Page 80 of The Chapel of Bones

‘Only that he didn’t come back for the second year. I heard he’d dropped out and gone abroad – maybe to Africa to work with wildlife.’

‘You don’t happen to know where we can find him now, do you?’ said Gerry hopefully.

‘Sorry. No.’

It was the answer Wesley had been expecting.

It was beginning to look as though the zoo was the epicentre of everything that had happened, and efforts to locate Jon Gadson had begun in earnest. Charles Lanson had mentioned Gadson’s ambition to travel to Africa, matching what Aphrodite and Apollo had told them about Carlo Lanzani.

Wesley was now convinced that Lanzani and Jon were one and the same person. The residents of St Julian’s and CasaMirabilis seemed to have been in the habit of changing their names to make themselves sound more interesting and exotic. It was likely that Jon had done the same.

Now that they were satisfied that Charles Lanson had nothing to do with the murders, he had been thanked for his time and sent home. Next Jim Baker was brought back to the interview room. Wesley had doubts about his guilt, but they needed to ask him some more questions before he was released.

‘Mr Baker, we’ve just been talking to someone who used to study with Carlo Lanzani.’

Baker didn’t react.

‘You were a friend of Dale Gadson. Were you aware that the Carlo Lanzani you knew all those years ago was a relative of his? His real name was Jon Gadson.’

Baker looked puzzled. ‘No. Carlo said his dad had something to do with animals, and I assumed he was a farmer or something like that. I didn’t meet Dale till years later, when I moved into nan’s bungalow, so I didn’t put two and two together. Why would I?’

‘Can you remember anything else Carlo said?’

‘He said he had an older half-brother who was away in the States.’

‘And you had no idea that was Dale?’

‘No way. How could I? Like I said, I only met Dale a few months ago.’

‘Anything else you remember? Anything Carlo said while you were living at St Julian’s?’

‘He said once that he hated his stepmother.’

‘Is that all?’

‘He said she was a cruel bitch.’

‘Cruel? Was that the word he used?’

‘Yeah. He said she’d turned someone against him. But I don’t know what he meant by that.’

‘And you definitely had no idea his real name was Jon Gadson?’

Baker shook his head vigorously. ‘As far as I was concerned, he was Carlo Lanzani. I had no reason to question that.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell us about him?’

‘He was interested in medieval beasts; said his tutor at uni had got him into it. There were some weird carvings in the garden where we lived. Powerful things.’ A distant look came into his eyes. ‘He was obsessed with them.’

‘His tutor? Was that Aleric Donnal?’

Baker’s eyes widened. ‘Hey, isn’t that who was found . . . ?’

Wesley didn’t answer. ‘When we spoke before, you said Dale mentioned a younger brother. Did he say where he was?’

‘I told you, he thought he was abroad. I think he said something about him working in Africa on a wildlife reserve, but he hadn’t seen him for years. Said he could be dead for all he knew. Look, I can’t believe he was Carlo. Are you sure you’ve got this right?’

It was a good question. Was the Carlo Lanzani Jim knew really Jon Gadson? The jigsaw seemed to be fitting together. They just needed a few final pieces.