With No One As Witness

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ULTIMATELY, ULRIKE DECIDED TO SOLDIER ON. SHE HAD little choice. Upon her return from Brick Lane, Jack Veness had handed her the telephone message from Patrick Bensley, president of the board of trustees. With a knowing smirk, he’d said, “Have a good meeting with the prez, did you?,” as he’d passed her the slip of paper, and she’d said, “Yes, it went very well,” before lowering her gaze to see upon the phone message the name of the man whom she’d claimed she was leaving Colossus to meet.

She didn’t try to pretend anything. She was too caught up in trying to decide what to do with the information she had from Arabella Strong to quickstep into giving Jack a reason why Mr. Bensley had phoned her while she was supposedly meeting him. So she merely folded the message into her pocket and leveled a look at Jack. She said, “Anything else?,” and endured yet another insufferable smirk. Nothing at all, he told her.

So she decided she had to continue, no matter what it looked like to the police and no matter how they might react if she handed over information to them. She still had the hope that the Met would respond in a quid pro quo fashion, defined by keeping any mention of Colossus away from the press. But it didn’t really matter whether they did or did not because, regardless, now she had to finish what she’d started. That was the only way she was going to be able to excuse her journey to Griffin Strong’s house should the board of trustees get wind of it from someone.

As far as Griff himself went-as far as Arabella’s vow to lie for him went-Ulrike didn’t want to dwell on this, and Jack’s reactions gave her a reason not to. They moved him directly to the top of her list.

She didn’t bother with an excuse when she left Colossus a second time late in the day. Instead, she took up her bicycle and headed along the New Kent Road. Jack lived in Grange Walk, which opened off Tower Bridge Road, less than ten minutes by bicycle from Elephant and Castle. It was a narrow one-way street across from Bermondsey Square. One side of it comprised a newish housing estate, while the other bore a terrace of homes that had probably stood in the spot since the eighteenth century.

Jack had rooms in one of these houses: number 8, a building distinguished by its fanciful shutters. Painted blue to match the rest of the woodwork on the sooty building, they had heart-shaped openings at the top to let in the light when they were closed and secured. They were open now, and the windows that they would otherwise cover were hung with lace curtains looking several layers thick.

There was no bell, so Ulrike used the door knocker, which was shaped like an old-time cine-camera. To compensate for the noise from Tower Bridge Road, she applied some force to the knocking. When no one answered, she bent to the brass letter box in the middle of the door and lifted it to peer inside the house. She saw an old lady lowering herself carefully down the stairs, two-stepping it sideways and with both hands on the railing.

The woman evidently saw Ulrike peering in, for she shouted, “I do beg your pardon!,” and she followed this with, “I believe this is a private residence, whoever you are!,” which prompted Ulrike to drop the hinged lid on the letter box and wait, chagrined, for the door to open.

When it did, she found herself confronted by a crumpled and very peeved face. This was framed by tight white curls and, along with her thin-framed body, they shook with indignation. Or so it seemed at first, until Ulrike dropped her gaze and saw the zimmer frame to which the old lady held. Then she realised it wasn’t so much anger as it was palsy or Parkinson’s or something else that was causing the tremors.

She apologised hastily and introduced herself. She mentioned Colossus. She said Jack’s name. Could she have a word with Mrs…? She hesitated. Who the hell was this woman? she wondered. She should have sussed that one out before barreling over here.

Mary Alice Atkins-Ward, the old lady said. And it was Miss and proud to be so, thank you very much. She sounded stiff-a pensioner who remembered the old days when people had manners defined by courteous queues at bus stops and gentlemen giving up seats to ladies on the underground. She held the door open and manoeuvred herself back from it so that Ulrike could enter. Ulrike did so gratefully.

She found herself immediately in a narrow corridor much taken up by the stairway. The walls were jammed with photos, and as Miss A-W-which was how Ulrike began thinking of her-led the way into a sitting room overlooking the street, Ulrike took a peek at these. They were, she found, all photos taken from television shows: BBC1 costume dramas mostly, although there were also a smattering of gritty police programmes as well.

She said in as friendly a fashion as she could, “You’re a fan of the telly?”

Miss A-W cast a scornful look over her shoulder as she crossed the sitting room and deposited herself in a ladder-backed wooden rocking chair sans a single softening cushion. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

“The photos in the corridor?” Ulrike had never felt so out of step with someone.

“Those? I wrote them, you ninny,” was Miss A-W’s retort.

“Wrote?”

“Wrote. I’m a screenwriter, for heaven’s sake. Those are my productions. Now what do you want?” She offered nothing: no food, no drink, no fondly reminiscent conversation. She was a tough old bird, Ulrike concluded. It was going to be no easy feat to pull the wool here.

Nonetheless, she had to try. There was no alternative. She told the woman that she wanted to have a few words about her tenant.

“What tenant?” Miss A-W asked.

“Jack Veness?” Ulrike prompted her. “He works at Colossus. I’m his…well, his supervisor, I suppose.”

“He’s not my tenant. He’s my great-nephew. Worthless little bugger, but he had to live somewhere once his mum chucked him out. He helps with the housework and the shopping.” She adjusted herself in her chair. “See here, I’m going to have a cigarette, missy. I hope you’re not one of those flag-waving ASHers. If you are, too bad. My house, my lungs, my life. Hand me that book of matches, please. No, no, you ninny. Not over there. They’re right in front of you.”

Ulrike found them among the clutter on a coffee table. The book was from a Park Lane hotel where, Ulrike imagined, Miss A-W had doubtless terrified the staff into handing matches over by the gross.

She waited till the old lady had extracted a cigarette from the pocket of her cardigan. She smoked unfiltered-no surprise there-and she held the burning fag like an old-time film star. She picked a piece of tobacco from her tongue, examined it, and flicked it over her shoulder.

“So, what’s this about Jack?” she asked.

“We’re considering him for promotion,” Ulrike replied with what she hoped was an ingratiating smile. “And before someone’s promoted, we talk to those people who know him best.”

“Why do you suppose I know him any better than you do?”

“Well, he does live here…It’s just a starting point, you understand.”

Miss A-W was watching Ulrike with the sharpest eyes she had ever seen. This was a lady who’d been through it, she reckoned. Lied to, cheated on, stolen from, whatever. It must have come from working in British television, notorious home of the thoroughly unscrupulous. Only Hollywood was meant to be worse.

She continued to smoke and evaluate Ulrike, clearly unbothered by the silence that stretched between them. Finally she said, “What sort?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“No, you don’t,” she said. “What sort of promotion?”

Ulrike did some quick thinking. “We’re opening a branch of Colossus across the river. The North London branch? He may have told you about it. We’d like Jack to be an assessment leader there.”

“Would you now. Well, he doesn’t want that. He wants community outreach. And I’d expect you’d know that if you’d talked to him about it.”

“Yes, well,” Ulrike improvised, “there’s a hierarchy involved, as Jack’s no doubt mentioned. We like to place people where we think they’ll…well, blossom actually. Jack’s probably going to work his way up to community outreach eventually, but as for now…” She made a vague gesture.

Miss A-W said, “He’ll be in a snit about that when he hears. He’s like that. Sees himself persecuted. Well, his mum didn’t help with that any, did she. But why can’t you young people just get on with things instead of sniveling when you don’t get what you want when you want it? That’s what I’d like to know.” She cupped her hand and flicked ash into it. She rubbed this into the arm of her rocking chair. “What does this assessment leader do?”

Ulrike explained the job, and Miss A-W picked up on the most relevant part. “Young people?” she said. “Working with them to build trust? Not exactly up Jack’s street. I’d suggest you move right along to another employee if that’s what you want, but if you tell him I said that, I’ll call you a filthy liar.”

“Why?” Ulrike asked, perhaps too quickly. “What would he do if he knew we were talking?”

Miss A-W dragged in on her cigarette and let out what smoke wasn’t otherwise adhering to her doubtless blackened lungs. Ulrike did her best not to breathe in too deeply. The old lady seemed to consider what she wanted to say because she was silent for a moment before she settled on, “He can be a good enough boy when he sets his mind to it, but he generally has his mind on other things.”

“Such as?”

“Such as himself. Such as his lot in life. Just like everyone else his age.” Miss A-W gestured with her cigarette for emphasis. “Young people are whingers, and that’s the boy’s problem in a teacup, missy. To hear him talk, you’d think he’s the only child on earth who grew up without a dad. And with a loose-knickered mum, who’s flitted from man to man since the boy was born. Since before that, as a matter of fact. From the womb, Jack was probably listening to her try to recall the name of the last bloke she slept with. So how could it be a surprise to anyone that he turned out bad?”

“Bad?”

“Come now. You know what he was. He went to Colossus from borstal, for heaven’s sake. Min-that’s his mum-says it’s all to do with her never being quite sure which lover was actually his dad. She says, ‘Why can’t the lad just cope? I do.’ But that’s Min for you: blaming anyone and anything before she’d ever take a real look at herself. She chased men all her life, and Jack chased trouble. By the time he was fourteen, Min couldn’t cope with him any longer and her mum didn’t want to, so they sent him to me. Until that arson nonsense. Stupid little sod.”

“How do you get on with him?” Ulrike asked.

“We live and let live, which’s how I get on with everyone, missy.”

“What about with others?”

“What about what about?”

“His friends. Does he get on with them?”

“They’d hardly be friends if he didn’t get on with them, would they?” Miss A-W pointed out.

Ulrike smiled. “Yes. Well. D’you see them much?”

“Why d’you want to know?”

“Well, because obviously…Jack’s interactions with them indicate how he’d interact with others, you see. And that’s what we’re-”

“No, I don’t see,” Miss A-W said tartly. “If you’re his superior, you see him interacting all the time. You interact with him yourself. You don’t need my opinion on the matter.”

“Yes, but the social aspects of one’s life can reveal…” What, she thought? She couldn’t come up with an answer, so she cut to the chase. “Does he go out with friends, for instance? In the evenings. Pubbing or the like?”

Miss A-W’s sharp eyes narrowed a degree. She said carefully, “He goes out as much as the next lad.”

“Every night?”

“What on earth difference does it make?” She was sounding more and more suspicious, but Ulrike plunged on.

“And is it always the pub?”

“Are you asking if he’s a dipso, Miss…who?”

“Ellis. Ulrike Ellis. And no, it’s not about that. But he’s said he’s in the pub every night, so-”

“If that’s what he’s said, that’s where he is.”

“But you don’t believe that?”

“I don’t see how it matters. He comes and he goes. I don’t keep tabs on him. Why should I? Sometimes it’s the pub, sometimes it’s a girlfriend, sometimes it’s his mum when they’re on good terms, which happens whenever Min wants him to do something for her. But he doesn’t tell me and I don’t ask. And what I want to know is why you’re asking. Has he done something?”

“So he doesn’t always go to the pub? Can you recall any time recently when he didn’t? When he went somewhere else? Like to his mum’s? Where does she live, by the way?”

At this, Ulrike saw she’d gone too far. Miss A-W heaved herself to her feet, cigarette dangling from her lips. Ulrike thought fleetingly of the word broad as applied to women by American tough guys in old black-and-white films. That was what Miss A-W was: a broad to be reckoned with.

The old lady said, “See here, you’re prowling round for information and don’t pretend this is anything but a fishing expedition. I’m not a fool. So you can lift your tight little bum off that sofa and leave my house before I call the police and ask them to assist you in the act.”

“Miss Atkins-Ward, please. If I’ve upset you…It’s only part of the job…” Ulrike found herself floundering. She needed a delicate touch, and that was what she was lacking. She simply did not possess the Machiavellian manner that her position at Colossus occasionally required. Too honest, she told herself. Too up front with people. She had to shed that quality or at least be able to shrug it off occasionally. For God’s sake, she needed to practise lying if she was going to acquire any useful information.

She knew that Miss A-W would report her visit to Jack. Try as she might, she couldn’t see how she could avoid that happening unless she hit the old lady over the head with a table lamp and put her in hospital. She said, “If I’ve offended…used the wrong approach…I should have been more delicate with the-”

“Is there something wrong with your hearing?” Miss A-W cut in, shaking her zimmer frame for emphasis. “Are you leaving or do I have to take matters a step further?”

And she would, Ulrike saw. That was the insanity of it. One had to admire a woman like this. She’d taken on the world and succeeded, owing no one a thing.

Ulrike had no further choice but to hustle herself from the room. She did so, making noises of apology in the hope they would suffice to keep Miss A-W from phoning the police or telling Jack that his supervisor had come round checking up on him. She had little confidence in either of these possibilities actually happening. When Miss A-W threatened, she followed through with the proposed action.

Ulrike hurried out of the house and into the street. She rued her plan and her ineptitude. First Griff, now Jack. Two down and shot to smithereens. Two to go and God only knew the mess she’d make of them.

She climbed on her bike and wheeled her way into Tower Bridge Road. Enough for today, she decided. She was going home. She needed a drink.

IT WAS FADING daylight, and the overhead lights were already crisscrossing Gabriel’s Wharf when Nkata got there. The cold was keeping people indoors, so aside from the haberdasher sweeping the pavement in front of her fanciful shop, no one else hung about. Most of the shops were still open, however, and Nkata saw that Mr. Sandwich appeared to be one of these despite its posted hours: Two middle-aged white ladies in voluminous aprons seemed to be cleaning behind the counter.

In Crystal Moon, Gigi was waiting for him. She’d closed for the day, but when he knocked on the door, she appeared from the back immediately. Casting a look round, as if she expected to be spied upon, she came to the door, unlocked it, and gestured him inside conspiratorially. She relocked it behind him.

What she said made Nkata wonder why he’d come. “Parsley.”

He said, “What about it? I thought you said-”

“Come here, Sergeant. You need to understand.”

She urged him over to the till and she indicated the large book open next to it. Nkata recognised the antique volume from his first visit, when Gigi’s gran had been in charge of the place.

“I didn’t think anything of it when he came in,” she said. “Not at first. Because parsley oil-which is what he bought-has more than one use. See, it’s a bit of a miracle herb: diuretic, antispasmodic, stimulant of the uterine muscles, breath freshener. If you plant it next to roses, it even improves their scent, no joking. And that doesn’t begin to take into account all its uses in cooking, so when he bought it, I didn’t think…except I knew that you had your eye on him, didn’t I, so the more I thought about it-even though he didn’t even mention ambergris oil-I decided to have a look in the book and see what else it might be used for. It’s not like I have them memorised, you understand. Well, maybe I ought, but there are zillions and it’s just too much for one brain to hold on to.”

She went behind the counter and swung the herb book round so that he could see it. Even then, she seemed to feel the need to prepare him for what he was about to read.

She said, “Now it may be nothing, and it probably is, so you must swear to me you won’t tell Robbie I rang you about it. I have to work next door to him, and bad blood between neighbours is the worst. So can you promise me you won’t tell him about this? That you know about the parsley oil, I mean. And that I told you?”

Nkata shook his head. “’F this bloke’s our killer, I can’t promise you a thing,” he told her honestly. “You got something we can use at someone’s trial, it goes to the CPS and they want to interview you as a potential witness. That’s the truth of it. But I don’t see how parsley relates to anything so far, so I reckon you’re the one to decide what you want to tell me ’bout it.”

She cocked her head at him. “I like you,” she said. “Any other cop would’ve lied just then. So I’ll tell you.” She pointed out the entry for parsley oil. In herbal magic, it was used for triumph. It was also used to drive away venomous beasts. Sown on Good Friday, the plant itself would nullify wickedness. Its power was in its root and its seeds.

But that wasn’t all.

“Aromatic oil,” Nkata read. “Fatty oil, balsam, medicinal, culinary, incense, and perfume.” Nkata pulled thoughtfully at his chin. Interesting as it was, he didn’t see how they could use any of this data.

“Well?” Gigi’s voice bore a low-wattage undercurrent of excitement. “What d’you think? Was I right to ring you? He hadn’t been in in ages, see, and when he walked into the shop I…well, to be honest, I nearly bricked it. I didn’t know what he was likely to do, so I tried to act like everything was normal, but I watched him and I kept waiting for him to go for the ambergris oil, in which case I s’pose I might’ve passed out on the spot. Then when he bought the parsley oil instead, like I said, I didn’t think too much about it. Till I read this stuff about triumph and demons and evil and…” She shuddered. “I just knew I had to tell you. Because if I didn’t and if something happened to someone somewhere and if it turned out Robbie’s the…not that I think he is for a minute and God, you must never tell him ’cause we’ve even had drinks together like I told you before.”

Nkata said, “You got a copy of the receipt and all that?”

“Oh absolutely,” Gigi told him. “He paid cash and the oil was the only thing he bought. I’ve got the till copy right here.” And she rang up something on the till to open it, whereupon she pulled up the tray that held the notes separate from one another, and from beneath this, she took a slip of paper which she handed over to Nkata. She’d written “Rob Kilfoyle’s purchase of parsley oil” on this. She’d underlined “parsley oil” twice.

Nkata wondered how they could possibly make use of the fact that one of their suspects had purchased parsley oil, but he took the receipt from Gigi and folded it inside his leather notebook. He thanked the young woman for her vigilance and told her to be in touch with him should Robbie Kilfoyle-or anyone else-stop in for ambergris oil.

He was about to leave when the thought struck him, so he paused in the doorway to ask her a final question. “Any chance he nicked the ambergris oil while he was in here?”

She shook her head. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him once, she assured Nkata. There was no way he’d taken anything that he’d not presented to her and paid for. No way at all.

Nkata nodded thoughtfully at this, but he wondered all the same. He left the shop and stood outside, casting a look towards Mr. Sandwich, where the two aproned women were still at work. A “closed” sign now hung in the window. He took out his police identification and went to the door. There was one possibility for the parsley oil that he needed to check out.

When he knocked, they looked up. The plumper of the two women was the one who opened the door to him. He asked her if he could have a word, and she said yes, of course, do come in, officer. They were just about to go home for the day and he was lucky to catch them still at it.

He stepped inside. At once he saw the large yellow cart parked in a corner. “Mr. Sandwich” was painted neatly on it, along with a cartoon figure of a filled baguette with crusty face, top hat, spindly arms, and legs. This would be Robbie Kilfoyle’s delivery cart. Kilfoyle himself, along with his bicycle, would be long gone for the day.

Nkata introduced himself to the two women who told him in turn they were Clara Maxwell and daughter Val. This bit of information was something of a surprise, since the two looked more like sisters than they did parent and child, a circumstance caused not so much by Clara’s youthful looks-of which there were none to speak of-as by Val’s dowdy dress sense and drooping figure. Nkata adjusted to the information and nodded in a friendly fashion. In return, Val kept her distance behind the counter, where she did as much lurking as she did cleaning. Her glance kept shifting from Nkata to her mother and back again, while Clara established herself as spokeswoman for the two.

“C’n I have a word with you ’bout Robbie Kilfoyle?” Nkata asked. “He works for you, right?”

Clara said, “He’s not in trouble,” as a statement of fact and cast a look at Val, who nodded in apparent agreement with this remark.

“He delivers your sandwiches, i’n’t that the case?”

“Yes. Has done for…what is it, Val? Three years? Four?”

Val nodded again. Her eyebrows knotted, as if in a display of concern. She turned away and went to a cupboard from which she took a broom and dustpan. She began using this on the floor behind the counter.

“Must be nearly four years, then,” Clara said. “Lovely young man. He carries the sandwiches round to our clients-we do crisps, pickles, and pasta salads as well-and he returns with the cash. He’s never been out by so much as ten pence.”

Val looked up suddenly.

Her mother said, “Oh yes, I’d forgotten. Thank you, Val. There was that one time, wasn’t there?”

“What time?”

“Shortly before his mum died. This would have been December, year before this last one. We were ten pounds short one day. Turned out he’d borrowed them to buy Mum flowers. She was in a home, you know.” Clara tapped her skull. “Alzheimer’s, poor soul. He took her…I don’t know…tulips? Would there’ve been tulips at that time of year? Perhaps something else? Anyway, Val’s right. I’d forgotten about that. But he confessed straightaway when I asked him about it, didn’t he, and I had the money in my hand the very next day. After that, nothing. He’s been good as gold. We couldn’t run the business without him because mainly what we do is delivery, and there’s no one but Rob to do it.”

Val looked up from her sweeping once again. She brushed a lank lock of hair from her face.

“Now, you know that’s the truth,” Clara chided her gently. “You couldn’t make those deliveries, no matter what you think, dear.”

“Does he buy supplies for you as well?” Nkata asked.

“What kind of supplies? Paper bags and such? Mustard? Wrapping for the sandwiches? No, we mostly have all that delivered.”

“I had in mind…p’rhaps ingredients,” Nkata said. “He ever get parsley oil for you?”

“Parsley?” Clara looked at Val as if to register her level of incredulity. “Parsley oil, you say? I never knew there was such a thing. Of course, I suppose there must be, mustn’t there? Walnut oil, sesame oil, olive oil, peanut oil. Why not parsley oil as well? But no, he’s never bought it for Mr. Sandwich. I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

Val made a sound, something like gurgling. Her mother, hearing this, leaned over the counter and spoke directly into her face. Did she know something about parsley oil and Robbie? Clara inquired. If she did, dearest, then she needed to tell the policeman straightaway.

Val’s glance went to Nkata. She said, “Nuffink,” which was the extent of her intelligible comments during the entire interview.

Nkata said, “I s’pose he could be using it for cooking. Or for his breath. How’s his breath?”

Clara laughed. “It’s nothing I’ve ever noticed, but I daresay our Val’s got close enough for a whiff now and then. How is it, darling? Nice? Bad? What?”

Val scowled at her mother and skulked off into what seemed to be a storeroom. Clara said to Nkata that her daughter had “a bit of a crush.” Not that anything could come of it, naturally. The sergeant had probably noticed that Val had a few problems with her social skills.

“I’d thought Robbie Kilfoyle might be just the ticket to bring her out of herself,” Clara confided in a lower voice, “which is part of the reason I hired him. He’d never had much of an employment record-that’s owing to the mum being ill for so long-but I rather saw that as something of an advantage in the romance department. Wouldn’t have his sights set so high, I thought. Not like other lads for whom Val, let’s face it, poor love, wouldn’t exactly be a prize. But nothing came of it. No spark between them, you see. Then when his mum passed on, I thought he’d come round a little bit. But he never did. The life just went out of the lad.” She glanced back in the direction of the storage room and then added quietly, “Depression. It will do you in if you aren’t careful. I felt it myself when Val’s dad died. It wasn’t sudden, of course, so at least I had some time to prepare. But you feel it all the same when someone’s gone, don’t you? There’s that void, and there’s no getting round it. You’re staring into it all day long. Val and I opened this shop because of it.”

“Because of…?”

“Her dad’s dying. He left us well enough off, I mean with enough to get by on. But one can’t sit home and stare at the walls. One has to keep living.” She paused and untied her apron. As she folded it carefully and laid it on the top of the counter, she nodded as if she’d just revealed something to herself. “You know, I think I’ll have a word with our Robbie about that very subject. Life must go on.” She cast a last, furtive look at the storage room. “And she’s a good cook, our Val. That’s not something a young man of marriageable age ought to turn his nose up at. Just because she’s the quiet type…After all, what’s more important at the end of the day? Conversation or good food? Good food, correct?”

“Won’t get an argument from me,” Nkata said.

Clara smiled. “Really?”

“Most men like to eat,” he told her.

“Exactly,” she said, and he realised she’d begun looking at him with entirely new eyes.

Which told him it was time to thank her for her information and to depart. He didn’t want to think of what his mum would say if he showed up at home with a Val on his arm.

“I WANT AN EXPLANATION,” were the assistant commissioner’s words to Lynley as he walked through the door. He hadn’t waited for Harriman to announce him, instead allowing a simple and terse, “Is he in here?,” to precede him into the office.

Lynley was seated behind his desk, comparing forensic reports on Davey Benton with those from the killings that had gone before his. He set the paperwork aside, took off his reading spectacles, and stood. “Dee said you wanted to speak to me.” He motioned towards the conference table at one side of the room.

Hillier didn’t accept that wordless invitation. He said, “I’ve had a talk with Mitch Corsico, Superintendent.”

Lynley waited. He’d known how likely it was that this would come once he thwarted Corsico’s intentions of doing a story on Winston Nkata, and he understood the workings of Hillier’s mind well enough to realise he had to let the assistant commissioner have his say.

“Explain yourself.” Hillier’s words were regulated, and Lynley had to give him credit for descending into enemy territory with the intention of holding on to his temper as long as he could.

He said, “St. James has an international reputation, sir. The fact that the Met is pulling out all the stops on this investigation-by bringing in an independent specialist to be part of the team, for example-was something I thought should be highlighted.”

“That was your thought, was it?” Hillier said.

“In brief, yes. When I considered how far a profile of St. James could go to boost public confidence in what we’re doing-”

“That wasn’t your decision to make.”

Lynley went doggedly on. “And when I compared that increase in confidence with what could be gained by profiling Winston Nkata instead-”

“So you admit you moved to block access to Nkata?”

“-then it seemed likely that we could make more political hay from letting the public know we’ve an expert witness on our team than we could make by putting a black officer on display and washing his dirty linen in public.”

“Corsico had no intention-”

“He went straight to questions about Winston’s brother,” Lynley cut in. “It sounded to me as if he’d even been briefed on the subject, so he’d know what angle he ought to take when he wrote the interview. Sir.”

Hillier’s face took on deep colour. It rose from his neck like a ruby liquid just beneath his skin. “I don’t want to think what you’re implying.”

Lynley made an effort to speak calmly. “Sir, let me try to be clear. You’re under pressure. I’m under pressure. The public’s stirred up. The press is brutal. Something’s got to be done to mould opinion out there-I’m aware of that-but I can’t have a tabloid journalist sniffing round the background of individual officers.”

“You’re not going to be naying or yeaing decisions made above your head. Do you understand?”

“I’ll be doing whatever naying or yeaing is necessary and I’ll be doing it every time something occurs that could affect the job done by one of my men. A story on Winston-featuring his pathetic brother because you and I know The Source was intending to put Harold Nkata’s face right there next to Winston’s…Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, the unreturned and unreturnable prodigal…whatever you want to call him…And a story on Winston just at the moment when he’s already got to contend with being on public display at press conferences…It’s just not on, sir.”

“Are you daring to tell me that you know better than our own people how to manage the press? That you-speaking no doubt from the great height you alone happen to occupy-”

“Sir.” Lynley didn’t want to get into mudslinging with the AC. Desperately, he sought another direction. “Winston came to me.”

“Asking you to intervene?”

“Not at all. He’s a team player. But he mentioned that Corsico was going after the good brother-bad brother angle on the story, and his concerns were that his parents-”

“I don’t care about his God damn parents!” Hillier’s voice rose precipitately. “He’s got a story and I want it told. I want it seen. I want that to happen and I want you to ensure that it does.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You bloody well-”

“Wait. I’ve said it wrong. I won’t do that.” And Lynley went on before Hillier had a chance to respond, telling himself to stay calm and to stay on message. “Sir, it was one thing for Corsico to dig round about me. He did it with my blessing and he can go on doing it if that’s what it’ll take to help our position here at the Met. But it’s another thing for him to do that to one of my men, especially one who doesn’t want that happening to himself or to his family. I’ve got to respect that. So do you.”

He knew he shouldn’t have said that last, even as his lips formed the words. It was just the remark Hillier had apparently been waiting for.

“You’re God damn out of order!” he roared.

“That’s your way of seeing it. Mine is that Winston Nkata doesn’t want to be part of a publicity campaign designed to soothe the very people who’ve been betrayed by the Met time and again. I don’t blame him for that. I also won’t fault him. Nor will I order him to cooperate. If The Source intends to smear his family’s trouble across the front page some morning, then it’s-”

“That’s enough!” Hillier was teetering on the edge. Whether what he fell into was rage, a seizure, or an action they both would regret remained to be seen. “You God damn bloody disloyal piece of…You come in here from a life of privilege and you dare…you bloody well dare…you to tell me…”

They both saw Harriman at the same time, standing white faced in the doorway that had been left open when Hillier entered. No doubt, Lynley thought, every ear on the floor was being assaulted by the strength of the animosity that the AC felt for him and he for the AC.

Hillier shouted at her, “Get the hell out of here! What’s wrong with you?” And made a move to the door, likely to slam it in Harriman’s face.

Incredibly, she put out a hand to stop him, doing just that as they both reached for the door at once.

He said, “I’ll see you in-”

Which she interrupted with, “Sir, sir. I need to speak to you.”

Lynley saw, unbelievably, that she was talking not to him but to Hillier. The woman’s gone mad, he thought. She means to intervene.

He said, “Dee, that’s not necessary.”

She didn’t look at him. She said, “It is,” with her eyes fixed on Hillier. “It is. Necessary. Sir. Please.” The last word came from somewhere in her throat, where it caught and seemed nearly to lodge.

That got through to Hillier. He grabbed her by the arm and took her from the room.

Then things moved, both quickly and incomprehensibly.

There were voices outside his office and Lynley headed for the door to see what in God’s name was going on. He got only two steps in that direction, though, when Simon St. James came into the room.

St. James said, “Tommy.”

And Lynley saw. Saw and somehow understood without wanting to begin to understand. Or to give St. James’s purpose in his office-arriving unannounced to him but certainly announced and fully forewarned to Harriman…

He heard a cry of “Oh my God” from somewhere. St. James flinched at this. His eyes, Lynley saw, were fixed upon him.

“What is it?” Lynley asked. “What’s happened, Simon?”

“You must come with me, Tommy,” St. James said. “Helen’s…” Then he faltered.

Lynley would always remember that-that his old friend faltered when it came to the moment-and he would always remember what the faltering meant: about their friendship and about the woman whom both of them had loved for years.

“She’s been taken to St. Thomas’ Hospital,” St. James said. His eyes reddened at the rims, and he cleared his throat harshly. “Tommy, you must come with me at once.”