“Dr. Weatherall?” Lynley cut in.
“Do you know her, Tommy?”
“I do. So did Teo Bontempi.”
Deborah listened to his explanation of details as well as the proof they’d come up with regarding the acquaintance of the two women: Teo Bontempi and Philippa Weatherall. Deborah was silent as she took this in. She finally said, “Are you thinking Dr. Weatherall had something to do with Teo Bontempi’s death? But why would she have done?”
“We’re not sure what to think at this point, which is why we need to put hands on that sculpture. If it’s Standing Warrior—as it’s called—and if it’s the tenth of the series, then it’s the one taken from Teo Bontempi’s flat and it must go to forensics.”
She promised him that she would see to it that the sculpture ended up where Lynley wanted it to end up. That seemed to be in the hands of Winston Nkata, and they rang off just as DS Nkata pulled to the kerb in his red Fiesta.
CHELSEA
CENTRAL LONDON
Tani was waiting for news about his father. He was trying to remember how it all worked when it came to being hauled off by the coppers. He knew very little about the Metropolitan Police, and what he did know came from television dramas. But it seemed to him that someone like his father would be held in custody for a period of time, although he wasn’t sure what that period of time was.
They’d passed twelve hours with nothing occurring to indicate where Abeo Bankole was. This resulted in Tani’s assuming the police could hold him for twenty-four. There was always the possibility, however, that Abeo hadn’t been put into custody at all. Tani was only sure about one part of what had gone on during and after his father’s appearance at the St. Jameses’ house: It wasn’t likely his mum was going to press charges against her husband. She never had done before. What was so different about this time that she would do so now?
Tani didn’t understand his mum, but he’d never understood her. She’d been a presence in his life, of course. He knew she was his mum. Yet it seemed to him that she’d deposited her loyalty into the Bank of Abeo the day she married him, and although Tani tried to tell himself that she’d known no better, that she’d been brought up by her own parents to serve and obey the husband who would pay the bride price her father was asking, he could not help thinking how different his entire life would have been had Monifa . . . what? he asked himself. What did he want his mother to have done? The fact that he had no answer to that aside from “stand up to him,” which would have garnered her a beating, told Tani that he couldn’t place blame upon his mother. He could come up with a list of actions she might have taken, yet was there a single one of them that would have kept Abeo away from what he saw as his rightful place at the head of the family? This position gave him unlimited power over the rest of them. In his earlier years, this fact hadn’t troubled Tani, who’d assumed that, in the future, he’d wield power as well. But he’d misjudged Abeo’s determination to keep everyone under his thumb and that had been a chilling mistake.
Abeo had been able to dig up Sophie’s identity although Tani had not named her to any person in Ridley Road Market. Abeo had been able to discover where she lived. Once Abeo had followed her to where Simi was hidden, Tani had understood his father’s power in ways he’d never been able to assess in the past. And if he—Abeo’s son—recognised exactly what this meant in their lives, Monifa probably saw Abeo’s turning up in Chelsea as proof positive that no matter what she tried, she would fail to free herself from Tani’s father. She could run and hide and run and hide and run and hide again, and at the end of the day it would be for naught.
“Tani, Tani, Tani!”
At least, he thought, Simisola was safe for now. “Down here, Squeak,” he told her. He’d taken himself to the kitchen, where Joseph Cotter was looking at recipes online. He’d said earlier that he intended to give Tani and Simi a proper Nigerian meal. He’d taken note of how little they were eating, and he’d assumed it was his cooking and not their fear and anxiety about what was happening to their lives. He’d been defeated by the ingredients, though. He had his doubts that the local supermarket carried either daddawa or ground crayfish.
Simi came down the stairs with the St. Jameses’ cat slung over one shoulder. “Alaska wanted attention,” she confided. “I could tell by how he was looking at me.”
“Doesn’t like to be held much, that one,” Cotter said, looking up from his laptop. “Mind he doesn’t scratch you, wanting to get down.”