Lynley said, “May we see your son’s bedroom, Mr. Benton?”

“Why?”

“There might be some indication where he’s gone off to,” Havers said. “Sometimes kids don’t tell their parents everything. If there’s a mate you don’t know about…”

Max exchanged a look with his wife. It was the first time he’d seemed anything but master of the family. Bev nodded encouragingly. Max told Lynley and Havers to come with him, then.

He took them upstairs where three bedrooms opened onto a simple square landing. In one of the rooms, two sets of bunk beds stood against opposite walls, a chest of drawers between them. Over one of the bed sets a shelf high on the wall held a collection of CDs and a small, neat stack of baseball caps. Beneath the upper bed, the lower one had been removed altogether and in its place a private lair had been fashioned. Part of it was given over to clothes: baggy trousers, trainers, jumpers, and T-shirts featuring graphics of the American rap artists Bev Benton had spoken about. Part of it contained a set of cheap metal bookshelves that, upon inspection, held all fantasy novels. At the far end of the lair stood a small chest of drawers. All of this, Max Benton told them, was Davey’s.

As Lynley and Havers ducked within, each of them making for a different part, Max said in a voice no longer authoritarian but instead desperate and very much afraid, “You got to tell me. Wouldn’t be here, would you, unless there was something more. Course I see why you di’n’t want to say in front of the wife and the little ones. But now…They would’ve sent uniforms, not you lot.”

Lynley had slid his hands into the pockets of the first pair of trousers as Max Benton was speaking. He stopped, though, and came back out of the lair as Havers continued searching within it. He said, “You’re right. We have a body, Mr. Benton. It was found in Queen’s Wood, not far from Highgate station.”

Max Benton sagged a little, but he waved Lynley off when Lynley would have taken his arm and led him to the lower of the two beds across the room. He said, “Davey?”

“We’re going to ask you to look at the body. It’s the only way to be absolutely sure. I’m terribly sorry.”

He said again, “Davey?”

“Mr. Benton, it may not be Davey.”

“But you think…Else why would you be troubling to come up here wanting to see his things?”

“Sir…” From within the lair, Havers spoke. Lynley turned to see that she was holding out something for his inspection. It was a set of handcuffs, but not ordinary ones. They were not metal but formed from heavy plastic and in the dim light beneath the upper mattress, the handcuffs glowed. Havers said, “Could be-” But she was cut off by Max Benton, who said harshly, “I told him to return them things. He said he did. Swore to me because he di’n’t want me taking him along to make sure he handed them over.”

“To who?” Havers asked.

“He got ’em off a stall in the Stables Market, di’n’t he. Over by Camden Lock. He said they were a present from a vendor there, but what vendor hands out goods to kids hanging about, you tell me. So I reckoned he nicked them and I told him to take them back straightaway. Little bugger must’ve hid them instead.”

“What stall in the market? Did he tell you?” Lynley asked.

“Magic stall, he said. I don’t know the bloke’s name. He never said and I di’n’t ask. I just told him to take the handcuffs back and to bloody well stop pinching clobber not belonging to him.”

“Magic stall?” Barbara Havers asked. “Are you sure about that, Mr. Benton?”

“That’s what he said.”

Havers came out of the lair then. She said to Lynley, “Could I have a word, sir?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. She left the bedroom and went onto the landing.

She said to Lynley in a quiet, terse voice, “Bloody hell. I may’ve been wrong. Tunnel vision. Whatever you want to call it.”

“Havers, this isn’t the moment for sharing your epiphanies,” Lynley said.

“Wait. I’ve been thinking all along of Colossus. But I never thought of magic. What kid fifteen and under doesn’t like magic? No. Sir. Wait-” as Lynley was about to leave her to her stream-of-consciousness monologue. “Wendy’s Cloud is in Camden Lock Market, right next door to the Stables. Now, she’s hopped up on something much of the time and she can’t say what she’s selling or when she’s selling it. But she’s carried ambergris oil in the past-we know that-and when I finished talking to her the other day and was hiking back to my car, I saw this bloke at the Stables…”

“What bloke?”

“He was unloading boxes. He was taking them into a magic stall or something like a magic stall and he was a magician. That’s what he said. There can’t be more than one of them at the Stables, can there? And listen to this, sir. He was driving a van.”

“Red?”

“Purple. But in the light of a streetlamp at three A.M. or whenever…You’re at your window. You catch a glimpse. You don’t even think about it because, after all, this is a huge city we’re talking about and why would you think you were meant to notice everything about it if a van’s on the street at three A.M.?”

“Lettering on the van?”

“Yeah. It was a magician advert.”

“That’s not what we’re looking for, Havers. That’s not what we saw on the CCTV tape from St. George’s Gardens.”

“But we don’t know what that van was, the St. George’s Gardens one. It could have been the warden opening up. Or someone there to make a repair.”

“At three in the morning? Carrying a suspicious-looking tool that very well could have cut the lock from the gate? Havers-”

“Just hang on. Please. For all we know that could have a logical explanation that’ll be sorted out in another hour. Bloody hell, the bloke could’ve had legitimate business in the garden and what you thought was a tool was something to do with that business. He could have been doing anything: making a repair, taking a piss, making an early newspaper delivery, testing out a new sort of milk float. Anything. My point is…”

“All right. Yes. I see.”

She went on as if Lynley were still not onboard. “And I talked to this bloke. This magician. I saw him. So if this body in Queen’s Wood is Davey and if this bloke I saw is the one who had the handcuffs nicked by Davey…” She let him finish her thought.

Which he did, in short order. “He damn well better have an alibi for last night. Yes, all right, Barbara. I see how you’re putting it together.”

“And it’s him, sir. Davey. You know it.”

“The body? Yes. I think it is. But we can’t go further without the formality. I’ll deal with that.”

“And sh’ll I…?”

“Get on to the Stables Market. Make the connection between Davey and this magician if you can. Once you do that, get him in for questioning.”

“I think we’ve got our first real break, sir.”

“I hope you’re right,” Lynley replied.