With No One As Witness (23 page)

Although it appeared to be entirely unnecessary, Lynley produced his ID for the ginger-haired young man, ignoring the two others for the moment. A plastic nameplate at the desk’s edge indicated he was introducing himself and Havers to one Jack Veness, who seemed to be deeply unimpressed that the two rozzers standing before him were representing New Scotland Yard.

Giving a glance to the cardplayers, as if for approval, Veness simply waited for more to be said. He chewed his sausage roll, dipped into his crisps, and glanced at the wall clock above the door. Or perhaps it was to the door itself that he looked, Lynley thought, through which Mr. Veness might be waiting for rescue. He seemed all right superficially, but there was an air of unease about him.

They were there to speak to the director of Colossus, Lynley told Jack Veness, or, for that matter, to anyone else who could talk to them about one of their clients…if that was the proper term, he added: Kimmo Thorne.

The name had just about the same effect as a stranger walking into a barroom in an old-time American Western. In other circumstances, Lynley might have been amused: The two cardplayers ceased their game altogether, setting their cards on the table and making no secret of the fact that they intended to listen to everything that was said from that moment on, while Jack Veness ceased chewing his sausage roll. He set it on its Mr. Sandwich bag and pushed his chair away from his desk. Lynley thought he intended to fetch someone for them, but instead he went to a water cooler. There, he filled a Colossus mug from the hot spigot provided, after which he grabbed a tea bag and gave it a few douses inside.

Next to Lynley, Havers rolled her eyes. She said, “’Scuse us, mate. Your hearing aid just blow a fuse or something?”

Veness returned and put his mug on the desk. “I c’n hear you lot fine. I’m just trying to decide if it’s worth giving you an answer.”

Across the room, EuroDisney gave a low whistle. His companion ducked his head. Veness looked pleased that he’d managed to obtain their approval. Lynley decided this was enough.

“You can make that decision in an interview room if you like,” he said to Veness.

To which Havers added, “We’re happy to oblige. Here to serve and all that, you know.”

Veness sat. He wadded a hunk of sausage roll into his mouth and said past it, “Everyone knows everyone else at Colossus. Thorne included. That’s how it works. That’s why it works.”

“That goes for you as well, I take it?” Lynley said. “Regarding Kimmo Thorne?”

“You take it right,” Veness agreed.

“What about you two?” Havers asked the cardplayers. “Did you know Kimmo Thorne as well?” She took out her notebook as she asked the questions. “What’re your names, by the way?”

EuroDisney looked startled to be suddenly questioned at all, but he said cooperatively that he was called Robbie Kilfoyle. He added that he didn’t actually work at Colossus like Jack but merely volunteered several days each week, this being one of those days. For his part, the boy identified himself as Mark Connor. He said he was in day four of assessment.

“That makes him new round here,” Veness explained.

“So he won’t have known Kimmo,” Kilfoyle added.

“But you did know him?” Havers asked Kilfoyle. “Even though you don’t work here?”

“Hey, you know, he didn’t say that,” Veness said.

“You his brief?” Havers retorted. “No? Then I expect he can answer for himself.” And again to Kilfoyle: “Did you know Kimmo Thorne? Where do you work?”

Unaccountably, Veness persisted. “Drop it. He brings in the bloody sandwiches, all right?”

Kilfoyle scowled, perhaps offended by the dismissive tone. He said, “Like I said already. I volunteer. On the phones. In the kichen. I work in the kit room when things pile up. So I saw Kimmo round. I knew him.”

“Didn’t everyone,” Veness said. “And speaking of which…There’s a group going out on the river this afternoon. D’you have time to handle that, Rob?” He gave Kilfoyle a long look, as if some sort of double message were being sent.

“I c’n help you, Rob,” Mark Connor offered.

“Sure,” Kilfoyle said. And to Jack Veness, “You want me to set things up now or what?”

“Now would be brilliant.”

“Well, then.” Kilfoyle gathered up the cards and, accompanied by Mark, he headed for an interior door. Unlike the others, he wore a windbreaker rather than a sweatshirt, and instead of “Colossus” written on it, it bore a logo of a stuffed baguette with arms and legs and the words “Mr. Sandwich” below it.

The departure of these two effected a complete change in Jack Veness for some reason. As if an unseen switch had been suddenly turned off—or on—in him, the young man altered on the head of a pin. He said to Lynley and Havers, “Right then. Sorry. I can be a real streak of piss when I want. Y’know, I wanted to be a cop, but I couldn’t make it. It’s easier to blame you than to look at myself and work out why I didn’t cut it.” He snapped his fingers, offered a smile. “How’s that for instant psychoanalysis? Five years of therapy and the man is cured.”

The change in Veness was disconcerting, like discovering two personalities inside one body. It was impossible not to wonder if the presence of Kilfoyle and Connor had had something to do with who he’d portrayed himself to be earlier. But Lynley went with the change in the man and brought up Kimmo Thorne again. Next to him, Havers flipped open her notebook. The newly minted Jack Veness didn’t quiver an eyelash.

He told them frankly that he knew Kimmo and had known him from the time of Kimmo’s assignment to Colossus. He, after all, was the organisation’s receptionist. Everyone who came, who went, and who remained was someone he quickly got to know. He made it his business to know, he emphasised. It was, he told them, part of his job to know.

Why was this? Lynley asked.

Because, Veness said, you never knew, did you?

Knew what, exactly? Havers put in.

What you were dealing with.

“That lot.” With this, Veness indicated the young people smoking outside in the carpark. “They come from everything, don’t they? The streets, care, Youth Offenders, drug rehab, gangs, turning tricks, running weapons, selling drugs. Doesn’t make sense to trust them till they give me a reason to trust them. So I keep an eye out.”

“Did this apply to Kimmo as well?” Lynley asked.

“Applies to everyone,” Veness said. “Winners and losers alike.”

Havers took up the ball at that remark. She said, “How’s that apply to Kimmo? He get on your bad side some way?”

“Not mine,” he said.

“Someone else’s then?”

Veness contemplatively fingered his sausage roll.

“If there’s something we should know,” Lynley began.

“He was a tosser,” Veness said. “A loser. Look, it happens, sometimes. Kid’s got something here. All’s that’s needed is climbing aboard. But sometimes they just stop coming—even Kimmo, who’s supposed to show up or he’ll be back in borstal in a wink—and I can’t get my brain round that, see. You’d think he’d grab on to anything that’d help him out of that one. But he didn’t, did he? He just stopped showing up.”

“When did he stop?”

Jack Veness thought for a moment. He took a spiral book from the middle drawer of his desk and examined the signatures that crawled down a dozen or more pages. It was, Lynley saw, a signing-in register, and when Veness replied to Lynley’s question, the date he gave for Kimmo’s final appearance at Colossus matched up with his murder, within forty-eight hours.

“Dumb fuck,” Veness said, shoving the signing-in book to one side. “Didn’t know when he was well off. Trouble is, kids can’t wait for the payoff, can they? Some kids, mind you, not all of them. They want the result but not the process that leads to the result. I expect he’s quit. Like I said, that happens.”

“He was murdered, actually,” Lynley said. “That’s why he stopped coming.”

“But you’d worked that out, hadn’t you?” Havers added. “Else why would you be talking about him in the past tense from the start? And why else would the rozzers be dropping in on you? And twice in one day because one of that lot”—as Veness himself had done, she indicated the group who were gathered outside—“must’ve told someone in here that I stopped by earlier, before you opened up.”

Veness shook his head vehemently. “I didn’t…No. No. I didn’t know.” He shot his gaze over to a doorway and a corridor off which brightly lit rooms opened. He appeared to think something over for a moment before he said, “That kid over in St. Pancras? In the gardens?”

“Bingo,” Havers said. “You’re definitely no dummy when you’re breathing, Jack.”

“That was Kimmo Thorne,” Lynley added. “His is one of five deaths we’re investigating.”

“Five? Hey now. Wait. You can’t be thinking Colossus—”

“We’re not drawing any conclusions,” Lynley said.

“Hell. Sorry, then. About what I said. Tosser and loser. Hell.” Veness picked up his sausage roll, then put it back down. He wrapped it up and returned it to its take-away bag. He said, “Some kids just drop out, see. They have a chance, but they still walk away. They go for what looks like the easy route. It’s frustrating as hell to watch.” He blew out a breath. “But damn. I’m sorry. Was it in the papers? I don’t read ’em much and—”

“Not his name at first,” Lynley said. “Just the fact of his body being found in St. George’s Gardens.” He didn’t add that chances were good to excellent that the papers were going to become full of the serial killings now: names, places, and dates as well. A young white victim had piqued the tabloids’ interest; this morning’s young black victim gave them the opportunity they needed to cover their own backsides. Mixed race, cheap news of little interest, they’d decided about the earlier killings. All that had changed with Kimmo Thorne. And now with the black boy…The tabloids were going to grab on to the opportunity to make up for lost time and overlooked responsibility.

“The death of a boy associated with Colossus brings up a number of questions,” Lynley pointed out to Jack Veness, “as you can no doubt imagine. And we’ve identified another boy who might be associated with Colossus as well. Jared Salvatore. Sound familiar?”

“Salvatore. Salvatore.” Veness mumbled the name. “No. I don’t think so. I’d remember.”

“Then we’ll need to speak to your director—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Veness surged to his feet. “You’ll want to talk to Ulrike. She runs the whole operation. Hang on, then. I’ll see…” That said, he shot off through the doorway that led to the interior of the building. He turned a corner and quickly disappeared.

Lynley looked at Havers. “Now that was interesting.”

She agreed. “We don’t even have to look for still waters in that bloke.”

“I got that impression as well.”

“So I s’pose the question is how deep’re things really running with him?” Havers asked.

Lynley reached across the desk and snagged the signing-in book that Jack had been using. He handed it to Havers.

“Salvatore?” she said.

“It’s a thought,” he replied.

IN VERY SHORT ORDER, LYNLEY AND HAVERS DISCOVERED that not only was the director of Colossus also in the dark about Kimmo Thorne’s death but additionally, for some reason, Jack Veness had not put her in the picture with regard to the matter when he went to find her. Evidently, he had told her only that two cops from New Scotland Yard wanted to see her. It was an intriguing omission.

Ulrike Ellis turned out to be a pleasant-looking young woman in the vicinity of thirty, with sandy cornrow plaits gathered back from her face and enough brass bangles on her wrists to qualify her as the prisoner of Zenda. She wore a heavy black turtleneck, blue jeans, and boots, and she came to reception herself to fetch Lynley and Havers to her office. As Jack Veness resumed his place behind the reception desk, Ulrike led the way down a corridor on the walls of which bulletin boards held neighbourhood announcements, photographs of young people, classes on offer, and schedules of Colossus events. Once in her office, she scooped a small stack of the Big Issue off a chair in front of her desk and shoved the magazines onto a space on a bookshelf crowded with volumes and with files needing replacement in a cabinet. This, standing near her desk, already overflowed with other files.

She said, “I keep buying these,” in reference to copies of the Big Issue, “and then I never get a chance to read them. Take a few if you like. Or do you buy them yourselves?” She glanced over her shoulder and added, “Ah. Well, everyone ought, you know. Oh, I know what people think: If I buy one, this unwashed sod’ll go off and spend the profit on drugs or booze, won’t he, and how will that be of help to him? But what I say is that people might want to stop assuming the worst and start pitching in to make a difference in this country.” She looked round the office as if seeking other employment and said, “Well, that didn’t much help, did it. One of you still has to stand. Or shall we all stand? Is that better? Tell me this: Is TO31 finally going to take notice of us?”

Actually, Lynley told her as Barbara Havers wandered to the bookshelf to have a look at Ulrike Ellis’s many volumes, he and DC Havers were not there representing Community Affairs. Rather, they’d come to talk to the director of Colossus about Kimmo Thorne. Did Ms. Ellis know the boy?

Ulrike sat behind her desk. Lynley took the chair. Havers remained at the volumes, reaching for one of several framed photographs that stood among them. Ulrike said, “Has Kimmo done something? See here, we’re not responsible for the kids’ staying out of trouble. We don’t even claim to be able to do that. Colossus is about showing them alternatives, but sometimes they still choose the wrong ones.”

“Kimmo’s dead,” Lynley said. “You may have read about the body that was found in St. George’s Gardens, up in St. Pancras. He’s been identified in the press by now.”

Ulrike said nothing in reply at first. She merely stared at Lynley for a good five seconds before her glance went to Havers, still in possession of one of her photographs. She said, “Put that down, please,” in the calmest possible voice. She loosed her plaits from their binding and refastened them tightly before she said more. Then it was merely, “I phoned…I did phone the moment I was told.”