With No One As Witness

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“ANTON WHAT?” ULRIKE ELLIS SAID INTO THE TELEPHONE. “Could you spell the surname, please?”

On the other end of the line the detective, whose name Ulrike had already schooled herself to forget, spelled out R-e-i-d. He added that the parents of Anton Reid, who’d gone missing from Furzedown and had finally been identified as the first victim of the serial killer who’d so far murdered five boys in London, had listed Colossus as one of the places that their son had frequented in the months leading up to his death. Could the director confirm that, please? And a list of all Anton Reid’s contacts within Colossus would be necessary, madam.

Ulrike did not indulge in a misinterpretation of the courtesy behind the request. But she temporised, nonetheless. “Furzedown is south of the river, and as we’re well known here, Constable…?” She waited for a name.

“Eyre,” he said.

“Constable Eyre,” she repeated. “What I’m saying is that it’s a possibility that this boy-Anton Reid-merely told his parents he was involved with Colossus while using the time to do something else. It happens, you know.”

“He came to you through Youth Offenders, according to the parents. You should have the records.”

“Youth Offenders, is it? Then I’ll have to check. If you could give me your number, I’ll go through the files.”

“We do know he’s one of yours, madam.”

“You may know that, Constable…?”

“Eyre,” he said.

“Yes. Of course. You may know that, Constable Eyre. But at this moment, I do not. Now I shall have to go through our files, so if you give me your number, I’ll get back to you.”

He had no choice. He could get a search warrant, but that would take time. And she was cooperating. No one could claim otherwise. She was merely cooperating within the structure of her schedule, not within the structure of his.

The detective constable recited his phone number and Ulrike took it down. She had no intention of using it-reporting to him like a schoolgirl hauled onto the headmistress’s carpet-but she wanted to have it to wave in front of whomever turned up to gather information on Anton Reid. Because someone would definitely turn up at Colossus. Her job was to develop a plan to handle things when the moment arrived.

Off the phone, she went to the filing cabinet. She rued the system she had developed: the hard-copy backup to computer files. Pressed to it, she could have done something about material left upon hard drives, even if she’d had to reformat every miserable computer in the building. But the cops who’d come to Colossus had already seen her fingering through files in an ostensible search for Jared Salvatore’s paperwork, so they’d be highly unlikely to believe that some boys had electronic documents while others did not. Still, Anton’s folder could go the way of Jared’s. The rest was easy enough to accomplish.

She had Anton’s file halfway out of the drawer when she heard Jack Veness just outside her door. He said, “Ulrike? Could I have a word…?,” and he opened the door without further ado.

She said, “Do not do that, Jack. I’ve told you before.”

“I knocked,” he protested.

“Step one, yes. You knocked. Very nice. Now let’s work on step two, which is all about waiting for me to tell you to come in.”

His nostrils moved, white round the edges. He said, “Whatever you say, Ulrike,” and he turned to go, always the manipulative, petulant adolescent despite his age, which was what? Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?

Damn the man. She didn’t need this now. She said, “What do you want, Jack?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just something I thought you might like to know.”

Games, games, games. “Yes? Well, if I might like to know, why don’t you tell me?”

He turned back. “It’s gone. That’s all.”

“What’s gone?”

“The signing-in book from reception. I thought I must’ve misplaced it when I packed up last night. But I’ve looked everywhere. It’s definitely gone.”

“Gone.”

“Gone. Vanished. Disappeared. Abracadabra. Into thin air.”

Ulrike rested back on her heels. Her mind wheeled through the possibilities, and she disliked every one of them.

Jack said helpfully, “Robbie might have taken it for some reason. Or maybe Griff has it. He’s got a key to be in here after hours, doesn’t he?”

This was too much. She said, “What would Robbie, Griff, or anyone else want with a signing-in book?”

Jack shrugged elaborately and drove his fists into the pockets of his jeans.

“When did you notice it was missing?”

“Not till the first kids got here today. I went for the book but it wasn’t there. Like I said, I figured I misplaced it last night when I was packing up. So I just started another one till I could find the one that’s missing. Which I couldn’t. So I reckon someone nicked it off my desk.”

Ulrike thought about the previous day. “The police,” she said. “When you came to fetch me. You left them alone in reception.”

“Yeah. That’s what I reckoned ’s well. Only here’s the thing. I can’t suss out what they want with our signing-in book, can you?”

Ulrike turned from his smug and comprehending face. She said, “Thank you for letting me know, Jack.”

“Do you want me to-”

“Thank you,” she repeated firmly. “Is there anything else? No? Then you can get back to work.”

When Jack left her, after a little mock salute and a click of the heels that she was meant to take as amusing and did not, Ulrike shoved Anton Reid’s paperwork back into place. She slammed the filing drawer home and went for the phone. She punched in Griffin Strong’s mobile number. He was meeting with a new assessment group, their first day together, ice-breaking activities. He didn’t like to be interrupted whenever the kids were “in circle” as they called it. But this interruption couldn’t be helped and he would know that when he heard what she had to say.

He said, “Yeah?” impatiently.

“What did you do with the file?” she asked him.

“As…ordered.”

She could tell he chose the word deliberately, as mocking as was Jack’s sarcastic salute. He hadn’t yet twigged who stood in jeopardy here. But he would presently.

He said, “That all?”

Dead silence in the background told her every member of his assessment group was listening to his end of the exchange. She found a bitter satisfaction in that. Fine, Griffin, she thought. Let’s see how well you can carry on now.

“No,” she told him. “The police know, Griff.”

“Know what exactly?”

“That Jared Salvatore was one of ours. They took the reception book yesterday. They’ll have seen his name.”

Silence. Then, “Shit,” on a breath. Then a whisper, “God damn it. Why didn’t you think of that?”

“I might ask the same of you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Anton Reid,” she said.

Silence again.

“Griffin,” she told him, “you need to understand something. You’ve been an exceptional fuck, but I won’t let anyone destroy Colossus.”

She replaced the phone, carefully and quietly. Let him hang there, she thought.

She turned to her computer. On it, she accessed the electronic information they had on Jared Salvatore. It wasn’t as extensive as had been the documents in his file, but it would do. She chose the print option. Then she picked up the number that Detective Constable Eyre had given her only minutes ago.

He answered immediately, saying, “Eyre.”

She said, “Constable, I’ve come up with some information. You’ll probably want to pass this along.”

NKATA LET THE computer do the work for him on the postal codes amassed by the owner of Crystal Moon. While Gigi-the shop’s owner-would use them to prove the need for a branch of her business in a second location somewhere in London, Nkata intended to use them to make a match between the customers of Crystal Moon and the body sites. After reflecting on what Barb Havers had said on the subject of body sites, however, he decided to expand his search to include a comparison between the postal codes gathered by Crystal Moon and the postal codes of all Colossus employees. This took him more time than he’d expected. At the Colossus end of things, giving out postal codes to the cops was not an idea that anyone immediately embraced.

When he finally had what he wanted, he printed out the document and studied it contemplatively. Ultimately, he passed it over to DI Stewart to relay along to Hillier when he made his request for the manpower to run more surveillance. He was donning his overcoat to head back out, over to Gabriel’s Wharf to see to the next part of his assignment, when Lynley came to the door of the incident room and said his name quietly, adding, “We’re wanted upstairs.”

We’re wanted upstairs meant only one thing. The fact that Hillier was asking for them now-a few hours after the press conference called by Reverend Bram Savidge-suggested the meeting was not going to be pleasant.

Nkata joined Lynley, but he did not remove his overcoat. “I was heading to Gabriel’s Wharf,” he told the acting superintendent, hoping this would be enough to get him off the hook.

“This won’t hold you up long,” Lynley said. It sounded like a promise.

They took the stairs. Nkata said as they climbed, “I think Barb’s right, guv.”

“About?”

“Colossus. I got a match on one of the postal codes from Crystal Moon. I passed it along to DI Stewart.”

“And?”

“Robbie Kilfoyle. He’s got the same postal code as someone who shopped in Crystal Moon.”

“Does he indeed?” Lynley stopped on the stairs. He seemed to think about the information for a moment. Then he said, “Still, it’s only a postal code, Winnie. He shares it with…what? How many thousand people? And his employment is on the wharf as well, isn’t it?”

“Directly next to Crystal Moon,” Nkata admitted. “The sandwich shop.”

“Then I don’t know how much weight we can give it, as much as we’d like to. It’s something, I agree-”

“Which is what we need,” Nkata cut in. “Something.”

“But unless we know what he bought…You see the difficulty, don’t you?”

“Yeah. He works there on the wharf for God knows how long. He’s prob’ly bought something off that shop and every other shop over time.”

“Exactly. But speak to them, all the same.”

In Hillier’s suite, Judi MacIntosh ushered them in at once. Hillier was waiting for them, standing framed by the multiple panes of his windows and the view they offered of St. James’s Park. He was studying this view as they entered. At his fingertips on the credenza beneath the window, a newspaper lay neatly folded.

Hillier turned. As if for an unseen camera, he picked up the paper and let it fall open so that he held the front page like a towel that covered his genitals. He said evenly, “How did this happen?”

Nkata saw it was the latest Evening Standard. The story on the front page dealt with the press conference that Bram Savidge had called earlier in the day. The headline spoke of a foster father’s anguish.

Anguish had not been among the reactions to Sean Lavery’s death that Nkata would have ascribed to Savidge. But he realised that “anguish” was more likely to sell copies of the paper than was “justifiable fury at police incompetence.” Although, truth to tell, it would have been close.

Hillier went on, tossing the Standard onto his desk. He said to Lynley, “You, Superintendent, are supposed to be managing the victims’ families, not giving them access to the media. It’s part of the job, so why aren’t you doing it? Have you any idea what he’s said to the press?” Hillier stabbed at the paper as he made each following declaration: “Institutional racism. Police incompetence. Endemic corruption. All accompanied by calls for a thorough investigation by the Home Office, a Parliamentary sub committee, the Prime Minister, or anyone else who’s willing to take up the subject of house sweeping, which is what he accuses us of needing round here.” He brushed the paper off of his desk and into the rubbish basket next to it. “This bugger’s got their attention,” he said. “I want that changed.”

There was something self-satisfied about Hillier’s expression that was out of keeping both with his tone and with what he was saying. It came to Nkata as he observed this that Hillier’s look had to do with the performance that he was giving, rather than with his outrage. He wanted to dress Lynley down in front of a subordinate officer, Nkata realised. He had the excuse of making that subordinate officer Nkata because of the press briefings that had gone before when Nkata had sat obediently at his side, second cousin to a performing dog.

He said to Hillier before Lynley could respond, “’Scuse me, guv. I was at that briefing. Truth to tell, I di’n’t even think to stop it. My thought was he c’n call the press whenever he wants to call the press. His right to do it.”

Lynley glanced his way. Nkata wondered if Lynley’s pride would allow him to carry off an intervention like this. He wasn’t sure, so before there was an opportunity for the acting superintendent to add something, Nkata went on.

“I could’ve stepped up to the mike right after, ’f course, when Savidge was done with his piece. Could be that’s what I should’ve done ’s well. But I di’n’t think it’d be something you’d really want me to do. Not without you being there.” He smiled affably at the end of this: Little Black Sambo come to London.

Next to him, Lynley cleared his throat. Hillier shot him a look, then one at Nkata. He said, “Get things under control, Lynley. I don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry running to the press over this.”

“We’ll work on that angle specifically,” Lynley said. “Is that all, sir?”

“The next press briefing-” Hillier gestured rudely towards Nkata. “I want you down there ten minutes prior.”

“Got it,” Nkata said, tapping his skull with his index finger.

Hillier started to say more, but then he dismissed them. Lynley made no comment till they were out of the office, beyond Hillier’s secretary, and crossing to Victoria Block. Then it was only, “Winston. Listen,” as his footsteps slowed. “Don’t do that again.”

There was the pride, Nkata thought. He’d expected as much.

But then Lynley surprised him. “There’s too much risk for you in taking Hillier on, even obliquely. I appreciate the loyalty, but it’s more important for you to watch your back than to watch mine. He’s a dangerous enemy. Don’t make him into one.”

“He wanted to make you look bad in front of me,” Nkata said. “I don’t like that. Just thought I’d return the favour and let him see how it feels.”

“That presupposes the AC might think he could ever look bad in front of anyone,” Lynley said wryly. They went to the lift. Lynley pushed the down button. He examined it for a moment before he went on. “On the other hand,” he said, “it’s a suitable irony.”

“What’s that, guv?”

“That in giving the rank of sergeant to you and denying it to Barbara, Hillier got more than he bargained for.”

Nkata thought about this. The lift doors slid open. They entered and punched for the floors they needed. “D’you s’pose he reckoned I’d yes-guv him right to the grave?” he asked curiously.

“Yes. I think that’s what he assumed.”

“Why?”

“Because he has no idea who you are,” Lynley replied. “But I expect that’s something you’ve already realised.”

They descended to the floor for the incident room, where Lynley got off, leaving Nkata to ride to the underground carpark. Before the doors closed upon him, however, the acting superintendent stopped them, his hand holding one of them back.

“Winston-” He didn’t say anything else for a moment and Nkata waited for him to go on. When he finally did, it was to say, “Thank you all the same.” He released the lift door and let it slide closed. His dark eyes met Nkata’s for an instant, then were gone.

It was raining when Nkata emerged from the underground carpark. Daylight was fast fading, and the rain exacerbated the gloom. Traffic lights gleamed against the wet streets; taillights of vehicles winked in the prisms of the raindrops hitting his windscreen. Nkata worked his way over to Parliament Square and inched towards Westminster Bridge in a queue of taxis, buses, and government cars. As he crossed, the river heaved in a grey mass below him, puckered with rain and rippled by the incoming tide. There a single barge chugged its way in the direction of Lambeth, and in its wheelhouse a solitary figure kept the craft on its course.

Nkata parked illegally at the south end of Gabriel’s Wharf and put a police placard in the window. Turning up the collar of his coat against the rain, he strode into the wharf area, where the overhead lights made a cheerful crisscrossing pattern above him and the owner of the bicycle rental shop was wisely wheeling his wares indoors.

At Crystal Moon, it was Gigi this time and not her grandmother who was perched on a stool, reading behind the till. Nkata approached her and showed his police identification. She didn’t look at it, however. Instead, she said, “Gran told me you’d probably be back. She’s good that way. A real intuitive. In another time, she’d’ve been done for a witch. Did the agrimony work?”

“Not sure what I’m meant to do with it.”

“Is that why you’re back, then?”

He shook his head. “Wanted to have a word about a bloke called Kilfoyle.”

She said, “Rob?,” and closed her book. It was, he saw, one of the Harry Potters. “What about Rob?”

“You know him, then?”

“Yeah.” She said the word on two notes, a combination of confirmation and question. She looked wary.

“How well?”

“I’m not sure how I’m meant to take this,” she said. “Has Rob done something?”

“He buy stuff here?”

“Occasionally. But so do lots of other people. What’s this about?”

“What’s he buy off you, then?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t been in in a while. And I don’t write down what people buy.”

“But you know he bought something.”

“Because I know him. I also know that two of the waitresses from Riviera Restaurant have made purchases as well. So have the head cook at Pizza Express and a collection of shop assistants from the wharf. But it’s the same as for Rob: I don’t recall what they bought. Except for the bloke at Pizza Express. He wanted a love potion for a girl he met. I remember that because we got into the whole love thing.”

“Know him how?” Nkata asked her.

“Who?”

“You said you know Kilfoyle. I’m wondering how.”

“You mean is he my boyfriend or something?” Nkata could see the colour deepen round the hollow of her throat. “No. He isn’t. I mean, we had a drink once, but it wasn’t a date. Is he in some sort of trouble?”

Nkata didn’t reply to this. It had always been a long shot, anyway, that the owner of Crystal Moon would remember what someone had bought. But the fact that Kilfoyle had indeed made a purchase gave the investigation grist to move forward, which was what they needed. He told Gigi that he appreciated her help and he gave her his card and told her to phone should she remember anything particular about Kilfoyle that she thought he should know. He realised that chances were good she’d hand over the card to Kilfoyle himself the next time she saw him, but he didn’t see that as a problem. If Kilfoyle was their killer, the fact that the cops were on to him would surely slow him down. At this point, that was nearly as gratifying as nabbing him. They had enough victims on their hands already.

He headed for the door, where he paused to ask another question of Gigi. “How’m I meant to use it, then?”

“What?”

“The agrimony.”

“Oh,” she said. “You burn or anoint.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning: Burn the oil in her presence or anoint her body with it. I take it it’s a her we’re talking about?”

Nkata thought about and then dismissed the likelihood of his being able to accomplish either task. But he also thought about the serial killer: burning and anointing. He was doing both. He thanked Gigi and left the shop. He went next door to Mr. Sandwich.

The little eatery was closed for the day, and the sign said that its hours of business were from ten till three. He looked through the windows but could make nothing out in the semidarkness save the counter and, on the wall behind it, a list of sandwiches and their prices. There was nothing more to be gained in this spot, he decided. It was time to go.

But he didn’t head homeward. Instead, he felt himself compelled to drive yet another time in the general direction of the Oval, weaving over to Kennington Park Road as soon as he was able to do so. He parked again in Braganza Street, but rather than wait for her or enter Doddington Grove Estate to see if she was already home, he walked up to the dispirited patch of green that was Surrey Gardens. From there, he headed into Manor Place, a spot still trying to make a choice between decrepitude and renaissance.

He hadn’t been to her shop since November, but there was no way he could have forgotten where it was. He found her within, just as she’d been the last time he visited. She was at a desk at the back, her head bent over what looked like an accounts book. She had a pencil in her mouth, which made her look vulnerable, like a schoolgirl having trouble doing her sums. When she glanced up as he entered and the buzzer went off, though, she looked adult enough. And equally unfriendly. She set her pencil down and closed the book. She came to the counter and made sure, it seemed, that it stood like a bulwark between them.

He said, “A black boy was killed this time. His body got dumped near London Bridge Station. We got an ID on an earlier boy ’s well. Mixed race, he was. From Furzedown. That’s two boys south of the river now, Yas. Where’s Daniel?”

She said, “If you think-”

He cut her off impatiently. “Yas, Daniel have anything to do with a group of kids meeting up at Elephant and Castle?”

“Dan doesn’t do gangs,” she protested.

“Isn’t a gang, this, Yas. This’s an outreach group. They offer kids activities, kids at…kids at risk.” He hurried on. “I know. I know you’ll say Dan i’n’t at risk, and I’m not here to argue that. The group’s called Colossus, though, and I need to know. You ever talk to them about seeing to Dan after school? While you’re still working? Giving him a place to go?”

“I don’t let Dan up at Elephant and Castle.”

“And he never said Colossus to you?”

“He never…Why’re you doing this?” she demanded. “We don’t want you round us. You’ve done enough.”

She was getting agitated. He could see as much from the rise and fall of her breasts beneath her jersey. It was cropped like all the jerseys he’d ever seen her wear, showing off her smooth stomach, which was flat like a palm. She’d had her navel pierced, he saw. A bit of gold glittered against her skin.

His throat felt dry, but he knew there were things that he had to say to her, no matter how she was likely to receive them. He said, “Yas”-and he thought, What is it about the sound of her name?-“Yas, would you’ve rather not known what was going on? She was cheating on you, had been from the first, and you got to admit that no matter what you think of me.”

“You di’n’t have the right-”

“Would you rather’ve been kept in the dark about her? What good’s that supposed to do, then, Yas? And you and I know you’re not bent like that anyways.”

She pushed away from the counter. “That all? Cos if it is, I got work needs finishing before I go home.”

“No,” he returned. “Not all. There’s this. What I did was right and you know it somewhere.”

“You-”

“But,” he continued, “how I did it was wrong. And-” He’d come to the hard part now, the tell-the-truth part, when he didn’t want to admit that truth even to himself. But he plunged forward. “And why I did it, Yasmin. That was wrong ’s well. And it was wrong that I lied to myself about why I did it too. And I’m sorry for all of it. I’m dead sorry. I want to make things right.”

She was silent. There was nothing that could be called kind in her stare. A car pulled up to the kerb outside and her eyes flicked to it, then back to him. “Then stop using Daniel,” she said.

“Using…? Yas, I’m-”

“Stop using Daniel to get to me.”

“Tha’s what you think?”

“I don’t want you. I had a man. I married him, an’ every time I look in the mirror I get to see what he did to me an’ I get to think what I did back to him an’ I’m never going to that place again.”

She’d begun to tremble. Nkata wanted to reach across the counter that separated them and offer her comfort and the assurance that not all men…But he knew she would not believe him and he wasn’t sure if he believed himself. And as he tried to think what to say to her, the door opened, the buzzer went off, and another black man came into the shop. His gaze lit upon Yasmin, made a quick assessment, and flicked to Nkata.

“Yasmin,” he said, and he pronounced it differently. Yasmeen, he said in a soft foreign voice. “Is there trouble here, Yasmin? Are you here alone?”

It was the way he talked to her. It was the tone and the look that went with it. Nkata felt every which way a fool.

He said to the other man, “She is now,” and he left the two of them together.

BARBARA HAVERS decided a fag was in order. She considered it a little reward, the carrot she’d held out in front of herself during her long slog on the computer, followed by her further slogs on the phone. She’d managed this spate of unwelcome work with what she liked to think of as extreme good grace, when all the time what she really wanted to do was have a real slog over to Elephant and Castle so that she might engage the decidedly more pleasant slog of shaking things up at Colossus. During all this time, she’d done her best to ignore her feelings: her outrage at DI Stewart’s remarks, her impatience with the grunt work she was being assigned, her schoolgirl envy-bloody hell, was that what it really was?-seeing Winston Nkata chosen by Lynley to accompany him to duel with the assistant commissioner. So, as far as she was concerned, at this late hour of the day she was owed the metaphorical rosette-on-her-lapel, which she decided a fag would represent.

On the other hand, she had to admit, however much she disliked doing so, that the computer and telephone slog had actually produced more ammunition for her to use when she made her next appearance across the river. So she gave grudging acknowledgement to the wisdom of completing activities assigned to her, and she even considered writing up her report in a timely manner as a way of admitting her earlier error in judgement. But she discarded that notion in favour of a fag. She told herself that, if she had her smoke surreptitiously in the stairwell, she’d be that much closer to the incident room and thus that much closer to a location in which she could fill out the appropriate paperwork…once she had the shot-in-the-eyeball of nicotine for which her body was crying out.

So she decamped to the stairwell, plopped down, lit up, and inhaled. Bliss. Not the plate of lasagne and chips she would have preferred at this hour. But a decent second.

“Havers, exactly what are you doing?”

Bloody hell. Barbara scrambled to her feet. Lynley had just come through the doorway, preparatory to climbing or descending the stairs. He had his overcoat slung over one shoulder, so she assumed descending was the order of the day. It was something of a journey down to the carpark, but the stairwell always gave one time to think, which was probably what he’d planned unless his intention had been to escape without detection, which was also an option that the stairwell afforded.

She said, “Composing my thoughts. I did the Griffin Strong stuff, and I was sorting through how best to present the information.” She offered him the notes she’d taken from both the computer and the telephone calls. She’d begun scribbling them in her spiral book but unfortunately had run out of paper. She’d been reduced to using whatever lay at hand, which had turned out to be two used envelopes from the wastepaper basket and a paper napkin she’d rummaged out of her bag.

Lynley looked from all this to her.

She said, “Hey. Before you give me aggro-”

“I’m beyond it,” he said. “What have you got?”

Barbara happily settled in for a natter, fag dangling from her lips as she spoke. “First of all, according to his wife, Griffin Strong’s doing the mattress polka with Ulrike Ellis. Arabella-that’s the wife-puts him with Ulrike for every killing no matter when it was. Without a second to think it over, mind you. I don’t know about you, but that tells me she’s dead desperate to keep him bringing home the dosh while she cares for the baby and does jumping jacks in front of the telly all day. Fine. That’s understandable, I suppose. But it turns out our Griff has a history of taking up with the ladies at all his places of employment, getting in too deep-if you’ll pardon the pun-then losing his way and letting the ball drop with reference to his responsibilities.”

Lynley leaned against the stair rail, listening tolerantly to her metaphor mixing. He had his eyes fixed on hers, so she entertained the idea that she might actually be on the way to resurrecting something of her reputation, not to mention something of her career. She waxed enthusiastic on her topic.

“Turns out he was sacked from Social Services in Lewisham for falsifying his reports.”

“That’s an interesting twist.”

“He was supposedly checking up on kids in care but in reality only managing to get to one in ten.”

“Why?”

“The obvious. He was too busy bonking his cubicle mate. He got warned off once and written up twice before the axe finally fell, and it seems the only reason he got taken on over in Stockwell was that none of the kids on his roster at Lewisham actually suffered from his neglect.”

“In this day and age, though…There were no repercussions?”

“Not a whisper. I talked to his Lewisham supervisor, who’d got convinced by someone-and for that I wager you can read Griffin Strong-that Griff was far more pursued than pursuer. Beating this bird off with a nail-studded stick for months on end, to hear the way Strong’s guv told the tale. ‘Anyone would have succumbed to her eventually,’ was how he put it.”

“His supervisor being male, I take it?”

“Naturally. And you should’ve heard him talk about this bird. Like she was the sexual equivalent of the bubonic plague.”

“What about at Stockwell?” Lynley said.

“The kid that died under Strong’s care was attacked.”

“By whom?”

“A gang with an initiation rite involving chasing down twelve-year-olds and cutting them up with broken bottles. They caught him crossing Angell Park, and what was s’posed to be a cut on the thigh hit an artery and he bled to death before he could get home.”

“Christ,” Lynley said. “But that was hardly Strong’s fault, was it?”

“When you consider the kid who cut him up was his own foster brother…?”

Lynley raised his head heavenward. He looked done in. “How old was the foster brother, then?”

Barbara glanced at her notes. “Eleven,” she said.

“What happened to him?”

She continued to read. “Psychiatric lockup till he’s eighteen. For all the good it’ll do.” She knocked the growing tube of ash from her fag. “It all made me think…”

“About?”

“The killer. Seems to me that he sees himself ridding the flock of black sheep. Like it’s sort of a religion to him. When you think of all the aspects of ritual that’re part of the killings…” She let him finish the thought for himself.

Lynley rubbed his forehead and leaned against the handrail of the stairs. He said, “Barbara, I don’t care what he’s thinking. These are children we’re talking about, not genetic mutations. Children need guidance when they go wrong, and they need protection the rest of the time. Full stop. End of story.”

“Sir, we’re on the same page,” Barbara said. “Start to finish.” She dropped the nub of her cigarette on the stairs and crushed it out. To cover the trace of her malefaction, she picked up the dog end and placed it, along with her notes, in her shoulder bag. She said, “Trouble upstairs?,” with reference to Lynley’s meeting with Hillier.

“No more than usual,” Lynley said. “Winston isn’t turning out to be the blue-eyed boy the AC thought he’d be, though.”

“Now that’s gratifying,” Barbara said.

“To an extent, yes.” He studied her. A little silence lingered between them during which Barbara looked away, picking at a fuzz ball that needed removing from the arm of her baggy pullover…along with all the other fuzz balls that adorned the garment. “Barbara,” Lynley finally said, “I wouldn’t have it this way.”

She looked up. “What?”

“I think you know. Have you ever considered you’d make better progress towards reinstatement if you worked with someone less…less objectionable to people in power?”

“Like who, for example? John Stewart? Now that would be chummy.”

“MacPherson, possibly. Or Philip Hale. Even out of here altogether, in one of the borough stations. Because as long as you’re in my sphere-not to mention in Hillier’s-with Webberly no longer here to be a buffer for either one of us…” He made a gesture. It said, Finish the thought in a logical manner.

She didn’t need to. She heaved her bag higher on her shoulder and began to head back up to the incident room. She said, “That’s not how this is going to play out. At the end of the day, I know what’s important and what isn’t.”

“Which means?”

She paused at the door to the corridor. She offered him the response he’d given her. “I think you know, sir. Have a good night. I’ve got work to do before I can go home.”