The Cellar

by Minette Walters

  Sometimes at night, in the darkness of the cellar, she heard Him whispering to her. His words were always encouraging. Muna was His chosen one. His beautiful one. His clever one. If she bided her time, He would prove to her how powerful He was. She had longed for Him to strike Ebuka dead each time the door at the top of the steps opened, or whip the rod from Yetunde’s hand, but she saw now that He preferred to inflict a more lingering pain.

  Ebuka had become a shadow of himself these last few days and Yetunde’s overweening sense of importance was much deflated. Muna imagined they felt grief for Abiola – she had seen misery in both their faces from time to time – but it was fear of the police that troubled them more. Perhaps even fear of each other.

  Their hostility was very strong, particularly where Muna was concerned. Ebuka said thieves reaped what they sowed. If Yetunde hadn’t brazenly stolen another woman’s child, she wouldn’t have lost her son. He’d warned her at the time that no good could come of such an action. But Yetunde accused him of hypocrisy. Did he think she didn’t know what went on in her house? Who would believe Ebuka was innocent of Abiola’s fate if the girl ever spoke of the obscene acts he’d performed on her from the age of eight years old?

  Muna sat as still as possible, hoping immobility would make her invisible. It was hard to pick up every word because their whispers were so low, but she trembled at the thought of the beatings she’d receive for being the cause of so much hatred. Yetunde’s words suggested she knew that Ebuka visited Muna in the cellar, and Muna dreaded what the Master would do to her. He had said many times that she would learn the real meaning of pain if Princess ever found out.

  Muna didn’t doubt it was the Devil who jumped into Olubayo’s body and caused him to behave as he did. Without warning, the boy fell to the floor, flinging his body from side to side as if demons were pricking him with red-hot needles. Yetunde howled in shock, screaming at Ebuka to do something, and the man rose clumsily to his feet as the boy’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and foam frothed on his lips.

  Neither noticed Muna slip quietly from the room. She hid in the kitchen, squatting in the shadows of her favourite corner, and tried to persuade herself to run away. There would be no mercy if Yetunde believed Muna had caused Olubayo to writhe and twitch. But the girl was more afraid of the world outside than she was of this house where the Devil lived. It was surely to help little Muna that He’d set his demons on Olubayo.

  A bare few minutes passed before she heard the sound of a siren and wheels on the gravel. People entered the hall. A man urged Mr and Mrs Songoli to be calm. They could accompany their son to hospital but first he needed answers to some questions. Had Olubayo ever had a seizure before? How long had this one lasted? The voices were muted inside the sitting room, but it wasn’t long before feet tramped through the hall, the front door closed and silence blanketed the house.

  Muna listened to the vanishing wail of the siren as it disappeared into the distance. Had all the Songolis gone? she wondered. Was she alone in the house for the first time since Abiola vanished? She rose to her feet and stood at the closed kitchen door, straining to hear footsteps or breathing. She waited through an interminable space of time before carefully easing the handle on the door and tiptoeing into the hall.

  She saw Ebuka emerge from the sitting room but had no time to retreat. He was upon her in a single step, catching her round the throat with his forearm and clamping a hand across her mouth before she could cry out. Her terror was so great that she prayed for death.

  He hissed the same words into her ear that he always used. Bitch … Whore … Temptress … Polluter of men … But they meant no more to Muna now than when she lay on her blood-soaked mattress, unable to move beneath his weight. All she knew was that they were the precursor to unendurable suffering.

  His arm was hooked too tightly around her neck, robbing her of breath, and her mind grew dark. It meant she had few clear memories of what happened next. She remembered the light coming on at the top of the cellar steps, remembered her knees folding beneath her as she slipped from Ebuka’s grasp. But the rest was a series of half-formed images. She saw the black bowels of the earth open before her, felt Ebuka being lifted over her by a giant fist, watched his body tumbling down the steps.

  More clearly than anything, she heard the Devil laugh.

  She dreamed of Abiola. He stood at a distance from her, his hands cupped in a begging gesture. He called to Muna for help but she turned away to look at children playing in a sunlit courtyard. It was a strange dream. When she looked back, her eyes were open, the tufts of the hall carpet caressed her cheek, and she was staring down the cellar steps at Ebuka.

  She lay for a long time, watching him. He wasn’t dead, which she thought a pity, but he didn’t seem able to move. One of his legs was twisted beneath him, the table had fallen over, trapping his arm, and his head was jammed between two of Yetunde’s trunks. She gazed impassively into his wide-open eyes, noting curiously how his expression alternated between fear and pleading.

  She rose when he began to threaten her with Yetunde’s anger if she failed to help him. She crept down the steps and squatted in the dust beside him. Close to, his fear was very strong.

  I can’t feel anything, he whispered. My arms and legs don’t work.

  Muna made no response. She had more patience than Ebuka and could stare at him for hours if necessary.

  As time passed, he grew angry with her. Do something, he ordered. Do something … do something …

  What, Master? she asked when it finally pleased her to answer him.

  Use the telephone. Dial 999. Request an ambulance as we did for Olubayo.

  I don’t know how to, Master, and no one would understand me if I could.

  Then bring me my mobile and hold it to my mouth while I speak.

  I can’t, Master. The white took every telephone in the house except the one attached by wire to the wall in the sitting room.

  Ebuka’s tongue flickered across dry, nervous lips. Go to the front gate, he begged. There are men out there with cameras. Bring one of them to me.

  Princess doesn’t allow me to show myself to strangers, Master. She’ll beat me with the rod if I disobey her.

  She’ll beat you harder if you leave me to die. Are you too stupid to understand that?

  Muna found it strange that his mouth and eyes worked when nothing else did. She touched a finger to one of his hands and felt how cold it was. Princess wouldn’t want a man with a camera down here, Master. He’ll ask what made you fall down the steps and show pictures of you on the television … and people will wonder why you stayed behind to look in the cellar instead of going to the hospital with Olubayo. I expect Princess and the white will wonder also.

  Ebuka’s eyes widened as if he were realising for the first time that he didn’t really know this girl. It was the longest speech he’d ever heard her make. It doesn’t matter, he insisted. I need help. Are you so lacking in human feeling that you can’t see that?

  I am what you and Princess have made me, Master. The feelings I have are the ones you’ve taught me. If they aren’t human the fault is yours.

  Muna fancied she saw horror in his face.

  You’re a monster, he grated from his dry mouth. Your demons have brought this evil to my family.

  Muna didn’t answer. He was tiring rapidly and she waited until his breathing was so shallow she could barely see the rise and fall of his chest. She went upstairs to collect the duvet from Yetunde’s bed and a glass of water from the kitchen, placed them solicitously over and beside Ebuka, and then resumed her position next to him.

  When she heard the front door open, and Yetunde’s heavy tread on the floor above, she took Ebuka’s hand in hers and cried loudly for Princess to come to the cellar.

  Autumn

  Six

  Muna’s view of the world was a simple one. Things happened because they were meant to happen, and nothing she did or didn’t do could alter what fate had ordained. It disappointe
d her that Ebuka lived but she took comfort when she learned from Yetunde that he’d broken his back. She had faith that the Devil intended him to suffer.

  He was absent from the house for many weeks and Yetunde swung between hope and despair about his condition. When movement returned to his hands and arms, she believed he would rise from his bed and walk again. When the doctors told her he would be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, she became depressed and cried every day about the difficulties they would face if Ebuka were unable to work.

  Muna avoided her on these occasions, preferring to resume her duties than wait in idleness for Yetunde’s sorrow to turn in a flash from misery to anger. Yetunde wanted someone to blame and Muna’s lack of expression infuriated her. Only a girl beset by demons would be so uncaring about Olubayo having to leave his private school or the dreaded prospect of Ebuka being sent home when the hospital decided there was no more they could do for him.

  Yetunde would have forced Muna back into the cellar if she could but her fear of the police stopped her. She no longer believed there were listening devices in the house but she was wary of doing anything to make them suspicious. Inspector Jordan made frequent appearances, using the excuse of needing to clarify evidence, but she always came without warning.

  The lawyer, Mr Broadstone, was the most regular visitor. At the beginning, his reports were about the investigation into Abiola’s disappearance. The police had found no suspicious DNA in the boot of Ebuka’s car although they’d lifted dust and fibres that matched sweepings they’d taken from the cellar. Since even Ebuka’s doctors wouldn’t allow him to be interviewed, Mr Broadstone had given explanations on his client’s behalf. When he repeated them to Yetunde, she clapped her hands in approval, saying Ebuka could never have argued his case so well.

  Mr Broadstone had told the police that Mr Songoli’s work required him to travel from time to time. His last trip – recorded in his office diary – had been five days before Abiola’s disappearance. Because Mr Songoli stored his luggage in the cellar, any case or overnight bag which he placed in his boot would carry dust and fibre from the cellar floor. Forensic scientists might argue that this wouldn’t account for the quantity found, but a jury would always give a grieving father the benefit of the doubt.

  And grief was certainly what Mr Songoli had felt on the night of Abiola’s disappearance. It was why he had omitted to say he’d driven the streets in a desperate search for the boy after coming home that Thursday evening. Mr Broadstone described his client as a proud man who couldn’t admit how deep his despair was when he failed to find his son. His wife looked to him for strength yet, blinded by tears, he had pulled into the side of the road and wept uncontrollably for over an hour before returning to call the police.

  Mr Broadstone never described Ebuka’s accident as a blessing in disguise, but he mentioned several times that public sympathy had swung behind the Songolis. The people of this country were softhearted, he said, and there was a sense of collective guilt that visitors to their shores had suffered so much. To lose Abiola – without his body being found or any progress made in the police investigation – was bad enough; but for Mr Songoli to miss his footing on the cellar steps seemed to compound the tragedy. It wasn’t right that a man, distracted by worry and grief, should be asked to produce insurance documents from his files in the cellar to prove his other son was entitled to medical treatment.

  ‘The British pride themselves on their free healthcare system,’ he told Yetunde. ‘It embarrasses them when the press and media run stories like this. We may have a case for compensation if we can claim your husband was so intimidated by the paramedics that he put finding documents before his own safety.’

  Yetunde looked doubtful. ‘Is that what he told you happened?’

  ‘He said he was afraid Olubayo would receive poor treatment without proof of insurance. I’m assuming the paramedics led him to believe that?’

  Yetunde’s expression said he was wrong, but honesty was less important to her than money. ‘Will we be paid if they did?’

  ‘Paraplegia is a serious disability, Mrs Songoli. Your husband should receive a substantial amount if we can prove the paramedics were at fault.’ Mr Broadstone leaned forward. ‘Perhaps they led him to believe Olubayo would be denied treatment? Perhaps you believed the same thing and begged him in Hausa to find the insurance policy and rush with it to the hospital?’

  ‘We spoke only in English. The ambulance men know that.’

  ‘It’ll be their word against yours.’

  Yetunde shook her head. ‘They allowed me to ride in the front with the driver and I heard him speak on the radio to the hospital. He said he had a thirteen-year-old male patient with a suspected epileptic seizure but made no mention of papers. Whoever took that call will side with them against us.’

  ‘That won’t affect how your husband felt about the situation. Just by being asked for your names and nationality, he will have felt under pressure. I’m sure you can recall him looking anxious as you left.’

  Yetunde thought for a moment. ‘He became angry when we were told that only one of us could accompany Olubayo. He had an argument with the driver, saying the police had impounded his car and he had no means of following without it. The man answered that he didn’t make the rules and warned Ebuka that it was an offence to threaten a member of the emergency services.’

  ‘Had Mr Songoli raised his hand?’

  Yetunde nodded.

  ‘He’s a passionate man from a different culture. It’s natural for him to express anxiety through hand gestures. No official in uniform should have accused him of committing an offence because of it … particularly when he was so clearly distressed about Olubayo’s seizure.’

  Yetunde brightened. ‘Will we be given money if I say that?’

  ‘It’ll help.’

  After that all Mr Broadstone’s visits involved talk of compensation. He was white yet everything he said was against whites, and Muna distrusted him for it. Did he hate his own tribe so much that he was willing to teach Princess to steal from them? As time wore on, he persuaded Yetunde to think about suing the police.

  The investigation into Abiola’s disappearance remained open but no progress was being made. Mr Broadstone suggested this was Inspector Jordan’s fault for ignoring other leads to focus her team’s attention on Mr Songoli. At the minimum, she should have ordered her people to interview all known paedophiles in the area and check CCTV footage to track their cars as assiduously as they’d tracked Ebuka’s.

  For the most part, Muna learned of these things from the conversations Yetunde had with Olubayo in the evenings. The boy was as poor a learner as his brother had been, and Yetunde had to explain the details several times. She took pleasure in blaming Ebuka for their problems – they wouldn’t have to count their pennies if he hadn’t been careless enough to fall down the cellar steps – and Olubayo soon developed a bitter contempt for his crippled father.

  He was taking pills for his epilepsy and they gave him headaches and made him irritable. He claimed his life was over when Yetunde removed him from his private school because the fees were too expensive. He brooded on his grievances in his bedroom during the summer holidays, but expressed them physically when he began his new school in the autumn. Every afternoon, he came home and raged in anger because his father had made him a laughing stock.

  He complained to Yetunde that he had no friends and was bullied mercilessly by the other pupils. They called him a ‘fucktard’ because of his epilepsy, said his father was a ‘spaz’ for being in a wheelchair and his abducted brother ‘paedo-bait’. Even the teachers were unkind, taking him to task for being aggressive instead of expelling any boy or girl who teased him.

  The stress and emotion played havoc with his seizures. When he wasn’t writhing on the floor, he was in hospital having his medication adjusted. Yetunde had no patience with him, claiming her life was worse than his. Her dreams of happiness had never included a cripple for a husband or an epilepti
c for a son.

  Muna remained a mute witness to everything. Stillness and silence had served her well over the years. To draw attention to herself was to invite pain. Nevertheless she saw how frustrated and angry both Princess and Olubayo were becoming, and she prepared herself for when their rage turned on her.

  Olubayo was the first to threaten her. He appeared in the kitchen doorway one afternoon with the rod in his hand. My father will never be able to wield this again, he told her, smacking it against his palm. That makes me the man of the house. You must do as I say or be punished.

  Muna was rinsing a heavy saucepan under the tap. He’ll be angry when he returns and discovers you’ve tried to take his place, she said.

  I’m not afraid of him. He’s lost his strength. His mind is as weak as his body. All he does is weep in shame each time the nurses remove the bags that collect his urine and faeces.

  Muna held the saucepan in front of her as she dried it with a towel. There are more ways to discipline a son than by the rod. If the Master chooses, he can order Princess to lock you in the cellar and let the demons tear at you the way they tore at him.

  You lie.

  I heard them laugh as he fell. The sound was so loud it carried upstairs. It’s a place of evil. Your father was foolish to enter.

  Then I’ll push you in there and let them tear at you.

  They won’t harm me. I heard them whispering in the walls when I lived in darkness, and they said it was your family they want to destroy, not me. Do you think Abiola would be lost or your father crippled if the demons bore them no ill will?

  Olubayo looked nervous. Whites say there are no such things as demons.

  Princess believes in them and so does the Master, Muna answered. When I found the courage to creep back down to see what had happened, his eyes – so big and round with terror – told me so. He knew they were taking payment for the bad things he and Princess have done to me. They’ll come for you, ugly boy, if you think to hurt me … and next time they’ll do more than make your body writhe on the floor and foam spill from your lips.