“What do you think?”

“I can never get ten words out of him, Tommy. To be honest, he makes me a bit nervous.”

Lynley found a picture of Sidney, then: tall, lithe, striking a pose with champagne in hand and her head thrown back. It was supposed to be candid-indeed, she was in conversation with a swarthy bloke tossing his drink down his throat-but it was not for nothing that Sidney was a professional model. Despite the crowd round them, she knew when a camera was on her.

There were other pictures, posed and candid. They needed a closer scrutiny. Indeed, the magazine itself would likely have a score of photos on file that hadn’t even been printed in these pages and Lynley realised they might be valuable and that they might want tracking down. He asked Deborah if he could keep the magazine. She said of course, but did he think that Jemima’s killer had been there?

He said anything was possible. So everything had to be explored.

St. James arrived then. The front door opened, and they heard his uneven footsteps in the entry. Deborah went to the door of his study, saying, “Tommy’s here, Simon. He’s wanting you.”

St. James joined them. There was an awkward moment in which Lynley’s old friend assessed his state-with Lynley wondering when the time would arrive that awkward moments with friends would be a thing of the past-and then St. James said, “Tommy. I’m in need of a whisky. You?”

Lynley wasn’t, but he obliged with, “I wouldn’t say no.”

“Lagavulin, then?”

“Am I that special an occasion?”

St. James smiled. He went to the drinks trolley beneath the window and poured two glasses as well as a sherry for Deborah. He handed them round and then said to Lynley, “Have you brought me something?”

“You know me too well.” Lynley handed over the copy of the picture he’d brought from the incident room. As he did so, he told St. James something of what had happened that day: Yukio Matsumoto, the chase through the streets, the accident in Shaftesbury Avenue. Then he told of the implement they’d found in the violinist’s room, ending with Ardery’s conclusion that they had their man.

“Hardly unreasonable, all things considered,” St. James said. “But you’re reluctant to agree?”

“I find motive a difficulty.”

“Obsessive love? God knows that happens enough.”

“If obsession’s involved, it seems more likely he’s obsessed with angels. He’s got them all over the walls in his room.”

“Has he indeed? That’s curious.” St. James gave his attention to the picture.

Deborah joined him. She said, “What is this, Tommy?”

“It was found in Jemima’s pocket. SO7’s saying it’s carnelian, but that’s as far as we’ve got. I was hoping you might have some thoughts on it. Or failing that-”

“That I might know someone who’d be able to suss it out? Let me have a closer look.” St. James carried the picture to his desk, where he used a magnifying glass on it. He said, “It’s well worn, isn’t it? The size suggests a stone from a man’s ring or perhaps a woman’s pendant. Or a brooch, I suppose.”

“Jewellery, in any case,” Lynley agreed. “What d’you make of the carving?”

St. James bent over the photo. He said, after a moment, “Well, it’s pagan. That much is obvious, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I thought. It doesn’t appear Celtic.”

“No, no. Definitely not Celtic.”

“How d’you know?” Deborah asked.

St. James handed over the magnifying glass to her. “Cupid,” he said. “One of the carved figures. He’s kneeling in front of the other. And she’s…Minerva, Tommy?”

“Or Venus.”

“But the armour?”

“Something belonging to Mars?”

Deborah looked up. “That makes this…how old, then, Simon? A thousand years?”

“Bit more, I daresay. Third or fourth century, likely.”

“But how did she get it?” Deborah asked Lynley.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“Could this be why she was killed?” Deborah asked. “For a carved bit of stone? It must be valuable.”

“It does have value,” Lynley said. “But if her killer wanted it, he’d hardly have left it on her body.”

“Unless he didn’t know she was carrying it,” Deborah said.

“Or was interrupted before he could make the search,” St. James added.

“As to that…” Lynley told them more about the murder weapon, or at least what they were assuming was the murder weapon. It was, he said, saturated in blood.

“What is it?” St. James asked.

“We’re not entirely sure,” Lynley told him. “All we have to go on at the moment is the shape.”

“Which is…?”

“Deadly sharp at one end, perhaps nine inches long, a curved handle. Very like an oddly shaped spike.”

“Used for what?”

“I’ve no idea.”

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 the witnesses who came forward with descriptions of him, but also to his neighbourhood. In short order, community outrage led a threatening mob to the front door of the Spargo home. Within thirty-six hours, this resulted in the entire family’s being removed from the Gallows altogether and established in another part of town (and after the trial to another part of the country) under an assumed name. When the police came for Reggie Arnold and Ian Barker, it was with much the same consequences, and their families were moved to other locations as well. Of them all, only Tricia Barker has ever spoken to the press in the intervening years, having resolutely refused to change her name. There is some speculation that her cooperation has to do with garnering publicity for a hoped-for appearance on reality television.

It could well be said that the hours of interviews with the three boys in the subsequent days reveal much about their psychopathology and the dysfunction of their families. Of the three, it would appear on the surface that Reggie Arnold came from the strongest home situation because in his every interview both Rudy and Laura Arnold were present, along with the interviewing detective and a social worker. But of the three boys, Reggie-it must be remembered-displayed the most overt symptoms of inner turmoil according to his teachers, and the tantrums, hysteria, and self-destructive activities that characterised his classroom experience became more pronounced as the days of interviews wore on and as it became more evident to him that whatever manipulations he’d used in the past to get himself out of trouble were not going to work in the situation in which he found himself.

On the tape his voice wheedles at first. Then it whines. His father instructs him to sit up straight and “be a man not a mouse” and his mother weeps about what Reggie is “doing to us all.” Their focus remains consistently upon themselves: how the exigency of Reggie’s situation is affecting them. They seem oblivious not only to the nature of the crime about which he’s being questioned and what the nature of this crime indicates about the state of his mind, but also to the jeopardy he faces. At one point Laura tells him that she “can’t sit here all day while you whinge, Reg,” because she has Reggie’s “brother and sister to think of, don’t you understand that? Who d’you think’s taking care them while I’m here with you? While your dad’s here with you?” Even more troubling, neither of the parents seems to notice when the questions directed at Reggie begin to home in on the Dawkins building site, on the body of John Dresser, and on what the evidence found at the site suggests happened to John Dresser there. Reggie’s behaviour escalates-even repeated breaks and interventions by the social worker do not settle him-and although it’s clear that he was very likely involved in something horrendous, his parents don’t take note of that, as they continue to attempt to mould his behaviour to something that they themselves will approve of. In this we see the very essence of the narcissistic parent, and in Reggie we see the extreme to which a child’s reaction to such parenting can take him.