This brought them no closer to making an arrest in the investigation of Teo Bontempi’s death. But it needed doing.
He looked up from reading it. He saw that Monifa was watching him. Her expression was earnest and he knew what she wanted: his assurance that she would be taken to her children or that her children would be brought to her.
“Is this . . .” Monifa gestured towards the papers he held as Alice brought the fufu and the stew to the table. “Do I write enough? For Simisola? For Tani?”
He said, “I ’spect you have done, but I got to clear it with my guv. This Mercy Hart? She’s on the pitch for more ’n one investigation, see. What you wrote here . . . ? This hammers down the first and gets her hauled back to the nick and charged. But the other we’re needing more time to wrestle to the ground, an’ I can’t do somethin’ might jeopardise where we are.”
“You will ring him, though? You will ask him tonight? You can ring him.”
“Can an’ will,” he said. “Af’er I see what this fufu is like.”
Alice had fetched the ewedu soup, which she began to dish up to each of them. Monifa presented him with his own small mound of fufu, placing it next to the other food while Alice added stew to his plate. She did the same for Monifa and then for herself and then joined Nkata at the table.
“You sure I c’n chew it?” Nkata asked Monifa. “I mean the fufu. I’m thinkin’ I can chew the stew. But the fufu? It’s not some kind of taboo, is it? I mean chewing it b’fore I swallow.”
Monifa assured him with, “It is not a taboo and as you’ve never encountered a swallow before, yes, yes, you must chew it as you will.”
“This lady here, Jewel,” his mother said as she broke off a portion of the fufu and used it as a scoop, “she cooks like a dream. I maintain she should offer lessons. You taste it an’ try to tell me I’m wrong.”
He did as she asked. Alice wasn’t wrong. But even if she had been straight out of her mind when it came to the food, Nkata knew the wisdom of not saying so.
14 AUGUST
WESTMINSTER
CENTRAL LONDON
While Lynley understood the importance of the Press Office, and while he was on board with all attempts to manage how information was presented to the press—not to mention which information was presented to the press—he hated being part of the show. He knew his presence was considered a necessity, especially now he was standing in for DCS Ardery while she was on the Isle of Wight. In her place as the putative leader of any investigation under what would have been her purview, he was meant to have his fingers on every beating pulse, and it was expected that he’d be able to relay how many beats per minute each of those pulses was exhibiting. So on the previous day when he’d arrived for his afternoon colloquy with AC Hillier and Stephenson Deacon, head of the Press Office, he should have known what was coming. But with other things on his mind, he had not. Judi MacIntosh’s direction—that he was to meet the assistant commisioner and chief press officer in a location that was not Hillier’s office—didn’t even get through to him. He was inside the large conference room and confronted by the sight of at least twenty journalists, three camera crews, and a dais on which Hillier and Deacon were seated behind a long table before he twigged that he’d been tricked.
“Ah yes. Here he is now. Detective Chief Superintendent Lynley will be able to amplify on all of this.” Hillier made the proclamation with a meaningful affability that signalled an unspoken order for Lynley to cooperate. At his words, twenty other heads swung in his direction, along with cameras, and his every move was documented as he proceeded unsmiling to the dais.
In very short order he discovered the reason behind the hastily called news briefing. On the table in front of Hillier and Deacon lay the country’s most scurrilous tabloid, The Source. It was apparently flame-fanning through the use of an enormous IS THIS WHY? headline, a photograph of Teo Bontempi that took up most of the front page, a subheading reading Racial Bias = Lack of Progress, and a paragraph beneath this, the subject of which was beyond doubt. The story made a jump to page three, where doubtless there were more photos and further stories. Racial divisions when it came to policing was a topic that The Source would be only too happy to exploit.
Lynley’s reply to the first question had neither endeared him to anyone nor appeased anyone. “That’s rubbish,” was not what the reporters were seeking. And “Do you honestly believe the Met would drag its feet on the murder of one of its officers?” soothed no feathers whatsoever. Indeed, it opened the door to the policing of Black-on-white murders versus Black-on-Black murders. Did the DCS have any comment he wished to make about the scrutiny given to one and not to the other? And then followed the relative rates at which cases were closed, the relative rates at which the CPS took up the prosecution of offenders, the rates of conviction, and the rates of incarceration.