Whatever it was, it was crusted with blood. Indeed it was crusted with so much blood that other than its shape, it was indefinable.

“Ah,” Isabelle said. “Yes indeed. Don’t touch that thing, Mr. Matsumoto.”

THE TIME OF day limited his options for parking in Chelsea. Lynley had to make do with a hike over from Carlyle Square. He crossed the King’s Road and walked towards the river via Old Church Street. As he did so, he considered the various ways in which he might avoid AC Hillier over the next few days and the other various ways in which he might colour what he’d been experiencing at Isabelle Ardery’s side should he be forced into conversation with the assistant commissioner.

He wanted to give Ardery leeway. New to the job of superintendent, she would be anxious to prove her worth. But he also wanted the appropriate arrest made when the time came to make an arrest, and he was unconvinced Yukio Matsumoto was guilty of the crime of murder. Guilty of something, there could be little doubt. But murder…Lynley couldn’t see it.

“That’s because of the brother,” Isabelle had told him brusquely upon their return to the Yard. “You hold him in awe, so you want to believe whatever he says. I don’t.”

There was an unnatural hush in the incident room for their final meeting of the day. The other officers knew what had earlier happened to Yukio Matsumoto in the street, so this would have been one source of their reticence. The other, however, would have been Isabelle Ardery’s confrontation with Philip Hale at St. Thomas’ Hospital. It was a clear case of telegraph, telephone, tell-a-cop. Even if Philip had said nothing to the others, they would have known something was up simply by noting his demeanour.

By the end of the afternoon, there had been no additional information from the hospital about Yukio Matsumoto’s condition, so they were operating from a no-news-is-good-news perspective. SOCO had been dispatched to the violinist’s digs and the bloody object found on his washbasin had been sent to forensics for complete analysis. Everything was clicking along and checking out: Marlon Kay’s wood-carving tools were clean; all the sculpting tools from the studio near Clapham Junction were clean as well. Frazer Chaplin’s whereabouts had been confirmed for the day of the murder by his colleagues at the ice rink, by his colleagues at Duke’s Hotel, and by Bella McHaggis. Her whereabouts had been confirmed by a yoga studio and her neighbours. There was still some question about where and if Abbott Langer had actually done the dog walking he’d claimed to be doing, and Paolo di Fazio’s presence in Jubilee Market Hall could have applied to any day or to no day because no one really paid that much attention. But it was likely he’d been there, and likely was good enough for Detective Superintendent Ardery. She had high hopes that charges could be brought against Yukio Matsumoto as soon as the rest of the forensic reports were in.

Lynley had his doubts about this, but he said nothing. When the meeting concluded, he approached the china boards and spent a few minutes studying what was on them. He examined one of the photographs in particular, and when he left Victoria Street, he took a copy of this with him. It was, at least in part, his reason for coming to Chelsea instead of heading directly home.

St. James wasn’t in, as things turned out. But Deborah was, and she ushered Lynley into the dining room. There she’d laid out afternoon tea, but not for consumption. She was trying to decide whether she wanted to pursue food photography, she told him. First approached with the idea of doing so, she’d thought it was “rather an insult to achieving the exceedingly high art of my dreams,” she said. “But as the exceedingly high art of my dreams isn’t exactly bringing in vast sums of money, and as I hate the thought of poor Simon supporting his arty wife into her dotage, I thought that photographing food might be the very thing until I’m discovered as the next Annie Leibovitz.”

Success in this arena, she told him, was all about lighting, props, colours, and shapes. Additionally, there were considerations having to do with overcrowding the pictures, with suggesting that the viewer was actually part of the scene, and with focusing on the food without overlooking the importance of mood.

“I’m actually just thrashing about,” she admitted. “I’d say you and I can consume all this when I’m done, but I wouldn’t recommend it as I made the scones myself.”

She’d created quite a scene, Lynley saw, something straight out of the Ritz, with everything from a silver tray of sandwiches to a bowl piled high with clotted cream. There was even an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne tucked away in one corner and as Deborah chatted about everything from the angle of the photograph to the manner in which one created what looked like beads of water on the strawberries, Lynley recognised in her conversation the effort to bring normality back into their relationship.

He said, “I’m quite all right, Deb. It’s difficult, as you might expect, but I’m finding my way.”

Deborah averted her gaze. A rose in a bud vase needed adjusting, and she made this adjustment before she replied quietly, “We miss her terribly. Particularly Simon. He doesn’t like to say. I think he believes he’ll make it worse. Worse for me, and for him. He won’t, of course. How could he possibly? But it’s all mixed up.”

Lynley said, “We’ve always been something of a tangle, the four of us, haven’t we?”

She looked up then although she didn’t reply.

He said, “It’ll sort itself out.” He wanted to tell her that love was an odd thing, that it bridged divides, it faded, and it rediscovered itself. But he knew she understood this already because she was living it, as was he. So instead he said, “Simon’s not here? I’ve something I wanted to show him.”

“He’s on his way home. He’s been in a meeting at Gray’s Inn. What’ve you got for him?”

“A picture,” he said, and even as he said it he realised that there could exist additional pictures that might come to his aid. He went on to ask, “Deb, have you any photos of your opening at the Portrait Gallery?”

“D’you mean my own photos? I didn’t take my camera.”

No, he told her. He meant publicity photos. Had there been anyone at the National Portrait Gallery that night, taking pictures of the opening of the Cadbury show? Perhaps for use in a brochure, perhaps for a magazine or a newspaper.

“Ah,” she said. “You’re talking about pictures of celebrities and celebrities-to-be? The beautiful people holding champagne flutes and showing off their spray tans and dental work? I can’t say we had an enormous number of those turn up, Tommy. But there were some photos being taken. Come with me.”

She took him to Simon’s study, at the front of the house. There, from an old Canterbury next to Simon’s desk, she unearthed a copy of Hello! She made a face and said, “It was a rather slow day for glamorous events in town.”

Hello!, he saw, had done its usual business with those who might be considered the Beautiful People. These individuals had posed obligingly. It was a gratifying two-page spread of pictures.

There had been quite a crowd at the photographic exhibit. Lynley recognised a few movers and shakers of London society in addition to those longing to become one of this ilk. Among the pictures, there were candid shots as well, and within these, he found Deborah and Simon in conversation with Jemima Hastings and a saturnine man who looked like trouble. He expected to learn that the bloke was one of the men connected in some way to the dead girl, but he was surprised to learn he was looking upon Matt Jones, the new partner of Sidney St. James, Simon’s younger sister.

“Sidney’s quite mad about him,” Deborah said. “Simon, on the other hand, thinks she’s merely mad. He’s rather a mystery-this is Matt, not Simon, of course. He disappears for weeks at a time and says he’s off working for the government. Sidney thinks he’s a spy. Simon thinks he’s a hit man.”