In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(169)

“She's sedated, miss.” The nurse pursed her lips in disapproval as she put the final bit of tape on the gauze.

“But she'll be all right, won’ she?”

Lynley glanced at the nurse before saying, “She'll recover.”

“Bu’ her face. All them bandages. Wha's he done t'her face?”

“That's where he beat her.”

Shelly Platt wept harder. “No. No. Oh Vi. I'm that sorry. I di'n't mean no real harm on you. I was cheesed off, tha's all. You know how I am.”

The nurse crinkled her nose at this display of emotion. She left the room.

“She's going to need plastic surgery,” Lynley told Shelly when they were alone. “And then …” He sought a clear but compassionate way of explaining to the girl what the future was likely to hold for Vi Nevin. “There's a very good chance she's going to find her professional options narrower than they were before.” He waited to see if Shelly would understand without a more graphic explanation. Un-pretty as she was but still on the game, she would have to know what facial scars presaged for a woman who'd earned her substantial keep by playing Lolita for her clients.

Shelly moved an anguished gaze from Lynley to her friend. “I'll take care of her, then. F'm now on, and every single minute. I'll take care of my Vi.” She kissed Vis hand and clutched it harder and wept harder still.

“She needs to rest now,” Lynley told her.

“I'm not leaving Vi till she knows I'm here.”

“You can wait with the constable. I'll see to it that he allows you in the room once an hour.”

Shelly parted with Vi's hand only reluctantly In the corridor she said, “You'll go affer him, won’ you? You'll cart him off to the nick straightaway?” And it was those two questions that haunted Lynley all the way to the Yard.

Martin Reeve had it all in the attack on Vi Nevin: motive, means, and opportunity. He had a lifestyle to maintain and a wife whose drug habit needed feeding. He couldn't afford to lose any income. If one girl managed to leave him successfully, there was nothing to prevent another girl—or ten girls—from following suit. And if he allowed that to happen, he'd soon be out of business altogether. Because the two necessary participants in prostitution are the prostitutes themselves and their willing punters. Pimps are expendable. And Martin Reeve was aware of that fact. He would rule over his women by example and fear: by illustrating the extremes he was willing to go to to protect his domain and by implying—through those extremes—that what happened to one girl could easily happen to another. Vi Nevin had served as an object lesson for the rest of Reeve's women. The only question was whether Nicola Maiden and Terry Cole were object lessons as well.

There was one way to find out: get Reeve to the Yard without a solicitor in tow and outsmart him once he was present. But to do that, Lynley knew that he was going to need to outmanoeuvre the man, and his options in that particular realm were limited.

Lynley looked for a means of manipulation in the photographs of the maisonette, which the police photographer had rushed to him that morning. He studied in particular a shoe print on the kitchen floor, and he wondered if the pattern of hexagons on the shoe's sole was rare enough to count for something. Certainly, it ought to be sufficient to get a warrant. And, warrant in hand, three or four officers could tear apart MKR Financial Management and find evidence of Reeve's true business dealings, even if he'd been clever enough to rid himself of the shoes with those hexagonally marked soles. Once they had that evidence, they'd be in a position to intimidate the pimp. Which was exactly where Lynley wanted to be.

He looked through more of the pictures, flipping them one by one onto his desk. He was still in the process of examining them for something useful, when Barbara Havers charged into his office.

“Holy hell,” she said without preamble, “wait till you hear what I've got, Inspector.” And she began to chatter about an auction house on Cork Street, someone called Sitwell, Soho Square, and King-Ryder Productions. “So I saw this painting when I left his digs,” she concluded triumphantly. “And believe me, sir, if you'd got a glimpse of Cilia's work in Battersea, you'd agree it's a hell of a lot more than a simple coincidence that I'd stumble across anyone in God's creation who'd actually bought one of her disgusting pieces.” She flopped into one of the chairs in front of his desk and scooped up the photographs. She said, giving them a cursory examination, “King-Ryder's our boy. And you can write that in my blood if you'd like to.”

Lynley observed her over the top of his spectacles. “What led you in that direction? Is there a connection between Mr. King-Ryder and Maiden's SO 10 time that you've uncovered? Because in your report you didn't mention …” He paused, wondering and not liking his wondering. “Havers, how did you get on to King-Ryder?”

She kept up a resolute study of the pictures as she replied. But she spoke in a rush. “It was like this, sir. I found a business card at Terry Cole's flat. An address as well. And I thought … Well, I know I should have turned it over to you straightaway, but it slipped my mind when you sent me back to CRIS. And as things turned out, I had a bit of free time yesterday when I finished the report and—” She hesitated, her attention still on the pictures. But when she finally looked up, her expression had altered, less sure now than when she'd strode into the room. “Since I had that card and the address, I went over to Soho Square and then down to Cork Street and … Inspector, gosh. What difference does it make what led me to him? King-Ryder's lying, and if he's lying, we both know there's just one reason why.”