With No One As Witness

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BARBARA HAVERS WAS IN A FOUL MOOD WHEN SHE finally reached Camden Lock Market. She was angry with herself for having allowed personal considerations to get in the way of properly doing her job. She was on edge having to drive all the way back to North London shortly after having already suffered through the morning traffic on the way into the centre of town. She was irritated that parking restrictions made it impossible for her to get anywhere close to the market without engaging in a hike. And she was self-righteously positive that this entire engagement was an absolute waste of her time.

The answers resided within the walls of Colossus, not here. Despite the fact that at heart she believed the profiling report was rubbish, she was willing to accept at least part of it, and that part was the description of their serial killer. Since at least four men fitted that description-all of them employed across the Thames at Colossus-she knew that she was unlikely to find anyone else so described wandering round the stalls and the shops near Camden Lock. And she certainly didn’t expect to find any trace of a suspect at Wendy’s Cloud. But she knew the wisdom of appearing to walk the straight and narrow for Lynley at this point. So she fought the traffic and found a distant parking space into which she crammed her Mini like the foot of one of the ugly stepsisters. Then she hoofed it back in the direction of Camden Lock with its shops, its stalls, and its restaurants strung along the water and away from Chalk Farm Road.

Wendy’s Cloud was not easy to find, as it possessed no signage. After reading a directional board and asking round, Barbara finally located it: a simple stall within one of the permanent shops in the market. The shop sold candles and candleholders, greeting cards, jewellery, and handmade stationery. Wendy’s Cloud had massage and aromatherapy oils, incense, soap, and bath crystals on offer.

The eponymous owner of the establishment sat in a beanbag chair, hidden from view behind the counter. Barbara thought at first she was keeping an eye out for light-fingered customers, but when she called, “Excuse me, c’n I have a word?,” it turned out that Wendy was nodding off on a substance that was probably not for sale on her stall. Her eyelids hung well below half-staff. She didn’t so much stagger as claw her way to her feet, using one of the legs of the counter and resting her chin for a moment among the bath crystals.

Barbara cursed inwardly. With her stringy grey hair and Indian bedspread caftan, Wendy didn’t look like a promising wellspring of information. Instead, she looked like a refugee from the hip generation. Only the love beads round her neck were missing.

Nonetheless, Barbara introduced herself, showed her identification, and attempted to stimulate the aging woman’s brain by mentioning New Scotland Yard and the words serial and killer in rapid succession. She went on to talk about ambergris oil, and she asked hopefully about Wendy’s record keeping. For a moment, she thought that only a quick trip to a long, cold shower would bring Wendy round, but just at the point when she was considering where she might find water with which to douse the woman, Wendy finally spoke.

“Cash ’n’ carry,” was what she said. She followed this with, “Sorry.”

Barbara took her comments to mean that she did not keep a record of purchases made. Wendy nodded. She went on to add that when she had only one bottle of an oil left in stock, she ordered another. If, of course, she remembered to look over the stock at the end of the day when she closed. Fact was, she often forgot to do that and it was only when a customer asked for something specifically that she sometimes realised she needed to place another order.

This sounded relatively hopeful. Barbara asked her if she could recall anyone asking for ambergris oil recently.

Wendy frowned. Then her eyeballs went heavenward into her head, as she apparently disappeared into the recesses of her own mind to sort this one out.

“Hello?” Barbara called. “Hey. Wendy. You still with me?”

“Don’t bother with her, luv,” someone said from nearby. “She’s been doping up for thirty-odd years. Not much furniture left in her attic, if you know what I mean.”

Barbara glanced round and saw that the speaker was sitting at the till of the larger shop in which Wendy kept her stall. As Wendy herself disappeared in the direction of the beanbag chair once more, Barbara joined the other woman who introduced herself as Wendy’s long-suffering sister, Pet. Short for Petula, she explained. She’d been allowing Wendy to keep her stall in the shop forever, but whether she showed up on a given day was something open to chance.

Barbara asked what happened on a day when Wendy didn’t appear. What if someone wanted to buy goods from her then? Did Pet-Barbara hoped-make the sale for her sister?

Pet shook her head, grey like Wendy’s but permed to such a point that it resembled steel wool. No, dearie, she’d long ago learned her lesson about enabling the abuser, hadn’t she. Wendy was welcome to her space in the shop as long as she paid for it, but if she wanted to make money and keep herself out of the gutter in which she’d apparently resided for a decade or two prior to Wendy’s Cloud, she had to suit up, show up, open up, and make the sales. Her baby sister wasn’t about to do it for her.

“So you wouldn’t know if someone’s been purchasing ambergris oil from her?” Barbara said.

She wouldn’t, Pet told her. People came and went all the time in Camden Lock Market. Weekends, as the constable might know, were mad round here. Tourists, teenagers, dating couples, families with small children looking for an inexpensive means of entertainment, regular customers, pickpockets, shoplifters, thieves…One could hardly be expected to remember who purchased what from one’s own shop, let alone who was making a purchase from one’s sister’s establishment. No, truth of the matter was that if anyone could tell the constable who had made a purchase from Wendy’s Cloud, it would be Wendy herself. The unfortunate circumstance was, however, that Wendy spent most of her time in the cloud…if the constable knew what Petula meant.

Barbara did. Further, she knew there was nothing more to be gained from this useless trip across town. She bade Pet farewell, leaving her mobile number in the unlikely event that Wendy happened to descend to earth long enough to recall something pertinent, and then she decamped.

So that the entire adventure would not be a waste, Barbara made two additional stops. The first was at a stall along one of the passageways. Her collection of motto-bearing T-shirts always in need of expansion, she inspected the offerings at Pig & Co. She rejected “Princess in Training” and “My Mum and Dad Went to Camden Lock Market and All I Got Was a Lousy T-shirt,” and she settled on “I Brake for Alien Life Forms,” which was printed below a caricature of the prime minister caught beneath the wheels of a London taxi.

She made her purchase and decided a quick meal was in order. A pause at a stall selling jacket potatoes took care of this. She chose a filling of coleslaw, prawns, and sweet corn-one had to make sure one’s basic food groups were being addressed at all times-and she took it, along with a plastic fork, back outside the market where she ate as she engaged in the hike back to her car.

This took her in the direction of her own home, northwest along Chalk Farm Road. She’d got barely 100 yards from the entrance to Camden Lock Market, however, when her mobile chimed deep in her shoulder bag, forcing her to pause, to balance her jacket potato on the top of a rubbish bin at the first street corner, and to dig the mobile out. Perhaps Wendy had come round and given her sister some useful information that Pet wished to pass along… One lived in hope.

Barbara said, “Havers,” encouragingly, and she looked up in time to see a van drive past and park illegally at the side entrance to the Stables Market, an old housing for artillery horses that had long since been put to commercial use just along the street from Camden Lock. She watched it idly as Lynley spoke.

“Where are you, Constable?”

“Camden Lock as commanded,” Barbara said. “No result, I’m afraid.” Ahead of her, a man clambered out of the van. He was oddly garbed, even by cold-weather standards, in a red elfinlike stocking cap, sunglasses, fingerless gloves, and a bulky black coat dangling to his ankles. Too bulky a coat, Barbara thought, and she watched him curiously. It was the sort of coat one could hide explosives under. She gave a closer inspection to his van as he came round to the back of it. It was purple-odd enough colour, that was-with white lettering on the side. Barbara positioned herself for a better look at it. In her ear, Lynley continued to speak.

“So get on that directly,” he was saying. “You may be right about Colossus after all.”

“Sorry,” Barbara said hastily. “Lost you for a moment, sir. Bad reception. Bloody mobiles. Try again?”

Lynley said that someone on DI Stewart’s team two had come up with some information on Griffin Strong. Evidently, Mr. Strong hadn’t been as forthcoming as he might have been on the subject of leaving Social Services prior to his employment at Colossus. A child had died in care while Strong was his social worker at his last posting, in Stockwell. It was time to dig round Strong a little deeper. Lynley gave her the man’s home address and told her to begin there. He lived in a housing estate on Hopetown Street. East One, Lynley told her. It would be a bit of a drive to get there. He could send someone else, but as Havers had been the one who was most insistent about Colossus…

Did he sound regretful? Barbara wondered. Making amends? Suddenly realising that his bad day didn’t have to become everyone else’s as well?

It didn’t matter. She’d take what she could get. She told him a maddening zigzag down to Whitechapel would be just the ticket. She’d get right on it, she said. She was, in fact, trotting back to her car even as they spoke.

“Fine,” Lynley said. “See to it, then.” He rang off before Barbara could tell him what she’d been considering as she watched the purple van ahead of her and the man at its rear, unloading a few boxes from inside.

Purple, Barbara had been thinking. Darkness, illumination provided only by a streetlamp some yards away, and a woman half asleep at a window above.

She walked over to the van and gave it a look. Lettering on the side indicated that the vehicle was operated by Mr. Magic, with a London phone number. That would be the man in the overcoat, Barbara thought, because in addition to concealing explosives, the garment was surely suitable for hiding everything from doves to Dobermans.

As she’d been sauntering over, jacket potato in hand, the man had used his foot to slam home the rear doors of the van. He’d left his hazard lights on, no doubt hopeful that this would prevent an enthusiastic traffic warden from ticketing him. He saw Barbara and said, “Excuse me. Could I ask you…I’ll just be a minute inside. Taking this”-nodding at the two boxes he had in his arms-“to the stall. Would you keep an eye out? They’re heartless round here when it comes to parking.”

“Sure,” Barbara said. “You’re Mr. Magic?”

He made a wry face. “Barry Minshall, actually. I won’t be a tick. Cheers.” He went in the side entrance to the Stables-one of at least four markets in the immediate area-and Barbara took the opportunity to walk round his van. It wasn’t a Ford Transit, but that didn’t matter because she wasn’t considering it as the one they were looking for. She knew how long the odds were that an officer on the case would providentially in the street run into the serial killer she happened to be seeking. But the idea of the van’s colour intrigued her with all it suggested about misinformation wearing the guise of truth.

Barry Minshall returned, expressing his thanks. Barbara took the opportunity to ask him what he sold on his stall. He spoke of magic tricks, videos, and gag items. He made no mention of any kind of oil. Barbara listened, wondering about the sunglasses he wore, considering the weather, but after her interlude with Wendy, she knew the sky was the limit on what one could expect to see in the area.

She took herself off to her car, thoughtful. Someone had said a red van, so they’d been thinking in red throughout the investigation. But red was only part of a larger spectrum of colour, wasn’t it? Why not something closer to blue? It was definitely something they needed to consider.

WHEN DS WINSTON NKATA went up to Plugged Inn to the Lord, he went prepared: In advance he did the requisite digging round in the background of Reverend Bram Savidge. The information he found was enough to arm him to meet the man, who’d been called the Champion of Finchley Road by both the Sunday Times magazine and the Mail on Sunday in special reports about his ministry.

A press conference was in full swing when Nkata entered the shopfront-church cum soup kitchen. The poor and the homeless usually served by the kitchen during the day had formed themselves into a dispirited queue outside along the pavement. Most of them had sunk onto their haunches with the sort of inevitable patience evidenced by people who’d lived too long on the edge of society.

Nkata felt a twinge as he passed them. It was only a twist of circumstance, he thought, the stalwart love of his parents, and the long-ago intervention of one concerned cop that had kept him from a life among them. He experienced the same constriction in his chest that he always experienced when he had to carry out one duty or another among his own people. He wondered if he’d ever get over it: the feeling that somehow he’d betrayed them by following a course that most of them did not understand.

He’d seen the same reaction in the eyes of Sol Oliver when he’d walked into his ramshackle car repair shop less than an hour earlier. It was part of a shantytown of buildings comprising the narrow street of Munro Mews in North Kensington, heavily marked by taggers and graffiti artists, blackened with generations of soot and the residue of a fire, which had gutted the structure next door. The mews itself backed onto Golberne Road, where Nkata had left his Escort. There, traffic trundled through a neighbourhood of dingy shops and grubby market stalls, between cracked pavements and gutters littered with rubbish.

Sol Oliver had been working on an antique Volkswagen Beetle when Nkata came upon him. Hearing his name, the mechanic lifted himself from a contemplation of the car’s minuscule engine. His gaze had taken in Nkata from head to toe and, when shown the DS’s warrant card, whatever Sol Oliver had suspected about Nkata settled his features into a permanent expression of distrust.

Yeah, he’d been put in the picture about Sean Lavery, Oliver told him in short order, although he didn’t sound particularly distressed about the news. Reverend Savidge had phoned with the information. He didn’t have anything to tell the cops about Sean in the days leading up to his death. He hadn’t seen his son in months.

“When was the last time?” Nkata asked.

Oliver looked at a calendar on the wall as if to stimulate his memory. It was hanging below a veritable hammock of cobwebs and above a grimy coffeemaker. A mug sat next to this, painted in a child’s hand with footballs and the single word “Daddy.”

“End of August,” Oliver said.

“You sure?” Nkata asked.

“Why? You think I killed him or summick?” Oliver set down the crescent wrench he was holding. He wiped his hands on a limp blue rag that was bruised with stains. “Look, man, I di’n’t even know the kid. I d’n’t even want to know him. I got a family now and what went on wif me and his mum was just what happens. I tol’ the kid I’m sorry Cleo’s doing time, but no way could I take him in, no matter what he wanted. Tha’s how it is. Not like we were married or nuffink.”

Nkata did his best to keep his face dispassionate, although the last thing he actually felt was disinterest. Oliver epitomised what was wrong with their men: Plant the seed because the woman was willing; walk away from the consequences with a shrug. Indifference became the legacy that was passed along from father to son.

He said, “What’d he want from you, then? I can’t think he was calling round just to chat.”

“Like I said. Wanted to come live wif us, di’n’t he? Me, the wife, the kids. I got two. But I couldn’t take him. I don’t got the room an’ even if I did…” He looked round, as if seeking an explanation hidden within the pungent confines of the old garage. “We ’as strangers, man. Him and me. He was ’xpecting I just take him on cos we share blood but I couldn’t do that, see. He needed to get on wif his life. Tha’s what I did. Tha’s what we all do.” He seemed to read censure on Nkata’s face, because he went on with, “It’s not like his mum wanted me round, innit. She’s in the club, i’n’t she, but it’s not like she tol’ me till I run into her on the street when she’s ’bout ready to pop. Tha’s when she says it’s my kid, right? But how do I know? Anyways, she never comes to me af’er he’s born either. She goes her way. I go mine. Then he’s thirteen and comes round wanting me as a dad. But I don’t feel like his dad. I don’t know him.” Oliver picked up his crescent wrench again, obviously ready to go back to work. “Like I say, I’m sorry ’bout his mum getting herself locked up, but it’s not like I’m responsible for it.”

Right, Nkata thought now as he entered Plugged Inn to the Lord and took a position to one side of the room. He felt certain they could cross Sol Oliver from whatever list of suspects they were generating. The mechanic hadn’t possessed enough interest in Sean Lavery’s life to have seen to his death.

The same, however, couldn’t be said for Reverend Bram Savidge. When Nkata had done his homework on the man, he’d found there were elements of his background that needed exploration, not the least of which was why he’d lied to Superintendent Lynley about the removal from his home of three boys who’d once been in his care.

Dressed in African garb of caftan and head covering, Savidge was at a lectern that held three microphones. The bright lights needed by a television crew shone upon him as he spoke directly to journalists who occupied four rows of chairs. He’d managed to pull together a good audience, and he was making the most of it.

“So we’re left with nothing but questions,” he was saying. “They’re the reasonable questions of any concerned community, but they’re also the questions that habitually go ignored in circumstances where the police response is defined by the community’s colour. Well, we demand an end to that. Five deaths and counting, ladies and gentlemen, with the Metropolitan police waiting until death number four to finally get round to setting up a task force to investigate. And why is that?” His gaze swept over them. “Only the Metropolitan police can tell us.” He began to thunder at this point, touching on every topic that any reasonable person of colour would be asking: everything from why the earlier murders weren’t investigated thoroughly to why no warnings had been posted on the streets. There was an appropriate murmur among the journalists in response to this, but Savidge didn’t rest on any laurels. Instead he said, “And you lot, for shame. You are the whited sepulchres of our society, for you have abnegated your responsibility to the public every bit as much as have the police. These killings have ranked as news not worthy enough to merit front-page attention. So what’s it going to take for you to acknowledge that a life is a life, no matter its colour? That any life’s worthy. That it’s loved and mourned. The sin of indifference should weigh on your shoulders every bit as heavily as it weighs on the shoulders of the police. The blood of these boys cries out for justice and the black community will not rest till justice is done. That’s all I have to say.”

Reporters leapt to their feet, of course. The entire enterprise had been designed for that. They clamoured for Reverend Savidge’s attention, but he did everything save bathe his hands in their presence before he disappeared through a door leading to somewhere at the back of the establishment. He left behind a man who stepped to the lectern and identified himself as the solicitor for Cleopatra Lavery, the incarcerated mother of the fifth murder victim whose interests he was representing. She too had a message for the media, and he would read it to them forthwith.

Nkata didn’t remain to hear Cleopatra Lavery’s words. Instead, he skirted round the side of the room, and he made his way to the door Bram Savidge had used. It was guarded by a man in hieratic black robes. He shook his head at Nkata and crossed his arms.

Nkata showed him his identification. “Scotland Yard,” he said.

The guard took a moment to evaluate this before he told Nkata to wait. He went through to an office, returning in a moment to say that Reverend Savidge would see him.

Behind the door, Nkata found Savidge waiting for him, positioned in a corner of the small room. On either side of him framed photographs hung: Savidge in Africa, one black face among millions.

The reverend asked to see his identification, as if not believing what his bodyguard had told him. Nkata handed it over and inspected Savidge much as Savidge inspected him. He wondered if the minister’s background was sufficient explanation for his adoption of all things African: Nkata knew that Savidge had grown up in Ruislip, the decidedly middle-class child of an air-traffic controller and a science teacher.

Savidge handed Nkata’s ID back to him. “So you’re the sop, are you?” he asked. “How stupid does the Met actually think I am?”

Nkata met Savidge’s eyes, and he held them for five seconds before he spoke, telling himself the other man was angry and with very good reason. There was truth to what he was saying as well.

He said, “We got something wants clarifying, Mr. Savidge. Thought it best ’f I come to do it in person.”

Savidge didn’t reply at once, as if he were taking the measure of Nkata’s refusal to rise to his baiting. He finally said, “What wants clarifying?”

“The boys you had in care. You told my guv that you had three of the four boys you were foster dad to placed in other homes cos of your wife. Her not speaking good English or something, I think you said.”

“Yes,” Savidge said, although he sounded wary. “Oni’s learning the language. If you’d like to see for yourself…”

Nkata moved his hand in a not-what-I-want gesture. He said, “I’m sure she’s learning English, all right. But fact is, Reverend, you di’n’t have the boys put somewhere else. They were taken away by Social Services before you ever married your wife, and what I don’t unnerstan is why you lied ’bout that to Superintendent Lynley when you must’ve figured we’d be looking into you.”

Reverend Savidge didn’t answer at once. A knock sounded at the door. It opened and the guard stuck his head inside. “Sky News want to know will you give them a word on camera with their reporter.”

“They’ve had my word,” Savidge replied. “Clear the whole lot out of here. We’ve people to feed.”

The man said, “Right,” and closed the door again. Savidge went to his desk and sat behind it. He gestured to a chair for Nkata.

Nkata said, “You want to tell me about it? Arrest for lewd conduct was what the records said. How’d you get the matter settled without more in the files?”

“It was a misunderstanding.”

“What sort of misunderstanding ends up with ’n arrest for lewd conduct, Mr. Savidge?”

“The sort that comes from having neighbours who’re waiting with bated breath for the black man to put a step wrong.”

“Meaning?”

“I sunbathe in the nude in the summer, when we actually have a summer. A neighbour saw me. One of the boys had come out of the house, and he decided to join me. That was it.”

“What? Two blokes lying starkers on the lawn or something?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what?”

Savidge pressed his fingers together beneath his chin, as if considering whether to go on. He made his decision. “The neighbour…It was ridiculous. She saw the boy undressing. She saw me helping him. With his shirt or his trousers. I don’t know which. She leapt to an hysterical conclusion and she made a phone call. The result was an unpleasant few hours with the local authorities in the person of an aging police constable whose brains didn’t equal the leaps his imagination was making. Social Services swept in and took the boys off, and I ended up explaining myself to a magistrate. By the time the matter was officially sorted out, the boys were in other homes and it seemed heartless to uproot them once again. Sean was my first placement since then.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. A naked male adult, a naked male adolescent. A rare bit of sunshine. End of story.”

Not quite, of course, Nkata thought. There was the reason, as well, but he reckoned he knew what it was. Savidge was black enough for a white society to label him a minority, but he was far from black enough to be enthusiastically embraced by his brothers. The reverend was hoping that the summer sun could give him briefly what nature and genetics had denied him, and the rest of the year in a tanning bed could do much the same. Nkata thought about the irony of it and about how mankind’s behaviour was so often dictated by the sheer and lunatic misperception that went by the name Not Good Enough. Not white enough here, not black enough there, too ethnic for one group, too English for another. At the end of the day, he believed Savidge’s story of naked suntans in the garden. It was just on the right side of madness to be true.

He said, “I had a word with Sol Oliver over in North Kensington. He says Sean came asking to live with him.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Life wasn’t easy for Sean. He’d lost his mother to prison, and he’d been shuffled round the system for two years by the time I got him. I was his fifth placement, and he was tired of it all. If he could talk his dad into taking him in, at least he’d be somewhere permanently. That’s what he wanted. It’s hardly an unreasonable hope.”

“How’d he find out about Oliver?”

“From Cleopatra, I suppose. His mum. She’s in Holloway. He visited her every chance he got. When it could be arranged.”

“Anyplace else he went? Aside from Colossus?”

“Bodybuilding. There’s a gym up Finchley Road just a bit. Square Four Gym. I told your superintendent about it. After Colossus, Sean would stop here to check in with me-say hello and whatever-and then he’d head either home or to that gym.” Savidge seemed to reflect on this piece of information for a moment. Then he went on, reflectively, “I expect it was the men that drew him there, although I didn’t think about that at the time.”

“What did you think about?”

“Just that it was good he had an outlet. He was angry. He felt he’d been dealt a rotten hand in life and he wanted to change it. But now I see…the gym…It could have been how he was trying to make that change. Through the men who go there.”

Nkata sharpened to this. “In what way?”

“Not in the way you’re thinking,” Savidge said.

“Then how?”

“How? In the way of all boys. Sean had a hunger and a thirst for men that he could admire. That’s normal enough. I just pray to God that wasn’t what killed him.”

HOPETOWN ROAD glided east off Brick Lane, deep within a crowded area of London that had been through at least three incarnations within Barbara Havers’ lifetime. The neighbourhood still held a multitude of grimy-looking wholesale garment shops and at least one brewery belching the scent of yeast into the air, but over the years its inhabitants had altered from Jewish to Caribbean to Bengali.

Brick Lane was attempting to make the most of its current ethnicity. Foreign restaurants abounded and along the pavement, and the streetlamps-heralded at the bottom of the street by a fanciful archway wrought of iron with a vaguely mosquelike shape-bore ornate fixtures suspended among filigree-iron decoration. Not what you’d see in Chalk Farm, Barbara thought.

She found Griffin Strong’s home directly across from a little green where hillocks offered children an area in which to play and a wooden bench offered their minders a place to sit. The Strong residence was one of a line of redbrick, plain terraced houses, their individuality expressed in their choice of front doors and front fences and in what they’d decided to do with their patch of front gardens. The Strongs had opted for a draughts-board pattern of large tiles on the ground, and they’d covered them with an array of pot plants that someone had been tending with devotion. Their fence was brick like the house and their door was oak with an oval of stained glass in the middle. All very nice, Barbara noted.

When she rang the bell, a woman answered. She had a crying baby on her shoulder and magenta workout attire on her body. She said, “Yes?,” over the sound of an exercise programme coming from within the house. Barbara showed her identification. She said she’d appreciate a word with Mr. Strong, if he was about. “Are you Mrs. Strong?” she added.

“I’m Arabella Strong,” the woman said. “Come in, please. Just let me get Tatiana settled,” and she carried the squalling infant into the reaches of the house, leaving Barbara to mouth Tatiana? and to follow in her wake.

In the sitting room, Arabella laid the baby on a leather sofa, where a small pink blanket was topped by a smaller pink hot-water bottle. She put the baby on her back, wedged her in place with pillows, and set the hot-water bottle on her abdomen. “Colic,” she said to Barbara over the noise, “the warm seems to help.”

That proved to be true. In a few moments, Tatiana’s screaming subsided to whimpering so that the remaining din in the room came only from the telly. There, via video and to the accompanying ka-boom-diddy-boom of music, an impossibly sculpted woman was panting “lower abs, come on, lower abs, come on,” as she rhythmically thrust her legs and hips into the air from a supine position. As Barbara watched, the woman suddenly leaped to her feet and gave the camera a sideways view of her stomach. It was as flat as a Dutch horizon gone vertical. She was obviously someone who ignored the better things in life. Like Pop-Tarts, Kettle Crisps, battered cod, and chips soaked in vinegar. Miserable cow.

Arabella used the remote to switch off the television and the video recorder. She said, “I expect she’s at that at least sixteen hours a day. What do you think?”

“Rubens is rolling in his grave, you ask me. And she needs to be put out of my misery.”

Arabella chuckled. She sank onto the sofa next to her baby and motioned to a chair for Barbara. She reached for a towel and pressed it against her forehead. She said, “Griff isn’t here. He’s at the factory. We’ve a silk-screen business.”

“Where is it, exactly?” Barbara sat and dug her notebook from her shoulder bag. She flipped it open to take down the address.

Arabella gave it to her-it was in Quaker Street-and watched as Barbara wrote this down. She said, “This is about that boy, isn’t it? The one who was murdered? Griff told me about him. Kimmo Thorne, he was called. And about the other boy who’s gone missing. Sean.”

“Sean’s dead as well. His foster dad’s identified him.”

Arabella glanced at her baby, as if in reaction to this. “I’m sorry. Griff’s devastated about Kimmo. He’ll feel the same when he hears about Sean.”

“Not the first time someone died on his watch, I understand.”

Arabella smoothed Tatiana’s hairless head, her expression soft, before she replied. “As I said, he’s devastated. And he had nothing to do with either boy’s death. With any death. At Colossus or otherwise.”

“It makes him look a bit careless, though, if you know what I mean.”

“As it happens, I don’t.”

“Careless with other people’s lives. Or bloody unlucky. Which do you reckon it is?”

Arabella stood. She went to a metal bookshelf at one side of the room and took up a packet of cigarettes. She lit one jerkily and just as jerkily inhaled. Virginia Slims, Barbara saw. That figured. Mental imaging, or something. And Arabella needed it: She had her work cut out for her, getting back into shape. She was pretty enough-good skin, nice eyes, dark, silky hair-but she looked as if she’d gained a few stone too many during her pregnancy. Eating for two, she’d probably told herself.

“If it’s alibis you’re after-that is what your sort look for, isn’t it?-then Griff’s got one. Her name is Ulrike Ellis. If you’ve been to Colossus, you’ve met her.”

This was a truly interesting turn. Not the fact of Ulrike and Griff, which Barbara had already assumed was a probability, but the fact that Arabella knew about Ulrike and Griff. And didn’t appear upset about them. What was that all about?

Arabella seemed to read her mind. “My husband’s weak,” she said. “But all men are weak. When a woman marries, she marries knowing this and she decides in advance what she’s going to accept when it eventually crops up. She never knows how the weakness is going to manifest itself, but I suppose that’s part of the…the journey of discovery. Will it be drink, food, gambling, excessive work, other women, pornography, football hooliganism, addiction to sports, addiction to drugs? In Griff’s case, it turned out to be an inability to say no to women. But that’s hardly a surprise, considering how they throw themselves at him.”

“Tough to be married to someone so…” Barbara looked for the right word.

“Beautiful? Godlike?” Arabella offered. “Apollo? Narcissus? Whoever? No, it’s not difficult at all. Griff and I plan to stay married to each other. We’re both from broken homes, and we don’t intend that for Tatiana. As it happens, I’ve been able to put it all in perspective. There are worse things than a man who gives in to women’s advances. Griff’s been through this before, Constable. Doubtless, he’ll go through it again.”

Hearing this, Barbara wanted to shake the bewilderment out of her head. She was used to the idea of women fighting for their men or women seeking revenge after an infidelity or women harming themselves-or others, for that matter-when faced with an adulterous spouse. But this? Calm analysis, acceptance, and c’est la vie? Barbara couldn’t decide if Arabella Strong was mature, philosophical, desperate, or simply mad as a hatter.

She said, “So how’s Ulrike his alibi?”

“Compare the dates of the murders with his absences from home. He’ll have been with her.”

“All night?”

“Enough of it.”

And wasn’t that just bloody convenient? Barbara wondered how many phone calls had been placed among the three of them to cook this one up. She also wondered how much of Arabella’s placid acceptance was placid acceptance and how much was actually the result of the vulnerability a woman felt once she had a child to care for. Arabella needed her man to bring home the bacon if she herself wanted to stay home and care for Tatiana.

Barbara flipped her notebook closed and thanked Arabella for her time and her willingness to speak openly about her husband. She knew that if anything more was to be gained from this journey to East London, it wasn’t going to turn up here.

Back at her car, she dug out the A to Z and looked up Quaker Street. Luck was with her for once. She found it was just south of the railway tracks leading to Liverpool Street Station. It appeared to be a short one-way thoroughfare that connected Brick Lane to Commercial Street. She could walk there and work off at least one mouthful of her morning’s Pop-Tart. The jacket potato she’d inhaled at Camden Lock would have to wait.

“WE’RE HAVING a devil of a time with all the phone calls, Tommy,” John Stewart said. The DI had laid a neatly clipped document precisely in front of him. As he spoke, he lined up the corners of it within the curve of the conference table. He straightened his tie, checked his fingernails, and gazed round the room as if to assess its condition, reminding Lynley as he always did, that Stewart’s wife had probably had more than one reason for ending their marriage. “We’ve got parents clamouring from all over the country,” he went on. “Two hundred with missing kids at this point. We need more help on the phones.”

They were in Lynley’s office, trying to work out a change in the deployment of the personnel. They didn’t have enough manpower, and Stewart was right. But Hillier had refused to give them more without the magical production of a “result.” Lynley thought he’d had that with the identification of yet another body: fourteen-year-old Anton Reid, who’d been the first victim of their killer, his body left in Gunnersbury Park. A mixed-race boy, Anton had disappeared from Furzedown on the eighth of September. He’d been a gang member with arrests for malicious mischief, trespassing, petty theft, and assault, all of which had been relayed to New Scotland Yard earlier in the day by the Mitcham Road police station, who’d admitted having written Anton off as yet another runaway when his parents first reported him missing. The newspapers were going to be in a filthy uproar over that piece of data, Hillier had told Lynley at some considerable volume on the phone when he was given the news. So when the hell did the superintendent intend to have something to present to the press office other than a bleeding identity for another sodding body?

“Get on it,” had been the AC’s parting remark. “I don’t expect you lot need me down there wiping your arses. Or do you?”

Lynley had held his tongue and his temper. He’d called Stewart into his office and there they sat, sorting through the action reports.

Finally and definitively, there was nothing from Vice on any of the identified boys beyond Kimmo Thorne. Aside from Kimmo, none of them were engaged in illicit sex as rent boys, transvestites, or streetwalkers. And despite their otherwise chequered histories, none of them could be associated with either the sale or the purchase of drugs.

The interview with the taxi driver who’d discovered Sean Lavery’s body in the Shand Street tunnel had given them nothing. A background check on the man had shown a perfectly clean record without even a parking ticket to mar his reputation.

The Mazda in the tunnel could be associated with no one even tangentially involved in the investigation. With its number plates missing, its engine gone, and its body torched, there was no way to tell whose it was, and no witness could attest to how it had ended up in the tunnel in the first place or even how long it had been there. “That’s a real nonstarter” was how Stewart put it. “We’re better off using the manpower elsewhere. I suggest we have a rethink on those blokes surveilling the crime scenes as well.”

“Nothing there?”

“Sod all.”

“Christ, how can no one not have seen anything worth reporting?” Lynley knew his question would be taken as rhetorical, and it was. He also knew the answer. Big city. People on the underground and in the street all avoiding each other’s eyes. The public’s philosophy of see nothing, hear nothing, leave me alone was the very plague of their jobs as cops. “You’d think someone would at least have seen a car being torched. Or a car on fire, for the love of God.”

“As to that…” Stewart flipped through his neatly assembled paperwork. “We’ve had a wee bit of joy from background. To the point, Robbie Kilfoyle and Jack Veness. Two of the blokes from Colossus.”

Both of the Colossus men, as things turned out, had juvenile records. Kilfoyle’s stuff was relatively minor. Stewart offered a list of truancy problems, vandalism reported by neighbours, and looking in windows where he didn’t belong, saying, “All meagre pickings. Except for the fact that he was dishonourably discharged from the army.”

“For?”

“Continually going AWOL.”

“How does that relate?”

“I was thinking of the profile. Disciplinary problems, failure to obey orders. It seems to fit.”

“If you stretch it,” Lynley said. Before Stewart could take offence, he added, “What else? More on Kilfoyle?”

“He’s got a job delivering sandwiches by bicycle round lunchtime. With an organisation called…” He referred to his notes. “Mr. Sandwich. That’s how he ended up at Colossus, by the way. He delivered there, got to know them, and started working as a volunteer after his sandwich hours. He’s been there for the last few years.”

“Where is this place?” Lynley asked.

“Mr. Sandwich? It’s on Gabriel’s Wharf.” And when Lynley looked up at this, Stewart smiled. “Right you are. Home of Crystal Moon.”

“Well done, John. What about Veness?”

“Even more joy. He’s a former Colossus boy. Been there since he was thirteen years old. A little arsonist, he was. Started out with small fires in the neighbourhood, but he escalated things to torching vehicles and then a whole squat. Got caught for that one, did some time in borstal, hooked up with Colossus afterwards. He’s their shining example now. Trot him out to their fund-raisers, they do. He gives the official spiel on how Colossus saved his life after which the hat’s passed round or whatever.”

“His living situation?”

“Veness…” Stewart referred to his notes. “He’s got a room over in Bermondsey. He’s not far from the market, as it happens. Kimmo Thorne flogging stolen silver and all that, if you recall. As for Kilfoyle…He’s got digs in Granville Square. Islington.”

“Smart part of town for a sandwich-delivery boy,” Lynley remarked. “Check on it. Get on to the other bloke, Neil Greenham, as well. According to Barbara’s report-”

“She actually made a report?” Stewart asked. “What miracle brought that about?”

“-he taught at a primary school in North London,” Lynley plunged on. “Had a disagreement of some sort with his superior. About discipline, apparently. It resulted in his resignation. Have someone get on to that.”

“Will do.” Stewart made a note.

A knock on the door brought Barbara Havers into the office then. Close on her heels was Winston Nkata with whom she was in terse conversation. She looked excited. Nkata looked interested. Lynley grew momentarily heartened by the idea that progress might actually be about to occur.

Havers said, “It’s Colossus. Got to be. Listen to this. Griffin Strong’s silk-screening business just happens to be in Quaker Street. Sound familiar? It did to me. Turns out he’s got a smallish factory in one of the warehouses, and when I asked round in the area to suss out which one, an old bloke on the pavement shook his head, made some grave mutterings like the ghost of Christmas past, and pointed out the spot where-as he put it-the ‘devil made his presence known.’”

“Which meant?” Lynley asked.

“That one of the bodies was found not two doors down from our Mr. Strong’s secondary means of employment, guv. The third of the bodies, as it turned out. Which sounded too bloody coincidental to be coincidental, so I checked out the rest. And listen to this…” She stuck half of her arm into her enormous shoulder bag and, after some struggle, pulled out her tattered spiral notebook. She ran a hand through her hair-doing nothing to improve its overall dishevelled look-and went on. “Jack Veness: number eight Grange Walk, not even a mile from the Shand Street tunnel. Robbie Kilfoyle: sixteen Granville Square, sneezing distance from St. George’s Gardens. Ulrike Ellis: two-five-eight Gloucester Terrace, just round two corners from a multi-storey carpark. The multi-storey carpark, if you know what I mean. This has got to be a Colossus situation, start to finish. If the bodies themselves didn’t scream that at us, where the bodies were put bloody well does.”

“The Gunnersbury Park body?” John Stewart asked. He’d been listening with his head cocked, and his face wore an expression of paternal indulgence which Lynley knew that Havers would particularly loathe.

“I haven’t got to that one yet,” she admitted. “But odds are that body from Gunnersbury Park is someone else from Colossus. And bigger odds are that Gunnersbury Park is a hop and a jump from where a Colossus employee lives. So all we have to do is get the names and addresses of everyone who works there. Of volunteers as well. Because believe me, sir, someone inside’s trying to paint the place black.”

John Stewart shook his head. “I don’t like it, Tommy. A serial killer choosing his victims from within his immediate sphere? I can’t see how that plays with what we know about serial killers in general and this one in particular. We know this is an intelligent bloke we’re dealing with, and it’s damned lunacy to think he’d work there, volunteer there, or do anything else there. He’d know we’d twig it eventually, and then what? When we’re hot on his tail, what’s he going to do?”

Havers countered. “You can’t be thinking it’s some major coincidence that every body we’ve been able to identify just happens to be associated with Colossus.” Stewart shot her a look, and she added, “Sir,” as an afterthought. “With respect, that doesn’t make sense.” She pulled out another notebook from her battered shoulder bag. Lynley saw it was the signing-in register they’d taken surreptitiously from the reception desk at Colossus earlier. She opened it, riffling through a few pages as she said, “And listen to this. I had a look through this on my way back from the East End just now. You’re not going to believe…Bloody hell, what liars.” She leafed through the book and read aloud as she flipped through the pages, “Jared Salvatore, eleven A.M. Jared Salvatore, two-ten P.M. Jared Salvatore, nine-forty A.M. Jared Bloody Blooming Salvatore, three twenty-two P.M.” She slapped the notebook down on the conference table. It slithered across and knocked John Stewart’s neatly compiled notes to the floor. “Am I right that no cookery school in London knows the first thing about Jared Salvatore? Well, why would they when he was doing his cookery course at Colossus all along? Our killer’s right there inside that place. He’s picking and choosing. He’s setting things up like a pro, and he doesn’t expect us to catch him at any of it.”

“That fits in with something Robson pointed out,” Lynley said. “The sense of omnipotence the killer must have. How big a leap is it from putting bodies in public places to be working within the walls of Colossus? In both cases, he doesn’t expect to be caught.”

“We need to get every one of these blokes under surveillance,” Havers said. “And we need to do it now.”

“We haven’t the manpower for that,” John Stewart said.

“Then we’ve got to get it. And we’ve also got to grill each one of them, dig into their backgrounds, ask them-”

“As I’ve said, we’ve a manpower issue here.” DI Stewart turned away from Havers. He didn’t look pleased to have her grabbing control of the meeting. “Let’s not forget that, Tommy. And if our killer’s inside Colossus as the constable’s suggesting, then we’d better start looking at everyone else who works there as well. And at the other ‘clients’ who’re attached to the place: the participants or patients, whatever the hell they call themselves. I expect there are enough junior-level villains running round that place to fuel a dozen killings.”

“That’s a waste of our time,” Havers insisted, and, “Sir, listen to me,” to Lynley.

He cut in. “Your points are well taken, Havers. What did you get from Griffin Strong about the child who died on his watch in Stockwell?”

The constable hesitated. She looked abashed.

“Bloody hell,” DI John Stewart said. “Havers, did you not-”

“Look. When I heard about the body in the warehouse-” she began quickly, only to be cut off by Stewart.

“So you haven’t looked into the other yet? It’s a death on Strong’s watch in Stockwell, woman. Does that ring any damn bells for you?”

“I’m getting on to it. I came straight back. I went to the files for this other information first because I thought-”

“You thought. You thought.” Stewart’s voice was sharp. “It’s not your job to do the bloody thinking. When you’re given an order…” His fist hit the table. “Jesus. What the hell is it that keeps them from giving you the sack, Havers? I’d damn well like to know your secret, because whatever’s keeping you here isn’t between your ears and I sure as hell don’t think it’s between your legs.”

Havers’ face went completely white. She said, “You completely sodding piece of-”

“That’ll do,” Lynley said sharply. “You’re both out of order.”

“She’s-”

“That bastard just said-”

“Enough! Keep it out of this office and out of this investigation or both of you are permanently off the case. Christ but we have enough trouble already without you two going for each other’s throats.” He paused, waiting for his blood to cool. In the silence, Stewart shot Havers a look that clearly assessed her as an impossible cow, and Havers herself seethed openly back at him, a man with whom she’d long ago managed to work for only three weeks before charging him with sexual harassment. Meanwhile Winston Nkata remained by the door in the position he nearly always adopted when placed in a room with more than two white colleagues: He stood with his arms crossed and merely observed, as he had been doing since he’d walked in.

Lynley turned to him wearily. “What have you got for us, Winnie?”

Nkata reported on his meetings: first with Sol Oliver in his car repair shop, then with Bram Savidge. He went on with his visit to the gym where Sean Lavery did his workouts. He concluded with something that diffused the tension in the room: He might have found someone who’d actually seen the killer.

“There was some white bloke hanging round the gym not long before Sean went missing,” Nkata said. “He got noticed ’cause not many whites use the place. Seems one night he was lurking in the corridor just outside the workout room, and when one of the lifters asked him what did he want, he said he was new to the neighbourhood and just looking round for a place to work out. He never did go in, though. Not to the gym, not to the locker room, not to the steam room. Didn’t ask about membership or anything like it. Just showed up in the corridor.”

“Did you get a description?”

“Arranging for an e-fit. Bloke at the gym thinks he might be able to come up with a drawing of this bugger. Right off he was able to tell me no way did the villain belong there. Not a lifter at all, he said, smallish and thin. Long face. I think we got a chance here, Super.”

“Well done, Winnie,” Lynley said.

“That’s what I call good work,” John Stewart put in pointedly. “I’ll have you on my team anytime, Winston. And congratulations on the promotion. I don’t think I mentioned it earlier.”

“John.” Lynley tried for patience. He waited till he found it before he went on. “Take the salt outside please. Phone Hillier. See if you can get manpower for surveillance. Winston, we’ve got Kilfoyle working at a place called Mr. Sandwich, back at Gabriel’s Wharf. Try to make a connection between him and Crystal Moon.”

There was a general shuffling as the men went on their way, leaving Havers behind for Lynley to deal with. He waited till the door was shut to do so.

She spoke first, her voice low but still hot. “I don’t have to bloody put up with-”

“I know,” Lynley said. “Barbara. I know. He was out of order. You were in the right to react. But the other side of the coin, whether you want to see it or not, is that you provoked him.”

“I provoked him? I provoked him to say…?” She seemed unable to finish. She sank into a chair. “Sometimes I don’t even know you.”

“Sometimes,” he replied, “I don’t know myself.”

“Then-”

“You didn’t provoke the words,” Lynley interrupted. “They were inexcusable. But you provoked the fact of the words. Their existence, if you will.” He joined her at the table. He was feeling exasperated, and that was not a good sign. Exasperation meant he might soon run out of ideas on how to get Barbara Havers back into her position as a detective sergeant. It also meant he might soon run out of the willingness to do so. He said, “Barbara, you know the drill. Teamwork. Responsibility. Taking an action that’s been assigned and completing it. Turning over the report. Waiting for the next assignment. When you have a situation like this, one in which thirty-odd people are relying upon you to do what you’ve been told to do…” He lifted a hand and then dropped it.

Havers watched him. He watched her. And then it was as if a veil somehow lifted between them and she understood. She said, “I’m sorry, sir. What can I say? You don’t need more pressure, and I pile it on, don’t I?” She moved restlessly in her chair and Lynley knew she was longing for a cigarette, for something to do with her hands, for something to jolt her brain. He felt like giving her permission to smoke; he also felt like allowing her to squirm. Something had to give somewhere in the damn woman or she was going to be lost for good. She said, “Sometimes I get so bloody sick of everything in life being such a struggle. You know?”

He said, “What’s going on at home?”

She chuckled. She was slumped in her chair, and she straightened her back. “No. We’re not taking a stroll on that path. You’ve enough to cope with, Superintendent.”

“All things considered, a family dispute over two sets of christening clothes is hardly something to cope with,” Lynley said dryly. “And I’ve a wife politically adept enough to negotiate a truce between the in-laws.”

Havers smiled, it seemed, in spite of herself. “I didn’t mean at home and you know it.”

He smiled in turn. “Yes. I know.”

“You’re getting a platterful from upstairs, I expect.”

“Suffice it to say I’m learning how much Malcolm Webberly actually had to put up with to keep Hillier and everyone else off our backs all these years.”

“Hillier sees you hot on his tail,” Havers said. “A few more steps up the ladder and whammo…You’re heading up the Met and he’s pulling his forelock.”

“I don’t want to head up the Met,” Lynley said. “Sometimes…” He looked round the office he’d agreed to inhabit temporarily: the two sets of windows that ludicrously indicated a rise in rank, the conference table at which he and Havers sat, carpet tiles on the floor instead of lino, and outside beyond the door the men and women under his command for the moment. It was meaningless, really, at the end of the day. And it was far less important than what faced him now. He said, “Havers, I think you’re right.”

“Of course, I’m right,” she replied. “Anyone watching-”

“I don’t mean about Hillier. I mean about Colossus. He’s choosing kids from there, so he has to be connected somehow. It flies in the face of what we usually expect from a serial killer but on the other hand, how different is it, really, from Peter Sutcliffe picking up prostitutes or the Wests going for hitchhiking girls? Or someone targeting women walking dogs across parks or on commons? Or someone else always choosing an open window at nighttime and an elderly woman he knows is alone within? Our man’s doing what’s worked for him. And considering he’s managed to pull it off five times without getting caught-without, for the love of God, even being noticed-why shouldn’t he simply keep on doing it?”

“So you think the rest of the bodies are Colossus boys as well?”

“I do,” he said. “And since the boys we’ve identified so far have been throwaways to everyone but their families, our killer hasn’t had to worry about detection.”

“So what’s next?”

“Gather more information.” Lynley rose and considered her: disastrous of appearance and utterly headstrong. Maddening unto the death of him. But she was quick as well, which was why he’d learned to value having her at his side. He said, “Here’s the irony, Barbara.”

“What?” she said.

“John Stewart agreed with your assessment. He said as much before you walked into the office. He thinks it may be Colossus as well. You might have discovered that-”

“Had I kept my mug plugged.” Havers shoved her chair back, preparatory to getting to her feet. “So am I supposed to crawl? Curry favour? Create my own forelock to pull? Bring in coffee at eleven and tea at four? What?”

“Try staying out of trouble for once,” Lynley said. “Try doing what you’re told.”

“Which is what at this point?”

“Griffin Strong and the boy who died while Strong was with Social Services in Stockwell.”

“But the other bodies-”

“Havers. No one’s arguing with you about the other bodies. But we’re not going to leapfrog through this investigation no matter how much you’d like to do so. You’ve won a round. Now see to the rest.”

“Right,” she said, although she sounded reluctant even as she picked up her shoulder bag to get back to work. She headed for the door and then stopped, turned back to face him. “Which round was that?” she asked him.

“You know which round,” he told her in reply. “No boy’s safe if he ends up getting assigned to a spell at Colossus.”