“Is that working for him?”

Heinrich chuckled. “Not yet. But that’s not kept the lad from trying. He wants to own a boutique hotel, just like this place. But he wants someone else to buy it for him.”

“He’s looking for a great deal of money, then.”

“That’s Frazer.”

Lynley thought about this and how it related to the truths Jemima had wished to speak. To a man hoping for money from a woman, the message that she wouldn’t be handing it over to him would indeed be a very hard truth. As would be the possible truth that she wanted nothing more to do with him because she’d discovered he was after her money…if she had money in the first place. But again, and maddeningly, there were other truths when it came to Jemima. To Paolo di Fazio there was a hard truth that might have been told: that she was going to take up life with Frazer Chaplin despite Paolo’s feelings for her. As to everyone from Abbott Langer to Yukio Matsumoto, doubtless a little delving was going to reveal truths everywhere needing to be spoken.

Lynley did the maths on the time of Frazer Chaplin’s daily arrival in the bar of Duke’s Hotel: The Irishman had ninety minutes between the hour he left the ice rink and when he began work at this location. Was it time enough to race up to Stoke Newington, murder Jemima Hastings, and get to his second job? Lynley didn’t see how. Not only had Abbott Langer suggested that the man went to Putney before heading to Duke’s, but even had that not been the case, the London traffic would have made it next to impossible. And Lynley couldn’t see the killer getting to that cemetery on public transport.

When Frazer Chaplin arrived at Duke’s, Lynley had the uneasy feeling he’d seen the man before. Exactly where he’d seen him hovered on the edge of his consciousness, but for the moment he couldn’t insert the face into a location. He thought about where he’d been in recent days, but nothing clicked. He let it go for the moment.

He was no judge of male looks, but he could see Chaplin’s appeal to women who liked their men dark and edgy, possessing an air of danger, a cross between a modern-day Heathcliff and Sweeney Todd. He wore a cream jacket and white shirt with a red bow tie over his dark trousers, an outfit giving reasonable testimony to why he would want to change his clothes at home and not carry them round with him or leave them at the ice rink. Like Abbott Langer, his hair verged on black, but unlike Langer’s it was styled more in keeping with the times. It looked newly washed and he appeared to be freshly shaven. His hands looked manicured as well, and he wore an opal ring on his left ring finger.

He joined Lynley at once, having been given the word by the bartender. Lynley had taken a table quite near to the gleaming mahogany bar, and Frazer dropped into one of the chairs, extended his hand, and said, “Heinrich tells me you’d like a word? Have you something new to ask me? I’ve spoken to some other coppers already.”

Lynley introduced himself and said, “You appear to be the last person to speak to Jemima Hastings, Mr. Chaplin.”

Chaplin replied in his lilting accent, which, Lynley noted, would likely have appealed to the ladies as much as Frazer’s tough masculinity, “Do I, now,” but he made it a statement and not a question. “And how would you reckon that, Inspector?”

“From her mobile phone records,” Lynley told him.

“Ah,” he said. “Well, I expect the very last person to speak to Jemima would be the bloke who killed her, unless she was jumped on without preliminaries.”

“She seems to have phoned you a number of times in the hours leading up to her death. She phoned Abbott Langer as well, looking for you, according to him. Abbott seems to feel she was romantically involved with you, and he isn’t the only person to make that observation.”

“Would I be wrong to expect the other person is one Paolo di Fazio?” Chaplin asked.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s generally something in flames, in my experience,” Lynley said. “What was your phone call to Jemima Hastings about, Mr. Chaplin?”

Frazer tapped his fingers on the glass-topped table. A silver bowl of mixed nuts sat upon it, and he reached for a few and held them in the palm of his hand. He said, “She was a lovely girl. I’ll give you that. I’ll give everyone that if anyone wants it. But while I might have seen her on the outside now and again-”

“On the outside?”

“Away from Mrs. McHaggis’s lodgings. While I might have seen her now and again-the pub, the high street, having a meal somewhere, at a film, even?-that would be the extent of it. Now, I’ll also give you the fact that it could have appeared to others we were involved. Truth to tell, it could have appeared that way to Jemima as well. Her coming to the ice rink like she did, her talking to that gypsy woman who does the fortunes, that sort of thing makes it look like the two of us had it going. But more than being friendly to her…? More than being friendly like I would be to anyone I shared lodgings with…? More than merely having or trying to have a friendship…? That’s the stuff of fantasy, Inspector.”

“Whose?”

“What?”

“Whose fantasy?”

He popped the nuts into his mouth. He sighed. “Inspector, Jemima drew conclusions. Have you never known a woman to do that? One moment you’re buying a lager for a girl, and the next she’s got you married, with kids and living in a rose-covered cottage in the countryside. That’s not happened to you?”

“Not in my memory.”

“Lucky you are, then, for it’s happened to me.”

“Tell me about your phone call to her on the day of her death.”

“I swear to the Holy Ghost, man, I don’t even remember making it. But if I did, and if, as you say, she’d been phoning me as well, then likely as not I was merely returning her call, fending her off in one way or another. Or at least attempting to. She had it for me. I won’t deny that. But there’s no way I was encouraging the lass.”

“And the day of her death?”

“What about it?”

“Tell me where you were. What you did. Who saw you.”

“I’ve been over all this with the other two-”

“But not with me. And sometimes there are details that one officer misses or fails to put in a report. Please humour me.”

“There’s nothing to humour you with. I worked at the ice rink, I went home to shower and change, I came here. It’s what I do every day, for Jesus’ sake. There’s someone at every point to confirm this, so you can’t be thinking that I somehow scarpered up to Stoke Newington to kill Jemima Hastings. Especially as I had no bloody reason to do it.”

“How do you get from the ice rink to this job, Mr. Chaplin?”

“I’ve a scooter,” he said.

“Have you indeed?”

“I do. And if you’re thinking that I’d’ve had the time to weave through traffic and make it up to Stoke Newington and then back here…Well, you best come with me.” Frazer rose, picking up a few more nuts and tossing them into his mouth. He had a brief word with Heinrich and then led the way out of the bar and out of the hotel as well.

At the far end of the cul-de-sac that was St. James’s Place, Frazer Chaplin’s motor scooter stood. It was a Vespa, the sort of vehicle that zips up and down the streets of every major town in Italy. But unlike those scooters, this one was not only painted a violent and completely unforgettable lime green, it was also covered with bright red advertising transfers for a product called DragonFly Tonics, in effect becoming a mobile billboard not unlike those seen occasionally on black cabs round town.

Chaplin said, “Would I be mad enough to take myself up to Stoke Newington on that? To leave it parked anywhere and then do a dash to kill Jemima? What d’you take me for, man, a fool? Would you be likely to forget you’d seen that thing parked hither or thither? I wouldn’t, and I doubt anyone else would either. Take a bloody photo of it if you want. Show it round up there. Go to every house and shop in every street there is, and you’ll see the truth of it.”