Nkata watched her, knowing that she was probably their last hope for verification of what had been going on in the clinic above Kingsland Toys, Games, and Books. Not one of the other women in the appointment diary would give them the information they needed: that FGM was being performed there. Whoever had been operating the establishment was not likely ever to return, but London was vast and it would be a matter of a few months only—perhaps even less—before the clinic was up and running again someplace else.
He said to Monifa Bankole, “You’re hopin’ for a phone call from this Easter Lange—Mercy Hart, like I told you b’fore—from the clinic on Kingsland High Street. But you got to know that no matter who does it to Simisola, what you got in mind for her is against the law and if you do it—no matter where you do it—it ends with you in prison. Or your husband in prison. Or both ’f you, working off prison sentences. See, you’re in the spotlight now. And the rozzers? We know ’xactly where to find you. You make any sort ’f dodgy move to hurt your daughter, what happens next is you get arrested and she goes into Care. So what I’m sayin’s this: I reckon you want the best for Simisola. But this i’n’t the way to go about it. An’ ‘the best’ for Simisola has sod all to do with cutting her up, by th’ way.”
Monifa looked at him again. It seemed that she was trying to read him. Then her gaze went to the window, still covered by the curtains. She studied this, as if she could see the treetops, their leaves dropping early this year because of the heat and the drought. She spoke so quietly, it was difficult for Nkata to hear at first. He moved closer to her and sat in the armchair in front of which the ottoman stood, with Monifa on its edge, knees drawn up and her breasts resting on them.
“Once I made the appointment, I paid a part of the cost,” she said quietly. “I used the family money. I had to have it to secure the appointment and the appointment was the only way to make certain Simi did not suffer. But only Abeo is meant to touch family money, and he found that I’d taken some. So he sent me to the clinic to fetch it back. I was there for that when the police arrived and we were both arrested, Easter Lange and me. I was not able to recover the money.”
“Where’s she now, Simisola?”
“Tani took her away. He will not say where. He will not return her until a protection order is put in place. That is why he came to Bronte House today: for me to fill out part of the protection order, so that he could make it an urgent request. But Abeo came home. He was already angry, and when he saw Tani, he saw the protection order. He ripped it up. He attacked Tani then. It was not the opposite.”
She went on to explain what her husband’s plan had been: to have Simisola cut by a Nigerian cutter in London, at much less cost than the clinic would have charged. But as it was the same cutter who’d ruined Halimah’s daughter, Lim, Monifa was able to get her address. That in hand, she went to the cutter herself with a threat of phoning the police should she lay a hand on Simisola.
“Chinara Sani will not cut our daughter now, but Abeo knows this so he will take Simisola to Nigeria to be cut. The protection order was meant to stop him doing that. There is no order now and if he finds her, he will take her at once because it is the only way Simisola will be able to fetch a large bride price. Abeo means to get a husband for her in Nigeria.”
“How old is she, Missus Bankole?”
“She is eight years.”
Nkata took this in fully before he replied. “An’ you were okay with that, eh? An eight-year-old gettin set up with a husband?”
“It would be an arrangement only, made formal with the payment of a bride price. But the arrangement could not happen if Simisola was not first cleansed.”
“So you want that ’s well, eh? Simisola being cleansed, I mean. Which I’m thinking means Simisola being cut up.”
She was quiet. She wore a long wrapper in a complicated style, and she began twisting its ends in her hands. Nkata could hear her breathing and it sounded to him like the sound of someone trying not to weep. “I no longer know,” she finally said. “It was what I was trying to prevent when I took her to the clinic.”
“Well, I got to say it, Missus Bankole: you got me flummoxed,” Nkata said. “You took her to an FGM clinic in order to protect her from FGM? Tha’ doesn’t track.”
“Her father would have her mutilated. Like I was mutilated. He would have her damaged. It wouldn’t matter as long as it was done. This—what I was trying to do—it was meant to avoid that. It would be done properly, and she would feel nothing. And when it was finished, she would properly heal. But Abeo wasn’t going to allow that because it was too costly, and it defied his plans. Twice now he has been defied. There will not be a third time if he can help it. He will take her to Nigeria as soon as he finds her.”