a chance to unlock it. And there was Daniel, backlit by a shifting glow that would be coming from the television set. He took the carrier bags from his mother, but as he was about to move off, she stopped him. Hands on hips, she stood. Head cocked. Weight on one of her long, lithe legs. She said something and Daniel came back to her. He set the bags down and submitted to a hug. Just at the point when it looked like the hug was being only endured and not enjoyed, his own arms went round his mother's waist. Then Yasmin kissed the top of his head.
After that, Daniel took the carrier bags inside and Yasmin followed him. She shut the door. A moment later, she appeared at the window which, Nkata knew, looked out from the sitting room. She reached for the curtains to shut them against the night, but before she did that, she stood for twenty seconds or so, gazing into the darkness, her expression set.
He was still in the shadows, but he could sense it, he could feel it: She hadn't looked his way once, but Nkata could swear that Yasmin Edwards had known all along that he was there.
CHAPTER FOUR
A DAY LATER, STEPHENSON DEACON AND THE DIRECTORATE of Public Affairs decided the time had ripened enough for the first press briefing. Assistant Commissioner Hillier, given the word from above, instructed Lynley to be there for the big event, with "our new detective sergeant" in tow. Lynley wanted to be there as little as Nkata, but he knew the wisdom of at least appearing to cooperate. He and the DS descended via the stairs to arrive promptly at the conference. They encountered Hillier in the corridor.
"Ready?" The AC spoke to Lynley and Nkata as he paused to examine his impressive head of grey hair in the glass cover of a notice board. Unlike the other two men, he looked pleased to be there and he seemed to be restraining himself from rubbing his hands in anticipation of the coming confrontation. Clearly, he expected the briefing to click along like the well-oiled machine it was designed to be.
He didn't wait for a response to his question. Instead, he ducked into the room. They followed.
The print and broadcasting journalists had been relegated to the rows of seats fanning out before the dais. The television cameras were set to shoot over their heads. This would illustrate later for the public-via the nightly news-that the Met was making all possible efforts to keep the citizenry in the picture through an ostensibly open and welcoming venue for their human conduits of information.
Stephenson Deacon, the head of the Press Bureau, had himself chosen to make the prefatory remarks at this first briefing. His appearance not only signaled the importance of what was about to be announced, but it also telegraphed to the general public the appropriate level of police concern. Only the presence of the head of the DPA could have made a more impressive statement.
The newspapers had, of course, jumped upon the story of a body found on the top of a tomb in St. George's Gardens, as anyone with a brain at New Scotland Yard had known they would. The reticence of the police at the crime scene, the arrival there of an officer from New Scotland Yard long before the removal of the body, the lapse of time between the body's discovery and this press conference...All of it had whetted the appetite of the journalists and spoke of a much bigger story to come.
When Deacon turned the meeting over to him, Hillier played on this. He began with the larger purpose of the press conference, which was, he declared, "to make our young people aware of the dangers they face in the streets." He went on to sketch out the crime under investigation, and just at the point at which anyone might have logically wondered why a briefing was being held to inform the media of a killing they'd already featured at the top of the news and on the first pages of their papers, he said, "At this juncture, we're looking for witnesses to what appears to be a series of potentially related crimes against young men."
It took less than five seconds for the word series to lead ineluctably to serial, at which point the reporters jumped aboard like commuters leaping on the night's final train. Their questions erupted like pheasants from beaten bushes.