I frown. “Is cesspot a word?” I am pretty sure she is saying it wrong.
Elin throws her hands up as she shrugs. “Who knows? But it sounds good when you’re in the moment.”
I nod, giving up on any comfortable position in my mummy wrap. “Okay.” Elin makes a good point, and if I am going to be an invaluable member of Dispatch, like I plan to be, I had better get to work on becoming less . . . robotic.
63
AFTER
It took Nena a couple of days of soul-searching to decide to tell Elin who Oliver’s father was and that he might not be as innocent a bystander as Elin believed him to be. There was no more dancing around the fact that Paul had to go. His attempt on her father and his threats against the rest of the family were bad enough. It was the cigar that solidified her decision—Paul’s cigar, its scent easily recalled from their encounter the evening of the supper party. Nena could no longer remain silent.
She’d asked Elin to meet at one of their favorite Mediterranean restaurants. Sitting across from her in her sharp business suit, Elin still looked fresh faced and beautiful despite having just arrived from closing on a new business venture in New York, a meeting she’d had to chair on their father’s behalf.
“You’re lucky Oliver had to cancel our plans for tonight . . . and that I love sister time and all,” Elin said, gesturing to the server for another glass of white wine.
Nena watched her sister finish the first glass, wondering if there was any way she could be wrong. No, she decided. She wasn’t.
“Yeah.” Nena hesitated. “About Oliver.”
Elin set her glass on the table, accepting a second glass and thanking the server with a quick smile. She took a sip and furrowed her eyebrows at the expression on Nena’s face. “Jesus, Nena, why so grim? You and the kid’s dad have a row?”
“No.” Nena stalled, knowing this would be the moment that could divide her and Elin for the first time. “Cort gave me a cigar that was left at his house.”
Elin snickered. “That shifty little bird. Is she smoking them or using the wrap for weed?”
“It’s not Georgia’s,” Nena said. “It’s Paul’s cigar.”
Elin snorted. “You must be totally knackered, sis. Where the hell did Paul come from? Last I checked, intel only had Dennis Smith and Kamil Sanders coming up, not big bad Paul.”
Nena forged ahead. “Because I remember its smell from when he smoked it the night of the dinner party.”
Elin’s initial reaction was to lean away, as if whatever amount of crazy Nena had was contagious. “Come again?”
Nena lowered her voice. “Lucien Douglas is Paul Frempong.”
She said it as if he were the boogeyman, and indeed he was. She watched as Elin, initially shocked, narrowed her eyes, which were filling with doubt that had never been there before.
“You’ve gone mad,” Elin told her. “Perhaps Dispatch has taken its toll on you. You can’t go throwing accusations like that around. Lucien is a Council member.”
Nena nodded. “And he is Paul.”
Elin wasn’t buying it, the way she glowered at Nena. She held up a calming hand. “Nena, let’s think this through. I know Attah Walrus brought up a lot of past feelings. And then learning of Kwabena, but there was nothing on Paul. Attah and Kwabena had intel. Lucien’s intel has only been on the up-and-up. He went through the vetting process. We would have recognized him.”
“How, when he had no photos? No one knows what he looks like except his old soldiers, who were dispatched when the Tribe raided the Compound, and any survivors who were there. Me. His face is something I could never forget.”
Nena watched as Elin, their mum’s spitting image, vacillated between doubt and the belief she’d always had in Nena. Nena had never lied or overreacted, and yet today she was asking Elin for more than she was willing—ready—to give.
“Okay.” Elin looked up at the ceiling, no doubt thinking of a million contingencies. “You killed Kwabena, and when Paul, whoever he is, found out, he’d retaliate.”
Nena took a sip of her water. “He did. He had Dad poisoned, Elin.”
Elin was incredulous. “This is too much, Nena.”
“Honest to God. Paul called me when I was at the hospital. He admitted it.”
Elin thumped the table. “I thought we were a team, Nena. It’s been over a week since Dad. And what about Mum? And if Lucien is who you say he is, he’s been sniffing round her ‘for moral support,’ he says.” Elin cast a doubtful look. “Are you sure, Nena? No bullshit.”