Val looked up from her sweeping once again. She brushed a lank lock of hair from her face.

“Now, you know that’s the truth,” Clara chided her gently. “You couldn’t make those deliveries, no matter what you think, dear.”

“Does he buy supplies for you as well?” Nkata asked.

“What kind of supplies? Paper bags and such? Mustard? Wrapping for the sandwiches? No, we mostly have all that delivered.”

“I had in mind…p’rhaps ingredients,” Nkata said. “He ever get parsley oil for you?”

“Parsley?” Clara looked at Val as if to register her level of incredulity. “Parsley oil, you say? I never knew there was such a thing. Of course, I suppose there must be, mustn’t there? Walnut oil, sesame oil, olive oil, peanut oil. Why not parsley oil as well? But no, he’s never bought it for Mr. Sandwich. I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

Val made a sound, something like gurgling. Her mother, hearing this, leaned over the counter and spoke directly into her face. Did she know something about parsley oil and Robbie? Clara inquired. If she did, dearest, then she needed to tell the policeman straightaway.

Val’s glance went to Nkata. She said, “Nuffink,” which was the extent of her intelligible comments during the entire interview.

Nkata said, “I s’pose he could be using it for cooking. Or for his breath. How’s his breath?”

Clara laughed. “It’s nothing I’ve ever noticed, but I daresay our Val’s got close enough for a whiff now and then. How is it, darling? Nice? Bad? What?”

Val scowled at her mother and skulked off into what seemed to be a storeroom. Clara said to Nkata that her daughter had “a bit of a crush.” Not that anything could come of it, naturally. The sergeant had probably noticed that Val had a few problems with her social skills.

“I’d thought Robbie Kilfoyle might be just the ticket to bring her out of herself,” Clara confided in a lower voice, “which is part of the reason I hired him. He’d never had much of an employment record-that’s owing to the mum being ill for so long-but I rather saw that as something of an advantage in the romance department. Wouldn’t have his sights set so high, I thought. Not like other lads for whom Val, let’s face it, poor love, wouldn’t exactly be a prize. But nothing came of it. No spark between them, you see. Then when his mum passed on, I thought he’d come round a little bit. But he never did. The life just went out of the lad.” She glanced back in the direction of the storage room and then added quietly, “Depression. It will do you in if you aren’t careful. I felt it myself when Val’s dad died. It wasn’t sudden, of course, so at least I had some time to prepare. But you feel it all the same when someone’s gone, don’t you? There’s that void, and there’s no getting round it. You’re staring into it all day long. Val and I opened this shop because of it.”

“Because of…?”

“Her dad’s dying. He left us well enough off, I mean with enough to get by on. But one can’t sit home and stare at the walls. One has to keep living.” She paused and untied her apron. As she folded it carefully and laid it on the top of the counter, she nodded as if she’d just revealed something to herself. “You know, I think I’ll have a word with our Robbie about that very subject. Life must go on.” She cast a last, furtive look at the storage room. “And she’s a good cook, our Val. That’s not something a young man of marriageable age ought to turn his nose up at. Just because she’s the quiet type…After all, what’s more important at the end of the day? Conversation or good food? Good food, correct?”

“Won’t get an argument from me,” Nkata said.

Clara smiled. “Really?”

“Most men like to eat,” he told her.

“Exactly,” she said, and he realised she’d begun looking at him with entirely new eyes.

Which told him it was time to thank her for her information and to depart. He didn’t want to think of what his mum would say if he showed up at home with a Val on his arm.

“I WANT AN EXPLANATION,” were the assistant commissioner’s words to Lynley as he walked through the door. He hadn’t waited for Harriman to announce him, instead allowing a simple and terse, “Is he in here?,” to precede him into the office.

Lynley was seated behind his desk, comparing forensic reports on Davey Benton with those from the killings that had gone before his. He set the paperwork aside, took off his reading spectacles, and stood. “Dee said you wanted to speak to me.” He motioned towards the conference table at one side of the room.

Hillier didn’t accept that wordless invitation. He said, “I’ve had a talk with Mitch Corsico, Superintendent.”

Lynley waited. He’d known how likely it was that this would come once he thwarted Corsico’s intentions of doing a story on Winston Nkata, and he understood the workings of Hillier’s mind well enough to realise he had to let the assistant commissioner have his say.

“Explain yourself.” Hillier’s words were regulated, and Lynley had to give him credit for descending into enemy territory with the intention of holding on to his temper as long as he could.

He said, “St. James has an international reputation, sir. The fact that the Met is pulling out all the stops on this investigation-by bringing in an independent specialist to be part of the team, for example-was something I thought should be highlighted.”

“That was your thought, was it?” Hillier said.

“In brief, yes. When I considered how far a profile of St. James could go to boost public confidence in what we’re doing-”

“That wasn’t your decision to make.”

Lynley went doggedly on. “And when I compared that increase in confidence with what could be gained by profiling Winston Nkata instead-”

“So you admit you moved to block access to Nkata?”

“-then it seemed likely that we could make more political hay from letting the public know we’ve an expert witness on our team than we could make by putting a black officer on display and washing his dirty linen in public.”

“Corsico had no intention-”

“He went straight to questions about Winston’s brother,” Lynley cut in. “It sounded to me as if he’d even been briefed on the subject, so he’d know what angle he ought to take when he wrote the interview. Sir.”

Hillier’s face took on deep colour. It rose from his neck like a ruby liquid just beneath his skin. “I don’t want to think what you’re implying.”

Lynley made an effort to speak calmly. “Sir, let me try to be clear. You’re under pressure. I’m under pressure. The public’s stirred up. The press is brutal. Something’s got to be done to mould opinion out there-I’m aware of that-but I can’t have a tabloid journalist sniffing round the background of individual officers.”

“You’re not going to be naying or yeaing decisions made above your head. Do you understand?”

“I’ll be doing whatever naying or yeaing is necessary and I’ll be doing it every time something occurs that could affect the job done by one of my men. A story on Winston-featuring his pathetic brother because you and I know The Source was intending to put Harold Nkata’s face right there next to Winston’s…Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, the unreturned and unreturnable prodigal…whatever you want to call him…And a story on Winston just at the moment when he’s already got to contend with being on public display at press conferences…It’s just not on, sir.”

“Are you daring to tell me that you know better than our own people how to manage the press? That you-speaking no doubt from the great height you alone happen to occupy-”

“Sir.” Lynley didn’t want to get into mudslinging with the AC. Desperately, he sought another direction. “Winston came to me.”

“Asking you to intervene?”

“Not at all. He’s a team player. But he mentioned that Corsico was going after the good brother-bad brother angle on the story, and his concerns were that his parents-”