of its manifestations is something God given, to be celebrated rather than hidden away. There are actual tribes, you know, where children are initiated into sex as a rite of passage, guided there by a trusted adult. This is part of their culture, and if we ever manage to loose the chains of our Victorian past, it will be part of ours as well."
"That's what MABIL aims at, eh?" Havers asked.
Minshall didn't directly answer her. "When they come to see me in my flat," he said, "I prepare them for magic. To assist me. This takes some weeks. When they're ready, we perform for an audience of one: my client. From MABIL. What you need to know is that no boy has ever refused to go with the man to whom he was given at the end of our performance. They've been eager for it, in fact. They've been ready. They've been, as I've said, empowered."
"Davey Benton-" Havers began, and from the heat in her voice, Lynley knew he had to stop her.
He said, "Where did these 'performances' occur, Mr. Minshall? At St. Lucy's?"
Minshall shook his head. "They were private, as I said."
"At the Canterbury Hotel, then. Where you last saw Davey. Where is this place?"
"Lexham Gardens. Off the Cromwell Road. One of our members runs it. Not for this. Not for men and boys together. It's a legitimate hotel."
"I'll bet," Havers murmured.
"Take us through what happened," Lynley said. "At this performance. It was in a room?"
"A regular room. The client is always asked to book himself into the Canterbury in advance. He meets us in the lobby and we go upstairs. We do the show-the boy and I-and I get paid."
"For supplying the boy?"
Minshall wasn't about to admit to pandering. He said, "For the magic show at which the boy assisted."
"Then what?"
"Then I leave the boy. The client will take him home...afterwards."
"All those boys whose pictures we found in your flat...?" Havers asked the question.
"Former assistants," Minshall said.
"You mean you handed every one of them over to be done by some bloke in a hotel room?"
"No boy went unwillingly. No boy stayed against his will at the end of the performance. No boy later came to me with a complaint about how he'd been handled."
"Handled," Havers said. "Handled, Barry?"
Lynley said, "Mr. Minshall, Davey Benton was murdered by the man you handed him over to. You understand that, don't you?"
He shook his head. "I know only that Davey was murdered, Superintendent. There's nothing that tells me my client did it. Until I hear from him otherwise, I remain convinced that Davey Benton went off on his own later that night, once he was driven home."
"What d'you mean, 'until you hear otherwise'?" Havers asked. "Are you expecting a serial killer to phone you up and say 'Thanks, mate. Let's have a second go of the same so I can kill another'?"
"You're saying my client killed Davey. I'm not. And yes, I'm expecting a second request from him," Minshall said. "There usually is one. And a third and a fourth if the boy and the man haven't reached a separate agreement on the side."
"What sort of agreement?" Lynley asked.
Minshall took his time about coming up with an answer. He glanced at James Barty, perhaps trying to recall how much the solicitor had advised him to say. He went on carefully. "MABIL," he said "is about love, Men and Boys in Love. Most children are eager for that, for love. Most people are eager for that, in fact. This isn't about-this has never been about-molestation."
"Just pandering," Havers said, obviously able to restrain herself no longer.
"No boy," Minshall plunged doggedly on, "has ever felt used or abused from an interaction I bring about through MABIL. We want to love them. And we do love them."
"And what do you tell yourself when they turn up dead?" Havers asked. "That you loved the life right out of them?"
Minshall gave his answer to Lynley, as if believing Lynley's silence implied tacit approval of his enterprise. "You have no proof that my client..." He decided to make a different point. "Davey Benton wasn't meant to die. He was ready to have-"
"Davey Benton fought his killer," Lynley cut in. "In spite of what you thought about him, Mr. Minshall, he wasn't bent, he wasn't ready, he wasn't willing, and he wasn't eager. So if he went with his killer at the end of your 'performance,' I doubt he did it willingly."
Minshall said hollowly, "He was alive when I left