“Mind your own bloody business,” Breen snapped.
“Pardon me for speaking.”
Breen waited until he’d disappeared down the corridor, laughing, then said, “You in there?”
No answer. He sighed.
“I’m sorry. I was only trying to stick up for you.”
A voice from inside the toilets. “Mr. Popularity Contest sticking up for me is all I fucking need.”
Nine
Door-to-doors eliminated two more of the flats early the next morning; one was a single woman who had been out playing cards at a friend’s house. The other was a young girl who had been visiting in-laws while her husband worked shifts.
Miss Shankley was there at her front door, arms folded, as Breen walked past. “You stole my ladder.”
“I’m sorry. I had meant to bring it back. Only.” He raised his sore arm.
“I heard,” she said. “Well, it’s gone now. Someone filched it, didn’t they?”
He took out his wallet and counted out three pound notes. “Will that cover a new one?”
“But then I’ve got all the bother of getting it. What are you lot doing back here? I thought you’d finished.”
“Just routine,” said Breen.
Miss Shankley looked at him. “You think it’s one of us, don’t you? You think it’s one of the people here.”
Breen didn’t answer.
“I’m a woman living here on my own. If there’s some murderer living in our block you should tell us. I heard you’re looking for a sex pervert.”
“Who told you that?”
“I heard, that’s all.” You could never trust other coppers to keep their mouths shut.
At eleven, he and Tozer stood outside Mr. Ezeoke’s house, Breen with a raincoat held up over his head. He felt weary.
“I mean, why couldn’t you pretend that it was you that knew what it was? Nobody would have blinked if it was a feller said it.”
“I was just trying to give credit where it’s due.”
“Well. Thanks a bunch. Sir.”
It was one of the things that had buzzed around his mind: how exactly she had known. Distracting thoughts. They were not the only ones though. Several times he had switched on the light, picked up the notebook he had left by the side of the bed and stared at the pages he had written after visiting the Fan Club.
Samuel Ezeoke opened the front door and beckoned them into a large hallway. Cardboard boxes were stacked against one wall. “Ezinwa?” he called out up the dark wood stairs. “We have guests. Let me take your coats. Please excuse the mess. We have only been in this house a short time and we are still unpacking.” His accent seemed more English than Breen’s or Tozer’s.
Breen stamped to get the drips off him.
“So tell me why you need to speak to me,” said the man.
“We still haven’t identified the victim, so we’re talking to people again to try and see if there’s some detail that they may have overlooked.”
A stern-looking woman emerged down the stairs, dressed in a long skirt and white blouse with her hair tucked under a brightly colored headscarf. She was tall and slender.
“Ezi, they want to ask again about the killing of that poor girl.” He turned to the two policemen. “This is my wife, Ezinwa.”
His wife’s face softened. “Such a terrible thing to happen. I talked to a policeman the day before yesterday but I am afraid I was not able to be very useful. We have only lived in this neighborhood a short time.” Unlike her husband, who spoke perfect English, hers was strongly accented.
Breen had grown up in an England of cautious floral prints. The Ezeokes’ living room was a long way from that: loud and unfamiliar. It housed the biggest Pye TV Breen had ever seen and a walnut veneer music center with a stack of LPs leaning up against it. The one at the front had a bright yellow cover: Dancing Time No. 5 Commander in Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe and his Nigerian Sound Makers. Large, dark wood sculptures sat on the mantelpiece. On the wall, a huge mask, wood stained white, eyes dark holes, raffia hanging from the bottom of it. Vibrant modern paintings hung unevenly on the wall. One, on the wall opposite the front window, showed a row of exaggeratedly curvaceous woman dancers, lines flying away from them in all directions. Two or three paintings were still leaning against the walls, ready to be hung; Breen remembered the Ezeokes had only moved into the house two or three weeks earlier. A gold-framed black-and-white photograph of a round-faced, bearded man in a pressed suit, sitting in front of a flag, hung slightly crookedly in an alcove. Above hung a huge ceremonial horsehair fly whisk. The place was crammed. It was like they owned more things than could possibly fit into a room this size.
“Please. Would you like a refreshment? Tea, coffee, Coca-Cola?” asked Mrs. Ezeoke. She towered over Constable Tozer. Despite the African-ness of her looks, her hair tied up in a headscarf that knotted at the back above the neck, her long-limbed grace, she seemed determined to sound as English as any of them.
“Now,” said Mr. Ezeoke. “You are having some difficulties uncovering the identity of the dead girl?”
Tozer bristled. “I wouldn’t describe them as difficulties.”
Ezeoke smiled. “I apologize. My wife tells me I often speak out of turn.”
“These are extraordinary paintings, Mr. Ezeoke,” said Breen, gazing around him.
“You like them?” beamed the man.
They were thick with color; strong black lines formed shapes that suggested large-bottomed women, pounding food in pots, or dancing. “They are by great Biafran artists. This one is by Uche Okeke and this,” he pointed to a smaller white canvas, “is by Chike Aniakor. Have you heard of them perhaps?”
Breen shook his head. “I’m sorry…”
“You will.” Ezeoke laughed loudly. “One day these canvases will be worth many thousands of pounds.”
Breen stared at the paintings’ clashing colors.
“You are from Biafra?” He tried to picture the country on a map of Africa but he had no idea where it was; he knew he had heard the name a lot in the news over the last year.
“Yes,” he answered. “I am proud to say I am.” His wife came in with a tray of drinks and a plate of biscuits, laid out on a paper doily.
“Eat, please.” She smiled. “My husband grew up here in England. But he is becoming more African than I am.”
“My wife, on the other hand, has gone native here. Please take one,” he said. “I cannot have one until you do.” Ezeoke laughed again.
Breen took a Chocolate Bourbon, Tozer a Chocolate Finger; Ezeoke leaned forward and took three pink wafer biscuits in his large hands.
“Biafra. It’s at war, I think?” said Breen.
“Of course,” said the surgeon. “My country is fighting a war of independence. Right now I can’t even travel home to see my relations. It’s a tragedy.”
“It must be hard for you.”
Their host could not answer immediately; he had put one of the pink wafers in his mouth and was chewing it. Crumbs fell from his lips. He picked up a glass of lemonade that his wife had poured for him and swilled down the biscuit. When he had managed to swallow it down, he said, “The British made lines on a map that have no relevance to a modern Africa, and for that we are paying with our lives. I am too old to fight, myself, but yes, many of my relatives are engaged in the struggle back home.”
“Old man, you are too old to fight but not too old to be polite. Don’t make a pig of yourself eating all the biscuits,” said Mrs. Ezeoke.
Breen tried to remember anything he had read about the war. It was confused, in his mind, with Vietnam. Facts came only in fragments. Hostilities had started last year. Part of Nigeria had seceded but he could not remember why, or which side had the upper hand.
“It would have been better if your government had recognized our country, of course,” said Mr. Ezeoke. “It would have been over in a few weeks if you had, and fewer people would have had to die. But you chose not to and supported the genocide instead. Because you’re still imperialists who want our oil. You’ll regret that. When we win, the countries who supported us will be the ones we let buy our oil.”