Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

“Even had the receipts to wave in front of me,” Hanken said. “Seems he intends to claim it as a business expense.”

“You're checking it out.”

“I plan to, as I breathe,” Hanken said. “Your end of things?”

This was where he had to tread carefully, Lynley thought. So far, despite his encounter with Upman, Hanken hadn't appeared to be wedded irrevocably to any particular scenario. Still, what he was about to suggest was a contravention of the DI's main conjecture. He wanted to lead into it carefully so that his colleague might be open to its logic.

He hadn't found the pager, he said. But he'd had a rather long look round the site and an even longer think about the two bodies. He wanted to propose an altogether different hypothesis to the one they'd been working with. Would Hanken hear him out?

The DI lowered his chair and smashed out his cigarette. Mercifully, he didn't light another. He ran his tongue over his teeth, eyes speculatively fixed on Lynley. He finally said, “Let's have it,” and settled back as if expecting a lengthy monologue.

“I think we've got one killer,” Lynley said. “And no accomplice. No phone call for reinforcements when our man-”

“Or woman? Or are you giving that up as well?”

“Or woman,” Lynley replied, and he used the opportunity to inform Hanken of his encounter with Samantha McCallin on Calder Moor.

The other DI said, “That puts her back in the running, I'd say.”

“She was never out of it.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“No call for reinforcements when the killer saw there were two targets instead of one.”

Hanken folded his hands over his stomach and said, “Continue.”

Lynley used the photograph of Terry Cole as he did so. Burns on the face but no defensive wounds on the body, Lynley said, indicated that Cole hadn't been held in the fire but, rather, that he had fallen into it. The damage to his skin indicated that contact with the flames had been more than brief. There was no contusion to the head to suggest that he'd been clubbed, knocked unconscious, and left in the fire. So he had to have been wounded or disabled in some way as he sat by the fire in the first place.

“One killer,” Lynley said, “goes out there after the girl. When he arrives at the site-”

“Or she,” Hanken cut in.

“Yes. Or she. When he or she arrives at the site, it's to find that Nicola isn't alone. So Cole has to be eliminated. First, because he's capable of protecting her should the killer go after her, and second, because he's a potential witness. But the killer faces a dilemma. Does he-or she, yes, I see that, Peter-kill Cole at once and run the risk of losing Nicola if she escapes while he's dispatching Cole? Or does he kill Nicola and run the risk of being thwarted by Cole? He has surprise on his side, but that's all he has aside from his weapon.” Lynley sorted through the photographs and pulled out one that showed the trail of blood most clearly. “If you consider all that and take into account the deposits of blood at the site-”

Hanken raised his hand to stop the words. He moved his gaze from Lynley to the window where the unappealing prospect of Buxton football stadium across the street resembled a concentration camp. He said thoughtfully, “The killer rushes forward with his knife and wounds the boy in an instant. The boy topples into the fire, where he's burned. The girl takes to her heels. The killer follows.”

“But his weapon is lodged in the boy.”

“Hmm. Yes. I see how it works.” Hanken turned from the window, eyes cloudy as he considered the scene he went on to describe. “It's dark outside the ring of the fire. The girl's on the run.”

“So does he take the time to remove the knife from the boy or does he take off after the girl straightaway?”

“He goes after the girl. He has to, hasn't he? He dispatches her with three blows to the head, then returns to finish off the boy.”

“By which time Cole's managed to crawl from the fire to the edge of the stone circle. And that's where the killer finishes him off. The blood tells the tale, Peter. Dripping down the standing stone, pooled on the ground.”

“If you're right,” Hanken said, “we've got a killer covered in blood. It's night and in the middle of the back of beyond, so he has an advantage there. But eventually, he's going to need something to hide his clothes, unless he did the killing in the nude, which isn't likely.”

“He may have brought something with him,” Lynley said.

“Or taken something from the scene itself.” Hanken slapped his hands against his thighs and got to his feet. “Let's get the Maidens to take a look at the girl's belongings,” he said.

Barbara fumed, punched her fist into her palm, and paced as Winston Nkata placed the call to Lynley from inside the Prince of Wales pub. They were across the street from Battersea Park and round the corner from Terry Cole's domicile, and while she wanted to grab the phone from Nkata's hand and make a few points more forcefully than Winston was making them, she knew she had to hold her tongue. Nkata was relaying the source of her agitation to their superior officer, and silence on her part was essential lest Lynley realise that she'd left her post at the computer. “I'll get back to CRIS tonight,” she swore to Nkata when she realised that his reluctance to trot from Fulham to Battersea was directly connected to his worries about her willingness to attend to her assigned duties. “Winston, on my mum's life, I tell you that I'll sit at the screen till I'm blind. Okay? But later. Later. Let's do Battersea first.”

Nkata was relaying to Lynley the results of their visits to Nicola's former employer and to her current flatmate. After reporting on the postcards that Nicola had sent to Vi Nevin and explaining what Vi had claimed their implicit message was, he went on to dwell in particular upon the fact that Nicola's bedroom in the Fulham maisonette had apparently been “seen to” prior to his laying eyes upon it. “How many birds you know have nothing that says who they are sitting round?” Nkata asked. “Man, I say this. That bird Vi kept us waiting on the steps before letting us in 'cause she was shoveling that bedroom clear of something once she heard there were rozzers at the door.”

Barbara winced and held her breath at the plural pronouns. No fool, Lynley. On his end of the line, he jumped at once.

Nkata said in reply with a glance at Barbara, “What?… No. Figure of speech, man… Yeah. Believe me, I got that engraved on my soul.” He listened as Lynley apparently relayed how things were playing out in his part of the world. He laughed outright at a piece of information, saying, “The fun of it? Lord, I believe that like the world is flat,” and toyed with the steel tubing of the telephone cord. After a few moments, he said, “Battersea right now. Barb said that Cole's flatmate'd be in for the evening, so I thought to have a look through his traps. Landlady wouldn't let Barb have a peek earlier and-” He stopped as Lynley interrupted at some length.

Barbara tried to read his expression for an indication of what the inspector was saying. The black man's face was completely blank. She whispered tersely, “What? What?”

Nkata waved her off. “Following up on those names you gave her,” he said. “Far as I know, at least. You know Barb.”

“Oh, thanks very much, Winston,” she whispered.

Nkata turned his shoulder and gave her his back. He went on to Lynley, saying, “Barb said the flatmate says anything's possible. The kid was flush with money-always had a wad of cash-and he never sold a stick of his art. Which isn't hard to believe when you see it. Blackmail's sounding nicer every minute.” Again he listened and he finally said, “That's why I want to have a recce. There's a connection somewhere. Has to be.”