“Has to be done, though.”
“Right.” She examined the cigarette she’d been intending to light up. She made up her mind and shoved it into her pocket. It broke in half. Part fell to the floor. She looked at it, then gave it a kick under the coffee machine.
“What else?” Nkata asked her.
“This bloke mentioned Helen. Super’s cut up, and who can blame him.”
“Tha’s from the paper. He’s trying to unnerve us.”
“Right. Well. He’s managed that.” Barbara downed her coffee and crumpled the cup with a crunch. She said, “Where is he, anyway?”
“Corsico?” Nkata shrugged. “Digging through someone’s personnel file, I expect. Typing everyone’s name online and seeing what he can come up with next for a good story. Barb, this bloke-Red Van-what’d he say ’bout her?”
“About Helen? I don’t know the details. But the whole idea of anything being printed in the paper about anyone…This isn’t good. Not for us and not for the investigation. How’re you with Hillier, by the way?”
“Avoiding him.”
“Not a bad idea.”
Mitchell Corsico appeared from out of nowhere then, his face brightening when he saw them by the coffee machine.
The reporter said, “DS Nkata. I’ve been looking for you.”
Barb said under her breath to Nkata, “Rather you than me, Winnie. Sorry,” and started back for the incident room. She and Corsico passed each other without a glance. A moment later, Nkata found himself alone with the reporter.
“Could I have a word?” Corsico purchased a tea for himself from the machine: milk and extra sugar. He slurped when he drank it. Alice Nkata would have disapproved.
“Work to do,” Nkata said and made a move to go.
“It’s about Harold, actually.” Corsico’s voice remained as friendly as ever. “I wonder if you’d just like to make a comment about him. The contrast between two brothers…It’ll be a brilliant lead for the story. You’re next, as you’ve probably gathered. You on the one hand and Lynley on the other. It’s sort of an alpha and omega situation that’ll make good reading.”
At the mention of his brother’s name, Nkata had felt his whole body stiffen. He would not talk about Stoney. And a comment about him? Like what? Anything he said-even if he said he had no comment at all-would come back to haunt him. Defend Stoney Nkata and it would go down to blinkers and blacks supporting blacks no matter what. Make no comment and it would go down to a cop disowning his past, not to mention his family.
Nkata said, “Harold”-and how odd his brother’s Christian name sounded when he’d never called him that in his life-“he’s my brother. Tha’s right.”
“And would you like to-”
“I just did,” Nkata said. “Just confirmed it for you. If you’ll ’scuse me, then, I’ve got work to do.”
Corsico followed him down the corridor and into the incident room. He pulled up a chair next to Nkata’s and took out his notebook, referring to the page on which he’d taken down information in what looked like old-fashioned shorthand.
He said, “I began that all wrong. Let me try it again. Your dad’s called Benjamin. He drives a bus, right? How long has he worked for London transport? Which route would he be on, DS Nkata?”
Nkata tightened his jaw and began to sort through the papers on which he’d been recording information earlier.
Corsico said, “Yes. Well. It’s Loughborough Estate, South London, isn’t it? Have you lived there long?”
“All my life.” Still, Nkata did not look at the reporter. His every movement he designed to say, I’m busy, man.
Corsico wasn’t buying. He said with a glance at his notes, “And your mother? Alice? What does she do?”
Nkata swung round in his chair. He kept his voice polite. He said, “Super’s wife ended up in the paper. Tha’s not happening to my fam’ly. No way.”
Corsico apparently took this as a welcome into Nkata’s psyche, which seemed to be of more interest to him anyway. He said, “Tough being a cop with your background, Sergeant? Is that how it is?”
Nkata said, “I don’t want a story ’bout me in the paper. I can’t make it any more clear ’n that, Mr. Corsico.”
“Mitch,” Corsico said. “And you’re looking at me as an adversary, aren’t you? That’s not how it should be between us. I’m here to do the Met a service. Did you read the piece about Superintendent Lynley? Not a bit of negativity to it. He was depicted in the most positive light I could manage. Well yes, all right, there’s something more to be said about him…The affair in Yorkshire and his brother-in-law’s death…but we don’t need to get into that anytime soon, so long as the rest of the officers cooperate when I want to feature them.”
“Hang on, man,” Nkata said. “You threatening me? With what you’ll do to the super ’f I don’t play your game?”
Corsico smiled. Casually, he waved the questions off. “No. No. But information comes to me via the newsroom at The Source, Sergeant. That means someone else likely gets the information before I do. And that means my editor’s twigged that there’s more to a story than I’ve printed so far and he wants to know why, not to mention when I’m going to do a follow-up. Like this Yorkshire information: ‘Why aren’t you going with the murder of Edward Davenport, Mitch?’ he’s going to ask. I tell him that I’ve got a better story in hand, a sort of rags-to-riches or rather Brixton-Warriors-to-the-Met story. Believe me, I tell him, when you see this you’ll understand why I moved on from Lynley. How’d you get that scar on your face, Sergeant Nkata? Is it from a flick knife?”
Nkata said nothing: not about Windmill allotments and the street fight that had ended up with his disfigurement and certainly nothing about the Brixton Warriors, who were as active as ever south of the river.
“Besides,” Corsico said, “you know this comes from higher up than me, don’t you? Stephenson Deacon-not to mention AC Hillier-drives a hard bargain with the press. I expect they’ll drive a harder bargain with you if you don’t jump onboard and help out with the profiles.”
At this, Nkata made himself nod in a friendly fashion as he pushed back from his desk. He picked up his notebook and said with as much dignity as he could manage, “Mitch, I got to talk to the super right now. He’s waiting for this”-with a gesture towards his notes-“so we’ll have to do…whatever we have to do later on.”
He left the incident room. Lynley didn’t need the information he had-it was useless anyway-but there was no way in hell he was going to sit there and listen to the journalist’s polite, implied threats. If Hillier blew a fuse as a result of Nkata’s lack of cooperation, so be it, he decided.
Lynley’s office door was open, and the superintendent was on the phone when Nkata entered. Lynley acknowledged him with a nod, indicating the chair in front of his desk. He was listening and writing on a yellow pad.
When he was finished with his call, Lynley said to him presciently, “Corsico?”
“He started off with Stoney. Straightaway. Man, I do not want this bloke digging into my fam’ly. Mum’s got enough on her shoulders without Stoney ending up in the papers again.” He surprised himself with his own passion. He hadn’t thought he still felt the betrayal, the outrage, the…the whatever it really was, because he could not name it at the moment and he knew he couldn’t afford to try.
Lynley took off his spectacles and put his fingers to his forehead, pressing hard. He said, “Winston, how do I apologise for all this?”
Nkata said, “You c’n take out Hillier, I guess. That’d do for a start.”
“Wouldn’t it just,” Lynley agreed. “So you refused Corsico?”