He didn’t want to think. He couldn’t think. He looked at her and felt like wood.

The Belgravia man stood. “Superintendent Lynley?”

Lynley nodded.

“She’s in the operating theatre, Tommy,” Deborah said.

Lynley nodded again. All he could do was nod. He wanted to shake her, he wanted to rattle the teeth in her head. His brain shouted that it was not her fault, how could it be this poor woman’s fault, but he needed to blame, he wanted to blame, and there was no one else, not yet, not here, not now…

He said, “Tell me.”

Her eyes filled.

The detective-somewhere Lynley heard him say his name was Fire…Terence Fire, but that couldn’t be right because what sort of name was Fire, after all?-said that the case was well in hand, he was not to worry, all stops were being pulled out because the entire station knew not only what had happened but who she was, who the victim-

“Don’t call her that,” Lynley said.

“We’ll be in close contact,” Terence Fire said. And then, “Sir…If I may…I am so terribly-”

“Yes,” Lynley said.

The detective left them. The constables remained.

Lynley turned to Deborah as St. James sat next to her. “What happened?” he asked her.

“She asked would I park the Bentley. She’d been driving, but it was cold and she’d got tired.”

“You’d done too much. If you hadn’t done too much…those God damn bloody christening clothes…”

A snaking tear spilled over the rim of Deborah’s eye. She brushed it away. She said, “We stopped and unloaded the parcels. She asked me to take care parking the car because…You know how Tommy loves his car, she said. If we put a scratch on it, he’ll have us both for dinner. Watch the left side of the garage, she said. So I took care. I’d never driven…You see, it’s so big and it took me more than one try to get it into the garage…But not five minutes, Tommy, not that even. And I assumed she’d go straight into the house or ring the bell for Denton-”

“He’s gone to New York,” Lynley said, unnecessarily. “He isn’t there, Deborah.”

“She didn’t tell me. I didn’t know. And I didn’t think…Tommy, it’s Belgravia, it’s safe, it’s-”

“No where is God damn safe.” His voice sounded savage. He saw St. James stir. His old friend raised a hand: a warning, a request. He didn’t know nor did he care. There was only Helen. He said, “I’m in the middle of an investigation. Multiple murders. A single killer. Where in the name of heaven did you get the idea any place on earth is safe?”

Deborah took the question like a blow. St. James said his name, but she stopped him with a movement of her head. She said, “I parked the car. I walked back along the mews.”

“You didn’t hear-”

“I didn’t hear a sound. I came round the corner back into Eaton Terrace and what I saw was the shopping bags. They were spread on the ground, and then I saw her. She was crumpled…I thought she’d fainted, Tommy. There was no one there, no one nearby, not a single soul. I thought she’d fainted.”

“I told you to be sure no one-”

“I know,” she said, “I know. I know. But what was I meant to make of that? I thought of flu, someone sneezing in her face, Tommy being a fuss pot husband because I didn’t understand, don’t you see that, Tommy? How would I know because this is Helen we’re talking about and this is Belgravia where it’s supposed to be…and a gun, why would I ever think of a gun?”

She began to weep in earnest then, and St. James told her that she’d said enough. But Lynley knew she never could have said enough to explain how his wife, how the woman he loved…

He said, “What then?”

St. James said, “Tommy…”

Deborah said, “No. Simon. Please.” And then to Lynley, “She was on the top step and her door key was in her hand. I tried to rouse her. I thought she’d fainted because there was no blood, Tommy. There was no blood. Not like what you would think if someone is…I’d never seen…I didn’t know…But then she moaned and I could tell something was terribly wrong. I phoned triple nine and then I cradled her to keep her warm and that’s when…On my hand, there was blood. I thought I’d cut myself at first and I looked for where and how but I saw it wasn’t me and I thought the baby, but her legs, Helen’s legs…I mean, there was no blood where one would think…And this was a different sort of blood anyway, it looked different because I know, you see, Tommy…”

Even in his own despair, Lynley felt hers, and that was what finally got through to him. She would know what the blood of a miscarriage looked like. She’d suffered how many…? He didn’t know. He sat, not next to Deborah and her husband, but across, on the chair that Terence Fire had been using.

He said, “You thought she’d lost the baby.”

“At first. But then I finally saw the blood on her coat. High up, here.” She indicated a spot beneath her left breast. “I phoned triple nine again and I said, There’s blood, there’s blood. Hurry. But the police got there first.”

“Twenty minutes,” Lynley said. “Twenty God damn minutes.”

“I phoned three times,” Deborah told him. “Where are they, I asked. She’s bleeding. She’s bleeding. But I still didn’t know she’d been shot, you see. Tommy, if I’d known…If I’d told them that…Because I didn’t think, not in Belgravia…Tommy, who would shoot someone in Belgravia?”

Lovely wife, Superintendent. The sodding profile in The Source. Complete with photographs of the smiling superintendent of police and his charming wife. Titled bloke, he was, not your garden variety sort of cop at all.

Lynley rose blindly. He would find him. He would find him.

St. James said, “Tommy, no. Let the Belgravia police…” And only then did Lynley realise he’d said it aloud.

“I can’t,” he said.

“You must. You’re needed here. She’ll come out of theatre. They’ll want to speak to you. She’s going to need you.”

Lynley headed in the direction of the door but this, apparently, was why the uniformed constables had been hanging about. They stopped him, saying, “It’s in hand, sir. It’s top priority. It’s well in hand,” and by that time St. James had reached his side as well.

He said, “Come with me, Tommy. We won’t leave you,” and the kindness in his voice felt like a crushing weight on Lynley’s chest.

He gasped for breath, for something to cling to. He said, “My God. I’ve got to phone her parents, Simon. How am I going to tell them what’s happened?”

BARBARA FOUND that she couldn’t bring herself to leave even as she told herself she wasn’t needed and probably wasn’t wanted either. People milled about everywhere, each one of them in a personal hell of waiting.

Helen Lynley’s parents, the earl and countess of whatever because Barbara couldn’t remember if she’d ever heard the title so many generations in their family, were huddled in misery and they looked frail, more than seventy years old and unprepared to face what they were facing now.

Helen’s sister Penelope rushing in from Cambridge with her husband at her side, tried to comfort them after herself crying out, “How is she? Mum, my God, how is she? Where’s Cybil? Is Daphne on her way?”

They all were, all four of Helen’s sisters, including Iris on her way from America.

And Lynley’s mother was tearing up from Cornwall with her younger son, while his sister hurried down from Yorkshire.

Family, Barbara thought. She was neither needed nor wanted here. But she could not bring herself to leave.

Others had come and gone: Winston Nkata, John Stewart, other members of the team, uniformed constables and plainclothes officers whom Lynley had worked with through the years. Cops were checking in from stations in every borough in town. Everyone save Hillier had seemed to put in an appearance during the course of the night.

Barbara herself had arrived after the worst sort of journey from North London. Her car had refused to start at first up on Wood Lane, and she’d flooded its engine in a panic trying to get the bloody thing running. She’d sworn at the car. She’d vowed to reduce the Mini to rubble. She’d strangled the steering wheel. She’d phoned for help. She’d finally got the engine to sputter into life, and she’d sat on the horn trying to clear traffic out of the way.