They’d been in the car a while before she finally spoke, saying, “Where you take me is not the police station.”
He gave her a quick look. He said, “You got yourself caught up in the middle ’f a murder enquiry, Missus Bankole. Tha’s wha’ this is. It’s being conducted by the Met. So my guv’s wanting to talk to you ’bout that clinic where you were arrested. He’s ’specially wanting to talk to you about the woman who ran it. Like I already told you, she called herself Easter Lange, but that i’n’t her real name. What I ’spect is that if she’s not going by a name tha’s really hers, she’s got no medical licence. ’N other words, you were intending to hand your girl over to jus’ ’nother cutter, like the one your husband was goin to use. Only this one made it all look like she was on the up and up.”
“This is not what it was,” Monifa said.
“You’re not tryin to say this wasn’t about getting your daughter cut, are you? Not af’er you already told me different, eh?”
“What I mean is that it wasn’t the same. She wasn’t the same. Simisola would be safe with her. And when it was over, she would be—”
“I don’ care what you think she would be,” he broke in. “Because, far ’s I’m concerned, she wouldn’t be anything but cut up and sewn up and wrecked for life.”
“You don’t understand.”
“An’ believe me, Missus, I don’ want to.” He hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.
They rode on in silence. Monifa felt upon her the burden of his disgust and his anger. She felt the additional burden of everything she’d listened to for months from her mother, from Abeo, from her mother-in-law. She thought of Halimah’s grief at the loss of her precious daughter, her only child. And she felt as if she were bound by lengths of rough cotton that were wound and wound and wound round her body, mummy-like, till movement in any direction was impossible.
Tears came to her eyes. She let them fall. She lowered her head and saw her clasped hands through the shimmer of pain and of pain’s legacy that, it had to be said, she’d inflicted on herself and now on her children.
She said nothing more as they drove for a time that seemed longer than forever to her. They crossed the River Thames, passed through areas that she recognised as south-of-the-river gentrification, and at last, they turned off the road they’d been travelling on onto a smaller lane that called itself Angell Road. They came to a stop in the midst of a housing estate.
She said, “This is not a police station.”
The detective said, “I lied. You come with me, Missus Bankole.”
“You are not a policeman!” she cried. “What is this? Where are we?”
The man Nkata sighed. He reached for the inner pocket of his jacket and took out his police identification, which he’d shown her once before. Winston Nkata, Detective Sergeant. Metropolitan Police. His photo was on it. So was his mobile number. But that did not explain where they were or why they’d come here.
He said again, “Come with me. No one’s goin to hurt you here.”
“Where is this place? You must tell me,” she said.
“Loughborough Estate, this is. Brixton. It’s where I grew up and where I live.”
“Why do you bring me here?”
He took her arm, although his touch was gentle. “？’S’okay,” he told her. “I got my mum waiting for you.”
Monifa recalled that once he’d stowed her into his car, he’d used his mobile before getting in himself. At the time she’d assumed he was ringing his superior officer, but had he done that or had he actually rung his mother? And if he had rung his mother, why?
He said, “I’s a bit of a walk. You c’n take my arm.”
The long ride had stiffened her muscles, which were already sore, and her chest wanted to yelp with the pain of movement as she got out of the car. She did as he suggested and took his arm. There was a concrete path leading into the estate, and he followed this, walking slowly to accommodate her pace.
The detective sergeant didn’t stop till they came to one of the blocks of flats, where he led her to a door and from there to a stairway. “Lift’s gone out,” he told her. “Sorry. Bit of a climb.”
They went up three flights of stairs, slowly, with every riser causing Monifa to groan, although she did what she could to hide this from the detective. At last, on the third and top floor, he opened a door to a corridor, said, “Not much farther, eh?” and walked her along a lino-clad floor till they reached the fourth door, which he unlocked and opened, calling out, “Mum?” as he did so.