“That Daniel needs-”

“No. All of it, Yas. Beginning to end.”

He still stood a distance from her, but he thought he could see the muscles move in her smooth dark neck as she swallowed. He thought he could see her heart beat in the vein on her temple as well. But he knew he was trying to think things into a reality defined by his hopes. Let it go, he told himself. Let it be what it is.

“What d’you want now, then?” Yasmin finally asked him. She returned to the beauty chair and picked up the two remaining wigs, holding one under each arm.

Nkata shrugged. “Nothing,” he said.

“An’ that’s the truth?”

“You,” he said. “All right. You. But I don’t know if tha’s even the truth, which is why I don’t want to say it out loud. In bed? Yeah. I want you like that. In bed. With me. But everything else? I don’t know. So tha’s the truth, and it’s what you’re owed. You always deserved it, but you never got it. Not from your husband and not from Katja. I don’t know if you’re even getting it from your current man, but you’re getting it from me. So there was you first an’ foremost in my eyes. And there was Daniel afterwards. An’ it’s never been as simple as you thinking I’m using Dan to get to you, Yasmin. Nothin’ is ever simple as that.”

Everything was said. He felt empty of nearly all that he was: poured onto the lino at her feet. She could step right through him or sweep him up and dump him in the street or…anything, really. He was bare and helpless as the day he’d been born.

They stared at each other. He felt the wanting as he’d not felt it before, as if stating it blatantly had increased it tenfold till it gnawed at him like an animal chewing from the inside out.

Then she spoke. Two words only and at first he didn’t know what she meant. “What man?”

“What?” His lips were dry.

“What current man? You said my current man.”

“That bloke. The last time I was here.”

She frowned. She looked towards the window as if seeing a reflection of the past in the glass. Then back at him. She said, “Lloyd Burnett.”

“You di’n’t say his name. He came in-”

“To get his wife’s wig,” she said.

He said, “Oh,” and felt a perfect fool.

His mobile rang then, which saved him from having to say anything more. He flipped it open, said, “Hang on,” into it, and used the blessed intervention as a means to his escape. He took out one of his cards and he approached Yasmin. She didn’t raise the wig stands to defend herself. She wore only a jersey on top-no pocket available-so he slid his card into the front pocket of her jeans. He was careful not to touch her any more than that.

He said, “I got to take this call. Someday, Yas, I hope it’s you ringing.” He was closer to her than she’d ever let him get. He could smell her scent. He could sense her fear.

He thought, Yas, but he didn’t say it. He left the shop and went towards his car, drawing the mobile to his ear.

THE VOICE ON the phone was unfamiliar to him, as was the name. “It’s Gigi,” a young woman said. “You told me to ring you?”

He said, “Who?”

She said, “Gigi. From Gabriel’s Wharf? Crystal Moon?”

The association brought him round quick enough, for which he was grateful. He said, “Gigi. Right. Yeah. Wha’s happened?”

“Robbie Kilfoyle’s been in.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “He made a purchase.”

“You got paperwork on it?”

“I got the till receipt. Right here in front of me.”

“Hang on to it,” Nkata told her. “I’m on my way.”

LYNLEY SENT the message to Mitchell Corsico immediately after he talked to St. James: The investigation’s independent forensic specialist would make a fine second profile for The Source, he told him. Not only was he an international expert witness and a lecturer at the Royal College of Science, but he and Lynley shared a personal history that began at Eton and had spanned the years since then. Did Corsico think a conversation with St. James would be profitable? He did, and Lynley gave the reporter Simon’s contact number. This would be enough to remove Corsico, his Stetson, and his cowboy boots from sight, Lynley hoped. It would keep the rest of the investigation’s team out of the reporter’s mind, as well. At least for a time.

He returned to Victoria Street then, details from the past several hours roiling round in his head. He kept going back to one of them, one offered by Havers in their phone conversation.

The name on the letting agreement at the estate agency-the only name aside from Barry Minshall’s that they could associate with MABIL-was J. S. Mill, Havers had told him. He’d supplied the rest, although she’d already got there: J. S. Mill. John Stuart Mill, if one wished to continue the theme set up at the Canterbury Hotel.

Lynley wanted to think that it was all part of a literary joke-wink wink, nudge nudge-among the members of the organisation of paedophiles. Sort of a slap in the collective face of the unwashed, unread, and uneducated general public. Oscar Wilde on the registration card at the Canterbury Hotel. J. S. Mill on the letting agreement with Taverstock & Percy. God only knew who else they would find on other documents relating to MABIL. A. A. Milne, possibly. G. K. Chesterton. A. C. Doyle. The possibilities were endless.

So, for that matter, were the million and one coincidences that happened every day. But still the name remained, taunting him. J. S. Mill. Catch me if you can. John Stuart Mill. John Stuart. John Stewart.

There was no use denying it to himself: Lynley had felt a quivering in his palms when Havers had said the name. That quivering translated to the questions that police work-not to mention life itself-always prompted the wise man to ask. How well do we ever know anyone? How often do we let outward appearances-including speech and behaviour-define our conclusions about individuals?

I don’t need to tell you what this means, do I? Lynley could still see the grave concern on St. James’s face.

Lynley’s answer had taken him places he didn’t want to go. No. You don’t need to tell me a thing.

What it all really meant was asking that the cup be passed along to someone else, but that wasn’t going to happen. He was in too far, truly “steep’d in blood so deep,” and he couldn’t retrace a single one of his steps. He had to see the investigation through to its conclusion, no matter where each single branch of it led. And there was decidedly more than one branch to this matter. That was becoming obvious.

A compulsive personality, yes, he thought. Driven by demons? He did not know. That restlessness, the occasional anger, the ill-chosen word. How had the news been received when Lynley-ahead of everyone else-had been handed the superintendent’s position after Webberly was struck down in the street? Congratulations? No one congratulated anyone over anything in those days that had followed Webberly’s attempted murder. And who would have thought to, with the superintendent fighting for his life and everyone else trying to find his assailant? So it was not important. It meant absolutely nothing. Someone had to step in, and he’d been tapped to do it. And it wasn’t permanent, so it could hardly have been an important enough detail to make anyone want…decide…be pushed to…No.

Yet everything took him back inexorably to his earliest days among his fellow officers: the distance they’d originally placed between themselves and him who would never be one of the lads, not really. No matter what he did to level the playing field, there would always be what they knew about him: the title, the land, the public school voice, the wealth and the assumed privilege it brought, and who bloody cared except everyone did at the end of the day and everyone probably always would.

But anything more than that-dislike evolving to grudging acceptance and respect-was impossible to consider. It was disloyal, even, to entertain such thoughts. It was divisive and nonproductive, surely.