“D’you mean when he had her phone?”
“I do. There are three after she passed as well.”
“So he’s sending messages to himself, essentially,” Havers noted.
“Coverin’ his tracks,” Nkata pointed out.
“Possibly,” Lynley said.
“Sent by someone using Phinney’s phone?”
“There’s that as well.”
“Wife?” Nkata said.
“When I went to Lower Clapton to fetch the mobile, I showed Phinney the improved CCTV pictures. He claimed he didn’t recognise either woman, but I saw his wife while I was there speaking to him.”
“She’s one of the women went to see Teo?”
“One of the two she didn’t admit into the building. We’ll need to have a word with her. Phinney will be at work, so there’s a good chance we can get something out of her.”
“She seem the type to bash in a rival’s skull, guv?” Havers asked.
“That’s always the question, isn’t it,” he said. “Who knows what’s enough to drive people to take an action they otherwise wouldn’t consider? There’s also a message on the mobile left by a Dr. Weatherall, a woman’s voice. She asks Teo to ring her back. She phoned from a landline, though, not from a mobile. The landline’s attached to Women’s Wellness on the Harbour. Three other calls went from that landline to Teo as well.”
“D’we know what Women’s Wellness on the Harbour is?” Nkata asked.
“Could it be associated with evaluation in her engagement diary?” Havers said.
“We know where it is.” Lynley bent over Havers’s desk and sorted through some paperwork. He said, “Teo used her GPS to find it.” He brought out what he’d been looking for and said, “Inner Harbour Square.”
“Where’s that?” Havers asked.
“Isle of Dogs. You take that, Barbara. I’m going to have another word with Phinney.”
MAYVILLE ESTATE
DALSTON
NORTH-EAST LONDON
In the aftermath, she’d managed to go to her bedroom. Since she and Simisola had been sharing it, she’d assumed Simi would run there when Abeo demanded she do so. When Simi wasn’t there, she went to Tani’s room. But it, too, was empty. The window was open, though, and the obvious conclusion was that Simi had fled. As far as Monifa knew, there were only two places that she could go. She could cross the estate and hide herself in Hamilah’s flat. Or she could dash to Ridley Road Market and choose the relative safety of either Masha’s Cake Decorating or Xhosa’s Beauty.
Monifa knew that she would have to find her daughter and bring her back. But at that moment, she wasn’t. Beneath her breasts was pain so severe she could breathe only shallowly, and her jaw sent a searing pain to her head when she opened her mouth, while the rest of her face suggested heavy bruising. The one thing she could do was ring Hamilah. But Simisola, Hamilah said, was not with her. Nor had she been.
The only grace given was that Abeo was gone. He hadn’t bothered to seek Simisola after his punishment of Monifa was finished. His fury abated, he’d left. She assumed he had gone to his other family or he’d gone to work. It didn’t matter. The important bit was that he had not returned home.
Nor had Tani, which gave Monifa reassurance. She told herself that if Tani had spent the night elsewhere, Simi had found him and had told him the tale and now Tani was protecting her from Abeo.
Nothing about any of this had changed by the morning. When she slowly rose, Monifa crept to the bathroom through sheer nerve and by holding on to furniture and pressing against walls. Once there, she looked in the mirror and assessed the damage. She’d tasted blood after one of Abeo’s multitude of punches and now she could see that her lip had been split. The skin beneath her eyes looked raw, and it was sore to the lightest touch. Her eyes themselves were very swollen—one of them nearly shut—and her forehead bore a cut that had seeped blood during the night.
As she looked upon her image, Monifa knew she had only herself to blame. She’d gone to Leyton. She’d confronted Chinara Sani with words she’d thought were brave. Indeed, she’d felt quite courageous about what she was doing. She’d not understood that the doing itself was criminally stupid.
Although he did not speak, Abeo’s rage had been palpable all the way back to Mayville Estate, but she knew he wouldn’t show it in public, so she also knew that she was safe until they reached Bronte House. Once there and inside the flat, though, Abeo had let his fury loose. His cry of “Why do you not obey me?” gave way to the penalty she was meant to pay. At the end, when she was suitably cowed and crumpled, he’d stormed out of the flat, the door slamming shut behind him. Silence swept in, in his wake.