He went to the credenza-whatever-thing. It looked very Danish and it featured three drawers along the length of it and three cupboards beneath those drawers. The middle drawer cleverly opened into a desktop that held a PC. Its battery was dead, however, so he bagged it along with its flex and set it aside for Nkata to handle. On the same surface, a small appointment diary was open to several days before Teo Bontempi had been struck. He gave it a look and set it aside as well. This would go to Havers, he thought. They needed to trace Teo Bontempi’s final days.
Finished with his overview of the place, he rejoined Havers, who was in the kitchen. He gave her the word about Teo Bontempi’s appointment diary and said that what they needed next were interviews with everyone who lived in the building. When she finished up here in the flat, she could get on to that. When Nkata arrived, he could join her. Meantime, Lynley said, he was going to attempt to discover why a business card belonging to the wife of his closest friend was in the flat of a dead detective.
MAYVILLE ESTATE
DALSTON
NORTH-EAST LONDON
Tani reckoned his dad thought he wasn’t at home because, if Abeo had known, there was no way in hell he would have brought the woman to the flat. Monifa wasn’t there and neither was Simi, which in and of itself was a worry for Tani. But because of this, Abeo must have assumed that Tani was out and about as well. He generally was at this time of day. But then so was his father. For his part Abeo should have been in Ridley Road Market, either inside the butcher shop supervising his assistant butchers or keeping ice on the fish outside in the stall.
At the very first, when he’d heard his father’s voice, Tani had reckoned his mum was with him. His reasoning was simple: Abeo was talking about money. Of course, that wasn’t unusual. Abeo always was talking about money. But this time, he was talking about a specific amount: three hundred quid.
He was saying, “Three hundred bloody pounds, it was. I swear to you, she needs to see the flat of my hand if she doesn’t—”
A woman’s voice interrupted, sounding vaguely amused. “Just the flat of your hand, it is? You no get sense, Abeo. It is crazy you think that ends it,” in an accent that made Tani’s stomach feel like liquid. It wasn’t a voice he’d heard before. But the accent was Nigerian, like Abeo’s and Monifa’s.
“So it will be the buckle of the belt,” Abeo said. “I don’t know where this wife of mine gets her ideas.”
“Ah. That. We all got to have our disciplining done on us from our men,” the woman said. “Tha’s how it is. An’ this ’s our nature. Do you not know that?”
Tani moved from his bed to the doorway and from the doorway into the short corridor. When the corridor ended with an arch into the lounge, he paused, held his breath, and eased his head into sight just far enough to see who was speaking. Abeo was responding with, “Yes, yes. And perhaps it is that I let her go her own way without discipline for too long.” The woman to whom his father was speaking was older than Abeo, in her late sixties, at least, with short, iron-grey hair. She was not wearing African garb, despite her distinct accent, which had led him to expect her to do so. Instead, she was dressed in plum-coloured linen trousers and a jacket with a cream-coloured blouse. Her shoes were black, as was the briefcase she carried. She wasn’t at all what he’d expected to see, so Tani backed out of sight and listened.
She murmured in answer to Abeo’s admission, “And here you are today, eh? You should have consulted me at once. If you had, it would be finished, no wahala.”
“I’m putting my foot upon it now.”
“If I come to you, you must know the cost will be greater.”
“What do you mean ‘greater’？”
“It’s a larger risk I do it here. It needs a larger payment. You have aunties will come?”
“No aunties.”
“Means more cost. The girl must be held down. Aunties will do this.”
“I will take the place of the aunties. And we agreed upon the charge.”
“Abeg you hear me. We agreed. But that was before I knew that Monifa—it is her name, yes?—tried to make other arrangements. Even if she agreed to this that we will do here, I would still have the need for aunties. They must attend me.”
“I will attend you.”
“Abeg no vex me! I allow no man. Some others do, I do not.”
“But I told you about her mother’s wishes, so how can you now say—”
The woman cut in, as if Abeo were not in the act of speaking. “If we do not agree on the charge, Abeo, you must look elsewhere. In the Somali community, you will find—”