Elizabeth George - With No One As Witness

“Back to alibis, background checks, prior arrests. Back, I daresay, to Elephant and Castle.”

“We’ve damn well done-”

“So we do it again. Plus every other man whose name has come up in the course of the investigation. They’re all going under the microscope. Make yourself part of that.”

She looked round the room. “Where’s Winnie?” she asked.

“Belgravia,” Stewart said. “He’s having a closer look at the CCTV tapes they got off Cadogan Lane.”

No one said why, but no one had to. Nkata was looking at the CCTV tapes because Nkata was black and a mixed-race boy was featured on them. God, but they were so obvious, Barbara thought. Have a look at these snaps of the shooter, Winnie. You know how it is. All of them look the same to us and, besides, if this is gang related…You get the picture, don’t you?

She picked up a phone and punched in the numbers of Nkata’s mobile. When he answered, she heard voices babbling in the background.

“Masoud said Robson’s not our bloke,” she told him. “But I expect you’re up to speed on that.”

“No one knew till St. James phoned Stewart, Barb. This was…Must’ve been round eleven this morning? Wasn’t personal.”

“You know me too well.”

“Not like I don’t go through the same dance.”

“How’re you doing? What d’they expect you to be able to tell them?”

“From looking at the tapes? I don’t think they know. They’re trying everything at this end. I’m just another source.”

“And?”

“Sweet FA. Kid’s mixed race. Mostly white, some black, and something else. Don’t know what. Th’other bloke in the picture? He could be anyone. He knew what he was doing. Kept himself covered, face away from the camera.”

“Well, that was one excellent use of your time, wasn’t it?”

“I can’t blame them, Barb. Doing what they can. They got a decent lead, though. Not five minutes before you rang. Came through by phone.”

“What is it? Where’d it come from?”

“Over West Kilburn. Harrow Road station’s got a snout in the community they depend on reg’larly, some black bloke with a big street rep and a nasty disposition, so no one messes with him. ’Cording to Harrow Road, this bloke saw the pictures in the paper from the CCTV, and he phoned them up and gave them a name. Could be nothing, but Harrow Road seem to think it’s worth looking into. Could be, they say, we got the shooter we’re looking for.”

“Who is it?”

“Didn’t get the name. Harrow Road are picking him up for questions. But if he’s the one, he’s going to crack. No doubt about it. He’s going to talk.”

“Why? How can they be so sure?”

“’Cause he’s twelve years old. And this i’n’t the first time he’s been in trouble.”

ST. JAMES GAVE Lynley the news. They met not in the corridor this time but rather in the small room that the family had been occupying for what seemed to Lynley like months on end. Helen’s parents had been talked into decamping, going in the company of Cybil and Daphne to a flat they owned in Onslow Square, where Helen herself had once lived. Penelope had returned to Cambridge to check on her husband and her three children. His own family were taking a few hours for rest and for a change of scene in Eaton Terrace. His mother had phoned when they’d arrived, saying, “Tommy, what shall we do with the flowers?” Scores of bouquets on the front porch, she said, a coverlet of them that descended the steps and went onto the pavement. He had no suggestions to give her. Offerings of sympathy could not touch him, he found.

Only Iris remained, stalwart Iris, the least Clydelike of all the Clyde sisters. Not a hint of elegance anywhere about her, her long hair no-nonsense and pulled back from her face with slides in the shape of horseshoes. She wore no makeup, and her skin was lined from the sun.

She’d wept when she’d first seen her youngest sister. She’d said fiercely, “This is not supposed to happen here, God damn it,” and he’d understood from that that she meant violence and death brought about by a gun. The provenance of this was America, not England. What was happening to the England she’d known?

She’d been gone too long, he wanted to tell her. The England she’d known had been dead for decades.

She’d sat with Helen for hours before she spoke again, and then it was to say to him quietly, “She’s not here, is she?”

“No. She’s not here,” Lynley agreed. For the spirit of Helen was gone entirely, now moved onward to the next part of existence-whatever that was. What remained was just the housing for that spirit, kept from putrescence by the questionable miracle of modern medicine.

When St. James arrived, Lynley took him to the waiting area, leaving Iris with Helen. He listened to the news about the Harrow Road police and their snout, but what he took in was a single piece of information: trouble with the law prior to this .

He said, “What sort of trouble, Simon?”

“Arson and bag snatching, according to Youth Offenders up there. He’s had a social worker attempting to counsel the family for some time. I spoke with her.”

“And?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. An older sister doing community service for a street mugging and a younger brother no one knows much about. They all live with an aunt and her boyfriend on a council estate. That’s all I know.”

“Youth Offenders,” Lynley said. “He has a social worker, then.”

St. James nodded. His gaze stayed on Lynley and Lynley could feel him making a study of him, evaluating him even as he too drew together the facts like strands of a web whose centre was always and forever the same.

“Youth at risk,” Lynley said. “Colossus.”

“Don’t torture yourself.”

He gave a bleak laugh. “Believe me, I don’t need to. The truth is doing the job well enough.”

TO ULRIKE, given the current circumstances, there were no two uglier words than internal investigation . That the board of trustees intended to gather information about her was bad enough. That they intended to do it through interviews and reviews was worse. She had enemies aplenty at Colossus now, and three of them were going to be happy as the dickens to take the opportunity to throw a few tomatoes against the image of herself that she’d tried to build.

Neil Greenham headed the list. He’d probably been storing his rotten little informational fruit grenades for months now, just waiting for the appropriate time to hurl them. For Neil was fighting for complete control of Colossus, and this was something that Ulrike had not realised till the latest development of Bensley and Richie turning up in her office. Of course, he’d never been a team player, had Neil-witness him actually losing a teaching job in a climate where the government was begging for teachers!-and while that had always been something of a red flag that Ulrike now admitted she should have noted, it was nothing compared to the insidious side of him that had been revealed with the unexpected advent in Elephant and Castle of two of the board members, not to mention the questions they had asked upon their arrival. So Neil was going to revel in the chance to tar her with a brush he’d no doubt been dipping in pitch since the first time she’d looked at him sideways.

Then there was Jack. The whole what-had-she-been- thinking of Jack. Her errors with Jack didn’t have to do with trotting off to talk to his landlady aunt, however. They had more to do with giving him a paid position at Colossus in the first place. Oh yes, that was supposed to be the whole theory about the organisation: to build the sense of self in malefactors till they didn’t have to malefact any longer. But she’d let fall by the wayside a critical piece of knowledge that she’d always possessed about individuals like Jack. They didn’t take kindly to others’ suspicions about them, and they were especially nasty when it came to the idea-however mistaken-that someone had grassed them up or was considering doing so. So Jack would be looking for payback, and he’d get it. He wouldn’t be able to think things through to the point of understanding how taking part in the facilitation of her demise at Colossus might come back and bite him in the arse once a replacement for her was found.