“No harm done, Pete.” He turned in his seat to look at his wife, then at his daughter. Lilybet was watching what went for scenery in the busy London streets: buses, taxis, cars; women with pushchairs; boys wearing hoodies and baggy jeans; a crocodile of children heading somewhere; a woman in hot conversation with a lanky teenager while two toddlers clung to the woman’s hands and an electric scooter lay on the pavement. He said to Pete, “I think we can trust her specialist. If she says Lilybet’s not got worse, I think we can rely on that.”
“I’m so sorry. I feel like a criminal.”
“Don’t say that, Pete. These things happen.”
“But they shouldn’t happen,” she countered. “We both know that.”
TRINITY GREEN
WHITECHAPEL
EAST LONDON
Barbara Havers was drawing the conclusion that, whatever had happened to Teo Bontempi to prompt someone to kill her, it didn’t seem likely that its genesis was at Orchid House, unless the organisation was run by a first-class liar in the person of Zawadi. That was always a possibility, of course. But still . . .
As far as Barbara could discover from those she interviewed in the place, Teo-as-Adaku not only had been admired but she also had served as a source of solace to some of the girls, as inspiration to others, and as a role model to the rest of them. She’d volunteered extensively: leading group discussions; engaging in community activities; speaking to parents; devising projects to keep the girls coming back to Orchid House; being a resource for information about the long-term effects of FGM, physical, emotional, and psychological. She’d not told a soul that she was also a cop, which was perplexing at first, till Barbara understood how reluctant the girls would probably have been to leave their families in the first place and how frightened they would probably feel knowing that, should things go wonky, one or both of their parents could be arrested, put on trial, convicted of a crime, and sent to prison if they—the daughters—were not careful about what they revealed and to whom they revealed it. Out of all of this, it seemed to Barbara that only Teo Bontempi’s contact with the parents of girls who’d already been placed with sheltering families might have prompted someone to dig around a bit, discover she was not the Adaku who visited them but rather a Metropolitan Police detective, and as a consequence want to do away with her. But unless a parent had come upon her unexpectedly in her police persona, Barbara couldn’t see how anyone would have sussed out that she was a cop.
Barbara still wanted to have a word with the filmmaker, Narissa Cameron. She hadn’t intruded on the filming itself but instead waited till they had a gap in their work. Then she joined the three other women whom she’d met earlier. None of them seemed happy with how things had gone without Adaku there to offer the girls her supportive presence.
They’d heard her story firsthand, Narissa told Barbara, and that had opened them up to telling their own stories, especially since not one of them was as remotely horrifying as hers.
Barbara asked if Adaku’s story was still available on the digital camera. Narissa said that it was. Barbara made a request to see it. Narissa, not unreasonably, asked why.
Barbara opted for honesty. “I’m not sure. But there might be something in what she said on film . . . One never knows. That’s just the point. It can be a word. It can be a look. It can be anything. But it sets us in a direction, which is how we got here, to Orchid House. We found Deborah St. James’s card in Teo Bontempi’s flat. My guv spoke to her—to Deborah St. James—she explained, and here I am. Your film may get me somewhere else. That’s all I can tell you.”
Glancing at the camera, Narissa said, “She wanted me to delete this, Adaku. But I was hoping that she’d change her mind and let me use it. I kept filming after she was finished speaking. She didn’t know that. But it illustrates this . . . I don’t know what to call it other than this power she had with people. It was like she knew she could make a difference while most people only hope they can.”
Narissa had a monitor, and she told Barbara it would be easier to view the film on that rather than on the camera’s much smaller screen. Barbara sat while Narissa got things rolling. Then the filmmaker joined her as, on the screen, the woman who’d been known at Orchid House as Adaku took her place on a stool and began to speak.
She began with her name, Adaku Obiaka, and the age at which she had been cut, less than three years. She said, “I learned later that the age I was at the time of the cutting is called prememory. What that means is that I was cut before I could form memories of the cutting while it happened, which is supposed to be merciful. But there have always been fleeting memories, even today.”