With No One As Witness (60 page)

From the houses along Wood Lane leading up to the park, similarly nothing had been gleaned. It was a quiet area in the dead of night, and nothing had apparently altered that silence on the night of Davey’s murder. This information was disheartening to everyone on the team, but better news came from the officer who’d taken the assignment to interview everyone in Walden Lodge, the small block of flats on the edge of Queen’s Wood.

It was nothing to celebrate, the officer told everyone, but a bloke called Berkeley Pears—“There’s a name for you,” one of the other constables muttered—had a Jack Russell terrier that had started barking at three forty-five in the morning. “This was inside his flat, not outside,” the constable added. “Pears thought someone might be on the balcony, so he took up a carving knife and went to see. He’s sure he saw a flash of light down the hillside. On and off and on again, but shielded, like. He thought it was taggers or someone making their way to or from Archway Road. He got the dog quiet, and that was the end of it.”

“Three forty-five explains why none of the commuters saw anything,” John Stewart said to Lynley.

“Yes. Well. We’ve known from the first that he operates in the small hours,” Lynley said. “Anything else from Walden Lodge, Kevin?”

“A woman called Janet Castle says she thinks she heard a cry or a shriek round midnight. Operative word thinks. She watches a lot of telly, crime dramas and the like. I think she’s a frustrated DCI Tennison, without the sex appeal.”

“Just one cry?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Man, woman, child?”

“She couldn’t tell.”

“The two men in the woods…those who were walking the dog in the morning…they’re a possibility,” Lynley said. He didn’t elucidate but rather told the reporting constable to go back for further information from the commuter who’d sighted them. “What else?” he asked the others.

“That old bloke the tagger saw in the allotments?” came the reply from another of the Queen’s Wood constables. “Turned out to be seventy-two years old and no way the killer. He can barely walk. Talks, though. I couldn’t shut him up.”

“What did he see? Anything?”

“The tagger. That’s all he wanted to talk about as well. Seems he’s phoned the cops over and over again about the little bugger but, according to him, they never do a damn thing because they have better things to occupy their time than catching vandals who happen to be defacing public property that’s enjoyed by all.”

Lynley turned to the Walden Lodge constable curiously. “Anyone inside talk about that tagger, Kevin?”

Kevin shook his head. He glanced at his notes, however, and said, “I only talked to residents of eight of the flats, though. As to the other two, one is newly empty and for sale and the other belongs to a lady taking her annual holiday in Spain.”

Lynley considered this and saw the possibility. “Get on to the estate agents in the area. See who’s been shown that empty flat.”

He shared with the team a further report from SO7 that had been waiting for him on his desk when he’d arrived that morning. The hair on Davey Benton’s body belonged to a cat, he told them. Additionally, there was no match between the tyres of Barry Minshall’s van and the tracks left in St. George’s Gardens. But there was a van out there that they were still seeking, and it looked as if it may have been purchased precisely for the use to which it was being put: a mobile killing site.

“At the time of Kimmo Thorne’s death, it appears that the van was still registered to the previous owner, Muwaffaq Masoud. Someone out there has possession of that vehicle, and we’ve got to find it.”

“You want the details released now, Tommy?” It was John Stewart who asked the question. “If we put that van in the public eye…” He made a gesture that said, You can figure out the rest.

Lynley thought it over. The reality was that van was going to contain a treasure trove of evidence. Find it and they had their killer. But the trouble was that the situation remained unchanged: Publicising the van’s exact description, its number plates, and the writing on its side also allowed the killer to see their hand. He would either hide the vehicle in any one of the thousands of lockups round the city or he would clean and abandon it. They had to pursue the middle course in this matter.

He said, “Get the details out to every station in town.”

He made additional assignments, then, and Barbara received hers with as much good grace as she could muster, considering that the first half of the assignment required her to compile her report on John Miller, the bath-salts vendor at the Stables Market. The second half got her out in the street where she preferred to be, however. Canterbury Hotel in Lexham Gardens. Find the night clerk and talk to him about who paid for a room for a single night on the evening that Davey Benton died.

Lynley was going on to the other assignments—everything from obtaining Minshall’s mobile phone records to tracing the attendees at the last meeting of MABIL in St. Lucy’s Church, by fingerprints if necessary—when Dorothea Harriman ushered Mitchell Corsico into the incident room.

She looked apologetic about it. Her expression clearly said, Orders from above.

Lynley said, “Ah. Mr. Corsico. Come with me please,” and he left the squad to get back to work.

Barbara heard the steel in his voice. She knew that Corsico was about to get an earful.

LYNLEY HAD A copy of The Source. It had been supplied him by the guard in the kiosk when he’d arrived a short while earlier. He’d looked it over and had seen the error of his ways: How much hubris had he actually demonstrated, he wondered, in assuming he could outsmart a tabloid? The tabloids’ bread and butter was produced through the means of digging up useless information, so he’d expected the lordship business, the Cornwall business, and the Oxford and Eton business as well. But he hadn’t expected to see a photograph of his London home gracing the paper, and he was determined that the reporter would put no other officers in jeopardy by giving them the same treatment.

“Ground rules,” he said to Corsico when he and the reporter were alone.

“You didn’t like the profile?” the young man asked, hitching up his jeans. “There wasn’t even the ghost of a suggestion about the incident room or what you’ve got on the killer. Or haven’t got,” he added with a sympathetic smile that Lynley wanted to smear across his face.

“These people have wives, husbands, and families,” Lynley said. “Back off from them.”

“Not to worry,” Corsico said helpfully. “You’re by far the most interesting of the lot. How many cops can boast an address a stone’s throw from Eaton Square? I had a phone call this A.M. from a DS up in Yorkshire, by the way. Can’t give you his name, but he said he had some information we might want to print as a follow-up to today’s piece. Care to comment?”

That would be DS Nies, Lynley thought, of the Richmond police. He would no doubt have loved to bend the reporter’s ear about time spent rubbing elbows with the Earl of Asherton in the nick. And the rest of Lynley’s squalid past would come oozing out of the woodwork as well: drink driving, a car wreck, a crippled friend, all of it.

He said, “Listen to me, Mr. Corsico,” and the phone rang on his desk at that moment. He snatched it up, said, “Lynley. What?”

He heard in reply: “I don’t look at all like that sketch, you know.” It was a man’s voice, perfectly friendly. Some sort of tea-dancing music played in the background. “The one on telly. And what is it that you prefer to be called: superintendent or m’lord?”

Lynley hesitated, a deadly calm come over him. He was all too aware of Mitchell Corsico’s presence in the room. He said to his caller, “Would you wait a moment please,” and was about to tell Corsico to give him a few minutes’ privacy when the voice continued.

“I’ll ring off if you try that, Superintendent Lynley. There. I suppose I’ve made my decision about what to call you, haven’t I.”

“Try what?” Lynley asked. He looked towards his office door and the corridor, fixed upon flagging someone down. Failing that, he reached for a yellow pad on his desk to write the necessary note.

“Please. I’m not a fool. You won’t be able to trace this call because I won’t be on long enough for you to do it. Just listen.”

Lynley waved Corsico over to his desk. Corsico feigned misunderstanding, pointing at his own chest and frowning. Lynley wanted to strangle the man. He waved him over again, “Fetch DC Havers” on the paper he finally shoved at him. “Now,” he said, covering the mouthpiece of the phone.

“You’ll get the computer records of this call anyway, won’t you?” the voice asked him pleasantly. “That’s how you work. But by the time you do it, I will have already impressed you once again. Indeed, I’ll have absolutely dazzled you. You’ve a beautiful wife, incidentally.”

Although Corsico had already gone for Havers, Lynley said to his caller, “I’ve a reporter in my office. I’d like to usher him out. Will you hang on while I do that?”

“Come now, Superintendent Lynley, you can’t expect me to fall for that.”

“Shall I put him on the line to convince you? He’s called Mitchell Corsico and—”

“And unfortunately I can’t get a glimpse of his identification, although I’m sure you’d like to arrange that. No. There’s no need. I intend to be brief. First, I’ve signed a letter to you. The mark of Fu. The reason for this doesn’t matter, but does the information itself suffice to convince you who I am? Or shall I add a reference to navels as well?”

Lynley said, “I’m convinced.” Those details were among the few which the papers had no knowledge of. They identified the caller as the real thing or as someone close to the investigation, in which case Lynley knew the voice would have been familiar to him, which it was not. He had to get a trace on this call. But a single wrong move on his part and he knew that the killer would break the connection before Havers got to the room.

“Good. Then hear me, Superintendent Lynley. Out I went looking for a spot to thrill you another time. It was difficult to find, but I wanted you to know I have it now. Sheer inspiration. A bit risky, but it’ll make a real splash. I’m planning an event you won’t soon forget.”

“What are you—”

“I’ve already made my selection too. I thought you’d like to know that, fair being completely fair.”

“May we talk about this?”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“Then why have you—”

“Few words, much action, Superintendent. Trust me. It’s better this way.”

He rang off. Just as Havers came into the room with Corsico half a step behind her.

Lynley said to Corsico, “Get out.”

“Hang on. I’ve done what you—”

“What follows is none of your business. Get out.”

“The assistant commissioner—”

“Will survive the news that I’ve escorted you from my office for the moment.” Lynley took the reporter by the arm. “I suggest you follow up on the information from Yorkshire. Believe me, it will make good reading for your next edition.” He thrust him into the corridor and shut the door. He said to Havers, “He’s phoned.”

She knew. “When? Just now? Is that why…?” She jerked her head towards the door.

“Get on to the records. We need to find out where he phoned from. He’s got another victim.”

“In his possession? Sir, those records…It’s going to take—”

“Music,” Lynley said. “I could hear dance music in the background. But that was it. Tea-dancing music. That’s what it reminded me of.”

“Tea…Not at this hour of the day. Are you thinking—”

“Period music. Thirties or forties. Havers, what does that suggest to you?”

“That he could have phoned from inside a lift with Muzak playing above his head and that could be bloody anywhere in town. Sir—”

“He knew about Fu. He said it as well. Christ, if that reporter hadn’t been in the room…This has to be kept away from the press. He wants it. Corsico and the killer as well. They both want it front and centre. Page one with the accompanying headline. And he’s got the victim, Havers. Picked out, already with him, or whatever. And the place as well. Christ, we can’t be sitting ducks for this.”

“Sir. Sir.”

Lynley brought himself round. He could see the anxiety on Havers’ pale face. She said, “Something more, right? There’s something more. What is it? Tell me. Please.”

Lynley didn’t want to give it words because then he knew he would have to face them. And face his responsibility as well. “He mentioned Helen,” he finally said. “Barbara, he mentioned Helen.”

AS BARBARA HAVERS CAME BACK TO THE INCIDENT room, Nkata clocked the expression on her face. He saw her go to DI Stewart and have a few words, after which the DI left the room in a tearing hurry. This, in conjunction with Corsico’s having come from Lynley’s office to fetch Havers, told Nkata something was up.

He didn’t approach Havers to be brought into the picture just yet. Instead he watched her go to the computer on which she’d been digging round for information on the bath-salts bloke from the Stables Market. She did a credible job of setting herself back to the task at hand, but from across the room, Nkata could see that more than bath salts was on her mind. She stared at the computer screen for at least two minutes before she roused herself and picked up a pencil. Then she stared at the screen for two minutes more before she gave up the effort and got to her feet. She headed out of the incident room, and Nkata saw she’d dug her fags from her bag. Sneaking off for a smoke in the stairwell, he thought. This would be a good time for a chat.

But instead of heading for the stairs to light up, she went for coffee, plugging coins into the machine and dismally watching the brew dribble into a plastic cup. She fished a fag out of her packet of Players as well, but she didn’t light it.

He said, “Company?,” and felt round in his pocket for change for the coffee machine.

She turned and said tiredly, “Winnie. Come up with anything?”

He shook his head. “You?”

She did likewise. “The bath-salts bloke—John Miller?—turns out to be squeaky clean. Pays his council tax on time, has a credit card he pays off once a month, has his telly licence squared away, has a house and a mortgage and a cat and a dog, a wife and three grandkids. Drives a ten-year-old Saab and has bad feet. Ask me anything. I’ve become his Boswell.”