Hiro Matsumoto returned to the police. He said, “Come. I’ll take you there.”

ISABELLE FIELDED A phone call from AC Hillier as they crossed the river, heading up Victoria Embankment to avoid Parliament Square. Previously, she’d spoken only to the AC’s secretary, grateful for the opportunity to rehearse the passing along of information that was likely to send Hillier into orbit. He said, “Tell me,” as a means of greeting. Isabelle, cognizant of Hiro Matsumoto’s presence in the backseat of the car, gave him as little information as possible. She concluded her recitation with, “He’s in the operating theatre and his brother is with us. We’re heading to his digs.”

“Have we got our man?”

“It’s very possible.”

“Considering the situation, I don’t need possible. I need probable. I need yes.”

“We should know quite soon.”

“God knows, we had better. Get to my office when you’re done out there. We need a meeting with Deacon.”

She didn’t know who the hell Deacon was, but she wasn’t about to ask Hillier to identify him. She said she’d be there as soon as she could and when she ended the call, she asked Lynley the question.

He said, “Head of the press bureau. Hillier’s lining up the cavalry.”

“How do I prepare?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never known.”

“Philip cocked this up, Thomas.”

“Do you think so.”

The fact that he said those words as a statement was, she decided, a declaration of his own opinion, not to mention of his judgement. And, perhaps, a declaration of his loyalties as well.

They said nothing more, merely riding in a tense silence to Charing Cross Road where Hiro Matsumoto directed them to its intersection with Denmark Street. There a redbrick structure of eight floors housed living accommodation that was called Shaldon Mansions, which appeared to be flats that filled a building whose ground floor comprised a line of shops. These carried on a theme of music that extended down Denmark Street-which itself appeared to comprise nothing but outlets for guitars, drums, and various types of horns-and combined this theme with news agents, luggage shops, cafés, and bookstores. The entrance to the flats consisted of an opening tucked between Keira News and Mucci Bags, and as they walked towards it, Isabelle sensed Lynley’s steps slowing, so she turned to find he was gazing intently at the building. She said, “What?” and he said, “Paolo di Fazio.”

“What about him?”

“This is where Jemima Hastings took him.” He gave a nod to the entrance to the flats. “That first night they met. He said she took him to a flat above Keira News.”

Isabelle smiled. “Well done, Thomas. So we know how Yukio came to meet her.”

Hiro Matsumoto said, “Knowing they might have met does not mean-”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Isabelle said grimly. Anything to keep him moving. Anything to get him to take them to the flat, as there appeared to be no concierge to direct them.

Unfortunately, the cellist had no key. But as things turned out, a few bells rung, followed by a few knocks upon doors and a few questions here and there led them into Keira News. There Isabelle’s identification produced a master key to every flat in Shaldon Mansions, held by the shop’s owner who did double duty as a recipient of packages and emergency contact should a crisis arise within the building.

They definitely had a crisis on their hands, as Isabelle explained to the man. He handed over the key and they were about to set out when Lynley paused to ask him about Jemima Hastings. Did he know her? Did he remember her? Unusual eyes, one green and one brown?

The eyes did it. She had indeed lived in Shaldon Mansions, in a bed-sit quite similar to the one into which they were seeking entrance.

This confirmed another connection between Yukio Matsumoto and Jemima Hastings, and the fact gratified Isabelle hugely. It was one thing to connect them by means of Covent Garden. It was quite another to connect them through their living accommodation. Things were looking up.

Yukio’s bed-sit was on the fifth floor of the building, a point at which the spaciousness of the floors below gave way to crow-stepped gables and a mansard roof. As much accommodation as possible had been crammed into the space, and these rooms opened off a narrow corridor where the air was so close it had probably gone unrefreshed since the first Gulf War.

Inside Yukio Matsumoto’s bed-sit, the atmosphere was oppressively hot, and the place was quite disturbingly fitted out with floor-to-ceiling figures that had been drawn on the walls with marker pens. They loomed everywhere, dozens of them. A scrutiny indicated they depicted angels.

“What in God’s name…,” Isabelle murmured as next to her Lynley fished out his reading glasses to give the scrawled figures closer scrutiny. Behind her, she heard Hiro Matsumoto sigh tremulously. She glanced his way. He looked infinitely sad.

“What is it?” she asked.

The cellist’s gaze went from one drawing to the next to the next. “He thinks they speak to him. The celestial host.”

“The what?”

“All the different kinds of angels,” Lynley put in.

“There’s more than one kind?”

“There are nine different kinds.”

And he could no doubt list them, Isabelle thought grimly. Well, she didn’t want to know-nor did she need to know-the categories of celestial whatever-they-were. What she needed to know was what, if anything, they had to do with Jemima Hastings’ death. She reckoned nothing. But Hiro said, “They battle for him. In his head, of course, but he hears them and he sometimes thinks he sees them. What he sees are people, but angels have come in human guise in the past. And of course they are always depicted in a human form in art and in books and because of this, he thinks he’s one with them. He believes they’re waiting for him to declare his intention. It’s the very heart of his illness. Yet it proves, doesn’t it, that he harmed no one?”

Isabelle took in the drawings as Lynley moved along them slowly. There were angels descending into pools of water where humans lay crumpled with arms extended in supplication; there were angels driving demons before them to work on a temple in the distance; there were angels with trumpets, angels holding books, angels with weapons, and one enormous wing-spread creature leading an army, while nearby another cast destruction upon a biblical-looking town. And one entire section appeared to be given to a struggle between two types of angels: one armed with weapons and one with wings spread to cover cowering humans below.

“He believes he must choose,” Hiro Matsumoto said.

“Choose what?” Isabelle asked. Lynley, she saw, had moved to a narrow single bed, where a bedside table held a lamp, a book, and a filmy-looking glass of water. The book he picked up and opened. A card fell out and he bent to take it up from the floor as Hiro Matsumoto answered.

“Between guardian angel and warrior angel,” he said. “To protect or to…” He hesitated, so Isabelle finished the thought.

“To punish,” she said. “Well, it seems he made his choice, doesn’t it?”

“Please, he did not-”

“Guv.” Lynley was looking at the card. She crossed the room to him. It was, she saw, yet another of the National Portrait Gallery postcards featuring the photograph of Jemima Hastings. It also bore “Have You Seen This Woman?” upon it but over the image of the sleeping lion had been scrawled an angel like those in the room. It had its wings spread out to create a shield but no weapons were in its hands. “It looks as if he was leaning towards guarding, not punishing,” Lynley said.

Isabelle was about to tell him it didn’t look like anything of the sort when Yukio’s brother cried out. She swung round. She saw that he’d approached the room’s basin and he was staring at something lying on its edge. She said sharply, “Keep away from it!” and she strode across the room to see what he’d stumbled upon.