With No One As Witness (61 page)

Nkata smiled. He plugged his own coins into the coffee machine and punched white with sugar. He said, with a nod back in the direction of the incident room, “Corsico coming for you like that, earlier? I reckoned he picked you for the next profile in the paper. But it’s something else, i’n’t it. He came to get you from the super’s office.”

Barb didn’t even try to misdirect him, another reason Nkata liked her. She said, “He phoned. Guv had him on the line when I got there.”

Nkata knew whom she meant at once. He said, “Tha’s what Stewart got on to?”

She nodded. “He’ll get the records.” She took a sip of her coffee and didn’t grimace at the flavour of the brew. “For what good it’ll do. This bloke’s not stupid. He’s not going to phone from a mobile and he’s not going to ring us up from his bedroom land line, is he? He’s in a call box somewhere and he’s damn sure not going to make it in front of his home, his work, or anywhere else we’re likely to connect him to.”

“Has to be done, though.”

“Right.” She examined the cigarette she’d been intending to light up. She made up her mind and shoved it into her pocket. It broke in half. Part fell to the floor. She looked at it, then gave it a kick under the coffee machine.

“What else?” Nkata asked her.

“This bloke mentioned Helen. Super’s cut up, and who can blame him.”

“Tha’s from the paper. He’s trying to unnerve us.”

“Right. Well. He’s managed that.” Barbara downed her coffee and crumpled the cup with a crunch. She said, “Where is he, anyway?”

“Corsico?” Nkata shrugged. “Digging through someone’s personnel file, I expect. Typing everyone’s name online and seeing what he can come up with next for a good story. Barb, this bloke—Red Van—what’d he say ’bout her?”

“About Helen? I don’t know the details. But the whole idea of anything being printed in the paper about anyone…This isn’t good. Not for us and not for the investigation. How’re you with Hillier, by the way?”

“Avoiding him.”

“Not a bad idea.”

Mitchell Corsico appeared from out of nowhere then, his face brightening when he saw them by the coffee machine.

The reporter said, “DS Nkata. I’ve been looking for you.”

Barb said under her breath to Nkata, “Rather you than me, Winnie. Sorry,” and started back for the incident room. She and Corsico passed each other without a glance. A moment later, Nkata found himself alone with the reporter.

“Could I have a word?” Corsico purchased a tea for himself from the machine: milk and extra sugar. He slurped when he drank it. Alice Nkata would have disapproved.

“Work to do,” Nkata said and made a move to go.

“It’s about Harold, actually.” Corsico’s voice remained as friendly as ever. “I wonder if you’d just like to make a comment about him. The contrast between two brothers…It’ll be a brilliant lead for the story. You’re next, as you’ve probably gathered. You on the one hand and Lynley on the other. It’s sort of an alpha and omega situation that’ll make good reading.”

At the mention of his brother’s name, Nkata had felt his whole body stiffen. He would not talk about Stoney. And a comment about him? Like what? Anything he said—even if he said he had no comment at all—would come back to haunt him. Defend Stoney Nkata and it would go down to blinkers and blacks supporting blacks no matter what. Make no comment and it would go down to a cop disowning his past, not to mention his family.

Nkata said, “Harold”—and how odd his brother’s Christian name sounded when he’d never called him that in his life—“he’s my brother. Tha’s right.”

“And would you like to—”

“I just did,” Nkata said. “Just confirmed it for you. If you’ll ’scuse me, then, I’ve got work to do.”

Corsico followed him down the corridor and into the incident room. He pulled up a chair next to Nkata’s and took out his notebook, referring to the page on which he’d taken down information in what looked like old-fashioned shorthand.

He said, “I began that all wrong. Let me try it again. Your dad’s called Benjamin. He drives a bus, right? How long has he worked for London transport? Which route would he be on, DS Nkata?”

Nkata tightened his jaw and began to sort through the papers on which he’d been recording information earlier.

Corsico said, “Yes. Well. It’s Loughborough Estate, South London, isn’t it? Have you lived there long?”

“All my life.” Still, Nkata did not look at the reporter. His every movement he designed to say, I’m busy, man.

Corsico wasn’t buying. He said with a glance at his notes, “And your mother? Alice? What does she do?”

Nkata swung round in his chair. He kept his voice polite. He said, “Super’s wife ended up in the paper. Tha’s not happening to my fam’ly. No way.”

Corsico apparently took this as a welcome into Nkata’s psyche, which seemed to be of more interest to him anyway. He said, “Tough being a cop with your background, Sergeant? Is that how it is?”

Nkata said, “I don’t want a story ’bout me in the paper. I can’t make it any more clear ’n that, Mr. Corsico.”

“Mitch,” Corsico said. “And you’re looking at me as an adversary, aren’t you? That’s not how it should be between us. I’m here to do the Met a service. Did you read the piece about Superintendent Lynley? Not a bit of negativity to it. He was depicted in the most positive light I could manage. Well yes, all right, there’s something more to be said about him…The affair in Yorkshire and his brother-in-law’s death…but we don’t need to get into that anytime soon, so long as the rest of the officers cooperate when I want to feature them.”

“Hang on, man,” Nkata said. “You threatening me? With what you’ll do to the super ’f I don’t play your game?”

Corsico smiled. Casually, he waved the questions off. “No. No. But information comes to me via the newsroom at The Source, Sergeant. That means someone else likely gets the information before I do. And that means my editor’s twigged that there’s more to a story than I’ve printed so far and he wants to know why, not to mention when I’m going to do a follow-up. Like this Yorkshire information: ‘Why aren’t you going with the murder of Edward Davenport, Mitch?’ he’s going to ask. I tell him that I’ve got a better story in hand, a sort of rags-to-riches or rather Brixton-Warriors-to-the-Met story. Believe me, I tell him, when you see this you’ll understand why I moved on from Lynley. How’d you get that scar on your face, Sergeant Nkata? Is it from a flick knife?”

Nkata said nothing: not about Windmill allotments and the street fight that had ended up with his disfigurement and certainly nothing about the Brixton Warriors, who were as active as ever south of the river.

“Besides,” Corsico said, “you know this comes from higher up than me, don’t you? Stephenson Deacon—not to mention AC Hillier—drives a hard bargain with the press. I expect they’ll drive a harder bargain with you if you don’t jump onboard and help out with the profiles.”

At this, Nkata made himself nod in a friendly fashion as he pushed back from his desk. He picked up his notebook and said with as much dignity as he could manage, “Mitch, I got to talk to the super right now. He’s waiting for this”—with a gesture towards his notes—“so we’ll have to do…whatever we have to do later on.”

He left the incident room. Lynley didn’t need the information he had—it was useless anyway—but there was no way in hell he was going to sit there and listen to the journalist’s polite, implied threats. If Hillier blew a fuse as a result of Nkata’s lack of cooperation, so be it, he decided.

Lynley’s office door was open, and the superintendent was on the phone when Nkata entered. Lynley acknowledged him with a nod, indicating the chair in front of his desk. He was listening and writing on a yellow pad.

When he was finished with his call, Lynley said to him presciently, “Corsico?”

“He started off with Stoney. Straightaway. Man, I do not want this bloke digging into my fam’ly. Mum’s got enough on her shoulders without Stoney ending up in the papers again.” He surprised himself with his own passion. He hadn’t thought he still felt the betrayal, the outrage, the…the whatever it really was, because he could not name it at the moment and he knew he couldn’t afford to try.

Lynley took off his spectacles and put his fingers to his forehead, pressing hard. He said, “Winston, how do I apologise for all this?”

Nkata said, “You c’n take out Hillier, I guess. That’d do for a start.”

“Wouldn’t it just,” Lynley agreed. “So you refused Corsico?”

“More or less.”

“That was the right decision. Hillier won’t like it. God knows he’ll hear about it and have a seizure. But that won’t happen at once, and when it does, I’ll do my best to keep him away from you. I wish I could do more.”

Nkata was grateful for that much, considering the fact that the super had already been profiled by the journalist. He said, “Barb says Red Van rang you…”

“Flexing his muscles,” Lynley said. “He’s trying to unnerve us. What’ve you got?”

“Sod all from the credit card purchases. That’s a real nonstarter. Only connection between Crystal Moon and anyone we’re looking at is Robbie Kilfoyle: the sandwich delivery bloke. Can we get surveillance on him?”

“Based on Crystal Moon? We’re stretched too thin. Hillier won’t authorise more officers on this, and those we have are already working fourteen- and eighteen-hour days.” Lynley indicated his yellow pad. “SO7’s done the comparison of everything inside Minshall’s van to the rubber residue found on Kimmo Thorne’s bike. No match. Minshall put in old carpet and not rubber lining. But Davey Benton’s prints are all over that van. So are a score of other prints as well.”

“The other dead boys?”

“We’re doing the comparisons.”

“You don’t think they’re there, do you?”

“The other boys? Inside Minshall’s van?” Lynley put his reading glasses back on and looked at his notes before replying. “No. I don’t,” he finally said. “I think Minshall’s telling the truth, much as I hate to believe it, considering his perversions.”

“Which means…”

“The killer moved on from Colossus to MABIL once we showed up in Elephant and Castle asking questions. And now that Minshall’s in custody, he’s going to have to move on to yet another source of victims. We’ve got to get to him before he gets to them because God only knows where he’s going to find them and we can’t protect every boy in London.”

“We need the meeting times of this MABIL, then. We got to alibi everyone for them.”

“Back to square…if not square one, then square five or six,” Lynley agreed. “You’re right, Winston. It has to be done.”

ULRIKE HAD no choice but to take public transport. The bike ride from Elephant and Castle to Brick Lane was a long one, and she couldn’t afford the time it would take to pedal over there and back. It was suspicious enough that she was leaving Colossus without having a scheduled meeting both in her diary and on the calendar Jack Veness kept in reception. So she invented a phone call that had come in on her mobile—Patrick Bensley, president of the board of trustees, wanted her to meet him and a potential Big Money benefactor, she said—so she would be out. Jack would be able to find her on her mobile. She’d keep it on, as always.

Jack Veness had observed her, a half smile splitting his scraggly beard. He nodded knowingly. She didn’t give him the chance to make a remark. He needed sorting once again, but she didn’t have time to talk to him now about his attitude and the improvements in it that would be necessary should he ever want to advance in the organisation. Instead, she grabbed her coat, her scarf, and her hat, and she departed.

The cold outdoors was a shock that she felt against her eyeballs first and then in her bones. It was a quintessential London cold: so filled with damp that drawing air into her lungs was an effort. It prompted her to rush for the insufferable warmth of the underground. She crammed herself into a carriage heading for the Embankment and tried to keep away from a woman who was coughing wetly into the stale air.

At the Embankment, Ulrike disembarked and weaved through the other commuters. They were different here, their ethnicity changing from mostly black to largely white and far better dressed as she switched to the District line, which itself passed through some of the bastions of London’s establishment employment scene. On her way, she dropped a pound coin into the open guitar case of a busker. He was crooning from “A Man Needs a Maid,” sounding less like Neil Young and more like Cliff Richard with an adenoid problem. But at least he was doing something to support himself.

At Aldgate East, she purchased a copy of the Big Issue, her third in two days. She added an extra fifty pence to the price. The bloke selling it looked as if he needed it.

She found Hopetown Street a short distance along Brick Lane, and there she turned. She made her way to Griffin’s house. It wasn’t far into the estate, just across from a little green and some thirty yards from the community centre in which a group of children were singing as someone accompanied them on a badly tuned piano.

Ulrike paused just inside the gate that fenced off the tiny front garden. It was compulsively neat, as she’d thought it might be. Griff never spoke much about Arabella, but what Ulrike knew of her made the trimmed pot plants and the spotlessly swept stones on the ground exactly what she’d expected to find.

Arabella herself, however, was not. She came out of the house just as Ulrike started towards the door. She was guiding a pushchair over the threshold, its tiny occupant so heavily bundled against the cold that only a nose was showing.

Ulrike had expected someone utterly gone to seed. But Arabella had the look of someone quite trendy in her black beret and her boots. She wore a grey turtle-necked sweater and a black leather jacket. She was far too big in the thighs but was obviously working on it. She’d be back to form in no time.

Good skin, Ulrike thought as Arabella looked up. All her life in England exposed to the moisture in the air. You didn’t find skin like that in Cape Town. Arabella was a regular English rose.

Griff’s wife said, “Well, this is a first. Griff’s not here, if you’ve come looking for him, Ulrike. And if he’s not gone to work, he might be at the silk-screening business, although I rather doubt it, things being what they’ve been lately.” And squinting like a woman making sure of the identity of her listener, she added in a sardonic tone, “It is Ulrike, isn’t it?”