What she said made Nkata wonder why he’d come. “Parsley.”

He said, “What about it? I thought you said-”

“Come here, Sergeant. You need to understand.”

She urged him over to the till and she indicated the large book open next to it. Nkata recognised the antique volume from his first visit, when Gigi’s gran had been in charge of the place.

“I didn’t think anything of it when he came in,” she said. “Not at first. Because parsley oil-which is what he bought-has more than one use. See, it’s a bit of a miracle herb: diuretic, antispasmodic, stimulant of the uterine muscles, breath freshener. If you plant it next to roses, it even improves their scent, no joking. And that doesn’t begin to take into account all its uses in cooking, so when he bought it, I didn’t think…except I knew that you had your eye on him, didn’t I, so the more I thought about it-even though he didn’t even mention ambergris oil-I decided to have a look in the book and see what else it might be used for. It’s not like I have them memorised, you understand. Well, maybe I ought, but there are zillions and it’s just too much for one brain to hold on to.”

She went behind the counter and swung the herb book round so that he could see it. Even then, she seemed to feel the need to prepare him for what he was about to read.

She said, “Now it may be nothing, and it probably is, so you must swear to me you won’t tell Robbie I rang you about it. I have to work next door to him, and bad blood between neighbours is the worst. So can you promise me you won’t tell him about this? That you know about the parsley oil, I mean. And that I told you?”

Nkata shook his head. “’F this bloke’s our killer, I can’t promise you a thing,” he told her honestly. “You got something we can use at someone’s trial, it goes to the CPS and they want to interview you as a potential witness. That’s the truth of it. But I don’t see how parsley relates to anything so far, so I reckon you’re the one to decide what you want to tell me ’bout it.”

She cocked her head at him. “I like you,” she said. “Any other cop would’ve lied just then. So I’ll tell you.” She pointed out the entry for parsley oil. In herbal magic, it was used for triumph. It was also used to drive away venomous beasts. Sown on Good Friday, the plant itself would nullify wickedness. Its power was in its root and its seeds.

But that wasn’t all.

“Aromatic oil,” Nkata read. “Fatty oil, balsam, medicinal, culinary, incense, and perfume.” Nkata pulled thoughtfully at his chin. Interesting as it was, he didn’t see how they could use any of this data.

“Well?” Gigi’s voice bore a low-wattage undercurrent of excitement. “What d’you think? Was I right to ring you? He hadn’t been in in ages, see, and when he walked into the shop I…well, to be honest, I nearly bricked it. I didn’t know what he was likely to do, so I tried to act like everything was normal, but I watched him and I kept waiting for him to go for the ambergris oil, in which case I s’pose I might’ve passed out on the spot. Then when he bought the parsley oil instead, like I said, I didn’t think too much about it. Till I read this stuff about triumph and demons and evil and…” She shuddered. “I just knew I had to tell you. Because if I didn’t and if something happened to someone somewhere and if it turned out Robbie’s the…not that I think he is for a minute and God, you must never tell him ’cause we’ve even had drinks together like I told you before.”

Nkata said, “You got a copy of the receipt and all that?”

“Oh absolutely,” Gigi told him. “He paid cash and the oil was the only thing he bought. I’ve got the till copy right here.” And she rang up something on the till to open it, whereupon she pulled up the tray that held the notes separate from one another, and from beneath this, she took a slip of paper which she handed over to Nkata. She’d written “Rob Kilfoyle’s purchase of parsley oil” on this. She’d underlined “parsley oil” twice.

Nkata wondered how they could possibly make use of the fact that one of their suspects had purchased parsley oil, but he took the receipt from Gigi and folded it inside his leather notebook. He thanked the young woman for her vigilance and told her to be in touch with him should Robbie Kilfoyle-or anyone else-stop in for ambergris oil.

He was about to leave when the thought struck him, so he paused in the doorway to ask her a final question. “Any chance he nicked the ambergris oil while he was in here?”

She shook her head. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him once, she assured Nkata. There was no way he’d taken anything that he’d not presented to her and paid for. No way at all.

Nkata nodded thoughtfully at this, but he wondered all the same. He left the shop and stood outside, casting a look towards Mr. Sandwich, where the two aproned women were still at work. A “closed” sign now hung in the window. He took out his police identification and went to the door. There was one possibility for the parsley oil that he needed to check out.

When he knocked, they looked up. The plumper of the two women was the one who opened the door to him. He asked her if he could have a word, and she said yes, of course, do come in, officer. They were just about to go home for the day and he was lucky to catch them still at it.

He stepped inside. At once he saw the large yellow cart parked in a corner. “Mr. Sandwich” was painted neatly on it, along with a cartoon figure of a filled baguette with crusty face, top hat, spindly arms, and legs. This would be Robbie Kilfoyle’s delivery cart. Kilfoyle himself, along with his bicycle, would be long gone for the day.

Nkata introduced himself to the two women who told him in turn they were Clara Maxwell and daughter Val. This bit of information was something of a surprise, since the two looked more like sisters than they did parent and child, a circumstance caused not so much by Clara’s youthful looks-of which there were none to speak of-as by Val’s dowdy dress sense and drooping figure. Nkata adjusted to the information and nodded in a friendly fashion. In return, Val kept her distance behind the counter, where she did as much lurking as she did cleaning. Her glance kept shifting from Nkata to her mother and back again, while Clara established herself as spokeswoman for the two.

“C’n I have a word with you ’bout Robbie Kilfoyle?” Nkata asked. “He works for you, right?”

Clara said, “He’s not in trouble,” as a statement of fact and cast a look at Val, who nodded in apparent agreement with this remark.

“He delivers your sandwiches, i’n’t that the case?”

“Yes. Has done for…what is it, Val? Three years? Four?”

Val nodded again. Her eyebrows knotted, as if in a display of concern. She turned away and went to a cupboard from which she took a broom and dustpan. She began using this on the floor behind the counter.

“Must be nearly four years, then,” Clara said. “Lovely young man. He carries the sandwiches round to our clients-we do crisps, pickles, and pasta salads as well-and he returns with the cash. He’s never been out by so much as ten pence.”

Val looked up suddenly.

Her mother said, “Oh yes, I’d forgotten. Thank you, Val. There was that one time, wasn’t there?”

“What time?”

“Shortly before his mum died. This would have been December, year before this last one. We were ten pounds short one day. Turned out he’d borrowed them to buy Mum flowers. She was in a home, you know.” Clara tapped her skull. “Alzheimer’s, poor soul. He took her…I don’t know…tulips? Would there’ve been tulips at that time of year? Perhaps something else? Anyway, Val’s right. I’d forgotten about that. But he confessed straightaway when I asked him about it, didn’t he, and I had the money in my hand the very next day. After that, nothing. He’s been good as gold. We couldn’t run the business without him because mainly what we do is delivery, and there’s no one but Rob to do it.”