“Which type of surgery would that be?” Lynley asked her.
“What is that supposed to mean? You know exactly what I do. And if, for some reason, you do not understand it, there are enough details available through any number of internet sources to clarify matters.”
“Yes, we’re familiar with that. But it’s the other procedures we’re interested in.”
“It’s a women’s clinic. I deal with women’s health issues. I don’t intend to sit here and list them for you. We’ve been over this already. I assume your sergeant has all of this in her notes.”
“She does indeed,” Lynley said. “But we’d like to expand on what you’ve told us. Are you certain you don’t want a solicitor? We can easily have a duty solicitor brought in for you.”
Her eyes narrowed. Lynley had kept his voice as affable as possible, but this repeated offer of a solicitor was sending her a message, and he could see she didn’t like it one bit. He waited. Ultimately, she refused his offer of a solicitor once again. Next to him, Havers brought forth her tattered spiral notebook and a mechanical pencil. This second item he recognised as belonging to Winston Nkata. He looked from it to her. She produced an innocent smile. She was, as always, incorrigible.
He said to the surgeon, “A woman called Leylo was one of your patients, I understand. Is the name familiar?”
“Of course it is. She underwent a successful reconstruction not long ago. She’d had a good result. Is this about her?”
“We’ve learned that it’s your practice to give a gift to each woman who undergoes the surgery. Was this true for Leylo?”
“I give them a token,” she said. “It may be hard for you to believe, but having the surgery after what’s been done to them takes a great deal of courage, Detective Lynley . . . Sorry, I can’t remember your rank.”
“Detective is fine,” Lynley told her. “What sort of token?”
“What?”
Havers said, “You said you give them a token. What would that be? Box of chockies? Stationery? Lotion? Scent? A scarf? Gift certificate to McDonald’s?”
“It varies.” She reached for her tea for the first time. She added two thimbles of the milk. There was nothing with which to stir it, so she swirled the liquid in the cup.
“But that’s a bit odd, isn’t it,” Havers said. “I’d think it would go th’ other way round. Them giving you a gift and not the opposite. I mean, you’re saving them, right? You’re improving their lives. Why wouldn’t they want to thank you with a gift?”
Dr. Weatherall lifted a shoulder in reply. “It’s odd to you, perhaps. But you’ve never been in their position. They’ve been betrayed by the people they love. These are people they trusted, the people who were supposed to protect them. They’ve been failed by their entire society, so when they decide to hand themselves over to me—a complete outsider and a white woman—they’re engaging in an act of trust. For some of them, this is the first time they’ve trusted anyone since they were cut. So the gift I give them . . . it’s a reward. It’s a thank-you from me for the privilege of helping them.”
Lynley was struck by this. She was utterly sincere, and he could feel it. This was her passion. She’d probably spent her professional life putting all she had and all she was into it. Which made everything else so much more difficult to understand. Out of the manila envelope into which it had been put, he brought the photo that Deborah St. James had taken of Tani Bankole. He laid it on the table and slid it to Dr. Weatherall. She looked at it, drew her eyebrows together, then looked at him.
“Am I meant to know this young man?”
He shook his head. “If you look beyond him, you can see there’s a sculpture on the table that stands next to the sofa.” He waited for her to note this and acknowledge its presence. She did so. He went on with, “Leylo has identified the sculpture as the gift you gave to her, the thank-you for placing her trust in you.”
To this, she made no immediate reply, but she dropped her gaze to the photo and said hesitantly, “It could be the same.”
“You did give her a sculpture, did you not?”
“I did. But this photo—”
“Yeah, it’s a bit blurry, eh? I expect this’ll help.” Havers took a folded paper from the back of her notebook. It had become dog-eared, but when she unfolded it, she smoothed its edges with some ceremony before she slid it next to Deborah’s photo of Tani Bankole. It was the picture of Standing Warrior that Ross Carver had produced from the internet. “Would this be it?”