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Eating at the very essence of Him. You hear me, gobshite? Understand what I say?
He raised the volume higher still. He caught snatches of words: yesterday afternoon…St. Thomas’ Hospital…condition critical…who is nearly five months pregnant…and then He saw him, the detective himself, witness, observer…
The sight brought Fu round and banished the maggot. He focussed on the television screen. The man Lynley was coming out of a hospital. He had a uniformed constable on either side of him and they were shielding him from reporters who were shouting questions.
“…any co
“Do you regret-”
“Is this in any way related to the story that The Source…?”
“…decision to embed a journalist…?”
Lynley walked through them, away, beyond. He looked like stone.
The reporter on-screen said something about an earlier news conference, and the scene switched to that. A surgeon in operating gown stood behind a lectern, blinking in the television lights. He spoke about the removal of a bullet, the repairing of damage, a foetus that was moving but that’s all they could report at the moment, and when questions were asked by the unseen listeners, he would say no more, merely removing himself from behind the lectern and from the room. The scene then went back to outside the hospital, where the reporter stood, shivering in the morning’s wind.
“This is,” she said gravely, “the first time that a family member of a police detective has been struck down in the midst of an investigation. The fact that this crime should fall so quickly on the heels of a tabloid’s profile of that same detective and his wife brings into question the wisdom of the earlier and highly irregular Scotland Yard decision to allow a journalist unprecedented access to a criminal investigation.”
She ended her report but for Fu, the image of Lynley was what stayed with Him when the viewer was returned to the television studio where the presenters managed to look suitably grave as they went on with the morning’s news. Whatever they said was lost to Him at that point because He saw only the police detective: how he walked and where he looked. What struck Fu the most was that the man was not the least bit wary. He had no defence.
Fu smiled. He flicked off the television with a snap. He listened intently. No sound in the house. The maggot was gone.
DI JOHN STEWART took immediate charge, but it seemed to Nkata that he was merely going through the motions, his mind on other things. Everyone’s mind was elsewhere as well: either mentally at St. Thomas’ Hospital where the superintendent’s wife lay fighting for her life or with the Belgravia police who were handling the investigation into her shooting. Still, Nkata knew there was only one reasonable way for any of them to proceed, and he told himself to keep moving forward because he owed it to Lynley to do the job. But his heart wasn’t in it, and this was a bloody damn dangerous place to be. How simple a matter it was to let a crucial detail slip when one was in this state, because he-along with everyone else-was distracted by an external concern.
His carefully plotted and altogether irritating multicoloured outline in hand, DI Stewart had made assignments that morning and then began to micromanage every one of them in his inimitable fashion. He paced maddeningly round the room and when he wasn’t doing that, he was liaising with the Belgravia police. This consisted of demanding to know what progress they’d made on the attack on the superintendent’s wife. In the meantime, detectives in the incident room made reports and PCs typed them. Occasionally someone asked in a hushed voice, “Does anyone know how she is? Is there any word?”
The word was critical.
Nkata reckoned Barb Havers would know more, but she hadn’t put in an appearance so far. No one had made mention of this fact, so he’d concluded Barb was either still at the hospital, or on an assignment Stewart had given her earlier, or going her own way in things, in which case he wished she’d get in touch with him. He’d seen her briefly at the hospital on the previous night, but they hadn’t spoken more than to exchange a few terse words.
Now, Nkata tried to force his thoughts to travel in a productive direction. It seemed like days had passed since he’d last received an assignment. Making himself adhere to it was like swimming through refrigerated honey.
The list of dates for the MABIL meetings-helpfully provided by James Barty to demonstrate the extent to which his client Mr. Minshall was willing to cooperate with the police-covered the last six months. Using this list as a jumping-off point, Nkata had already spoken to Griffin Strong by telephone, and he had received the man’s meaningless assurance that he had been with his wife-never left her side and she would be the first to confirm that, Sergeant-whenever an alibi was called for. So Nkata had gone on to talk to Robbie Kilfoyle, who’d said he didn’t exactly keep records of what he did every night, which was little enough, since, besides watching the telly, all he ever did was drop by the Othello Bar for a pint and perhaps they could confirm that at the bar, although he doubted even they would be able to say when he’d been in and when he’d not. From there, Nkata had conversed with Neil Greenham’s solicitor, with Neil himself, and ultimately with Neil’s mother who said that her lad was a good lad and if he said he was with her whenever he said he was with her, then he was with her. As for Jack Veness, the Colossus receptionist declared that if his great-aunt, his mate, the Miller and Grindstone Pub, and the Indian take-away were not good enough to clear his name, then the cops could God damn arrest him and have done with it.
Nkata immediately discounted any alibi given by a relative, which consequently made Griffin Strong and Neil Greenham look good in the role of member of MABIL and serial killer. The problem for him was that both Jack Veness and Robbie Kilfoyle seemed to fit the profile far better. This made him in turn decide he needed to have a closer look at the profile document that had been provided for them weeks ago.
He was about to conduct a search for it in Lynley’s office when Mitchell Corsico turned up in the incident room, escorted there by a minion of Hillier’s whom Nkata recognised from their earlier press conferences together. Corsico and the minion had a word with John Stewart, at which point the minion left for points unknown and the journalist sauntered over to Nkata. He deposited himself on a chair near the desk where Nkata had been studying his notes.
“I got the word from my guv,” Corsico told him. “He’s axed the St. James direction. Sorry, Sergeant. You’re my next man.”
Nkata looked at him, frowning. “What? You crazy? After what’s happened?”
Corsico removed a small tape recorder from his jacket pocket, along with a notebook, which he flipped open. “I was set to do that forensic bloke next, the expert witness you lot have working outside the Yard? But the big cheeses over on Farringdon Street gave the project thumbs down. I’m back to you. Listen, I know you don’t like this, so I’m willing to compromise. I get inside to talk to your parents, I leave Harold Nkata out of the story. Sound like a deal to you?”
What it sounded like was a decision made by Hillier and his DPA cronies and passed along to Corsico, who’d probably already planted a bug in his editor’s ear about…what did they call it?…the natural angle that a story on Winston Nkata had. Human interest, they would describe it, without a thought where the last human interest tale had got them.
“No one’s talking to my mum and dad,” Nkata said. “No one’s putting their pictures in the paper. No one’s looking them up at home. No one’s getting inside their flat.”