Something to hide a lynl.., p.48
Something to Hide: A Lynley Novel, page 48
part #21 of Inspector Lynley Series
Mercy took this in without expression. She said, after a moment for consideration, “I used her name. That’s it. I didn’t take a thing else off her.”
Nkata looked up from his notebook and said, “Meaning you di’n’t latch on to Easter Lange’s identity otherwise?”
“Just her name. So what’s she told you? I robbed her bank account? Started up a credit card in her name?” Mercy gave a short laugh. “Not very likely, that.”
“Whyn’t you use your own name at the clinic, then?”
“I never liked it, my name. So I didn’t feel like using it. Hers is nicer. I always thought so.”
With very little trouble, they’d manoeuvred her into an admission about the clinic. Lynley gave thought to what else she could be manoeuvred into admitting should they ask their questions carefully enough. He said, “Isn’t it more likely that you used her name to keep ‘Mercy Hart’ safe from the authorities should you be closed down?”
“I don’t need to be afraid of the authorities.”
“Ah.” Lynley altered his position to lean against the wall as Nkata did the same against the wall opposite. Lynley said, “You certainly set up the clinic to look suspicious. You had the medical folders of patients who don’t exist. You had an appointment diary with the names of actual mothers and daughters who had an exceptionally good reason not to speak to the police. But, as a rule, it’s difficult to”—Lynley sought and finally chose—“batten down every hatch. In this case—in the case of the clinic in Kingsland High Street—one of the hatches was left loose. We have the appointment diary.”
She said nothing. She managed to look relatively unconcerned. Clearly, she was waiting for more information.
“Monifa Bankole,” Nkata told her. “She paid a deposit to have her daughter cut at your clinic, only her husband sent her back for the money, which was why she was there when you got arrested by the locals.”
“On this matter, I have no comment,” Mercy said. “I’ve done nothing wrong, have I. Nothing wrong to anyone, including this . . . this Monifa Bankole.”
“But someone’s done serious harm to you,” Lynley said. “She’s called Teo Bontempi and she’s responsible for the raid on your clinic and any unpleasantness that followed.”
“Teo who? I don’t know any Teo.”
The ash was growing on her cigarette. Lynley wondered what she would do when it wanted knocking off. He said, “She called herself Adaku Obiaka. She went to the clinic to make an arrangement with you. But she was a police detective and she had no real arrangement to make.”
Mercy was motionless. Lynley waited. Nkata altered his position, leaning his shoulder against the wall. He still held his pad and mechanical pencil. He looked interested in what she had to say. Moments ticked by during which children’s voices came to them from the garden, one of them calling out, “I wan’ to be Mummy! Keisha, tell her I’m the mummy! She’s too little anyway!”
Lynley said, “Teo Bontempi robbed you of your livelihood, didn’t she? You may have walked out of the Stoke Newington police station, but now you were on their radar. More important, you were on the radar of the team Teo Bontempi worked on, investigating and making arrests of parents and practitioners of FGM. Did you see her in the street on that day the clinic was raided, Mrs. Hart? Did you work it out that she had to be the one who turned you in?”
“I make no comment,” she told him. She rose at that, coming down the stairs. She opened the front door and then the porch door. She said, “You c’n go,” and as if to demonstrate the direction she wished them to take, she threw her cigarette towards the street.
Lynley stepped outside. Nkata followed. But just as she was about to shut both of the doors upon then, Lynley said, “As a point of curiosity, where did you do your medical training, Mrs. Hart?”
“I make no comment,” was her reply. She began to close the first of the doors, but Lynley put his hand upon it.
“Are you certain you wish to make no comment?” Lynley asked her. And when she made no reply, he said, “That’s unfortunate. Winston, are you happy to do the honours?”
Nkata nodded. “You’re being arrested, Missus Hart,” and he went on to recite the official caution.
“You can’t arrest me if I didn’t do anything,” Mercy cried. “Nothing, nothing!”
“Performing FGM is hardly nothing,” Lynley told her.
“I didn’t! I never!”
“And performing any kind of medical procedure without a licence, a degree, or anything else is also hardly nothing.”
“I never!”
Nkata said, “Far ’s I know, murderin a cop doesn’ work as nothing, either. An’ jus’ now, Missus Hart? You’re looking good for that as well.”
HAMPSTEAD HEATH
NORTH LONDON
Barbara Havers discovered it wasn’t going to be quite as easy as she’d anticipated. While Nkata had managed to talk to Rosie Bontempi outside her place of employment—Selfridges in Oxford Street—Barbara was not going to have the same luck. When she rang her, Rosie explained it was her day off work, so if the detective sergeant did want to meet up with her for conversation, it was going to have to happen in Hampstead. She was at this very moment walking across Hampstead Heath, and she’d be quite happy to see DS Havers at the Ladies’ Pond, where she intended to have a mid-morning swim. The detective sergeant could join her if she wished. It was already quite a warm day, so doubtless she’d find the water blissfully refreshing.
Putting herself into a swimming costume for a round of blissful refreshment was so far down on Barbara’s bucket list that she knew she’d never get to it in her current lifetime, so she told Rosie that while she’d meet her at the Ladies’ Pond, they’d have to have their conversation upon dry land. To Rosie’s “How sad,” Barbara informed her that water was not conducive to note-taking. Nonetheless, a plan was laid.
She had no intention of hiking across Hampstead Heath in search of the swimming ponds. What she knew of them—very little—told her they were on the Highgate side of the heath, so she checked the location and saw that parking in the area where Fitzroy Park met up with the far north point of Millfield Lane would put her quite close to a path that should take her to the Ladies’ Pond.
Traffic to Highgate wasn’t too much of a nightmare, although parking where she’d intended to park required the use of her police placard and the fervent hope that a passing vehicle didn’t crush the side of the Mini, although, when she thought about it, crushing the Mini’s side might make an improvement to its overall appearance.
It wasn’t a time of day during which she’d expected to encounter many people on the heath, but there was more happening than she had expected. Family groups were laying out picnics south of the path, where an impromptu football match was also going on. A number of sun worshippers sat upon deck chairs or had spread themselves supine or prostrate on towels upon the dead lawn. Two young men engaged in throwing a Frisbee (a hugely pointless activity, as far as Barbara was concerned), and a number of pensioners wandered about with sun hats fixed to their heads. There was even a bird-watcher, Barbara saw, although his suspicious proximity to the Ladies’ Pond made doubtful his urge to seek out this or that golden-throated warbler.
The pond was tucked among desperate-looking shrubbery, sun-browned lawns, and thirsty trees nanoseconds away from dropping their leaves. When Barbara found it, she also found that the water was teeming with females. More women were relaxing in lawn chairs. Adolescent girls wearing three triangles of material strategically placed were diving into the water from a dock, while others darted in and out of a bathhouse, laughing and chatting to one another.
In some circumstances, finding Rosie Bontempi in this mass of female humanity wouldn’t have been an easy task. But since the swimming pond was on the edge of Highgate and since Highgate was a posh area (although, admittedly, not as posh as Hampstead), most of the women present were, unsurprisingly, white. Thus, it didn’t take long for her to catch sight of Rosie, who had apparently eschewed swimming in favour of floating round on an inflatable chair. Rosie saw her at the same moment and gave a languorous wave. She hopped off the chair with a splash and swam to the edge of the pond, towing the chair behind her. Out she came like Neptune’s second cousin, displaying a body that could only be achieved through genetics, exercise, and a careful diet. She was wearing a yellow bikini with dots of blue. Barbara was very nearly embarrassed that she herself had donned a yellow T-shirt with blue letters proclaiming Go ahead. Underestimate me. That’ll be fun. She reckoned she’d get over the embarrassment quick enough, although both of them in yellow did rather look as if they’d planned the encounter.
Rosie was gracious enough not to mention the yellow and blue. She said, “Isn’t this glorious? Really, you should have planned a swim.”
“I should have done lots of things I’ve managed to avoid,” Barbara told her. “Where can we go to talk?”
Rosie gave her a how-would-I-know look, but she glanced round the pond and pointed to the shade of a golden rain tree, with several heroic, albeit now dead, flowers still clinging to it. As they walked towards it, Rosie handed the floating chair over to Barbara and grabbed a towel and a string bag she’d left on the lawn. She said, “I do hope this’ll be brief, Sergeant. Mum and I have a luncheon date. I must get ready for that, and anyway, I don’t know what else I can tell you.”
Loads, Barbara thought. But she shifted her grip on the floating chair and said airily, “This’ll be as brief as an English summer,” although, given the weather for the past two months, the interview could easily go on forever.
They reached the tree. Barbara plopped the chair onto the shady ground. Rosie plopped onto the chair. But she sat on its edge, leaving room for Barbara, saying, “No need to be less than comfortable.”
Barbara took out her notebook and pencil. She too sat on the edge of the chair. But she saw at once that this position gave Rosie the advantage since it kept her face from Barbara’s view. Because of this, she clambered back to her feet in a rolling motion that came very near to throwing her onto the sun-crisped lawn.
She said, “I’ve been going over a few details from our previous natter about the argument you had with Teo two days before she was coshed.”
“I don’t see why you need to do that. I’ve told you the truth from the start. What can I possibly add?” She used the towel on one of her legs, raising it, toes pointed heavenward. She went on to the other leg and did the same.
“You could start with explaining why you’ve changed your story.”
“Have I? Really? I don’t think I have.”
“First, you claimed the argument between you had to do with Teo not showing her face very often in New End Square post your dad’s stroke. Then you changed it to an argument due to the fact that you’re pregnant by Ross and you gave her the happy news. You claimed that the wedge issue between Ross and Teo was that he wanted children and she wasn’t exactly over the moon with the idea, but apparently that’s not genuine gold either. So which of the tales is true?”
Rosie draped the towel like a shawl round her shoulders. Barbara noted it was the same pattern as her bikini, with the colours reversed. Rosie used one end of it to dry her ostensibly wet cheeks and forehead after her rigorous swim. She said, “Everything I told you was true, Sergeant. If I can’t remember exactly when I had which argument with Teo, that means nothing. Sisters argue. Do you have a sister? No? Well, if you had one, you’d know what I mean.”
Barbara sought clarity. “Are you telling me that one of your lies is the actual truth or that all of them are?”
“I went to tell her I’m pregnant,” Rosie said. “I told her Ross is the father. Obviously she didn’t take it very well.”
“Is that what you were arguing about?” And when Rosie shrugged her acquiescence, Barbara went on with, “What about the thirty-first?”
“What about the thirty-first?”
“Teo texted Ross about coming to the flat. I’m thinking she had news for him. I’m also thinking you knew exactly what this news was.”
“She wasn’t pregnant, if that’s what you mean. She and Ross . . . It was completely over between them. He was . . . Please understand, Sergeant. Ross and I had become a couple. We still are a couple.”
“Got it,” Barbara said. “A couple. Uppercase, italics, bold typeface, whatever. But I’m reckoning the ship of this couplehood of yours might’ve been heading for a reef.”
“Why? They were finished with each other. Ross wanted out of the marriage, and so did Teo. He said as much. She said as much.”
“Well. Right. Indeed they do and they did and whatever. But the problem with that is that people tend to hear what they want to hear. DS Nkata tells me you never knew your sister was an FGM victim.”
Rosie got to her feet. She pulled the plug to deflate her chair. She said, “No one ever told me. She never said a thing about it. Neither did he.”
“Would that’ve made things different?”
“Different for who?”
“Different for you,” Barbara said. “For your plan to go after your sister’s husband.”
Rosie turned to look at Barbara squarely. She said in a voice that seemed under cool control, “I didn’t ‘go after’ anyone. I was someone for Ross to talk to. I was his friend. He’s been part of our family for years and I was his . . . I was important to him. What happened between us had nothing to do with Teo being cut. How could it have done when I didn’t know? No one told me, ever.”
“Like I said,” Barbara pointed out, “there’re times when people hear only what they want to hear. Did Teo tell you she’d been examined for surgery? Was that part of the argument?”
“I was to drive her to have a surgery. That’s all I knew. She asked me. I agreed. I wanted to know what sort it was. It worried me that something was wrong, like . . . like cancer or something. But she wouldn’t say. I still don’t know.”
“Reconstruction,” Barbara told her. “She was having herself repaired, putting her female parts back into order as much as possible. Ross Carver—and I assume you know this since you and he are such a couple, eh?—had spent years asking her to see someone who might help her. Fix her. Repair her. Whatever. He wanted her to see a plastic surgeon. She wasn’t on board with that idea at first, but eventually she changed her mind. She got herself evaluated and it was all systems go to put her feminine parts right.”
Rosie grabbed the chair up and squeezed it. The whoosh of air being released sounded like the wheezing of an asthmatic. “How could I have known any of that?” she demanded. “I’d never been told she’d been cut in the first place.”
“So when she asked you to be the driver she needed—”
“I asked her why. I sent her a message. She didn’t answer. What else could I do? Beat the information out of her?”
Barbara let that one hang there to give the young woman time to hear what she herself had said. Lips pressed together, Rosie began to fold the inflatable chair, reducing its size by half and then a quarter. When still she said nothing more, Barbara spoke.
“Wouldn’t a normal sister press on and ask questions about this whole surgery thing?”
Rosie wrapped the towel round her waist. She said, “Teo didn’t tell me things, Sergeant. She never told me things. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know other than to say we weren’t close the way some sisters are. We were too different and she was seven years older. Now, if there’s nothing else . . . ? My mum’s expecting me.”
“Right. Your mum-and-daughter luncheon. Got it.”
“Good,” Rosie said, and she began to head up the slope that would put her on the route back to New End Square.
Barbara attended her, like an unwanted bridesmaid crashing a wedding. She said, “I see how that all would have worked. Unless, of course, Teo did tell you. Unless, of course, that was what the overheard argument was about because, let’s face it, if she went for the surgery, there was every chance that she and Ross would be together again. Which, of course, makes the future darker for you and your couplehood.”
Rosie stopped walking and swung to face her. “Stop saying that. Our ‘couplehood.’ We were a couple. We are a couple. We’re lovers and we’re having a baby together. D’you really think Ross would’ve done it with me if he didn’t want to be with me? He knew the risks. I knew the risks. We wanted this.”
“Right. Got it. Would that be why you had him call you Teo while you and he were rolling round his bed? Would that be why you told him you were taking precautions?”
“Stop it! You don’t know how things were. You don’t know how things are. You’re just some pongy piece of week-old fish. You couldn’t pull a man if you and he were the only survivors of a nuclear holocaust. You’re jealous, is what you are. We’re finished here. You can tag along to New End Square if you fancy that, but I’m not saying another word.”
Barbara reckoned Rosie would hold to that promise, so she let her storm off in the direction of Hampstead. She herself turned back towards Highgate and her car. She was on the path leading out of the Heath when her mobile rang. She pulled it out of her bag and saw that the caller was Ross Carver.
She answered it with, “I’ve just had words with your lady love. Is it me or does Rosie play fast and loose with the truth when the mood strikes her? I’ve got to ask that because Rosie’s stories have turned into something of a moving target.”
His response was, “She said sod all to me about blessing anything.”
“And yet Teo did ask you to toddle on over to the flat for a chinwag, right?”
