This was an unnecessary explanation, for the next tabloid—with missing daughter returns! as its major headline clarified who had been restored! to whom. The accompanying photographs came onto the television’s screen: Bolu with her parents smiling broadly as they all stood together on the top steps of their home, then Charles Akin shaking the hand of one of the officers who had brought the girl home.
The presenters declaimed on the subject of how many column inches were devoted to the story in the day’s papers. Many, Deborah discovered. And she knew that while the stories in each would be the same, the approaches to the stories would be completely different: one emotionless, dispassionate, and fact-oriented and the other as sensational as possible. Someone would have used a thesaurus to locate supercharged verbs and adverbs.
Her father placed the melons on the chopping-block table and fetched a knife. He said, “At the end of the day, seems the best happened, Deb,” with a nod at the television.
“Why do you say that?”
“Tha’ woman got arrested yesterday.” He tilted his head towards the television.
“Who? Who was arrested?”
“Her who was interviewed on the telly saying she wouldn’t give the girl back till the parents did what she wanted.”
“Zawadi? But she had Bolu’s best interests at heart. All she wanted was to meet the parents with a social worker present. They were the ones who refused.”
“Well, I say she got bloody lucky, she did. Parents’ve said they’re not pressing charges. Said they un’erstand the work this Zawadi person is doing an’ they support it one hundred percent. Said they un’erstand young girls’re at risk. Said they don’ know why Bolu went to that place—”
“Orchid House?”
“—but when Bolu’s rested an’ happy an’ feeling secure, they’re talking to her about all of it, they said. All’s well that ends well, you ask me.”
But there was another consideration in all of this: Had anything happened to Narissa? Deborah had suggested that the filmmaker move the little girl to the home of her twelve-step sponsor, but either someone had seen Bolu during that move or Bolu had not been moved at all. So once in Whitechapel, she went first to the basement. She heard Zawadi speaking to someone. She approached the office door and listened.
“I spent the night in a custody suite!” Zawadi was exclaiming hotly. “D’you know what that’s like? And Ned had to stop with his father. He’s not even seen that bugger in three years.”
“I tried to explain it to you.” To Deborah’s relief, it was Narissa speaking. “The police had already been once when she fetched that kitten in from the garden. It was a miracle they didn’t find her. But my parents were upset, especially my dad, so I needed to move her. I rang Victoria—my twelve-step sponsor—but she couldn’t take her. I’d already asked Deborah—”
“No one places these girls with white people! You don’t know that?”
“—but she said Bolu wouldn’t be secure because her dad’s been following the story and he thinks the parents are in the right. So after Victoria, I had to keep her. Then my parents found out, and my dad rang the cops.”
“We see how that worked out, don’t we? There she is, back at home. And whatever happens next is going to be on you.”
“The parents won’t lay a hand on Bolu. She’s been on the front page of every newspaper, so who’d be willing to risk doing anything to her now?” Narissa asked.
“I’m not talking about that. Once that girl was returned, the credibility of Orchid House got flushed down the toilet. Who will ever believe me after this?”
“I didn’t want this to happen, but I tried to tell you what was going on, how dangerous it would be if I kept her. But you told me there was no place else available—”
“Who in the community d’you expect will ever be willing to take an endangered girl into their home on my word alone after all this? And now it’s known that all parents have to do to have a child returned is to hold out long enough to garner public sympathy. They do that and wait for pressure to build and wait for someone—someone like you, Narissa—to make it easy to tell the coppers where the child is. So what you’ve done is this: You’ve brought the work of Orchid House into disrepute. You’ve placed hundreds—p’rhaps thousands—of girls in danger.”
“I’ll come forward, then,” Narissa said. “I’ll say what’s true: that I had Bolu with me. I’ll say I’m the one who talked you into hiding her because I believed Bolu would be cut.”