“Are you listening to me? Have you any idea…” Lynley wanted to pound his fist on the top of the AC’s desk, just to feel something beyond outrage for a moment. He tried to calm himself. He lowered his voice. “Listen to me, sir. It’s one thing for a killer to mark one of us. That’s part of the risk we face when we take the job. But to put someone in the sight lines of a psychopath just to protect your political backside-”

“That’s enough!” Hillier looked apoplectic. “That’s bloody well enough. I’ve put up with your insolence for years but you’re so far out of order at this point…” He came round the desk, stopping within three inches of Lynley. “Get out of this office,” he hissed. “Get back to work. For the moment, we’re going to pretend this conversation never happened. You’re going to go about your business, you’re going to obey every order that comes in your direction, you’re going to get to the bottom of this mess, and you’re going to make a prompt arrest. After that”-here Hillier poked Lynley’s chest and Lynley’s vision went red although he managed to restrain himself from reacting-“we’ll decide what’s going to happen to you. Have I made myself clear? Yes? Good. Now get back to work and get a result.”

Lynley allowed the AC the last word although it felt like swallowing poison to do so. He turned on his heel and left Hillier to his political scheming. He used the stairs to descend to the incident room, cursing himself for thinking he could make a difference in Hillier’s way of doing business. He needed to keep his focus on matters that counted, he realised, and the AC’s use of Hamish Robson was going to have to be eliminated from that list.

All the members of the murder squad were in the picture with regard to the Shand Street tunnel body, and when Lynley joined them it was to find them as subdued as he expected. All counted, they numbered thirty-three now: from the constables on the street to the secretaries keeping track of all the reports and relevant documentation. Being defeated by a single individual when they had the power of the Met behind them-with everything from sophisticated communications systems and CCTV films to forensic labs and databases-was more than disheartening. It was humiliating. And worse, it had failed to stop a killer.

So they were much subdued when Lynley entered. The only noise among them was the tapping of computer keys. That too ceased when Lynley said quietly, “What’s the form?”

DI John Stewart spoke from one of his multicoloured outlines. Triangulating the crime scenes wasn’t proving fruitful, he said. The killer was, literally, all over the London map. This suggested a confident knowledge of the city, which in turn suggested someone whose day job would give him that knowledge.

“Taxi driver comes to mind, obviously,” Stewart said. “Minicab driver. Bus driver as well, since not one body site is particularly far off a bus route either.”

“The profiler’s saying he’s working a job below his ability,” Lynley acknowledged, although he was loath even to mention Hamish Robson after his contretemps with Hillier.

“Courier works as well,” one of the DCs pointed out. “Riding round on a motorbike’d give you the Knowledge as good as studying to drive a black cab.”

“Even a bicycle,” someone else said.

“But, then, where does the van come in?”

“Personal transport? He doesn’t use it for his job?”

“What do we have on the van?” Lynley asked. “Who talked to the St. George’s Gardens witness?”

A team two constable spoke up. Careful massaging of the witness had initially gleaned nothing, but she’d phoned in late last night with a sudden memory, which, she said, she hoped was a real memory and not a combination of imagination and her desire to help the police. At any rate, she felt she could say with confidence that it was a full-size van they were looking for. It had faded white lettering on the side, suggesting it was or had once been a business van.

“Confirmation for the Ford Transit, essentially,” Stewart said. “We’re working with the DVLA list, looking for a red one that belongs to a business.”

“And?” Lynley said.

“Takes time, Tommy.”

“We haven’t got time.” Lynley heard the agitation in his voice and he knew the others heard it as well. He was reminded at the worst possible moment that he wasn’t Malcolm Webberly, that he didn’t possess the former superintendent’s calm, nor his steady approach when under pressure. He saw in the faces gathered round him that the other officers were thinking this as well. He said more evenly, “Move forward on that front, John. The moment you’ve got something, I’ll want to know.”

“As to that…,” Stewart hadn’t made eye contact at Lynley’s outburst, instead making a notation that he underscored three times partway down his precise outline. “We’ve got two sources from the Net. For the ambergris oil.”

“Only two?”

“It’s not your everyday purchase.” The two sources were in opposite directions: a shop called Crystal Moon on Gabriel’s Wharf-

“That’s a south-of-the-river location for us,” someone noted hopefully.

– and a stall in Camden Lock Market called Wendy’s Cloud. Someone would need to suss out each place.

“Barbara lives up in the Camden Lock area,” Lynley said. “She can deal with that. Winston can…Where is he, by the way?”

“Hiding from Dave the Knave, probably,” was the reply, an irreverent reference to Hillier. “He’s started getting fan mail from the telly watchers, has Winnie. All those lonely birds looking for a man with promise.”

“Is he in the building?”

No one knew. “Get him on his mobile. Havers as well.”

As he spoke, Barbara Havers arrived. Winston Nkata followed in her wake seconds later. The others greeted them with tension-diffusing hoots and ribald greetings that suggested their dual advent had a personal explanation behind it.

Havers gave them two fingers. “Sod you lot,” she said affably. “I’m surprised to find you outside of the canteen.”

For his part, Nkata merely said, “Sorry. Trying to track down a social worker for the Salvatore boy.”

“Success?” Lynley asked.

“Sod all.”

“Keep with it. Hillier’s looking for you, by the way.”

Nkata scowled. He said, “Got something on Jared Salvatore from Peckham police.” He relayed all the information he’d gathered, while the others listened and made relevant notes. “Girlfriend said he was learning to cook somewhere, but the blokes at the station aren’t giving that credence,” he concluded.

“Have someone check the cookery schools,” Lynley told DI Stewart. Stewart nodded and made a note. Lynley said, “Havers? What about Kimmo Thorne?”

She said that everything they’d been told by Blinker and then by the Grabinskis and Reg Lewis in Bermondsey Market had checked out with the Borough police. She went on to add that Kimmo Thorne had evidently been involved in a programme called Colossus, which she called “Bunch of do-gooders south of the river.” She’d gone there to check out the place: a renovated manufacturing plant not far from the knot of streets that merged at Elephant and Castle. “They weren’t open yet,” Havers concluded. “The place was locked up tight, but there were some kids hanging about, waiting for someone to show up and let them in.”

“What did they give you?” Lynley asked her.

“Not a bloody thing,” Havers said. “I said, ‘You lot involved in this place?’ and they twigged I was a copper. That was that.”

“Look into it, then.”

“Will do, sir.”

Lynley filled them in, then, on what Hamish Robson had had to say about the latest killing. He didn’t tell them that the profiler had been sent to the scene by Hillier. There was no sense in getting them worked up about something over which they had no control. Thus, he mentioned the killer’s change in attitude towards the most recent victim and the indications that he could reappear at any of the crime scenes.