Something to Hide, page 58
“Not that.” Nkata held up his hands—palms towards her—to stop her words. “We finally got it on film,” he said. And then to Lynley, “We got Mercy and Teo Bontempi on CCTV footage, guv. Not jus’ once but twice. In Kingsland High Street. She’s in African dress like before, Teo is, so there’s no doubting it’s Teo.”
_
CHELSEA
CENTRAL LONDON
Sophie made good time to Chelsea. And unlike him, she didn’t walk into the house with eyes the size of Frisbees. She probably knew baskets of people who lived in houses like this one, Tani reckoned. Her parents’ lives were way far different to the lives of his own parents, different to his life as well, so when Mr. Cotter opened the door to her, what she said had to do with the dog who dashed out on the front step doing what she apparently always did: barking, sniffing, barking, and turning circles until Sophie finally took note of her.
“What’s your name?” she asked Peach, quite as if the dog could answer her. “You rule the roost here, I expect.”
“She does, that.” Joseph Cotter was the one to answer. He’d not been willing to open the door until Simi had dashed above stairs and Tani ducked into the study, determined to stay out of sight. But Tani came out at once when he heard Sophie’s voice.
She was extending her hand to Mr. Cotter, and she gave her name and identified herself as “Tani’s friend Sophie Franklin.”
Hearing her voice, Simi dashed down the stairs, crying out, “It’s Sophie! Sophie!” as she ran to her and threw her arms round her waist.
Mr. Cotter said, “Best come in,” as Tani reached her side and kissed her. Then he did that English white person thing, did Cotter. He offered tea.
So far the day was working out.
It had begun when he responded to the message from Zawadi, which he had largely forgotten in his haste to be back in Chelsea after his two hours with Sophie on the previous afternoon. When she answered and said brusquely, “I text you asking you to ring me, you ring me straightaway. We clear?”
“Sorry. I got caught up—”
“Well, don’t get caught up.”
“Sorry.”
“I got a place for both of you. Just happened this morning. It’s not why I’m ringing you, but we’ll get to that. There’s a family in Lewisham happy to have you and Simisola. Bit crowded, this place, but you’d be safe. And you’d be in a normal situation.”
Tani knew that what she meant by “normal” was changing their placement to one in the home of a Black family. He considered this. These people in this house . . . ? He knew they meant well. He also knew they were committed to protecting both Simisola and him. They were do-gooders, the lot of them—especially Deborah—but at least they were putting themselves . . . well, out there. More than that, Simi was enjoying herself: a dog, a cat, a garden to run round in, Bunny Ears if a Super Soft van happened to be in the area. Things could be a bloody sight worse.
He said, “We’re good. Prob’ly best thing is for us to stay where we are. This lot here? They’re decent enough.”
“What’s that mean? ‘Decent enough’? They’re not treating you right?”
“I mean they’re okay. They’re nice, for white people.”
“If that changes even one degree, I want to know. You ring me.” When he said that he would do, she went on. “I’ve got the urgent order,” she told him. “The protection order.”
He was definitely not expecting this bit of news, all things considered. He said, “Did Mum—”
“Didn’t need her. We filled it out here at Orchid House and took it to the authorities.”
“But I thought her part of the application was the important bit.”
“Still is. They’ll want her story soon ’s we can get it. For now, I used the photos of your face after your dad beat on you. That did the job of illustrating the sort of bloke he is.”
“Are you . . . You’re not takin’ it to him, are you? The protection order? That’s bats, innit.”
She wasn’t, she told him. “Like I said before, th’ order goes to the coppers now, the station nearest where you live. Someone there will take it soon ’s it’s in hand. It’ll be delivered to your dad personally and he’ll be told to hand over the passports.”
“Passports were never there. But I found ’em.” He related the story to her.
Her reaction was to tell him that—Sophie or not—she still needed those passports. Only once they were in the hands of the police and thus inaccessible to Abeo would Simisola be safe.
So he’d rung Sophie and she’d come to Chelsea as soon as she was able. She took the passports out of her shoulder bag and was handing them over to Tani when Deborah St. James joined them in the entry.
Simi cried, “Look who’s here, Deborah! Sophie’s here! Your dad’s making tea!”
“I see her,” Deborah said to the little girl. She saw the passports. She said to Tani with a nod at the passports, “You’ll want to ring Zawadi now they’re here, yes? The police will want them?”
That was the case indeed, but Tani wasn’t sure he wanted to hand them over. Now they were in his possession, he knew that he could keep them safe, which meant he could keep Simisola safe. He didn’t fully trust anyone else to do that.
They were rejoined by Cotter, who also spied the passports. He said, “Tea in the kitchen or in the garden?”
“I want Sophie to see the garden!” Simi cried. “Is Alaska in the garden? Is Peach?”
“Can’t say about that cat,” Cotter told her, “but you know Peach by now, eh? Once she smells a teacake, she’ll be underfoot quick as quick can be. You want to show Sophie the way?”
Simi grabbed her hand. Tani wanted to do the same, but Cotter spoke to him next, saying, “D’you want me to have those?” with reference to the passports. “I got places in this house no one’s ever looking. Tear it down brick by brick, and they still wouldn’t find ’em. I promise to hand them over soon ’s you ask for them.”
This seemed like the best idea, Tani thought. Until he or Zawadi could get the passports to the police, Joseph Cotter’s hiding them sounded to him like the safest way to go. None of them would know where they were. Which meant, naturally, that none of them would or could tell anyone else.
BETHNAL GREEN
EAST LONDON
Mercy Hart had been taken to a custody suite in Bethnal Green, certainly closer than the station nearest to her home but inconvenient nonetheless. There, she’d been placed under arrest. There, she’d been waiting in a cell pending the arrival of her solicitor as well as the detectives on their way from Central London to interview her. She’d been in the hands of the police for more than three hours by the time everyone was assembled.
In Lynley’s experience, only career criminals or repeat offenders were unbothered by the quite particular sound of a cell door slamming shut upon them. As Mercy Hart was neither of these, she’d become a bundle of nerves by the time Lynley and Havers entered the interview room where she and her solicitor were waiting.
She had a great deal to be nervous about. The first bit of CCTV footage that Lynley and Havers viewed had come from Taste of Tennessee’s security camera. Teo Bontempi in the native dress of Adaku Obiaka had passed directly beneath this camera in close conversation with Mercy Hart. Mercy had been the one talking, Teo Bontempi listening intently with her hand through Mercy Hart’s arm. They might have been two friends having a chat as they strolled along had the woman in native garb only been someone else. That she was a detective on a team bent upon eliminating FGM in London and beyond gave the conversation a different colour than it might otherwise have had.
The second bit of footage was more damning still. It had come from one of the Met’s surveillance cameras in the high street, this one perched on the edge of Rio Cinema’s roof, with its wide-angle lens taking in the street for a good thirty yards in either direction. The CCTV was state of the art, so the picture was clear. It also could be enlarged. So Mercy Hart was quite identifiable when she opened the ground-floor door and admitted Teo Bontempi into the building where the clinic was located.
Mercy had been charged with lying to the police, practicing medicine without a licence, and performing female genital mutilation. She was now teetering on the edge of being charged with homicide as well. To Astolat Abbott’s demand for evidence, Lynley assured her that evidence regarding FGM was well in hand in the form of a full statement made by a woman who’d arranged to have her daughter cut at the Kingsland High Street clinic. This procedure would be performed by one Easter Lange, an identity adopted by Mercy Hart, who was the niece of the owner of that name. This same “Easter Lange” had placed her signature upon the lease for the clinic, as well as upon the paperwork attached to hiring a lock-up in a storage facility where the clinic’s contents had been taken after the local police had raided it. A picture of Mercy Hart was being taken to the storage facility, and the lessor of the lock-up would be looking at her photograph as well. As far as performing FGM went, Ms. Abbott’s client was finished and soon to be imprisoned.
“Do you have any comment you’d like to make?” Lynley asked Mercy.
Mercy looked at her solicitor. Astolat Abbott communicated with her digitally, in the true sense: she raised the fingers of her left hand slightly and then lowered them.
Mercy looked back at Lynley and said, “I do what I’m told.”
“What’s that meant to tell us?” Havers asked.
“It tells you that you’re wasting your time with my client,” Astolat Abbott said. “Whatever you think has gone on in that clinic, it has nothing to do with her. She was only employed there to book clients and to pass out paperwork for them to complete.”
“That doesn’t quite explain her conversations with Adaku Obiaka,” Lynley noted.
“I told you,” Mercy said sharply. “I don’t know that person. I’ve never met that person.”
“So that’s not you on Taste of Tennessee’s CCTV footage?” Havers asked. “You and Adaku having a natter while you shimmy down the street together?”
“You admitted her into the clinic,” Lynley added. “The Met’s CCTV has a very good record of that.”
“I didn’t,” she said. “None of that. Nothing.”
“How do you explain the films, then?” Havers asked.
“These things . . . ? Everyone knows they can be altered. If you have a laptop, you can do that.”
“Got it,” Havers said. “Any clue why Taste of Tennessee would be interested in altering their video?”
“The films would’ve been altered after,” Mercy said.
“After what, exactly?”
“Once you got your hands on the films, then they would have been altered.”
“Ah. Got it. Like the Met’s tech people—with nothing else to do aside from gazing at their smartphones, mind you—would have set everything aside to tinker about till they were able to put Teo Bontempi’s head—that’s Adaku to you—on the body of a woman wearing ethnic garb just like hers, which, by the way, was hanging in her clothes cupboard. So who was it, then, all kitted out like Adaku?”
“I would have to see the film.”
Havers blew out a breath.
Lynley observed the woman. She licked her lips. He could see her swallow. She reached for a plastic cup on the table between them, began to lift it, but set it down quickly. Her hands, Lynley saw, weren’t steady enough that she’d want them to be noted.
He said to her, “What is it you’re afraid of? Or should I ask who are you afraid of?”
“I never hurt anyone,” was her reply. “No FGM, no murder, nothing. Nothing like that. Nothing. If someone wrote and accused me of whatever it is, what they wrote is a lie. That’s all I’m saying.” And to her solicitor, “I want to leave now.”
“You’ve been charged,” Havers said. “You can leave like you want, but where you’ll go when you do leave is straight into remand. That would be up in Bronzefield Prison, that would. So how do you reckon your Keisha’s gonna do, playing mummy to the little ones?”
“I have no comment,” Mercy said.
“I’d like a word with my client.” This from Ms. Abbott.
Lynley rose, switching off the recorder that was documenting their interview. He said they would wait in the corridor, and he opened the door for Havers to precede him out of the room.
Once the door was closed behind them, Havers said to him, “She’s playing for time. She’s holding together, but you ask me, she knows she’s at the end of her rope when it comes to FGM.”
“Possibly. But I daresay her solicitor will be telling her the signed statement we’ve got merely constitutes someone’s word against her own. We could study the films and find Monifa Bankole on CCTV entering the clinic with her daughter to support her written statement, but when it comes to what occurred inside, we’d be down to what a jury will believe. And we can’t set aside the fact that Monifa might yet decide it’s in her best interest to back away from what she wrote, claiming her statement was coerced. Her children are missing and, as far as she’s concerned, we’re the people who know where they are and are keeping the information from her.”
“Forget FGM, then. What about Teo’s getting the clinic closed down? She’s got motive in spades, Mercy Hart.”
“She does. But that’s the beginning and end of what we have on her, Barbara. If she says nothing, we’re down to CCTV film of Mercy and Adaku talking. You and I know that amounts to very little unless we put her at the crime scene or find the murder weapon with her DNA on it.”
The door to the interview room opened then. Astolat Abbott stepped into the corridor. Mercy Hart, the solicitor informed them politely, had taken her decision, so there would be no need for further conversation at this time. She was ready to be remanded to Bronzefield Prison.
CHELSEA
CENTRAL LONDON
Their destination was a leafy canyon of a neighbourhood, its north-west side occupied by tall brick houses, all attached to each other, all fronted by shining iron railings to prevent passersby from tumbling into the area in front of their basement windows. Its south-east side was less distinguished looking and indifferent to a uniform appearance, with its mishmash of construction materials and building styles. Both sides were lined with dusty-leafed trees, though. Where there were window boxes, nearly all contained flowers, many of which were drooping in the heat.
Monifa couldn’t imagine herself in this place, let alone her children. When she got out of the car, it was into utter silence save for the twittering of birds and someone coughing beyond the open window of the house in front of which DS Nkata had parked his car. Monifa said to him, “What is this place?” and when he told her it was called Chelsea, she’d never heard of it other than as the name of a football team. And that was only something she knew because of Tani’s devotion to Tottenham.
The sergeant led her to one of the tall brick houses, this one on a street corner. There were window boxes here, planted with red geraniums on all three sides of the ground floor bay, and there were four steps up to a sheltered porch. A tall umbrella stand stood to one side of the door, the curving handles of its contents attesting to the fact that the house’s occupants didn’t expect these to be snatched up by a thief strolling along the pavement.
When the detective sergeant used the brass door-knocker, no one answered. He frowned at this and Monifa felt her heart begin to pound in her temples. She didn’t entertain the thought of Abeo discovering their children here—they might as well have been on the moon—but the fact that they appeared to be elsewhere made her palms sweaty and her upper lip damp.
After another application of door knocker to door did nothing, nor did ringing the bell, the detective sergeant told her to follow him, which she did. Round the corner and just along the street perpendicular to the one that the front door faced, they found a gate. Beyond this a dog was barking and a child was crying out happily, “You mustn’t give her a treat ’nless she brings it back, Sophie.”
Simisola. Monifa grabbed the gate’s handle and shoved upon it. It opened and there they were: Simisola, Tani, and a shapely Black girl with a display of flesh only made possible by her immodest clothing: blue jeans cut off near the top of her thighs and a cotton shirt without sleeves, possessing a neckline that displayed the pronounced curve of her breasts.
A long-haired sausage dog was running back and forth from the girl, Sophie, to Simisola. Watching this from deck chairs were Tani and a white lady with masses of flaming hair.
She was the one who espied Monifa and the detective sergeant, and it was instantly clear that DS Nkata was known to her. She got to her feet and said, “Winston! Hullo.”
“Brought a visitor,” he said.
The two girls looked over their shoulders, whereupon Simisola dropped the ball she was holding and ran to Monifa, shouting, “Mummy! Mummy!”
Monifa held out her arms. The sweet weight of her daughter’s body pressed into hers. She extended her hand to Tani, and he came to her. He was still bruised from the beating his father had given him. She put her hand on his cheek and his handsome face blurred in her vision.
“I’m Deborah St. James,” the white lady said. She added with a smile, “Something tells me you’re Mrs. Bankole.”
Monifa could only nod as she absorbed what she felt, having her two children with her again.
The sole person who said nothing was the immodest girl. And she—this girl—looked at Tani. She was expecting something and Tani was not loath to give it apparently because he said to Monifa, “Mum, this is Sophie, my girlfriend. She’s been helping us. Me and Simi.”
The kind of help the girl was giving Tani was all too simple for Monifa to work out. She glanced at her son but made no mention of what Sophie’s clothing suggested about the probable consequences of Tani’s continuing to have anything to do with her. There would be time for that later.
