Elizabeth George - With No One As Witness

“Why weren’t we informed?” Bensley asked. “Why did this information have to come to us from someone else?”

“From Neil, you mean.” Ulrike could not keep herself from saying it. She was caught between the desire to let them know she was perfectly aware of her Judas’s identity and the equal need to defend herself. She went on with, “I didn’t know myself till after Kimmo Thorne was murdered. He was the fourth victim. The police came round then.”

“But otherwise…?” Bensley did one of those tie-adjustment moves, of the kind meant to illustrate an incredulity that might otherwise strangle him. Mrs. Richie accompanied this with a click of her teeth. “How is it you didn’t know the other boys were dead?”

“Or even missing,” Mrs. Richie added.

“We’re not organised to keep attendance tabs on the clients,” Ulrike told them, as if they hadn’t had this explained to them a thousand times or more. “Once a boy or girl gets beyond the assessment course, they’re free to come and go as they like. They can participate in what we have to offer or they can drop out. We want them to stay because they want to be here. Only those who’re here as a probationary measure are monitored.” And even then, Colossus didn’t tattle on the kids straightaway. There was a certain amount of leeway given even to them, once they had completed the assessment course.

“That,” Bensley said, “is what we expected you to say.”

Or were told to expect, Ulrike thought. Neil had done his best: She’ll make excuses, but the fact remains: the director of Colossus damn well ought to know what’s going on with the kids Colossus is meant to be helping, wouldn’t you agree? I mean, how much work are we talking about: to look in on the courses and ask the instructors who’s there and who’s fallen by the wayside? And wouldn’t it be wise for the director of Colossus to place a phone call and try to locate a child who’s dropped out of a programme designed-and funded, let’s not forget that-to prevent him from dropping out in the first place? Oh, he’d done his very best, had Neil. Ulrike had to give him high marks for that.

She found she had no ready response to Bensley’s comment, so she waited to see what the board president and his companion had really come to see her about, which she reckoned was only tangentially related to the death of the Colossus boys.

“Perhaps,” Bensley said, “you were too distracted to know that boys had gone missing.”

“I’ve been no more distracted than usual,” Ulrike told him, “what with the plans for the North London branch and the associated fund-raising going on.” On your instruction, by the way , was what she did not add, but she did her best to imply it.

Bensley, however, didn’t make the inference she wished him to make. He said, “That’s not exactly how we understand it. There’s been another distraction for you, hasn’t there?”

“As I said, Mr. Bensley, there’s no easy way to approach this work. I’ve tried to keep my focus spread evenly on all the concerns a director would have in running a place like Colossus. If I missed the fact that several boys stopped coming, it was due to the number of concerns that I had to deal with related to the organisation. Frankly, I feel terrible that none of us”-with delicate emphasis on the word none -“managed to see that-”

“Let me be frank,” Bensley interrupted. Mrs. Richie settled herself in her chair, a movement of the hips spelling out Now we’ve got to the point .

“Yes?” Ulrike folded her hands.

“You’re under review, for want of a better word. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Ulrike, because overall your work for Colossus has seemed unimpeachable.”

“Seemed,” Ulrike said.

“Yes. Seemed.”

“Are you sacking me?”

“I didn’t say that. But consider yourself under scrutiny. We’ll be conducting…Shall we call it an internal investigation?”

“For want of a better word?”

“If you will.”

“And how do you intend to carry out this internal investigation?”

“Through review. Through interviews. Let me say that I believe you’ve largely done a fine job here at Colossus. Let me also say, personally, that I hope you emerge unscathed from this look at your employment and personal history here.”

“My personal history? What does that mean, exactly?”

Mrs. Richie smiled. Mr. Bensley hemmed. And Ulrike knew her goose was in the oven.

She cursed Neil Greenham, but she also cursed herself. She understood to what extent she was going to be cooked if she didn’t bring about a significant alteration to the status quo.

“PUT HIM THROUGH TWO IDENTITY PARADES,” WAS HOW DI Stewart had initially greeted the news that Hamish Robson had cooperated as far as the Davey Benton murder was concerned but had refused to admit to anything else. “Have Minshall and Masoud both look at him.”

To Barbara’s way of thinking, two identity parades was a waste of time since Barry Minshall had already tentatively identified Robson from the photograph she’d nicked at his mother’s flat. But she tried to see it as DI Stewart would: not as the compulsion towards overkill that had long made the DI a notorious and tiresome personality at the Yard but as a tremor in the earth designed to rattle Robson into further admissions. The very act of standing in a line of men and waiting to learn if an unseen witness would finger you as the perpetrator of a crime was unnerving. Having to do it twice and hence understanding that there was yet another witness to God only knew what…At the end of the day, that was actually a very nice touch, and Barbara had to admit it. So she made the arrangements to have Minshall carted over to the Shepherdess Walk station, and she stood behind the two-way mirror while the magician picked out Robson in an instant, saying, “That’s the man. That’s two-one-six-oh.”

Barbara had the pleasure of saying to Robson, “That’s one down, mate,” so as to leave him dangling in the wind of suspense. Then she cooled her heels while Muwaffaq Masoud worked his way from Hayes into the City via a wasted eternity on the Piccadilly line. Even though she understood the game plan that Stewart was following, at that point she would have preferred that Stewart follow it with someone other than her. So she still tried to work her way out of having to hang about the Shepherdess Walk station waiting for Masoud to turn up. He was, she told DI Stewart, going to say the same as Minshall, so wouldn’t her time be better spent looking for the lockup where Robson’d left the van? There was going to be a mountain of evidence against the sod when they found that lockup, wasn’t there?

Stewart’s response had been, “Set about the job you’ve been assigned, Constable,” whereupon he doubtless returned to his list of to-dos. He was a great one for making lists, was Stewart. Barbara could only imagine how his day began at home as he consulted his self-made schedule to see what time he was meant to clean his teeth.

Her own day had begun with Breakfast News on the telly. They ran the best of the CCTV footage that they’d managed to get off a house in a street not far from Eaton Terrace, and to this they added a more ill-defined image that they’d got from Sloane Square underground station. These were the individuals wanted for questioning in the shooting of Helen Lynley, Countess of Asherton, the presenters told their early morning audience. Anyone who recognised either one of them was asked to phone the incident room at the Belgravia Street police station.

Once the presenters had said her name, they then kept referring to Helen as Lady Asherton. It was as if the individual she was had been completely engulfed by her marriage. The fifth time the presenters used her title, Barbara turned off the telly and tossed the remote into a corner. She couldn’t cope with any more of it.