he said. "She's a bloody liar, she is. Flaming old cow. She di'n't like me from the first and now she's tryin to get me under the cosh, i'n't she. Well, any trouble Kimmo got in di'n't have nothing to do wif me. You ask round Bermondsey and see who knows Blinker and who knows Kimmo. Tha's what you do."
"Bermondsey?" Lynley asked.
But Blinker was saying nothing else. He was, instead, fuming at the idea that someone had fingered him as a thief instead of as what he really was, a common chili chump on the street, promoting the services of a fifteen-year-old boy.
Lynley said, "Were you and Kimmo lovers, by the way?"
Blinker shrugged, as if the question were unimportant. He looked round for his tuna sandwich, saw it waiting for delivery on the sill of the serving hatch, and went to fetch it himself. The waitress said, "Hang on, mate. I'll get to you soon 'nough."
Blinker ignored her and took the sandwich to the table. There, he didn't sit again. Nor did he eat. Instead, he wrapped the sandwich in his used paper napkin and shoved the package into the pocket of his worn leather jacket.
Lynley watched him and saw that the young man wasn't so much piqued by his final question as he was grieved in a way that he clearly had not expected to be. In a quivering muscle visible on his jaw, the answer lay. He and the dead boy had indeed been lovers, if not recently then initially, and probably before they had set off on a course of making money through the use of Kimmo's body.
Blinker looked at them as he zipped his jacket. He said, "Like I said. Kimmo wouldn't've had no trouble if he stayed wif me. But he didn't, did he? He went his own way when I tol' him not to. Thought he knew the world, he did. And look where it got him." That said, he was gone, making for the door and leaving Lynley and Havers studying the remains of his spaghetti Bolognese like high priests searching for auguries.
Havers said, "Didn't even say cheers for the meal." She picked up his fork and twirled two strands of the pasta onto it. This she then raised to the level of her eyes. "The body, though. Kimmo's body. None of the reports claim sex before he died, do they?"
"None of the reports," Lynley agreed.
"Which could mean...?"
"That his death has nothing to do with working the streets. Unless, of course, what happened that night happened before they ever got to the sex." Lynley pushed his coffee cup to the centre of the table, most of it undrunk.
"But if we have to eliminate sex as part...?" Havers asked.
"Then the question is: How are you at getting up before dawn?"
She looked at him. "Bermondsey?"
"I'd say that's our next direction." Lynley watched her as she considered this, the fork still dangling from her fingers.
She finally nodded, but she didn't look pleased. "I hope you're planning to be part of that party."
"I'd hardly let a lady prowl round South London in the dark on her own," Lynley replied.
"That's good news, then."
"I'm glad you're reassured. Havers, what are you intending to do with that pasta?"
She glanced at him, then back at the fork still dangling in the air. "This?" she said. She popped the spaghetti into her mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. "They definitely need to do some work on their al dente," she told him.
JARED SALVATORE, the second victim of their murderer-to whom they'd begun referring as Red Van for want of another sobriquet-had lived in Peckham, some eight miles as the crow flies from where his body had been found in Bayswater. Since from Pentonville Prison Felipe Salvatore had not been able to provide a recent address for his family, Nkata went first to their last-known abode, which was a flat in the wilderness of North Peckham Estate. This was a place where no one wandered unarmed after dark, where cops were not welcome, where turf was marked. It offered the worst there was in communal living: dismal lines of washing hanging from balconies and from drainpipes, broken and tyreless bicycles, shopping trolleys given over to rust, and every kind of rubbish imaginable. The North Peckham area made Nkata's own housing estate look like Utopia on opening day.
At the address he'd been given for the Salvatore family, Nkata found no one at home. He knocked up neighbours who either knew nothing or were willing to