She punched the button on the tea and coffee maker and watched the water flow into the plastic cup. She picked up a little cardboard rhomboid of milk, a stirring stick and two sachets of sugar and went back out to Portakabin 4. He was coming out, his face pale, a hand to his lips, looking as if he might faint.
“Come and have a seat for a minute,” she said. “We can sort out the paperwork later.”
They went back into the restroom where he milked and sugared his tea and stirred it with the plastic stick — not saying anything, completely in his own head, eyes staring at the melamine table top. He began to sip his tea and looked up.
“That was her, was it?” Rita asked.
“Yes.”
“Known her long?”
“Not really.”
“Do you know her name? Where she lived?”
“Yes, she was called Mhouse.” He spelt it out and gave her address. “Her son is called Ly-on. A seven-year-old. That explains the tattoo: their names.”
“Right. Mhouse what?”
“Actually, I don’t know…I don’t know what her last name was.” This admission seemed to trouble him, she saw.
“We’ll get all this to the duty officer. He’ll take all the details. Just leave the cup there.”
She walked back with him to main reception where she handed him over for more form-filling and statement-giving. While the duty officer searched for the right documents she held out her hand and he shook it.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr Belem.”
“Thanks for your help, you’ve been most kind. I really appreciate it,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
Then he asked her what her name was — she thought he might do that. It was one of her tests.
“Rita Nashe,” she said, smiling at him, thinking: he’s a fit-looking guy — tall, slim, nice eyes. Obviously intelligent. Usually she didn’t like that buzz-cut, close-bearded look, but it sort of suited him.
“I’m Primo,” he said, “Primo Belem.”
“Nice meeting you, Primo,” she said. “I’m off duty now — better run.”
“Just one second, Miss Nashe—” He looked troubled again.
“Sure, what is it?”
“Do they think she was killed?”
Rita paused. “Killed? You’re asking if she was killed — murdered? It could have been a fall. She could have been drunk—”
“I don’t know,” Primo Belem said. “I just don’t see how she could have wound up dead in the river. It doesn’t make sense.”
“She could have killed herself. We get dozens of suicides—”
“She would never have killed herself…”
“How can you say that?”
“Because of her son. She would never have left Ly-on alone. Never.”
Rita and Joey walked into The Shaft, heading for Unit 14, Level 3, Flat L, caution informing their every step. Rita had never felt so self-conscious. It was three o’clock in the afternoon but the few people they passed either took off in a different direction or else stopped and stared at them as if they had never seen uniformed police officers before.
“Wow,” she said to Joey. “What country are we in?”
“We don’t want to hang around, Rita.” He looked nervously over his shoulder. “We should call in the Rotherhithe boys.”
“It’s still an MSU case.”
“We’re river police, Rita. What’re we doing here?”
“Thanks, Joe. I owe you. It’s a hunch — just have to check something out, for my own satisfaction.”
They had reached the bottom of the stairs. She looked around her — boarded-up flats, a strew of filth, rubbish, graffiti everywhere. Apparently, Rita had learnt, the Shaftesbury Estate was due to be demolished in a year or two — despite its listed status, its twentieth-century architectural heritage. As a little septic, ulcerous dystopia in rapidly gentrifying Rotherhithe its days were numbered. A naked child came round the corner, a little girl, completely naked. She saw the two policemen, screamed and ran off.
“You stay down here, Joey,” she said. “Let me check the flat.”
“I’ll come running,” he said. “Don’t be too long.”
She climbed the stairs to the third floor walkway, looked over the balustrade, saw Joey and gave him a wave.
She knocked on the door of Flat L. Knocked again.
“Who dey be?” came a voice.
“Police.”
The door was unlocked and a tall thin guy in a maroon tracksuit stood in the doorway, smiling broadly. She noticed he had silver rings on all his fingers and his two thumbs.
“Praise the good lord. At last the police. We never see police for here. Welcome, welcome.”
She said she’d like to ask him a few questions. He said, no problem. In the dark flat beyond she could see women and children moving about, and heard a baby crying. Two men appeared in white ankle-length dishdashas and quickly went into another room. The conversation was going to take place on the doorstep: clearly he was not going to invite her inside.
“I’m making enquiries about a woman called Mhouse. This was her flat.”
“She rent it from me. Then she run away. She owe me five month rent. Lot of money.”
“You’re the landlord?”
“Yes, madam. I am also chairman of the Shaftesbury Estate Residents’ Association — SERA.”
“And your name is?”
“Mr Quality. Abdul-latif Quality. This is my apartment.”
“Who is living here now?”
“They are asylums. I am registered for the council. You can check me.”
“Do you know where this Mhouse went?”
“No. If I know, I go find her. I want my money.”
“She’s dead.”
Mr Quality’s expression did not change. He shrugged.
“God is great. Now I never get my money.”
“We believe that her death may not have been accidental. Do you know anyone who might have threatened her, might have wanted to cause her harm?” Rita drew her palm across her brow, finding it damp. Why was she sweating so much? “Do you know any person who might have had a grudge against her? Anybody loitering, watching her?”
Mr Quality thought, pursed his lips, exhaled. “I never see anybody like this.”
Rita frowned. When she had told Primo Belem that she was planning on going to The Shaft he had also asked her to find out about the boy, Ly-on.
“Do you know where her son is?”
“I think she take him when she run away.”
Rita looked about her. An old woman came up the stairs to the walkway, saw her, smiled nervously but broadly enough to show that she had no front teeth, immediately turned and hurried down the stairs again.
“Who’s that woman?”
“I never see her before.” He smiled. “In The Shaft people dey come and they dey go. Are you finished with me, officer?”
“I may want to speak to you again.”
“Very happy to speak to police. Plenty, plenty.”
“Where do you live?”
“I live for here.” He gestured at the dark interior of the flat. “You can always find me here.”
Rita felt a strange impotence run through her; everything, good and bad, that she routinely expected that her role as a police officer and her uniform would confer — status, respect, disrespect, disdain, suspicion, lazy assumption, knee-jerk reaction — simply did not apply here, here in The Shaft. She was the alien, not the ‘asylums’. She was out of kilter — they were in kilter. She wanted to run away from Mr Quality and that was not the sort of attitude, the state of mind, she should be experiencing, she knew: she was a public servant, paid to uphold law and order. She had never felt so redundant in her life.
“Thank you, Mr Quality.”
“My pleasure.”
He shut the door and she went down the stairs to rejoin Joey.