With No One As Witness

by Elizabeth George

  “Your children?” Lynley asked, nodding at the photos.

  “I have five children and eighteen grandchildren,” the man replied. “There you see them. Except for the new baby, third child of my eldest daughter. I live alone here. My wife is dead these four years now. How may I be of help to you?”

  “You were fond of the princess?”

  “Race did not appear to be an issue for her,” he said politely. He looked down at the toast, which he was still holding. He appeared to have no further appetite for it. He excused himself and ducked into a doorway beneath the stairs. This led into a kitchen that looked even smaller than the sitting room. Through a window there, bare branches of a tree suggested a garden to the back of the house.

  He returned to them, tightening the belt of his boxer’s robe. He said formally and with considerable dignity, “I hope you have not come about that housebreaking in Clapham once again. At the time, I told the officers everything I knew, which was little enough, and when I did not hear from them again, I assumed the matter was at an end. But now I must ask: Did no one among you phone the good nuns?”

  “May we sit down, Mr. Masoud?” Lynley asked. “We’ve a few questions to ask you.”

  The man hesitated, as if wondering why Lynley hadn’t answered his question. Finally, he said thoughtfully, “Yes indeed,” and he gestured to the sofa. There was no other seat in the room.

  He fetched a chair from the kitchen for himself, and he placed it squarely opposite them. He sat, his feet flat on the floor. They were bare, Lynley saw. One toe was missing its nail. Masoud said, “I must tell you. I have never broken a law of this country. This I told the police when they came to speak with me. I do not know Clapham nor do I know any neighbourhood south of the River Thames. Even if I did know those things, on nights when I do not see my children, I go to Victoria Embankment. This is where I was on the night of that break-in in Clapham about which the police have questioned me.”

  “Victoria Embankment?” Lynley said.

  “Yes. Yes. Near the river.”

  “I know where it is. What do you do there?”

  “Behind the Savoy Hotel many people sleep rough all seasons of the year. I feed them.”

  “Feed them?”

  “From my kitchen. Yes. I feed them. And I am not the only one to do this,” he added, as if feeling the need to counter what he saw as Lynley’s scepticism. “The nuns are there. And another group, which hands out blankets. When the police asked me about my van being in Clapham on a night when someone was burgled there, I explained this to them. Between half past nine and midnight I am far too busy to concern myself with burgling houses, Superintendent.”

  It was, he told them, the way of Islam, and he added, “as it is meant to be practised,” with gentle emphasis on the word meant, perhaps to differentiate between the old ways and the militant forms of Islam sometimes espoused round the globe. The Prophet—blessed be his name—instructed his followers to care for the poor, Masoud explained. The mobile kitchen was how this one humble servant of Allah complied with that instruction. He took himself to Victoria Embankment all the year round, although the need for him was greatest in winter when the cold dealt harshly with the homeless.

  Nkata was the one to jump on the words. “Mobile kitchen, Mr. Masoud. You don’t use your kitchen here to fix up meals?”

  “No, no. How could I keep the food hot for such a journey as it is from Telford Way to Victoria Embankment? My van is kitted out with what is necessary to prepare the meals within it. A cooker, a work space, a small refrigerator. This is all that I need. Of course, I could serve them sandwiches, which would not require the effort of cooking, but they need hot food, those poor souls in the street, not cold bread and cheese. And I am grateful that I can provide it.”

  “How long have you operated this mobile kitchen?” Lynley asked the man.

  “Since I began taking my pension from British Telecom. That would be nearly nine years now. You must ask the nuns. They will confirm this.”

  Lynley believed him. Not only because the nuns would probably confirm it along with everyone else who saw Muwaffaq Masoud along the embankment on a regular basis but also because there was an air of honesty about the man that commanded one’s trust. Righteous was the word Lynley thought would describe him best.

  Nonetheless, he said, “My colleague and I would like to look at your van. Outside and inside. Will you approve of that?”

  “Of course. If you will wait…? Let me dress and I shall take you to it.” He quickly mounted the stairs, leaving Lynley and Nkata to glance at each other in silent evaluation of what he’d had to say.

  “What’s your assessment?” Lynley asked.

  “Telling the truth or a sociopath. But look at this, guv.” Nkata turned his small leather notebook round on his knee so that it faced Lynley, and Lynley glanced at what he’d written:

  waf

  bile

  chen

  873-61

  while beneath it he’d added:

  Muwaffaq’s

  Mobile

  Kitchen

  8579-5479

  Nkata said, “That’s what I can’t suss out. What’d he do, then? Serve those meals behind the Savoy, hang about in Central London for whatever, then cruise over to St. George’s Gardens in the middle of the night afterwards, where he gets caught on the video we saw? Why?”

  “Assignation?”

  “With who? Drug dealer? That bloke does drugs like I do drugs. Prostitute then? His wife’s dead, so he’s wanting some, okay, but why would he take a tart to St. George’s Gardens?”

  “Terrorist?” Lynley offered. It seemed like a complete nonstarter, but he knew that nothing could be discounted.

  “Gunrunner?” Nkata said. “Bomb maker?”

  “Someone with contraband to hand over?”

  “Not the killer, but meeting the killer,” Nkata said. “Handing over something. A weapon?”

  “Or taking something from him?”

  Nkata shook his head. “Handing over something. Or someone, guv. Handing over the kid.”

  “Kimmo Thorne?”

  “That works.” Nkata glanced at the stairs, then back to Lynley. “He goes to the embankment, but how far’re we talking from Leicester Square? From Hungerford Footbridge if that’s how Kimmo and his mate got over the river? This bloke could know Kimmo from f’rever past, and he’s biding his time to decide what to do with him.”

  Lynley considered this. He couldn’t conceive of it. Unless, as Nkata himself had pointed out, the Asian man was a sociopath.

  “Please then follow me,” Masoud said as he descended the stairs. He’d put on not the traditional shalwar qamis of his countrymen, but rather baggy jeans and a flannel shirt over which he was zipping a leather flying jacket. He had trainers on his feet. He was suddenly much more of their country than of his own. The transformation did give one pause to consider him differently, Lynley realised.

  The van was parked inside one of a string of garages that stood together at the end of Telford Way. There was no way to inspect the vehicle easily without moving it from the structure, and Masoud did this without being asked. He rolled the van back to give Nkata and Lynley access. It was red, like the van that had been seen by their witness from her flat above Handel Street, just outside St. George’s Gardens. It was also a Ford Transit.

  Masoud turned off the engine and jumped out, opening the sliding panel door to show them the inside of the vehicle. It was kitted out exactly as he’d said: a cooker had been fixed along one side. There were also cupboards, a work surface, and a small fridge. One could use the vehicle for camping, as there was room to sleep in the middle if necessary. One could also use it as a mobile murder site. There was little doubt of that.

  But it hadn’t been used in such a manner. Lynley knew that much before Masoud leapt out and opened the Ford for them to look over. The van was of recent vintage, and on its side “Muwaffaq’s Mobile Kitchen” and the relevant phone number glistened prist
inely.

  Nkata spoke, asking the question as Lynley opened his own mouth to do so. “You had ’nother van before this one, Mr. Masoud?”

  Masoud nodded. “Oh yes. But it was old and it had many times failed to start when I needed to use it.”

  “What happened to that van?” Lynley asked.

  “I sold it.”

  “With the interior in place?”

  “You’re speaking of the cooker? The cupboards? The fridge? Oh yes, it was just like this one.”

  “Who bought it, then?” Nkata’s voice held the sound of hope-against-hope. “When?”

  Masoud thought about both questions. “This would be…seven months ago? Towards the end of June? I believe that was it. The gentleman…I regret I cannot remember his name…He wanted it for the August bank holiday, he told me. I assumed he intended to take it on a little journey, although he did not say as much.”

  “How did he pay?”

  “Well, of course I was not asking a great deal for the van. It was old. It was not reliable, as I’ve already said. It needed work done upon it. And painting as well. He wished to give me a personal cheque, but as I did not know him, I required the payment to be made in cash. He departed but returned with the money the very same day. We concluded our transaction, and that was the end of it.” Masoud put the pieces together himself as he finished his explanation. “That would be the van you seek. Of course. This gentleman bought it expressly for an illegal purpose, so he did not register his name upon it. And the purpose was…He is the Clapham burglar?”

  Lynley shook his head. The burglar was a teenage boy, he told Masoud. The purchaser of the van was probably that boy’s killer.

  Masoud took a stricken step backwards. He said, “My van…?,” and could say no more.

  “Can you describe this bloke?” Nkata asked. “Anything about him that you remember?”

  Masoud’s expression looked dazed, but he answered slowly and thoughtfully. “It was so long ago. An older gentleman? Younger than myself, perhaps, but older than you. He was a white man. English. Bald. Yes. Yes. He was bald because the day was hot and his head perspired and he wiped it with a handkerchief. An odd sort of handkerchief, as well, for a man. Lace on the edge. I remember that because I noticed and he said it had sentimental value. His wife’s handkerchief. She made lace on things.”

  “Tatting,” Nkata murmured, and to Lynley, “like that piece got left on Kimmo, guv.”

  “He was a widower like myself,” Masoud said. “That was what he meant by sentimental value. And yes, I remember this: He was not very well. We walked from the house to this garage here and that short distance took his breath. I did not wish to comment on this, but I thought that a man of his age should not be so breathless as he was.”

  “Anything else you c’n remember about his looks?” Nkata asked. “He’s bald and what else? Beard? Moustache? Fat? Thin? Marks on him anywhere?”

  Masoud looked at the ground as if he’d be able to see a mental picture of the man there. He said, “There was no moustache or beard.” He meditated on this, his forehead wrinkled with the strain of remembering. Finally he said, “I cannot say more.”

  Bald and breathless. There was nothing to go on. Lynley said, “We’d like to arrange an e-fit of this man. We’ll send someone out to work with you.”

  “To draw his face, do you mean?” Masoud said doubtfully. “I will do what I can, but I fear…” He hesitated as he appeared to look for a polite way to say what he wanted to say. “So many English look similar to me. And he was very English, very…ordinary.”

  Which, Lynley thought, most serial killers were. It was their special gift: They faded into a crowd with no one the wiser about their presence. Only in fantasy chillers had they been born werewolves.

  Masoud returned his van to the garage. They waited for him and walked back to his house. It was only when they were about to part that Lynley realised another question needed to be asked. He said, “How did he get here, Mr. Masoud?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he planned to drive your van home, he would have needed transport here in the first place. There’s no railway station nearby. Did you see what his method of transport was?”

  “Oh yes. That would have been the minicab. It remained in the street—parked just outside this house, in fact—during our transactions.”

  “Did you get a look at the driver of that cab?” Lynley exchanged a glance with Nkata.

  “I’m sorry, no. He merely sat in the car outside my house and waited. He certainly did not appear interested in our transaction.”

  “Was he young or old?” Nkata asked.

  “Younger than any of us, I should say.”

  FU DIDN’T take the van to Leadenhall Market. It wasn’t necessary. He didn’t like removing it from the carpark during daylight hours and, besides, He had other means of transport that would seem—at least to the casual observer—more logical for the area.

  He tried to tell Himself that the last days had finally proved to Him His power. But even as others began to see Him as He’d long intended Himself to be seen, it appeared to Him that control of the situation was beginning to slip from His grasp. This concern bore no sense, but still He found Himself wanting to shout from a public place, “I am here, the One you seek.”

  He knew the ways of the world. As the knowledge spread, so did the risk. He had embraced that possibility from the first. He had even sought it. What He had not expected was how the need within Him would be fueled once He’d been finally acknowledged. He’d begun to feel consumed by it now.

  He entered the old Victorian market from Leadenhall Place, where the freakishly modern Lloyds of London provided Him the cover of the commonplace: His presence here would not be remarked upon, and if one of the countless CCTV cameras along the way caught His image, no one would think anything of it in this place at this time of day.

  Inside the market and beneath its vaulted ceiling of iron and glass, the great dragons loomed over him from every corner: long clawed and red tongued, with their silver wings unfurled for flight. Beneath them, the old cobbled central street was closed to traffic and the shops that lined it offered their wares to the daytime workers of the City as well as to tourists who—at other, more clement times of year—made this place part of their trips to visit the Tower or Petticoat Lane. It was designed for exactly that sort of custom, with narrow passageways offering everything from pizza to one-hour photo developing, cheek by jowl with butchers and fishmongers selling fresh items for that night’s dinner.

  In midwinter, the site was very nearly perfect for what Fu had in mind. It was virtually deserted in the daytime aside from during the City workers’ lunch hours, and at late nighttime with the traffic bollards removed from either end of the main route through, what few vehicles rolled through it did so intermittently.

  Fu strolled through the market towards its main entrance on Gracechurch Street. The shops were open, but they were sparsely peopled, while the most business being transacted appeared to be happening inside the Lamb Tavern, behind whose translucent windows the shapes of drinkers moved periodically. In front of this establishment, a shoe-shine boy did desultory business, buffing the black shoes of a banker type who was reading a broadsheet as his footwear was seen to. Fu glanced at this newspaper when he passed the man. One would expect a type like him to be perusing the Financial Times, but this was the Independent instead, and it carried on its front page the sort of headline that broadsheets generally reserved for royal superdramas, political nightmares, and acts of God. The words “Number Six” comprised it. Below that, a grainy photograph appeared.

  Fu felt a different sort of need at the sight of this. It was one directed not towards fulfilling His growing desire but one that—had He lacked control—would have otherwise propelled Him towards that banker and that broadsheet like a starving hummingbird to the embrace of a flower. To proclaim Himself, to be understood.

  He diverted His eyes instead. It was too early, yet
He recognised in Himself the same sensation He’d experienced while watching the television programme about Him on the previous night. And how odd to name the sensation for what it was, because it was not at all what He’d expected it to be.

  Anger. The heat of it, searing the muscles of His throat until He would cry out. For the one who truly sought Him had made no appearance before the television cameras, sending minions instead, as if Fu were a spider easily crushed beneath his heel.

  He’d watched and there the maggot had found Him, slithering up the chair in which He sat, crawling in through His nose, curling behind His eyes till His vision went blurry, and then residing within His skull, where he remained. There to taunt. There to prove…pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. Stupid little wanker, nasty little swine.

  Think you’re someone? Think you’ll ever be someone? Useless piece…Don’t you ever turn your face from me when I’m talking to you.

  Fu tossed from it, turned from it. There it stayed.

  You want fire? I’ll show you fire. Give me your hands. I said give me your sodding hands. Here. You like how it feels?

  He’d leaned His head against the back of the chair and He’d closed His eyes. The maggot ate greedily at His brain, and He tried not to feel or acknowledge it. He tried to remain where He was, doing what He alone had been able to do.

  You hear me? You know me? How many people do you intend to send to the grave before you’re satisfied?

  As many as it takes, He’d thought at last. Till I am sated.

  He’d opened His eyes then to see the sketch on the television screen. His face, and not His face at all. Someone’s memory trying to coax an image out of the ether. He evaluated the depiction of Him, and He’d chuckled. He’d loosed His shirt and exposed Himself to the hate that would be directed towards that image from every corner of the country.

  Come, He’d told it. Eat through my tissue.

  That’s what you think they’ll do? For you? Shite, you’re full of it, aren’t you, boy. I never did see a case like you.