He said, “No. It’s more than that. This’s one of a string of boys been found all over town. Gunnersbury Park, Tower Hamlets, carpark in Bayswater, and now the garden. One in the garden’s white, but the rest of them, looks like all been mixed race. And young, Missus Edwards. Kids.”

She shot a look towards the kitchen. He knew what she was thinking: Her Daniel fitted the profile he’d just described. He was young; he was mixed race. Still, she shifted her weight to one hip and said to Nkata, “All north of the river. Don’t affect us over here. And why’re you really here, ’f you don’t mind my asking?,” as if everything she said and the abrupt way she said it could protect her from fearing for her boy’s safety.

Before Nkata could answer, Daniel returned to them, a cup of steaming cocoa in his hand. He appeared to avoid his mother’s look as he said to Nkata, “I brought you this anyway. It’s made from scratch. You c’n have more sugar in it if you want.”

“Cheers, Dan.” Nkata took the mug from the boy and clasped him on the shoulder. Daniel grinned and shifted from one bare foot to the other. “Look like you grown since I saw you,” Nkata added.

“Did,” Daniel said. “We measured. We got marks on a wall in the kitchen. You c’n see if you want. Mum marks me first of every month. I grew two inches.”

“Sprouting up like that,” Nkata said, “make your bones hurt?”

“Yeah! How’d you know? Oh, I ’xpect cos you grew fast as well.”

“Tha’s right,” Nkata said. “Five inches one summer. Ouch.”

Daniel laughed. He appeared ready to settle in for a chat, but his mother stopped this by saying his name sharply. Daniel looked from Nkata to her, then back to Nkata.

“Have your cocoa,” Nkata said. “See you later.”

“Yeah?” The boy’s face asked that a promise be made.

Yasmin Edwards didn’t allow it, saying, “Daniel, this man’s here on business, nothing else.” That was enough. The boy scooted back to the kitchen, casting one final look over his shoulder. Yasmin waited till he was gone before she said to Nkata, “Anything else?”

He took a gulp of the cocoa and set the mug on the iron-legged coffee table where the same red high-heel-shaped ashtray still sat, empty now that the German woman who’d used it was gone from Yasmin Edwards’ life. He said, “You got to have more of a care right now. With Dan.”

Her lips flattened. “You trying to tell me-”

“No,” he said. “You the best mum that boy could have in the world, and I mean it, Yasmin.” He startled himself with his use of her given name, and he was grateful when she pretended not to notice. He hurried on. “I know you got stuff to do coming out ’f your ears, what with the wig business an’ all that. Dan spends time on his own, not cos that’s the way you want it but cos that’s how it is. All I’m saying is, this bleeder’s picking up boys Dan’s age and he’s killing them, and I don’t want that to happen to Dan.”

“He’s not stupid,” Yasmin said curtly, although Nkata could tell this was all bravado. She wasn’t stupid, either.

“I know that, Yas. But he’s…” Nkata searched for the words. “You c’n tell he needs a man. ’S obvious. An’ from what we c’n tell ’bout the boys been killed…They’re going with him. They’re not fighting it. No one sees anything cos there’s nothing to see cos they trust him, okay?”

“Daniel i’n’t about to go with some-”

“We think he uses a van,” Nkata cut in, persisting in spite of her evident scorn. “We think it’s red.”

“I’m saying. Daniel doesn’t take rides. Not from people he doesn’ know.” She cast a look in the direction of the kitchen. She lowered her voice. “What’re you saying? You think I di’n’t teach him that?”

“I know you taught him. Like I said, I c’n see you’re a good mum to the boy. But that doesn’ change what the fact is inside of him, Yas. And the fact is, he needs a man.”

“Thinkin’ you’re going to be it or something?”

“Yas.” Now that he’d begun saying her name, Nkata found he couldn’t say it enough. It was an addiction for him, one he knew he had to be rid of in very short order or he would be lost, like a needle freak dossing in a doorway in the Strand. So he tried again. “Missus Edwards, I know Dan spends time on his own cos you’re busy. And tha’s not good and tha’s not bad. It’s just how it is. All I want you to unnerstan is wha’s going on in your neighbourhood, see?”

“Fine,” she said. “I un’erstand now.” She moved past him to the door and reached for the knob, saying, “You did what you come for, and now you can-”

“Yas!” Nkata wouldn’t be dismissed. He was there to do the woman a service whether she liked it or not, and that service was to impress upon her the danger and urgency of the situation, neither of which she apparently wished to grasp. “There’s a bugger out there going after boys just like Daniel,” Nkata said rather more hotly than he would have liked. “He’s getting them in a van and he’s burning their hands till the skin goes black. Then he’s strangling them and he’s slicing them open.” He had her attention now, and that spurred him to continue, as if each word were a way he proved something to her, although what that something was he didn’t want to consider at the moment. “Then he marks them up a bit more with their own blood. And then he puts their bodies on display. Boys go with him and we don’t know why and till we know…” He saw that her face had changed. Anger, horror, and fear had metamorphosed into…What was it he was seeing?

She was looking beyond him, her gaze fixed on the kitchen. And he knew. Just like that-as if fingers had snapped in front of his face and he suddenly returned to consciousness, he knew. He didn’t have to turn. He only had to wonder how long Daniel had been standing in the doorway and how much he had heard.

Aside from having given Yasmin Edwards a wealth of information that she did not need and that he was not authorised to give to anyone, he’d frightened her son, and he knew that without looking, just as he knew he’d long outstayed whatever welcome he might have had in Doddington Grove Estate.

“Done enough?” Yasmin Edwards whispered fiercely, moving her gaze from her son to Nkata. “Said enough? Seen enough?”

Nkata tore his gaze from her, moving it to take in Daniel. He was standing in the doorway with a piece of toast in his hand, one leg crossed over the other and squeezing as if he needed the toilet. His eyes were big, and what Nkata felt was sorrow that he’d had to see or hear his mum in anything resembling an altercation with a man. He said to Daniel, “I d’n’t want you to hear that, man. No need and I’m sorry. You just be careful on the street. There’s a killer going after boys your age. I don’t want him going after you.”

Daniel nodded. He looked solemn. He said, “’Kay.” And then when Nkata turned to leave, “You come round again or what?”

Nkata didn’t answer him directly. He said, “You just keep safe, okay?” And as he stepped out of the flat, he ventured a final look at Daniel Edwards’ mother. His expression said to her, What did I tell you, Yasmin? Daniel needs a man.

Her expression responded just as clearly, Whatever you’re thinking, that man i’n’t you.