Something to Hide: A Lynley Novel

Book 21: Inspector Lynley

by Elizabeth George

Genres: Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley are back in the next Lynley novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Elizabeth George.

A Nigerian born detective sergeant working for the Metropolitan Police is found unconscious in her own flat and ends up in hospital where she dies of her injury. The post-mortem reveals that the subdural hematoma is the result of a blow to her head. DI Thomas Lynley, DS Barbara Havers and DS Winston Nkata are called in to investigate a case that touches upon not only the work and the life of the murdered detective but also upon a controversial cultural tradition that damages and often destroys the future of everyone it involves.

(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Release date: January 11, 2022

Publisher: Viking

Print pages: 701

Sample

21 JULY

 

WESTMINSTER

CENTRAL LONDON

Deborah St. James came at Sanctuary Buildings by way of Parliament Square on one of the hottest days of what had so far been a blazingly hot summer. She’d been asked to meet with one of the secretaries at the Department for Education as well as the head of the NHS. “We’d like to talk to you about a project,” she’d been told. “Are you available to take something on?”

She was. She’d been casting round for a project since the publication of London Voices four months earlier, an undertaking that she’d spent the last several years putting together. So she was happy to attend a meeting that might turn into a new project, although she couldn’t imagine what sort of photography the Department for Education in conjunction with the NHS might have in mind.

She approached a guard at the door with her identification in hand. However, he wasn’t so much interested in that as was he interested in the contents of her capacious bag. He told her that her mobile phone was fine, but she was going to have to prove that her digital camera actually was a camera. Deborah obliged by taking his picture. She showed it to him. He waved her towards the door. He said just as she was about to enter, “Delete that, though. I look like crap.”

At the reception desk, she asked for Dominique Shaw. Deborah St. James here to speak with the undersecretary for the school system, she added.

After a discreetly murmured phone call, she was handed a lanyard with visitor printed on the card that hung from it. Meeting Room 4, she was told. Floor 2. Turn to the right if she chose the lift. Turn to the left if she chose the stairs. She went for the stairs.

When she arrived at Meeting Room 4, though, she assumed she’d been given the wrong number. Five people sat round a polished conference table, not the two she’d been led to believe wished to meet her. Three floor fans were trying heroically to mitigate the temperature in the room. They were only creating something of a scirocco.

A woman rose from the end of the table and came towards her, hand extended. She was smartly dressed in a manner that shouted “government official,” and she was decorated with overlarge rimless spectacles and gold earrings the size of golf balls. She was Dominique Shaw, she said, parliamentary under secretary of state for the school system. She introduced the others so quickly that for the most part, Deborah only caught their positions: the head of the NHS, a representative from Barnardo’s, the founder of something called Orchid House, and a woman with the name Narissa, whose surname Deborah didn’t catch. They were a diverse group: one was Black, one looked Korean, Dominique Shaw was white, and the woman called Narissa appeared to be mixed race.

“Please.” Dominique Shaw indicated an empty chair next to the representative from Barnardo’s.

Deborah sat. She was surprised to see a copy of London Voices in front of each of the people who were there. Her first thought was that the book was causing difficulties somehow, that she had created a volume that had turned out to be politically, socially, or culturally incorrect, although she couldn’t imagine how any of that would involve the Department for Education. For the book comprised portraits of Londoners taken over a period of three years. Each portrait was accompanied by some of the subject’s words, recorded by Deborah during the photographic session. Included among the portraits were depicted at least two dozen of the increasingly large homeless population, people of all ages and races and nationalities who ended up sleeping in doorways along the Strand, stretched out in the subways beneath Park Lane, curled next to wheelie bins—and sometimes inside of them—and behind hotels like the Savoy and the Dorchester. These parts of the book didn’t deliver London as the glamorous global city it made itself out to be.

She demurred on the offer of coffee or tea, but happily accepted tepid water from a glass jug on the table. She waited for someone to bring up the subject of the meeting—preferably clarification on the topic of what on earth she was doing there—and once Deborah had her water, as well as her own completely unnecessary copy of London Voices, which Dominique Shaw passed to her, the undersecretary for schools began to elucidate.

She said, “It was Mr. Oh who brought your book to my attention,” with a nod at the man from Barnardo’s. “It’s impressive. I’ve been wondering, though . . .” She seemed to cull through various options of what she was wondering while outside and below the window what sounded like a lorry with a very bad transmission screeched in the street. Shaw glanced at the window, frowned, then went on. “How did you manage it?”

Deborah wasn’t sure what Dominique Shaw meant. She looked at the cover of the book for a moment. The publisher had chosen an inoffensive image: one of the many elderly people who regularly fed the birds in St. James’s Park. Peaked cap on his head, he was standing on the bridge over the pond, hand extended, bird on his palm. It was his deeply lined cheeks that had interested her, how the lines mapped the distance from the eyes to his lips, which were very chapped. The photograph wasn’t one she would have chosen for the cover of the book, but she understood the reasoning behind it. One did want the prospective buyer to pick it up and open it. A photo of someone sleeping rough in the Strand wasn’t likely to be as effective.

Deborah said, “D’you mean getting people to pose? I did ask them. I told them I wanted to make a portrait and, to be honest, most people are willing to have their picture taken if they’re approached and given the reason. Not everyone, of course. There were some people who said no, absolutely not. A few unpleasant remarks here and there, but one can’t be put off by that. Those who were happy to let me shoot them where they were . . . ? If they had an address, I sent them a copy of the photo I chose to use in the book.”

“And what they said to you.” Mr. Oh was speaking. “Their remarks that you’ve included?”

“How did you get them to talk to you like this?” the woman Narissa asked.

“Oh. Right.” Deborah opened the book and leafed through a few of the pages as she spoke. “The thing about taking someone’s photograph is to get them not to think about the fact that I’m taking their photograph. People stiffen up in front of a camera. It’s human nature. They think they’re supposed to pose, and suddenly they’re not who they really are. So the photographer has to devise a way to catch them in a moment when they . . . I suppose you’d say in a moment when they reveal themselves. Every photographer has to do this. It’s easy enough if I can catch them unaware of being photographed in the first place. But for something like this—I mean for a book or for any formal portrait, really—one can’t do that. So most photographers talk to them as they shoot.”

“Tell them to relax, tell them to smile, tell them what?” Dominique Shaw asked.

Deborah saw how the undersecretary had misunderstood her explanation. She said, “I don’t tell them anything. I ask them to tell me. I listen to them and I respond and they carry on. For this”—she indicated the book—“I asked them to tell me about their experiences in London, about how they felt about living in London, about what London feels like for them, about the place where the picture was taken. Naturally, everyone had a different answer. It was the exploration of the answer that ended up giving me the moments I was looking for.”

The founder of Orchid House said, “Wha’s this, then? D’you think you have a special gift for getting people to talk to you?”

Deborah smiled as she shook her head. “Lord no. I’m completely inarticulate if the subject veers away from photography, dogs, or cats. I can do gardening, I suppose, but only if it deals with weeding and only if I don’t have to identify the weed. For this”—again she indicated the book—“I settled on the same questions in advance and I asked them as I took the pictures. Then we went from there. I built on what they gave me as answers. Whenever people hit on the subject that triggers them, their faces alter.”

“And that’s when you take the picture?”

“No, no. That’s what I’m looking for, but I take the pictures all along. For a book like this . . . I culled through . . . I don’t know . . . p’rhaps three thousand portraits?”

There was a silence round the table. Glances were exchanged. Deborah’s conclusion was that she certainly hadn’t been called here for reasons having to do with London Voices, but she still couldn’t work out what they wanted with her. Finally, the undersecretary spoke.

“Well, you’ve done quite a job with the book,” she said. “Congratulations. We have a project we’d like to talk to you about.”

“Something to do with education?” Deborah asked.

“Yes. But I daresay not in the way you might be thinking of it.”

 

MAYVILLE ESTATE

DALSTON

NORTH-EAST LONDON

Tanimola Bankole had been clinging to the hope that the fourth straight week of misery-inducing summer heat would disrupt his father’s train of thought, which had been steaming along the railway track of Tani’s irresponsibility for the last thirty-seven minutes. This wasn’t a new subject for Abeo Bankole. Tani’s father was fully capable of banging on, both in English and in his native Yoruba, for forty-five minutes, and he’d done just that on more than one occasion. He saw it as his paternal obligation to make certain Tani fully took up the mantle of manhood as defined by Abeo, and Tani could do this only by embracing all of manhood’s attendant duties, also as defined by Abeo. At the same time, he saw it as Tani’s filial obligation to listen to, to remember, and to obey his father in all things. The first of the three, Tani generally managed. It was the second and third that caused him trouble.

On this particular day, Tani couldn’t argue against a single point his father was making. He was lucky to have regular work made available to him by virtue of being the son of Abeo Bankole, proprietor of Into Africa Groceries Etc. as well as a butcher’s shop and a fishmonger’s stall. He was privileged that his father allowed him to keep one-eighth of his wages for his personal use instead of depositing all of them into the family pot. He did enjoy three meals each day provided for him by his mother. His laundry was delivered to his bedroom spotlessly clean and perfectly ironed. Et cetera, et cetera, and blah blah blah. Instead of taking any kind of notice of the waves of heat rising from the pavement, of the trees—where there were any in this part of town—losing their leaves far too early into the year, of the remaining ice in the fish stalls in Ridley Road Market melting so quickly that the air was thick with the smell of hake and snapper and mackerel, of the meat in the butchers’ stalls sending forth a stench of blood from the simmering organs of sheep and cows, of the fruit and veg having to be sold at discount before they rotted, Abeo merely strode onward in the direction of Mayville Estate, oblivious of everything save Tani’s failure to arrive at work on time.

Tani was completely at fault. His father said nothing that wasn’t true. Tani couldn’t keep his mind on what he was supposed to be doing. Tani did not put his family first. Tani did continually forget who he was. So he didn’t say anything in his own defence. Instead, he thought of Sophie Franklin.

There was much to think of: Sophie’s gorgeous skin; her soft, cropped hair; her smooth-as-silk legs and glorious ankles; her luscious breasts; her lips and her tongue and all the rest of her . . . Of course he was completely irresponsible. When he was with Sophie, how could he be anything else?

His father might have understood this. Although he was sixty-two, he’d been young once. But there was absolutely no way that Tani was about to tell him about Sophie. The fact that she was not Nigerian was only one of the reasons Abeo Bankole would have a stroke there on the pavement if he knew of Tani’s relationship with her. The other was sex with Sophie, the very fact of which was more than Abeo would ever be able to take in calmly.

So Tani had been late to work at Into Africa Groceries Etc. He’d been so late, in fact, that the daily restocking of shelves was in progress when he’d finally arrived. This restocking—along with reordering and general clean-up—was Tani’s job once his college duties had been fulfilled each day, and the only other employee of Into Africa, Zaid, was not intended to do anything but direct customers to whatever they were looking for and otherwise to work the till. Zaid wasn’t happy to be doing everything on this particular day. He’d expressed this unhappiness via mobile to Abeo just along the way in the butcher’s shop.

Tani had rushed dutifully to take over the restocking of the shelves when he finally arrived. But Zaid had done the general cleanup, and he cast a number of baleful looks in Tani’s direction before Abeo walked in and told Tani he was to come with him.

Tani had understood he was in for it. But he recognised that this might be a very good opportunity for him to put his father in the picture as to Tani’s future. He hated having to work in either one of his father’s two shops, or the fishmonger’s stall, and he hated even more that he was intended to take over the running of Into Africa Groceries Etc. as soon as he finished his catering course at sixth form college. This was not for him. Truth about it? This was bollocks. What he meant to do was to head to uni for a degree in business and in no one’s dream world was he going to waste that degree by taking employment in a shop. Abeo could call upon one or more of the Bankole cousins for a shop manager. Of course, that would mean allowing a family member from Peckham into the constricted life Abeo had designed for his wife and his offspring in north-east London, and Abeo wouldn’t like that. But Tani wasn’t going to give him a choice. He meant to have the life he wanted.

The walk to Mayville Estate after work hours followed a zigzag pattern north through the streets. Late afternoon and there were pedestrians and cars and buses and bicycles everywhere as inhabitants of the area headed home. Among a very few Nigerians in this part of town, in a mixed-race community that was transitioning from African to West Indian, the Bankoles lived on the grounds of Mayville Estate in Bronte House, a building that comprised five floors of the undecorated London brick that was ubiquitous on the housing estate. The structure had the distinction of being directly across the lane from an asphalt play area, shaded from the scorching sun by enormous London plane trees. There were basketball hoops and goalposts at either end of it, and it was fenced to keep children chasing balls from going into the street.

Concrete steps led up to the doors of the ground-floor flats in Bronte House, while outdoor corridors marked the route to those on the upper four storeys, which were accessed by a stairway or a lift. Nearly every door was open in the futile hope of catching a breeze that was, at least for now, nonexistent. So from gaping windows television noises and dance music along with rap issued forth, accompanied by the fragrance of a multitude of meals being prepared.

Inside the Bankole flat, the temperature made the place feel like an overheated sauna. Tani felt blanketed by a pall of nearly liquid air that forced him to squint against his own sweat. There were fans running, but they did nothing to mitigate the roasting air. They merely moved it around like sluggish swamp water. One could breathe, but it wasn’t pleasant to do so.

Tani caught the scent almost at once, and he glanced at his father. Pa’s expression showed that he wasn’t pleased.

It was Monifa Bankole’s job to anticipate many things. At this time of day, she was to anticipate not only the hour that her husband would walk into the flat, but also the meal that her husband would prefer. He usually told her neither. In his head, they had been married for twenty years, so he should not have to broadcast information to her like a newlywed. During their first years together, he’d made her well aware of many things, among them his requirement that his tea be ready no more than ten minutes after his return from the day’s labour. This day, Tani saw, things were looking good for the time of tea if not for the substance. His sister, Simisola, was laying the table for all of them, which meant the meal was imminent.

Simi bobbed a hello instead of speaking, but she shot Tani a grin when he said, “You baffed up cos your boyfriend’s coming to tea, Squeak?” She quickly covered her grin with her hand. This hid the appealing little gap between her front teeth, but it did nothing to stifle her giggle. She was eight years old, ten years Tani’s junior. His principal interaction with her was defined by teasing.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she declared.

“No? Why?” he asked her. “In Nigeria you’d be married by now.”

“Would not!” she said.

“Would too. Tha’s what happens, innit, Pa.”

Abeo ignored him to say to Simi, “Tell your mother we are home,” as if this were necessary.

The girl swirled round, danced past one of the nearly useless fans, and called out, “Mummy! They’re here!” And then to her father and brother and just as her mother would, “Sit, sit, sit. You want a beer, Papa? Tani?”

“Water for him,” Abeo said.

Simi shot Tanimola a look and swirled round again. It came to Tani that she was doing all the swirling in order to show off a skirt. It was an old one, looking like an Oxfam special, but she’d decorated it with sequins and sparkles and her headband—from which her short dark hair sprang up in twists—she had decorated as well. It sported more sequins, and she’d added a feather. She dashed into the kitchen, nearly knocking into their mother, who was emerging with the gbegiri soup Tani had smelled. Steam rose from it, fogging her specs, beading moisture on Monifa’s forehead and cheeks.

He couldn’t imagine even trying gbegiri soup in this heat, but he knew what mentioning that would trigger. Abeo would embark upon another saga of how things were when he was a boy. He’d been in England for forty of his sixty-two years, but when he spoke of his native Nigeria, one would think he’d arrived at Heathrow only last week. How things were “back home” had long been his preferred topic, whether he was holding forth about the schools, the living conditions, the weather, or the customs . . . all of which seemed to exist in a fantasy African homeland born from watching Black Panther at least five times. It was Pa’s favourite film.

As Monifa placed the serving bowl in the centre of the table, Abeo frowned. “This is not efo riro,” he said.

“In this heat, I worried,” Monifa said. “The chicken. The meat. We had none here, just a bit of beef. And I wondered how fresh could the other meats stay if I bought them in the market. So I thought gbegiri soup might be wiser.”

He looked at her. “You have made no rice, Monifa?”

“Here, Papa!” Simi had reappeared with the beer. She had a frosty can in one hand and a frosty glass in the other, and she said, “It feels so cool. Feel how cool it is, Papa. C’n I have some? Just a sip?”

“You cannot,” her mother said. “Sit. I am serving the food. I am sorry about the rice, Abeo.”

Simi said, “But I’ve not got Tani’s water yet, Mummy.”

Abeo said sharply, “Do as your mother tells you, Simisola.”

Simi did so, casting an “I’m sorry” look at Tani, who shrugged.

She ducked her hands beneath the table and cast a look at Tani, who gave her a wink. She cast one at her mother, who kept her gaze on Abeo. After a long moment of observing Monifa, he gave the sharp nod that indicated his wife could begin serving.

He said to Monifa, “Your son failed to show up at work on schedule once again. He was able to give the shop only thirty minutes of his valuable time. Zaid had to do nearly everything at closing, and he was not pleased.” And then he said to Tani, “Where were you that you failed in your responsibilities?”

Monifa murmured, “Abeo . . . ? Perhaps later you and Tani . . . ?”

“This, what I speak of, is not your concern,” Abeo cut in. “Have you made eba? Yes? Simisola, bring it from the kitchen.”

Monifa spooned a large portion of gbegiri soup onto a rimmed plate. She passed it to Abeo. She scooped up more and gave it to Tani.

In a moment, Simi emerged from the kitchen with a large platter of eba. To accompany the swallows and in a bow to “being English,” she’d tucked under her arm a bottle of brown sauce. She placed this in front of Abeo and returned to her seat. Monifa served her last, as was their custom.

They ate in silence. Noise from outdoors along with the smacking of lips and swallowing of food was the only sound. Halfway through his meal, Abeo paused, shoved back his chair, and performed what Tani thought of as his father’s nightly ritual: He blew his nose mightily into a paper napkin, balled this up, and tossed it to the floor. He told Simi to bring him another. Monifa rose to do this herself, but Abeo said, “Sit, Monifa. You are not Simi.” Simi scampered off, returning only moments later with an ancient tea towel so faded that it was impossible to discern which royal marriage was being celebrated on it. She said to her father, “I couldn’t find any but there’s this. An’ it will work, won’t it, Papa?”

He took it from her and used it on his face. He placed it on the table and looked at them. He said, “I have news.”

Instantly, they all became statues.

“What kind of news?” Monifa asked.

“Things have been settled well,” was his reply.

Tani saw his mother shoot a glance in his direction. Her expression alone was a trigger for his anxiety.

“It’s taken many months,” Abeo said. “The cost has been more than I expected. We start at ten cows. Ten of them. So I ask can she breed if I am to pay ten cows for her? He says she is one of twelve offspring, three of whom are already producing. Thus she comes of breeding stock. That is of no account, I tell him. Just because her mother and siblings have bred so well, this does not mean she will do the same. So I ask for a guarantee. Ten cows and there is no guarantee? I say this to him. He says, Pah! What sort of man asks another for a guarantee? I say, A man who knows what is important. We go back and forth, and in the end, he says he will settle for six cows. I say it’s still too much. He says, Then she can stay here, because I have other options. Options, he says. I tell him I know he bluffs. But the time is right, her age is right, she will not last long if he puts the word out. So I agree, and the thing is settled.”

Monifa had lowered her gaze to her plate and had not lifted it again during Abeo’s speech. Simi had stopped chewing her food, her expression telegraphing her confusion. Tani felt lost within his father’s story. Ten cows? Six? Breeding stock? He felt something very bad in the air, a gust of tension flavoured with the scent of dread.

Abeo turned to him, saying, “Six cows I paid for a virgin of sixteen years. This has been done for you. Soon I will take you to Nigeria where you will meet her.”

“Why’m I meeting some Nigerian girl?” Tani asked.

“Because you are going to marry her when she is seventeen years.” That said, Abeo went back to eating. He broke off a piece of his swallow and used it to scoop up a small piece of beef. This appeared to remind him of something he wished to add, for he addressed Tani with, “You are lucky in this. A girl her age is usually given to a man of forty years or more because of the cost. Never to a boy like you. But you must settle and take up your manhood soon. So we will go, and while we are there, she will cook for you, and you will get to know her. I have seen to that so you do not end up with someone useless. She is called Omorinsola, by the way.”

Tani folded his hands on the table. The room seemed several degrees hotter than it had been upon their return from Ridley Road. He said, “I’m not doing tha’, Pa.”

Monifa drew in a deep breath. Simi’s eyes became as round as old pennies. Abeo looked up from his food and said, “What is this that you just said to me, Tanimola?”

“I’m not doing it is what I said. I’m not meeting some virgin you’ve picked out for me, and I’m definitely not marrying anyone when she turns seventeen.” Tani heard his mother murmur his name, so he faced her. “This isn’t the Middle Ages, Mum.”

Monifa said, “In Nigeria, Tani, these things are arranged so that—”

“We don’t live in Nigeria, do we. We live in London and in London people marry who they want to marry when they want to marry them. Or at least I do. I will. No one’s picking out a wife for me. And I’m not getting married anyway. Not now and definitely not to some guaranteed African breeding virgin. Tha’s mad, innit.”

There was a tight little moment of the kind of silence that echoes round a room. Abeo broke it, saying, “You will do exactly what you are told to do, Tani. You will meet Omorinsola. You are promised to her and she is promised to you, so we will have no more discussion.”

“You,” Tani said, “are not the ruler of me.”

Monifa gasped. Tani heard this and said, “No, Mum. I’m not going to Nigeria or to any other place just because he decided it.”

“I head this family,” Abeo told him. “As a member of it, you will do as I say.”

“I won’t,” Tani said. “If you thought I would do, then you’re mistaken. You can’t force me to marry anyone.”

“You will do this, Tani. I will see that you do it.”

“Really, eh? Tha’s what you think? D’you plan to hold a gun to my head? Tha’ll look good in the wedding photos, innit.”

“You watch what comes out of your mouth.”

“Why? What will you do? Beat me up like—”

Monifa quickly said, “Stop this, Tani. Show your father some respect.” And then, “Simi, go to—”

“She stays,” Abeo said. And to Tani, “Finish what it is you wish to say.”

“I’ve said what I wanted to say.” At that he rose from the table, his chair screeching on the lino. His father did the same.

Abeo’s fist clenched. Tani stood his ground. They stared each other down across the table. Abeo finally said, “Get out of my sight.”

Tani was happy to do so.

 

THE NARROW WAY

HACKNEY

NORTH-EAST LONDON

Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Phinney wasn’t surprised to find his brother waiting for him. Paulie had arranged everything in the first place, so he had a vested interest, more or less, in how Mark liked what he’d found waiting for him inside Massage Dreams. Besides, Massage Dreams wasn’t far from either one of Paulie’s two pawnshops, and well within convenient walking distance of their parents’ house and Paulie’s own. At least, Mark thought, his brother wasn’t lurking inside the damn place, in its tiny lobby. Instead, he’d taken himself the short distance from Mare Street to The Narrow Way, and there he was sitting on one of the benches in the middle of the pedestrian precinct. Mark saw him at once as he rounded the corner. On Paulie’s face was that knowing leer with which he’d always greeted his younger brother whenever—as an adolescent with spots on his face—Mark had returned from what Paulie had assumed was a date but actually was hanging about with a group of mates from school, all of them misfits like Mark himself, three of them girls. Paulie’s words then were always the same when Mark arrived home: “Get any, mate?” to which Mark would reply, “If I did, you’re not hearing about it.”

Today’s leer, though, had nothing to do with adolescent girls, although it did have to do with getting some in one of the back rooms of the day spa, which happened to be more than a mere day spa if one had the right currency, as they did not give change or accept credit cards when a man purchased this particular service.

Paulie said, “So . . . ?” and when Mark didn’t reply at once, “It took long enough, Boyko. What’d you do? Have more than one go?”

Mark said, “I had to wait twenty minutes for her. Let’s go. Mum’ll have dinner nearly ready.”

“That’s it?” Paulie said. “Just ‘I had to wait twenty minutes for her’? I went through a lot of favours to get you an appointment today, lad. That’s how popular the place has become. So was it good? Worth the money? Was she young? Beautiful? Haggard? No teeth? What’d she use? Hand, mouth, tongue, some other body part? I reckon between the tits would do nicely, eh? No? Hmmm. P’rhaps under her arm? Or did you go the full monty with her?”

Mark tuned him out. He walked in the direction of St. Augustine Tower, the crenellated top of which overlooked The Narrow Way. A group of kids appeared to be playing an imaginative form of kick the can at the base of the tower, a sight he hadn’t seen since mobile phones, texting, gaming, and PlayStations had obliterated the ways children had entertained themselves for generations.

They entered St. John of Hackney churchyard, just to the right of the ancient tower. They headed east, on a route that would take them along a paved path the distance to Sutton Way. There Paulie and his family lived in a structure unappealingly reminiscent of the hasty architecture that grew out of the 1960s, all angles and picture windows looking onto very little of interest.

Paulie said, “Well, it was better than internet porn, I wager. More costly, yeah, but it’s the woman’s touch that does it, eh? It’s special, that. Another human being. Warm flesh. Shit, Boyko, if Eileen hasn’t always known what I want before I even want it, I’d’ve been in there with you having my own go.” His voice altered to meditative. “That woman’s a sex machine, our Eileen is. Most days she doesn’t wear knickers, and if the kids aren’t in the room, she lifts her skirt every chance she gets. She’s even done me in one of the shops. Have I told you that? Right behind the counter, this was, three days ago, with the shop full open for business. I’m surprised I wasn’t taken to the bill to answer questions about wife abuse. That’s how much noise the woman was making when I got her going.”

Mark said nothing. He’d heard about Eileen’s sexual antics before. Ad nauseam, in fact. The silence extended until Paulie said, “Pete coming to dinner? Or is it just you?”

Mark glanced at his brother, who was looking straight ahead as if there were something in the distance that wanted memorising. He said, “Why d’you ask that? You know it’s impossible just now.”

“What about that Greer person? Isn’t that her name? Greer? Pete’s friend? The one she sees so much of? Greer could stay for an hour or two. She’d know what to do if anything happened.”

“Pete doesn’t like to leave Lilybet,” Mark told his brother.

“I know she doesn’t like to. We all know she doesn’t like to, Boyko.”

Again Mark made no reply. While it was true that his misery was deep, it was not about Pete, who did the best she could, given their circumstances. Instead, his misery was more about what he couldn’t anticipate, and that was what the future was going to look like for all three of them: Pietra, Lilybet, and himself.

They walked across the lower section of the churchyard. It was mostly empty at this time of day, so close to dinner. A few benches were occupied, but mostly by people who were staring at the screens of their smartphones. There were dog walkers as well, and one woman in a scarlet sundress appeared to be walking a large tabby cat on a lead although the cat’s slinking along a scarce inch from the ground indicated his lack of enthusiasm for the activity.

As they drew closer to the other side of the churchyard, the smell of frying burgers created a fountain of scent in the air. The source was a small café just to their side of the wall that separated the churchyard from the neighbourhood beyond it. The café catered to the area’s multiracial, multicultural populace, as its posted menu indicated that on offer were not only burgers but also crêpes, samosas, kebabs, chicken shawarma, and various vegetarian dishes. The place appeared to be doing a brisk business. There were people tucking into numerous cartons at the several picnic tables set on the lawn. There was also a long queue waiting to order and another waiting for food to be packed up for takeaway. They wore the martyred expressions so typical of Londoners, most of whom spent their lives waiting in a queue for something: a bus, the underground, a train, a taxi, their turn at the till.

“Can’t believe that place is still here,” Paulie commented as they passed. “The grandkids must be running it by now.”

“Must be,” Mark said. They walked by the café and then through the far exit from the churchyard, which took them into Sutton Way, where Paulie snatched up a discarded cigarette packet and shoved it into his pocket. They went not to Paulie’s house among the string of 1960s-looking structures, but to the house in which they had grown up. It was across the street and down the way a bit, in a terrace of soot-soiled brick houses in need of a thorough scrubbing. They were all identical. Each had three floors, a slightly recessed arched doorway, fanlights above the doors, doors themselves painted ebony. Wrought-iron railings defined the house fronts; two windows on each floor gave an idea of size. Nothing distinguished one from another except the window coverings and the brass door knockers, their originals having been replaced over the years by whatever the occupants fancied. In the case of Mark and Paulie’s childhood home, the knocker of choice was a brass jack-o’-lantern, and the window coverings were the creation of Paulie’s kids, with assistance from their gran, who’d supplied the paints. There was a primitive charm to the finished product, as long as one didn’t attempt to identify the animals that the kids had decided to depict.

Paulie didn’t use a key as the door was seldom locked during daylight hours. He opened it, shouted, “Hiya! The conquerors have arrived!” and dropped to one knee to receive the embraces of his offspring, who came storming towards him. Yells accompanied the pounding of their feet. “Dad’s here!” “Mummy! Gran!” “Granddad, Dad’s here! So’s Uncle Boyko!”

Mark looked for his godchild among them. His niece, Esme, was his favourite. She was also his wound. Two weeks younger than Lilybet, she offered a contrast between them that had always been a rapier to his heart.

Chaos tsunamied round them as the kids demanded “something special from the shop, Dad!” This would be the odd item never redeemed by its owner and, as it happened, not particularly sellable either. Today there was only one object, a dull-edged and tarnished cigar cutter. Paulie handed it to his oldest boy. He told all of the children that they each got one guess as to what it was. Write it on paper and deliver it to your dad, were the rules. Whoever got it on the money would also get to keep it.

His and Mark’s own dad was in the sitting room, watching telly with an enormous set of earphones on his head to save the rest of the household from whatever headache the telly’s intense volume would otherwise cause them. He waved a hello at his sons; they waved in turn. They went on to find their mother in the kitchen. Paulie’s wife, Eileen, was stirring something in a large pot on the stove while their mother, Floss Phinney, was engaged in tossing a salad.

Eileen came at once across the room and wrapped her arms round Paulie’s neck. Paulie squeezed her bum as they shared the kiss of lovers who’ve been apart years instead of ten hours. Mark looked away. Floss was watching him. She smiled fondly. Paulie and Eileen broke it off and Paulie went to the stove and lifted the lid of the pot steaming there. He sniffed. He said, “Jesus in a handcart, Mum. You’ve not let our Eileen do the cooking, have you? This smells like something she’d make.”

Eileen slapped his hand away, saying, “We’ll have none of that, you,” while Floss turned her attention to Mark. “Pietra’s not with you, Boyko?”

“She may be along later,” Mark told her. Paulie went to the refrigerator and did what he’d done since childhood: opened the door and stared into it like someone divining the future from the various leftovers of previous meals. Mark said to his mother in a lower voice, “She’s interviewing.”

“Is she indeed?” Floss asked. “Well, that’s good, eh? We can hope things turn out a bit different this time.” She looked past him to where Paulie was still inspecting what was on offer inside the fridge. She said, “Paulie, fix us a beverage, there’s my boy. Eileen, make sure he’s not stingy with the ice this time round. I hate a beverage that’s overwarm, I do.”

The kids were raising a ruckus in another part of the house and Paulie shouted at them as he went to the sitting room’s drinks cart to make his mother her favourite, gin and tonic, very light on the tonic. The kids’ voices lowered—it wouldn’t be for long as it never was—and during the relative peace and semi-quiet, Esme slid into the room. She came to Mark and slipped her hand into his. She leaned her head against his arm. She said just above a whisper, “Passed my maths test, Uncle Mark.” She was the only family member, aside from his wife, who didn’t call him Boyko.

“That’s grand, that is, Esme,” he told her.

“Lilybet would pass it if she could,” Esme replied. “She’d prob’ly do better’n me.”

He felt a tightness round his eyes. “Yes. Well,” he said. “Perhaps someday, eh?”

Floss asked the girl if she wouldn’t mind laying the table for everyone. Esme pointed out that her mother had already done it, Gran. “She did, did she?” was Gran’s response. She smiled fondly at the girl and said, “Then c’n you give me a moment with your uncle?”

Esme looked from Mark to his mum, back to Mark. She said, “That’s why you asked me to lay the table, Gran. It would’ve been okay for you to ask me direct.”

“I stand corrected, darlin’. Sometimes I forget you’re quite the big girl now. I’ll be d’rect with you from now on.”

When Esme nodded and left them, Floss said to Mark, “How many this time?”

“Applicants?” He shrugged. “I’ve not asked her. She does her best, Mum.”

“She needs time to herself now and then.”

“She does take time, some two hours every week.”

“That’s hardly taking time, is it. She can’t keep going along this way. If she tries that, she’ll be dead before she’s fifty and then where will Lilybet be? Where will you be?”

“I know.”

“You have to insist, Boyko.”

As if he hadn’t, Mark thought. As if he hadn’t and hadn’t and hadn’t till the words were rote and their meaning long robbed of importance. He said, “Pete wants to do right by her.”

“Well, of course she does. And so do you. But you must also want to do right by yourselves, eh?” She stirred Eileen’s concoction and then turned back to him, wooden spoon in hand. She observed him in the way only a mother observes: a silent comparison of the boy he’d been and the man he’d become. Clearly, she didn’t like what she saw. She said, “When was the last time you two had relations?”

She’d never gone in this direction before. Mark was taken aback. He said, “Jesus . . . Mum . . .”

She said, “You tell me, Boyko.”

His gaze slid away from her to the open window upon which a line of terracotta pots grew the fresh herbs she liked to have on hand. He wanted to ask when they’d been last watered. The basil was looking a bit limp. He said, “Last week,” and prepared himself for the moment when she accused him of lying, which indeed he was. He didn’t know the last time they’d had relations. He only knew it could be measured in years, not in weeks. For this, he couldn’t possibly blame Pete. Even when she was there, she wasn’t there, so what was the point? Every sense she possessed was tuned into Lilybet’s small bedroom and the noises emanating from it on the baby monitor: the hiss of oxygen, the puff that indicated the rise and fall of Lilybet’s chest. One couldn’t make love to a woman who isn’t there, he wanted to tell his mother. It’s more than mere friction, two bodies rubbing together in a growing frenzy of pleasure that would lead to release. If that’s what it was, anyone would do. An anonymous foreign “masseuse” would do. Hell, a blow-up doll would suffice. But that wasn’t what it was. Or at least that wasn’t what he wanted. If nothing else, his interlude this day at Massage Dreams had demonstrated that. Orgasm? Yes. Connection? No.

Floss regarded him with sadness in her eyes. But all she said was, “Oh, lad.”

“It’s fine, Mum,” he replied.

 

KINGSLAND HIGH STREET

DALSTON

NORTH-EAST LONDON

Adaku Obiaka had dressed to blend in, and she blended in well. Where she stood, she was anonymous, forgettable, and largely out of sight. She’d taken up a position in the recessed entry of Rio Cinema from where the smell of popcorn and coffee—what a strange combination, she thought—fought for neighbourhood dominance with odours wafting from across the street. There, Taste of Tennessee was belching forth a mixed miasma of scents: cooking oil, fried chicken, ribs, and burgers. The very air felt greasy with the smell.

She had been there coming up to three hours, watching the action along the street in general, watching the lack of action in one set of disreputable-looking flats in particular. These were positioned above what once had been Kingsland Toys, Games, and Books, an establishment announcing itself with a garish violet sign wearing equally garish letters of twelve different colours. The business was no more, and nothing had taken its place although the coming soon sign lent a hopeful air to the empty storefront.

The defunct shop stood directly between Taste of Tennessee and Vape Superstore, and like most of the businesses along the street, it possessed two doors. One of them gave customers access to the shop. The other, always locked unless one possessed a key, gave inhabitants access to the flats above. Six decrepit windows marked the position of these flats. There were two on each floor. The top-floor windows showed bright lights behind dingy curtains. The middle floor seemed dark behind Venetian blinds. The first floor stared blankly out at Rio Cinema, reflecting its marquee, which promised yet another tired, dystopian universe that had to be restored to decency by a cinematic adolescent heroine, preferably one with white skin and blond hair.

During her three hours on watch, no one had entered or left through the locked door giving access to the flats. But Adaku had been told confidentially that someone would, and it was that prospect that had kept her there past the rumbling of her stomach longing for dinner. It had taken her far too long expending far too much energy in order to dig up Women’s Health of Hackney. Although she could easily have come back another day to position herself in the cinema’s entry, the lights in the uppermost flat told her someone was there. All she had to do was to wait them out, even if it took till morning.

In the time Adaku had maintained her position, the street noises had altered from pedestrian chatter and crying babies and children shouting as they zipped by on scooters to what they were now: rumbling traffic, violin practice coming from a flat somewhere, a busker playing the accordion in front of Snappy Snaps, a few paces away from a Paddy Power betting establishment, the busker no doubt hoping that some lucky punter had a few extra pound coins to toss in his direction after a successful day at the races.

Adaku wished she’d brought a sandwich along. Even an apple and a bottle of water sounded good. But she’d not thought to stock up on provisions. Nor had she the time. A phone call leaving the message “She’s there” had taken her from West Brompton underground station to the Rio Cinema, and only another phone call would change her location till she saw someone emerge from the building across the street.

Her fourth hour was ten minutes old when her long observation was finally rewarded. The lights in the topmost flat were extinguished and in a minute the door leading to the flats above Kingsland Toys, Games, and Books opened. A woman stepped out. Unlike Adaku she dressed English in close-fitting trousers and a thin jersey, white with horizontal red stripes and a boat neck. She wore a red baseball cap at a jaunty angle, and she carried a shopping carrier bag over her shoulder.

The woman had probably changed in one of the flats above for her work that day. There, she would have worn garments that looked more professional, as a way to reassure her clients. Dressed appropriately, all will be well would be her unspoken message. Wasn’t it the truth, Adaku thought with a derisive shake of her head, that desperate people are ready to think and believe exactly what others tell them to think and to believe?

The woman headed briskly north in the direction of the railway station. This suggested that she might not live nearby. That being the case, Adaku needed to make her move in advance of her quarry’s catching a train. So she crossed the street quickly, and once on the pavement, she picked up her pace. Soon enough she drew even with the woman. Adaku slid her hand through the other’s arm, saying, “I must speak with you.”

The woman’s lips formed a perfect O. Then, her words naming the UK as the land of her birth, she said, “Who’re you? What do you want?” and she tried to pull away.

“As I said, I need to speak with you. It will not take long,” was Adaku’s reply. “I was given the name of this place. It is Women’s Health of Hackney, yes?”

“No one stops me on the street like this. What d’you want from me?”

Adaku looked round for listeners and lowered her voice. “I was told only the location. Coming upon you like this was the only way I had. I don’t have a phone number that I could ring. So it was this or nothing. Will you speak with me?”

“’Bout what? If you’re hoping for medical advice handed out on the pavement, you definitely got the wrong idea.”

“I want only five minutes of your time. There’s a Costa Coffee just along the high street. We can go there.”

“D’you need to have your hearing checked? I just said—”

“I have money.”

“For what? Is this a bribe? D’you have the slightest idea what you’re about?”

Adaku said, “I have money with me, here in my bag. I’ll give it to you.”

The woman laughed. “You’re that daft, aren’t you? Like I said, I don’t even know you, and I sure as bloody hell don’t talk ’bout medical matters on the street.”

“I’ve fifty pounds with me. I can bring more later. Whatever you say.”

“Whatever I say, eh?” The woman gazed long at Adaku before looking left and right as if trying to decide if this was some sort of trick. She finally said with a sigh, “All right. Grand. Let me see this fifty.”

Adaku reached into her shoulder bag, more a carrier for groceries than a secure container for her possessions. She brought out an envelope, half crumpled, with a coffee ring on it. She opened it and took out the money, which the other grasped quickly between her fingers. Fifty pounds did not comprise many notes. Still, the woman made much of counting it.

She looked up and said shrewdly, “Five minutes. It will be two hundred fifty more if you want anything from me other than five minutes of my time.”

Adaku wondered how she was going to come up with two hundred and fifty pounds while still keeping her plans a secret. She also wondered what it would gain her, when all she actually wanted was allowance to step into the inner sanctuary above the erstwhile Kingsland Toys, Games, and Books. She said, “What will I receive for this three hundred pounds I’ll be giving you?”

The other woman frowned. “Receive?” she asked. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Is it a deposit, this money?”

“For what? This is a women’s health clinic. We care for women’s physical problems. We’re paid to do so. When you got the additional funds, we’ll see you. Bring your medical records along.”

“Why do you need them?”

“You want a medical service, don’t you? Isn’t that why we’re talking? Or is there some other reason?”

“It’s the matter of paying so much in advance.”

“Well, I can’t help with that. It’s how we do things.”

“But will you guarantee—”

“Listen to me. You just used up your five minutes, and we’re not speaking of anything further standing here on the pavement. You gave me fifty pounds. You can top that up to three hundred when you have it.”

Adaku felt the sweat on her back. It was dripping to her waist. But she nodded. Then she said to the woman, “I don’t know your name.”

“You don’t need to know it. You won’t be writing me a cheque.”

“What do I call you, then?”

The woman hesitated. Trust or distrust. She finally chose. She dug a card from her bag and handed it over. “Easter,” she said at last. “Easter Lange.”

y Pietra’s voice. She was murmuring darling, darling, darling, and these words had intruded on his dream: her finally willing body beneath his, and himself so ready that his bollocks ached. But as he swam to full consciousness, he realised the aching bol