said. "I'm getting the picture. You were Kimmo Thorne's pimp, then?"
"Hey. It wa'n't like that." Blinker sounded affronted.
"So you weren't his pimp?" Barbara Havers put in. "What would you call it when it was home with its mother?"
"I was his mate," Blinker said. "I kept watch for any nasty sort of business 'at might be going on, like some bloke wif more on his mind than a bit 'f fun wif Kimmo. We worked together, like a team. It wa'n't my fault, was it, Kimmo being the one they fancied?"
Lynley wanted to say that Blinker's appearance might have had something to do with who was being fancied by the punters, but he let the subject go. He said, "The night Kimmo disappeared, he didn't start out with you, then?"
"I di'n't even know he was going out, did I. We'd done Leicester Square the night before, see, and we'd found a party wanting some entertainment over in Hollen Street, so we did a bit of business wif them. We had enough dosh off that that we di'n't need to be out again and Kimmo said his gran wanted him home for a night anyways."
"Was that normal?" Lynley asked.
"Nah. So I should've known summat was up when he said it, but I didn't cos it was fine wif me not to go out. I had the telly...and other things to do."
"Such as?" Havers asked. When Blinker didn't respond, merely looking in the direction of the kitchen for his spaghetti Bolognese to put in an appearance, she said, "What else were you two into besides prostitution, Charlie?"
"Hey. Like I said. We never were into-"
"Let's not play games," Havers cut in. "Tart it up any way you want, but the truth is, if you get paid for it, Charlie, it's not true love. And you did get paid for it, right? Isn't that what you said? And isn't that why you didn't need to be going out another night? Because Kimmo had earned you enough cash for a week probably, providing 'entertainment' in Hollen Street. I'm wondering what you did with the lolly, though. Smoke it, shoot it, snort it? What?"
"You know, I don' have to talk to you lot," Blinker said hotly. "I could get up right now and be out of that door faster'n-"
"And miss your spaghetti Bolognese?" Havers asked. "Holy hell, not that."
Lynley said, "Havers," in the tone he generally used-with limited success-to restrain her. And to Blinker, "Would it have been like Kimmo to go off on his own? Despite your usual arrangement?"
"He did sometimes, yeah. Like I said. I tol' him not to, but he did it anyways. I said it wa'n't safe. He wa'n't a big bloke, was he, an' if he misjudged who he let do him..." Blinker crushed his cigarette and looked away. His eyes grew watery. "Stupid little bugger," he muttered.
His spaghetti Bolognese showed up, along with a dispenser of cheese that looked like sawdust deficient in iron. This he sprinkled delicately over the pasta and tucked in, his emotion subdued by his appetite. The cafe door opened and two workmen entered, jeans whitened by plaster dust and thick-soled shoes crusted with cement. They called out familiar hellos to the cook who was visible by means of a serving hatch, and they chose a table in a corner where they placed their orders for a multicourse meal not unlike the one Blinker himself had requested.
"I tol' him this would happen if he went it alone," Blinker said when he had finished wolfing down the pasta and was waiting for his tuna and sweet-corn sandwich. "I tol' him over an' over, but he never listened, did he. He said he could tell about blokes, he could. The bad ones, he said, they have this kind of smell 'bout them. Like they been thinking too long what they want to do to you and it makes their skin all oily and cooked up, like. I tol' him that was rubbish and he had to take me wif him no matter what, but he wasn't having any of that, was he, so look what happened."
"So you think this is the work of a punter," Lynley said. "Kimmo making a bad judgment call when he was alone."
"What else could it be?"
"Kimmo's gran said you've got him in trouble," Havers said. "She claims he was flogging stolen property you handed over to him. What d'you know about that?"
Blinker rose in his chair as if he'd been mortally wounded. "I never!"