With No One As Witness (28 page)

“My thrice-great-grandfather, Superintendent. He didn’t quite take to slavery.”

Lynley turned. In the doorway, Savidge stood with a girl at his side. “Oni, my wife,” he said. “She’s asked to be introduced.”

It was hard for Lynley to believe he was looking at Savidge’s wife, for Oni appeared no older than sixteen, if that. She was thin, long necked, and African to the core. Like her husband, her manner of dress was ethnic, and she carried an unusual musical instrument in her arms, its belly not unlike a banjo, but with a tall bridge that lifted more than a dozen strings high up.

One glance at her explained a great deal to Lynley. Oni was exquisite: like midnight unblemished, with hundreds of years of blood untarnished by miscegenation. She was what Savidge himself could never be because of the Valiant Sheba. She was also the last thing a rational man would want to leave alone with a group of teenage boys.

Lynley said, “Mrs. Savidge.”

The girl smiled and nodded. She looked to her husband as if for guidance. She said, “You might wanting?,” and halted, as if sorting through a catalogue of words that she knew and grammar whose rules she barely understood.

He said, “This is about Sean, darling. We don’t mean to disturb your practice with the kora. Why don’t you go on with it down here while I take the policeman up to Sean’s room?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I will be playing, then.” She went to the sofa and placed the kora carefully on the floor. As they were about to leave her, she said, “It is very sunless today, no? Another month passes. Bram, I…discover…No, not discover isn’t…I learn this morning…”

Savidge hesitated. Lynley discerned a change in him, like tension released. He said, “We’ll talk later, then, Oni.”

She said, “Yes. And the other as well? Again?”

“Perhaps. The other.” Quickly, he directed Lynley to the stairs. He led the way to a room at the back of the house. When they were within it, he seemed to feel the need to explain. He shut the door and said, “We’re trying for a baby. No luck so far. That’s what she meant.”

“That’s rough,” Lynley said.

“She’s worried about it. Worried that I might…I don’t know…discard her or something? But she’s perfectly healthy. She’s perfectly formed. She’s—” Savidge stopped, as if he realised how close he was to describing someone’s breeding potential himself. He settled on changing course altogether, and he said, “Anyway. This is Sean’s room.”

“Did you ask your wife if he’s turned up? Phoned? Sent a message?”

“She doesn’t answer the phone,” Savidge said. “Her English isn’t good enough. She lacks confidence.”

“Anything else?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean did you ask her about Sean?”

“I didn’t need to. She would have told me. She knows I’m worried.”

“What’s her relationship with the boy?”

“What’s that got to do with—”

“Mr. Savidge, I’ve got to ask,” Lynley said, his gaze steady. “She’s obviously much younger than you.”

“She’s nineteen years old.”

“Much closer in age to the boys you’ve sheltered than to yourself, am I right?”

“This isn’t about my marriage, my wife, or my situation, Superintendent.”

Oh, but it is, Lynley thought. He said, “You’re what? Twenty years older than she? Twenty-five years older? And the boys were what age?”

Savidge seemed to grow larger, indignation colouring his reply. “This is about a missing boy. In a circumstance in which other boys of a similar age have gone missing, if the newspapers are anything to go by. So if you think I’m going to let you misdirect my concerns because you lot have botched an investigation, you’d better change course.” He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he went to a bookcase that held a small CD player and a rank of paperback books that looked untouched. From the top of this, he took up a photograph in a plain wooden frame. He thrust it at Lynley.

In the picture, Savidge himself in his African garb stood with his arm round the shoulders of a solemn-looking boy wearing an overlarge tracksuit. The boy had a head of germinant dreadlocks and a wary expression, like a dog’s too often returned to his cage at the Battersea shelter after a walk. He was very dark, only a little lighter than Savidge’s wife. He was also, unmistakably, the boy whose body they’d found that morning.

Lynley looked up. Beyond Savidge’s shoulder, he saw that the walls of Sean’s room had posters on them: Louis Farrakhan in passionate exhortation, Elijah Mohammed backed by neat-suited members of the Nation. A young Muhammad Ali, perhaps the most famous of the converted. He said, “Mr. Savidge…” And then, for a moment, he found himself in the position of not knowing exactly how to go on. A body in a tunnel became all too human the moment you placed it in a home. At that point, a body altered from a body to a person whose death could not go unmarked by a desire for revenge or a need for justice or the duty to express the simplest form of regret. He said, “I’m sorry. We’ve got a body you’re going to have to look at. It was found this morning, south of the river.”

Savidge said, “Oh my God. Is it…”

“I hope it isn’t,” Lynley said, although he knew it was. He took the other man’s arm to give him support. There were questions he was going to have to ask Savidge eventually, but at the moment there was nothing more to say.

ULRIKE MANAGED to cool her heels in her office till Jack Veness closed down the phones and tidied up the reception room for the day. Once she’d acknowledged his good night and heard the outer door slam behind him, she went in search of Griff.

She found Robbie Kilfoyle instead. He was in the entry corridor, emptying two rubbish bags of Colossus T-shirts and sweatshirts into the storage cupboard beneath the display case of goods for sale. At least, she saw, Griff had told the truth in this. He had spent several hours at his silk-screening business today.

She’d doubted that. When they’d met at the Charlie Chaplin, the first thing she’d said was, “Where’ve you been all day, Griffin?,” and then winced at the tone of her voice because she knew what she sounded like and he knew she knew, which was why he’d said, “Don’t,” before he told her. A piece of equipment had needed repair at the silk-screening shop and he’d seen to it, he said. “I told you I’d be going by the business on my way in. You wanted me to bring more shirts, remember?” That was a quintessential Griffin reply. I was doing what you asked, he implied.

Ulrike said to Robbie Kilfoyle, “Have you seen Griff? I need a word with him.”

Squatting on the floor, Robbie rested back on his heels and tipped his cap to the back of his head. He said, “He’s helping take that new group of assessment kids onto the river. They went off in the vans…round two hours ago?” Robbie’s expression told her he thought she—as director—ought to be aware of this piece of information. He said, “He left this stuff”—with a nod at the rubbish bags—“back in the kit room. I reckoned it was best to pack it all in here. C’n I help you with something?”

“Help me?”

“Well, if you want Griff and Griff’s not here, I might be able to…” He shrugged.

“I said I wanted a word with him, Robbie.” Ulrike was at once aware of how curt she sounded. She said, “Sorry. That was rude of me. I’m frazzled. The police. First Kimmo. Now…”

“Sean,” Robbie said. “Yeah. I know. He’s not dead, though, is he? Sean Lavery?”

Ulrike looked at him sharply. “I didn’t say his name. How d’you know about Sean?”

Robbie seemed taken aback. “That cop asked if I knew him, Ulrike. That woman cop. She came by the kit room. She said Sean was in one of the computer courses, so when I had a chance, I asked Neil what was going on. He said Sean Lavery didn’t turn up today. That was it.” Then he added, “Okay, Ulrike?,” as an afterthought, but he didn’t sound deferential when he said it.

She couldn’t blame him. She said, “I’m…Look, I didn’t mean to sound so…I don’t know…so suspicious. I’m on edge. First Kimmo. Now Sean. And the police. D’you know what time Griff and the kids will be back?”

Robbie took a moment, seeming to evaluate her apology, before he replied. This, she decided, was a wee bit much. He was, after all, only a volunteer. He said, “I don’t know. They’ll probably stop for a coffee afterwards. Half seven p’rhaps? Eight? He’s got his own keys to the place, right?”

True, she thought. He could come and go as he liked, which had been convenient in the past when they’d wanted to have a political powwow. Planning strategies before staff meetings and after hours. Here’s where I stand on an issue, Griffin. What about you?

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “They could be gone hours.”

“Not too late, though. The dark and all that. And it must be cold as hell on the river. Between you and me, I can’t think why assessment chose kayaking at all for their group activity this time round. Seems a hike would’ve been better. A footpath in the Cotswolds or something. Going between villages. They could’ve stopped for a meal at the end.” He went back to stowing the T-shirts and sweatshirts away in the cupboard.

“Is that what you would have done?” she asked him. “Taken them on a hike? Somewhere safe?”

He looked over his shoulder. “It’s probably nothing, you know.”

“What?”

“Sean Lavery. They bunk off sometimes, these kids.”

Ulrike wanted to ask him why he thought he knew the kids at Colossus better than she. But the truth was, he likely did know them better because she’d been distracted for months on end. Kids had come into and gone from Colossus, but her mind had been elsewhere.

Which could cost her her job, if it came down to the board of directors looking for someone culpable for what was going on…if something was going on. All those hours, days, weeks, months, and years given to this organisation: down the toilet in one hardy flush. She’d be able to get another job somewhere, but it wouldn’t be at a place like Colossus, with all of Colossus’s potential to do exactly what she so fervently believed needed to be done in England: to make change at a grass-roots level, which was at the level of the individual child’s psyche.

Where had it all gone? She’d come into her job at Colossus believing that she could make a difference and she had done just that, right up till the time Griffin Charles Strong had planted his CV on her desk and his mesmerising dark eyes on her face. And even then she’d managed to maintain an air of cool professionalism for months on end, knowing full well the dangers represented by becoming involved with anyone at her place of employment.

Her resolve had weakened over time. Perhaps just to touch him, she’d thought. The gorgeous head of hair, wavy and thick. Or the broad oarsman’s shoulders beneath the fisherman’s sweater he favoured. Or the lower arm whose wrist was banded by a leather plait. Touching him had eventually become such an obsession that the only way possible to rid herself of the preoccupation with her hand grazing some part of his body was simply to do it. Just reach across the conference table and grasp his wrist to emphasise her agreement with some remark he’d made during a staff meeting and then feel the rush of surprise when he briefly closed his other hand over hers and squeezed. She told herself it was merely a sign that he appreciated her support of his ideas. Except there were signs…and then there were signs.

She said to Robbie Kilfoyle, “When you’re finished here, make sure the doors are locked, won’t you?”

“Will do,” he said, and she felt his gaze fixed on her speculatively as she returned to her office.

There, she went to the filing cabinet. She squatted in front of the bottom drawer that she’d opened before, in the presence of the detectives. She fingered through the manila folders and brought out the one she needed, which she shoved into the canvas book bag she used as a briefcase. That done, she grabbed up her bicycle clothing and went to change for the long ride home.

She did her changing in the ladies’ toilet, taking her time and all the while listening for the hopeful sounds of Griff Strong and the assessment kids returning from the river. But the only thing she heard was Robbie Kilfoyle leaving, and then she herself was alone at Colossus.

She couldn’t risk Griff’s mobile this time round, not when she knew he was with a group. There was nothing left but to write him a note. Rather than deposit it on his desk, however, where he could use the excuse of not having seen it, she took it outside to the carpark and shoved it beneath the windscreen wiper of his vehicle. On the driver’s side. She even took a piece of Sellotape to make sure the note didn’t blow away. Then she went for her bike, unlocked it, and headed for St. George’s Road, the first part of the crisscrossing route that would take her from Elephant and Castle up to Paddington.

The ride took her nearly an hour in the bitter cold. Her mask prevented her from breathing the worst of the traffic fumes, but there was nothing to protect her from the constant noise. She reached Gloucester Terrace more exhausted than usual, but at least grateful that the ride itself—and the need to be on guard against traffic—had kept her mind occupied.

She chained her bicycle to the railing in front of number 258, where she unlocked the front door to the usual cooking smells emanating from the ground-floor flat. Cumin, sesame oil, fish. Overcooked sprouts. Rotting onions. She held her breath and went for the stairs. She was up five of them when behind her, the front-door buzzer sounded sharply. The door had a rectangle of glass on top, and through it she saw the shape of his head. She descended quickly.

“I rang your mobile.” Griff sounded irritated. “Why didn’t you answer? Fuck it, Ulrike. If you’re going to leave me a note like that—”

“I was on my bike,” she told him. “I can hardly answer it when I’m riding home. I turn it off. You know that.” She held the door open and turned from it. He would have no choice but to follow her upstairs.

On the first floor, she switched on the timed light and went for the door of her flat. Inside, she dumped her canvas holdall on the lumpy sofa and turned on a single lamp. She said, “Wait here,” and went into her bedroom, where she took off her bike-riding clothes, sniffed her armpits, and found them wanting. A damp flannel took care of that problem, after which she examined herself in the mirror and was satisfied with the heightened colour the ride across London had brought to her cheeks. She slid into a dressing gown and tied its belt. She returned to the sitting room.