Simisola

by Ruth Rendell

  obscenities derived. It was Joel who took him out there. Wexford thought it a long time since he had seen such a look of desperate bewildered misery on an adolescent’s face. Carolyn Snow barely looked up. ‘Yes?’ she said. ‘What is it now?’ ‘I thought I would give you an opportunity to tell the truth at last, Mrs Snow.’ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Another of Wexford’s laws was that no truthful person ever makes this remark. It is exclusively the province of liars. ‘I, however, know very well that you weren’t telling me the truth when you said your husband went out in the evening on July the seventh. I know he was here all the evening. But you told me he went out and, moreover, you encouraged your son, a boy of fourteen, to support you in this lie.’ She laid the book face down on the seat beside her. Wexford remained standing. She looked up at him and a faint flush came into her face. The twitch of her lips was almost a smile. ‘Well, Mrs Snow?’ ‘Oh, so what?’ she said. ‘To hell with it. I’ve given him a few sleepless nights, haven’t I? I’ve punished him. Of course he was at home that evening. It was just a joke saying he wasn’t, and it was pretty easy too to fool everyone. I told Joel all the details of what he’d done and I told him about that Diana, and he would have done anything to support me. There are some people who care about me, you know.’ Her smile was a real one this time, a broad, sunny, slightly mad, smile. ‘He’s in an awful state, he really thinks he could be done for murdering that bitch.’ ‘He won’t be,’ said Wexford. ‘It’s you I’ll be charging with wasting police time.’ He had made himself Australian and already had a marked Australian accent. Vine had scarcely shaken hands with him, had said no more than, ‘Good morning, Mr Colegate,’ before the man was off on a diatribe against the Royal Family and the virtues of republicanism. His mother, whose house in Pomfret this was, put her head round the door to ask Vine if he would like tea. Stephen Colegate said, not tea, please, what was wrong with coffee, for God’s sake? ‘Nothing for me,’ said Vine. Two children hurtled into the room with a Scottie dog at their heels. They jumped on to the sofa, arms up, screaming. Colegate looked at them with satisfaction. ‘My daughters,’ he said. ‘I got married again in Melbourne. Wife couldn’t come, she’s got a high-powered job. But I’d made a promise to my mother I’d make it to the UK this year and when I say something I stick to it. Take the doggie in the yard, Bonita.’ ‘So you didn’t come over for your former wife’s funeral?’ ‘Good God, no. When I got shut of Annette that was for keeps.’ He gave a loud laugh. ‘In life, in death and beyond the grave.’ It occurred to Vine that Annette Bystock had had an unfortunate taste in men. The two little girls leapt off the sofa and fled, the younger aiming a kick at the dog as they passed it. ‘When did you arrive in this country, Mr Colegate?’ ‘Now why the hell would I kill Annette?’ ‘If you would just tell me when you got here, sir.’

  ‘Oh, sure. I’ve nothing to hide. It was last Saturday. I came on Qantas, wouldn’t touch a Pom airline with a six-foot pole, rented a car at Heathrow, the kids slept all the way. I can prove all this. You want to see my air ticket?’ ‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Vine and he showed him Sojourner’s picture but it was clear from the indifferent glance Colegate gave it that he had never seen her before. The coffee came, brought by an apprehensive woman who was unused to making it. Stephen Colegate said, ‘I never got here till Saturday, did I, Mum?’ ‘More’s the pity. You told me you were coming on the sixth, I still don’t know why you changed your mind.’ ‘I told you. Something came up and I couldn’t get away. If you say that sort of thing he’ll think I came over earlier and hid out somewhere so as I could throttle Annette.’ Mrs Colegate gave a little shrill scream. ‘Oh, Stevie!’ She drew breath while her son, wrinkling his nose, skimmed floating grains off the surface of the thin brown liquid in his cup. ‘I know it’s wrong speaking ill of the dead,’ she said, and was still doing so, dismembering Annette’s character and, by extension, that of her parents, when Vine quietly took his leave. It was far from usual practice in Kingsmarkham local elections to display posters with photographs of the candidate on them. That’s because they’re so ugly, Dora had said uncharitably, and Wexford had to agree. The bull-necked, red-faced representative of the British National Party, with his head of grey stubble and small piggy eyes, was no beauty, and the vulture-faced Lib Dem with beaky nose and hooded eyes not much better. Anouk Khoori, on the other hand, in most people’s opinion, would be an ornament to any office she might hold and her poster the best advertisement she could have contrived for herself. Wexford paused to look at the one displayed on a hoarding in Glebe Road. It was all photograph but for her name and her political status. She smiled down at him and judicious air-brushing had removed the lines such smiling must have created. For the photograph her hair had been done in the ringleted mode. Her eyes were limpid, sincere, earnest. The Thomas Proctor School would be a polling station next week, and this poster was just near enough to it for that face to linger in the mind. He was early, but cars were already parked at the pavement, waiting to pick up departing children. It was said to be a good school, the choice of certain affluent parents more likely to have opted for private education. His quarry came round from the side of the school, carrying her stop sign. She was evidently also Karen Malahyde’s quarry. By some different route from his, Karen must have been led to this school and this crossing, for he suddenly saw her leave a car he had at first taken for that of a Thomas Proctor parent and begin walking towards the woman who had reached the pavement. She turned when she saw him. ‘Great minds, sir,’ she said. ‘I hope the great minds think wisely as well as alike, Karen. Her son’s called Raffy. Do you know the surname?’ ‘Johnson. She’s Oni Johnson.’ She risked asking the question. ‘Why do you think Raffy might identify her?’ He shrugged. ‘We’ve no more reasons to think Raffy knew her than that old villain Begh did. Or Dr Akande, come to that. It may be because I think of them both as . . . well, outcasts. Expendable people that no one cares much about.’ ‘And it’s our last chance?’ ‘There’s no such thing as a last chance in our work, Karen.’

  The school doors opened and the children started coming out. Most of them were carrying bags and packages as well as satchels. It was their last day until school started again in September. Oni Johnson was a stocky black woman, about forty, her navy skirt tight on her, wearing a day-glo yellow jacket over her white blouse and a navy peaked cap on her head. She stood at the pavement edge like a shepherd who must gather in her flock without a dog to help her. But the children were obedient sheep, they had done this before, they had done it every day. She looked to the right, to the left, to the right again, and then she marched into the road, holding up her stop sign. The children streamed after her. Wexford noted the youngest Riding child, the girl who had been at the garden party with her brother. Further up the pavement a black-haired girl with gold earrings was hauled into a car driven by a woman that Wexford thought might be Claudine Messaoud. He was seeing black people everywhere these days. That was always the way. This time it was a boy of eight or nine opening the door of a car he recognized as the Epsons’ but driven by someone whose face he couldn’t see. Not exactly black this child, though, light brown with light brown curly hair, black only in the world’s uncompromising categorization. Oni Johnson held up her hand at the fresh throng of children waiting on the pavement. She walked back to them, taking slow deliberate steps, and back on the kerb, beckoned to the traffic to proceed. The Riding girl jumped into her parents’ Range Rover. The car that might have been the Messaouds’ passed southwards and a stream of traffic followed it. Wexford went up to Oni Johnson, showed her his warrant card. ‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs Johnson. Just routine. We’d like to talk to your son. Will you be going home when you’ve finished here?’ Alarm flashed in her eyes. ‘My Raffy – what’s he done?’ ‘Nothing, so far as I know. We want to talk to him about something else, some information he may have.’ ‘All right. I don’t know when he be home. He come in for his tea. I be going straight there when I’m done here.’ She
let a car pass and then, holding up her stop sign, she marched into the road, but this time, Wexford thought, less confidently. The first of the cars that waited while she shepherded the children over was, he saw, being driven by Jane Winster. She looked at him and looked away. The child sitting next to her was all of sixteen and must have been fetched from some other school, the Comprehensive probably. He wasn’t far from home. A quick cup of tea in his own house, he thought, and then he’d meet Karen at Castlegate. The last car to pass was a Rolls Royce driven by Wael Khoori. Sylvia was there with her sons, sitting round the kitchen table with Dora. For Ben and Robin this too was the last day of term. ‘I’m thinking of doing a training course. It’s to be a counsellor in a medical centre.’ ‘Enlighten me,’ said her father. ‘They have one at Akande’s, Reg.’ said Dora. ‘Haven’t you seen “Counsellor” on the door when you go down the passage to his surgery?’ Robin was temporarily distracted from his video game. ‘A counsellor is what they call lawyers in America.’ ‘Yes, well, it isn’t here. I’ll have patients referred to me for counselling as a better option than handing out tranquillizers, that’s the idea. And don’t try to say something else clever, Robin. Just get on with your puzzle.’

  ‘Ko se wahala,’ said Robin. Long ago the members of his family had stopped asking Robin any questions about his ‘no problems’. Sylvia’s theory was that if ignored, he would grow out of it. As phases went, this one had lasted a long time and showed no sign of coming to an end. It was months since parents, grandparents and brother had laughed or commented or enquired but now Wexford said, ‘What language is that, Robin?’ ‘Yoruba.’ ‘Where do they speak it?’ ‘In Nigeria,’ said Robin. ‘Sounds good, don’t you think? Ko se wahala. Better than nao problema, that’s practically the same as English.’ ‘Did you get it from someone at school?’ Wexford asked, hopeful but of what he hardly knew. ‘Yep. I got it from Oni.’ Robin seemed very pleased to have been asked. ‘Oni George. She’s next to me on the register.’ So Oni was a Nigerian name . . . Raymond Akande was Nigerian. He was suddenly sure, for no good reason but instinct, that Sojourner was too. The other Oni, Oni Johnson, had said she would be home by five. He had a strong feeling, an almost excited intuition that he was on the brink of finding it all out, of finding who Sojourner was, what connection there was between her and Annette and why they had both been killed. The boy was the answer, the boy called Raffy in the coloured cap, who had nothing to do all day but observe, notice, record – or go blindly through his empty days? Karen was waiting for him when he got to Castlegate at five past. The hoarding outside the block was covered with posters of Anouk Khoori, no fewer than ten of them, pasted up side by side. He and Karen picked their way across the broken concrete forecourt. A dog, or fox, or even, these days, a human being, had torn open one of the black plastic rubbish bags piled by the front entrance and left behind a scattering of chicken bones, takeaway containers, frozen vegetable packets. It had become a lot warmer as the day went on and an almost chemical smell of decay emanated from the bags. Wexford could remember when a Victorian Gothic house with turrets and crenellations had stood on this spot, not very beautiful, grotesque rather, but interesting. And its garden had been an arboretum of rare trees. All of it went in the sixties and, in spite of universal disapproval, petitions and even a demonstration, Castlegate had been built on the site. Even those who would otherwise have been homeless disliked it. Wexford pushed open the entrance doors and the cracked glass in them rattled. ‘The lift’s not working,’ said Karen. ‘Now she tells me. How many flights up is it? If the boy’s not home we may as well wait for him here.’ ‘It’s only six flights, sir. But if you’d like me to go up and find out I . . .’ ‘No, no, of course not. Where are the stairs?’ The walls were concrete, painted cream and peeling, the floor laid with grey composition tiles, crazed by wear to the colour of coal dust. A graffitist had spray-painted ‘Gary is a scumbag’ on the wall that contained the broken lift. ‘They’re going to pull the place down,’ Karen said as if it was her responsibility to apologize for the shortcomings of Castlegate, for its Inner Londonstyle sleaze and dilapidation. ‘Everyone’s been rehoused but the Johnsons and one other family. Round here, sir. The stairs are on the left.’

  She checked a cry. Her hand flew to her mouth. A split second and Wexford too saw what she had seen. At the foot of the concrete staircase a woman, or a woman’s body, lay spread on the tiles. Her head was in a pool of blood. Oni Johnson had never reached home.

  Chapter Seventeen In the Intensive Care Unit at Stowerton Royal Infirmary, Oni Johnson lay all night between life and death. In that small world she was the responsibility of Sister Laurette Akande, who had been in charge of this ward for the past year. Not all Oni’s injuries came from falling downstairs, though it seemed she had fallen and rolled down all six flights. A bruise on her head was on the left side while it was the right which had struck the floor, so there was a policeman stationed outside her door day and night and Wexford was treating the case as one of attempted murder. Murder, if she died. Laurette Akande told him she doubted if Oni Johnson would survive her injuries. Both legs were broken and the left ankle, there was a fracture of the pelvis, of three ribs and the right radius, but the most serious injury was a depressed skull fracture. Cranial surgery was essential if her life was to be saved and an operation was performed by Mr Algernon Cozens, the neurosurgeon, on Friday afternoon. The boy who had sat by her bed for hours on end, who had sat there staring, unchecked tears trickling down his face, had signed the form of consent with slow deliberation like a robot whose mechanism is wearing out. ‘But why was the attack just before we got there?’ Karen asked Wexford. He shook his head. ‘Do we know what the weapon was?’ ‘Bare hands perhaps. Whoever did this waited round the corner at the top of the stairs and when she appeared, struck her a blow in the face with his fist which sent her rolling down those stairs. All he had to do was run down after her, kick her down probably, and make his escape ten minutes before we got there.’ ‘Bare hands were used on Sojourner,’ said Burden. ‘I’ll never forget that, Mavrikiev telling me how to kill with your fists.’ ‘Yes. It’s the only link we have and it’s not much of one.’ ‘Where was the boy?’ ‘When all this happened? He never seems to know where he is at any given time. One thing, he wasn’t at Castlegate. That crowd that hang about outside the Benefit Office say he was with them for part of the afternoon but they don’t know which part. They wouldn’t. He drifts about. He begs.’ ‘He begs?’ ‘They all do, Mike, if they see a likely benefactor. That’s what he took me for. I suppose I should be flattered. We were looking for him – remember? – when his mother was taken to hospital and I met him coming along Queen Street towards Castlegate. He stuck out his hand and said, “Got the price of a cup of tea, mate?” When I told him who I was and what had happened I thought he was going to faint.’ Three hours after that he and Raffy Johnson had had their talk. But Raffy had never seen any black girls in Kingsmarkham. ‘Only old women,’ he told Wexford. How about Melanie Akande, Wexford asked, had he ever seen her?