A lot of the girls had stopped temporarily when police said they might be in harm’s way, given the two recent murders, that a killer was targeting escorts, and they’d brought up Jack the Ripper-or, more likely, the newspapers had done that.

She stopped in Newgate Street to adjust one of the straps of her sandals. They weren’t what you’d choose for walking, but she hadn’t far to go, only to St. Paul’s. She wondered if her guy’d got religion or something. That was a laugh.

They were to meet round the west side of the cathedral, and he’d said that if she got there before he did, just to wait on a bench in the churchyard, wait by the Becket statue. He was always late, but what did she care? He had to pay for the missed time anyway.

She had started walking again, shoes now under control: beautiful shoes, awful walking. St. Paul’s loomed before her. Made her shudder, almost. Someday she would really have to go up to the Whispering Gallery. She’d lived in London all her life, in Camden Town and Cricklewood, and not done a tenth of the things tourists did.

He wasn’t there, no surprise. She wandered into the churchyard, found the statue-whoever Becket was, they didn’t keep him in very good condition, as he looked to be falling apart in these bushes. As she looked at the statue, there came the bells. The reverberation shocked her and she clamped her hands over her ears. Nine o’clock. Five more strikes.

Into the din, or rather through it, came a voice: “DeeDee.”

Deirdre turned and got another shock.

There was a gun. There was her scream. There were the bells.

39

The unflappable DI Dennis Jenkins from Snow Hill station said to Jury, “We pulled her up straightaway only because she had form-soliciting four years ago in Shepherd Market. Name’s Deirdre Small. ID in the bag-” Jenkins gestured toward a clutch of silver scales now with one of the technicians. There were several others scouring the walk on their knees.

Deirdre Small lay in the center of them on the walk, a small ship adrift in her own wake.

“So here’s another pro working for an escort service.”

“Same agency?”

Jenkins shook his head. “This one’s called Smart Set. Has the ring of upmarket sophistication, no? Anyway, I guess it is a leg up-pardon the pun-from the street. Although Shepherd Market… well, if you’re going to trawl the curb, might as well choose Mayfair, no?”

Jury’s smile was slight, almost apologetic, as if Deirdre Small had opened her eyes and caught him at it.

“Same MO, it looks like. Close range, chest. Whether the same weapon, we won’t know till later. It must have happened at nine.”

Jury frowned. “Then you got here fast. It’s only nine-forty.” The bell marking the half hour had rung ten minutes ago.

“That’s because the person who found her got to us fast. He’s over there-tall guy, balding. He was her boyfriend, or client, I should say; he said he was to meet her here at nine and he was seven or eight minutes late. So he found her at nine-oh-seven or -eight. He must have been breathing down the shooter’s neck, assuming Deirdre Small was on time. He says she always was. Now, my guess is the killer took advantage of the bells”-Jenkins looked upward toward St. Paul’s bell tower-“to muffle the shot.”

At this point, one of the SOCO team put something in Jenkins’s hand and walked off.

Jury frowned. “But the client could have walked right in on the shooting.” He paused. “Unless, of course, he was the one.”

“My instinct says…” Jenkins squinted at the tall man with the half-bald head. “No. He was pretty quick off the mark calling emergency. He could simply have walked away, left the body to be found by one of these good people.” He nodded toward the ring of onlookers being discouraged from coming closer by the crime scene tape and the half-dozen uniforms in front of it. “But, then, on the other hand, he might have thought his name was down on the books and he’d be picked up later and in much hotter water. Still, I think, no, it wasn’t him.”

“If someone else, whoever it was had to be pretty nervy. That is, unless he knew.”

“Knew what?”

“The boyfriend’s habitual lateness.”

Jenkins turned to look at Jury. “That would mean someone who knew them.”

“Friend of hers? Friend of his?”

“He’s married. Unsurprisingly.”

“Jealous wife?”

Jenkins shrugged. “It’s possible. Possible he was followed, too. Or she was.”

A metal gurney was being loaded onto an ambulance.

“I think I’ll have a word with the boyfriend if you don’t mind.”

DI Jenkins spread his hands in a don’t-mind gesture. “Nicholas Maze is his name.”

Jury thanked him and walked over to the bench past the ambulance whose horn was now being brought into play. It wailed out.

“Nicholas Maze? I’m Superintendent Jury, New Scotland Yard CID.”

“Look, is there any way to keep this business from getting into the papers?”

Always the first concern. Keep my name out of it. “It’s hard to say. But I’m sorry about your friend. How long had you known her?”

Nicholas Maze looked uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than sad. Collar unbuttoned and tie pulled off to one side, but still constricting his neck, he looked like a man who’d just tried to throttle himself. “Over a year,” he muttered.

“Then you’d met her often before this?”

A nod that was more a nervous tic came from Maze. “A dozen times, well, more like two dozen times. It was, you know, a convenience.”

Maybe for you, thought Jury. “You’re married?”

Again, that puppetlike nod, a jerk of the head, as if the movement cost him.

“Does your wife know about the escort service?”

“You mean about DeeDee? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.”

“You’re sure of that? That she had no suspicion?”

“Yes. She didn’t know-” Quickly, Nicholas Maze looked at Jury. “Ann? You’re thinking my wife-?” The man gestured around the courtyard. “Could have done this?” His laugh was short. “She’d be the last woman in London to shoot somebody in a jealous rage.”

“What did Deirdre Small tell you about herself?”

“DeeDee? More than I cared to know.”

This chilly response made Jury wonder.

“She was a chatterbox, DeeDee was.”

Jury waited for more, but it didn’t come. “If you could be more specific, Mr. Maze. What did she chatterbox about?”

“Well, she was born in London. Lived all her life here, she was fond of telling me. Cricklewood, I think she said. Not much education; she left school around sixth form.”

“Anything about her friends?”

“Look. Dee was a talker. Nonstop sometimes. I didn’t listen to most of it, frankly.”

“The thing is, you see, information about people she knew could be vital-”

Maze interrupted, surprised. “You’re saying you don’t think this was just an opportunistic killing? I mean, some crazy just murdered her because she was here?”

“That’s what suggests it was planned. Someone knew she’d be here. St. Paul’s isn’t the most obvious venue for a spontaneous shooting, is it?” Jury said nothing about the other murders in Bidwell Street and Chesham.

Nicholas Maze shook his head. “Can I go now? You’re the second one I’ve told all this to.”

“You’ll try to think back on what she said, won’t you?” Did they ever? Try to forget it as quick as possible, was more likely. “I’ll have to check with Detective Inspector Jenkins about your leaving.”

“Who’s he?”

The man really didn’t have the attention span of a flea.

SOCO had gone or was going, and only Jenkins and his young WPC and the uniforms keeping order remained. Most of the onlookers had dispersed. The crime scene tape remained. It would require police presence here tomorrow; St. Paul’s was a tourist draw. St. Paul’s and a murder even more.

“Cut him loose, Ruthie,” said Jenkins to the woman constable. “Tell him we’ll probably have to talk to him again and for him to stay close.”