. And, warrant in hand, three or four officers could tear apart MKR Financial Management and find evidence of Reeve's true business dealings, even if he'd been clever enough to rid himself of the shoes with those hexagonally marked soles. Once they had that evidence, they'd be in a position to intimidate the pimp. Which was exactly where Lynley wanted to be.

  He looked through more of the pictures, flipping them one by one onto his desk. He was still in the process of examining them for something useful, when Barbara Havers charged into his office.

  “Holy hell,” she said without preamble, “wait till you hear what I've got, Inspector.” And she began to chatter about an auction house on Cork Street, someone called Sitwell, Soho Square, and King-Ryder Productions. “So I saw this painting when I left his digs,” she concluded triumphantly. “And believe me, sir, if you'd got a glimpse of Cilia's work in Battersea, you'd agree it's a hell of a lot more than a simple coincidence that I'd stumble across anyone in God's creation who'd actually bought one of her disgusting pieces.” She flopped into one of the chairs in front of his desk and scooped up the photographs. She said, giving them a cursory examination, “King-Ryder's our boy. And you can write that in my blood if you'd like to.”

  Lynley observed her over the top of his spectacles. “What led you in that direction? Is there a connection between Mr. King-Ryder and Maiden's SO 10 time that you've uncovered? Because in your report you didn't mention …” He paused, wondering and not liking his wondering. “Havers, how did you get on to King-Ryder?”

  She kept up a resolute study of the pictures as she replied. But she spoke in a rush. “It was like this, sir. I found a business card at Terry Cole's flat. An address as well. And I thought … Well, I know I should have turned it over to you straightaway, but it slipped my mind when you sent me back to CRIS. And as things turned out, I had a bit of free time yesterday when I finished the report and—” She hesitated, her attention still on the pictures. But when she finally looked up, her expression had altered, less sure now than when she'd strode into the room. “Since I had that card and the address, I went over to Soho Square and then down to Cork Street and … Inspector, gosh. What difference does it make what led me to him? King-Ryder's lying, and if he's lying, we both know there's just one reason why.”

  Lynley placed the rest of the pictures on his desk. He said: “I'm not following this. We've established the connection between our two victims: prostitution and the advertisement of prostitution. We've developed an understanding of another possible motive: a common pimp's vengeance for an act of betrayal by two girls in his stable, one of whom—by the way—he beat up last night. No one can confirm that pimp's alibi for Tuesday night other than his wife, whose word doesn't appear to be worth the breath she uses to speak it. What we have left to root out is the missing weapon, which may very well be sitting somewhere in Martin Reeve's house. Now, all of that being established, Havers, and established—I'd like to add—through doing the sort of police work you appear to be avoiding these days, I'd be grateful if you would list the facts that establish Matthew King-Ryder as our killer.”

  She didn't reply, but Lynley saw the ugly flush begin to splodge her neck.

  He said, “Barbara, I'm hoping your conclusions are the result of footwork and not intuition.”

  Havers’ colour deepened. “You always say that coincidence doesn't exist when it comes to murder, Inspector.”

  “So I do. But wha
t's the coincidence?”

  “That painting. The Cilia Thompson monstrosity. What's he doing with a painting by Terry Cole's flatmate? You can't argue he's bought it to hang on his wall when it was out with his rubbish, so it's got to mean something. And I think it must mean—”

  “You think it means he's a killer. But you have no motive for his committing this killing, have you?”

  “I've just begun. I only went to see King-Ryder initially because Terry Cole had been sent there by this bloke Neil Sitwell. I didn't expect to uncover one of Cilia's paintings by his door, and when I did, I was gobsmacked. Well, who wouldn't be? Five minutes earlier and King-Ryder was telling me that Terry Cole came to talk to him about a grant. I leave the flat, trying to adjust my thinking to the new information, and there's this painting in the rubbish that tells me King-Ryder has a connection to this killing he's not talking about.”

  “A connection to the killing?” Lynley allowed his scepticism to underscore the words. “Havers, all you've uncovered at the moment is the fact that King-Ryder may have a connection to someone who's connected to someone who's been murdered in the company of a woman with whom he has no connection at all.”

  “But—”

  “No. No but, Havers. No and and no if, if it comes down to it. You've been fighting me every inch of the way on this case, and that's got to stop. I've assigned you a task, which you've largely ignored because you don't like it. You've gone your own way to the detriment of the team—”

  “That's not fair!” she protested. “I did the report. I put it on your desk.”

  “Yes. And I've read it.” Lynley rooted out the paperwork. He picked it up and used it to emphasise his words as he went on. “Barbara, do you think I'm stupid? Do you suppose I'm incapable of reading between the lines of what's posing as the work of a professional?”

  She lowered her eyes. She was still holding some of the photographs of Vi Nevin's destroyed home, and she fastened her gaze upon these. Her fingers whitened as her grasp on them tightened, and her colour deepened its revealing hue.