With No One As Witness

by Elizabeth George

  “That’s how she always is when there’s a knock at the door?”

  “Under some conditions.”

  “What would those be?”

  “If she doesn’t know who’s on the other side.”

  “And if she does know? If she hears a voice or smells a scent and recognises it?”

  “Then she makes no noise. Which was why, you see, her barking at three forty-five in the morning was so unusual.”

  “Because if she doesn’t bark, it means she knows what she’s seeing, hearing, or smelling?”

  “That’s right,” Pears said. “But I don’t actually see what this has to do with anything, Constable Havers.”

  “That’s okay in the scheme of things, Mr. Pears,” Barbara said. “Fact is, I do.”

  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 conti
nued 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 f
anciful 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?”