At first he’d told himself he didn’t want that anyway. It was rough enough round Loughborough Estate hearing himself called a fucking coconut. It would be that much worse if he actually ended up becoming part of the white establishment. Still, he hated being marked as phony by his own people. While he kept in mind his mother’s admonition that “it doesn’t make you a chair ’f some ignoramus calls you a chair,” he found it increasingly difficult just to keep himself moving in the direction he wanted to go. On the estate, that meant to and from his parents’ flat and nowhere else. Otherwise, it meant upward in his career.

“Jewel, luv,” his mother had said when he phoned her with the news of his promotion. “Doesn’t matter one bit why they promoted you. What matters is they did, and now the opening’s there. You walk through it. And you don’t look back.”

But he couldn’t do that. Instead, he continued to feel weighed down by AC Hillier’s sudden notice of him when before he’d been nothing more to the man than a passing face to which the assistant commissioner could not have put a name if his continued existence had depended upon it.

Yet, there was still so much truth to what his mother had said. Just walk through the opening. He had to learn how to do it. And the entire subject of openings applied to more than one area of his life, which was what he was left thinking about once Barb Havers departed for the day.

He took a final look at the pictures of the dead boys before he too left the Yard. He did it to remind himself that they were young-terribly young-and as a consequence of their racial background, he had obligations that went beyond merely bringing their killer to justice.

Below, in the underground carpark, he sat for a moment in his Escort and thought about those obligations and what they called for: action in the face of fear. He wanted to slap himself stupid for even having that fear. He was twenty-nine years old, for God’s sake. He was an officer of the police.

That alone should have counted for something, and it would have done in other instances. But it counted for nothing in this situation, when being a cop was the single profession in life least designed to impress. Yet…It couldn’t be helped that he was a cop. He was also a man, and a man’s presence was called for.

Nkata finally set off with a deep breath. He followed a route across the river to South London. But instead of heading home, he took a detour round the curved brick shell of the Oval and drove down Kennington Road in the direction of Kennington Station.

The tube itself marked his destination, and he found a place to park nearby. He bought an Evening Standard from a vendor on the pavement, using the activity to build up his courage for walking the length of Braganza Street.

At its bottom, Arnold House-part of Doddington Grove Estate-rose out of a lumpy carpark. Across from this building, a horticultural centre grew behind a chain-link fence, and it was against this fence that Nkata chose to lean, with his newspaper folded beneath his arm and his gaze on the third-floor covered walk that led to the fifth flat from the left.

It wouldn’t take much effort to cross over the street and weave his way through the carpark. Once there, he was fairly certain the lift would be available since, more often than not, the security panel giving access to it was broken. How much trouble would it be, then, to cross, to weave, to punch the button, and then to make his way to that flat? He had a reason to do so. There were boys being murdered across London-mixed-race boys-and inside that flat lived Daniel Edwards, whose white father was dead but whose black mother was very much alive. But then that was the problem, wasn’t it. She was the problem. Yasmin Edwards.

“Ex-convict, Jewel?” his mother would have said had he ever had the nerve to tell her about Yasmin. “What’n God’s name you thinking?”

But that was easy enough to answer. Thinking of her skin, Mum, and how it looks when a lamp shines against it. Thinking of her legs, which ought to be wrapped round a man who wants her. Thinking of her mouth and the curve of her bum and the way her breasts rise and fall when she’s angry. Tall she is, Mum. Tall to my tall. Good woman who made one very big mistake, which she’d paid for like she ought.

And anyway, Yasmin Edwards wasn’t really the point. Nor was she the target of duty. That was Daniel, who at nearly twelve could well be in the sights of a killer. Because who knew how their killer was choosing his victims? No one. And until they did know, how could he-Winston Nkata-walk away from giving a warning where it might be needed?

All that was required of him was to walk across the street, dodge a few cars in the wretched carpark, depend upon the security panel being broken, ring the bell for the lift, and knock on that door. He was fully capable of doing that.

And he was going to. Later, he swore that to himself. But just as he was about to lift his foot in step number one of however many it was going to take to get to Yasmin Edwards’ front door, the woman herself came along the pavement.

She wasn’t walking from the underground station as Nkata himself had done. Rather, she was coming from the opposite direction, from beyond the gardens at the bottom of Braganza Street where, from her little shop in Manor Place, she offered hope in the form of makeup, wigs, and makeovers to black women suffering from disorders of the body and the soul.

In reaction to seeing her, Nkata found himself fading back against the chain-link fence and into a pool of shadow. He hated himself the moment he did it, but he just couldn’t move forward as he ought to have done.

For her part, Yasmin Edwards walked steadily towards Doddington Grove Estate. She didn’t see him in the shadows, and that alone was reason to talk to her. Good-looking woman on the street alone in this neighbourhood after dark? Need to be cautious, Yas. Need to be on the lookout. Someone jump you…hurt you…rape you…rob you…? What’s Daniel going to do if his mum goes the way of his dad and dies on him?

But Nkata couldn’t say that. Not with Yasmin Edwards herself being the reason why Daniel’s father was dead. So he stayed in the shadows and he watched her, even as he felt the terrible shame of his breath going faster and his heart beating harder than it ought.

Yasmin moved forward along the pavement. He saw that her 101 plaits with their beaded ends were gone now, her hair close cropped and no longer making the soft chorus that he would otherwise have heard from where he stood. She shifted the carrier bags she held from one hand to the other, and she felt in the pocket of her jacket. He knew that she was seeking her keys. End of the day, a meal to be got for her boy, life going on.

She reached the carpark and crisscrossed through the ill-defined bays. At the lift, she punched the security code that would give her access, and then she punched the button to call it. She quickly disappeared within.

She came out again on the third floor and strode towards her door. When she put her key in its lock, it opened before she had 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.