With No One As Witness (67 page)

Yasmin removed the short wig from the stand. She lowered it gently onto Ruby’s head. She stood back, then made an adjustment, then stood back again. “You’re ready for a big night out,” she said. “Make sure your man sees you get it.” She helped Ruby out of the beauty chair and took the voucher that the woman held out to her. She gently pushed away an additional ten-pound note that Ruby tried to press upon her. “None ’f that,” she said. “Buy some flowers for your flat.”

“Flowers enough at the funeral,” Ruby said.

“Yeah, but the corpse don’t get to enjoy them.”

They chuckled together. Yasmin saw her to the door. A car at the kerb waited for her, one door swinging open. Yasmin eased her inside.

When she returned to the shop, she went at once to the beauty chair where she began to repack her makeup supplies. Nkata said to her, “What’s she got?”

“Pancreas,” Yasmin said shortly.

“Bad?”

“Pancreas’s always bad, Sergeant. She’s doing chemo, but i’n’t any point. What d’you want, man? I got work to do.”

He approached her but still kept a safe distance between them. “I got a brother,” he said. “He’s Harold, but we called him Stoney. Cos he was stubborn as a stone in a field. A Stonehenge kind of stone, I mean. One you can’t budge no matter what.”

Yasmin paused in putting the makeup away, a brush in her hand. She frowned at Nkata. “So?”

Nkata licked his lower lip. “He’s in Wandsworth. Life.”

Her glance moved away, then back to him. She knew what that meant. Murder. “He do it?”

“Oh yeah. Stoney…Yeah. That was Stoney all the way through. Got a gun somewhere—he’d never say from who—and whacked a bloke in Battersea. He and his mate were trying to carjack his BMW and the bloke didn’t cooperate like they wanted. Stoney shot him in the back of the head. An execution. His mate turned him in.”

She stood there for a moment, as if evaluating this. Then she went back to work.

“Thing is,” Nkata went on, “I could’ve gone the same way and was doing jus’ that, ’cept I figured I was cleverer than Stoney. I could fight better, an’ anyway I wasn’t in’erested in ripping off cars. I had a gang, see, and they were my brothers, more brothers to me’n Stoney could’ve ever been anyway. So I fought with them cos that’s what we did. We fought over turf. This pavement, that pavement, this newsagent’s, that tobacconist. I end up in Casualty with my face split open”—he gestured to his cheek and the scar that ran down it—“and my mum faints dead on the floor when she sees it. I look at her and I look at my dad and I know he means to beat me bloody when we get home, with or without my face done up in stitches. And I see—all of a sudden, this was—that he means to beat me not for myself but cos I hurt Mum like Stoney hurt Mum. And then I really see how they treat her: doctors and nurses in Casualty, this is. They treat her like she did somethin’ wrong, which is what they think she did cos one of her boys ’s in prison and the other’s a Brixton Warrior. And that’s it.” Nkata held out his hands, empty. “A cop makes conversation with me—this is about the fight that got me the scar—and he starts me off in another direction. And I cling to him and I cling to it cos I won’t do to Mum what Stoney did.”

“As easy as that?” Yasmin asked. He could hear the note of scorn in her voice.

“As simple as that,” Nkata corrected her politely. “I wouldn’t ever say it was easy.”

Yasmin finished packing her makeup away. She closed the case with a snap and heaved it from the counter. She carried it to the back of the shop and shoved it on a shelf before she placed one hand on a hip and said, “That all?”

“No.”

“Fine. What else?”

“I live with my mum and dad. Over on Loughborough Estate. I’m goin’ to stay living with them no matter what cos they’re getting older and the older they get, the more dangerous it is over there. For them. I won’t have them facing aggro from smackheads an’ dope dealers an’ pimps. That lot don’t like me, they don’t wan’ to be round me, they sure as hell don’ trust me, and they keep their distance from my mum and my dad, long as I’m there. Tha’s how I want it and I’ll do what it takes to keep it that way.”

Yasmin cocked her head. Her face maintained its distrustful, scornful expression, the same expression she’d worn since he’d met her. “So. Why’re you telling me this?”

“Cos I want you to know the truth. An’ thing is, Yas, the truth i’n’t a road without curves and diversions. So you got to know that, yeah, I was ’tracted to you the first moment I saw you and who wouldn’t be? So, yeah, I wanted you away from Katja Wolfe but not cos I believed you’re meant for a man’s love and not a woman’s love cos I di’n’t know that, did I, how could I. But cos I wanted a chance with you and the only way to get that chance was to prove to you Katja Wolfe wasn’t worthy of what you had to offer. But at the same time, Yas, I liked Daniel from the first ’s well. An’ I could see Daniel liked me back. An’ I bloody well know—knew it then and know it now—how life can be for kids on the street with time on their hands, specially kids like Daniel, without dads in the house. An’ it wasn’t cos I thought you weren’t—aren’t—a good mum, cos I could see that you were. But I thought Dan needed more—he still needs more—an that’s what I came to tell you.”

“That Daniel needs—”

“No. All of it, Yas. Beginning to end.”

He still stood a distance from her, but he thought he could see the muscles move in her smooth dark neck as she swallowed. He thought he could see her heart beat in the vein on her temple as well. But he knew he was trying to think things into a reality defined by his hopes. Let it go, he told himself. Let it be what it is.

“What d’you want now, then?” Yasmin finally asked him. She returned to the beauty chair and picked up the two remaining wigs, holding one under each arm.

Nkata shrugged. “Nothing,” he said.

“An’ that’s the truth?”

“You,” he said. “All right. You. But I don’t know if tha’s even the truth, which is why I don’t want to say it out loud. In bed? Yeah. I want you like that. In bed. With me. But everything else? I don’t know. So tha’s the truth, and it’s what you’re owed. You always deserved it, but you never got it. Not from your husband and not from Katja. I don’t know if you’re even getting it from your current man, but you’re getting it from me. So there was you first an’ foremost in my eyes. And there was Daniel afterwards. An’ it’s never been as simple as you thinking I’m using Dan to get to you, Yasmin. Nothin’ is ever simple as that.”

Everything was said. He felt empty of nearly all that he was: poured onto the lino at her feet. She could step right through him or sweep him up and dump him in the street or…anything, really. He was bare and helpless as the day he’d been born.

They stared at each other. He felt the wanting as he’d not felt it before, as if stating it blatantly had increased it tenfold till it gnawed at him like an animal chewing from the inside out.

Then she spoke. Two words only and at first he didn’t know what she meant. “What man?”

“What?” His lips were dry.

“What current man? You said my current man.”

“That bloke. The last time I was here.”

She frowned. She looked towards the window as if seeing a reflection of the past in the glass. Then back at him. She said, “Lloyd Burnett.”

“You di’n’t say his name. He came in—”

“To get his wife’s wig,” she said.

He said, “Oh,” and felt a perfect fool.

His mobile rang then, which saved him from having to say anything more. He flipped it open, said, “Hang on,” into it, and used the blessed intervention as a means to his escape. He took out one of his cards and he approached Yasmin. She didn’t raise the wig stands to defend herself. She wore only a jersey on top—no pocket available—so he slid his card into the front pocket of her jeans. He was careful not to touch her any more than that.

He said, “I got to take this call. Someday, Yas, I hope it’s you ringing.” He was closer to her than she’d ever let him get. He could smell her scent. He could sense her fear.

He thought, Yas, but he didn’t say it. He left the shop and went towards his car, drawing the mobile to his ear.

THE VOICE ON the phone was unfamiliar to him, as was the name. “It’s Gigi,” a young woman said. “You told me to ring you?”

He said, “Who?”

She said, “Gigi. From Gabriel’s Wharf? Crystal Moon?”

The association brought him round quick enough, for which he was grateful. He said, “Gigi. Right. Yeah. Wha’s happened?”

“Robbie Kilfoyle’s been in.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “He made a purchase.”

“You got paperwork on it?”

“I got the till receipt. Right here in front of me.”

“Hang on to it,” Nkata told her. “I’m on my way.”

LYNLEY SENT the message to Mitchell Corsico immediately after he talked to St. James: The investigation’s independent forensic specialist would make a fine second profile for The Source, he told him. Not only was he an international expert witness and a lecturer at the Royal College of Science, but he and Lynley shared a personal history that began at Eton and had spanned the years since then. Did Corsico think a conversation with St. James would be profitable? He did, and Lynley gave the reporter Simon’s contact number. This would be enough to remove Corsico, his Stetson, and his cowboy boots from sight, Lynley hoped. It would keep the rest of the investigation’s team out of the reporter’s mind, as well. At least for a time.

He returned to Victoria Street then, details from the past several hours roiling round in his head. He kept going back to one of them, one offered by Havers in their phone conversation.

The name on the letting agreement at the estate agency—the only name aside from Barry Minshall’s that they could associate with MABIL—was J. S. Mill, Havers had told him. He’d supplied the rest, although she’d already got there: J. S. Mill. John Stuart Mill, if one wished to continue the theme set up at the Canterbury Hotel.

Lynley wanted to think that it was all part of a literary joke—wink wink, nudge nudge—among the members of the organisation of paedophiles. Sort of a slap in the collective face of the unwashed, unread, and uneducated general public. Oscar Wilde on the registration card at the Canterbury Hotel. J. S. Mill on the letting agreement with Taverstock & Percy. God only knew who else they would find on other documents relating to MABIL. A. A. Milne, possibly. G. K. Chesterton. A. C. Doyle. The possibilities were endless.

So, for that matter, were the million and one coincidences that happened every day. But still the name remained, taunting him. J. S. Mill. Catch me if you can. John Stuart Mill. John Stuart. John Stewart.

There was no use denying it to himself: Lynley had felt a quivering in his palms when Havers had said the name. That quivering translated to the questions that police work—not to mention life itself—always prompted the wise man to ask. How well do we ever know anyone? How often do we let outward appearances—including speech and behaviour—define our conclusions about individuals?

I don’t need to tell you what this means, do I? Lynley could still see the grave concern on St. James’s face.

Lynley’s answer had taken him places he didn’t want to go. No. You don’t need to tell me a thing.

What it all really meant was asking that the cup be passed along to someone else, but that wasn’t going to happen. He was in too far, truly “steep’d in blood so deep,” and he couldn’t retrace a single one of his steps. He had to see the investigation through to its conclusion, no matter where each single branch of it led. And there was decidedly more than one branch to this matter. That was becoming obvious.

A compulsive personality, yes, he thought. Driven by demons? He did not know. That restlessness, the occasional anger, the ill-chosen word. How had the news been received when Lynley—ahead of everyone else—had been handed the superintendent’s position after Webberly was struck down in the street? Congratulations? No one congratulated anyone over anything in those days that had followed Webberly’s attempted murder. And who would have thought to, with the superintendent fighting for his life and everyone else trying to find his assailant? So it was not important. It meant absolutely nothing. Someone had to step in, and he’d been tapped to do it. And it wasn’t permanent, so it could hardly have been an important enough detail to make anyone want…decide…be pushed to…No.

Yet everything took him back inexorably to his earliest days among his fellow officers: the distance they’d originally placed between themselves and him who would never be one of the lads, not really. No matter what he did to level the playing field, there would always be what they knew about him: the title, the land, the public school voice, the wealth and the assumed privilege it brought, and who bloody cared except everyone did at the end of the day and everyone probably always would.

But anything more than that—dislike evolving to grudging acceptance and respect—was impossible to consider. It was disloyal, even, to entertain such thoughts. It was divisive and nonproductive, surely.

Yet none of this kept him from having a chat with DAC Cherson in Personnel Management, although his heart was at its heaviest when he did it. Cherson authorised the temporary release of employment records. Lynley read them and told himself they amounted to nothing. Details that could be interpreted any way one wanted: a bitter divorce, a ruthless child-custody situation, spirit-breaking child support, a disciplinary letter for sexual harassment, a word to the wise about keeping fit, a bad knee, a commendation for extra course-work completed. Nothing, really. They amounted to nothing.

Still, he took notes and tried to ignore the sense of betrayal he felt as he did it. We all have skeletons, he told himself. My own are uglier than those of others.

He returned to his office. From where he’d stowed it on top of his desk, he read the profile of their killer. He thought about it. He thought about everything: from meals eaten and meals skipped, to boys disabled by an unexpected shot of electricity. What he thought was no. What he concluded was no. What he did was turn to the phone and ring Hamish Robson on his mobile.

He found him between sessions in his office near the Barbican, where he met with private clients away from the grim surroundings of Fischer Psychiatric Hospital for the Criminally Insane. It was a sideline dealing with normal people in temporary crisis, Robson told him.