Something to Hide, page 52
“If she took it with her, it’s going to be on CCTV, isn’t it?” one of the DCs pointed out.
“Unless she left the building via the fire door,” another said.
“Or chucked it from a window—the bedroom?—and went round the building to get it afterwards,” another pointed out.
“Or it’s just a feint,” Lynley said.
“Sorry?” This from a DC who looked disturbingly like Charlie Chaplin as the tramp.
“We’re to think a sculpture was used to cosh her,” Barbara said, “so we waste time rushing round to find it.”
“Meaning she went there to bash her all along?” Charlie Chaplin asked. “But took something else with her?”
“Not necessarily,” Lynley said. “It well could be that she went there only for conversation. It could be that the conversation went badly, and it somehow made Teo Bontempi into a threat.”
“That puts Mercy Hart back in the spotlight,” Nkata pointed out.
“Rosie Bontempi as well,” Barbara noted.
“Also Pietra Phinney,” Lynley said. “We have only Mark Phinney’s side of the story that his affair with Teo was finished.”
All of them took a moment to ponder what they had and what they knew. At last, Lynley listed the next day’s assignments:
Barbara would go to the gallery in Peckham for information on Standing Warrior; the DCs would split themselves up to continue seeking the location of the lock-up where everything from Women’s Health of Hackney had been taken, digging up the paperwork relating to the clinic’s location, determining who had let the place initially, ringing every charity shop in London to enquire about a bronze sculpture being donated for sale, and for the same reason, ringing every consignment shop that resold art. Meantime, Nkata would once again try to get a statement from Monifa Bankole about the actual purpose of the Kingsland High Street clinic. Lynley himself would have another go at Mercy Hart before the twenty-four hours during which they could hold her were used up. Barbara would assist with that.
Assignments given, then, Lynley told them all to go home for the night. He wanted everyone back at half-past six the next morning. It was going to be another long day.
BELGRAVIA
CENTRAL LONDON
Lynley took his whiskey into the back garden. From the terrace where he sat, he observed the rosebushes and briefly meditated upon the fact that most roses now had little or no scent. In a central bed that was edged in tumbled granite, they weren’t far from him and yet they smelled of nothing. This, he recalled, had been Helen’s only complaint about the garden. Darling, roses should at the very least be roses, after all. How on earth has scent been bred from them? Or . . . have I used the wrong word? Are flowers bred? That cannot be right. She loved the garden otherwise. Her thumb was unfortunately more black than green, but she persisted mucking about in the beds. When the weather was fine, they dined out here. When it was inclement, he often found her looking down upon the garden from the landing window. I’d love to have been a garden designer, she’d said to him once. He’d pointed out that she could be that still, that surely there was nothing preventing her from becoming another Gertrude Jekyll, to which she’d replied that her general lack of talent might do the job quite well, Tommy. But thank you, darling, for displaying such profound confidence in me. She had learned from the internet how to create sumptuous displays of plants in pots. But this, she told him, wasn’t more than child’s play. Only three elements besides the soil and asking at the gardening centre which plants actually can be potted together. Now, if I can manage to keep them watered, only the annuals will need replacing. And they stood, still, the pots she’d created. After she’d died, he’d let them all follow her. It had simply been too much for him to care for them in her place.
From the garden of the house next door, he could hear voices, some laughter, and the accompanying crack of mallets upon croquet balls. “I’ve got the cocktails ready,” a woman called out. “I’m trying something new. Tell me what you think.”
The conversation ceased as the cocktail was tried. Gorgeous was the first adjective applied.
Lynley smiled at nothing in particular, just the assurance of individuals enjoying each other’s company. He listened longer. Too much longer, as it turned out. He began to feel hollow with loneliness.
He’d felt this before, but tonight the loneliness rose from an isolation that grew out of the void in his life. The void was ubiquitous in his world as it was currently put together, although most of the time he was able to fill it with his work. Investigations comprised very long hours, but the reality was that even in the midst of a case, the void was still present because in the back of his mind, and at a level he didn’t want to consider, he knew that he was piling action upon action in a fruitless attempt to disguise what he was actually feeling.
He wondered if this was what Daidre sensed in him without being able—or perhaps being merely unwilling—to give it voice. Did he love Daidre? he asked himself. Or did he love merely the idea of Daidre, born of his need to be whole again and to love someone as he had loved Helen. After the horrors attendant to Helen’s death, how could he declare himself free of the grief of losing her when the greater part of that grief came from the decision he himself had made to let her go and to free her spirit from her body?
He drank down the rest of his Macallan. It had come from a bottle of thirty-year-old single malt. He wasn’t hungry at all, but he decided to make a go of dinner.
Charlie had left it for him with instructions as to its reheating. As he shut the microwave upon it and set the time, his mobile rang. It was, he saw, Daidre at last. He was happy at this, but cautious as well.
“You’ve been ringing me, Tommy,” she said without preamble.
“I have done, yes,” he replied, starting the microwave upon his meal. “I did worry when you didn’t ring back. Where are you? Are you quite all right? It seemed . . .” He winced and stopped himself. He hated the needy tenor of his voice, and he knew he was talking too much.
“I’m fine, but I’ve had to come to Cornwall,” she said.
“Is there trouble?” he asked. “Are you at the cottage?”
“Goron has left Gwynder on her own, I’m afraid. And without a vehicle, thank you very much indeed. He may have gone back to the caravan, but in any case Gwyn’s completely stranded. Well, you know how isolated Polcare Cove is.”
He did indeed. The isolation of the cottage was the main reason Daidre had purchased it. Its isolation had also made it the only habitation in sight when he’d needed to find a phone, although there hadn’t been one at the time.
“She rang me several days ago, actually,” Daidre went on. “I was certain he’d return soon enough. I thought he’d just taken himself off for a pleasant ride in the countryside or a tour of God-knows-where, or something. But he’s not returned.”
“Could he have come to harm?” Lynley asked.
“That was my first thought as he’s not used to driving. But I’ve rung the hospitals and the various police stations. There’s not been an accident. The only place I can come up with as to his whereabouts is the caravan. With . . . well, with his father.”
“You did tell me he wasn’t happy at the cottage,” Lynley pointed out. “Is his leaving such a surprise?”
“Only in that, stupidly, I didn’t think he could actually find his way back. I mean to the caravan. And in any event, I’m not sure that’s where he is at all. There’s no phone and neither of them—Goron or his father—has a mobile, so I can’t just give them a bell and ask. Gwyn’s become quite frightened something might have happened to him and she’s terrified now she’s alone in the cottage.”
“Not an easy situation,” he said.
“Anything but. I’m trying desperately to sort it all out, but I’m not sure what to do. I mean, I can’t force Goron to remain in Polcare Cove, can I.”
“Is that where you are now?” he asked.
“No, no. The reception there’s wretched for a mobile. I’ve had a landline put in for them, but I wanted a bit more privacy in talking to you. I’ve brought Gwyn up to the inn. I’m in the car park. She’s gone inside for a table.”
“I expect this is what’s been on your mind,” he noted.
“The twins? Polcare Cove? Yes. I did think I had them in the very best possible situation. Paying jobs, a place to live, a car to drive. I thought they’d thrive away from that wretched place. The caravan, I mean. But now . . . ? I don’t know, Tommy. Gwyn’s been proposing she go back as well. But really, what sort of life is possible for her there? For either of them? I’m at a loss.”
“I can hear that in your voice,” he told her. “I’m wondering, though. Could it be that what was good for you—being taken from your parents and adopted into another family—might not be what was good for them? Could it be that the caravan with your—their—father is the best plan after all?”
“How can that be? A future as tin streamers? Living in a caravan? Yes, they have running water and there’s a wood stove for heat in the winter, but that’s about it.”
“Yet we do tend to run to what’s familiar,” he pointed out. “There’s comfort and security in that. Polcare Cove . . . ? It represents the unknown for them, doesn’t it? Have you a next step?”
“Admittedly, I’m flummoxed. I’m rather afraid to take Gwyn to the caravan, even to fetch back the car, which, frankly, she’s going to need if she’s to remain in Polcare Cove. She must have a way to get to work. But if I do take her to fetch the car, she might want to stay at the caravan herself, and then what’s to do?”
“Let her stay, I suspect.” Lynley paused for a moment. Through the microwave’s window, he could see the turntable making its rounds. He fetched cutlery and a placemat for the table in the kitchen, sending an unspoken apology heavenward to his father who, as far as Lynley knew, had never stepped into the kitchen of the family’s home in his entire life, let alone eaten a meal there. He went on to say, “I know it’s not what you want for her, Daidre. But she’s of an age to make her own decisions, isn’t she. And she would know that she can reverse that decision at any time. The cottage will still be there.”
“I’ve thought of bringing them both to London. Or at least Gwyn.”
“Have you?”
“I can hear the doubts in your voice, Tommy.”
“I was merely thinking of the change: from the sea in Cornwall to . . . well, to everything that’s London.”
“She does like animals. I could see if there’s something she could do at the zoo. She’d be among people, she’d be brought out of herself, she might even make a few friends. That’s better, isn’t it, than what she has now, or rather, what she thinks she wants now, which is to go back to the caravan.”
The microwave pinged. He opened its door. The meal sent before it a welcome fragrance of pastry suggestive of steak and kidney pie without the kidneys, which he could not abide.
He took this to the table as he said, “We’re back to that point, aren’t we. All of that is what you needed and what you wanted, Daidre. It’s next to impossible, isn’t it, to know what will fulfill the needs of someone else.”
He fetched a bottle of ale. Steak pie begged for it. In his opinion, nothing else would do.
She said, “You do always talk sense, Tommy.”
He chuckled. “I don’t and we’re both all too aware of that fact. It’s merely that I’m not invested in this situation. I mean, with your brother and sister. With you? That’s quite another tale. I’m invested there. Rather too invested at times. I do know that, Daidre. I also know what it’s like to watch someone take one decision after another when I very much want them to choose a different course. When that occurs, there are times when it’s a difficult admission.”
“What is?”
“Accepting and admitting I could well be wrong, that given the circumstances, the individual is taking the very best decision possible at the time and in their frame of mind.”
She was quiet again. He wondered what she could see from her car in the car park of the Salthouse Inn: the looming leafy trees behind it, a stony path leading upwards into the woods, the way she’d come on the narrow road from Polcare Cove. He sat at the table, uncovering his meal: steak pie it was indeed, along with courgettes that hadn’t quite made it through the reheating process unscathed.
She said, “Do you sometimes feel that you’re not fighting hard enough?”
“In my line of work? I expect you know the answer to that.”
“I don’t. Really. Do you ever feel like that, Tommy?”
“Most days I feel exactly like that, thinking if I only try this, or if I only turned things this way instead of that, if I only considered one more point in addition to everything else I’ve tried or done . . . surely I’ll have the result I want. But that’s where we all get lost, I think. With hanging our hats on what I want when we could be hanging them on something new. Or something different. Or something unexpected, for that matter.”
“I see that. There’s no prescription for living, is there.”
“If only there were.” He ran a knife round the side of the steak and kidney pie sans kidney and let it release its fragrant steam. He upended it onto his plate. He forked up a courgette and examined it for its gustatory possibilities. “I’d offer to come down,” he told her, “but I’m afraid I can’t.”
“No need. But . . .”
He waited. She did not go on. He would have thought they’d been disconnected but he could hear faint noise in the background, probably from the inn’s car park.
She finally said, “But I find I would love to have you here, and I don’t quite know why.”
“Ah.”
“ ‘Ah’? That’s all?”
“Should there be more?” he asked her.
“That’s the question, isn’t it.”
“Still and always, Daidre.”
“Gwyn’s just come out of the inn, Tommy. I expect she’s wondering what’s happened to me. I must join her. But may I say . . . Our conversation? It’s been quite helpful.”
“Has it? I’m happy you rang, then. I would have been happy in any event, but I expect you know that already.”
“I do know that. And thank you for it, Tommy.”
“Enjoy your dinner.”
“I will.”
He hoped he could do the same. The courgette, he reckoned, would provide the answer. To that, if to nothing else.
13 AUGUST
BRIXTON
SOUTH LONDON
Monifa Bankole wasn’t a prisoner, but she felt like one, even if the prison was one of her own making. She could easily leave the Nkatas, true. Alice wished her company at the café today, but she could refuse to go. Or she could walk off on her own on the way to the place and raise a ruckus if Alice tried to stop her. Or, for the matter, she could go along to the café and slip off while Alice was busy with cooking or with customers. But doing any of that did not put her closer to restoring her children to her. There was only one way to gain access to them.
The detective sergeant had made that clear before he left for work. He was going to be honest with her, he said. He told her that Mercy Hart—she who had been Easter Lange—was now in police custody.
Mercy would this morning be questioned for the second time, the detective sergeant told her. The subjects of interest were going to be practicing medicine without a licence and performing female genital mutilation. Now, she’d been clever and the clinic had been—for better or worse—clean of concrete and unassailable evidence of FGM. Because of this, the key to charging her with that part of her criminal behaviour lay at Monifa’s feet. This key constituted her statement—from A to Z—written in her own hand about the clinic and her experience there.
“You think about wha’s right to do, Missus Bankole,” he’d said before he left the flat. “Both for you and for your kids. You got my card so you c’n ring me whenever.”
When he was gone, she rejoined Alice and Benjamin in the kitchen. If they’d heard their son’s words, they gave no indication. Benjamin was folding the washing. Alice was making him a lunch to take on his bus route. This consisted of what remained from the dinner Monifa had cooked for them the previous night: efo riro, eba, and egg rice. Benjamin Nkata had taken himself to Peckham’s Nigerian and African markets to buy the ingredients.
The dinner had been filled with the sweat and the compliments that generally accompanied a successful Nigerian meal. She’d taken care with her spices and she thought she’d used the heat sparingly, but the first mouthful had sent the detective sergeant to the fridge for milk while his father laughed, saying, “He’s one hundred p’rcent English, our Win. You come back here, Winston, an’ have some food put hair on your eyeballs.”
Now Alice put containers of each dish into Benjamin’s lunch bag while Benjamin finished up what he’d started last night. Monifa had never before seen a man in charge of the family’s washing, but it seemed the Nkatas were full of surprises. After their dinner, he’d gathered up a basket of towels and sheets and clothing and out the door he went to the building’s laundry room, not returning till all of it was both washed and dried.
Alice said to her, “I’m just ’bout ready to head to the caff, Monifa. You okay to go? I decided to try my hand at egg rice first, and I’d be pleased if you watch me and make corrections.”
So they set off together. They did a good amount of crisscrossing through the streets, which made Monifa consider whether DS Nkata had advised his mum to take a route guaranteed to confuse her, and on this route they passed Brixton Police Station. This gave her pause and tightened her fight-or-flee muscles, but they went on, and they ended up in Brixton Road. There Alice N’s Café was tucked between Launderama and Habeesha Restaurant and Bar. Like most businesses along the road, the front bore a steel roll-up security door that covered both the café’s large window and its entrance. It was painted bright blue, and across it the café’s name was scrolled in bright red letters. Cartoonish diners sat at tables piled with food. Morning Coffee, Lunch, and All-Day Snacks were lettered in cartoon balloons while Eat In or Take Away had been fashioned into the shapes of crockery and cutlery by someone with talent and imagination.
