suggest you take yourselves out of this flat straightaway."
"Really?" Barbara nodded thoughtfully. "Winnie, the doctor would like us to leave."
"Can't do that, Barb. Not without his shoes."
"Oh right. You left two footprints at the final crime scene, Dr. Robson."
"One hundred thousand footprints wouldn't mean a thing and all of us know it," Robson told her. "How many people do you expect buy the same ordinary pair of shoes each year?"
"Millions, probably," Barbara said. "But only one of them leaves his footprint at the scene of a murder where the victim-this is Davey, Dr. Robson-also has DNA evidence under his fingernails. Your DNA, I expect. From those nice scratches you've been protecting. Oh, and the cat's, by the way. The cat's DNA. That's going to be a difficult one to talk your way out of at the end of the day." She waited for a reaction from Robson and she got it in the movement of his Adam's apple. "Cat hair on Davey's body," she said. "When we link that to little Mandy the squalling Siamese-God, that cat makes a bloody racket when she's thirsty, doesn't she-you're done for, Dr. Robson."
Robson was silent. Nice, Barbara thought. He had less and less to argue about. He'd hedged his bets with the profile and he'd given 2160 as his moniker when he'd moved on from Colossus to Barry Minshall at MABIL. But there was the phone number of Fischer Psychiatric Hospital for the Criminally Insane right on the letterhead of the stationery that covered his lying report: with 2160 the final four numbers that a credulous caller-like the Inspectors Plod whom Robson no doubt believed worked at the Met-could punch in to be connected to the place.
She said, "Two-one-six-oh, Dr. Robson. We've had Barry Minshall-but I think you know him as Snow-locked up for a bit in the Holmes Street station. We took this over and let him study it for a while." She removed the photo of Robson and his mother that she'd found in Esther Robson's flat. "Our Barry-that's your Snow, remember-turned it this way and that but he always came up with the same conclusion. This is the bloke he handed Davey Benton over to, he tells us. At the Canterbury Hotel. In Lexham Gardens where the registration card's going to hold interesting fingerprints and the clerk will be only too happy-"
"You damn well listen to me. I didn't-"
"Oh right. I damn well expect you didn't."
"You've got to see-"
"Shut up," Barbara said. She shoved herself away from the table in disgust. She walked out of the room and left Winston Nkata the pleasure of reciting the caution before they arrested the piece of filth.
HE WATCHED first from across the street. Rain had fallen while He'd made His way across town, and now the lights from the hospital shone against the pavement. They made streaks of gold and when He squinted, He could almost think it was Christmas again: gold and then the red of tail lights on the cars as they passed by.
Not that Father Christmas'll be coming to visit the likes of you, you know.
He groaned. He did the tongue thing again, pressure against His eardrums. Whoosh whoosh. Safe again, gone again. He could breathe as normal because normal is as normal does.
The reporters were gone, He saw. And wasn't that nice? Wasn't that a mark of the meant-to-bes? The story was still a sensational one, but now it could be covered from a distance. Profiles of all the principals, if you will. Because what, after all, needed to be said about a body in a bed? Here we are in front of St. Thomas' Hospital on day number whateveritwas and the victim still lies within, so back to you in the studio for the weather report, which is far more interesting to the general public than this nonsense, so why don't you give me a bloody new assignment please. Or words to that effect.
But for Him, it was endlessly fascinating. Events had conspired to illustrate over and over again that supremacy was more than a chance of birth. It was also a miracle of timing, embraced by the willingness to seize the moment. And He was the god of moments. In fact, it was He who made moments. This was the quality-one among many-that made Him different from everyone else.
Think you're special? That it, little sod?
He used his tongue. Whoosh and whoosh. Release the pressure to check and-
You get away from him, Charlene. Jesus, it's time he learned