With No One As Witness

by Elizabeth George

  Both of the Colossus men, as things turned out, had juvenile records. Kilfoyle’s stuff was relatively minor. Stewart offered a list of truancy problems, vandalism reported by neighbours, and looking in windows where he didn’t belong, saying, “All meagre pickings. Except for the fact that he was dishonourably discharged from the army.”

  “For?”

  “Continually going AWOL.”

  “How does that relate?”

  “I was thinking of the profile. Disciplinary problems, failure to obey orders. It seems to fit.”

  “If you stretch it,” Lynley said. Before Stewart could take offence, he added, “What else? More on Kilfoyle?”

  “He’s got a job delivering sandwiches by bicycle round lunchtime. With an organisation called…” He referred to his notes. “Mr. Sandwich. That’s how he ended up at Colossus, by the way. He delivered there, got to know them, and started working as a volunteer after his sandwich hours. He’s been there for the last few years.”

  “Where is this place?” Lynley asked.

  “Mr. Sandwich? It’s on Gabriel’s Wharf.” And when Lynley looked up at this, Stewart smiled. “Right you are. Home of Crystal Moon.”

  “Well done, John. What about Veness?”

  “Even more joy. He’s a former Colossus boy. Been there since he was thirteen years old. A little arsonist, he was. Started out with small fires in the neighbourhood, but he escalated things to torching vehicles and then a whole squat. Got caught for that one, did some time in borstal, hooked up with Colossus afterwards. He’s their shining example now. Trot him out to their fund-raisers, they do. He gives the official spiel on how Colossus saved his life after which the hat’s passed round or whatever.”

  “His living situation?”

  “Veness…” Stewart referred to his notes. “He’s got a room over in Bermondsey. He’s not far from the market, as it happens. Kimmo Thorne flogging stolen silver and all that, if you recall. As for Kilfoyle…He’s got digs in Granville Square. Islington.”

  “Smart part of town for a sandwich-delivery boy,” Lynley remarked. “Check on it. Get on to the other bloke, Neil Greenham, as well. According to Barbara’s report—”

  “She actually made a report?” Stewart asked. “What miracle brought that about?”

  “—he taught at a primary school in North London,” Lynley plunged on. “Had a disagreement of some sort with his superior. About discipline, apparently. It resulted in his resignation. Have someone get on to that.”

  “Will do.” Stewart made a note.

  A knock on the door brought Barbara Havers into the office then. Close on her heels was Winston Nkata with whom she was in terse conversation. She looked excited. Nkata looked interested. Lynley grew momentarily heartened by the idea that progress might actually be about to occur.

  Havers said, “It’s Colossus. Got to be. Listen to this. Griffin Strong’s silk-screening business just happens to be in Quaker Street. Sound familiar? It did to me. Turns out he’s got a smallish factory in one of the warehouses, and when I asked round in the area to suss out which one, an old bloke on the pavement shook his head, made some grave mutterings like the ghost of Christmas past, and pointed out the spot where—as he put it—the ‘devil made his presence known.’”

  “Which meant?” Lynley asked.

  “That one of the bodies was found not two doors down from our Mr. Strong’s secondary means of employment, guv. The third of the bodies, as it turned out. Which sounded too bloody coincidental to be coincidental, so I checked out the rest. And listen to this…” She stuck half of her arm into her enormous shoulder bag and, after some struggle, pulled out her tattered spiral notebook. She ran a hand through her hair—doing nothing to improve its overall dishevelled look—and went on. “Jack Veness: number eight Grange Walk, not even a mile from the Shand Street tunnel. Robbie Kilfoyle: sixteen Granville Square, sneezing distance from St. George’s Gardens. Ulrike Ellis: two-five-eight Gloucester Terrace, just round two corners from a multi-storey carpark. The multi-storey carpark, if you know what I mean. This has got to be a Colossus situation, start to finish. If the bodies themselves didn’t scream that at us, where the bodies were put bloody well does.”

  “The Gunnersbury Park body?” John Stewart asked. He’d been listening with his head cocked, and his face wore an expression of paternal indulgence which Lynley knew that Havers would particularly loathe.

  “I haven’t got to that one yet,” she admitted. “But odds are that body from Gunnersbury Park is someone else from Colossus. And bigger odds are that Gunnersbury Park is a hop and a jump from where a Colossus employee lives. So all we have to do is get the names and addresses of everyone who works there. Of volunteers as well. Because believe me, sir, someone inside’s trying to paint the place black.”

  John Stewart shook his head. “I don’t like it, Tommy. A serial killer choosing his victims from within his immediate sphere? I can’t see how that plays with what we know about serial killers in general and this one in particular. We know this is an intelligent bloke we’re dealing with, and it’s damned lunacy to think he’d work there, volunteer there, or do anything else there. He’d know we’d twig it eventually, and then what? When we’re hot on his tail, what’s he going to do?”

  Havers countered. “You can’t be thinking it’s some major coincidence that every body we’ve been able to identify just happens to be associated with Colossus.” Stewart shot her a look, and she added, “Sir,” as an afterthought. “With respect, that doesn’t make sense.” She pulled out another notebook from her battered shoulder bag. Lynley saw it was the signing-in register they’d taken surreptitiously from the reception desk at Colossus earlier. She opened it, riffling through a few pages as she said, “And listen to this. I had a look through this on my way back from the East End just now. You’re not going to believe…Bloody hell, what liars.” She leafed through the book and read aloud as she flipped through the pages, “Jared Salvatore, eleven A.M. Jared Salvatore, two-ten P.M. Jared Salvatore, nine-forty A.M. Jared Bloody Blooming Salvatore, three twenty-two P.M.” She slapped the notebook down on the conference table. It slithered across and knocked John Stewart’s neatly compiled notes to the floor. “Am I right that no cookery school in London knows the first thing about Jared Salvatore? Well, why would they when he was doing his cookery course at Colossus all along? Our killer’s right there inside that place. He’s picking and choosing. He’s setting things up like a pro, and he doesn’t expect us to catch him at any of it.”

  “That fits in with something Robson pointed out,” Lynley said. “The sense of omnipotence the killer must have. How big a leap is it from putting bodies in public places to be working within the walls of Colossus? In both cases, he doesn’t expect to be caught.”

  “We need to get every one of these blokes under surveillance,” Havers said. “And we need to do it now.”

  “We haven’t the manpower for that,” John Stewart said.

  “Then we’ve got to get it. And we’ve also got to grill each one of them, dig into their backgrounds, ask them—”

  “As I’ve said, we’ve a manpower issue here.” DI Stewart turned away from Havers. He didn’t look pleased to have her grabbing control of the meeting. “Let’s not forget that, Tommy. And if our killer’s inside Colossus as the constable’s suggesting, then we’d better start looking at everyone else who works there as well. And at the other ‘clients’ who’re attached to the place: the participants or patients, whatever the hell they call themselves. I expect there are enough junior-level villains running round that place to fuel a dozen killings.”

  “That’s a waste of our time,” Havers insisted, and, “Sir, listen to me,” to Lynley.

  He cut in. “Your points are well taken, Havers. What did you get from Griffin Strong about the child who died on his watch in Stockwell?”

  The constable hesitated. She looked abashed.

  “Bloody hell,” DI John Stewart said. “Havers, did you not—”

&nb
sp; “Look. When I heard about the body in the warehouse—” she began quickly, only to be cut off by Stewart.

  “So you haven’t looked into the other yet? It’s a death on Strong’s watch in Stockwell, woman. Does that ring any damn bells for you?”

  “I’m getting on to it. I came straight back. I went to the files for this other information first because I thought—”

  “You thought. You thought.” Stewart’s voice was sharp. “It’s not your job to do the bloody thinking. When you’re given an order…” His fist hit the table. “Jesus. What the hell is it that keeps them from giving you the sack, Havers? I’d damn well like to know your secret, because whatever’s keeping you here isn’t between your ears and I sure as hell don’t think it’s between your legs.”

  Havers’ face went completely white. She said, “You completely sodding piece of—”

  “That’ll do,” Lynley said sharply. “You’re both out of order.”

  “She’s—”

  “That bastard just said—”

  “Enough! Keep it out of this office and out of this investigation or both of you are permanently off the case. Christ but we have enough trouble already without you two going for each other’s throats.” He paused, waiting for his blood to cool. In the silence, Stewart shot Havers a look that clearly assessed her as an impossible cow, and Havers herself seethed openly back at him, a man with whom she’d long ago managed to work for only three weeks before charging him with sexual harassment. Meanwhile Winston Nkata remained by the door in the position he nearly always adopted when placed in a room with more than two white colleagues: He stood with his arms crossed and merely observed, as he had been doing since he’d walked in.

  Lynley turned to him wearily. “What have you got for us, Winnie?”

  Nkata reported on his meetings: first with Sol Oliver in his car repair shop, then with Bram Savidge. He went on with his visit to the gym where Sean Lavery did his workouts. He concluded with something that diffused the tension in the room: He might have found someone who’d actually seen the killer.

  “There was some white bloke hanging round the gym not long before Sean went missing,” Nkata said. “He got noticed ’cause not many whites use the place. Seems one night he was lurking in the corridor just outside the workout room, and when one of the lifters asked him what did he want, he said he was new to the neighbourhood and just looking round for a place to work out. He never did go in, though. Not to the gym, not to the locker room, not to the steam room. Didn’t ask about membership or anything like it. Just showed up in the corridor.”

  “Did you get a description?”

  “Arranging for an e-fit. Bloke at the gym thinks he might be able to come up with a drawing of this bugger. Right off he was able to tell me no way did the villain belong there. Not a lifter at all, he said, smallish and thin. Long face. I think we got a chance here, Super.”

  “Well done, Winnie,” Lynley said.

  “That’s what I call good work,” John Stewart put in pointedly. “I’ll have you on my team anytime, Winston. And congratulations on the promotion. I don’t think I mentioned it earlier.”

  “John.” Lynley tried for patience. He waited till he found it before he went on. “Take the salt outside please. Phone Hillier. See if you can get manpower for surveillance. Winston, we’ve got Kilfoyle working at a place called Mr. Sandwich, back at Gabriel’s Wharf. Try to make a connection between him and Crystal Moon.”

  There was a general shuffling as the men went on their way, leaving Havers behind for Lynley to deal with. He waited till the door was shut to do so.

  She spoke first, her voice low but still hot. “I don’t have to bloody put up with—”

  “I know,” Lynley said. “Barbara. I know. He was out of order. You were in the right to react. But the other side of the coin, whether you want to see it or not, is that you provoked him.”

  “I provoked him? I provoked him to say…?” She seemed unable to finish. She sank into a chair. “Sometimes I don’t even know you.”

  “Sometimes,” he replied, “I don’t know myself.”

  “Then—”

  “You didn’t provoke the words,” Lynley interrupted. “They were inexcusable. But you provoked the fact of the words. Their existence, if you will.” He joined her at the table. He was feeling exasperated, and that was not a good sign. Exasperation meant he might soon run out of ideas on how to get Barbara Havers back into her position as a detective sergeant. It also meant he might soon run out of the willingness to do so. He said, “Barbara, you know the drill. Teamwork. Responsibility. Taking an action that’s been assigned and completing it. Turning over the report. Waiting for the next assignment. When you have a situation like this, one in which thirty-odd people are relying upon you to do what you’ve been told to do…” He lifted a hand and then dropped it.

  Havers watched him. He watched her. And then it was as if a veil somehow lifted between them and she understood. She said, “I’m sorry, sir. What can I say? You don’t need more pressure, and I pile it on, don’t I?” She moved restlessly in her chair and Lynley knew she was longing for a cigarette, for something to do with her hands, for something to jolt her brain. He felt like giving her permission to smoke; he also felt like allowing her to squirm. Something had to give somewhere in the damn woman or she was going to be lost for good. She said, “Sometimes I get so bloody sick of everything in life being such a struggle. You know?”

  He said, “What’s going on at home?”

  She chuckled. She was slumped in her chair, and she straightened her back. “No. We’re not taking a stroll on that path. You’ve enough to cope with, Superintendent.”

  “All things considered, a family dispute over two sets of christening clothes is hardly something to cope with,” Lynley said dryly. “And I’ve a wife politically adept enough to negotiate a truce between the in-laws.”

  Havers smiled, it seemed, in spite of herself. “I didn’t mean at home and you know it.”

  He smiled in turn. “Yes. I know.”

  “You’re getting a platterful from upstairs, I expect.”

  “Suffice it to say I’m learning how much Malcolm Webberly actually had to put up with to keep Hillier and everyone else off our backs all these years.”

  “Hillier sees you hot on his tail,” Havers said. “A few more steps up the ladder and whammo…You’re heading up the Met and he’s pulling his forelock.”

  “I don’t want to head up the Met,” Lynley said. “Sometimes…” He looked round the office he’d agreed to inhabit temporarily: the two sets of windows that ludicrously indicated a rise in rank, the conference table at which he and Havers sat, carpet tiles on the floor instead of lino, and outside beyond the door the men and women under his command for the moment. It was meaningless, really, at the end of the day. And it was far less important than what faced him now. He said, “Havers, I think you’re right.”

  “Of course, I’m right,” she replied. “Anyone watching—”

  “I don’t mean about Hillier. I mean about Colossus. He’s choosing kids from there, so he has to be connected somehow. It flies in the face of what we usually expect from a serial killer but on the other hand, how different is it, really, from Peter Sutcliffe picking up prostitutes or the Wests going for hitchhiking girls? Or someone targeting women walking dogs across parks or on commons? Or someone else always choosing an open window at nighttime and an elderly woman he knows is alone within? Our man’s doing what’s worked for him. And considering he’s managed to pull it off five times without getting caught—without, for the love of God, even being noticed—why shouldn’t he simply keep on doing it?”

  “So you think the rest of the bodies are Colossus boys as well?”

  “I do,” he said. “And since the boys we’ve identified so far have been throwaways to everyone but their families, our killer hasn’t had to worry about detection.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “Gather more information.” Lynley ro
se and considered her: disastrous of appearance and utterly headstrong. Maddening unto the death of him. But she was quick as well, which was why he’d learned to value having her at his side. He said, “Here’s the irony, Barbara.”

  “What?” she said.

  “John Stewart agreed with your assessment. He said as much before you walked into the office. He thinks it may be Colossus as well. You might have discovered that—”

  “Had I kept my mug plugged.” Havers shoved her chair back, preparatory to getting to her feet. “So am I supposed to crawl? Curry favour? Create my own forelock to pull? Bring in coffee at eleven and tea at four? What?”

  “Try staying out of trouble for once,” Lynley said. “Try doing what you’re told.”

  “Which is what at this point?”

  “Griffin Strong and the boy who died while Strong was with Social Services in Stockwell.”

  “But the other bodies—”

  “Havers. No one’s arguing with you about the other bodies. But we’re not going to leapfrog through this investigation no matter how much you’d like to do so. You’ve won a round. Now see to the rest.”

  “Right,” she said, although she sounded reluctant even as she picked up her shoulder bag to get back to work. She headed for the door and then stopped, turned back to face him. “Which round was that?” she asked him.

  “You know which round,” he told her in reply. “No boy’s safe if he ends up getting assigned to a spell at Colossus.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “ANTON WHAT?” ULRIKE ELLIS SAID INTO THE TELEPHONE. “Could you spell the surname, please?”

  On the other end of the line the detective, whose name Ulrike had already schooled herself to forget, spelled out R-e-i-d. He added that the parents of Anton Reid, who’d gone missing from Furzedown and had finally been identified as the first victim of the serial killer who’d so far murdered five boys in London, had listed Colossus as one of the places that their son had frequented in the months leading up to his death. Could the director confirm that, please? And a list of all Anton Reid’s contacts within Colossus would be necessary, madam.