Book 11 in the Inspector Lynley series, 2005

KIMMO THORNE LIKED DIETRICH BEST OF ALL: THE HAIR, the legs, the cigarette holder, the top hat and tails. She was what he called the Whole Blooming Package, and as far as he was concerned, she was second to none. Oh, he could do Garland if pressed. Minnelli was simple, and he was definitely getting better with Streisand. But given his choice-and he was generally given it, wasn’t he?-he went with Dietrich. Sultry Marlene. His number one girl. She could sing the crumbs out of a toaster, could Marlene, make no bloody mistake about it.

So he held the pose at the end of the song not because it was necessary to the act but because he loved the look of the thing. The finale to “Falling in Love Again” faded and he just kept standing there like a Marlene statue with one high-heeled foot on the seat of the chair and his cigarette holder between his fingers. The last note disappeared into silence and he remained for a five count-exulting in Marlene and in himself because she was good and he was good, he was damn damn good when it came down to it-before he altered his position. He switched off the karaoke machine then. He doffed his top hat and fluttered his tails. He bowed deeply to his audience of two. And Aunt Sal and Gran-ever loyal, they were-reacted appropriately, as he’d known they would. Aunt Sally cried, “Brilliant! Brilliant, lad!” Gran said, “Tha’s our boy all over. A hunnert percent talent, our Kimmo. Wait’ll I send some snaps to your mum and dad.”

That would certainly bring them running, Kimmo thought sardonically. But he put his high-heeled foot on the chair once more, knowing Gran meant well, even if she was something of a dim bulb when it came to what she believed about his parents.

Gran directed Aunt Sally to “Move to the right. Get the boy’s best side,” and in a few minutes the pictures had been taken and the show was over for the evening.

“Where you off to tonight?” Aunt Sally asked as Kimmo headed for his bedroom. “You seein’ anyone special, our Kim?”

He wasn’t, but she needn’t know that. “The Blink,” he told her blithely.

“Well, you lads keep yourselfs out of trouble, then.”

He winked at her and ducked into his doorway. “Always, always, Auntie,” he lied. He eased the door shut behind him then and flicked its lock into place.

The care of the Marlene togs came first. Kimmo took them off and hung them up before turning to his dressing table. There, he examined his face and for a moment considered removing some of the makeup. But he finally shrugged the idea aside and rustled through the clothes cupboard for a change that would do. He chose a hooded sweatshirt, the leggings he liked, and his flat-soled, suede, ankle-high boots. He enjoyed the ambiguity of the ensemble. Male or female? an observer might ask. But only if Kimmo spoke would it actually show. For his voice had finally broken and when he opened his mouth now, the jig was up.

He drew the sweatshirt hood over his head and sauntered down the stairs. “I’m off, then,” he called to his gran and his aunt as he grabbed his jacket from a hook near the door.

“’Bye, darlin’ boy,” Gran replied.

“Keep yourself yourself, luv,” Aunt Sally added.

He kissed the air at them. They kissed the air in turn. “Love you,” everyone said at once.

Outside, he zipped his jacket and unlocked his bicycle from the railing. He rolled it along to the lift and pressed the button there, and as he waited, he checked the bike’s saddlebags to make sure that he had everything he’d need. He maintained a mental checklist on which he ticked items off: emergency hammer, gloves, screwdriver, jemmy, pocket torch, pillowcase, one red rose. This last he liked to leave as his calling card. One really oughtn’t to take without giving as well.

It was a cold night outside in the street, and Kimmo didn’t look forward to the ride. He hated having to go by bike, and he hated biking even more when the temperature hovered so close to freezing. But as neither Gran nor Aunt Sally had a car, and as he himself had no driving licence to flash at a copper, along with his most appealing smile if he was stopped, he had no other choice but to pedal it. Going by bus was more or less out of the question.

His route took him along Southwark Street to the heavier traffic of Blackfriars Road till, in a crisscrossing fashion, he reached the environs of Kennington Park. From there, traffic or not, it was more or less a bullet’s path to Clapham Common and his destination: a conveniently detached redbrick dwelling of three storeys, which he’d spent the last month carefully casing.

At this point, he knew the comings and goings of the family inside so thoroughly that he might as well have lived there himself. He knew they had two children. Mum got her exercise riding a bike to work, while Dad went by train from Clapham Station. They had an au pair with a regularly scheduled two nights each week off, and on one of those nights-always the same one-Mum, Dad, and the kids left as a family and went to…Kimmo didn’t know. He assumed it was Gran’s for dinner, but it just as easily could have been a lengthy church service, a session with a counselor, or lessons in yoga. Point was, they were gone for the evening, till late in the evening, and when they arrived home, they invariably had to lug the little ones into the house because they’d fallen asleep in the car. As for the au pair, she took her nights off with two other birds who were similarly employed. They’d leave together chatting away in Bulgarian or whatever it was, and if they returned before dawn, it was still long after midnight.

The signs were propitious for this particular house. The car they drove was the largest of the Range Rovers. A gardener visited them once a week. They had a cleaning service as well, and their sheets and pillowcases were laundered, ironed, and returned by a professional. This particular house, Kimmo had concluded, was ripe, and waiting.

What made it all so nice was the house next door and the lovely “To Let” sign dangling forlornly from a post near the street. What made it all so perfect was the easy access from the rear: a brick wall running along a stretch of wasteland.

Kimmo pedaled to this point after coasting by the front of the house to make sure the family were being true to their rigid schedule. Then he bumped his way across the wasteland and propped his bike against the wall. Using the pillowcase to carry his tools and the rose, he hopped up on the saddle of the bike and, with no trouble, lifted himself over the wall.

The back garden was blacker than the devil’s tongue, but Kimmo had peered over the wall before and he knew what lay before him. Directly beneath was a compost heap beyond which a little zigzagging orchard of fruit trees decorated a nicely clipped lawn. To either side of this, wide flower beds made herbaceous borders. One of them curved round a gazebo. The other graced the vicinity of a garden shed. Last in the distance just before the house were a patio of uneven bricks where rainwater pooled after a storm and then a roof overhang, from which the security lights were hung.

They clicked on automatically as Kimmo approached. He gave them a nod of thanks. Security lights, he’d long ago decided, had to be the ironic inspiration of a housebreaker, since whenever they switched on, everyone appeared to assume a mere cat was passing through the garden. He’d yet to hear of a neighbour giving the cops a bell because of some lights going on. On the other hand, he’d heard plenty of stories from fellow housebreakers about how much easier those lights had made access to the rear of a property.