“I have no comment, no comment,” Dr. Weatherall said. And to Vivienne Yang, “Do I have to sit here and listen to this?”
Vivienne Yang murmured the answer that Lynley and Havers already knew: exactly how long they could hold her before they charged her with a crime. It was a stretch of time that the surgeon more than likely did not want to spend with the likes of them.
“Not all women you operate on can pay for the reconstruction, can they? And the sort of surgery you offer isn’t covered by the NHS. You need a reliable source of funding to keep your health centre going here on the Isle of Dogs and to pay Mercy what I expect is a hefty wage. It’s likely you receive contributions from anti-FGM organisations and from individuals, but Women’s Health of Hackney is how you top up your income. What I don’t understand—and I wager Sergeant Havers doesn’t understand this either—is why you chose medicalised FGM as a means of supporting your work. Not only is it against the law, but it’s the very thing you’re fighting against.”
Havers said, “Not actually, sir. She’s fighting against the way it’s been done, not the fact of the doing in the first place. I say she’s reckoned that, if parents want their daughters cut up, at least she can keep them from having someone incompetent butcher them. Which is also why there’s no bloody way she’d let Mercy Hart do the cutting. But she needed it to look like Mercy was doing it, so I expect she’d show up only when Mercy gave her the word that a cutting was scheduled. Would that be how it was, Dr. Weatherall?”
“I have no comment, no comment,” she said. Her voice was lower now as, moment by moment, she was being bled of bravado.
“Where Mercy fits in is the puzzle piece, though,” Lynley said meditatively. “She had to know what was going on and she had to know it’s against the law.”
“She needs the money, guv. She’s got those kids, no husband or boyfriend to help out, life’s expensive, and all the rest.”
“Yet she’s run an enormous risk. Just for the money?”
“Could be Mercy’s a believer, sir. Not in FGM but in using medicalised FGM to support what Dr. Weatherall’s trying to do for the women who’ve been mutilated by it.”
Dr. Weatherall said nothing at this. But along the lower part of her eyes a liquid brightness appeared. Vivienne Yang spoke quietly in her ear. Dr. Weatherall nodded after a moment. The solicitor said, “We’d like some private time, Detective.”
Back into the corridor they went, after pausing the interview’s recording. Havers left him with, “Got to have a bloody fag or you don’t want to know me,” and went in the direction of the police station’s main door. Lynley checked his mobile phone and saw there were two messages. A text had come from Dorothea Harriman, three words only: It’s China Wharf. The other was a voice message from Daidre. “I’ll be back tonight, Tommy. I’ve missed you terribly. Will you ring me, please?” He did so at once, only to be directed to her own voice mail. His message was brief. They were closing in on the finish of the investigation, he told her, and he added that he was very happy she was due back in town. What he didn’t add was that he hoped she’d resolved all the issues plaguing her siblings. He reckoned she’d tell him when he saw her at last.
Post-cigarette, Havers smelled like the remains of a campfire, but on the other hand, she was in a decidedly better frame of mind. They remained where they were for another quarter of an hour. Vivienne Yang finally opened the door and said, “We’re ready for you now.”
They resumed their seats, and Lynley once again set the recording in motion. Havers reminded Dr. Weatherall she was under caution. She nodded, glanced at Vivienne Yang, drew in a fractured breath, and said, “I’d like to explain what happened.”
BRIXTON
SOUTH LONDON
Winston Nkata first returned Deborah St. James to her car, which she’d left in a car park not far from the Palace of Westminster. He hadn’t gone into any detail with her about why the tenth edition of Standing Warrior in the possession of Leylo was important, and she hadn’t asked. But she wasn’t married to an expert witness in the field of forensic science for nothing. She merely said, “I expect that’s the cake’s icing,” when Nkata fetched an evidence bag from the boot of his car in order to remove the sculpture from the flat in Deptford. He said to her, “We’re hopin’， innit,” and that was the limit of their discussion. Once they parted, he took Standing Warrior to the forensic lab they’d been dealing with during the course of the investigation, and he did his best to charm the technicians into a willingness to put this particular job at the head of the queue. He was told “no guarantees, mate,” but he found hope when the comment was made in a sympathetic tone.