Something to Hide, page 41
There was a moment of silence before Narissa said, “So let me interview you for the film. Zawadi, you can emerge from all this as a heroine if we approach things correctly.”
“Oh, too right. This is all about your film, as usual. Everything is about your film. I want no part of it.”
“But, Zawadi—”
“No. I’m finished with you. You’ve done your damage. You stay away.”
“I know you’re angry, but don’t you see how you can channel that anger to—”
“No! Finish your bloody documentary someplace else. I want you gone.”
Deborah was compelled to intervene. She went to the door of Zawadi’s office. Both of the women were seated: Zawadi behind her desk and Narissa next to a water cooler, as if she needed distance.
Zawadi saw her first and said, “And why are you here?”
“Please don’t blame Narissa,” Deborah said. “I probably could have solved her problem by taking Bolu home with me. But my husband agreed with my dad about returning Bolu to her parents, so I didn’t think I could trust them. I didn’t want to risk it. Narissa wasn’t . . .” Deborah found she didn’t know what else to say.
Zawadi, however, did. “Get out of here. I want you out of here. People like you think this is a game. People like you haven’t got a clue what it’s like to be people like me. Or like Bolu. Or like anyone who’s not lily-white English.”
“That’s completely unfair,” Deborah cried.
“I don’t care what you think it is. Leave. Both of you leave.” Zawadi pushed back her chair and rose to her impressive height, made more impressive by the head wrap she wore. She gestured first to Deborah and then to Narissa as she said, “You’ve taken your pictures. And you have made your film. You both have what you want.” She pointed to the doorway.
A few moments of tense silence ticked by. Narissa rose. She came towards Deborah. She slipped past her and into the corridor. Zawadi’s eyes narrowed. Deborah joined Narissa.
They didn’t speak until they were outside, where Narissa squinted in the sun, her head turned in the direction of Mile End Road. She said, “It’s not the end of the world. I’ve got a lot of footage. But Zawadi’s right in one respect. This could kill Orchid House.”
“That can’t be the case,” Deborah said.
“I’m going to need a meeting,” Narissa continued, more to herself than to Deborah. “I can make a go of today but tomorrow . . . ? No. I’ll need a meeting tonight and another tomorrow morning and then perhaps I can work out what to do.”
Deborah considered this for a moment before she recalled earlier conversations with Narissa. She said, “Have you found your film’s narrator?”
Narissa laughed derisively. “Please. This is not the time.”
“Hear me out, just for a moment.”
“Look, everyone I’ve spoken to is on board with the film’s importance straightaway and two have offered to do voice-over narration once the piece is edited. But that’s not what I want. I want a presence on film, not just a voice.”
“Zawadi,” Deborah said.
“As narrator? That’s a mad idea, that is. I don’t see her helping either one of us.”
“Oh, I doubt she’d help me,” Deborah admitted. “And she won’t help you either, if you frame it as help. Thing is, Narissa, she needs you as much as you need her.”
Narissa was silent as she took this in. Finally, she said, “Orchid House. Its reputation.”
“Isn’t Orchid House the real point? Orchid House and the work it does?”
“The real point is to open people’s eyes about FGM. That it still happens and how it happens.”
“Right. But, from what I’ve learned from being here, this seems to be a cultural . . . I don’t know . . . is problem the right word?”
“It’s definitely that. Go on.”
“And at the same time, it’s something not practised as widely as it once was. Yet it’s still practised, even today. So girls are still at risk, even today. Which is what the documentary is shining a light upon.”
Narissa looked beyond her, to the moptop trees. She said slowly, “Yes. And that being the case—because it is the case—having Zawadi in the film—”
“—articulating those facts—”
“—would make Zawadi part of the solution, instead of having her seen as some angry Black woman with a thorn in her arse,” Narissa finished.
“It also brings the work of Orchid House into the picture,” Deborah noted.
“Which saves its reputation while it saves Zawadi’s reputation.”
“Which is good for everyone, if you ask me,” Deborah said.
“Especially for young girls,” Narissa replied.
EMPRESS STATE BUILDING
WEST BROMPTON
SOUTH-WEST LONDON
Lynley took with him not only the improved CCTV photos—which he’d shown Phinney earlier—but also all of the texts that the DCS and Teo Bontempi had shared. It was quite a number. When she was part of the team, the texts were revealing, but brief. After Phinney had managed her transfer, they were lengthy on his part, brief or nonexistent on hers.
Lynley could tell the DCS wasn’t happy to see him but attempting to hide this reaction. He rose from his desk, saying, “One of the team or me?” and when Lynley indicated it was Phinney he wanted a word with, the DCS took him not to the Orbit, but to a nearby conference room, where Lynley said to him, “You’ll know we have everything from DS Bontempi’s mobile. Not just the texts.”
“I reckoned that would be the case. Technology moves with lightning speed.”
“From reading her texts, it seems she was as taken with you as you were with her.”
“At first, yes.”
“Did something other than the forced transfer change things?”
“The pressure didn’t help.” Phinney gestured to the conference table. It was large, capable of seating more than a dozen people. They sat opposite each other. It was a deliberate egalitarian choice on Lynley’s part, signalling to Phinney that they were playing on the same team. For now.
“What sort of pressure?” Lynley asked.
“For sex. We never had . . . ordinary relations. She wouldn’t allow it. Actually, she wouldn’t allow anything having to do with . . . with that part of her body at all. But I persisted. I thought what every mad fool thinks: I can wear her down. Each time, a little further we’ll go until paradise is reached. I expect you know what I mean.”
“But nothing changed.”
“I thought she was trying to maintain control, that until I left my wife, she was going to deny me. It never once occurred to me that there might be another reason, that there was something about her body she wanted to hide from me. Why would I think that? We were mad for each other. Or at least I was mad for her and she said she felt the same for me. But at this point, who the hell knows.”
“So you never had intercourse.”
“We didn’t. Just . . . what she did to me.”
Lynley nodded. He looked through the texts he’d had off Teo’s mobile and found the one he wanted. He showed it to Phinney. Darling to be inside you once more once more.
Phinney read it but said nothing.
“Given the situation, I expect you didn’t send this message. But it came from your phone. You wife believed you were lovers, didn’t she. Not merely emotional lovers but physical lovers as well. What I don’t understand is the why of it. Not why you were involved with Teo Bontempi, but why your wife would have sent her this text?”
Phinney said, “I don’t know.”
Lynley brought out the improved CCTV pictures and laid them out. “She was there, Mark. Two days before Teo was attacked. I believe you recognised her at once when I showed you these yesterday.”
“She wouldn’t have hurt Teo. She didn’t hurt Teo.”
“Why would she have gone to see her in the first place, then? Teo didn’t answer the texts your wife sent, so she had no actual confirmation that you and Teo were involved, had she?”
“She’d told me she knew who it was. I never confirmed anything.”
“Perhaps Teo did the confirming when your wife called on her.”
“Pete wouldn’t have gone to get confirmation. She would have gone to ask Teo to think about Lilybet and what it would mean if I left them. Not that I ever would have done, Teo or not.”
“But she didn’t know that,” Lynley said. “Your wife, I mean.”
“I’ve told her often enough. But there are reasons she wouldn’t believe me.” And when Lynley said nothing to this, merely waited to hear a further explanation, “We share the same home, Thomas. We share the caring for Lilybet. We share meals and we share conversation and we share a bed. And that’s all we share.”
“You’re saying you live as flatmates? Like brother and sister?”
“Like a brother who sleeps with his sister if sleeps isn’t a euphemism for anything else. She wants me to have more with someone, something physical. But she wants it to be with nothing attached. No other involvement. No connection.”
“Just sex?”
“Yes.” Phinney laughed ruefully. He ran his hand along the top of the table, a gesture that stopped him from going on. But he’d not said enough, so he added, “Believe me, I’m completely aware of the irony.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I mean that I ended up with the connection but not the sex. Not the act of sex. It turned out exactly as Pete feared, but without my having the benefit of sex.”
“She knew that there was an emotional connection between you and Teo?”
“I never told her, but she could see the change in me.” He looked sharply at Lynley, as if to read him before he asked, “Have you ever been nearly mad with love? Do you know what I mean? Have you ever reached the point when you can no longer think straight because the only thoughts you can muster both begin and end with her? Everything else is obliterated from your mind and only she remains.”
“I haven’t,” Lynley said. “I’ve been in love, yes. I’ve badly wanted someone as well. But not driven mad because of it.”
“Lucky you. But I expect that’s owing to your life rolling along on its expected journey. No need to go mad if what you need and what you want are also needed and wanted by the other.”
Lynley didn’t illuminate him on the subject of his life rolling along on its expected journey. From age sixteen, that had hardly been the case. It still wasn’t. He said instead, “Once you had her reassigned to south London, you continued with her.”
“The texts, yes. The phone calls, yes. Teo was the wound I couldn’t stop licking. I wanted to do, believe me. I wanted my entire brain erased so that I could just get on with my life. If there had been a pill I could have taken that would have removed her from memory, I would have taken it. Instead, I kept telling myself that it would be just once more: just one more message, just one more phone call, just one more conversation. Anything, really. A scrap. A crumb. But she didn’t want that. And who could blame her?”
“Your wife must be interviewed, you know.”
“She wouldn’t have raised a finger to hurt her.”
“Perhaps not. But in her mind, she stood to lose a lot. When people are in that position, they’ll often do whatever it takes to keep what they have.”
MAYVILLE ESTATE
DALSTON
NORTH-EAST LONDON
Monifa Bankole’s husband answered the door to Nkata’s sharp knock. He held a washing flannel to his forehead, and both the front of his white shirt and his khaki trousers were speckled with blood. Nkata had his warrant card in hand, so although it was unnecessary at this point, he still lifted it and said, “Metropolitan Police.”
“You’re back, eh?” Bankole remarked. “She rang you, did she? Yes. I see this. What else is there to do on her journey of ruining lives?”
Nkata said, “Happens no one rang me ’t all, but looks like someone should’ve.” Beyond the man, Nkata could see a shadowy sitting room where furniture lay in disarray. “I got to speak with Missus Bankole.”
“Not here.” Bankole began to shut the door.
Nkata stopped him, his hand flat on the wood. “I got to say it, Mister Bankole. Could be you’re not telling the truth. So I’ll jus’ have a look round, eh?”
Bankole turned from the door, leaving it open. Once Nkata had stepped over the threshold, Bankole shouted, “Monifa! You are wanted. Copper’s here.”
There was no reply and no sound of movement, but that didn’t mean no one else was in the flat. Nkata said, “Like I said, I’ll have a look,” and went in the direction of the kitchen first and from there to the two bedrooms and the bathroom. Bankole was telling the truth, it seemed. He was alone.
Still, he hadn’t overturned furniture on his own, and it wasn’t likely he’d hit himself on the forehead with the steam iron that lay discarded on the floor near an armchair. The question was whether the blood on him belonged to him, his wife, or someone else.
“Where’s she gone to?” Nkata asked him.
“I don’t know, do I.”
“Wha’ happened here, then?”
“My worthless son attacked me. A son. His father. If not for me, that son of a whore would not even exist.”
“Looks like he might’ve got the worse of it, eh?” Nkata said with a gesture at the blood on Bankole.
“He thinks he’s far away from the age for discipline. He is not. Now you have seen no one is here, leave me in peace.”
“You hurt your wife, Mister Bankole? ’S some of that blood hers?”
“I rule here. That woman does not. No woman will rule here while I live.”
Nkata couldn’t help himself. He said, “How d’you ’spect that’ll work out for you?”
Bankole said only, “Go.”
There was nothing to be gained from staying, whether he taunted the man or not. So Nkata left and was checking his mobile phone for potential messages—he’d given his card to Monifa Bankole, after all—when he heard “Ssssst! Policeman! Sssst!”
He looked up. No one was nearby. He gazed round till he saw a woman hanging out of a gaping window on the third floor of Bronte House, some distance from the Bankole’s flat. He walked back and stationed himself beneath her. He raised his hands as if saying, “What is it?”
She held up a finger in the universal sign of wait a moment. He did so, and in about thirty seconds she was back. She held something in her hand, which she tossed down to him. He caught it and saw that she’d wrapped a piece of paper round a hairbrush. He unwrapped and read the message she’d written. It was the name Halimah Tijani and the words Lydgate House. A three-digit number accompanied this. Nkata raised his hand and gave the woman a quick salute, leaving the hairbrush on a nearby step for her to collect later.
He went to the map of Mayville Estate to locate Lydgate House, then made his way there and to the flat numbered 501. A sharp knock on the door brought no response. When he said, “Missus Bankole? Winston Nkata. We spoke before. Metropolitan Police,” he heard the murmur of voices.
A bolt was drawn back on the inside of the door, and it was opened by a woman he assumed was Halimah Tijani. She gestured him inside quickly, looking beyond him as if to make certain he hadn’t been followed. The flat was unbearably hot and equally stuffy, its closed curtains and windows preventing the relief of air that was fresh if not cool.
Monifa Bankole sat on a plump ottoman in front of an armchair. Nkata blew out a breath when he saw her swollen face and the dark bruises beneath her eyes. When she rose, she did it so carefully that he reckoned chances were good that several of her ribs were broken as well. She said nothing, merely looked at him briefly, then lowered her head.
“He said it was your son he beat,” Nkata told her.
She said, “It was. This is . . . Me, this is before.”
“You got to come with me, then.”
“I cannot. I do not know what Abeo will do to Tani now. But Simisola he will take to Nigeria if I cannot stop him.”
“We work this one step at a time, Missus Bankole,” Nkata told her. And to Halimah, he said, “She comes with me. No one goes back there. Un’erstand?”
Halimah nodded. She said, “Her things? Clothing?” And to Monifa, “What else is there, Monifa? Have you medicines?”
Monifa said, “I can’t. Tani will return with another order and I will not be there and then I will not know where he is and where Simisola is. Please, you must understand.”
“What I un’erstand is that bloke’s goin to kill one ’f you. I saw there was something had hit him in the forehead. I clocked an iron on the floor. Did you do that?”
She looked away, made no reply.
“Got it,” Nkata said. And then to Halimah, “Give us a minute?”
Halimah nodded and took herself into a corridor and from there into what he assumed was a bedroom. She shut the door.
From his jacket pocket, Nkata took the real reason he’d come to speak to Monifa again: a photocopied page from the clinic’s appointment book. He unfolded it, sat in the armchair, smoothed the page across his knee. He said, “I got to ask you to look at this. It’s your name, see. And next to your name, there in brackets is another, Simisola, like you just mentioned. You see this?”
Monifa looked dutifully. She nodded in reply to his question.
He said, “What you tol’ me before is that you were there to get some money back. You never did explain what that money was for.” He didn’t wait for her to respond, instead going on with, “But with this name—Simisola’s—in brackets next to yours, looks to me like she was who was havin’ something done. I got tha’ right?”
