Something to Hide, page 44
She returned with a washing flannel and a towel, a bowl of ice and a large package of frozen peas. She handed the peas to Simisola, saying, “Can you hold this where his head hurts, Simi?” before she raced off again. She brought back a first-aid kit, which she opened, dumped onto the coffee table, and began to sort through in something of a panic.
Tani saw that her hands were shaking. He said, “Sophie. ’S’okay. ’S’not that bad.”
“It was my idea.” She dashed tears from her face. “You said no but I insisted and I made it worse because I wanted the order to be urgent so we wouldn’t have to wait till we were called to court and I said your mum was the one who could do that by filling out her part and saying what happened and if I hadn’t done, you wouldn’t have needed to go there and this wouldn’t have happened and you can’t go back. Tani, you can never go back.”
Tani didn’t want to tell her that he had to go back. He couldn’t leave his mother in his father’s hands. She wasn’t safe there any more than Simisola was. But he said none of this and instead let Sophie minister to him as Simi held the frozen peas to his head and put her own head on his shoulder. She whispered, “Where’s Mummy? Tani, has something happened to Mummy?” to which he murmured, “ ’S’okay, Squeak. She’s okay,” although that was something he didn’t actually know.
“Pictures!” Sophie ran off again but was back within seconds, her smartphone in her hand. She helped Tani sit up and she snapped him from every angle, taking close-ups of individual wounds, of the fingerprint bruises round his neck, of his swollen-shut eye, of his bleeding forehead, chin, temple, and cheek. These, she told him, would help underscore the need for an urgent protection order. Then she urged him down again and did her best to clean and to bandage him.
After that, they’d set off for Stoke Newington station, which, mercifully, was less than a twenty-minute walk from where Sophie lived. He’d had to take several rests along the way, but with Sophie offering her shoulder to lean on and putting her arm round his waist for additional support, he managed the distance. After that, it was just a wait for the train.
When they finally went through the pedestrian wrought-iron gate giving entrance to Trinity Green, he saw that both of the doors to the chapel stood open, and when they got close, he could hear the sound of voices and laughter coming from within.
“Thank God,” Sophie said fervently, although Tani didn’t think God had much to do with it. Nonetheless, he followed with Simisola as Sophie hurried across the green to the chapel at its far end. She waited for him at the bottom of the steps and then helped him climb them. Once inside, the first people they saw were two girls standing with a ginger-haired white lady at a long, school dining hall–type table, all of them looking at a mass of photographs spread out on its surface. The white lady was saying, “I like this one, but then I’m not the person who’s meant to choose,” while one of the girls said, “But I look mad, innit,” to which the white lady said, “You look serious. There’s a difference,” to which the girl replied, “Yeah. I look seriously mad,” and all three of them laughed.
The white lady was the first to see Tani and his companions. She clocked Tani’s appearance, and she quickly said, “D’you need help?” but she didn’t wait for an answer. “Follow me,” she told them. She came towards them then, descended the stairs, and took them round to the office door that had been locked on their earlier visit.
TRINITY GREEN
WHITECHAPEL
EAST LONDON
Deborah St. James could see how frightened they were, particularly the little girl. She was clinging to the boy’s hand with both of hers. Both she and the older girl had clearly been crying. It was the boy’s condition, however, that set off the alarum. Someone had beaten him badly.
She swung open the office door and stepped aside to let them enter. There were folding chairs along the corridor, so she unfolded three of them, said, “Let me get you some water,” and went to one of the supply rooms across from Zawadi’s office. Zawadi herself was inside, she saw, having a conversation with Narissa Cameron. Deborah hadn’t realised Narissa had returned to Orchid House.
She popped her head into the doorway. Zawadi greeted this action by saying wearily, “Why are you still here? It’s bad enough with her.” She lifted her chin at Narissa.
Deborah said, “There’s a little girl just come in with two teenagers.”
“Who brought them?” Zawadi asked.
“I don’t think anyone brought them.”
“What do they want, then? Who are the teenagers? What did they say?”
“Nothing yet. The boy is badly—”
“We do not allow males inside Orchid House. Do you see what’s happening? Orchid House is being set up. I’m being set up.”
Deborah knew Zawadi meant that the circumstances of the eight-year-old’s arrival looked virtually the same as those that had heralded Bolu Akin’s arrival: in the company of two adolescents. She couldn’t blame her for that reaction in light of all that had happened to her. In a fashion that was only too typical, the tabloids were in the process of dissecting Zawadi thoroughly, every inch of her life and the life of her ex-husband as well. So no matter why the boy and two girls had come to Orchid House, Zawadi was going to be cautious to the tenth degree. Deborah clarified with, “The other is a girl. She’s been crying and so has the child. And the boy’s been beaten.”
“I cannot help beaten boys. He should go to the police.” Zawadi’s mouth formed a straight line that claimed her decision had been made.
Narissa came into the corridor where Deborah was still standing in the office doorway. She looked in the direction of the little group that had arrived. She said, “Zawadi, they’re just in the corridor. I’m going to—”
Clearly, Zawadi wasn’t having that. She rose. Deborah stepped back to give her passage. She followed her and Narissa to where the newcomers sat. They all got to their feet at Zawadi’s approach. Deborah handed each of them a bottle of water.
Zawadi went to the boy. Her expression changed from hard to wary to alarmed in the time it took her to put her hand on his arm. She said to the older of the two girls, “This one needs A and E.”
“He won’t go,” she said. “His dad did this to him. He’s scared the same happened to his mum so he wants to go back to help her.”
Zawadi said to the boy, “You’ve a voice?”
He nodded but he didn’t speak. The little girl had tried to hide herself behind him, and he drew her out and put his arm round her shoulders. “This is Simisola,” he finally said. “I’m Tani. She’s Sophie. Sophie says you c’n help us.”
Sophie said, “Simi’s dad means to have her cut. He had it all arranged with someone he’d found in town. Tani’s mum tried to stop him. But he beat on her. Then we—me and Tani—tried to stop him with a protection order. We had it filled out but it got ripped to shreds by Tani’s dad. We mean to fill out another.”
“He’s setting up to take Simi to Nigeria,” Tani said.
“Has he passports?” Zawadi spoke brusquely, as if unwilling to let any emotion enter into her conversation with the kids.
“Yeah.”
“You have them?”
He shook his head. “I di’n’t have time to look for them, but I think I know where they are.”
“Come to my office.” Zawadi sounded abrupt, and Deborah wondered if it was disbelief that was triggering her reaction or something else. And while Deborah couldn’t blame her for caution, this situation looked straightforward. One didn’t counterfeit injuries like those on the boy.
A mobile rang suddenly. Tani dug his smartphone from his jeans. He looked at the screen, apparently saw who the caller was, and said, “I got to take this,” and to Sophie, “I’s from the market.”
They heard only one side of the conversation, which consisted of, “Tiombe, you’re back? . . . Oh. Right. No worries . . . I found a place, so—”
And then he listened for a bit to what Tiombe was relating to him. He looked at Simisola. Then he looked at Sophie. He said, “What’d she tell him, then?” and he listened again. Finally, he said, “ ’S’okay. Really. But I wish Bliss’d rung me before she—”
More listening and then, “Yeah. Guess so. I ’preciate the inf’rmation.”
A few more words and the call ended. He said to Sophie, “We got seen in the market couple of times, me and you. He knows ’bout you.”
“But not my name!”
“Not yet. Least, that’s how it seems.”
“I was only ever there with you, Tani. I don’t think I ever talked to anyone. No one actually knows me there. Did you tell anyone my name?”
He shook his head, and Zawadi said, “What’s this going on, please?”
Tani said, “My dad’s looking for Simi in Ridley Road Market. He’s got two shops there. Tha’ was a friend ringing. The person who works with her left her a message that my dad’s been asking questions round all the shops ’n’ stalls. Simi’s pals with them. They got a hair salon.”
“That was one of them who rang you?”
“Yeah. Tiombe. She’s in Wolverhampton jus’ now. Soon’s my dad started asking questions round all the stalls and shops, her partner rang her to send me the message.” He said to Sophie, “We can’t—me an’ Simisola—we can’t go back to your house, Soph. If he finds out your name and shows up and we’re there, it’ll be real ugly.”
“In my office, please,” Zawadi said. “We’ll sort through this. You’re safe as long as no one knows you’ve come here.”
Zawadi shepherded the three of them inside, and with little ceremony, she shut the office door. Narissa and Deborah were left in the corridor. Deborah said to Narissa, “What generally happens?”
Narissa said, “Same as for Bolu. She’ll try to find a safe house for her, for him as well.”
“Then what?”
“She’ll make contact with their father ’s soon as the kids are safe. He sounds like a piece of work, though. So if it’s to be face-to-face, with her talking to him, I hope she does the usual and takes a social worker with her. A social worker with big fists. Or one with a cricket bat and the will to use it.”
THE MOTHERS SQUARE
LOWER CLAPTON
NORTH-EAST LONDON
Lynley found Pietra Phinney outside, rolling her daughter along the pavement between a line of parked cars and the wrought-iron railings that fronted the crescent of flats in The Mothers Square. He spied her directly he got out of the Healey Elliott, the manila envelope of photos in his hand. She was at the far end of the ellipse, where a large brass plaque hung at the front of the easternmost building. She appeared to be reading aloud from a book balanced across the top of the wheelchair. She did not see him.
As he walked towards her, she placed the book on her daughter’s lap and turned the chair in order to lower it from the pavement’s kerb. The chair was heavy, and Lynley quickened his pace to assist her as he called out her name. She looked in his direction but did not seem surprised. Doubtless her husband would have rung her to let her know to prepare herself for a visit from the Met.
She was wearing what she’d worn when Lynley had earlier met her: a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and white trainers without socks. Her bow to color was red lipstick. Her black-coffee hair was shoved behind her ears and held in place on either side with tortoiseshell barrettes. Lynley said to her, “Let me help you,” and he handed her the manila envelope as he took charge of the chair.
She said, “We were going to sit in the pergola. We were going to read. That can wait, though. Mark’s phoned. He said you’d be coming to speak with me.”
Lynley wheeled the chair across the narrow driveway that allowed cars access to the flats in The Mothers Square. The central pergola was draped with a mass of wisteria foliage. He ducked beneath an overhanging branch and stopped the wheelchair at the first stone bench.
“What are you two reading?” he asked Pietra. He parked the chair alongside the bench and waited for her to sit before he did likewise, on the bench’s mate directly across from her.
“Matilda,” she said. “We’ve just reached Matilda’s using her power of telekinesis to write on the blackboard. It’s one of Lilybet’s favourite scenes in one of her favourite books. Isn’t it, Lilybet?” She took a tissue from a packet stowed in a side pocket that hung from the arm of the chair. She wiped Lilybet’s mouth—unnecessarily, it seemed to Lynley—and adjusted the shawl that was tucked round her legs. Lilybet cooed and waved her hands, and her mother said, “We will indeed, darling. Once I’ve spoken to this policeman, we’ll fetch Robertson and go to Le Merlin, just as I said. What kind of crêpe do you fancy? Chocolate? Chocolate with bananas? Cream with strawberries? You’ll have to decide, you know. You must think about it so when we arrive, you’ll have made your choice.” She put her hands into the girl’s armpits and lifted her. During their walk, Lilybet had slid to one side and it was clear she could not right herself.
“Now we can talk,” Pietra said to Lynley. She took another tissue and blotted her own face. It was hot, even in the shade, so the tissue made sense.
She’d given the manila envelope back to him before sitting. He opened it now, took out the relevant picture, and handed it across to her. She might have attempted to deny she was the woman in the photo, but she didn’t do that. Instead she handed the picture back to him and said simply, “I did go to see her. But it was only once.”
“Why?”
“Once was sufficient. She gave her word. I took her at her word.”
“I mean why did you go in the first place? I take it you used your husband’s car.”
“We have only one. And yes, I used it.” She looked over his shoulder but seemed not to focus on anything in particular. It was that expression that people had on their faces when they were recalling an incident they’d either seen or been part of. “I wanted to talk to her. I rang the buzzer beneath her name and asked could I come up to her flat, but she said she’d come down. Which was what she did.”
“Did she give you the impression that someone was with her in the flat, someone she didn’t want you to see?”
“Someone might have been with her. I didn’t think that, though.”
“What did you think?”
“That she didn’t want the wife of her lover to cause trouble that the neighbours might overhear. Or she worried that, once I got inside, she wouldn’t be able to get me out again. Or perhaps she thought I intended her harm.”
“Someone did.”
“I wasn’t that someone.”
“Tell me, then.”
“I waited for her to come down. I thought she might not as it was five or ten minutes before she finally did. We spoke just outside the building, near the buzzers for the flats. She told me she wasn’t going to take Mark from me. No intention of doing that, was what she said. And he has no intention of leaving you, was what she added. She pointed out that she was still married, and she didn’t have plans to divorce her husband. Not that marriage and divorce matter much in the world any longer, but she obviously had to say something to reassure me. And that’s what she chose.”
“After that, though, you sent her texts using your husband’s phone.”
“She’d told me she wasn’t seeing Mark any longer. She said she wasn’t going to resume seeing him. But saying and doing are two different things, Inspector. Most people can do one but not the other.”
“So after you spoke with her, you wanted to check.”
“I had to know. I couldn’t rest easy. He was in love with her, and he’d never before been in love with any . . .” She moved restlessly, reaching once again to adjust the shawl round her daughter’s legs before she went on. “Before Teo, there were women, but Mark had never been in love with any of them. They were just . . . just women to him. She was different. She was a real partner. I didn’t believe either one of them could give up the other just by saying they’d do so. How could they? Really. How could anyone do that when there’s a tie between them? I mean, there’s a tie between Mark and me as well. But the tie is . . .” She glanced at her daughter. “Lilybet’s the tie, and that’s entirely different from Mark’s tie to Teo. So once I’d spoken to her, I waited a day or so and I texted with his phone to see how she would reply.”
“But she didn’t reply.”
“Which told me she’d been sincere.”
“And Mark?”
“What about him?”
“How did he take the ending of his relationship with Teo?”
“I didn’t want to know. Or see. Whatever he was feeling, I couldn’t let it get close to me. I just . . . I couldn’t. I suppose we started wearing masks with each other. What else, actually, could we do? I had hopes he would get over her and we could go back to how we were before.”
“Which was?”
“I expect he’s told you. We share only a flat and the care of Lilybet.” She swallowed, and Lynley noted how tightly her hands were clasped. “Things like this,” she went on, “they don’t just begin one day, Inspector Lynley. They develop over time. They’re the result of . . . So many things combine to make us who we are and who we become. You understand that, I hope.”
Lynley nodded. “I do.”
“When Lilybet was born . . . She had to be taken, you see, five months along. It was pre-eclampsia, and things should have worked out well and they could have worked out well eventually, I suppose, but they didn’t. She . . . there were so many things wrong, so many issues. Her heart, her lungs, one of her kidneys. It was like . . . bits and pieces of her never developed the way they should have done. Every day brought more bad news until there was no news left. Or at least no possibility of good news.” She crumpled into a ball the tissue she was holding. She began to pick at it restlessly. “I couldn’t go through it again. I couldn’t face it, take the chance, all of it. I just couldn’t do it. And then, after a bit, I . . . I couldn’t at all.” Her eyes filled. She sought another tissue. “I never would blame Mark if he left. He should leave. No one should expect any man . . . What I thought was if I encouraged him to . . . to find someone who understood or not even understood but was at least willing . . . Surely there are women who wouldn’t want more than what he had to give.”
