“He got Davey?” If anything, Andy sounded impressed, not chastened. “You want me to help you catch him or summat?”

Mr. Fairbairn said to the boy, “You’re to answer their questions, Crickleworth. That will be the limit to the matter.”

Andy gave him a sod you look.

Lynley said, “Tell us about the Stables Market.”

Andy looked wary. “Wha’ about it, then?”

“We’re told by his parents that Davey went there. And if he went, I expect his whole crew went as well. You were part of his crew, weren’t you?”

Andy shrugged. “Might’ve gone there. But it wouldn’t’ve been to do nothing wrong.”

“Davey’s dad says he nicked a pair of handcuffs off a magic stall there. Do you know about that?”

“I didn’t nick nothing,” Andy said. “If Davey did, he did. Wouldn’t surprise me, though. Davey liked nicking things. Videos from the shop in Junction Road. Sweets off the newsagent. Banana from the market. He thought it was cool. I told him he was asking to be caught sometime and dragged off to the nick, but he wouldn’t listen. Tha’ was Davey all over. He liked the lads to think he was hard.”

“What about the magic stall?” Barbara put in.

“Wha’ about it, then?”

“Did you go there with Davey?”

“Hey, I said I never nicked-”

“This isn’t about you,” Lynley cut in. “It isn’t about what you did or did not steal and where you might or might not have stolen it. Are we clear on that? We have the word of Davey’s parents that he visited a magic stall in the Stables Market, but that’s all we have, aside from your name, which they also gave us.”

“I di’n’t even know them!” Andy sounded panicked.

“We realise that. We also realise that you and Davey had some difficulty getting on with each other.”

“Superintendent,” Mr. Fairbairn said in a monitory tone, as if understanding how easily “difficulty getting on” could lead them into an accusation he did not intend to allow spoken in his conference room.

Lynley held up his hand, stopping him from saying anything further. “But none of that is important now, Andy. Do you understand? What is important is what you can tell us about the market, the magic stall, and anything else that might help us find Davey Benton’s killer. Is that clear enough for you?”

Andy said reluctantly that it was, although Barbara doubted it. He seemed more fixed on the drama of the situation than on the grim reality behind it.

Lynley said, “Did you ever accompany Davey to the magic stall in the Stables Market?”

Andy nodded. “Once,” he said. “We all went down there. Wasn’t my idea or nothing, mind you. I can’t remember who said let’s go. But we did.”

“And?” Barbara asked.

“And Davey tried to pinch some handcuffs off that weird bloke runs the magic stall. He got caught and the rest of us scarpered.”

“Who caught him?”

“The bloke. The weird one. Dead weird, he is. He wants sorting, you ask me.” Andy seemed to make a sudden connection between the questions and Davey’s death. He said, “D’you think that wanker killed our Davey?”

“Did you ever see them together after that day?” Lynley asked. “Davey and the magician?”

Andy shook his head. “I never.” He frowned and then added after a moment, “’Cept they must’ve.”

“Must have what?” Barbara asked.

“Must’ve seen each other.” He squirmed in his seat to look at Lynley, and he told the rest of his tale to him. Davey, he said, did some magic tricks at school. They were dead-stupid tricks-prob’ly anyone could’ve done them, really-but Davey’d never done any tricks before the day the crew went to that stall in the Stables Market. After, though, he did a trick with a ball: making it disappear, although anyone with a brain bigger than a pea could’ve seen how he did it. And then he did a trick with a rope: He cut it in half and then produced it uncut. He might’ve taught himself off the telly or something or even out of a book, but p’rhaps that wanker magician’d taught him the tricks, in which case Davey had prob’ly seen him more than once.

Andy sounded proud of this deduction and he looked round as if waiting for someone to shout, “Holmes, you amaze me.”

Instead, Lynley said, “Had you ever been to the magic stall before that day?”

Andy said, “No. I never. Never,” but as he spoke, he pressed his hands down into his crotch and held them there, and his glance went to Barbara’s biro.

Lying, she thought. She wondered why. “Do you like magic yourself, then, Andy?”

“’S all right. But not that baby stuff with balls an’ ropes. I like the sort makes jets disappear. Or tigers. Not th’ other shit.”

“Crickleworth,” Mr. Fairbairn said in warning.

Andy shot him a look. “Sorry. I don’t like the sort Davey did. Tha’s for little kids, innit. It don’t suit me.”

“But it suited Davey?” Lynley said.

“Davey,” Andy said, “was a little kid.”

Just the sort, Barbara thought, to appeal to a sod like Barry Minshall.

There was nothing more that Andy could tell them. They had what they needed: confirmation that Minshall and Davey Benton had had an interaction. Even if the magician claimed that his prints were on the handcuffs because they had belonged to him although he hadn’t seen Davey steal them off his stall, the police would be able to thwart him there. Not only had he seen Davey attempt to steal the handcuffs, but he’d also caught the boy in the act. As far as Barbara could see, they had Minshall coming and going.

As she and Lynley left the comprehensive, she said, “La-dee-dah-dah, Superintendent. Barry Minshall’s about to become our breakfast.”

“If it were only that easy.” Lynley’s voice sounded heavy, not at all as she’d expected it to sound.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Barbara asked him. “We’ve the kid’s statement now, and you know we can get the rest of Davey’s crew onboard if we need them. We’ve got the Indian woman putting Davey at Minshall’s flat, and his prints are going to be all over it. So I’d say things are looking up. What would you say?” She looked at him closely. “Has something else happened, sir?”

Lynley paused by his car. Hers was farther along the street. He didn’t say anything for a moment and she was wondering if he would when he uttered one word, “Sodomised.”

She said, “What?”

“Davey Benton was sodomised, Barbara.”

She muttered, “Hell. It’s just like he said.”

“Who?”

“Robson told us things would escalate. That whatever gave the killer his kicks at first would fail after a while. He’d need more. Now we know what it was.”

Lynley nodded. “We do.” Then he roused himself to add, “I couldn’t bring myself to tell the parents about it. I went to do so-they have a right to know what happened to their son-but when it came down to it…” He glanced away from her, across the street to an old-age pensioner who was hobbling along, pulling a wheeled grocery trolley behind him. “It was his father’s worst fear. I couldn’t realise it for him. I didn’t have the heart. They’re going to have to know eventually. If nothing else, it’ll come out during the trial. But when I looked at his face…” He shook his head. “I’m losing the will to keep doing this, Havers.”

Barbara found her Players and brought the packet out. She offered him one and hoped he’d hold firm and refuse, which he did. She lit up herself. The smell of burning tobacco was sharp and bitter in the cold winter air. “It doesn’t make you less of a cop,” she said, “just because you’ve become more of a human being.”

“It’s the marriage thing,” he said to her. “It’s the fatherhood business. It makes one feel-” He corrected himself. “It makes me feel too exposed. I see how fleeting life can be. It can go in an instant, and this…what you and I are doing…it underscores that. And…Barbara, here’s what I never expected to feel.”

“What?”

“That I can’t bear it. And that dragging someone by his bollocks to justice isn’t going to change that for me any longer.”