“Boiled for me,” Deborah told her father as Simon replied, “No time, I’m afraid.”
“What d’you mean ‘no time’？” Cotter demanded. “At this hour? It not gone half seven. And we’ve not yet seen to your leg.”
Deborah glanced at her father. He could cope with Simon’s irregular mealtimes but not with his missing a session that dealt with the atrophying muscles of his damaged leg.
“It can’t be helped today.”
“Where’re you heading so early, then?”
“Middle Temple. I’ve a meeting. Sorry.”
Cotter harrumphed. Simon came to Deborah’s side and gazed at the photo she was studying. “That’s a gorgeous piece,” he noted.
“You’re my husband. You’re meant to think it’s gorgeous,” she replied.
“。 . . gone missing from her home in north-east London and fears are rising . . .”
They both swung round. Cotter had used the remote to turn up the sound on the news, which was showing the photograph of a pretty, young mixed-race girl—little more than a child—with gold studs in her ears and her hair in miniature twists. She wore a school uniform and an impish smile. On the bottom of the screen Boluwatife Akin—Missing—Boluwatife Akin—Missing ran across in a banner.
“What’s this, Dad?” Deborah asked.
He waved her off as the newsreader went on to “。 . . did not return from the Yoruba Cultural Centre where she had attended her weaving class. She is the daughter of barrister Charles Akin and Dr. Aubrey Hamilton, an anaesthesiologist closely associated with Doctors Without Borders. Their daughter—who’s called Bolu by her friends and relations—was last seen entering Gants Hill underground station at half past seven last evening in the company of two adolescents, a boy and a girl. They were documented by CCTV inside the station and once again aboard the westbound train. They debarked prior to Ealing Broadway, and film from CCTV in all the stations prior to that is being inspected. If we can have a look at the film that we have . . . ?”
The CCTV from Gants Hill underground station appeared on the television screen. It was, as usual, grainy. Also as usual, it rendered the film’s subjects unrecognisable to anyone who did not know them personally. This was followed by another grainy film in which three individuals—who appeared to be the same as those in the previous film—sat side by side in one of the carriages of the westbound train. The child was between the adolescents. She didn’t appear to be under duress, but considering the nature of the film, it was difficult to tell.
The newsreader concluded with, “Anyone with information about Bolu Akin should contact the Metropolitan Police at the number now appearing on your screen. Once again, her parents—Mr. Charles Akin and Dr. Aubrey Hamilton—are asking for her safe return.”
The screen altered, showing a mixed-race couple on the front steps of what was apparently their home. The woman was holding a framed photo of the girl, this time wearing a red jersey and a striped summer skirt. The man had his arm around his wife. Their faces reflected both their fear and their anxiety.
Aubrey Hamilton said, “Please don’t hurt her. She’s our only child. She’s very young for her age and very innocent. We will do anything to have her back with us. Please contact the police. Anyone at all with information please, please ring the police.”
The picture then went to the two regular presenters of the programme, ensconced on their peacock-blue sofa, for their comment. Cotter muted it. He said to Deborah, “Never said, did I, but every day you went off to school . . . ? I worried something’d happen to you, jus’ like that.”
“How could anything at all have happened?” Deborah replied. “You walked me there and you walked me back at the end of the day. Someone would’ve had to hit you over the head with a polo stick to get to me.”
“Not a laughing matter, girl. And then off you went to photo school in America when you could’ve stayed right here in London, eh? And how much of a worry was that? There you are in the land of guns-for-all-and-all-for-guns. Anything could’ve happened. So I worried, which is ’bout ninety percent of what a parent does.”
Deborah didn’t ask what the other ten percent was, nor did she mention that worrying as a parent was probably not ever going to be part of her life, no matter how she would have welcomed the opportunity.
Cotter went on with, “And now we got child sex trafficking and perverts on street corners. You ask me, it’s an ugly world, it is, and it’s getting uglier.”