With No One As Witness

Mark Co

Ulrike watched as Neil put a hand on the boy’s slender shoulder. She saw Mark flinch. She went immediately on the alert.

She said, “Neil, could I have a word?,” and took note of how he then reacted. She was looking for any sign that she could interpret, but he appeared careful not to give her one.

He said, “Let me finish up here. I’ll be along directly. Your office?”

“That’s fine.” She’d have preferred to have him here in his own environment, but her office would do. She went on her way.

He turned up exactly fifteen minutes later, cup of tea in hand. He said, “I didn’t think to ask you if you wanted…?” and gestured with the cup to indicate his offer.

This seemed to signal a truce between them. She said, “That’s fine, Neil. I don’t want any. Thanks. Come in and sit down, won’t you?”

As he sat, she got up and closed the door. When she returned to her desk, he lifted an eyebrow. “Special treatment?” he asked, with a soundless sip of Darjeeling or whatever it was. It would be soundless, naturally. Neil Greenham was not the sort of bloke who slurped. “Should I be flattered or warned by the sudden attention?”

Ulrike ignored this. She’d thought about an entrée to the conversation she needed to have with Neil, and she decided she had to keep the goal in mind no matter where she began. That goal was cooperation. The time for stonewalling had long since passed.

She said, “It’s time we talked, Neil. We’re getting close to the moment when we open the North London branch of Colossus. You know that, don’t you?”

“Hard not to know it.” He looked at her steadily over the rim of his cup. His eyes were blue. There was a suggestion of ice about them that she had not noticed before.

“We’ll be wanting someone who’s already in the organisation to head that branch. D’you know that as well?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “That makes sense,” he said. “Not much learning curve involved for someone who already works here, right?”

“There’s that, and it’s a compelling reason. But there’s loyalty as well.”

“Loyalty.” Not a question, but a statement. He made it in a reflective tone.

“Yes. Obviously, we’ll be looking for someone whose first loyalty is to Colossus. It has to be that way. We’ve enemies out there, and meeting them head-on requires not only perspicacity but the spirit of a warrior. You know what I mean, I daresay.”

He took his time before replying, lifting his tea and having a thoughtful-and silent-sip. He said, “As it happens, I don’t.”

“What?”

“Know what you mean. Not that perspicacity’s beyond my ability to comprehend, mind you. It’s the spirit of a warrior bit that has me confused.”

She gave a gentle laugh, of the self-directed kind. “Sorry. I was thinking of the image of the warrior leaving home-wife and kids behind him-and setting off to do battle. That willingness of the warrior to set the personal to one side when a battle has to be fought. The needs of Colossus in North London will have to come first to its director.”

“And in South London?” Neil inquired.

“What?”

“What about the needs of Colossus in South London, Ulrike?”

“The North London director isn’t going to be responsible-”

“That’s not actually what I meant. I was just wondering if the way South London Colossus is being run is a model for how North London ought to work.”

Ulrike gazed at him. He looked mild enough. Neil always had seemed a bit fuzzy round the edges, but now she had the distinct sensation of flint beneath the soft, boyish surface. And not just the flint of the anger problem that had cost him his erstwhile teaching job, but something else. She said, “Why don’t you speak a bit more directly?”

“I didn’t know I wasn’t,” Neil said. “Sorry. I guess what I’m saying is that it seems a little hypocritical, all this.”

“All what?”

“All this talk about loyalty and Colossus first. I’m…” He hesitated, but Ulrike knew the pause was for effect. “In other circumstances I’d be delighted to be having this confab with you. I’d even flatter myself by concluding that you’re considering recommending me to head the North London branch when it opens.”

“I thought I did imply-”

“But the loyalty to Colossus bit rather gives you away. Your own loyalty hasn’t exactly been impeccable, has it?”

She knew he was waiting for her to ask him to clarify his statement and she wasn’t about to give him that pleasure. She said, “Neil, everyone has a moment now and again when they’re distracted from their primary concern. No one at any level of administration expects anyone else to have tu

“Which is good for you, I expect. Your own secondary concerns being what they are.”

“I beg your pardon?” She wanted to grab the question back the instant she said it, but it was too late because he snatched it up like a fisherman netting a hooked trout.

“Discretion is as discretion does. Which is to say that sometimes discretion doesn’t at all. Doesn’t do, I mean. Or perhaps ‘doesn’t work’ is a better way of putting it. It’s one of those ‘best-laid plans of mice and men’ kind of things, if you know what I mean. Which in itself is to say that when there’s a plan to cast stones, it’s always a good idea that the thrower live in a house of bricks. Do you want me to be any more direct, Ulrike, or do you get my meaning? Where’s Griff, by the way? He’s been flying under the radar for a bit, hasn’t he? Is that on your advice?”

So now they’d come to it, Ulrike thought. They were at a take-off-the-gloves moment. Perhaps it was time. Her personal life was none of his business, but he was going to be made to see that the reverse was not the case.

She said, “Get rid of the solicitor, Neil. I don’t know why you’ve hired him, and I don’t want to know. But I’m telling you to get rid of him straightaway and speak to the police.”

Neil changed colour, but the way he adjusted his body told her he was not blushing with embarrassment or shame. He said, “Am I hearing you…?”

“Yes. You are.”

“What the hell… Ulrike, you can’t tell me…You of all people…”

“I want you to cooperate with the police. I want you to tell them where you were for every date they question you about. If you’d like to make it easier on yourself, you can begin with telling me and I’ll convey the information to them.” She picked up her pen and held it poised above the paper on which she’d created her three-column data sheet. She said, “We’ll start with last September. The tenth, to be precise.”

He stood. “Let me see that.” He reached for the paper. She put her arm across it. “Is your name on that as well?” he asked her. “Or is the bonking-Griff alibi going to serve as your answer to any question they ask you? And anyway, how does it all work, Ulrike, you fucking a suspect on the one hand and acting the role of copper’s nark on the other?”

“My life-” she began, but he cut in.

“Your life. Your life.” His voice was a scoff. “All Colossus all the time. That’s how it’s supposed to look, right? Butter wouldn’t melt, and in the meantime, you don’t even know when a kid goes missing. Have the cops cottoned on to that? Have the board of trustees? Because I think they’d be rather interested, don’t you?”

“Are you threatening me?”

“I’m stating a fact. Take it however you like. In the meantime, don’t tell me how to react when the cops start trawling through my life.”

“Are you aware of how insubordinate-”

“Bugger off.” He reached for the door. He jerked it open. He shouted, “Veness! Get in here, will you?”

Ulrike stood then. Neil was crimson with fury and she knew she matched him colour for colour, but this was intolerable. She said, “Don’t you dare start ordering round other employees. If this is an example of how you take or don’t take direction from a superior, then believe me, it’s going to be noted. It’s already noted.”