With No One As Witness (70 page)

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.