With No One As Witness Read online

  Yas, Yas, he wanted to say. That’s not the way it has to be.

  But instead, he said, “Missus Edwards,” and reached for his identification, as if he believed she didn’t remember who he was.

  She said, “What is it, man? ’Nother murderer you’re sniffing up round here? No one in this flat capable of that but me, so when is it I need the alibi for?”

  He shoved his warrant card back into his pocket. He didn’t sigh, although he wanted to. He said, “Could I have a word, Missus Edwards? Truth to tell, it’s about Dan.”

  She looked alarmed, in spite of herself. But as if she suspected a trick of some kind, she remained where she was, blocking his entrance. She said, “You best tell me what’s about Daniel, Constable.”

  “Sergeant now,” Nkata said. “Or does that make it worse?”

  She cocked her head. He found he missed the sight and the sound of her 101 beaded plaits, although her close-cropped hair suited her just as well. She said, “Sergeant, is it? That what you come to tell Daniel?”

  “I didn’t come to talk to Daniel,” he said patiently. “I come to talk to you. About Daniel. I c’n do it outside if that’s what you want, Missus Edwards, but you’re gonna get colder if you stand there much longer.” He felt his face get hot because of what his words implied about what he’d noticed: the tips of her breasts peaking against the flannel of the pyjama top, her exposed skin the colour of walnut goose-fleshing where the top formed a V. As best he could, Nkata avoided looking at the vulnerable parts of her that were open to the winter air, but still he could see the smooth and stately curve of her neck, the mole he’d never noticed before, beneath her right ear.

  She shot him a look of contempt and reached behind the door where, he knew, she kept a line of hooks for coats. She brought from it a heavy cardigan, which she took her time about donning and buttoning to the throat. When she was garbed to her liking, she gave him her attention again. “Better?” she asked.

  “Whatever’s best for you.”

  “Mum?” It was her son’s voice, coming from his bedroom doorway, which, Nkata knew, was to the left of the front door. “Wha’s going on? Who’s—” Daniel Edwards stepped into view just beyond Yasmin’s shoulders. His eyes widened when he saw who was calling on them, and his grin was contagious, exposing those perfect white teeth of his, so adult in his twelve-year-old face.

  Nkata said, “’Lo, Dan. Wha’s happening?”

  “Hey!” Daniel said. “You ’member my name.”

  “He’s got it in his records,” Yasmin Edwards said to her son. “Tha’s what cops do. Are you ready for the cocoa yet? It’s in the kitchen if you want it. Homework finished?”

  “You coming in?” Daniel said to Nkata. “We got cocoa. Mum makes it fresh. I have enough to share ’f you like.”

  “Dan! Is your hearing—”

  “Sorry, Mum,” Daniel said. That grin again, though. Daniel disappeared through the kitchen doorway. The opening and closing of cupboards ensued from that direction.

  “In?” Nkata said to the boy’s mother, with a nod at the interior of the flat. “This’ll take five minutes. I c’n promise that, cos I got to get home.”

  “I don’t want you trying to get Dan—”

  Nkata raised his hands in a sign of surrender. “Missus Edwards, I bother you since what happened happened? No, right? I think you c’n trust me.”

  She seemed to think this over while, behind her, the cheerful clatter continued in the kitchen. Finally, she swung the door open. Nkata stepped inside and shut it behind him before she had a chance to change her mind.

  He gave a quick look round. He’d determined not to care about what he might find inside, but he couldn’t help his curiosity. When he’d met Yasmin Edwards, she’d been living as lovers with a German woman, a lag like herself who’d done time for murder, also like herself. So he wondered if the German had been replaced.

  There was no sign of this being the case. Everything was much as it had been before. He turned to Yasmin and found her watching him. She held her arms crossed beneath her breasts and her face read, Satisfied?

  He hated being off balance with her. He wasn’t used to that with women. He said, “There’s a boy been murdered. Body was put up in St. George’s Gardens, near Russell Square, Missus Edwards.”

  She said with a shrug, “North of the river,” as if she meant, How can that affect this part of town?

  He said, “No. It’s more than that. This’s one of a string of boys been found all over town. Gunnersbury Park, Tower Hamlets, carpark in Bayswater, and now the garden. One in the garden’s white, but the rest of them, looks like all been mixed race. And young, Missus Edwards. Kids.”

  She shot a look towards the kitchen. He knew what she was thinking: Her Daniel fitted the profile he’d just described. He was young; he was mixed race. Still, she shifted her weight to one hip and said to Nkata, “All north of the river. Don’t affect us over here. And why’re you really here, ’f you don’t mind my asking?,” as if everything she said and the abrupt way she said it could protect her from fearing for her boy’s safety.

  Before Nkata could answer, Daniel returned to them, a cup of steaming cocoa in his hand. He appeared to avoid his mother’s look as he said to Nkata, “I brought you this anyway. It’s made from scratch. You c’n have more sugar in it if you want.”

  “Cheers, Dan.” Nkata took the mug from the boy and clasped him on the shoulder. Daniel grinned and shifted from one bare foot to the other. “Look like you grown since I saw you,” Nkata added.

  “Did,” Daniel said. “We measured. We got marks on a wall in the kitchen. You c’n see if you want. Mum marks me first of every month. I grew two inches.”

  “Sprouting up like that,” Nkata said, “make your bones hurt?”

  “Yeah! How’d you know? Oh, I ’xpect cos you grew fast as well.”

  “Tha’s right,” Nkata said. “Five inches one summer. Ouch.”

  Daniel laughed. He appeared ready to settle in for a chat, but his mother stopped this by saying his name sharply. Daniel looked from Nkata to her, then back to Nkata.

  “Have your cocoa,” Nkata said. “See you later.”

  “Yeah?” The boy’s face asked that a promise be made.

  Yasmin Edwards didn’t allow it, saying, “Daniel, this man’s here on business, nothing else.” That was enough. The boy scooted back to the kitchen, casting one final look over his shoulder. Yasmin waited till he was gone before she said to Nkata, “Anything else?”

  He took a gulp of the cocoa and set the mug on the iron-legged coffee table where the same red high-heel-shaped ashtray still sat, empty now that the German woman who’d used it was gone from Yasmin Edwards’ life. He said, “You got to have more of a care right now. With Dan.”

  Her lips flattened. “You trying to tell me—”

  “No,” he said. “You the best mum that boy could have in the world, and I mean it, Yasmin.” He startled himself with his use of her given name, and he was grateful when she pretended not to notice. He hurried on. “I know you got stuff to do coming out ’f your ears, what with the wig business an’ all that. Dan spends time on his own, not cos that’s the way you want it but cos that’s how it is. All I’m saying is, this bleeder’s picking up boys Dan’s age and he’s killing them, and I don’t want that to happen to Dan.”

  “He’s not stupid,” Yasmin said curtly, although Nkata could tell this was all bravado. She wasn’t stupid, either.

  “I know that, Yas. But he’s…” Nkata searched for the words. “You c’n tell he needs a man. ’S obvious. An’ from what we c’n tell ’bout the boys been killed…They’re going with him. They’re not fighting it. No one sees anything cos there’s nothing to see cos they trust him, okay?”

  “Daniel i’n’t about to go with some—”

  “We think he uses a van,” Nkata cut in, persisting in spite of her evident scorn. “We think it’s red.”

  “I’m saying. Daniel doesn’t take rides. Not from peop
le he doesn’ know.” She cast a look in the direction of the kitchen. She lowered her voice. “What’re you saying? You think I di’n’t teach him that?”

  “I know you taught him. Like I said, I c’n see you’re a good mum to the boy. But that doesn’ change what the fact is inside of him, Yas. And the fact is, he needs a man.”

  “Thinkin’ you’re going to be it or something?”

  “Yas.” Now that he’d begun saying her name, Nkata found he couldn’t say it enough. It was an addiction for him, one he knew he had to be rid of in very short order or he would be lost, like a needle freak dossing in a doorway in the Strand. So he tried again. “Missus Edwards, I know Dan spends time on his own cos you’re busy. And tha’s not good and tha’s not bad. It’s just how it is. All I want you to unnerstan is wha’s going on in your neighbourhood, see?”

  “Fine,” she said. “I un’erstand now.” She moved past him to the door and reached for the knob, saying, “You did what you come for, and now you can—”

  “Yas!” Nkata wouldn’t be dismissed. He was there to do the woman a service whether she liked it or not, and that service was to impress upon her the danger and urgency of the situation, neither of which she apparently wished to grasp. “There’s a bugger out there going after boys just like Daniel,” Nkata said rather more hotly than he would have liked. “He’s getting them in a van and he’s burning their hands till the skin goes black. Then he’s strangling them and he’s slicing them open.” He had her attention now, and that spurred him to continue, as if each word were a way he proved something to her, although what that something was he didn’t want to consider at the moment. “Then he marks them up a bit more with their own blood. And then he puts their bodies on display. Boys go with him and we don’t know why and till we know…” He saw that her face had changed. Anger, horror, and fear had metamorphosed into…What was it he was seeing?

  She was looking beyond him, her gaze fixed on the kitchen. And he knew. Just like that—as if fingers had snapped in front of his face and he suddenly returned to consciousness, he knew. He didn’t have to turn. He only had to wonder how long Daniel had been standing in the doorway and how much he had heard.

  Aside from having given Yasmin Edwards a wealth of information that she did not need and that he was not authorised to give to anyone, he’d frightened her son, and he knew that without looking, just as he knew he’d long outstayed whatever welcome he might have had in Doddington Grove Estate.

  “Done enough?” Yasmin Edwards whispered fiercely, moving her gaze from her son to Nkata. “Said enough? Seen enough?”

  Nkata tore his gaze from her, moving it to take in Daniel. He was standing in the doorway with a piece of toast in his hand, one leg crossed over the other and squeezing as if he needed the toilet. His eyes were big, and what Nkata felt was sorrow that he’d had to see or hear his mum in anything resembling an altercation with a man. He said to Daniel, “I d’n’t want you to hear that, man. No need and I’m sorry. You just be careful on the street. There’s a killer going after boys your age. I don’t want him going after you.”

  Daniel nodded. He looked solemn. He said, “’Kay.” And then when Nkata turned to leave, “You come round again or what?”

  Nkata didn’t answer him directly. He said, “You just keep safe, okay?” And as he stepped out of the flat, he ventured a final look at Daniel Edwards’ mother. His expression said to her, What did I tell you, Yasmin? Daniel needs a man.

  Her expression responded just as clearly, Whatever you’re thinking, that man i’n’t you.

  CHAPTER SIX

  FIVE MORE DAYS PASSED. THEY COMPRISED WHAT EVERY investigation into murder comprised, cubed by the fact that the squad was dealing with multiple killings. So the hours that stacked upon hours, which worked their way into long days, longer nights, and meals grabbed on the run, ended up being devoted to 80 percent slog. This involved endless phone calls, record checks, fact gathering, statements taking, and reports making. Another 15 percent went to coalescing all the data and trying to make some sense of it. Three percent went to revisiting every piece of information dozens of times to make sure nothing had been misunderstood, misplaced, or missed altogether, and 2 percent went to the occasional feeling that progress was actually being made. Staying power was necessary for the first 80 percent. Caffeine worked well for the rest.

  During this time, the Press Bureau did its promised part to keep the media informed, and at these events AC Hillier continued to require DS Winston Nkata—and frequently Lynley as well—to serve as window dressing for the Met’s display of Your Taxes at Work. Despite the maddening nature of the press conferences, Lynley had to admit that, so far, Hillier’s performances in front of the journalists appeared to be paying off, since the press had not begun baying yet. But that didn’t make the time spent with them any less onerous.

  “My efforts might best be devoted to other pursuits, sir,” he informed Hillier as diplomatically as possible after his third appearance on the dais.

  “This is part of the job,” was Hillier’s reply. “Cope.”

  There was little enough to report to the journalists. DI John Stewart having divided his allocation of officers into teams, they were working with a military precision that could not be anything but pleasing to the man. Team one had completed their study of the alibis given by the possible suspects they’d dug up after looking into releases from mental hospitals and prisons. They’d done the same for sex offenders set free within the last six months. They’d documented who was working in open conditions prior to discharge, and they’d added homeless shelters to their list, to see if anyone behaving suspiciously had been hanging about on any of the murder nights. So far they’d uncovered nothing.

  In the meantime, team two had taken over beating the bushes in an effort to roust out witnesses…to anything. Gunnersbury Park still looked like their best bet for this, and DI Stewart was, as he put it, damn well determined to find something in that direction. Surely, he had lectured the team, someone had to have seen a vehicle parked on Gunnersbury Road in the early hours of the morning when victim number one had been left inside, for it remained that the only two means of access into the park after hours were over the wall—which at eight feet high seemed an unlikely route for someone carrying a body—or through one of the two boarded-up sections of that wall on Gunnersbury Road. But so far, a canvassing of houses across the street had given team two nothing, and interviews with nearly all the lorry drivers who would have been on that route hadn’t unearthed anything either. Nor had conversations—still ongoing—with taxi and minicab companies.

  They were left with the red van seen in the area of St. George’s Gardens. But when Swansea delivered a list of such vehicles registered to owners in the Greater London area, the total was an impossible 79,387. Even Hamish Robson’s profile of the killer—suggesting that they limit their interest to those vehicle owners who were male, single, and between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five—didn’t make that number remotely manageable.

  The entire situation made Lynley long for the cinematic version of the detective’s life: a brief period of slog, a slightly longer period of cogitation, and then great scenes of action in which the hero chased the villain over land, over sea, through back alleys, and beneath elevated railway tracks, finally clobbering him into submission and securing his exhausted confession. But that wasn’t how it was.

  It was after yet another appearance in front of the press that three hopeful developments occurred within moments of each other, however.

  Lynley returned to his office in time to pick up the phone and receive a call from SO7. The analysis of the black residue on all of the bodies and on the bicycle had coughed up a valuable piece of information. The van they were looking for was likely a Ford Transit. The residue came from the disintegration of a type of optional rubber lining that had been offered for use on the floor of this vehicle between ten and fifteen years ago. The Ford Transit detail was going to go some way towards narrowi
ng down the list they’d received from Swansea, although they wouldn’t know by how much until they fed the data into the computer.

  When Lynley returned to the incident room with this news, he was greeted by the second development. They’d had a positive identification on the body left in the Bayswater carpark. Winston Nkata had taken a jaunt to Pentonville Prison to show photographs of their killer’s second victim to Felipe Salvatore—doing time for armed robbery and assault—and Salvatore had sobbed like a five-year-old when he declared the dead boy to be his little brother Jared whom he’d reported missing the first time he’d skipped a regular visit to the clink. As for any other members of Jared’s family…They were proving more difficult to locate, a fact apparently having to do with the cocaine addiction and peripatetic nature of the dead boy’s mother.

  The final development also came from Winston Nkata, who’d spent two mornings on Kipling Estate, attempting to unearth someone whom they knew only as Blinker. His perseverance—not to mention his good manners—had finally paid off: One Charlie Burov, aka Blinker, had been located and was willing to talk to someone about his relationship with Kimmo Thorne, the St. George’s Gardens victim. He didn’t want to meet up on the housing estate where he dossed at his sister’s, though. Instead he would meet someone—not in uniform, he’d apparently stressed—inside Southwark Cathedral, five pews from the back on the left-hand side, at precisely 3:20 in the afternoon.

  Lynley grasped the opportunity to get out of the building for a few hours. He phoned the assistant commissioner with an update that offered fodder for the next press conference, and he himself effected an escape to Southwark Cathedral. He tapped DC Havers to go along. He told Nkata to check Jared Salvatore’s name with Vice in the last police borough in which he’d lived, and after that to get on to the present location of the boy’s family. Then he set off with Havers in the direction of Westminster Bridge.

  It was a straightforward affair to get to Southwark Cathedral once the general confusion round Tenison Way was mastered. Fifteen minutes after setting off from Victoria Street, Lynley and the detective constable were in the nave of the church.