With No One As Witness

by Elizabeth George

  Nkata shook his head. “’F this bloke’s our killer, I can’t promise you a thing,” he told her honestly. “You got something we can use at someone’s trial, it goes to the CPS and they want to interview you as a potential witness. That’s the truth of it. But I don’t see how parsley relates to anything so far, so I reckon you’re the one to decide what you want to tell me ’bout it.”

  She cocked her head at him. “I like you,” she said. “Any other cop would’ve lied just then. So I’ll tell you.” She pointed out the entry for parsley oil. In herbal magic, it was used for triumph. It was also used to drive away venomous beasts. Sown on Good Friday, the plant itself would nullify wickedness. Its power was in its root and its seeds.

  But that wasn’t all.

  “Aromatic oil,” Nkata read. “Fatty oil, balsam, medicinal, culinary, incense, and perfume.” Nkata pulled thoughtfully at his chin. Interesting as it was, he didn’t see how they could use any of this data.

  “Well?” Gigi’s voice bore a low-wattage undercurrent of excitement. “What d’you think? Was I right to ring you? He hadn’t been in in ages, see, and when he walked into the shop I…well, to be honest, I nearly bricked it. I didn’t know what he was likely to do, so I tried to act like everything was normal, but I watched him and I kept waiting for him to go for the ambergris oil, in which case I s’pose I might’ve passed out on the spot. Then when he bought the parsley oil instead, like I said, I didn’t think too much about it. Till I read this stuff about triumph and demons and evil and…” She shuddered. “I just knew I had to tell you. Because if I didn’t and if something happened to someone somewhere and if it turned out Robbie’s the…not that I think he is for a minute and God, you must never tell him ’cause we’ve even had drinks together like I told you before.”

  Nkata said, “You got a copy of the receipt and all that?”

  “Oh absolutely,” Gigi told him. “He paid cash and the oil was the only thing he bought. I’ve got the till copy right here.” And she rang up something on the till to open it, whereupon she pulled up the tray that held the notes separate from one another, and from beneath this, she took a slip of paper which she handed over to Nkata. She’d written “Rob Kilfoyle’s purchase of parsley oil” on this. She’d underlined “parsley oil” twice.

  Nkata wondered how they could possibly make use of the fact that one of their suspects had purchased parsley oil, but he took the receipt from Gigi and folded it inside his leather notebook. He thanked the young woman for her vigilance and told her to be in touch with him should Robbie Kilfoyle—or anyone else—stop in for ambergris oil.

  He was about to leave when the thought struck him, so he paused in the doorway to ask her a final question. “Any chance he nicked the ambergris oil while he was in here?”

  She shook her head. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him once, she assured Nkata. There was no way he’d taken anything that he’d not presented to her and paid for. No way at all.

  Nkata nodded thoughtfully at this, but he wondered all the same. He left the shop and stood outside, casting a look towards Mr. Sandwich, where the two aproned women were still at work. A “closed” sign now hung in the window. He took out his police identification and went to the door. There was one possibility for the parsley oil that he needed to check out.

  When he knocked, they looked up. The plumper of the two women was the one who opened the door to him. He asked her if he could have a word, and she said yes, of course, do come in, officer. They were just about to go home for the day and he was lucky to catch them still at it.

  He stepped inside. At once he saw the large yellow cart parked in a corner. “Mr. Sandwich” was painted neatly on it, along with a cartoon figure of a filled baguette with crusty face, top hat, spindly arms, and legs. This would be Robbie Kilfoyle’s delivery cart. Kilfoyle himself, along with his bicycle, would be long gone for the day.

  Nkata introduced himself to the two women who told him in turn they were Clara Maxwell and daughter Val. This bit of information was something of a surprise, since the two looked more like sisters than they did parent and child, a circumstance caused not so much by Clara’s youthful looks—of which there were none to speak of—as by Val’s dowdy dress sense and drooping figure. Nkata adjusted to the information and nodded in a friendly fashion. In return, Val kept her distance behind the counter, where she did as much lurking as she did cleaning. Her glance kept shifting from Nkata to her mother and back again, while Clara established herself as spokeswoman for the two.

  “C’n I have a word with you ’bout Robbie Kilfoyle?” Nkata asked. “He works for you, right?”

  Clara said, “He’s not in trouble,” as a statement of fact and cast a look at Val, who nodded in apparent agreement with this remark.

  “He delivers your sandwiches, i’n’t that the case?”

  “Yes. Has done for…what is it, Val? Three years? Four?”

  Val nodded again. Her eyebrows knotted, as if in a display of concern. She turned away and went to a cupboard from which she took a broom and dustpan. She began using this on the floor behind the counter.

  “Must be nearly four years, then,” Clara said. “Lovely young man. He carries the sandwiches round to our clients—we do crisps, pickles, and pasta salads as well—and he returns with the cash. He’s never been out by so much as ten pence.”

  Val looked up suddenly.

  Her mother said, “Oh yes, I’d forgotten. Thank you, Val. There was that one time, wasn’t there?”

  “What time?”

  “Shortly before his mum died. This would have been December, year before this last one. We were ten pounds short one day. Turned out he’d borrowed them to buy Mum flowers. She was in a home, you know.” Clara tapped her skull. “Alzheimer’s, poor soul. He took her…I don’t know…tulips? Would there’ve been tulips at that time of year? Perhaps something else? Anyway, Val’s right. I’d forgotten about that. But he confessed straightaway when I asked him about it, didn’t he, and I had the money in my hand the very next day. After that, nothing. He’s been good as gold. We couldn’t run the business without him because mainly what we do is delivery, and there’s no one but Rob to do it.”

  Val looked up from her sweeping once again. She brushed a lank lock of hair from her face.

  “Now, you know that’s the truth,” Clara chided her gently. “You couldn’t make those deliveries, no matter what you think, dear.”

  “Does he buy supplies for you as well?” Nkata asked.

  “What kind of supplies? Paper bags and such? Mustard? Wrapping for the sandwiches? No, we mostly have all that delivered.”

  “I had in mind…p’rhaps ingredients,” Nkata said. “He ever get parsley oil for you?”

  “Parsley?” Clara looked at Val as if to register her level of incredulity. “Parsley oil, you say? I never knew there was such a thing. Of course, I suppose there must be, mustn’t there? Walnut oil, sesame oil, olive oil, peanut oil. Why not parsley oil as well? But no, he’s never bought it for Mr. Sandwich. I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

  Val made a sound, something like gurgling. Her mother, hearing this, leaned over the counter and spoke directly into her face. Did she know something about parsley oil and Robbie? Clara inquired. If she did, dearest, then she needed to tell the policeman straightaway.

  Val’s glance went to Nkata. She said, “Nuffink,” which was the extent of her intelligible comments during the entire interview.

  Nkata said, “I s’pose he could be using it for cooking. Or for his breath. How’s his breath?”

  Clara laughed. “It’s nothing I’ve ever noticed, but I daresay our Val’s got close enough for a whiff now and then. How is it, darling? Nice? Bad? What?”

  Val scowled at her mother and skulked off into what seemed to be a storeroom. Clara said to Nkata that her daughter had “a bit of a crush.” Not that anything could come of it, naturally. The sergeant had probably noticed that Val had a few problems with her social skills.

  “I’
d thought Robbie Kilfoyle might be just the ticket to bring her out of herself,” Clara confided in a lower voice, “which is part of the reason I hired him. He’d never had much of an employment record—that’s owing to the mum being ill for so long—but I rather saw that as something of an advantage in the romance department. Wouldn’t have his sights set so high, I thought. Not like other lads for whom Val, let’s face it, poor love, wouldn’t exactly be a prize. But nothing came of it. No spark between them, you see. Then when his mum passed on, I thought he’d come round a little bit. But he never did. The life just went out of the lad.” She glanced back in the direction of the storage room and then added quietly, “Depression. It will do you in if you aren’t careful. I felt it myself when Val’s dad died. It wasn’t sudden, of course, so at least I had some time to prepare. But you feel it all the same when someone’s gone, don’t you? There’s that void, and there’s no getting round it. You’re staring into it all day long. Val and I opened this shop because of it.”

  “Because of…?”

  “Her dad’s dying. He left us well enough off, I mean with enough to get by on. But one can’t sit home and stare at the walls. One has to keep living.” She paused and untied her apron. As she folded it carefully and laid it on the top of the counter, she nodded as if she’d just revealed something to herself. “You know, I think I’ll have a word with our Robbie about that very subject. Life must go on.” She cast a last, furtive look at the storage room. “And she’s a good cook, our Val. That’s not something a young man of marriageable age ought to turn his nose up at. Just because she’s the quiet type…After all, what’s more important at the end of the day? Conversation or good food? Good food, correct?”

  “Won’t get an argument from me,” Nkata said.

  Clara smiled. “Really?”

  “Most men like to eat,” he told her.

  “Exactly,” she said, and he realised she’d begun looking at him with entirely new eyes.

  Which told him it was time to thank her for her information and to depart. He didn’t want to think of what his mum would say if he showed up at home with a Val on his arm.

  “I WANT AN EXPLANATION,” were the assistant commissioner’s words to Lynley as he walked through the door. He hadn’t waited for Harriman to announce him, instead allowing a simple and terse, “Is he in here?,” to precede him into the office.

  Lynley was seated behind his desk, comparing forensic reports on Davey Benton with those from the killings that had gone before his. He set the paperwork aside, took off his reading spectacles, and stood. “Dee said you wanted to speak to me.” He motioned towards the conference table at one side of the room.

  Hillier didn’t accept that wordless invitation. He said, “I’ve had a talk with Mitch Corsico, Superintendent.”

  Lynley waited. He’d known how likely it was that this would come once he thwarted Corsico’s intentions of doing a story on Winston Nkata, and he understood the workings of Hillier’s mind well enough to realise he had to let the assistant commissioner have his say.

  “Explain yourself.” Hillier’s words were regulated, and Lynley had to give him credit for descending into enemy territory with the intention of holding on to his temper as long as he could.

  He said, “St. James has an international reputation, sir. The fact that the Met is pulling out all the stops on this investigation—by bringing in an independent specialist to be part of the team, for example—was something I thought should be highlighted.”

  “That was your thought, was it?” Hillier said.

  “In brief, yes. When I considered how far a profile of St. James could go to boost public confidence in what we’re doing—”

  “That wasn’t your decision to make.”

  Lynley went doggedly on. “And when I compared that increase in confidence with what could be gained by profiling Winston Nkata instead—”

  “So you admit you moved to block access to Nkata?”

  “—then it seemed likely that we could make more political hay from letting the public know we’ve an expert witness on our team than we could make by putting a black officer on display and washing his dirty linen in public.”

  “Corsico had no intention—”

  “He went straight to questions about Winston’s brother,” Lynley cut in. “It sounded to me as if he’d even been briefed on the subject, so he’d know what angle he ought to take when he wrote the interview. Sir.”

  Hillier’s face took on deep colour. It rose from his neck like a ruby liquid just beneath his skin. “I don’t want to think what you’re implying.”

  Lynley made an effort to speak calmly. “Sir, let me try to be clear. You’re under pressure. I’m under pressure. The public’s stirred up. The press is brutal. Something’s got to be done to mould opinion out there—I’m aware of that—but I can’t have a tabloid journalist sniffing round the background of individual officers.”

  “You’re not going to be naying or yeaing decisions made above your head. Do you understand?”

  “I’ll be doing whatever naying or yeaing is necessary and I’ll be doing it every time something occurs that could affect the job done by one of my men. A story on Winston—featuring his pathetic brother because you and I know The Source was intending to put Harold Nkata’s face right there next to Winston’s…Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, the unreturned and unreturnable prodigal…whatever you want to call him…And a story on Winston just at the moment when he’s already got to contend with being on public display at press conferences…It’s just not on, sir.”

  “Are you daring to tell me that you know better than our own people how to manage the press? That you—speaking no doubt from the great height you alone happen to occupy—”

  “Sir.” Lynley didn’t want to get into mudslinging with the AC. Desperately, he sought another direction. “Winston came to me.”

  “Asking you to intervene?”

  “Not at all. He’s a team player. But he mentioned that Corsico was going after the good brother-bad brother angle on the story, and his concerns were that his parents—”

  “I don’t care about his God damn parents!” Hillier’s voice rose precipitately. “He’s got a story and I want it told. I want it seen. I want that to happen and I want you to ensure that it does.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “You bloody well—”

  “Wait. I’ve said it wrong. I won’t do that.” And Lynley went on before Hillier had a chance to respond, telling himself to stay calm and to stay on message. “Sir, it was one thing for Corsico to dig round about me. He did it with my blessing and he can go on doing it if that’s what it’ll take to help our position here at the Met. But it’s another thing for him to do that to one of my men, especially one who doesn’t want that happening to himself or to his family. I’ve got to respect that. So do you.”

  He knew he shouldn’t have said that last, even as his lips formed the words. It was just the remark Hillier had apparently been waiting for.

  “You’re God damn out of order!” he roared.

  “That’s your way of seeing it. Mine is that Winston Nkata doesn’t want to be part of a publicity campaign designed to soothe the very people who’ve been betrayed by the Met time and again. I don’t blame him for that. I also won’t fault him. Nor will I order him to cooperate. If The Source intends to smear his family’s trouble across the front page some morning, then it’s—”

  “That’s enough!” Hillier was teetering on the edge. Whether what he fell into was rage, a seizure, or an action they both would regret remained to be seen. “You God damn bloody disloyal piece of…You come in here from a life of privilege and you dare…you bloody well dare…you to tell me…”

  They both saw Harriman at the same time, standing white faced in the doorway that had been left open when Hillier entered. No doubt, Lynley thought, every ear on the floor was being assaulted by the strength of the animosity that the AC felt for him and he for the AC.

  Hillier sho
uted at her, “Get the hell out of here! What’s wrong with you?” And made a move to the door, likely to slam it in Harriman’s face.

  Incredibly, she put out a hand to stop him, doing just that as they both reached for the door at once.

  He said, “I’ll see you in—”

  Which she interrupted with, “Sir, sir. I need to speak to you.”

  Lynley saw, unbelievably, that she was talking not to him but to Hillier. The woman’s gone mad, he thought. She means to intervene.

  He said, “Dee, that’s not necessary.”

  She didn’t look at him. She said, “It is,” with her eyes fixed on Hillier. “It is. Necessary. Sir. Please.” The last word came from somewhere in her throat, where it caught and seemed nearly to lodge.

  That got through to Hillier. He grabbed her by the arm and took her from the room.

  Then things moved, both quickly and incomprehensibly.

  There were voices outside his office and Lynley headed for the door to see what in God’s name was going on. He got only two steps in that direction, though, when Simon St. James came into the room.

  St. James said, “Tommy.”

  And Lynley saw. Saw and somehow understood without wanting to begin to understand. Or to give St. James’s purpose in his office—arriving unannounced to him but certainly announced and fully forewarned to Harriman…

  He heard a cry of “Oh my God” from somewhere. St. James flinched at this. His eyes, Lynley saw, were fixed upon him.

  “What is it?” Lynley asked. “What’s happened, Simon?”

  “You must come with me, Tommy,” St. James said. “Helen’s…” Then he faltered.

  Lynley would always remember that—that his old friend faltered when it came to the moment—and he would always remember what the faltering meant: about their friendship and about the woman whom both of them had loved for years.