scarlet G for Guilty across their chests. Truth was, they'd be marking themselves with the scarlet I for Intelligent. But they seldom thought that way under pressure, which was what Barbara was depending upon now.
Minshall reached his decision. He said, "This is a waste of your time. Worse, it's a waste of mine. But if you believe it's necessary for whatever reason..."
Barbara smiled. "Trust me. I'm one of the lot who serve, protect, and do no ill."
"Fine. All right. But you'll have to wait while I close up the stall, and then I'll take you to the van. It'll take a few minutes, I'm afraid. I hope you have the time."
"Mr. Minshall," Barbara said, "you are one lucky sod. Because time is exactly what I have today."
WHEN LYNLEY arrived back at New Scotland Yard, he discovered that the media were already gathering, setting up shop in the little park that covered the corner where Victoria Street met Broadway. There, two distinct television crews-recognisable by the logos on their vans and on their equipment-were in the process of constructing what appeared to be a broadcasting point while nearby beneath the dripping trees in the park, several reporters milled about, distinguishable from the crew by their manner of dress.
Lynley observed this with a hollow heart. It was, he knew, too much to hope for that the media were here for any reason other than the killing of a sixth adolescent boy. A sixth killing warranted their immediate attention. It also made them unlikely to go along with how the DPA wanted them to cover the situation.
He negotiated the confusion in the street and pulled into the entrance that would take him down to the carpark. There, however, the officer in the kiosk didn't employ his usual one finger acknowledgement and lift the barrier for him. Instead, he sauntered out to the Bentley and waited while Lynley lowered the window.
He bent to the interior. "Message for you," he said. "You're to go straight to the assistant commissioner's office. Do not pass go and all the trappings, if you know what I mean. AC made the call personally. Making sure there was no ifs, ands, and buts about it. I'm to phone to tell him you've arrived, 's well. Question is, how much time d'you want? We can make it anything, only he doesn't want you stopping to talk to your team on the way."
Lynley muttered, "Christ." Then after a moment's thought, "Wait ten minutes."
"Right you are." The officer stepped back and admitted Lynley to the carpark. In the subdued light and the silence, Lynley used the ten minutes to close his eyes, remaining in the Bentley with his head pressed against the headrest.
It was never easy, he thought. You believed it might become so eventually if you were exposed to enough of horror and its aftermath. But just at the point where you thought you had mastered insentience, something occurred to remind you that you were still fully human, no matter what you'd previously thought.
That had been the case while standing alongside Max Benton as he'd identified the body of his oldest son. No Polaroid picture would do for him, no viewing from behind a glass partition, a safe distance from which there would always be certain aspects of the boy's death that he would not have to know or at least not have to see firsthand. Instead he'd insisted upon seeing it all, refusing to say whether it was his missing boy until he'd been a witness to everything that marked the way Davey had gone to his death.
Then what he'd said was, "He fought him, then. Like he was meant to. Like I taught him. He fought the bastard."
"This is your son, Mr. Benton?" Lynley asked, the formality not only an automatic question but also a way to avoid the onslaught of restrained emotion-that could never actually be adequately restrained-that he felt trying to burst from the other man.
"Said from the first that the world can't be trusted," Benton replied. "Said from the first it's a brutal place. But he never wanted to listen like I tried to get him to listen, did he. And this is what happens. This. I want 'em here, the rest 'f 'em. I want 'em to see." His voice broke then and he went on in anguish. "Bloke tries his best to teach his kids what's what out there. Bloke lives to make them understand that they got to take a care, be on their