“But I gave her money . . .”
“Hmmm. Right. But seems th’ only thing left when my guv arrived was some boxes and chairs and part of a desk. I gotta think your money’s gone. Permanent, I mean. So’s the woman called herself Easter Lange. She’s ackshully Mercy Hart, by the way.”
“Gone.” She said it numbly. And then with a narrowing of her eyes, “Talk true.”
“Tha’s wha’ I’m doing, Missus Bankole. And what I’m thinking ’s this: Cops show up, cops bang about tha’ clinic and make ’n arrest ’f two ladies, cops ask questions ’f someone who gives them a false name. No charges end up being made, but clinic closes straightaway. Now I don’ know, do I, what all tha’ suggests to you. But what it suggests to me is someone un’erstanding real fast tha’ they been lucky as the devil and they i’n’t likely to be lucky as the devil twice. An’ tha’ suggests something illegal going on in tha’ clinic cos there’s no other reason to shut it down. Wha’ d’you think?”
“Now he will hurt her,” was apparently what she thought. Or it was, at least, what was on her mind and what she was willing to say.
“Someone hurting this Mercy Hart?”
“He will hurt her. I cannot stop this.”
“Missus Bankole, you got to tell me who. I can’t help you if—”
“You can’t help at all. No one can. And now he will hurt her and none of us can stop this not even I can stop it and she’s my daughter.”
Nkata put this together with what Barbara had reckoned was going on at the clinic. He said, “Mrs. Bankole, tha’ little girl . . . ? One that came to the door . . . ? Was something going to happen to her?”
“Go!” She cried, and jumped to her feet. “Now! Please. Go.”
THE NARROW WAY
HACKNEY
NORTH-EAST LONDON
Mark Phinney made one stop before heading to The Mothers Square and home. He went to Sutton Place and parked not far from his parents’ house. He wasn’t there to see them, however. He wasn’t there to see anyone at all on Sutton Place. But it was conveniently close to The Narrow Way, and that was where he was heading. He reckoned Paulie would still be at work. Mark himself had left West Brompton with enough time, in fact, to ensure this.
Paulie had two pawnshops in The Narrow Way. He’d taken over their dad’s shop at the bottom of the lane, on the junction of Mare Street and Amhurst Road, and when a knitting shop had closed its doors at the top of The Narrow Way four years past, he’d signed a lease and opened a second pawnshop there. The first bore the family name. The second did not.
Paulie was generally inside Phinney Pawn, mostly because it was the shop closer to his house. Not that the second one was any great distance at the end of a long day, but Paulie’s belief was that the less energy expended on working and walking, the more energy he had for Eileen and the children. Mostly for Eileen. As for the other shop, Eileen’s brother ran that one. Paulie had put him in charge out of the goodness of his heart and with significant cajoling from Eileen. Stuart—the brother—was the family’s ne’er-do-well. He was a charity case, as far as Paulie was concerned. When it came to his brother-in-law, his options were to lend Stuart money incessantly or to give him a job and pay him for showing up at the appointed hour and not bollixing up too badly when it came to the merchandise.
When Mark arrived, he found Phinney Pawn closed and a sign on the door that said Call in at Howe’s, which was the other shop. So he walked the length of The Narrow Way, past the scent of burgers that seemed to be mechanically pumped out of McDonald’s as an enticement, dodging last-minute shoppers from the Pound Shop, and glancing into the brightly lit supermarket where the customers comprised mostly women making purchases of Afro-Caribbean food.
The overhead bell rang when he went into Howe’s. No one was about, so he called out his brother’s name. In reply, he heard Paulie’s voice, although he wasn’t speaking to Mark. Instead he was saying loudly, “I’m asking you something here, Stuart. Right? How many chances d’you need?” No reply. Then Paulie: “Let me tell you something, brother-in-law, the world does not owe you a thing. Nor does any person—and that would include me—who’s scraping together a living. You are one lucky devil to be Eileen’s brother.”
“Hiya,” Mark called when Paulie stopped long enough to take a breath. “That you, Paulie?”