Nkata said, “I don’t want a story ’bout me in the paper. I can’t make it any more clear ’n that, Mr. Corsico.”

“Mitch,” Corsico said. “And you’re looking at me as an adversary, aren’t you? That’s not how it should be between us. I’m here to do the Met a service. Did you read the piece about Superintendent Lynley? Not a bit of negativity to it. He was depicted in the most positive light I could manage. Well yes, all right, there’s something more to be said about him…The affair in Yorkshire and his brother-in-law’s death…but we don’t need to get into that anytime soon, so long as the rest of the officers cooperate when I want to feature them.”

“Hang on, man,” Nkata said. “You threatening me? With what you’ll do to the super ’f I don’t play your game?”

Corsico smiled. Casually, he waved the questions off. “No. No. But information comes to me via the newsroom at The Source, Sergeant. That means someone else likely gets the information before I do. And that means my editor’s twigged that there’s more to a story than I’ve printed so far and he wants to know why, not to mention when I’m going to do a follow-up. Like this Yorkshire information: ‘Why aren’t you going with the murder of Edward Davenport, Mitch?’ he’s going to ask. I tell him that I’ve got a better story in hand, a sort of rags-to-riches or rather Brixton-Warriors-to-the-Met story. Believe me, I tell him, when you see this you’ll understand why I moved on from Lynley. How’d you get that scar on your face, Sergeant Nkata? Is it from a flick knife?”

Nkata said nothing: not about Windmill allotments and the street fight that had ended up with his disfigurement and certainly nothing about the Brixton Warriors, who were as active as ever south of the river.

“Besides,” Corsico said, “you know this comes from higher up than me, don’t you? Stephenson Deacon-not to mention AC Hillier-drives a hard bargain with the press. I expect they’ll drive a harder bargain with you if you don’t jump onboard and help out with the profiles.”

At this, Nkata made himself nod in a friendly fashion as he pushed back from his desk. He picked up his notebook and said with as much dignity as he could manage, “Mitch, I got to talk to the super right now. He’s waiting for this”-with a gesture towards his notes-“so we’ll have to do…whatever we have to do later on.”

He left the incident room. Lynley didn’t need the information he had-it was useless anyway-but there was no way in hell he was going to sit there and listen to the journalist’s polite, implied threats. If Hillier blew a fuse as a result of Nkata’s lack of cooperation, so be it, he decided.

Lynley’s office door was open, and the superintendent was on the phone when Nkata entered. Lynley acknowledged him with a nod, indicating the chair in front of his desk. He was listening and writing on a yellow pad.

When he was finished with his call, Lynley said to him presciently, “Corsico?”

“He started off with Stoney. Straightaway. Man, I do not want this bloke digging into my fam’ly. Mum’s got enough on her shoulders without Stoney ending up in the papers again.” He surprised himself with his own passion. He hadn’t thought he still felt the betrayal, the outrage, the…the whatever it really was, because he could not name it at the moment and he knew he couldn’t afford to try.

Lynley took off his spectacles and put his fingers to his forehead, pressing hard. He said, “Winston, how do I apologise for all this?”

Nkata said, “You c’n take out Hillier, I guess. That’d do for a start.”

“Wouldn’t it just,” Lynley agreed. “So you refused Corsico?”

“More or less.”

“That was the right decision. Hillier won’t like it. God knows he’ll hear about it and have a seizure. But that won’t happen at once, and when it does, I’ll do my best to keep him away from you. I wish I could do more.”

Nkata was grateful for that much, considering the fact that the super had already been profiled by the journalist. He said, “Barb says Red Van rang you…”

“Flexing his muscles,” Lynley said. “He’s trying to unnerve us. What’ve you got?”

“Sod all from the credit card purchases. That’s a real nonstarter. Only connection between Crystal Moon and anyone we’re looking at is Robbie Kilfoyle: the sandwich delivery bloke. Can we get surveillance on him?”

“Based on Crystal Moon? We’re stretched too thin. Hillier won’t authorise more officers on this, and those we have are already working fourteen- and eighteen-hour days.” Lynley indicated his yellow pad. “SO7’s done the comparison of everything inside Minshall’s van to the rubber residue found on Kimmo Thorne’s bike. No match. Minshall put in old carpet and not rubber lining. But Davey Benton’s prints are all over that van. So are a score of other prints as well.”

“The other dead boys?”

“We’re doing the comparisons.”

“You don’t think they’re there, do you?”

“The other boys? Inside Minshall’s van?” Lynley put his reading glasses back on and looked at his notes before replying. “No. I don’t,” he finally said. “I think Minshall’s telling the truth, much as I hate to believe it, considering his perversions.”

“Which means…”

“The killer moved on from Colossus to MABIL once we showed up in Elephant and Castle asking questions. And now that Minshall’s in custody, he’s going to have to move on to yet another source of victims. We’ve got to get to him before he gets to them because God only knows where he’s going to find them and we can’t protect every boy in London.”

“We need the meeting times of this MABIL, then. We got to alibi everyone for them.”

“Back to square…if not square one, then square five or six,” Lynley agreed. “You’re right, Winston. It has to be done.”

ULRIKE HAD no choice but to take public transport. The bike ride from Elephant and Castle to Brick Lane was a long one, and she couldn’t afford the time it would take to pedal over there and back. It was suspicious enough that she was leaving Colossus without having a scheduled meeting both in her diary and on the calendar Jack Veness kept in reception. So she invented a phone call that had come in on her mobile-Patrick Bensley, president of the board of trustees, wanted her to meet him and a potential Big Money benefactor, she said-so she would be out. Jack would be able to find her on her mobile. She’d keep it on, as always.

Jack Veness had observed her, a half smile splitting his scraggly beard. He nodded knowingly. She didn’t give him the chance to make a remark. He needed sorting once again, but she didn’t have time to talk to him now about his attitude and the improvements in it that would be necessary should he ever want to advance in the organisation. Instead, she grabbed her coat, her scarf, and her hat, and she departed.

The cold outdoors was a shock that she felt against her eyeballs first and then in her bones. It was a quintessential London cold: so filled with damp that drawing air into her lungs was an effort. It prompted her to rush for the insufferable warmth of the underground. She crammed herself into a carriage heading for the Embankment and tried to keep away from a woman who was coughing wetly into the stale air.

At the Embankment, Ulrike disembarked and weaved through the other commuters. They were different here, their ethnicity changing from mostly black to largely white and far better dressed as she switched to the District line, which itself passed through some of the bastions of London’s establishment employment scene. On her way, she dropped a pound coin into the open guitar case of a busker. He was crooning from “A Man Needs a Maid,” sounding less like Neil Young and more like Cliff Richard with an adenoid problem. But at least he was doing something to support himself.

At Aldgate East, she purchased a copy of the Big Issue, her third in two days. She added an extra fifty pence to the price. The bloke selling it looked as if he needed it.