“Then you must explain what’ll happen to her if she doesn’t stay away from home. And you must give her the details.” She seemed to read something—like the truth—in his expression, because she said, “You must, Tani. You don’t have a choice. You tell her about being cut and then you bring her for my sister’s ‘birthday’ tonight. Between now and then, I’ll tell my mum and dad what’s going on so they’ll—”
“Don’t tell them! Sophie, you do that an’ . . . ” Tani didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He’d met her parents, but he’d been careful to be seen as English as they were, as English as Sophie was. If they learned the truth of who his parents were and the primitive act that his father intended to subject Simisola to, they would probably want Sophie to end things with him, deciding he was completely the wrong person for their daughter. And who could blame them? “Jus’ please don’t tell them.”
“But if she stays with us, they’re going to wonder what the hell is going on, Tani.”
“So she can’t stay. I can’t have her stay and have them ask you about her. There’s got to be something else, somewhere else.”
Sophie frowned. “All right, then. I’ll think of something to tell them. And I’ll start looking online for . . . I don’t know. There’s got to be a way to protect her.”
“I don’t want her in Care!”
“I don’t mean Care. I don’t even know what I mean. But I’ll start looking. In the meantime, we’ve got to get her away from your parents, Tani. One of them is going to hurt her.”
OXFORD STREET
CENTRAL LONDON
“It’s a simple enough answer.” Rosie Bontempi took a moment to smooth down her linen pencil skirt. As far as Winston Nkata could tell, it didn’t need smoothing, but the gesture did draw attention to her legs. It also drew attention inevitably to her ankles, which were as fine as any he’d seen, made finer looking still by the dizzyingly high stilettos she was wearing. He and she were leaning side by side against the ledge and front windows of a café on Oxford Street not far from Selfridges, where Rosie was working—she confided—until something more suitable came along, hopefully as one of the makeup artists on an ITV police drama that was scheduled to begin filming soon in Norwich.
She’d agreed to speak with him a second time, but only during her morning break and only if their encounter did not occur inside Selfridges. She’d named the café and the time she could meet him. He’d arrived there early.
“Teo went completely African,” she continued. “She wanted me to do the same. I wouldn’t. And she didn’t bother to try to understand why I wouldn’t.” She gave a sharp, humourless laugh. “Like, our parents snatched us out of a bloody African orphanage, for heaven’s sake, so one would think she’d be grateful for that. At least grateful enough that she wouldn’t want to hurt them by cutting them out of her life. Believe me, they’d still be cut from her life if Papá hadn’t had a stroke.”
“You’re saying tha’s what you argued ’bout?” Nkata asked her.
“Not exactly,” was her reply.
She watched the taxis and buses as they jockeyed for position in the street. It was not yet blazingly hot so the fumes of the vehicles were not as oppressive as they would be later. Nkata was thankful for this. Give it another hour, and walking on the pavements of Oxford Street would be like slip-sliding straight into hell.
He’d come to Rosie Bontempi directly from New Scotland Yard, where he and Barbara Havers had spent the first two hours of their workday dealing with the telephoned instructions of DCS Lynley. They’d written up their activity reports from the conversations they’d had on the previous afternoon and evening with Teo Bontempi’s neighbours and sent her laptop off to the digital forensic techs. Neither of them had looked at any of the CCTV film from the building that housed her flat, though, and Teo’s mobile had not turned up. For his part, Lynley put them into the picture of Teo’s dual identity: as Adaku the volunteer at Orchid House and Teo the detective sergeant working with a team dealing with various forms of the abuse of women, prior to her transfer. As a result of all this, Nkata had been tasked with having another go at Rosie Bontempi, while Havers headed to east London to uncover what she could at Orchid House.
A phone call to Rosie had brought him here. At her request he’d obediently brought her a takeaway macchiato. To her, “No coffee for yourself?” when she saw him, he’d lifted his fizzy water and replied, “Caffeinated enough from my mum’s kitchen. Her coffee’s like mud on speed.”