With No One As Witness

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EVEN IF ROBBIE KILFOYLE IN HIS EURODISNEY CAP hadn’t alluded to the fact, Barbara Havers would have twigged that something was going on between Griffin Strong and Ulrike Ellis about fifteen seconds into seeing them together. Whether it was merely a case of angst-filled love going unacknowledged, of footsie in the local canteen, or Kama Sutra under the stars, she couldn’t have said. Nor could she tell if it was just a one-way street with Ulrike doing all the driving in a car she was piloting to nowhere. But that there was something in the air between them-some sort of electrical charge that usually meant naked bodies and moaning exchanges of bodily fluids but could really mean anything in between handshakes and the primal act-only a deaf-mute alien life form would have thought to deny.

The director of Colossus personally brought Griffin Strong to Barbara. She made the introductions, and the way she said his name-not to mention the way she looked at him, with an expression not unlike the one Barbara felt on her own face whenever she gazed upon a fruit-topped cheesecake-pretty much put neon lights round whatever secret she or they were supposed to be keeping. And obviously, there had to be a secret. Not only had Robbie Kilfoyle earlier mentioned the word wife in connection with Strong, but the man himself wore a wedding band the approximate size of a lorry tyre. Which in itself was a wise idea, Barbara thought. Strong was just about the most gorgeous thing she’d ever seen walking unmolested on the streets of London. He no doubt needed something to ward off the hordes of females whose jaws probably dropped to their chests when he passed them. He looked like a film star. He looked better than a film star. He looked like a god.

He also, Barbara realised, looked uneasy. She couldn’t decide if this counted in his favour or marked him down for further study.

He said, “Ulrike’s told me about Kimmo Thorne and Sean Lavery. You might as well know: They were both mine. Sean went through assessment with me ten months ago and Kimmo was going through assessment now. I let Ulrike know straightaway when he-Kimmo-didn’t turn up. Obviously, I didn’t know Sean was missing, as he’s not currently one of mine.”

Barbara nodded. Helpful, she thought. And the bit about Sean was an interesting wrinkle.

She asked was there a spot where they could talk. They didn’t exactly need Ulrike Ellis hanging upon their every word.

Strong said he shared an office with two other assessment leaders. They were off with their kids today, though, and if she’d follow him there, they’d have some privacy. He himself didn’t have a lot of time, though, because he was due to help take some kids out on the river. He gave Ulrike a quick glance and motioned Barbara to follow him.

For her part, Barbara tried to interpret that glance and the nervous smile that quivered on Ulrike’s lips as she received it. You and me, babe. Our secret, darling. We’ll talk later. I want you naked. Rescue me in five minutes, please. The possibilities seemed endless.

Barbara followed Griffin Strong-“It’s Griff,” he said-to an office just the other side of reception. It displayed the same decorating sense as Ulrike’s: heavy on clutter and light on available space. Bookshelves, filing cabinets, one shared desk. The walls held posters intended to influence young people in a positive direction: illiterate football stars with curious hairdos, pretending to read Charles Dickens, and pop singers doing thirty seconds of public service in soup kitchens. Colossus posters joined these. On them, the familiar logo appeared, that giant allowing himself to be used by the smaller and the less fortunate.

Strong went to one of the filing cabinets and fingered through a packed drawer to pull out two files. He consulted them and told her that Kimmo Thorne had come to Colossus via the magistrate’s court, Youth Offenders, and his predilection for selling stolen goods. Sean had come via Social Services and something about a hijacked mountain bike.

Again, that demonstration of helpfulness. Strong returned the files and went to the desk, where he sat and rubbed his forehead.

“You look tired,” Barbara noted.

“I’ve a baby with colic,” he said, “and a wife with postnatal blues. I’m coping. But only just.”

That at least partially explained whatever might be going on with Ulrike, Barbara decided. It fell into the poor-misunderstood-and-neglected-husband class of extramarital whatevers. “Tough times,” she said in acknowledgement.

He flashed her a smile of-what else would it be?-perfect, white teeth. “It’s worth it. I’ll get through them.”

Bet you will, Barbara thought. She asked him about Kimmo Thorne. What did Strong know about his time at Colossus? About his associates here? His friends, mentors, acquaintances, teachers, and the like. Having had him in the assessment course-which she was given to understand would provide the most intimate of the interactions that the kids would engage in at Colossus-he probably knew Kimmo better than anyone else did.

Good kid, Strong told her. Oh, he’d been in trouble, but he wasn’t cut out for criminality. He just did it as a means to an end, not for kicks and not as an unconscious social statement. And he’d rejected that sort of life, anyway… Well, at least that was how it had seemed so far. It had been too soon to tell which way Kimmo would actually go, which was generally the case during a young person’s first weeks at Colossus.

What sort of boy was he? Barbara then asked.

Well liked, Griff told her. Pleasant, affable. He was just the sort of boy who stood a good chance of actually making something of himself. He had real potential and real talent. It was a bloody shame some bastard out there had targeted him.

Barbara took down all of this information, despite knowing most of it already, despite feeling it was all somehow rehearsed. Doing this gave her the opportunity not to look at the man who was passing the details along to her. She evaluated his voice while not distracted by his GQ looks. He sounded sincere enough. Very forthcoming and all that. But there was nothing in what he was telling her that indicated he knew Kimmo better than anyone else, and that didn’t make sense. He was supposed to know him well, or at least to be getting to know him well. Yet there was nothing here to indicate that, and she had to wonder why.

“Any special friends here?” she asked.

He said, “What?” And then, “Do you actually think someone from Colossus may have killed him?”

“It’s a possibility,” Barbara said.

“Ulrike’ll tell you everyone’s thoroughly vetted before they come to work here. The idea that somehow a serial killer-”

“Had a good chat with Ulrike before you and I met, then?” Barbara looked up from her notes. He had a deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face.

“Of course she told me you were here when she told me about Kimmo and Sean. But she said there were several other deaths you’re investigating, so it can’t have anything to do with Colossus. And no one knows if Sean’s just bunked off for the day anyway.”

“True,” Barbara said. “Any special friends?”

“Mine?”

“We were talking about Kimmo.”

“Kimmo. Right. Everyone liked him. And you’d think the opposite would be the case, considering how he got himself up and how most kids feel about their sexuality in adolescence.”

“How’s that, then?”

“You know, a bit ill at ease, unsure at first about their own proclivities and consequently unwilling to have anything to do with someone who might cast a questionable light upon them in the eyes of their peers. But no one seemed to shun Kimmo. He didn’t allow it. As to special friends, there was no one he singled out and no one who singled out him more than anyone else. But that’s not something that would happen in assessment anyway. The kids are supposed to bond as a group.”

“What about Sean?” she asked him.

“What about Sean?”

“Friends?”

Strong hesitated. Then, “He had a rougher time than Kimmo, as I recall,” he said reflectively. “He didn’t get close to the group he went through assessment with. But he seemed more standoffish in general. An introvert. Things on his mind.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. Except he was angry, and he didn’t try to hide it.”

“About what?”

“Being here, I expect. In my experience, most kids are angry when they come to us through Social Services. They generally break down sometime during their assessment weeks, but Sean never did.”

How long had Griffin Strong been an assessment leader at Colossus? Barbara asked.

Unlike Kilfoyle and Greenham, who’d had to think about how long they’d been associated with the organisation, Griff said, “Fourteen months,” at once.

“And before?” Barbara asked.

“Social work. I’d started out in medicine-thought I’d be a pathologist till I found I couldn’t abide the sight of a dead body-then I switched over to psychology. And sociology. I’ve a first in each.”

That was impressive enough, as well as easily checked out. “Where’d you work?” Barbara asked him.

He didn’t respond at once, so again Barbara lifted her head from her notebook. She found him staring at her, and she knew that he’d intended her to raise her head and that he enjoyed the sensation of having forced her into doing so. Flatly, she repeated her question.

He finally said, “Stockwell, for a time.”

“Before that?”

“Lewisham. Is this important?”

“Just now, everything’s important.” Barbara took her time writing “Stockwell” and “Lewisham” into her notebook. She said, “What sort, anyway?” when she’d put a little flourish on the final letter.

“What sort of what?”

“Social work. Kids in care? Lags on the loose? Single mums? What?”

He didn’t answer a second time. Barbara thought he might be playing the power game again, but she raised her head anyway. This time, though, he wasn’t looking at her but rather at the football player on the poster, ostensibly enraptured by his leather-bound copy of Bleak House. Barbara was about to repeat her question when Griff appeared to come to a decision about something.

He said, “You might as well know. You’ll find out anyway. I was sacked from both jobs.”

“For?”

“I don’t always get on with supervisors, especially if they’re female. Sometimes…” He gave his attention fully back to her, two dark deep eyes compelling her to keep her gaze locked upon him. “There are always disagreements in this sort of work. There have to be. We’re dealing with human lives and each life is different from the last, isn’t it.”

“You could say that,” Barbara said, curious about where he was going with all this. He showed her in short order.

“Yes. Well. I have a tendency to express myself strongly, and women have a tendency not to take that well. I end up getting…let’s call it misunderstood for want of a better term.”

Ah, there it was, Barbara thought, the misunderstood business. It just wasn’t being applied where she’d expected it to be. “But Ulrike doesn’t have that problem with you?”

“Not so far,” he said. “But then, Ulrike likes discussion. She’s not afraid of a healthy debate among the team.”

Or a healthy something else as well, Barbara thought. Especially that. She said, “You and Ulrike are close, then?”

He wasn’t about to get into that. “She runs the organisation.”

“What about when you’re not here at Colossus?”

“What are you asking?”

“If you’re bonking your boss. I guess I’m wondering how the other assessment leaders might feel about it if you and Ulrike happen to be making the beast with two backs after hours. Or how anyone else might feel about it, for that matter. Is that how you lost your other two jobs, by the way?”

He said evenly, “You’re not very nice, are you?”

“Not with five dead bodies to account for.”

“Five…? You can’t possibly conclude…I was told…Ulrike said you’d come here-”

“About Kimmo, yeah. But that’s just one of two dead bodies with names,” Barbara said.

“But you said that Sean…Sean’s only missing, isn’t he? He’s not dead…You don’t know…”

“We’ve a body this morning that could be Sean, and I’m sure Ulrike clued you in on that. Beyond that, we’ve got a kid called Jared Salvatore identified and three others in line to be claimed by someone. Five in all.”

He didn’t say anything, but he seemed to be holding his breath for some reason, and Barbara wondered what that meant. He finally murmured, “Jesus.”

“What’s happened to the rest of your assessment kids, Mr. Strong?” Barbara asked.

“What do you mean?”

“How closely do you follow them when they’re done with their first two weeks at this place?”

“I don’t. I haven’t. I mean, they go on to their instructors next. If they want to go on, that is. The instructors keep tabs on how they’re doing, and they report in to Ulrike. The whole team meets every two weeks and we talk, and Ulrike herself counsels the kids having trouble.” He frowned. He tapped his knuckles on his desk. “If these other kids turn out to be ours…Someone’s trying to discredit Colossus,” he told her. “Or one of us. Someone’s trying to get at one of us.”

“You think that’s the case?” Barbara asked.

“If even one other of the bodies comes from here, what else is there to think?”

“That kids are in danger all over London,” Barbara said, “but that they’re really up against it if they end up here.”

“Like we’re setting out to kill them, you mean?” Strong’s question was outraged.

Barbara smiled and flipped her notebook closed. “Your words, not mine, Mr. Strong,” she said.

REVEREND BRAM SAVIDGE and his wife lived in a West Hampstead neighbourhood that belied the church leader’s we-are-of-the-people demeanour. It was a small house, true. But it was far more than anyone whom Lynley had seen either dishing out the food or eating it at Plugged Inn to the Lord could afford. And Savidge led the way there in a late-model Saab. As DC Havers would have happily pointed out: Someone round here wasn’t hurting for lolly.

Savidge waited for Lynley to find a place for the Bentley on the tree-lined street. He stood on the front step of his house, looking vaguely biblical with his caftan blowing in the winter breeze, coatless despite the frigid winter weather. When Lynley finally joined him, he sorted out three locks on the front door and opened it. He called, “Oni? I’ve brought a visitor, darling.”

He didn’t call out about Sean, Lynley noted. Not “Has the boy phoned?” Not “Any word from Sean?” Just “I’ve brought a visitor, darling,” and in a tentative manner that sounded somehow like a warning and was completely out of character for the man Lynley had been speaking with so far.

There was no immediate reply to Savidge’s call. He said to Lynley, “Wait here,” and directed him to the sitting room. He himself went to a staircase and climbed quickly to the first floor. Lynley heard him moving along a corridor.

He took a moment to gaze round the sitting room, which was simply fitted out with well-made furniture and a brightly patterned rug. The walls held old documents, framed and mounted, and as above him doors opened and closed in rapid succession, Lynley went to examine these. One was an antique bill of lading, apparently from a ship called the Valiant Sheba whose cargo had been twenty males, thirty-two females-eighteen of whom were documented as “breeding”-and thirteen children. Another was a letter written in copperplate on stationery that bore “Ash Grove, nr Kingston” as its letterhead. Faded with time, this proved difficult to read, but Lynley made out “excellent stud potential” and “if you can control the brute.”

“My thrice-great-grandfather, Superintendent. He didn’t quite take to slavery.”

Lynley turned. In the doorway, Savidge stood with a girl at his side. “Oni, my wife,” he said. “She’s asked to be introduced.”

It was hard for Lynley to believe he was looking at Savidge’s wife, for Oni appeared no older than sixteen, if that. She was thin, long necked, and African to the core. Like her husband, her manner of dress was ethnic, and she carried an unusual musical instrument in her arms, its belly not unlike a banjo, but with a tall bridge that lifted more than a dozen strings high up.

One glance at her explained a great deal to Lynley. Oni was exquisite: like midnight unblemished, with hundreds of years of blood untarnished by miscegenation. She was what Savidge himself could never be because of the Valiant Sheba. She was also the last thing a rational man would want to leave alone with a group of teenage boys.

Lynley said, “Mrs. Savidge.”

The girl smiled and nodded. She looked to her husband as if for guidance. She said, “You might wanting?,” and halted, as if sorting through a catalogue of words that she knew and grammar whose rules she barely understood.

He said, “This is about Sean, darling. We don’t mean to disturb your practice with the kora. Why don’t you go on with it down here while I take the policeman up to Sean’s room?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I will be playing, then.” She went to the sofa and placed the kora carefully on the floor. As they were about to leave her, she said, “It is very sunless today, no? Another month passes. Bram, I…discover…No, not discover isn’t…I learn this morning…”

Savidge hesitated. Lynley discerned a change in him, like tension released. He said, “We’ll talk later, then, Oni.”

She said, “Yes. And the other as well? Again?”

“Perhaps. The other.” Quickly, he directed Lynley to the stairs. He led the way to a room at the back of the house. When they were within it, he seemed to feel the need to explain. He shut the door and said, “We’re trying for a baby. No luck so far. That’s what she meant.”

“That’s rough,” Lynley said.

“She’s worried about it. Worried that I might…I don’t know…discard her or something? But she’s perfectly healthy. She’s perfectly formed. She’s-” Savidge stopped, as if he realised how close he was to describing someone’s breeding potential himself. He settled on changing course altogether, and he said, “Anyway. This is Sean’s room.”

“Did you ask your wife if he’s turned up? Phoned? Sent a message?”

“She doesn’t answer the phone,” Savidge said. “Her English isn’t good enough. She lacks confidence.”

“Anything else?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean did you ask her about Sean?”

“I didn’t need to. She would have told me. She knows I’m worried.”

“What’s her relationship with the boy?”

“What’s that got to do with-”

“Mr. Savidge, I’ve got to ask,” Lynley said, his gaze steady. “She’s obviously much younger than you.”

“She’s nineteen years old.”

“Much closer in age to the boys you’ve sheltered than to yourself, am I right?”

“This isn’t about my marriage, my wife, or my situation, Superintendent.”

Oh, but it is, Lynley thought. He said, “You’re what? Twenty years older than she? Twenty-five years older? And the boys were what age?”

Savidge seemed to grow larger, indignation colouring his reply. “This is about a missing boy. In a circumstance in which other boys of a similar age have gone missing, if the newspapers are anything to go by. So if you think I’m going to let you misdirect my concerns because you lot have botched an investigation, you’d better change course.” He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he went to a bookcase that held a small CD player and a rank of paperback books that looked untouched. From the top of this, he took up a photograph in a plain wooden frame. He thrust it at Lynley.

In the picture, Savidge himself in his African garb stood with his arm round the shoulders of a solemn-looking boy wearing an overlarge tracksuit. The boy had a head of germinant dreadlocks and a wary expression, like a dog’s too often returned to his cage at the Battersea shelter after a walk. He was very dark, only a little lighter than Savidge’s wife. He was also, unmistakably, the boy whose body they’d found that morning.

Lynley looked up. Beyond Savidge’s shoulder, he saw that the walls of Sean’s room had posters on them: Louis Farrakhan in passionate exhortation, Elijah Mohammed backed by neat-suited members of the Nation. A young Muhammad Ali, perhaps the most famous of the converted. He said, “Mr. Savidge…” And then, for a moment, he found himself in the position of not knowing exactly how to go on. A body in a tunnel became all too human the moment you placed it in a home. At that point, a body altered from a body to a person whose death could not go unmarked by a desire for revenge or a need for justice or the duty to express the simplest form of regret. He said, “I’m sorry. We’ve got a body you’re going to have to look at. It was found this morning, south of the river.”

Savidge said, “Oh my God. Is it…”

“I hope it isn’t,” Lynley said, although he knew it was. He took the other man’s arm to give him support. There were questions he was going to have to ask Savidge eventually, but at the moment there was nothing more to say.

ULRIKE MANAGED to cool her heels in her office till Jack Veness closed down the phones and tidied up the reception room for the day. Once she’d acknowledged his good night and heard the outer door slam behind him, she went in search of Griff.

She found Robbie Kilfoyle instead. He was in the entry corridor, emptying two rubbish bags of Colossus T-shirts and sweatshirts into the storage cupboard beneath the display case of goods for sale. At least, she saw, Griff had told the truth in this. He had spent several hours at his silk-screening business today.

She’d doubted that. When they’d met at the Charlie Chaplin, the first thing she’d said was, “Where’ve you been all day, Griffin?,” and then winced at the tone of her voice because she knew what she sounded like and he knew she knew, which was why he’d said, “Don’t,” before he told her. A piece of equipment had needed repair at the silk-screening shop and he’d seen to it, he said. “I told you I’d be going by the business on my way in. You wanted me to bring more shirts, remember?” That was a quintessential Griffin reply. I was doing what you asked, he implied.

Ulrike said to Robbie Kilfoyle, “Have you seen Griff? I need a word with him.”

Squatting on the floor, Robbie rested back on his heels and tipped his cap to the back of his head. He said, “He’s helping take that new group of assessment kids onto the river. They went off in the vans…round two hours ago?” Robbie’s expression told her he thought she-as director-ought to be aware of this piece of information. He said, “He left this stuff”-with a nod at the rubbish bags-“back in the kit room. I reckoned it was best to pack it all in here. C’n I help you with something?”

“Help me?”

“Well, if you want Griff and Griff’s not here, I might be able to…” He shrugged.

“I said I wanted a word with him, Robbie.” Ulrike was at once aware of how curt she sounded. She said, “Sorry. That was rude of me. I’m frazzled. The police. First Kimmo. Now…”

“Sean,” Robbie said. “Yeah. I know. He’s not dead, though, is he? Sean Lavery?”

Ulrike looked at him sharply. “I didn’t say his name. How d’you know about Sean?”

Robbie seemed taken aback. “That cop asked if I knew him, Ulrike. That woman cop. She came by the kit room. She said Sean was in one of the computer courses, so when I had a chance, I asked Neil what was going on. He said Sean Lavery didn’t turn up today. That was it.” Then he added, “Okay, Ulrike?,” as an afterthought, but he didn’t sound deferential when he said it.

She couldn’t blame him. She said, “I’m…Look, I didn’t mean to sound so…I don’t know…so suspicious. I’m on edge. First Kimmo. Now Sean. And the police. D’you know what time Griff and the kids will be back?”

Robbie took a moment, seeming to evaluate her apology, before he replied. This, she decided, was a wee bit much. He was, after all, only a volunteer. He said, “I don’t know. They’ll probably stop for a coffee afterwards. Half seven p’rhaps? Eight? He’s got his own keys to the place, right?”

True, she thought. He could come and go as he liked, which had been convenient in the past when they’d wanted to have a political powwow. Planning strategies before staff meetings and after hours. Here’s where I stand on an issue, Griffin. What about you?

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “They could be gone hours.”

“Not too late, though. The dark and all that. And it must be cold as hell on the river. Between you and me, I can’t think why assessment chose kayaking at all for their group activity this time round. Seems a hike would’ve been better. A footpath in the Cotswolds or something. Going between villages. They could’ve stopped for a meal at the end.” He went back to stowing the T-shirts and sweatshirts away in the cupboard.

“Is that what you would have done?” she asked him. “Taken them on a hike? Somewhere safe?”

He looked over his shoulder. “It’s probably nothing, you know.”

“What?”

“Sean Lavery. They bunk off sometimes, these kids.”

Ulrike wanted to ask him why he thought he knew the kids at Colossus better than she. But the truth was, he likely did know them better because she’d been distracted for months on end. Kids had come into and gone from Colossus, but her mind had been elsewhere.

Which could cost her her job, if it came down to the board of directors looking for someone culpable for what was going on…if something was going on. All those hours, days, weeks, months, and years given to this organisation: down the toilet in one hardy flush. She’d be able to get another job somewhere, but it wouldn’t be at a place like Colossus, with all of Colossus’s potential to do exactly what she so fervently believed needed to be done in England: to make change at a grass-roots level, which was at the level of the individual child’s psyche.

Where had it all gone? She’d come into her job at Colossus believing that she could make a difference and she had done just that, right up till the time Griffin Charles Strong had planted his CV on her desk and his mesmerising dark eyes on her face. And even then she’d managed to maintain an air of cool professionalism for months on end, knowing full well the dangers represented by becoming involved with anyone at her place of employment.

Her resolve had weakened over time. Perhaps just to touch him, she’d thought. The gorgeous head of hair, wavy and thick. Or the broad oarsman’s shoulders beneath the fisherman’s sweater he favoured. Or the lower arm whose wrist was banded by a leather plait. Touching him had eventually become such an obsession that the only way possible to rid herself of the preoccupation with her hand grazing some part of his body was simply to do it. Just reach across the conference table and grasp his wrist to emphasise her agreement with some remark he’d made during a staff meeting and then feel the rush of surprise when he briefly closed his other hand over hers and squeezed. She told herself it was merely a sign that he appreciated her support of his ideas. Except there were signs…and then there were signs.

She said to Robbie Kilfoyle, “When you’re finished here, make sure the doors are locked, won’t you?”

“Will do,” he said, and she felt his gaze fixed on her speculatively as she returned to her office.

There, she went to the filing cabinet. She squatted in front of the bottom drawer that she’d opened before, in the presence of the detectives. She fingered through the manila folders and brought out the one she needed, which she shoved into the canvas book bag she used as a briefcase. That done, she grabbed up her bicycle clothing and went to change for the long ride home.

She did her changing in the ladies’ toilet, taking her time and all the while listening for the hopeful sounds of Griff Strong and the assessment kids returning from the river. But the only thing she heard was Robbie Kilfoyle leaving, and then she herself was alone at Colossus.

She couldn’t risk Griff’s mobile this time round, not when she knew he was with a group. There was nothing left but to write him a note. Rather than deposit it on his desk, however, where he could use the excuse of not having seen it, she took it outside to the carpark and shoved it beneath the windscreen wiper of his vehicle. On the driver’s side. She even took a piece of Sellotape to make sure the note didn’t blow away. Then she went for her bike, unlocked it, and headed for St. George’s Road, the first part of the crisscrossing route that would take her from Elephant and Castle up to Paddington.

The ride took her nearly an hour in the bitter cold. Her mask prevented her from breathing the worst of the traffic fumes, but there was nothing to protect her from the constant noise. She reached Gloucester Terrace more exhausted than usual, but at least grateful that the ride itself-and the need to be on guard against traffic-had kept her mind occupied.

She chained her bicycle to the railing in front of number 258, where she unlocked the front door to the usual cooking smells emanating from the ground-floor flat. Cumin, sesame oil, fish. Overcooked sprouts. Rotting onions. She held her breath and went for the stairs. She was up five of them when behind her, the front-door buzzer sounded sharply. The door had a rectangle of glass on top, and through it she saw the shape of his head. She descended quickly.

“I rang your mobile.” Griff sounded irritated. “Why didn’t you answer? Fuck it, Ulrike. If you’re going to leave me a note like that-”

“I was on my bike,” she told him. “I can hardly answer it when I’m riding home. I turn it off. You know that.” She held the door open and turned from it. He would have no choice but to follow her upstairs.

On the first floor, she switched on the timed light and went for the door of her flat. Inside, she dumped her canvas holdall on the lumpy sofa and turned on a single lamp. She said, “Wait here,” and went into her bedroom, where she took off her bike-riding clothes, sniffed her armpits, and found them wanting. A damp flannel took care of that problem, after which she examined herself in the mirror and was satisfied with the heightened colour the ride across London had brought to her cheeks. She slid into a dressing gown and tied its belt. She returned to the sitting room.

Griff had turned on the brighter overhead lights. She chose to ignore that. She went to the kitchen where the fridge held a chilled bottle of white Burgundy. She took out two glasses and fetched the corkscrew.

Seeing this, Griff said, “Ulrike, I’ve just got off the river. I’m knackered and there’s just no way-”

She turned round. “That wouldn’t have stopped you a month ago. Anytime, anywhere. Man the torpedoes and damn the consequences. You can’t have forgotten.”

“I haven’t.”

“Good.” She poured the wine and carried a glass over to him. “I like to think of you as eternally ready.” She hooked her arm round his neck and drew him to her. An instant of resistance and then his mouth was on hers. Tongues, more tongues, a lengthy caress, and after a moment his hand sliding from her waist to the side of her breast. Fingers reaching for her nipple. Squeezing. Coaxing her to groan. Heat shooting into her genitals. Yes. Very nice stuff, Griff. She released him abruptly and moved away.

He had the grace to look flustered. He went to a chair-not the sofa-and sat. He said, “You said this was urgent. Emergency. Twenty-five-line whip. Crisis. Chaos. That’s why I came. This is exactly the opposite direction from home, by the way, which means I’ll not even get home now till God knows what time.”

“How unfortunate,” she said. “With duty calling you and all that. And I’m fully aware of your address, Griffin. As you well know.”

“I don’t want a row. Have you brought me here for a row?”

“Why would you think that? Where were you all day?”

He raised his head to the ceiling, one of those martyred male looks of the sort one saw in paintings of dying early Christian saints. He said, “Ulrike, you know my situation. You’ve always known it. You can’t have…What would you have me do? Now or then? Walk out on Arabella when she was five months pregnant? While she was in labour? Now she’s got an infant to contend with? I never gave you the slightest indication-”

“You’re right.” She produced a brittle smile. She could actually feel how frangible it was, and she loathed herself for reacting to him. She saluted him with her wineglass in a mock toast. “You never did. Bully for you. Everything always in the open and on the up-and-up. Don’t ask anyone to wear a blindfold. That’s a very good way to sidestep responsibility.”

He put his wineglass on the table, its contents untouched. He said, “All right. I surrender. White flag. Whatever you want. Why am I here?”

“What did she want?”

“Look, I was late today because I went to the silk-screening shop. I told you that. Not that it’s actually any of your business what Arabella and I-”

Ulrike laughed, although it was somewhat forced, a bad actress on an overlit stage. “I have a fine idea of what Arabella wanted and what you probably gave her…all seven and a half inches of it. But I’m not talking about you and the darling wife. I’m talking about the policewoman. Constable Whatsername with the broken teeth and bad hair.”

“Are you trying to back me into a corner?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your whole approach. I protest, I call a halt to the way you’re behaving just now, I say enough, I tell you to fuck off, and you’ve got what you want.”

“Which is?”

“My head on a bloody charger, no dancing and no seven veils required.”

“Is that what you think? Is that why you actually think I’ve asked you to come here?” She drained her glass of wine and felt the effect of it almost immediately.

“Are you saying you wouldn’t sack me, given half the chance?”

“In an instant,” she replied. “But that’s not why we’re talking.”

“Then why…?”

“What did she talk to you about?”

“Exactly what you thought she’d talk to me about.”

“And?”

“And?”

“And what did you tell her?”

“What d’you think I told her? Kimmo was Kimmo. Sean was Sean. One was a free-spirit transvestite with the personality of a vaudeville queen, a kid no one in his right mind would want to harm. The other looked like someone who wanted to chew screws for breakfast. I let you know when Kimmo missed a day of assessment. Sean was out of my orbit and on to something else, so I wouldn’t have known if he stopped turning up.”

“That’s all you told her?” She studied him as she asked the question, wondering about what kind of trust could possibly exist between two people who’d betrayed a third.

His eyes had narrowed. He said only, “We agreed.” And as she openly evaluated him, he added, “Or don’t you trust me?”

She didn’t, of course. How could she trust someone who lived by betrayal? But there was a way to test him, and not only that, but a way to fix him in position so that he had to maintain the pretence of cooperation with her, if it was a pretence in the first place.

She went to her canvas holdall. From it, she took the file she’d removed from her office. She handed this over to him.

She watched as his gaze dropped to it, as his eyes took in the label at the top. He looked up at her once he’d read it. “I did what you asked. What am I supposed to do with this, then?”

“What you have to,” she said. “I think you know what I mean.”