“What do you mean? What are you talking-”
“I’m talking about the story, sir. I’m talking about your embedded journalist. I’m talking about putting lives into the hands-”
“Don’t.” Hillier raised his voice. It didn’t seem like something done in anger, though, rather in desperation. A last-ditch effort to stem a tide he could not stop from rising.
“He phoned me after that story appeared. He mentioned her. We gave him a key, a map, whatever, and he found my wife.”
“That’s impossible,” Hillier said. “I read the story myself. There was no way he could have-”
“There were a dozen ways.” His own voice was louder now, his anger fueled by the other’s denial. “The moment you started playing with the press, you created ways. Television, tabloids, radio, broadsheets. You and Deacon-the two of you-thought you could use the media like two crafty politicians, and see where it’s brought us. See where it’s brought us!”
Hillier held up both his hands, palms out: the universal sign to stop. He said, “Thomas. Tommy. This isn’t-” He stopped. He looked towards the door and Lynley could almost read the question in his mind: Where is that bloody coffee? Where are the sandwiches? Where is a useful distraction, for God’s sake, because I have a madman in my office. He said, “I don’t want to argue with you. You need to be at the hospital. You need to be with your family. You need your family-”
“I have no God damn family!” Finally the weir gave way. “She’s dead. And the baby…The baby…They want her on machines for at least two months. More if possible. Do you understand? Not alive, not dead, with the rest of us watching…And you…God damn you. You’ve brought us to this. And there is no way-”
“Stop. Stop. You’re mad with grief. Don’t do and don’t say…Because you’ll regret-”
“What the hell else do I have to regret?” His voice broke horribly and he hated the breaking and what it revealed about how he had been reduced. Man no longer, but something like an earthworm exposed to salt and to sun and writhing, writhing, because this was the end this was surely the end and he hadn’t expected…
There was nothing for it but to lunge for Hillier. To reach him, to grab him, to force him…somewhere…
Strong arms caught him. From behind, these were, so it wasn’t Hillier. He heard a voice in his ear.
“Oh Jesus, man. You got to get away. You got to come with me. Easy, man. Easy.”
Winston Nkata, he thought. Where had he come from? Had he been there all along, unnoticed?
“Take him away.” It was Hillier speaking, Hillier with a handkerchief to his face, held by a hand that was shaking.
Lynley looked at the detective sergeant. Nkata seemed to be behind a shimmering veil. But even then, Lynley could still see his face in the moment before his arms went round him.
“Come with me, guv,” Winston murmured in his ear. “You come with me now.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
IT WAS LATE IN THE AFTERNOON BY THE TIME ULRIKE decided the next approach she wanted to take, having learned from her encounter in Bermondsey with Jack Veness’s aunt that prevarication wasn’t going to serve her purpose. She began with the list of dates she’d got earlier from New Scotland Yard. She took this list and fashioned a multicolumn document from it, using the dates, the victims’ names, and the names of the police’s potential suspects as the columns and the rows. She allowed herself plenty of space to fill in any pertinent fact that came to light about everyone who looked questionable to her.
10 September, she wrote first. Anton Reid.
20 October came after that. Jared Salvatore.
25 November was next. Dennis Butcher. And then more quickly,
10 December, Kimmo Thorne.
18 December, Sean Lavery.
8 January, Davey Benton, who was-she thanked God-not one of theirs. Nor, if it came down to it, was the detective superintendent’s wife, and that had to mean something, didn’t it?
But just supposing what it meant was a killer moving further afield because the heat was too much at Colossus. That was highly possible, and she couldn’t discount it because to discount it-to anyone-could be construed as an attempt to direct suspicion elsewhere. Which was what she wanted to do, of course. But not while looking as if she was doing it.
She realised it had been completely ludicrous to pretend she was interviewing Mary Alice Atkins-Ward in order to see if Jack Veness was ready to be promoted to a more responsible position with Colossus. She couldn’t think how she’d actually come up with such a plan, and she certainly understood why Miss A-W had seen through it. So now she was going to opt for the direct approach, one that had to begin with Neil Greenham, the only individual who’d called in a solicitor, cavalrylike, with the Indians looming. She decided to accost Neil in his classroom, a glance at the clock telling her he’d still be there giving kids the individual help for which he was noted.
He was having a tête-à-tête with a black boy whose name escaped her for the moment. She frowned as she watched and heard Neil say something about the boy’s attendance. Mark, he called him.
Mark Connor, she thought. He’d come to them via Youth Offenders in Lambeth, perpetrator of a common street mugging gone wrong when he pushed an old lady and she fell, breaking her hip. Just the sort of kid Colossus was designed to save.
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.”