that window.”
“What about the piece of lace on body four?” Lynley asked.
Nkata was the one to reply. “Looks like tatting, you ask me.”
“What?”
“Tatting. That’s what it’s called. My mum does it. Knotting up string along the edges of a mat. For putting on antique furniture or under a piece of porcelain or something.”
“Are you talking about an antimacassar?” John Stewart asked.
“Anti-what?” one of the DCs asked.
“It’s antique lacework,” Lynley explained. “The sort of thing ladies used to do for their bottom drawers.”
“Bloody hell,” Barbara Havers said. “Our killer’s an Antiques Roadshow freak?”
Guffaws all round greeted this remark.
Lynley said, “What about the bicycle left in St. George’s Gardens?”
“Prints on it are the kid’s. There’s some sort of residue on the pedals and the gear shift, but SO7’s not done with it yet.”
“The silver at the scene?”
Aside from the fact that the silver comprised only photo frames, no one knew anything else about it. Someone made reference to the Antiques Roadshow once again, but the comment was less humorous the second time round.
Lynley told them all to carry on. He directed Nkata to continue trying to make contact with the family of the one missing boy who looked like a possible match, he told Havers to continue with the missing-persons reports—an order she did not embrace with a full heart, if her expression was any indication—and he himself returned to his office and sat down with the autopsies. He put on his reading spectacles and went over the reports with eyes that he tried to make fresh. He also created a crib sheet for himself. On this, he wrote:
Means of death: strangulation by ligature in all four cases; ligature missing.
Torture prior to death: palms of both hands burnt in three of four cases.
Marks of restraints: across the forearms and at ankles in all four cases, suggesting victim tied to an armchair of some kind or possibly supine and restrained another way.
Fibre analysis corroborates this: same leather fibres on the arms and ankles in all four cases.
Contents of stomach: a small amount of food eaten within an hour preceding death in all four cases.
Gagging device: duct-tape residue over the mouth in all four cases.
Blood analysis: nothing unusual.
Postmortem mutilation: abdominal incision and removal of navel in victim four.
Marking: forehead marked in blood in victim four.
Trace evidence on the bodies: black residue (under analysis), hairs, an oil (under analysis) in all four cases.
DNA evidence: nothing.
Lynley went through it all once, then a second time. He picked up the phone and called SO7, the forensic lab on the south bank of the Thames. It had been ages since the first of the murders. Surely by now they had an analysis of both the oil and the residue they’d found on the first of the bodies, no matter how overwhelmed with work they were.
Maddeningly, they had nothing yet on the residue, but “Whale” was the single answer he was given when he finally tracked down the responsible party in Lambeth Road. She was called Dr. Okerlund, and she was apparently given to monosyllables unless pressed for more information.
“Whale?” Lynley asked. “Do you mean the fish?”
“For God’s sake, mammal,” she corrected him. “Sperm whale, to be exact. Official name—the oil, not the whale—is ambergris.”
“Ambergris? What’s it used for?”
“Perfume. All you need from me, Superintendent?”
“Perfume?”
“Are we playing at echoes here? That’s what I said.”
“Nothing else?”
“What else d’you want me to say?”
“I mean the oil, Dr. Okerlund. Is it used for anything besides perfume?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” she said. “That’s your job.”
He thanked her for the reminder as pleasantly as he could manage. Then he rang off. He added the word ambergris in the section for trace evidence, and he returned to the incident room. He called out,
“What about the piece of lace on body four?” Lynley asked.
Nkata was the one to reply. “Looks like tatting, you ask me.”
“What?”
“Tatting. That’s what it’s called. My mum does it. Knotting up string along the edges of a mat. For putting on antique furniture or under a piece of porcelain or something.”
“Are you talking about an antimacassar?” John Stewart asked.
“Anti-what?” one of the DCs asked.
“It’s antique lacework,” Lynley explained. “The sort of thing ladies used to do for their bottom drawers.”
“Bloody hell,” Barbara Havers said. “Our killer’s an Antiques Roadshow freak?”
Guffaws all round greeted this remark.
Lynley said, “What about the bicycle left in St. George’s Gardens?”
“Prints on it are the kid’s. There’s some sort of residue on the pedals and the gear shift, but SO7’s not done with it yet.”
“The silver at the scene?”
Aside from the fact that the silver comprised only photo frames, no one knew anything else about it. Someone made reference to the Antiques Roadshow once again, but the comment was less humorous the second time round.
Lynley told them all to carry on. He directed Nkata to continue trying to make contact with the family of the one missing boy who looked like a possible match, he told Havers to continue with the missing-persons reports—an order she did not embrace with a full heart, if her expression was any indication—and he himself returned to his office and sat down with the autopsies. He put on his reading spectacles and went over the reports with eyes that he tried to make fresh. He also created a crib sheet for himself. On this, he wrote:
Means of death: strangulation by ligature in all four cases; ligature missing.
Torture prior to death: palms of both hands burnt in three of four cases.
Marks of restraints: across the forearms and at ankles in all four cases, suggesting victim tied to an armchair of some kind or possibly supine and restrained another way.
Fibre analysis corroborates this: same leather fibres on the arms and ankles in all four cases.
Contents of stomach: a small amount of food eaten within an hour preceding death in all four cases.
Gagging device: duct-tape residue over the mouth in all four cases.
Blood analysis: nothing unusual.
Postmortem mutilation: abdominal incision and removal of navel in victim four.
Marking: forehead marked in blood in victim four.
Trace evidence on the bodies: black residue (under analysis), hairs, an oil (under analysis) in all four cases.
DNA evidence: nothing.
Lynley went through it all once, then a second time. He picked up the phone and called SO7, the forensic lab on the south bank of the Thames. It had been ages since the first of the murders. Surely by now they had an analysis of both the oil and the residue they’d found on the first of the bodies, no matter how overwhelmed with work they were.
Maddeningly, they had nothing yet on the residue, but “Whale” was the single answer he was given when he finally tracked down the responsible party in Lambeth Road. She was called Dr. Okerlund, and she was apparently given to monosyllables unless pressed for more information.
“Whale?” Lynley asked. “Do you mean the fish?”
“For God’s sake, mammal,” she corrected him. “Sperm whale, to be exact. Official name—the oil, not the whale—is ambergris.”
“Ambergris? What’s it used for?”
“Perfume. All you need from me, Superintendent?”
“Perfume?”
“Are we playing at echoes here? That’s what I said.”
“Nothing else?”
“What else d’you want me to say?”
“I mean the oil, Dr. Okerlund. Is it used for anything besides perfume?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” she said. “That’s your job.”
He thanked her for the reminder as pleasantly as he could manage. Then he rang off. He added the word ambergris in the section for trace evidence, and he returned to the incident room. He called out,
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