The night clerk added that the identity of the boys changed and the identity of the men booking the room changed, but the man who coupled them was always the same: the albino from the picture that the police had with them.

“That is all he knows,” Tatlises finished.

Barbara showed the night clerk the sketches again. Was the man who booked the room either of these two blokes? she wanted to know.

Selçuk studied them and chose the younger of the two. “Maybe,” he said. “It is something like.”

They had the confirmation they needed: Minshall was apparently telling the truth insofar as the Canterbury Hotel went. So there was a slim hope that the hotel itself still had more it could reveal. Lynley asked to see room 39.

“There will be nothing,” Tatlises said hastily. “It has been thoroughly cleaned. As is every room once it has been used.”

Lynley was firm on this point, however, and they descended a floor, leaving Selçuk behind them to return to his sleep. Tatlises brought a master key from his pocket and admitted Lynley and Havers to the room in which Davey Benton had met his killer.

It was a dismal enough chamber of seduction. A double bed was its centrepiece, covered with the sort of quilted floral counterpane that would hide a multitude of mankind’s transgressions, from liquids spilt to bodily fluids leaked. Against one wall, a blond wooden chest served double duty as a desk, with a kneehole into which a mismatched chair was thrust. On top of this, a plastic tray held the requisite tea-making equipment, with a grubby tin pot to use for the brew and a grubbier electric kettle for boiling the water. Dingy curtains covered the single transom window, and brown fitted carpet bore streaks and stains, stretching across the floor.

“The Savoy must be in real agony over the competition,” Barbara remarked.

Lynley said, “We’ll want SOCO over here. I want a thorough going-over.”

Tatlises protested. “This room has been cleaned. You will find nothing. And nothing occurred in here that-”

Lynley swung on him. “I don’t particularly care to have your opinion at this point,” he said. “And I suggest you don’t care to give it.” And to Barbara, “Phone SOCO. Stay in this room till they get here. Then get whatever registration card was signed for this”-he seemed to seek a word-“place and check the address on it. Put Earl’s Court Road into the picture about everything going on here, if they aren’t already. Talk to their chief super. No one less.”

Barbara nodded. She felt a rush of pleasure, both at the sensation of progress being made and at the responsibility given her. It was almost like old times.

She said, “Right, will do, sir,” and took out her mobile as he directed Tatlises from the room.

LYNLEY STOOD outside the hotel. He tried to shake off the sensation that they were blindly swinging their fists at an enemy more adept at dodging than they were at forcing him into submission.

He phoned Chelsea. St. James would have had time to read and to assess the next group of reports he’d sent over to Cheyne Row. Perhaps, Lynley thought, there would be something uplifting he had to share. But instead of his old friend answering, it was Deborah’s voice Lynley heard. No one at home. Leave a message at the tone, please.

Lynley rang off without doing so. He phoned his friend’s mobile next and had luck there. St. James answered. He was just heading into a meeting with his banker, he said. Yes, he’d read the reports and there were two interesting details… Could Lynley meethim in…what, about half an hour? He was up in Sloane Square.

Arrangements made, Lynley set off. By car, he was five minutes from the square if traffic was moving. It was, and he wove down towards the river. He came at the King’s Road from Sloane Avenue and chugged up to the square in the wake of a number 11 bus. The pavements were crowded with shoppers at this time of day, as was the Oriel Brasserie, where he took timely possession of a table the size of a fifty-pence coin just as three women with approximately twenty-five shopping bags were leaving it.

He ordered coffee and waited for St. James to conclude his business. His table was one in the Oriel’s front window, so he would be able to see his friend as he crossed the square and came down the neat, tree-lined walk that stretched past the Venus fountain to the war memorial. Right now, the centre of the square was empty save for pigeons that were scouting round for crumbs beneath the benches.

Lynley took a call from Nkata while he waited. Jack Veness had provided a friend to corroborate whatever alibi he chose to come up with, and Neil Greenham had latched on to his solicitor. The DS had left word for both Kilfoyle and Strong to phone him, but they’d no doubt hear from their mates at Colossus that alibis were being asked for, which would give both of them plenty of time to cook some up before speaking again to the cops.

Lynley told Nkata to carry on as best he could, and he picked up his coffee and downed it in three gulps. Scalding hot, it attacked his throat like a surgeon. Which was fine, he thought.

At last he saw St. James coming across the square. Lynley turned and ordered a second coffee for himself and one for his friend. The drinks arrived as did St. James, who shed his overcoat by the door and worked his way over to Lynley.

“Lord Asherton at rest,” St. James said with a smile as he pulled out a chair and carefully folded himself into it.

Lynley grimaced. “You’ve seen the paper.”

“It was hard to avoid.” St. James reached for the sugar and began his usual process of rendering his coffee undrinkable for any other human being. “Your photo is making quite a statement on the newsstands round the square.”

“With follow-ups to come,” Lynley said, “if Corsico and his editor have their way.”

“What sort of follow-ups?” St. James went for the milk next, just a dollop, after which he began stirring his brew.

“They’ve apparently heard from Nies. Up in Yorkshire.”

St. James looked up. He’d been smiling, but now his face was grave. “You can’t want that.”

“What I want is to keep them away from the rest of the squad. Particularly from Winston. They’ve set their sights on him next.”

“With you willing to have your dirty linen aired for public consumption instead? Not a good idea, Tommy. Not fair on you and certainly not fair on Judith. Or Stephanie, if it comes to that.”

His sister, his niece, Lynley thought. They shared in the story of the Yorkshire murder that had taken husband from one and father from the other. What rained on him as he tried to protect his team from exposure rained on his relations as well.

“I don’t see any way round it. I’ll have to warn them it’s coming. I daresay they can cope. They’ve been through it before.”

St. James was frowning down at his coffee. He shook his head. “Put them on to me, Tommy.”

“You?”

“It’ll work to keep them away from Yorkshire for a time and from Winston as well. I’m part of the team, if only tangentially. Play me up and set them on me.”

“You can’t want that.”

“I’m not enthusiastic about it. But you can’t want them delving into your sister’s marriage. In this way, they’d only be delving into-“

“Driving drunk and crippling you.” Lynley pushed his coffee away. “Christ but I’ve cocked so many things up.”

“Not this,” St. James said. “We were both drunk. Let’s not forget that. And anyway, I doubt your reporter from The Source will even touch upon the subject of my…physical situation, let’s call it. He’ll be too politically correct. Unseemly to mention it: Why d’you happen to be wearing that appliance on your leg, sir? It’s akin to asking someone when he stopped beating his wife. And anyway, if they do get on to it, I was out carousing with a friend and this is the result. An object lesson for today’s wild adolescents. End of story.”