“Oh, many things, dear,” the old lady said. She eased herself off the stool and came over to the display to stand beside him. He towered over her, but she didn’t seem to be disconcerted to discover this. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, said, “My goodness, you’ve taken your vitamins, haven’t you?,” and went on amiably. “Some of them have medicinal uses, dear. Some are for magic. Some are for alchemy. This is according to Gigi, naturally. I don’t actually know if they’re good for anything. Why d’you ask? D’you need something special?”

Nkata reached for the bottle of ambergris oil. “What about this one?”

She took it from him and said, “Ambergris…Let’s see, shall we?” She carried the bottle back to the counter and from beneath it she brought forth a volume.

If she herself hadn’t been what Nkata expected to find inside a shop called Crystal Moon, the enormous book she heaved to the counter was. It looked like something from the prop room at Elstree Studios: large, leather bound, with dog-eared pages. Nkata expected moths to fly out when she opened it.

She seemed to read his mind because she laughed in an embarrassed fashion and said, “Yes. A bit silly, I know. But people expect this sort of thing, don’t they?” She flipped through some pages and began to read. Nkata joined her at the counter. She started tut-tutting, shaking her head and fingering her beads.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s a bit unpleasant, actually. Its associations, I mean.” Pointing to the page, she went on to tell him that not only did some poor sweet whale have to die in order for people to get their hands on the oil, but the substance itself was used in doing works of wrath or vengeance. She frowned and looked up at him earnestly. “Now, I must ask. Forgive me, please. Gigi would be appalled, but there are some things…Why would you be wanting the ambergris? Lovely man like you. Is it something to do with the scar, dear? It’s unfortunate you have it, but if I might say…Well, it does give your face a certain distinction. So if I might guide you in another direction…?”

She told him that a man like himself should think instead about calamint oil, which would help keep women away because surely he was mobbed by them on a daily basis. On the other hand, bryony could be used in love potions if there was a special woman out there who had struck his fancy. Or agrimony, which would banish negativity. Or eucalyptus for healing. Or sage for immortality. There were so many choices with far more positive uses than the ambergris, dear, and if she could possibly do anything at all to guide him in a direction that would assist him in an outcome having positive repercussions in his life…

Nkata realised it was time. He brought out his identification. He told her that ambergris oil had been associated with a murder.

“Murder?” Her eyes-their blue faded with age-widened as one hand went to her chest. “My dear, you don’t think…Has someone been poisoned? Because I don’t believe…it can’t be possible…the bottle would be marked in some way…I know that…it would have to be…”

Nkata hastened to reassure her. No one had been poisoned, and even if someone had, the shop would only be responsible if the shop had administered the substance. That wasn’t the case, was it?

“Of course not. Of course not,” she said. “But, my dear, when Gigi hears about this, she’ll be devastated. To be even remotely connected to a murder…She is the most peaceable young woman. Truly. If you could see her in here with her customers. If you could hear the music she plays. I’ve the CDs right here and you’re welcome to look through them. See? The God Within, Spiritual Journeys. And there are others. All about meditations and the like.”

It was her mention of the word customers that Nkata brought her back to. He asked if the shop had sold any of the ambergris oil recently. She told him that she didn’t quite know. They probably had done. Gigi did a respectable business, even at this time of year. But they had no records of individual purchases. There were the credit card receipts, of course, so the police might go at things from that end. Otherwise there was only the notebook that customers signed if they wanted a copy of Crystal Moon’s newsletter. Would that help at all?

Nkata doubted it, but he accepted the offer and took it from the woman. He gave her his card and told her that if she remembered anything at all…Or if Gigi could add to what her grandmother knew…

Yes, yes. Of course. Anything at all. And as a matter of fact…

“Heaven knows what help it might be, dear, but there is a list Gigi’s been keeping,” her grandmother said. “It’s only postal codes. She’s been keen to open Crystal Moon Two on the other side of the river-Notting Hill?-and she’s been keeping the postal codes of her customers to buoy her case for a loan from the bank. Would that help at all?”

Nkata didn’t see how, but he was willing to take the list anyway. He thanked Gigi’s gran and started to leave but found himself pausing, in spite of himself, in front of the display of oils once again.

“Is there anything else, then?” Gigi’s gran asked.

He had to admit to himself that there was. He said, “Which one ’d you say banishes negativity?”

“That was the agrimony, dear.”

He scooped up a bottle and carried it to the counter. “This’ll do, then,” he said.

ELEPHANT AND CASTLE existed as a place apparently oblivious of the other Londons that had, over the years, developed and died around it. The Swinging London of miniskirts, vinyl boots, the King’s Road, and Carnaby Street had decades ago passed it by. The catwalks of Fashion Week London had never been laid anywhere near its environs. And while the London Eye, the Millennium Footbridge, and the Tate Modern all stood as examples of the dawn of a brand new century in town, Elephant and Castle remained locked in the past. True, the area was struggling to be redeveloped, as were many places south of the river. But its struggle was one against the odds, and the odds comprised drug users and suppliers doing business on the streets, as well as poverty, ignorance, and despair. It was into this milieu that its founders had set Colossus, taking what had been a derelict structure designed for the manufacture of mattresses and modestly renovating the place to serve the community in an entirely different way.

Barbara Havers directed Lynley to the spot on New Kent Road, where a small carpark behind the jaundiced brick structure offered a place for participants in Colossus to have a smoke. A crowd of them stood round doing just that as Lynley guided his car into one of the parking bays. As he put on the brake and shut down the engine, Havers pointed out that a Bentley was, perhaps, not the best choice of transport to be bringing into the neighbourhood.

Lynley couldn’t disagree. He hadn’t quite thought things through when, in the underground carpark on Victoria Street, Havers had said, “Why don’t we take my motor, sir?” At that moment he’d just wanted to assert some control over things, and one part of getting that control was putting distance between himself and any edifice that happened to shelter the assistant commissioner of police. Another part had been making the decision about how that distance was going to be effected. But now he saw that Havers had been right. It wasn’t so much that they put themselves at risk, driving a posh car into this kind of place. It was more that they made a statement about themselves, which didn’t need making.

On the other hand, he told himself, at least they weren’t announcing the fact that they were coppers to all and sundry. But he was disabused of that notion the moment he stepped out of the Bentley and locked it behind him.

“The filth,” someone muttered, and this caution passed quickly throughout the smokers until all conversation had died among them. So much for the value of vehicular incognito, Lynley thought.