With No One As Witness (56 page)

She said, “You bloody self-centred bastard.”

“Rike—”

“Get out. Get out of my life.”

He said, “What? Are you sacking me?”

She laughed, a harsh sound whose humour was directed only at herself and her stupidity. “It always comes down to that, doesn’t it?”

“Down to what?”

“Down to you. No, I’m not sacking you. That would be far too easy. I want you here, right under my thumb. I want you jumping when I say frog. I intend to keep an eye on you.”

Incredibly, he still said, “But will you tell the cops…?”

“Believe me, I’ll tell them whatever they want to know.”

LYNLEY DECIDED he owed it to Havers to let her in on the second interview with Barry Minshall, since she’d been the one to collar him in the first place. So he fetched her from the incident room where she was in the midst of looking into the background of the bath-salts vendor in the Stables Market. He told her only to come with him. As they took the stairs down to the underground carpark, he put her in the picture.

“He’s looking for a deal, I’ll wager,” she said when he told her that Barry Minshall was ready to talk. “That bloke’s got so much dirty laundry, he’s going to need a Persil factory to clean it all. Mark my words. Will you play, then, sir?”

“These are boys, Havers. Just out of childhood. I won’t make their lives less valuable by giving their killer any option but the one that faces him: life residence in a very unpleasant environment where child molesters are the least popular of the denizens.”

“I can live with that,” Havers told him.

Despite her agreement, he found he needed to say more, as if he were in debate with her. It seemed to him that only by striking hard would anyone ever be able to extirpate the sickness that had begun to plague their society. He said, “Somewhere along the line, Havers, we’ve got to become a country without throwaway children. We’ve got to move beyond being a place where anything goes and nothing matters. Believe me, I’m happy enough to start by using Mr. Minshall as an object lesson for those who think of twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys as disposable items akin to take-away curry cartons.” He paused on one of the landings, then, and looked at her. “Preaching,” he said ruefully. “Sorry.”

“No problem. You’re entitled.” She lifted her head to indicate the upper floors of Victoria Block. “But, sir…” She sounded hesitant, which was completely unlike her. She barreled forward. “This Corsico bloke…?”

“Hillier’s embedded reporter. We can’t get round it. He’s not listening to reason any more than he’s listened to it all along.”

“The bloke’s staying in bounds,” she reassured him. “It’s not that. He’s not looking at a thing, and the only questions he’s asking are about you. Hillier said he’s going to be profiling people, but I’m thinking…” She looked restless. Lynley could tell she wanted a cigarette, which had long been Havers’ form of Dutch courage. He finished her thought.

“It’s not a good idea. Bringing the investigators into the picture in a public forum.”

“It’s just not on,” she said. “I don’t want this bloke fingering through my knicker drawer.”

“I’ve told Dee Harriman to give him enough of an earful about me that he’ll be kept busy for days tracking down details from my disreputable past, which she’s been instructed to gild as much as she likes: Eton, Oxford, Howenstow, a score of love affairs, upper-crust pursuits like yachting, pheasant shooting, fox-hunting—”

“Bloody hell, do you—”

“Of course not. Well, once when I was ten, and I loathed it. But Dee can talk about that as well as dozens of dancing girls performing at my whimsy if that’s what it takes. I want this bloke kept out of everyone else’s way for a while. God willing—and if Dee does her job and everyone else Corsico talks to catches on—we’ll have this case wrapped up before he even gets on to profiling anyone else.”

“You can’t want your mug on the front page of The Source,” she said as they continued down the stairs. “‘The Earl Who’s a Cop.’ That sort of rubbish.”

“It’s the last thing I want. But if putting my face on the front of The Source keeps everything else about this case out of The Source, I’m willing to put up with the embarrassment.”

They made their way to their separate vehicles, the day growing late and the Holmes Street station being close enough to Havers’ bungalow to make it logical for her to return home at the end of their conversation with Barry Minshall. She trailed Lynley across London in her sputtering Mini, after a few breathless moments in the carpark wondering if the car would start at all.

At the Holmes Street station, they were expected. James Barty—the duty solicitor—had to be fetched, which took some twenty minutes while they cooled their heels in an interview room and declined an offer of late-afternoon tea. When Barty finally showed up, with crumbs from a scone studding the corner of his mouth, it shortly became evident that he had no idea why his client had decided to talk. It certainly wasn’t something that the solicitor had urged Minshall to do. He preferred to wait until he saw what the police had to offer, Barty informed them. There was generally something behind it all when a charge of murder was as swift as this one had been, didn’t the superintendent agree?

Barry Minshall’s advent in their midst precluded a reply on Lynley’s part. The magician came in, brought from his cell by the duty sergeant. He had on his dark glasses. He was much the same as he’d been on the previous day, save for his cheeks and his chin, which showed white stubble.

“How d’you like the accommodation?” Havers asked. “Growing on you yet?”

Minshall ignored her. Lynley switched the tape recorder on, giving the date, the time, and the people present. He said, “You’ve asked to speak to us, Mr. Minshall. What is it you’d like to say?”

“I’m not a murderer.” Minshall’s tongue came out and licked his lips, a lizard movement of colourless flesh against colourless flesh.

“D’you actually think that van of yours isn’t going to give us fingerprints from here to Friday?” Havers asked. “Not to mention your flat. When was the last time you cleaned that place, anyway? I reckon it’s got more evidence inside it than an abattoir.”

“I’m not saying I didn’t know Davey Benton. Or the others. The boys in the pictures. I knew them. I know them. Our paths crossed and we became…friends, you can call it. Or teacher and pupil. Or mentor and…whatever. So I admit to having them over to my flat: Davey Benton and the boys in the pictures. But the reason was to teach them magic so that when I was invited to a children’s party, there would be no question of…” He swallowed loudly. “Look, people aren’t trusting, and why should they be? Someone dressed up like Father Christmas pulls a child on his knee and puts his hand up her knickers. A clown goes into the children’s ward at the local hospital and takes a toddler into a linen room. It’s everywhere you look, and I need a way to show parents they’ve nothing to fear from me. A boy assistant…He always puts the parents at ease. That’s what I was training Davey to do.”

“To be your assistant,” Havers repeated.

“That’s correct.”

Lynley leaned forward, shaking his head. He said, “I’m concluding this interview…” He glanced at his watch and gave the time. He switched off the recorder and stood, saying, “Havers, we’ve wasted our time. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Havers looked surprised, but she got up as well. She said, “Right then,” and followed him towards the door.

Minshall said, “Wait. I haven’t—”

Lynley swung round. “You wait, Mr. Minshall. You listen as well. Possession and transmission of child pornography. Child molestation. Paedophilia. Murder.”

“I didn’t—”

“I’m not about to sit here and listen to you claim you were operating a training school for child magicians. You were seen with that boy. In the market. At your home. God knows where else, because we’re just beginning. Traces of him will be everywhere associated with you, and traces of you will be all over him.”

“You’re not going to find—”

“We bloody well will. And the barrister who’s even willing to take your case will have the devil of a time explaining it all away to a jury hungry to send you down for putting your filthy hands on a little boy.”

“They weren’t little…” Minshall stopped himself. He fell back in his chair.

Lynley said nothing. Neither did Havers. The room was suddenly as silent as a crypt in a country church.

James Barty said, “Would you like a moment, Barry?”

Minshall shook his head. Lynley and Havers remained where they were. Two more steps and they’d be out of the room. The ball was sailing into Minshall’s court, and he was no fool. Lynley knew he had to see it.

“It meant nothing,” he said. “That word. Weren’t. It isn’t the slip you think it is. Those boys who’ve died—the others, not Davey—you won’t find a thing that connects me to them. I swear to God I didn’t know them.”

“Are we talking biblically?” Havers asked.

Minshall threw her a look. Even from behind his glasses, he transmitted the message: As if you’d understand. Next to him, Lynley felt her bristle. He touched her arm lightly, directing her back to the table. He said, “What have you got to tell us?”

“Turn on the recorder,” Minshall replied.

“IT ISN’T WHAT YOU THINK,” WERE BARRY MINSHALL’S first words when Lynley had the tape recorder going. “Your sort have an idea fixed in the head, and then you mould the facts to make sure your idea plays out. But how you think it was…? You’re wrong. And how Davey Benton was…? You’re wrong about that as well. But I’ll tell you straightaway, you won’t be able to face what I have to say, because if you do, it topples the way you’ve probably always seen the world. I want some water. I’m parched and this will take a while.”

Lynley hated to give the man anything, but he nodded to Havers and she disappeared to fetch Minshall his drink. She was back in less than a minute with a single plastic cup of water that looked as if she’d taken it directly from the ladies’ toilet, which she probably had. She placed it in front of Minshall and he gazed from her to it as if checking to see if she’d spat in it. Finding it passable, he took a sip.

“I can help you,” he said. “But I want a deal.”

Lynley reached towards the recorder another time, preparatory to switching it off and ending the interview once again.

Minshall said, “I wouldn’t do that. You need me just as much as I need you. I knew Davey Benton. I taught him some elementary magic tricks. I dressed him up as my assistant. He rode in my van, and he visited me in my flat. But that’s the end of it. I never put a hand on him in the way you’re thinking, no matter what he wanted.”

Lynley felt his mouth going dry. “What the hell are you implying?”

“Not implying, saying. Telling. Informing. Whatever you want to call it, it comes out the same. That boy was bent. At least, he thought he was bent, and he was looking for proof. A first time to show him what it was like. Male to male.”

“You can’t intend us to believe—”

“I don’t care what you believe. I’m telling you the truth. I doubt I was the first bloke he tried because he was damned direct in his approach. Hands on my crotch the instant we were out of public view. He saw me as a loner—which I am, let’s face it—and to his way of thinking, it was safe to try things out with me. That’s what he wanted to do, and I set him straight. I do not have underage kids, I told him. Come back on your sixteenth birthday.”

“You’re a liar, Barry,” Barbara Havers said. “Your computer’s filled with child pornography. You were carrying it in your van, for God’s sake. You’re shagging your fist in front of your computer screen every night, and you want us to believe Davey Benton was after you and not the reverse?”

“You can think what you want. You obviously do. Why not, when I’m such a flipping freak? And that’s running through your head as well, isn’t it? He looks like a ghoul, so he must be one.”

“Use that move often?” Havers asked. “I expect it works wonders out there in the world. Turn people’s aversion in on themselves. That must work specially well on kids. You’re a sodding genius, you are, boy-o. High marks for sorting out a way to play your appearance to your advantage, mate.”

Lynley said, “You don’t appear to understand your position, Mr. Minshall. Has Mr. Barty”—with a nod at the solicitor—“explained what happens when you’re charged with murder? Magistrates’ court, remand, coming to trial at the Old Bailey—”

“All those lags and screws just waiting to welcome you into Wormwood Scrubs with open arms,” Havers added. “They have a special greeting for child molesters. Did you know that, Bar? It requires you to bend over, of course.”

“I am not—”

Lynley switched off the recorder. “Apparently,” he said to James Barty, “your client needs more time to think. Meanwhile, the evidence mounts up against you, Mr. Minshall. And the moment we confirm that you were the last person to see Davey Benton alive, you can feel free to consider your fate well sealed.”

“I did not—”

“You might try to convince the CPS about that. We collect the evidence. We turn it over to them. At that point, things are out of our hands.”

“I can help you.”

“Think about helping yourself.”

“I can give you information. But the only way you’re going to get that from me is through a deal because if I give you anything, I’m not going to be a particularly popular man.”

“If you don’t give us something, you’re being sent down as Davey Benton’s,” Barbara Havers pointed out. “And that’s not going to do much for your popularity, Barry.”

“What I suggest,” Lynley said, “is that you tell us what you know and pray to God we’re more interested in that than in anything else. But make no mistake about it, Barry, you’re facing at least one murder charge currently. Any other charge you might come to face in the future as a result of what you tell us now about Davey Benton isn’t going to carry the same stretch in prison. Unless it’s another count of murder, of course.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Minshall said, but his voice was altered now, and for the first time it seemed to Lynley that they might be getting through to the man.

“Convince us,” Barbara Havers said.