She lowered her gaze to the bird in her palm, its right wing extended now to receive the touch that the other bird had been given. Intelligent little creature, I thought. She'd not yet mesmerised it with her caress, but the bird was already cooperating.
“It's odd, isn't it?” she said to me. “One can earnestly believe one has a particular type of relationship with another person, only to discover it was never what one thought in the first place.”
“Yes,” I said. “It's very odd.”
19
YASMIN EDWARDS STOOD at the corner of Oakhill and Galveston Roads with the number fifty-five burning into her brain. She didn't want any part of what she was doing, but she was doing it anyway, compelled by a force that seemed at once outside herself and integral to her being.
Her heart was saying Go home, girl. Get away from this place. Go back to the shop and go back to pretending.
Her head was saying Nope, time to know the worst.
And the rest of her body was heaving between her head and her heart, leaving her feeling like a thick blonde heroine from a thriller film, the sort who tiptoes through the dark towards that creaking door while the audience shouts at her to stay away.
She'd stopped at the laundry before leaving Kennington. When she'd not been able to cope any longer with what her mind had been shouting for the past several days, she'd shut up the shop and picked up the Fiesta from the car park on the estate with the intention of heading to Wandsworth straight off. But at the top of Braganza Street, where she had to wait for the traffic to clear before she could turn into Kennington Park Road, she'd caught a glimpse of the laundry tucked between the grocery and the electrical shop, and she'd decided to pop round and ask Katja what she wanted for dinner.
No matter that she knew in her heart this was just an excuse to check up on her lover. She hadn't asked Katja about dinner before they'd parted that morning, had she? The unexpected visit from that bloody detective had rattled them away from their regular routine.
So she found a spot to park and she ducked into the shop, where she saw to her relief that Katja was at work: in the back, bending over a steaming iron that she was gliding along someone's lace-edged sheets. The combination of heat, humidity, and a smelly jungle of unwashed laundry made the shop feel like the tropics. Within ten seconds of entering the place, Yasmin was dizzy, with sweat beading on her forehead.
She'd never met Mrs. Crushley, but she recognised the laundry owner from the attitude she projected from her sewing machine when Yasmin approached the counter. She was of the England-fought-the-war-for-the-likes-of-you generation, a woman too young to have done service during any conflict in recent history but just old enough to remember a London that was largely Anglo-Saxon in origin. She said sharply, “Yes? What d' you want?” her glance darting all over Yasmin's person, her face looking like she smelled something bad. Yasmin wasn't carrying laundry, which made her suspect to Mrs. Crushley. Yasmin was black, which went a good distance towards making her dangerous as well. She could have a knife in her kit, after all. She could have a poisoned dart taken from a fellow tribesman tucked away in her hair.
She said politely, “If I could have a word with Katja …?”
“Katja?” Mrs. Crushley declared, sounding as if Yasmin had asked if Jesus Christ happened to be working that day. “What you want with her, then?”
“Just a word.”
“Don't see as I need to allow that, do I? 'Nough that I'm employing her, i'n't it, without her taking social calls all day.” Mrs. Crushley lifted the garment she was working on—a man's white shirt—and she used her crooked teeth to bite off a bit of thread from a button she'd been replacing.
At the back of the shop, Katja raised her head. But for some reason, rather than smile a greeting immediately, she looked beyond Yasmin to the door. And then she looked back at Yasmin and smiled.
It was the sort of thing anyone might have done, the sort of thing Yasmin once wouldn't have noticed. But now she found that she was acutely attuned to everything about Katja's behaviour. There were meanings everywhere; there were meanings within meanings. And that was down to that filthy detective.
She said to Katja, “Forgot to ask about your tea this morning,” with a wary glance at Mrs. Crushley.
Mrs. Crushley snorted, saying, “Asking her about her tea, is it? In my day we ate wha' was put on our plates with no one out there taking requests.”
Katja approached. Yasmin saw that she was soaked through with sweat. Her azure blouse clung to her torso like hunger. Her hair lay limply against her skull. But she'd never looked like this before—used up and bedraggled—at the end of a day since working at the laundry, and seeing her so now when the day was not even half over fired all of Yasmin's suspicions once again. If she never came home looking such a mess, Yasmin reasoned, she had to be going somewhere else before returning to the Doddington estate.
She'd come to the laundry just to check up on Katja, to make sure she hadn't bunked off and put herself in a bad place with her parole officer. But like most people who tell themselves they're merely sating their curiosity or doing something for someone else's benefit, Yasmin received more information than she wanted.
She said, “Wha' about it, then?” to Katja, her lips offering a smile that felt like a contortion. “Got any thoughts? I could do us lamb with couscous, if you like. That stew thing, remember?”
Katja nodded. She wiped her forehead on her sleeve and used her cuff against her upper lip. She said, “Yes. This is good. Lamb is good, Yas. Thank you.”
And they stood there after that, perfectly mute. They exchanged a look as Mrs. Crushley watched them both over her half-moon glasses. She said, “Go' the information you 'as wanting, Missie Fancy Hairdo, I believe. Then best take your leave.”
Yasmin pressed her lips together to keep herself from making a choice between saying, “Where? Who?” to Katja or “Shit yourself, white cunt” to Mrs. Crushley. Katja spoke instead. She said quietly, “I must get back to work, Yas. See you tonight?”
“Yeah. All right,” Yasmin replied, and she left without asking Katja what time.
What time was the ultimate trap she could have set, the trap that went beyond having a look at Katja's appearance. With Mrs. Crushley sitting there, knowing what hour Katja got off work, it would have been easy to ask exactly when Katja would return from the laundry that evening and to watch for Mrs. Crushley's expression if the time didn't match up with Katja's hours of employment. But Yasmin didn't want to give the nasty sow the pleasure of drawing an inference of any kind about her relationship with Katja, so she went on her way and drove to Wandsworth.
Now she stood on the street corner in the frigid wind. She examined the neighbourhood, and she set it down next to Doddington Grove Estate, which did not gain from the comparison. The street was clean, like it'd been swept. The pavement was clear of debris and fallen leaves. There were no stains from dog urine on the lampposts and no piles of dog shit in the gutters. The houses were free of graffiti and displayed white curtains in the windows. No laundry hung dispiritedly from balconies, because there were no balconies: just a long row of terraced houses all well taken care of by their inhabitants.
Someone could be happy here, Yasmin thought. Someone could make a special life here. She began to walk cautiously down the pavement. No one was about, but she still felt watched. She adjusted the button at the top of her jacket and pulled out a scarf to cover her hair. She knew it was a stupid thing to do. She knew it marked her: scared, less than, and worried about. But she did it anyway because she wanted to feel safe, at ease, and confident here, and she was willing to try anything to get that way.
When she reached Number Fifty-five, she hesitated at the gate. She wondered at this final moment if she could really go through with it and she asked herself if she really wanted to know. She cursed the black man who'd brought her to this moment, loathing not only him but herself: him for passing her the information in the first place, herself for making something out of it.
But she had to know. She had too many questions that a simple knock on the door might answer. She couldn't leave until she'd confronted the fears that she'd too long been trying to ignore.
She opened the gate into an untidy front garden. The path to the door was flagstones and the door itself was shiny red with a polished brass knocker in the centre. Autumn-bare shrub branches arched over the porch, and a wire milk basket held three empty bottles, one of which had a note sticking out of it.
Yasmin bent to grasp this note, thinking at the last moment that she wouldn't actually have to face … to see … Perhaps the note would tell her. She unrolled it against her palm and read the words: We're switching to two skimmed, one silver top from now on, please. That was all. The handwriting gave away nothing. Age, sex, race, creed. The message could have been penned by anyone.
She played her fingers into her palms, encouraging her hand to lift and do its work. She took a step back and looked at the bay window, in the hope that she might see something there that might save her from what she was about to do. But the curtains were like the others on the street: swathes of material that invited some little light into the room and against which a silhouette could be seen at night. But during the day they protected the room within from outside watchers. So Yasmin was left with the door again.
She thought, Bugger this. She had a right to know. She marched to the door and rapped the knocker forcefully against the wood.
She waited. Nothing. She rang the bell. She heard it sounding right near to the door, one of those fancy bells that played a tune. But the result was the same. Nothing.
Yasmin didn't want to think she'd come all the way from Kennington to learn nothing. She didn't want to think what it would be like, continuing with Katja as if she didn't have any doubts. It was better to know: the good or the bad. Because if she knew, then she'd have a clear sense of what she was meant to do next.
His card weighed in her pocket like a four-by-two-inch sheet of pure lead. She'd first looked at it, turning it over and over in her hands as the hours passed last night without Katja coming home. She'd phoned, of course. She'd said, “Yas, I'll be late,” and she'd said, “It's a bit complicated for the phone. Tell you later, shall I?” when Yasmin had asked what was up. But later hadn't come when Yasmin expected and after several hours, she'd got out of bed, gone to the window, tried to use the darkness to understand something of what was happening, and finally gone to her jacket, where she'd found that card he'd given her in the shop.
She'd stared at the name: Winston Nkata. African, that was. But he sounded West Indies when he wasn't being dead careful to sound plod. A phone number was printed on the bottom, to the left of the name, a Met number that she'd sooner die than ring. A pager number was across from it, in the right corner. “You page me,” he'd said. “Day or night.”
Or had he said that? And in any case, what did it matter, because she wasn't about to grass to a cop. Not in this lifetime. She wasn't that stupid. So she'd shoved the card into her jacket pocket, where she felt it now, a little piece of lead growing hot, growing heavy, weighing her right shoulder down with the pull of it, drawing her like metal to a magnet and the magnet was an action she would not take.
She stepped away from the house. She backed down the flagstone path to the pavement. She felt behind her for the gate, and she backed through it as well. If someone intended to peer through those curtains as she departed, then she damn well intended to see who it was. But that didn't happen. The house was empty.
Yasmin made her decision when a DHL delivery van rumbled into Galveston Road. It puttered along as the driver looked for the correct address, and when he had the right house, he left the van running as he trotted up to the door to make his delivery three houses away from where Yasmin stood. She waited as he rang the bell. Ten seconds and that door was opened. An exchange of pleasantries, a signature on a clipboard, and the delivery man trotted back to his van and went on his way, glancing at Yasmin where she stood on the pavement, giving her a look that registered only female, black, bad face, decent body, good for a shag. Then he and his van were gone. But possibility was not.
Yasmin walked towards the house where he'd made the delivery. She rehearsed her lines. She paused out of sight of the window identical to the window on Number Fifty-five and took a moment to scribble that address—Number Fifty-five Galveston Road, Wandsworth—on the the back of the detective's card. Then she removed her headscarf and refashioned it into a turban. She took her earrings off and shoved the brass and beads of them into her pocket. And although her jacket was buttoned to her neck, she undid it and unclipped her necklace—just for good measure—depositing it into her shoulder bag, redoing her jacket, and flattening its collar to a humble and unfashionable angle.
Garbed as well as she could be for the part, she entered the garden of the DHL house and rapped hesitantly on its front door. There was a spy hole in it, so she lowered her head, took her bag from her shoulder, and held it awkwardly like a handbag in front of her. She arranged her features as best she could to portray humility, fear, worry, and a desperate eagerness to please. In a moment, she heard the voice.
“Yes? What can I do for you?” It came from behind the closed door, but the fact of it told Yasmin she'd cleared the first hurdle.
She looked up. “Please, can you help me?” she asked. “I have come to clean your neighbour's house, but she is not at home. Number Fifty-five?”
“She works during the day,” the voice called back.
“But I do not understand …” Yasmin held up the detective's card. She said, “If you see … Her husband wrote it all down …?”
“Husband?” The locks on the door were released and the door itself was opened. A middle-aged woman stood there, a pair of scissors in her hand. Seeing Yasmin's gaze go to the scissors and her expression alter, the woman said, “Oh. Sorry. I was opening a parcel. Here. Let me have a look at that.”
Yasmin willingly handed over the card. The woman read the address.
“Yes. I see. It certainly does say … But you said her husband?” And when Yasmin nodded, the woman turned the card over and read the front of it, just exactly what Yasmin herself had read and read again on the previous night: Winston Nkata, Detective Constable, Metropolitan Police. A phone number and a pager number. Everything on the complete up and up.
“Well, of course, the fact that he's a policeman …” the woman said thoughtfully. But then, “No. There's a mistake, I'm sure. No one named Nkata lives there.” She handed the card back.
“You are sure?” Yasmin asked, drawing her eyebrows together, attempting to look her most pathetic. “He said I should clean …”
“Yes, yes, my dear girl. I'm sure that he did. But he's given you the wrong address for some reason. No one named Nkata lives in that house or ever has done. It's been lived in for years by a family called McKay.”
“McKay?” Yasmin asked. And her heart felt lighter. Because if there was a partner to Harriet Lewis the solicitor as Katja had claimed, then her fears were groundless if this was her home.
“Yes, yes, McKay,” the woman said. “Noreen McKay. And her niece and nephew. Very nice woman, she is, very pleasant, but she isn't married. Never has been as far as I know. And certainly not to someone called Nkata, if you know what I mean, and no offence intended.”
“I … yes. Yes. I see,” Yasmin whispered, because that was all she could force from herself upon learning the full name of the occupant of Number Fifty-five. “I do thank you, madam. Thank you very much indeed.” She backed away.
The woman came forward. “See here, are you all right, Miss?” she asked.
“Oh yes. Yes. Just … When one expects work and is disappointed …”
“I'm awfully sorry. If I hadn't had my own woman here yesterday, I'd not mind letting you have a go with my house. You seem decent enough. May I have your name and number on the chance my woman doesn't work out? She's one of those Filipinos, and they can't always be relied on, if you
know what I mean.”
Yasmin raised her head. What she wanted to say battled with what she needed to say, given the situation. Need won. There were other considerations beyond insult right now. She said, “You are very kind, madam,” and she called herself Nora and recited eight digits at random, all of which the woman eagerly wrote onto a pad that she took from a table by the door.
“Well,” she said as she wrote the last number with a flourish. “Our little encounter might turn out all for the best.” She offered a smile. “You never know, do you?”
How true, Yasmin thought. She nodded, went back to the street, and returned to Number Fifty-five for a final look at it. She felt numb, and for a moment she encouraged herself to believe that the numbness was a sign of not caring about what she'd just learned. But she knew the reality was that she was in shock.
And between the time of the shock's wearing off and the rage's setting in, she hoped she'd have five minutes to decide what to do.
Winston Nkata's pager went off while Lynley was reading the action reports that DCI Leach's team had been sending in to the incident room for compilation during the morning. In the absence of both eyewitnesses and evidence at the crime scene beyond the paint chips, the vehicle used in the first hit-and-run was what was left as the murder squad's focus. But according to the activities reports, the town's body shops were proving to be fallow ground so far, as were the parts shops, where something like a chrome bumper might possibly be purchased to replace one damaged in an accident.
Lynley looked up from one of the reports to see Nkata scrutinising his pager and contemplatively fingering his facial scar. He took off his reading glasses and said, “What is it, Winnie?” and the constable replied, “Don't know, man.” But he said it slowly, as if he had his thoughts on the subject, after which he went to a phone on a nearby desk, where a WPC was entering data into the computer.
“I think our next step is Swansea, sir,” Lynley had said to DCI Leach by mobile once they'd completed their interview with Raphael Robson. “It seems to me that we've got all the principals in hand at this point. Let's run their names through the DVLA and see if one of them has an older car registered, in addition to what they're driving round town. Start with Raphael Robson and see what he has. It could be in a lockup somewhere.”