“I can arrange it. But where are you heading with this?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” St. James admitted. “But I think it might have to do with how the boys were subdued. There’s no trace of any drug from toxicology, so they weren’t sedated. There’s no evidence of a struggle prior to placing restraints round the wrists and ankles, so there wasn’t an initial assault. Assuming this isn’t some sort of S and M ritual-a young boy being seduced into kinky sex by an older man who murders him ahead of the sex act-”
“And we can’t discount that,” Lynley noted.
“Right. We can’t. But assuming this has no overt sexual component to it, then there has to be a way your killer is managing to tie them up prior to the torture and the killing.”
“These are streetwise kids,” Havers noted. “They’re not likely to have cooperated with some bloke wanting to tie them up for a lark.”
“That’s very much the case,” St. James agreed. “And the presence of this consistent wound suggests that the killer knew to expect that from the very first. So not only must there be a connection among all the victims-”
“Which we’ve already found,” Havers cut in. She was beginning to sound excited, which, Lynley knew, was never a good sign when it came to keeping her on track. “Simon, there’s an outreach group called Colossus. Do-gooders working with inner-city youth, kids at risk, young offenders. It’s near Elephant and Castle, and two of these dead kids were involved over there.”
“Two of the identified bodies,” Lynley corrected her. “One other identified body isn’t connected to Colossus. And there are others still not identified at all, Barbara.”
“Yeah, but I say this,” Havers argued, “dig through the records and find out which kids stopped showing up at Colossus round the time of those other deaths we’re dealing with and I’d say Bob’s your mum’s little brother when it comes to identifying the other bodies. This is a Colossus situation, sir. One of those blokes has got to be our man.”
“There’s a strong suggestion they knew their killer,” St. James said, as if in agreement with Havers. “There’s a good possibility that they trusted him as well.”
“And that’s another key to what goes on at Colossus,” Havers added. “Trust. Learning to trust. Sir, Griff Strong told me that’s even part of their assessment course. And he leads the trust games that some of them do together. Bloody hell, we ought to take a team over there and grill the hell out of him. And those three other blokes. Veness, Kilfolye, and Greenham. They’ve all got a connection to at least one of the victims. One of them’s dirty. I swear it.”
“That might be the case, and I appreciate your enthusiasm for the task,” Lynley said dryly. “But you’ve got an assignment already. Camden Lock Market, I believe.”
Havers had the grace to look chastened. She said, “Oh. Right.”
“So perhaps now would be a good time to do it?”
She didn’t appear pleased, but she didn’t argue. She got to her feet and plodded towards the door. “Good to see you, Simon,” she said to St. James. “Cheers.”
“And you,” St. James said as she left them. He turned back to Lynley. “Trouble on that front?”
“When is there anything else when it comes to Havers?”
“I’ve always thought you considered her worth it.”
“I do. She is. Generally.”
“Close to getting her rank back?”
“I’d give it back to her, despite her bloody-mindedness. But I’m not the one making the decision.”
“Hillier?”
“As ever.” Lynley leaned back in his chair and took off his glasses. “He pigeonholed me this morning before I even got to the lift. He’s been trying to run the investigation through the machinations of the Press Bureau, but the reporters aren’t being as cooperative as they were in the beginning, grateful for the coffee, croissants, and the scraps of information Hillier’s been supplying them. It seems they’ve put it all together now: three mixed-race boys murdered in a similar fashion prior to Kimmo Thorne, and so far no appearance on Crimewatch by anyone from the Met. What’s that about? they want to know. What does that say to the community about the relative importance of these deaths to others in which the victim was white, blond, blue-eyed, and decidedly Anglo-Saxon? They’re starting to ask the hard questions, and he’s ruing his decision not to fight to keep the Press Bureau at a greater distance in all this.”
“Hubris,” St. James noted.
“Someone’s hubris run amok,” Lynley added. “And things are about to get worse. The last murdered boy-Sean Lavery-was in care, living up in Swiss Cottage with a community-activist type who-Hillier told me-is having a press conference himself round noon today. One can only anticipate what that’s going to do to the collective blood lust of the media.”
“Making Hillier his usual pleasure to work with?”
“Amen. The pressure’s on everywhere.” Lynley looked at the photocopy of the alchemical sign, considering the possibilities it offered of shedding light on the situation. He said to St. James, “I’m going to make a phone call. I’d like you to listen in, if you’ve time.”
He looked for the number for Hamish Robson and found it on the cover sheet of the report that the profiler had given him. When he had Robson on the phone, he switched it to the speaker and introduced him to St. James. He went through the information that St. James had provided, and to this he added an acknowledgement of Robson’s prescience: He told him the killer had been in contact.
“Has he indeed?” Robson said. “By phone? By post?”
Lynley read him the note. He said, “We’re concluding that the purification symbol on the forehead and the burning of the hands are connected. And we’ve tracked down some information on ambergris oil, which was found on the bodies. Evidently, it’s used for works of wrath or vengeance.”
“Wrath, vengeance, purity, and salvation,” Robson said. “I’d say he’s broadcasting his message fairly clearly, wouldn’t you?”
“There’s thought here that this is all coming from an outreach programme across the river,” Lynley said. “It’s called Colossus. They work with troubled youth. Do you want to add anything at this point?”
There was silence for a moment as Robson thought this over. He finally said, “We know he’s above average intelligence, but he’s frustrated that the world doesn’t see his potential. If you’ve come close to him in the investigation, he’s not going to put a foot wrong to let you get any nearer. So if he’s taking boys from one source-”
“Like Colossus,” Lynley added.
“Yes. If he’s taking boys from Colossus, I very much doubt he’ll carry on doing so when he sees you there asking questions.”
“Are you saying the killings themselves will stop?”
“They might. But only for a time. Killing provides him too much gratification to stop entirely, Superintendent. The compulsion to kill and the pleasure it yields will always overwhelm the fear of capture. But I expect he’ll take far more care now. He may change ground, move farther afield.”
“If he thinks the police are closing in,” St. James said, “why get in touch by post?”
“Ah, that’s part of the psychopath’s sense of invincibility, Mr. St. James,” Robson said. “It’s evidence of what he sees as his omnipotence.”
“The sort of thing that leads to his downfall?” St. James said.
“The sort of thing that convinces him he can’t make the one mistake that will doom him. It’s rather like Brady attempting to bring the brother-in-law into the fun and games: He thinks he’s so mighty a force of personality that no one who knows him would think of turning him in, let alone dare to do it. It’s the great flaw in the psychopath’s already flawed personality. Your killer in this case believes you can’t touch him no matter how close you get. He’ll ask you outright what evidence you have against him should you question him, and he’s going to be careful not to give you any henceforth.”