“They’re an unruly bunch. I don’t feel I have control of them anymore.”
Breen didn’t answer.
“There’s a different way of looking at things, I suppose. I’m probably too old for it all now. But I don’t think much of it. They’re like a bunch of football hooligans. Not like members of a police force at all. Talking of Prosser, I expect you heard he resigned?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good riddance to bad rubbish. Do you know why? He wouldn’t say.”
“No idea, sir.”
“Right.”
On the doorstep, a constable was shouting at Mrs. Ezeoke to get out of the way. He swore at her as she chewed the inside of her cheek, looking past him.
Inspector Bailey sighed. “Better get on with it then.”
More policemen kept arriving, cars blocking the street.
When he got out, Miss Shankley was standing in the growing crowd, as always in her housecoat and slippers. “See. I told you it was the darkies. You wouldn’t have it, though, would you?” she shouted loud enough for everyone to hear. “I told them what I thought weeks ago. And what did they do?”
Someone shouted, “Spazzers.”
He looked at Miss Shankley, arms crossed in front of her. Her smile was bitter and triumphant. “What you got to say to that, Sergeant Breen?”
It was true. She had been right all along in her single-minded bigotry. He, on the other hand, with his fascination for the anomalous, his feeling of kinship for the immigrant, had failed to see Ezeoke for what he was: a murderer; a madman? Breen looked away, saying nothing, and walked back into the house. A policeman was yanking paper out of Mr. Ezeoke’s desk in the living room. “Be tidy, please,” said Mrs. Ezeoke. “There is no need to make a mess.”
“Shut your mouth,” snapped the policeman.
“You don’t talk to me like that,” shouted Mrs. Ezeoke.
“I’ll talk to you like I bloody well like.”
Bailey stuck his head round the door. “There’s no need to act like that, Constable.”
Mrs. Ezeoke looked down her nose at him and said, “Grow up and act like a man.”
The other policemen in the room sniggered. “Yeah, Smithy. Grow up and act like a man.”
Bailey retreated again.
“There’s no need to act like that, Smithy,” mocked the other policemen.
Tozer appeared, eating a cheese sandwich. “Lunch,” she said. “You want some?”
Breen shook his head.
“How was Bailey?”
“Could have been worse.”
“Look at all these coppers. Sad, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“It takes a copper to get killed to get all this attention. When it was just our girl, nobody cared. Now it’s going to be all over the evening papers.”
From the far side of the room, Mrs. Ezeoke tightened her lips. She seemed to grow larger and more immovable the angrier she became.
Breen crossed the room towards her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For all this.”
“You’re sorry,” she said. There was almost a laugh in her voice.
“But we have to look for anything that might let us know where he has gone.”
“Oi,” said one of the coppers going through Ezeoke’s belongings. “Look at this. He’s only got a medal from the Queen.”
“That’ll make a great headline, that will.”
Mrs. Ezeoke closed her eyes and sighed.
“Your husband has killed at least one person. Probably two. A girl the same age as your daughter. Why?”
“I have nothing to tell you. Your people have no respect at all.”
Breen looked behind her at the Free Biafra poster.
“I think he killed the girl in your own house,” said Breen. “That’s why her body was left by the sheds next to it. You were cooking dinner for your uncle. He was trying to find somewhere to hide her so you wouldn’t find out what he’d done when you came home. He knew the sheds were unlocked because he had complained about the doors banging. Or he thought he knew.”
Her face turned gray, but her expression didn’t change beyond a tightening of the lips. “Why would he kill anyone?”
“I don’t know,” said Breen.
“He is my husband.”
“What will you do?” he asked her.
“What do you mean?”
“Your husband is a fugitive. Your daughter is a long way away in Africa. Do you have anyone who can look after you? Your uncle?”
“I do not need anybody,” she said. “I am perfectly fine.”
Breen nodded. “If he does get in touch again, will you tell him that the best thing he could do is just to give himself up?”
“My husband does not like to be told what is the best thing for him.”
There was a loud smashing of glass. A constable, leafing through the papers on Ezeoke’s desk, had nudged a crystal brandy decanter, sending it crashing to the floor, pieces spinning across the polished floorboards.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Get out of my house,” screamed Mrs. Ezeoke. “You are all animals. Get out of my house.”
Everybody ignored her, returning to their tasks, leaving the shattered decanter on the floor. A thick, rich smell of brandy filled the room as Mrs. Ezeoke sat down on her sofa and began to cry.
The Afro Art Boutique was a small shop on the Portobello Road between a dry cleaner’s and a newsagent’s. The windows were full of strange trinkets and carvings. A cardboard box piled with small metal sculptures, each different; some were tiny men holding sticks or spears, others were shaped like chairs or cars. The box was labeled Ashanti gold weights 3 Guineas. A huge, black mask with massive cowries for eyes hung from two pieces of string, raffia streaming from the edges of its face. Old black stools of odd shapes and sizes, ancient and worn, were piled haphazardly everywhere. A rusting model of a cruise liner made from tin cans lay at a perilous angle, perched on top of a box carved with intricate zigzag patterns.
Okonkwo’s unshaven beard was graying and his eyes were red and tired. He sat at a desk with a tin of Brasso and a dark rag, buffing a ceremonial bronze spoon. Somewhere, a record player was playing Bach’s suites for cello.
“Good afternoon. I was expecting you,” said Mr. Okonkwo, putting down the rag.
Like the window, the shop itself was piled full of African carvings, boxes, stools and totems. There were masks everywhere, some hung on the walls, others piled untidily on the floor. A heavy looking black stool, seat curved in a gentle “U” shape, sat on a table. On top of it, a clay statue of a small boy, squatting.
“We’ve come about Ezeoke.”
“Yes. Of course you have.”
On the wall behind Okonkwo, Breen recognized the same poster as he had seen in Ezeoke’s house. There was another too: Save Biafra. A picture of a young boy looking up at the camera with dead eyes, stick-thin hands folded around his massively distended belly.
He picked up his rag again and started polishing. “Ezeoke told me the police were looking for him.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“He telephoned me. About an hour ago.”
“Where did he call from?”
“I asked. He would not say.”
“You should have called us right away,” said Tozer. “He’s a fugitive.”
The man shrugged. “I knew you would be here.”
“We could arrest you for withholding information,” Tozer continued. “You know he’s killed two people?”
“Two?” Okonkwo frowned. “I only heard he killed a policeman.”
“Why did he call you?” asked Breen.
“He called to confess. Oh, and to beg for money and for me to hide him.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Did you offer to help him?”
“I told him to go fuck himself.”
Okonkwo spat onto the spoon, then continued buffing it.
“Why?”
“You have to understand. I loved Ezeoke like a brother. He was the most successful among us. But now I learn that he has lied to us and cheated us. I told him to go fuck himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I understand now is he never was one of us. He is just playing at being one of us. He never listened to us.” Okonkwo seemed to be staring at a single spot on the spoon. “He always thought he was better than the rest of us because he was raised in England.”