With No One As Witness (59 page)

She carried her Pop-Tart to the table and went back for the coffee. She directed the remote at the television screen and she punched it off. She felt raw, far too close to the point of having to think of her partnerless life. She could hear the remark Azhar had made about whether she would ever find herself in the fortunate position of having children, and she did not want to venture within fifty yards of thinking of that. So she took a large bite of Pop-Tart and went in search of something to distract her from the consideration of her neighbour, his comment about her marital and maternal state, and the memory of that front door which had not opened when she had last knocked upon it. She found this distraction in her man from Lubbock. She put the CD on and cranked up the volume.

Buddy Holly was still raving on at the end of her second Pop-Tart, and her third cup of coffee. Indeed, he was celebrating his short life with such passion—and at such a volume—that as she headed for the bathroom and her morning shower, she nearly missed hearing the telephone’s ring.

She quieted Buddy and answered, to find a familiar voice saying her name. “Barbara, dear, is that you?” It was Mrs. Flo—Florence Magentry, to the general public—at whose Greenford home Barbara’s mother had been living for the past fifteen months with several other elderly ladies in similar need of care.

“Me and none other,” Barbara said. “Hi, Mrs. Flo. You’re up and about early. Everything okay with Mum?”

“Oh it is, it is,” Mrs. Flo said. “We’re all dandy out here. Mum’s asked for porridge this morning, and she’s tucked right into it. Lovely appetite, she’s got today. She’s been mentioning you since yesterday lunchtime.”

It was not Mrs. Flo’s way to induce guilt in the relatives of her ladies, but Barbara felt it anyway. She hadn’t been out to see her mum in several weeks—she looked at the calendar and realised it had actually been five—and it didn’t take much to make her feel like a selfish cow who’d abandoned her calf. So she felt the need to excuse herself to Mrs. Flo and she said, “I’ve been working on these murders…the young boys? You might have read about it. It’s been a rough case, and time’s dead crucial. Has Mum—”

“Barbie, dear, you’re not to go on like that,” Mrs. Flo said. “I just wanted you to know Mum’s had a few good days. She’s been here, and she still is. So I thought that as she’s a bit more in the present and out of the Blitz, it might be good to take time for an examination of her personals. We might be able to do it without sedating her, which I always think is preferable, don’t you?”

“Bloody hell, yes,” Barbara said. “If you’ll make the appointment, I’ll take her.”

“Of course, dear, there’s no guarantee that she’ll be herself when you have to take her. As I said, there have been a few good days recently, but you know how it is.”

“I do,” Barbara said. “But make the appointment anyway. I can cope if we have to sedate her.” She could steel herself to it, she told herself: her mum slumped into the passenger seat of the Mini, slack of jaw and bleary of eye. That would be nearly unbearable to behold, but it would be infinitely preferable to trying to explain, to her disintegrating ability to understand, what was about to happen to her when she was asked to put her legs into the ghastly stirrups in the doctor’s surgery.

So Barbara and Mrs. Flo reached an agreement, which consisted of a range of days when Barbara could drive out to Greenford for the appointment. Then they rang off, and Barbara was left with the rueful knowledge that she wasn’t as childless as she looked to the outside world. For certainly her mother stood in place of progeny. Not exactly what Barbara had in mind for herself, but there it was. The cosmic forces governing the universe were always willing to give you a variation of what you thought your life was meant to be like.

She headed for the bathroom again, only to have the telephone ring a second time. She decided to let her answer machine take the call, and she left the room to turn the shower on. But from the bathroom, the voice she heard was male this time, which suggested the night had brought another development in the case, so she hurried back out in time to hear Taymullah Azhar saying, “…the number up here should you need to get in touch with us.”

She snatched up the receiver, saying, “Azhar? Hello? Are you there?” And where was there? she wondered.

“Ah, Barbara,” he said. “I hope I did not awaken you? Hadiyyah and I have come to Lancaster for a conference at the university, and I realised that I did not ask anyone to collect our post prior to our leaving. Could you—”

“Shouldn’t she be at school? Is she on holiday? Half-term?”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “That is to say, she should be at school. But I could not leave her alone in London, so we’ve brought her schoolwork with us. She does it here in the hotel room while I’m at my meetings. It is, I know, not the best arrangement, but she’s safe and she keeps the door locked while I’m gone.”

“Azhar, she shouldn’t…” Barbara stopped herself. That way led to disagreement. She said instead, “You could have left her with me. I would have been happy to have her here. I’d always be happy to have her here. I knocked you up the other morning. No one came to the door.”

“Ah. We would have been here in Lancaster,” he said.

“Oh. I heard music—”

“My meagre attempt to thwart burglars.”

Barbara felt unaccountably relieved by this information. “D’you want me to check the flat, then? Have you left a key? Because I could collect the post and go in and…” She realised how bloody happy she was to hear his voice and how much she wanted to accommodate him. She didn’t like this at all, so she stopped herself from going on. He was, after all, still the man who thought her unfortunately unpartnered in life.

He said, “You are very kind, Barbara. If you would claim our mail, I’d ask nothing more of you.”

“Will do, then,” she said cheerfully. “How’s my mate?”

“I believe she misses you. She is still asleep or I would bring her to the phone.”

Barbara was grateful for the information. She knew he hadn’t needed to give it to her. She said, “Azhar, about the CD, about the row…you know…what I said about your…about Hadiyyah’s mum being gone…” She wasn’t sure where to go with this, and she didn’t want to reiterate her remarks in order to remind him of what she was about to apologise for. She said, “I was out of order with what I said. Sorry.”

There was a silence. She could imagine him in some hotel room in the north, frost on the window and Hadiyyah a small lump in the bed. There would be two beds, with a nightstand between them and he would be sitting on the edge of his. A lamp would be on, but not on the nightstand because he wouldn’t want its light to shine on his daughter and awaken her. He’d be wearing…what? Dressing gown? Pyjamas? Or was he dressed for the day? And were his feet bare or clothed in socks and shoes? Had he combed his dark hair? Shaved? And…And bloody hell, dolly, get a grip, for God’s sake.

He said, “I was not offering a response to your words, as it turns out, Barbara. I was merely reacting to what you said. This was wrong of me, this reacting and not simply replying. I felt…No, I thought, She doesn’t understand, this woman, nor can she possibly understand. Without the facts, she judges, and I’ll set her straight. This was wrong of me, so I apologise as well.”

“Understand what?” Barbara heard the water gushing freely in her shower and she knew she ought to turn it off. But she didn’t want to ask him to hold on while she did that because she feared he’d be gone altogether if she did.

“What it was about Hadiyyah’s behaviour…” He paused, and she thought she could hear the sound of a match being lit. He would be smoking, putting off his answer in that way they’d been taught by society, culture, films, and the telly. He finally said, very quietly, “Barbara, it began…No. Angela began with lies. Where she was going and whom she was seeing. She ended with lies as well. A trip to Ontario, relatives there, an aunt—her godmother, in fact—who was ill and to whom she owed much…And you will have guessed—have you not?—that none of that is the case at all, that there is someone else, as I was someone else for Angela once…. So for Hadiyyah to lie to me as she did…”

“I understand.” Barbara found that she wanted only to stop the pain that she could hear in his voice. She didn’t need to know what Hadiyyah’s mother had done and with whom she’d done it. “You loved Angela, and she lied to you. You don’t want Hadiyyah to learn to lie as well.”

“For the woman you love more than your life,” he said, “the woman you have given up everything for, who has borne your child…the third of your children with the other two lost to you forever…”

“Azhar,” Barbara said, “Azhar, Azhar. I’m sorry. I didn’t think…You’re right. How could I possibly know what it’s like? Damn. I wish…” What? she asked herself. That he was there, she answered, there in the room so that she could hold him, so that something could be transferred from her to him. Comfort, but more than comfort, she thought. She’d never felt lonelier in her life.

He said, “No journey is easy. This is what I’ve learned.”

“That doesn’t help the pain, I expect.”

“How true. Ah, Hadiyyah is stirring. Would you like to—”

“No. Just give her my love. And Azhar, next time you have to go to a conference or something, think of me, all right? Like I said, I’m happy to look after her while you’re away.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I think of you often.” And he gently rang off.

At her end, Barbara held on to the receiver. She kept it pressed to her ear, as if this would maintain the brief contact she’d had with her neighbour. Finally she said to no one, “’Bye, then,” and replaced the phone. But she rested her fingers on it, and she could feel her pulse beating in the tips of them.

She felt lighter, warmer. When she finally made her way to the shower, she hummed not “Raining in My Heart” but rather “Everyday,” which seemed more appropriate to her altered mood.

Afterwards, the drive to New Scotland Yard didn’t bother her. She passed the journey pleasantly, without a single cigarette to buoy her. But all this good cheer faded once she arrived in the incident room.

The place was abuzz. Small knots of people gathered round three different desks, and all of them were focussed on a tabloid opened upon each. Barbara approached a group that Winston Nkata was part of, standing to the rear with his arms crossed on his chest, as was his fashion, but none the less riveted.

She said to him, “What’s up?”

Nkata inclined his head towards the desk. “Paper’s done their piece on the guv.”

“Already?” she asked. “Holy hell. That was fast.” She looked round. She noted the grim expressions. She said, “He wanted to keep that bloke Corsico occupied. Didn’t that work, or something?”

“He was occupied, all right,” Nkata said. “Tracked down his house and ran a picture of it. He doesn’t say what street, but he says Belgravia.”

Barbara’s eyes widened. “The sod. That’s bad.”

She worked her way forward as other of her colleagues moved off, having had their look at the paper. She flipped it to the front page to see the headline: “His Lordship the Cop” and an accompanying photo of Lynley and Helen, arms round each others’ waists and champagne glasses in their hands. Havers recognised the picture. It had been taken at an anniversary party the previous November. Webberly and his wife, celebrating their twenty-fifth, just days before a killer had attempted to make him another of his victims.

She skimmed the accompanying article as Nkata joined her. She saw that Dorothea Harriman had done her part, as Lynley had described it to her, encouraging Corsico to pursue information left, right, and centre. But what they had all failed to anticipate was the speed with which the reporter would be able to put together his facts, mould them into the usual breathless prose of the typical tabloid story, and combine them with information that was more than the public had a right to know.

Like the approximate location of the Lynleys’ house, Barbara thought. There was going to be hell to pay for that.

She found the photograph of the Eaton Terrace house when she made the jump to page four for the continuation of the story. She found there, in addition to that picture, another photo, of the Lynley family pile in Cornwall, along with one of the superintendent as an adolescent in his Eton togs as well as one with him posing with his fellow oarsmen at Oxford.

“Flipping, flaming hell,” she muttered. “How in God’s name did he get this stuff?”

Nkata’s response was, “Makes you wonder what he’s going to unearth when he gets to the rest of us.”

She looked up at him. If he could have looked green, he would have looked green. Winston Nkata would not want his background offered up for public consumption. She said, “The guv will keep him away from you, Winnie.”

“Not the guv I’m worried about, Barb.”

Hillier. That would be Winnie’s concern. Because if Lynley made excellent fodder for the papers, what would the tabloids do when they got their teeth into the “Former Gang Member Makes Good” variety of tale? What Nkata’s life was worth in Brixton was a moot issue at the best of times. What it would be worth should the story of his “redemption” hit the papers was a frightening one.

A sudden silence hit the room, and Barbara looked up to see that Lynley had joined them. He looked grim, and she wondered if he was castigating himself for having made himself the sacrificial lamb that The Source had offered on the altar of its circulation figures.

What he said was, “At least they haven’t got on to Yorkshire yet,” and a nervous murmur greeted this remark. It was the single but indelible blight on his career and his reputation: his brother-in-law’s murder and the part he’d played in the ensuing inquiry.

“They will, Tommy,” John Stewart said.

“Not if we give them a bigger story.” Lynley went to the china board. He looked at the photographs assembled on it and the list of activities assigned to the team members. He said, as he usually did, “What do we have?”

The first report came from the officers who had been gathering information from the commuters who parked on Wood Lane and then walked the path down the hill, through Queen’s Wood, and up to the Highgate underground station on Archway Road. None of these people on their way to work had seen anything unusual on the morning of the day that Davey Benton’s body had been found. Several of them mentioned a man, a woman, and two men together—all of them walking dogs in the woods—but that was the extent of what they had to offer, and it did not include any descriptions, of either man or beast.