“He wanted to make you look bad in front of me,” Nkata said. “I don’t like that. Just thought I’d return the favour and let him see how it feels.”
“That presupposes the AC might think he could ever look bad in front of anyone,” Lynley said wryly. They went to the lift. Lynley pushed the down button. He examined it for a moment before he went on. “On the other hand,” he said, “it’s a suitable irony.”
“What’s that, guv?”
“That in giving the rank of sergeant to you and denying it to Barbara, Hillier got more than he bargained for.”
Nkata thought about this. The lift doors slid open. They entered and punched for the floors they needed. “D’you s’pose he reckoned I’d yes-guv him right to the grave?” he asked curiously.
“Yes. I think that’s what he assumed.”
“Why?”
“Because he has no idea who you are,” Lynley replied. “But I expect that’s something you’ve already realised.”
They descended to the floor for the incident room, where Lynley got off, leaving Nkata to ride to the underground carpark. Before the doors closed upon him, however, the acting superintendent stopped them, his hand holding one of them back.
“Winston-” He didn’t say anything else for a moment and Nkata waited for him to go on. When he finally did, it was to say, “Thank you all the same.” He released the lift door and let it slide closed. His dark eyes met Nkata’s for an instant, then were gone.
It was raining when Nkata emerged from the underground carpark. Daylight was fast fading, and the rain exacerbated the gloom. Traffic lights gleamed against the wet streets; taillights of vehicles winked in the prisms of the raindrops hitting his windscreen. Nkata worked his way over to Parliament Square and inched towards Westminster Bridge in a queue of taxis, buses, and government cars. As he crossed, the river heaved in a grey mass below him, puckered with rain and rippled by the incoming tide. There a single barge chugged its way in the direction of Lambeth, and in its wheelhouse a solitary figure kept the craft on its course.
Nkata parked illegally at the south end of Gabriel’s Wharf and put a police placard in the window. Turning up the collar of his coat against the rain, he strode into the wharf area, where the overhead lights made a cheerful crisscrossing pattern above him and the owner of the bicycle rental shop was wisely wheeling his wares indoors.
At Crystal Moon, it was Gigi this time and not her grandmother who was perched on a stool, reading behind the till. Nkata approached her and showed his police identification. She didn’t look at it, however. Instead, she said, “Gran told me you’d probably be back. She’s good that way. A real intuitive. In another time, she’d’ve been done for a witch. Did the agrimony work?”
“Not sure what I’m meant to do with it.”
“Is that why you’re back, then?”
He shook his head. “Wanted to have a word about a bloke called Kilfoyle.”
She said, “Rob?,” and closed her book. It was, he saw, one of the Harry Potters. “What about Rob?”
“You know him, then?”
“Yeah.” She said the word on two notes, a combination of confirmation and question. She looked wary.
“How well?”
“I’m not sure how I’m meant to take this,” she said. “Has Rob done something?”
“He buy stuff here?”
“Occasionally. But so do lots of other people. What’s this about?”
“What’s he buy off you, then?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t been in in a while. And I don’t write down what people buy.”
“But you know he bought something.”
“Because I know him. I also know that two of the waitresses from Riviera Restaurant have made purchases as well. So have the head cook at Pizza Express and a collection of shop assistants from the wharf. But it’s the same as for Rob: I don’t recall what they bought. Except for the bloke at Pizza Express. He wanted a love potion for a girl he met. I remember that because we got into the whole love thing.”
“Know him how?” Nkata asked her.
“Who?”
“You said you know Kilfoyle. I’m wondering how.”
“You mean is he my boyfriend or something?” Nkata could see the colour deepen round the hollow of her throat. “No. He isn’t. I mean, we had a drink once, but it wasn’t a date. Is he in some sort of trouble?”
Nkata didn’t reply to this. It had always been a long shot, anyway, that the owner of Crystal Moon would remember what someone had bought. But the fact that Kilfoyle had indeed made a purchase gave the investigation grist to move forward, which was what they needed. He told Gigi that he appreciated her help and he gave her his card and told her to phone should she remember anything particular about Kilfoyle that she thought he should know. He realised that chances were good she’d hand over the card to Kilfoyle himself the next time she saw him, but he didn’t see that as a problem. If Kilfoyle was their killer, the fact that the cops were on to him would surely slow him down. At this point, that was nearly as gratifying as nabbing him. They had enough victims on their hands already.
He headed for the door, where he paused to ask another question of Gigi. “How’m I meant to use it, then?”
“What?”
“The agrimony.”
“Oh,” she said. “You burn or anoint.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning: Burn the oil in her presence or anoint her body with it. I take it it’s a her we’re talking about?”
Nkata thought about and then dismissed the likelihood of his being able to accomplish either task. But he also thought about the serial killer: burning and anointing. He was doing both. He thanked Gigi and left the shop. He went next door to Mr. Sandwich.
The little eatery was closed for the day, and the sign said that its hours of business were from ten till three. He looked through the windows but could make nothing out in the semidarkness save the counter and, on the wall behind it, a list of sandwiches and their prices. There was nothing more to be gained in this spot, he decided. It was time to go.
But he didn’t head homeward. Instead, he felt himself compelled to drive yet another time in the general direction of the Oval, weaving over to Kennington Park Road as soon as he was able to do so. He parked again in Braganza Street, but rather than wait for her or enter Doddington Grove Estate to see if she was already home, he walked up to the dispirited patch of green that was Surrey Gardens. From there, he headed into Manor Place, a spot still trying to make a choice between decrepitude and renaissance.
He hadn’t been to her shop since November, but there was no way he could have forgotten where it was. He found her within, just as she’d been the last time he visited. She was at a desk at the back, her head bent over what looked like an accounts book. She had a pencil in her mouth, which made her look vulnerable, like a schoolgirl having trouble doing her sums. When she glanced up as he entered and the buzzer went off, though, she looked adult enough. And equally unfriendly. She set her pencil down and closed the book. She came to the counter and made sure, it seemed, that it stood like a bulwark between them.
He said, “A black boy was killed this time. His body got dumped near London Bridge Station. We got an ID on an earlier boy ’s well. Mixed race, he was. From Furzedown. That’s two boys south of the river now, Yas. Where’s Daniel?”
She said, “If you think-”
He cut her off impatiently. “Yas, Daniel have anything to do with a group of kids meeting up at Elephant and Castle?”
“Dan doesn’t do gangs,” she protested.
“Isn’t a gang, this, Yas. This’s an outreach group. They offer kids activities, kids at…kids at risk.” He hurried on. “I know. I know you’ll say Dan i’n’t at risk, and I’m not here to argue that. The group’s called Colossus, though, and I need to know. You ever talk to them about seeing to Dan after school? While you’re still working? Giving him a place to go?”