“Certainly one less swaddled in packing tape,” said Proust. “Wouldn’t we all? I don’t believe for a moment that Bryn Gilligan murdered these three other people in”—he looked down at the papers on his desk—“Nottingham, Glasgow and Taunton, but I think he killed Damon Blundy, as he says he did. We find out he’s alibied for the other three, what do we say to ourselves? Poor deluded man, confessing to murders he didn’t commit . . . Then we assume he mustn’t have killed Blundy because we know he didn’t kill the others. That’s what he was hoping for—I’d put money on it.”

“He’s about to top himself,” said Simon. “Why would he bother with such Machiavellian calculations?”

“If he’s worried that, in his absence, we might pin it on him for convenience’s sake and he won’t be there to defend himself; if he wants his name cleared after death—which was an element of one of your theories, as I recall. Want to keep that one all to yourself, do you?”

“Look, we’ll get nowhere by squabbling,” said Sam. “Simon, you said you could prove King Edward VII killed Blundy. How?”

“Can we please learn this man’s name immediately, so that we don’t have to keep referring to him as King Edward VII?”

“Let me talk you through it,” said Simon. “I want to get it straight in my own head anyway.”

“I don’t need to be talked through a perishing name, Waterhouse. He’s got a name, hasn’t he? I mean, he is a man? Not a lizard in luminous slippers?”

“He’s a man, yes,” said Simon.

“Then spit it out,” Proust growled. “Afterward, by all means, follow up with whatever parable takes your fancy.”

“Chris”—Simon looked at Gibbs—“you didn’t hear the name King Edward VII. You saw it.”

Gibbs frowned. “Written down?”

“Printed. On a sign. A sign none of us has seen, only you. Well, I’ve seen it on a website.”

“What sign?”

“Think about sheets of black paper stuck to a windowpane, to cover up the view,” said Simon.

“Reuben Tasker’s attic window,” said Gibbs. “But there was no . . .” He stopped. His eyes widened. “The school.”

Simon nodded. To Sam, Sellers and Proust, he said, “The school opposite Reuben Tasker’s house, the one he could no longer stand the sight of, is called King Edward VII.”

“So . . . that’s why . . .” Gibbs broke off, rubbed his face with his hands. Unable to reach a conclusion as quickly as he’d have liked to, he diverted to a question: “So where does that get us? Tasker killed Blundy—right?”