The sight brought Fu round and banished the maggot. He focussed on the television screen. The man Lynley was coming out of a hospital. He had a uniformed constable on either side of him and they were shielding him from reporters who were shouting questions.
“…any connection to…?”
“Do you regret—”
“Is this in any way related to the story that The Source…?”
“…decision to embed a journalist…?”
Lynley walked through them, away, beyond. He looked like stone.
The reporter on-screen said something about an earlier news conference, and the scene switched to that. A surgeon in operating gown stood behind a lectern, blinking in the television lights. He spoke about the removal of a bullet, the repairing of damage, a foetus that was moving but that’s all they could report at the moment, and when questions were asked by the unseen listeners, he would say no more, merely removing himself from behind the lectern and from the room. The scene then went back to outside the hospital, where the reporter stood, shivering in the morning’s wind.
“This is,” she said gravely, “the first time that a family member of a police detective has been struck down in the midst of an investigation. The fact that this crime should fall so quickly on the heels of a tabloid’s profile of that same detective and his wife brings into question the wisdom of the earlier and highly irregular Scotland Yard decision to allow a journalist unprecedented access to a criminal investigation.”
She ended her report but for Fu, the image of Lynley was what stayed with Him when the viewer was returned to the television studio where the presenters managed to look suitably grave as they went on with the morning’s news. Whatever they said was lost to Him at that point because He saw only the police detective: how he walked and where he looked. What struck Fu the most was that the man was not the least bit wary. He had no defence.
Fu smiled. He flicked off the television with a snap. He listened intently. No sound in the house. The maggot was gone.
DI JOHN STEWART took immediate charge, but it seemed to Nkata that he was merely going through the motions, his mind on other things. Everyone’s mind was elsewhere as well: either mentally at St. Thomas’ Hospital where the superintendent’s wife lay fighting for her life or with the Belgravia police who were handling the investigation into her shooting. Still, Nkata knew there was only one reasonable way for any of them to proceed, and he told himself to keep moving forward because he owed it to Lynley to do the job. But his heart wasn’t in it, and this was a bloody damn dangerous place to be. How simple a matter it was to let a crucial detail slip when one was in this state, because he—along with everyone else—was distracted by an external concern.
His carefully plotted and altogether irritating multicoloured outline in hand, DI Stewart had made assignments that morning and then began to micromanage every one of them in his inimitable fashion. He paced maddeningly round the room and when he wasn’t doing that, he was liaising with the Belgravia police. This consisted of demanding to know what progress they’d made on the attack on the superintendent’s wife. In the meantime, detectives in the incident room made reports and PCs typed them. Occasionally someone asked in a hushed voice, “Does anyone know how she is? Is there any word?”
The word was critical.
Nkata reckoned Barb Havers would know more, but she hadn’t put in an appearance so far. No one had made mention of this fact, so he’d concluded Barb was either still at the hospital, or on an assignment Stewart had given her earlier, or going her own way in things, in which case he wished she’d get in touch with him. He’d seen her briefly at the hospital on the previous night, but they hadn’t spoken more than to exchange a few terse words.
Now, Nkata tried to force his thoughts to travel in a productive direction. It seemed like days had passed since he’d last received an assignment. Making himself adhere to it was like swimming through refrigerated honey.
The list of dates for the MABIL meetings—helpfully provided by James Barty to demonstrate the extent to which his client Mr. Minshall was willing to cooperate with the police—covered the last six months. Using this list as a jumping-off point, Nkata had already spoken to Griffin Strong by telephone, and he had received the man’s meaningless assurance that he had been with his wife—never left her side and she would be the first to confirm that, Sergeant—whenever an alibi was called for. So Nkata had gone on to talk to Robbie Kilfoyle, who’d said he didn’t exactly keep records of what he did every night, which was little enough, since, besides watching the telly, all he ever did was drop by the Othello Bar for a pint and perhaps they could confirm that at the bar, although he doubted even they would be able to say when he’d been in and when he’d not. From there, Nkata had conversed with Neil Greenham’s solicitor, with Neil himself, and ultimately with Neil’s mother who said that her lad was a good lad and if he said he was with her whenever he said he was with her, then he was with her. As for Jack Veness, the Colossus receptionist declared that if his great-aunt, his mate, the Miller and Grindstone Pub, and the Indian take-away were not good enough to clear his name, then the cops could God damn arrest him and have done with it.
Nkata immediately discounted any alibi given by a relative, which consequently made Griffin Strong and Neil Greenham look good in the role of member of MABIL and serial killer. The problem for him was that both Jack Veness and Robbie Kilfoyle seemed to fit the profile far better. This made him in turn decide he needed to have a closer look at the profile document that had been provided for them weeks ago.
He was about to conduct a search for it in Lynley’s office when Mitchell Corsico turned up in the incident room, escorted there by a minion of Hillier’s whom Nkata recognised from their earlier press conferences together. Corsico and the minion had a word with John Stewart, at which point the minion left for points unknown and the journalist sauntered over to Nkata. He deposited himself on a chair near the desk where Nkata had been studying his notes.
“I got the word from my guv,” Corsico told him. “He’s axed the St. James direction. Sorry, Sergeant. You’re my next man.”
Nkata looked at him, frowning. “What? You crazy? After what’s happened?”
Corsico removed a small tape recorder from his jacket pocket, along with a notebook, which he flipped open. “I was set to do that forensic bloke next, the expert witness you lot have working outside the Yard? But the big cheeses over on Farringdon Street gave the project thumbs down. I’m back to you. Listen, I know you don’t like this, so I’m willing to compromise. I get inside to talk to your parents, I leave Harold Nkata out of the story. Sound like a deal to you?”
What it sounded like was a decision made by Hillier and his DPA cronies and passed along to Corsico, who’d probably already planted a bug in his editor’s ear about…what did they call it?…the natural angle that a story on Winston Nkata had. Human interest, they would describe it, without a thought where the last human interest tale had got them.
“No one’s talking to my mum and dad,” Nkata said. “No one’s putting their pictures in the paper. No one’s looking them up at home. No one’s getting inside their flat.”
Corsico made an adjustment to the volume on his tape recorder and nodded thoughtfully. “That does bring us to Harold then, doesn’t it? He shot that bloke in the back of the head, as I understand. Made him kneel at the edge of the pavement, then put the barrel of the gun to his skull.”
Nkata reached for the tape recorder. He dropped it onto the floor and slammed his foot into it.
“Hey!” Corsico cried. “I am not responsible—”
“You listen to me,” Nkata hissed. Several heads turned their way. Nkata ignored them. He said to Corsico, “You write your story. With or without me, I c’n see you’re set on doing it. But my brother’s part of it, my mum’s or my dad’s picture in that paper, one word ’bout Loughborough Estate…and I’m coming after you, unnerstan? And I ’xpect you know enough about me already to get what I mean.”
Corsico smiled, completely unfazed. It came to Nkata that this was the reaction the reporter had been seeking. He said, “Your speciality was the flick knife, as I understand it, Sergeant. You were what? Fifteen years old? Sixteen? Did a knife seem less traceable to you than…say…a pistol of the sort your brother used?”
Nkata wouldn’t take the bait this time. He got to his feet. “This isn’t going to be part of my day,” he told the reporter. He slid a pen into his jacket pocket, preparatory to heading for Lynley’s office to get back to what he’d intended to do.
Corsico got to his feet as well, perhaps with the intention of following. But that was when Dorothea Harriman came into the room, looked round for someone, and chose Nkata.
She said, “Is Detective Constable Havers—?”
“Not here,” Nkata said. “What’s wrong?”
Harriman gave a glance to Corsico before she took Nkata by the arm. She said meaningfully to the reporter, “If you don’t mind… Some things are personal,” and she waited until he retreated to the other side of the room. Then she said, “Simon St. James just phoned. The superintendent’s left the hospital. He’s meant to go home and rest, but Mr. St. James thinks he may head here at some point today. He’s not sure when.”
“He’s coming back to work?” Nkata couldn’t believe this was the case.
Harriman shook her head. “If he comes here, Mr. St. James thinks he’ll go to the assistant commissioner’s office. He thinks someone needs to…” She hesitated, her voice uncertain. She raised a hand to her lips and said in a more determined tone, “He thinks someone needs to be ready to look after him when he gets here, Detective Sergeant.”
BARBARA HAVERS cooled her heels in the interview room at the Holmes Street station while the solicitor serving the interests of Barry Minshall was rounded up. A sympathetic special constable in reception had taken one look at her and said, “Black or white?,” when she’d first entered the station. Now she sat with the coffee—white—in front of her, her hands curved round a mug that was shaped into the caricatured visage of the Prince of Wales.
She drank without tasting much of the brew. Her tongue said hot, bitter. That was it. She stared at her hands, saw how white her knuckles were, and tried to loosen her grip on the mug. She didn’t have the information she wanted and she didn’t like being in the dark.
She’d phoned Simon and Deborah St. James at the most reasonable hour she could manage. She’d ended up listening to their answer machine, so she reckoned they’d either never left the hospital on the previous night or had returned there before dawn to wait for further news about Helen. Deborah’s father wasn’t in, either. Barbara told herself he was walking the dog. She’d rung off on the answer machine without leaving a message. They had better things to do than phone her with news, which she might be able to get in another way.
But ringing the hospital was even worse. Mobile phones could not be used inside, so she was left having to speak to someone in charge of general information, which was no information at all. Lady Asherton’s condition was unchanged, she was told. What did that mean? she asked. And what about the baby she was carrying? There was no reply to this. A pause, a shuffling of papers, and then, Terribly sorry, but the hospital was not allowed…Barbara had hung up on the sympathetic voice, mostly because it was sympathetic.
She told herself that work was the anodyne, so she gathered her things and left her bungalow. At the front of the house, however, she saw that lights were on in the ground-floor flat. She didn’t pause to ask the shoulds of herself. At the sight of movement behind the curtains covering the French windows, she changed direction and crossed to them. She knocked without thinking, merely knowing that she needed something and that something was real human contact, no matter how brief.
Taymullah Azhar answered, manila folder in one hand and briefcase in the other. Behind him somewhere in the flat, water ran and Hadiyyah sang, off-key but what did it really matter: “Sometimes we’ll sigh, sometimes we’ll cry…” Buddy Holly, Barbara realised. She was singing “True Love Ways.” It made her want to weep.
Azhar said, “Barbara. How good to see you. I’m so very glad…Is something wrong?” He set down his briefcase and put the manila folder on top of it. By the time he’d turned back to her, Barbara had got a better grip on herself. He wouldn’t necessarily know yet, she thought. If he hadn’t looked at a newspaper and if he hadn’t turned on the radio or seen the television reports…
She couldn’t bring herself to talk about Helen. She said, “Working hard. Bad night. Not much sleep.” She remembered the peace offering she’d bought—it seemed like another lifetime to her—and she dug round in her shoulder bag till she found it: the five-pound-note trick meant for Hadiyyah. Astound your friends. Amaze your relations. “I picked this up for Hadiyyah. Thought she might like to try it out. It’ll take a five-pound note to do it. If you’ve got one…She won’t hurt it or anything. At least not when she gets good. So in the beginning I s’pose she could use something else. For practice. You know.”
Azhar looked from the magic trick in its plastic covering back to Barbara. He smiled and said, “You are very good. To Hadiyyah. And for Hadiyyah. This is not something I have told you, Barbara, and I apologise for that. Let me get her now so that you—”
“No!” The intensity of her word surprised both of them. They stared at each other in some confusion. Barbara knew she’d puzzled her neighbour. But she also knew she couldn’t explain to Azhar how the kindness of his words had seemed like a blow from which she felt in sudden danger. Not from what the words implied but from what her reaction to them told her about herself.
She said, “Sorry. Listen, I’ve got to go. About a dozen things on my plate and I’m juggling them all at once.”
“This case,” he said.
“Yeah. What a way to earn a living, eh?”
He observed her, dark eyes set in skin the colour of pecans, expression grave. He said, “Barbara—”
She cut him off. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Despite her need to escape the kindness in his tone, though, she reached out and clasped his arm. Through the sleeve of his neat white shirt she could feel the warmth of him and his wiry strength. “I’m dead chuffed you’re back,” she said, the words coming thickly. “See you later.”
“Of course,” he replied.
She turned to go, but she knew he was watching. She coughed and her nose began to run. She was God damn falling apart, she thought.
And then the blasted Mini wouldn’t start. It hiccuped and sighed. It spoke to her of arteries hardening with oil too long unchanged in its system, and she saw that from the French windows Azhar was still observing her. He took two steps outside and in her direction. She prayed and the god of transport listened. The engine finally sprang to life with a roar and she reversed down the drive and into the street.
Now she waited in the interview room for Barry Minshall to give her the word: Yes was all she required of him. Yes and she was out of there. Yes and she was making an arrest.
The door finally opened. She pushed her Prince of Wales mug to one side. James Barty preceded his client into the room.
Minshall wore his dark glasses, but the rest of him was strictly incarceration-issue garb. He needed to get used to it, Barbara thought. Barry would be going away for a good many years.
“Mr. Minshall and I are still waiting to hear from the CPS,” his solicitor said by way of prefatory remarks. “The magistrate’s hearing was—”
“Mr. Minshall and you,” Barbara said, “ought to be thanking your stars we still need him hanging round this end of town. When he gets to remand, he’s likely to find the company not quite as accommodating as it is here.”
“We’ve been cooperative thus far,” Barty said. “But you can’t expect that cooperation to extend into infinity, Constable.”
“I don’t have deals to offer and you know it,” Barbara told him. “TO9 is dealing with Mr. Minshall’s situation. Your hope”—and this to
Minshall himself—“is that those boys in the Polaroids we found in your flat enjoyed their experience at your hands so much that they wouldn’t dream of testifying against you or anyone else. But I wouldn’t count on that. And anyway, face it, Bar. Even if those boys don’t want to be put through a trial, you’ve still supplied a thirteen-year-old to a killer and you’re going down for that one. If I were in your position, I’d want it known to the CPS and everyone else concerned that I started cooperating the moment the rozzers asked my name.”
“It’s only your belief that Mr. Minshall supplied a boy to someone who murdered him,” Barty said. “That has never been our position.”
“Right,” Barbara said. “Have it any way you want, but the laundry gets wet no matter what order you put it into the machine.” From her bag she brought out the framed photograph she’d taken from flat number 5 in Walden Lodge. She laid it on the table at which they were sitting, and she slid it across to Minshall.
He lowered his head. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark glasses, but she noted his breathing and it seemed to her he was making an effort to keep it steady. She wanted to believe this meant something important, but she didn’t want to get ahead of herself. She let the moments stretch out between them while inside she repeated two words: Come on. Come on. Come on.
Finally, he shook his head, and she said to him, “Take off your glasses.”
Barty said, “You know that my client’s condition makes it—”
“Shut up. Barry, take off your glasses.”
“My eyesight—”
“Take off your bloody glasses!”
He did so.
“Now look at me.” Barbara waited till she could see his eyes, grey to the point of altogether colourless. She wanted to read the truth in them, but even more than that she wanted just to see them and to have him know that she was seeing them. “At this precise moment, no one’s saying you handed over any boys in order to get them killed.” She felt her throat trying to close on the words, but she forced herself to say them anyway because if the only way to get him to move in her direction was to lie, cheat, and flatter, she would lie and cheat and flatter with the best of them. “You didn’t do that to Davey Benton and you didn’t do that to anyone else. When you left Davey with this…this bloke, you expected the game to be played the way it had always been played. Seduction, sodomy, I don’t know what—”
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