“This,” Lynley said, “is not going to be my métier.”

“Oh, the plans are laid,” Deborah told him. “You’re only going to need to hand over the Sellotape and press where indicated. It shouldn’t defeat you. I’ve started with the yellow, but there’s green and white to add.”

“Those are the colours Helen’s chosen…” Lynley stopped. “Is this for her? For us? By any chance?”

“How vulgar, Tommy,” Deborah said. “I never saw you as someone who’d hint round for a present. Here, take this ribbon. I’m going to need three lengths of forty inches each. How’s work, by the way? Is that why you’ve come? I expect you’re wanting Simon.”

“Peach will do. Where is she?”

“Walkies,” Deborah said. “Rather reluctant walkies because of the weather. Dad’s taken her, but I expect they’re battling it out somewhere to see who’s going to walk and who’s going to get carried. You didn’t see them?”

“Not a sign.”

“Peach has probably won, then. I expect they’ve gone into the pub.”

Lynley watched as Deborah coiled the lengths of ribbon together. She was concentrating on her design, which gave him a chance to concentrate on her, his onetime lover, the woman who’d been meant to be his wife. She’d found herself face-to-face with a killer recently, and she still hadn’t healed completely from the stitches that had patched up her face. A scar from the sutures ran along her jaw and, typical of Deborah-who’d always been a woman almost completely devoid of ordinary vanity-she was doing nothing to hide it.

She looked up and caught him observing her. “What?” she said.

“I love you,” he told her frankly. “Differently from before. But there it is.”

Her features softened. “And I love you, Tommy. We’ve crossed over, haven’t we? New territory but still somehow familiar.”

“That’s exactly how it is.”

They heard footsteps then, coming along the corridor, and the uneven nature of them identified Deborah’s husband. He came to the door of the dining room with a stack of large photographs in his hands. He said, “Tommy. Hullo. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“No Peach,” Deborah and Lynley said together, then laughed companionably.

“I knew that dog was good for something.” Simon St. James came to the table and laid the photographs down. “It wasn’t an easy choice,” he told his wife.

St. James was referring to the photographs which, as far as Lynley could see, were all of the same subject: a windmill in a landscape comprising field, trees, background hillsides, and foreground cottage tumbling to ruins. He said, “May I…,” and when Deborah nodded, he looked at the pictures more closely. The exposure, he saw, was slightly different in each, but what was remarkable about them all was the manner in which the photographer had managed to catch all the variations of light and dark while at the same time not losing the definition of a single subject.

“I’ve gone for the one where you’ve enhanced the moonlight on the windmill’s sails,” St. James told his wife.

“I thought that was the best one as well. Thank you, love. Always my best critic.” She completed her task with the bow and had Lynley assist with the Sellotape. When she was done, she stood back to admire her work, after which she took a sealed envelope from the sideboard and slipped it into place on the package. She handed it over to Lynley. “With our fondest wishes, Tommy,” she said. “Truly and completely.”

Lynley knew the journey Deborah had traveled in order to be able to say those words. Having a child of her own was something denied her.

“Thank you.” He found that his voice was rougher than usual. “Both of you.”

There was a moment of silence among them, which St. James broke by saying lightly, “A drink is in order, I think.”

Deborah said she would join them as soon as she’d sorted out the mess she’d made in the dining room. St. James led Lynley from there to his study, just along the corridor and overlooking the street. Lynley fetched his briefcase from the entry then, leaving the wrapped package in its place. When he joined his old friend, St. James was at the drinks cart beneath the window, a decanter in his hand.

“Sherry?” he said. “Whisky?”

“Have you gone through all the Lagavullin yet?”

“Too hard to come by. I’m pacing myself.”

“I’ll assist you.”

St. James poured them both a whisky and added a sherry for Deborah, which he left on the cart. He joined Lynley by the fireplace and eased himself into one of the two old leather chairs to one side of it, something of an awkward business for him, owing to the brace he’d worn for years on his left leg.

He said, “I picked up an Evening Standard this afternoon. It looks like a messy business, Tommy, if my reading between the lines is any good.”

“So you know why I’ve come.”

“Who’s working on the case with you?”

“The usual suspects. I’m after clearance to add to the team. Hillier will give it, reluctantly, but what choice has he? We’re going to need fifty officers, but we’ll be lucky to end up with thirty. Will you help?”

“You expect Hillier to give clearance for me?”

“I’ve a feeling he’ll greet you with open arms. We need your expertise, Simon. And the Press Bureau will be only too happy to have Hillier announcing to the media the inclusion of independent forensic scientist Simon Allcourt-St. James, formerly of the Metropolitan police, now an expert witness, university lecturer, public speaker, et cetera. Just the sort of thing to restore public confidence. But don’t let that pressure you.”

“What would you have me do? My crime-scene days are far and away gone. And God willing, you won’t have further crime scenes anyway.”

“You’d consult. I won’t lie to you and say it wouldn’t impinge on everything else you have on your plate. But I’d try to keep the requests to a minimum.”

“Let me see what you have, then. You’ve brought copies of everything?”

Lynley opened his briefcase and handed over what he’d gathered before leaving Scotland Yard. St. James set the paperwork to one side and went through the photographs. He whistled silently. When he looked up at last, he said to Lynley, “They didn’t jump to serial killing at once?”

“So you see the problem.”

“But these have all the hallmarks of a ritual. The burnt hands alone…”

“Just on the final three.”

“Still, with the similarities all along in the positioning of the bodies, they’re as good as advertising themselves as serial killings.”

“For the latest one-the body in St. George’s Gardens?-the DCI on scene marked it as a serial killing at once.”

“As to the others?”

“Each body was left on the patch of a different station. In every case, they appear to have gone through the motions of an investigation, but it seems it was easy to call each of them a one-off crime. Gang related because of the race of the victims. Gang related because of the condition of the bodies. Marked in some way with the signature of a gang. As a warning to others.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“I’m not excusing it.”

“It’s a PR nightmare for the Met, I daresay.”

“Yes. Will you help?”

“Can you fetch my glass from the desk? It’s in the top drawer.”

Lynley did so. A chamois pouch held the magnifying glass, and he brought this to his friend and watched while St. James studied the photographs of the corpses more closely. He spent the most time over the recent crime, and he gazed long upon the face of the victim before he spoke. Even then it seemed he spoke more to himself than to Lynley.

“The abdominal incision on the final body is obviously postmortem,” he said. “But the burning of the hands…?”

“Before death,” Lynley agreed.

“That makes it very interesting, doesn’t it?” St. James looked up for a moment, thoughtfully, his gaze on the window, before he examined victim four another time. “He’s not particularly good with the knife. No indecision about where to cut, but surprised to discover it wasn’t easy.”