the chancel, where a group of what appeared to be students stood round someone pointing out details on the tester above the pulpit. Three out-of-season tourists were flipping through postcards at a bookstall directly across from the entrance, but no one appeared to be waiting for a meeting with anyone. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that, like most medieval cathedrals, Southwark had no regular pews, so there was no fifth-row-from-the-back-and-on-the-left seating where Charlie Burov, aka Blinker, might have slouched in anticipation of their arrival.
"So much for his churchgoing proclivities," Lynley murmured. As Havers looked round, sighed, and muttered a curse, he added, "Mind the mouth, Constable. Lightning is never a dear commodity when it comes to the Lord."
"He might've at least sussed out the place first," she groused.
"In the best of all worlds." Lynley finally spied a spindly, black-garbed figure near the baptismal font, who was darting looks in their general direction. "Ah. Over there, Havers. That could be our man."
He didn't run off as they approached him, although he cast a nervous glance towards the group at the pulpit and then another towards the people at the bookstall. When Lynley asked politely if he was Mr. Burov, the boy said, "'S Blinker. You the fuzz, then?" out of the side of his mouth like a character in a bad film noir.
Lynley introduced himself and Havers while he gave the boy a quick appraisal. Blinker appeared to be round twenty years old with a face that would have been completely nondescript had not head shaving and body piercing been in vogue. As it was, studs erupted from his face like a visitation of smallpox in silver and when he spoke, which was with some difficulty, it was to reveal half a dozen additional studs lined up along the edge of his tongue. Lynley didn't want to think about the difficulty they presented the boy in eating. Hearing the difficulty they presented him in speaking was bad enough.
"This might not be the best place to have our conversation," Lynley noted. "Is there somewhere nearby..."
Blinker agreed to a coffee. They managed to find a suitable cafe not far from St. Mary Overy Dock, and Blinker slid onto a chair at one of the grubby, Formica-topped tables where he studied the menu, and said, "C'n I get a spag bol, then?"
Lynley eased a malodorous ashtray towards Havers and said to the boy, "Be my guest," although he shuddered at the thought of personally ingesting any kind of food-not to mention any kind of pasta-served up in a place where one's shoes adhered to the lino and the menus looked in need of disinfectant.
Blinker apparently took Lynley's reply as licence for liberality, for when the waitress came for their order he added gammon steak, two eggs, chips, and mushrooms along with a tuna and sweet-corn sandwich to the spaghetti. Havers ordered an orange juice, Lynley a coffee. Blinker grabbed the plastic salt shaker and began rolling it between his palms.
He didn't want to talk until he'd "had a nosh," he told them. So they waited in silence for the first of his plates to arrive, Havers taking the opportunity for another smoke, Lynley nursing his coffee and steeling himself to the spectacle of the boy working food past his tongue studs.
He'd apparently had plenty of practice, as things turned out. When the first plate was deposited in front of him, Blinker made quick work of the gammon steak and its companions, with minimum fuss and-blessedly-even less display. When he'd sopped up the remaining egg yolk and gammon grease with a triangle of toast, he said, "Better, that," and appeared ready to give himself over for conversation and a cigarette, which he cadged from Havers while he waited for the pasta's arrival on the scene.
He was "that torn up" about Kimmo, he told them. But he'd warned his mate-he'd warned him a hundred million times-about taking it up the chute from blokes he didn't know. Kimmo always claimed the risk was worth it, though. And he always made them use a spunk bag...even if, admittedly, he didn't always turn round at the vital moment to make sure it was on.
"I tol' him it wa'n't about some bloke infectin' him, for God's sake," Blinker said. "It was about 'xactly what happened to him anyways. I never wanted him out there alone. Never. When Kimmo was on the streets, I was on the streets wif him. Tha's the way it was s'posed to be."