You know how it works: telephone, telegraph, tell-a-cop. They've gone to ground now. Too bad you can't find them...' And arrest their arses from here to Sunday," she added. "Sodding paedophiles."
Lynley observed her, righteous indignation personified. He felt it as well, but he also knew they had to keep the information flowing from the magician. The only way to sort out the truth from his lies was through encouraging him to talk for a length of time and listening for the snares he would ultimately set himself, which was the fate of all liars.
He said, "You know the drill, Havers. We need to give him the rope."
"I know, I know." She looked towards the door and the man behind it. "But he makes my skin crawl. He's in there with Barty coming up with a way to justify the seduction of thirteen-year-old boys, and you and I know it. What are we supposed to do about that? Sit there and seethe?"
"Yes," Lynley said. "Because Mr. Minshall's about to discover he can't have it both ways. He can't claim he rejected Davey Benton as too young to experience the love that dare not et cetera, while at the same time he provided the boy to a killer. I expect he's sorting out that little difficulty with Mr. Barty as we speak."
"So you believe there's a MABIL? That Minshall himself didn't murder that kid and all the others?"
Like Havers, Lynley looked towards the door of the interview room. "I think it's very likely," he said. "And there's part of it all that makes sense, Barbara."
"Which part is that?"
"The part that explains why we've now got a dead boy with no connection to Colossus."
She was with him, as usual, making the leap with, "Because the killer had to find new ground once we showed up in Elephant and Castle?"
"From everything we know, he's not stupid," Lynley said. "Once we got on to Colossus, he had to find a new source of victims, didn't he. And MABIL exactly fills the bill, Havers, because no one would even suspect him there, especially not Minshall, who's just waiting to take him under his wing, eager and ready to hand over the victims, apparently believing-or at least telling himself that he believes-in the sanctity of the whole damned project."
"We need a description of two-one-six-oh," Havers said, with a nod at the interview room.
"And more," Lynley told her as the door opened and James Barty bade them enter once again.
Minshall had finished his water and was setting to the destruction of the plastic cup that had held it. He said he wanted to clarify things. Lynley told him that they were ready to listen to whatever the magician wished to tell them, and he activated the tape recorder as Havers sat and scraped her chair noisily against the lino.
"My first time was at the hands of my paediatrician," Minshall said quietly, his head lowered to direct his gaze-ostensibly, since he was wearing his dark glasses-on his hands as they tore apart his plastic cup. "He called it 'seeing to' my condition. I was a kid, so what did I know? Groping round between the legs to make sure my 'condition' didn't cause sexual problems in the future, like impotence or premature ejaculation. He eventually raped me right there in his surgery, but I kept quiet. I was that scared." Minshall looked up. "I never wanted other boys' first time to be like that. Do you understand? I wanted it to come out of a loving and trusting relationship so that when it happened to them, they'd be ready for it. They'd want it as well. They'd understand what was happening and what it meant. I wanted it to be a positive experience, so I empowered them."
"How?" Lynley kept his voice calm and reasonable, although what he wanted to do was howl. How they excelled when they had to justify, he thought. Paedophiles lived in a parallel universe to the rest of mankind, and one could do virtually nothing to blast them out of it, so immovably had they placed themselves there through years of rationalisation.
"Through openness," Barry Minshall said. "Through honesty."
Lynley heard Havers restrain herself. He saw how tight her grip was on her pencil as she took notes.
"I talk to them about their sexual urges. I allow them to see what they feel is natural and nothing to be hidden or ashamed of. I show them what all children need to be shown: that sexuality in all