“You can’t want them homing in on you.”

“Of course not. I’ll be the laughingstock of my siblings, not to mention what my mother will say in her inimitable fashion. But look at it this way: I’m outside the investigation even as I’m inside the investigation, and there’s an advantage to that. You can play it any way you want with Hillier. Either I’m part of the team-and he did say he wanted the team profiled, didn’t he, sir?-or I’m ruthlessly self-serving and, as an independent scientist, I’m seeking the self-aggrandisement that only exposure in the press will afford me. Play it either way.” Here he smiled. “I know you live only to torment the poor sod.”

Lynley smiled also, in spite of himself. “It’s good of you, Simon. It keeps them away from Winston. Hillier won’t like that, of course, but I can deal with Hillier.”

“And by the time they get round to Winston or anyone else, God willing, this business will be finished.”

“Have you anything with you?” Lynley nodded towards the briefcase that St. James had brought to the table with him.

“Dashed back for it, yes. I’ve had the advantage in several ways.”

“Which means I’ve missed something. All right. I can live with it.”

“Not missed exactly. I wouldn’t say that.”

“What would you say, then?”

“That I’ve the advantage of being some distance from the case while you’re in the thick of it. And I don’t have Hillier, the press, and God only knows who else breathing down my neck and demanding a result.”

“I’ll take the excuse as offered. With thanks. What did you find?”

St. James reached for the briefcase and opened it on a spare chair that he pulled from another table. He brought out the latest batch of paperwork he’d been sent.

“Have you found the source of the ambergris oil?” he asked.

“We have two sources. Why?”

“He’s run out.”

“Of the oil?”

“There was no trace of it on the Queen’s Wood body. On all the others it was present, not always in the same place, but there. But on this one, it’s not.”

Lynley thought about this. He saw a reason the oil might have been absent. He said, “The body was naked. The oil might have been on his clothes.”

“But the St. George’s Gardens body was naked as well-”

“Kimmo Thorne’s body.”

“Right. And he still had traces of the oil on him. No, I’d say there’s a very good chance our man’s run out of it, Tommy. He’s going to need more, and if you’ve traced two sources, a watch on those shops might prove to be the key.”

“You say there’s a good chance,” Lynley noted. “What else, then? There’s something else, isn’t there?”

St. James nodded slowly. He seemed undecided about the importance of his next revelation. He said, “It’s something, Tommy. That’s all I can say. I don’t like to interpret it because it could take you in the wrong direction at the end of the day.”

“All right. Accepted. What is it?”

St. James pulled another batch of documents out. He said, “The contents of their stomachs. Before this last boy, the Queen’s Wood boy-”

“Davey Benton.”

“Before him, the others had all eaten within an hour of their deaths. And in every case, the contents of the stomachs were identical.”

“Identical?”

“Without a deviation, Tommy.”

“But with Davey Benton?”

“He hadn’t had anything in hours. Eight hours at least. Taken in conjunction with the ambergris-oil situation…” St. James leaned forward. He put his hand on the neat stack of documents for emphasis. “I don’t need to tell you what this means, do I?”

Lynley turned from his friend. He looked to the square outside where, beyond the window, the grey winter day moved unceasing towards darkness and what darkness brought with it.

“No, Simon,” he finally said. “You don’t have to tell me a thing.”

THE NAME ON THE REGISTRATION CARD WAS OSCAR Wilde. When Barbara Havers saw this, she looked up at Chandelier Earring, expecting a rolling of the eyes and an expression that said “What else would you expect?” But it was clear that the girl in reception was of the recent unschooled generation whose education was dependent upon music videos and gossip magazines. She hadn’t made the connection any more than the night clerk had, but at least he had the excuse of being a foreigner. Wilde-in revival or otherwise-probably wasn’t big in Turkey.

Barbara went on to the address: a number on Collingham Road. The hotel had a battered A to Z-purportedly for use by the hordes of tourists who stayed there-and she found the street not that far from Lexham Gardens. It was on the other side of Cromwell Road. She could hoof it there without any trouble.

Before descending to reception, she’d waited for the arrival of the SOCO team, having phoned for them from room 39. Mr. Tatlises had taken himself off somewhere in his dinner suit, doubtless to contact his fellow MABILians and give them the word that times were about to be a-changin’. He would then, she reckoned, make a vain attempt to destroy every bit of child pornography that he had in his possession. Stupid sod, Barbara thought. He wouldn’t’ve been able to resist downloading that filth off the Net-none of them could ever resist that-and he was just enough of an idiot to think delete meant gone but not forgotten. The Earl’s Court Road station would have a field day at this place. Once Tatlises was in their clutches, they’d find a way to squeeze him for everything he knew: about MABIL, about what was going on in the hotel, about little boys and money changing hands and everything else related to this disgusting situation. Unless, of course, some of them were involved in MABIL…some of the Earl’s Court Road cops…but Barbara didn’t want to think of that. Cops, priests, doctors, and ministers. One had to hope, if not to believe, that a moral core existed somewhere.

As ordered by Lynley, she spoke to the Earl’s Court Road chief super. He set the wheels in motion. When the SOCO team arrived, she felt secure enough to leave.

With the address from the registration card in hand and the card itself turned over to the SOCO team for fingerprinting, she crossed over Cromwell Road and headed east, in the direction of the Natural History Museum. Collingham Road headed south some 100 yards from Lexham Gardens. Barbara made the turn and began searching for the correct address along the row of tall, white-fronted conversions.

Considering the name that had been on the registration card, she had little hope of the address being anything but another sham. She wasn’t far from correct in this conclusion. Where Collingham Road met the lower half of Courtfield Gardens, an old stone church stood on the corner. A wrought-iron fence surrounded it, and inside the churchyard that the fence contained, a faded sign done in gold letters named the spot as St. Lucy’s Community Centre. Beneath this identification were the numbers of the street address. They corresponded identically to the numbers on the card from the Canterbury Hotel. How fitting it was, Barbara thought as she pushed through the gate and entered the churchyard. The address on the card was the address for MABIL: St. Lucy’s, the deconsecrated church not far from the Gloucester Road underground station.

Minshall had said that MABIL met in the basement, so that was where Barbara headed. She went round the side of the building, following a concrete path through a small, overgrown cemetery. Toppling gravestones and ivy-choked tombs filled it to capacity, all of them untended.

A set of stone steps led down to the basement at the back of the church. A sign on the bright blue door called this portion of the centre “Ladybird Infant Day-care.” This door stood partially open, and from within Barbara could hear the babble of children’s voices.