Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

He shot her a look, smiled ruefully. “Funny when you think,” he said quietly, the Caribbean in him coming out in his pronunciation of the final word. T'ink, he said.

“Think what?”

“Think how many times it could've been my mum getting a visit like this from the rozzers. If I'd kept on walking the path I was walking.”

“Yeah. Well…” She jerked her head towards the door and mounted the single step. “We've all got blots on our copybooks, Winnie.”

The faint sound of a child's crying seeped round the cracks in the doorjamb. When Barbara rang the bell, the crying approached. It intensified, a woman's harassed voice said, “Shush now. Shush. That's quite enough, Darryl. You made your point,” and then called through the panels, “Who's there, then?”

“Police,” Barbara answered. “Can we have a word?”

There was no response at first, other than Darryl's crying, which went unabated. Then the door swung open and they were confronted by a woman with a small boy on her hip. He was in the act of rubbing his running nose against the collar of the green smock she wore. The Primrose Path was embroidered on the left breast of this, along with the name Sal beneath it.

Barbara had her warrant card ready. She was showing it to Sal when a younger woman came dashing down the narrow stairs that rose about nine feet from the entry. She wore a chenille dressing gown with one chewed-up sleeve. Her hair was wet. She said, “Sorry, Mum. Give him here. Thanks for the break. I needed it. Darryl, what're you on about, luv?”

“Da’,” Darryl sobbed, and reached a grimy hand towards Nkata.

“Wanting his daddy,” Nkata remarked.

“Not likely he'd be wanting that bloody bastard,” Sal muttered. “Give your granna kiss, then, darling boy,” she said to Darryl, who in his distress didn't oblige her. She bussed him noisily on one wet cheek. “It's his tummy again, Cyn. I made him a hot water bottle. It's in the kitchen. Mind you wrap it in a towel before you give it him.”

“Thanks, Mum. You're a queen,” Cyn said. Her son on her hip, she disappeared down the corridor towards the back of the house.

“What's this about, then?” Sal looked from Nkata to Barbara, not moving from her position by the door. She hadn't invited them to step inside. It was clear that she didn't intend to do so. “It's gone ten. I expect you know that.”

Barbara said, “May we come in, Mrs.?”

“Cole,” she said. “Sally Cole. Sal.” She stepped back from the door and scrutinised them as they crossed the threshold. She folded her arms beneath her breasts. In the better light of the entryway, Barbara saw that her hair-cut bluntly just below her ears-was streaked on either side of her face with panels of white-blonde. These served to emphasise her irregular and incongruous features: a broad forehead, a hooked nose, and a tiny rosebud mouth. “I can't cope with suspense, so tell me what you got to tell me straightaway.”

“Could we…?” Barbara nodded towards a door that opened to the left of the stairs. Beyond lay what appeared to be the sitting room, although it was dominated by a large and curious arrangement of gardening tools that stood in its centre. A rake with every other tine missing, a hoe with its edge turned inwards, and a blunted shovel all formed a teepee over a cultivator whose handle had been split in half. Barbara examined this curiosity and wondered if it had anything to do with Sal Cole's manner of dress: The green smock and the words embroidered on it did suggest a source of employment that leaned towards the floral, if not the agricultural.

“He's a sculptor, my Terry,” Sal informed her, corning to stand at Barbara's side. “That's his medium.”

“Gardening tools?”

“He's got a piece with secateurs that makes me want to cry. Both my kids're artists. Cyn's doing a course at the college of fashion. Is this about my Terry? 'S he in some sort 'f trouble? Tell me straightaway.”

Barbara glanced at Nkata to see if he wanted to do the dubious honours. He raised the fingers of one hand to his scarred cheek as if the cicatrix there had begun to throb. She said, “Terry isn't home, then, Mrs. Cole?”

“He doesn't live here,” Sal informed her. She went on to say that he shared digs and a studio in Battersea with a girl called Cilia Thompson, a fellow artist. “Something's not happened to Cilia, has it? You're not looking for Terry because of Cilia? They're only friends, the two of them. So if she's been roughed up again, you best talk to that boyfriend of hers, not to my Terry. Terry wouldn't hurt a flea if it was biting him. He's a good boy, always has been.”

“Is there a… Well, is there a Mr. Cole?” If they were about to suggest to this woman that her son was dead, Barbara wanted another presence-a potentially stronger presence-to help absorb the blow.

Sal gave a hoot. “Mr. Cole-as he was -did a Houdini on us when Terry was five. Found hisself a little bit of fluff with a nice set of kitties down in Folkestone, and that was that for Mr. Family Man. Why?” Her voice had begun to sound more anxious. “What's this all about, then?”

Barbara nodded at Nkata. He, after all, had come to London to fetch the woman should it be necessary. It was in his hands how to break the news that the unidentified body they had might well be her son's. He began with the Triumph. Sal Cole confirmed that her son owned such a motorcycle, and as she did so, she also made the logical leap to a traffic accident. She went on so quickly to ask what hospital he'd been taken to that Barbara found herself wishing that the news they bore was as simple as a crash on the motorway.

There was no easy way. Barbara saw that Nkata had moved to a photograph-laden mantel that spanned a shallow embrasure where a fireplace once had been. He lifted one of the plastic-framed pictures, and the expression on his face told Barbara that carting Mrs. Cole all the way to Derbyshire was probably going to be a mere formality. Nkata had, after all, seen pictures of the corpse if not the corpse itself. And while murder victims sometimes bore little resemblance to their living selves, there were usually enough areas of commonality for the astute observer to make a tentative identification from a photograph.

Seeing the picture appeared to give Nkata the courage to tell the tale, which he did with a simplicity and sympathy that impressed Barbara more than she would have thought possible.

There had been a double homicide in Derbyshire, Nkata informed Mrs. Cole. A young man and a woman were the victims. Terry's motorcycle had been found nearby, and the young man in question bore something of a resemblance to this photograph from the mantel. It could be coincidental, of course, that Terry's motorcycle would be found near the scene of a murder. But, nonetheless, the police needed someone to accompany them to Derbyshire in an attempt to identify the body. Mrs. Cole could be that someone. Or if she believed it would be too traumatic, then someone else-perhaps Terry's sister… It was up to Mrs. Cole. Nkata gently replaced the photograph.

Sal watched him, looking stunned. She said, “Derbyshire? No. I don't think so. My Terry's working on a project in London, a big-money project. A commission taking up all his time. It's why he couldn't be here last Sunday for lunch like he usually is. He dotes on our little Darryl, he does. He wouldn't miss his Sunday afternoon with Darryl. But the commission… Terry couldn't come because of the commission. That's what he said.”

Her daughter joined them then, having donned a blue track suit and slicked back her hair. She paused in the doorway and appeared to take a reading of the room. She went hastily to Sal's side, saying, “Mum. What's wrong? You've gone dead white. Sit down or you'll faint.”