“I’m getting on to it. I came straight back. I went to the files for this other information first because I thought-”
“You thought. You thought.” Stewart’s voice was sharp. “It’s not your job to do the bloody thinking. When you’re given an order…” His fist hit the table. “Jesus. What the hell is it that keeps them from giving you the sack, Havers? I’d damn well like to know your secret, because whatever’s keeping you here isn’t between your ears and I sure as hell don’t think it’s between your legs.”
Havers’ face went completely white. She said, “You completely sodding piece of-”
“That’ll do,” Lynley said sharply. “You’re both out of order.”
“She’s-”
“That bastard just said-”
“Enough! Keep it out of this office and out of this investigation or both of you are permanently off the case. Christ but we have enough trouble already without you two going for each other’s throats.” He paused, waiting for his blood to cool. In the silence, Stewart shot Havers a look that clearly assessed her as an impossible cow, and Havers herself seethed openly back at him, a man with whom she’d long ago managed to work for only three weeks before charging him with sexual harassment. Meanwhile Winston Nkata remained by the door in the position he nearly always adopted when placed in a room with more than two white colleagues: He stood with his arms crossed and merely observed, as he had been doing since he’d walked in.
Lynley turned to him wearily. “What have you got for us, Winnie?”
Nkata reported on his meetings: first with Sol Oliver in his car repair shop, then with Bram Savidge. He went on with his visit to the gym where Sean Lavery did his workouts. He concluded with something that diffused the tension in the room: He might have found someone who’d actually seen the killer.
“There was some white bloke hanging round the gym not long before Sean went missing,” Nkata said. “He got noticed ’cause not many whites use the place. Seems one night he was lurking in the corridor just outside the workout room, and when one of the lifters asked him what did he want, he said he was new to the neighbourhood and just looking round for a place to work out. He never did go in, though. Not to the gym, not to the locker room, not to the steam room. Didn’t ask about membership or anything like it. Just showed up in the corridor.”
“Did you get a description?”
“Arranging for an e-fit. Bloke at the gym thinks he might be able to come up with a drawing of this bugger. Right off he was able to tell me no way did the villain belong there. Not a lifter at all, he said, smallish and thin. Long face. I think we got a chance here, Super.”
“Well done, Winnie,” Lynley said.
“That’s what I call good work,” John Stewart put in pointedly. “I’ll have you on my team anytime, Winston. And congratulations on the promotion. I don’t think I mentioned it earlier.”
“John.” Lynley tried for patience. He waited till he found it before he went on. “Take the salt outside please. Phone Hillier. See if you can get manpower for surveillance. Winston, we’ve got Kilfoyle working at a place called Mr. Sandwich, back at Gabriel’s Wharf. Try to make a connection between him and Crystal Moon.”
There was a general shuffling as the men went on their way, leaving Havers behind for Lynley to deal with. He waited till the door was shut to do so.
She spoke first, her voice low but still hot. “I don’t have to bloody put up with-”
“I know,” Lynley said. “Barbara. I know. He was out of order. You were in the right to react. But the other side of the coin, whether you want to see it or not, is that you provoked him.”
“I provoked him? I provoked him to say…?” She seemed unable to finish. She sank into a chair. “Sometimes I don’t even know you.”
“Sometimes,” he replied, “I don’t know myself.”
“Then-”
“You didn’t provoke the words,” Lynley interrupted. “They were inexcusable. But you provoked the fact of the words. Their existence, if you will.” He joined her at the table. He was feeling exasperated, and that was not a good sign. Exasperation meant he might soon run out of ideas on how to get Barbara Havers back into her position as a detective sergeant. It also meant he might soon run out of the willingness to do so. He said, “Barbara, you know the drill. Teamwork. Responsibility. Taking an action that’s been assigned and completing it. Turning over the report. Waiting for the next assignment. When you have a situation like this, one in which thirty-odd people are relying upon you to do what you’ve been told to do…” He lifted a hand and then dropped it.
Havers watched him. He watched her. And then it was as if a veil somehow lifted between them and she understood. She said, “I’m sorry, sir. What can I say? You don’t need more pressure, and I pile it on, don’t I?” She moved restlessly in her chair and Lynley knew she was longing for a cigarette, for something to do with her hands, for something to jolt her brain. He felt like giving her permission to smoke; he also felt like allowing her to squirm. Something had to give somewhere in the damn woman or she was going to be lost for good. She said, “Sometimes I get so bloody sick of everything in life being such a struggle. You know?”
He said, “What’s going on at home?”
She chuckled. She was slumped in her chair, and she straightened her back. “No. We’re not taking a stroll on that path. You’ve enough to cope with, Superintendent.”
“All things considered, a family dispute over two sets of christening clothes is hardly something to cope with,” Lynley said dryly. “And I’ve a wife politically adept enough to negotiate a truce between the in-laws.”
Havers smiled, it seemed, in spite of herself. “I didn’t mean at home and you know it.”
He smiled in turn. “Yes. I know.”
“You’re getting a platterful from upstairs, I expect.”
“Suffice it to say I’m learning how much Malcolm Webberly actually had to put up with to keep Hillier and everyone else off our backs all these years.”
“Hillier sees you hot on his tail,” Havers said. “A few more steps up the ladder and whammo…You’re heading up the Met and he’s pulling his forelock.”
“I don’t want to head up the Met,” Lynley said. “Sometimes…” He looked round the office he’d agreed to inhabit temporarily: the two sets of windows that ludicrously indicated a rise in rank, the conference table at which he and Havers sat, carpet tiles on the floor instead of lino, and outside beyond the door the men and women under his command for the moment. It was meaningless, really, at the end of the day. And it was far less important than what faced him now. He said, “Havers, I think you’re right.”
“Of course, I’m right,” she replied. “Anyone watching-”
“I don’t mean about Hillier. I mean about Colossus. He’s choosing kids from there, so he has to be connected somehow. It flies in the face of what we usually expect from a serial killer but on the other hand, how different is it, really, from Peter Sutcliffe picking up prostitutes or the Wests going for hitchhiking girls? Or someone targeting women walking dogs across parks or on commons? Or someone else always choosing an open window at nighttime and an elderly woman he knows is alone within? Our man’s doing what’s worked for him. And considering he’s managed to pull it off five times without getting caught-without, for the love of God, even being noticed-why shouldn’t he simply keep on doing it?”
“So you think the rest of the bodies are Colossus boys as well?”
“I do,” he said. “And since the boys we’ve identified so far have been throwaways to everyone but their families, our killer hasn’t had to worry about detection.”
“So what’s next?”
“Gather more information.” Lynley rose and considered her: disastrous of appearance and utterly headstrong. Maddening unto the death of him. But she was quick as well, which was why he’d learned to value having her at his side. He said, “Here’s the irony, Barbara.”