Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

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.”