Ruth Rendell - Not in the Flesh

Adel Imran answered her in the same language and Karen saw that they had gate-crashed an English lesson. This was something of which she hardly knew whether she should approve or not. A past Home Secretary had said that it was necessary for all immigrants to speak English and at first she had agreed with this but then she had wondered. Would making this a requirement of residency be to endanger people's human rights? She looked at Lyn who was already getting on famously with the children and said to their father, “Do you think DC Fancourt could take the children into another room for a while? There's something I want to say to you and your wife.”

Immediately Mrs. Imran began hustling the little boy and girl. Lyn said, “We could take the Monopoly with us and I'll play instead of your dad. How about that?”

Karen, who sometimes prided herself on her stony heart, came close to being moved by the sight of Shamis looking up into Lyn's face and shyly taking her hand. Appreciative of beauty, she thought she had seldom seen a lovelier child, her golden skin a little darker than her brother's, her eyes black as basalt. When Mrs. Imran had closed the door after them, she began. It was about to be the hardest encounter with the public she had had for a long time and she heartily wished herself out of it, but she could see why she, a woman, had to do it and not Barry Vine or Damon.

“Mr. Imran, I am sure you and your wife would not wish to break the laws of this country now it's your home.” Was that racist? Surely not. Karen would have been happier and have thought herself more politically correct to address the man's wife, but what was the use of that when Mrs. Imran's English was so limited? “The trouble is, isn't it, that we don't always know what the law is. Now we have a law in Britain that makes it an offense, a very serious offense, to circumcise a woman or a girl. To cut her, I mean. Do you understand me?”

The woman turned to her a blank face, obviously uncomprehending. Her husband, who had cast down his eyes, began speaking to her in his own language, a language Karen was ashamed to confess she couldn't identify. Was there one actually called Somali? Mrs. Imran nodded, said nothing.

“Do you understand me, Mr. Imran?”

“Of course. But why come to us?”

“Mr. Imran, we have reason to believe you plan to go on holiday to Somalia and while you are there to have Shamis-er, cut.”

“Oh, no,” he said very quickly. Too quickly. “We go on vacation only.” Again he whispered to his wife and this time she shook her head.

“No, no. This is vacation.” She stumbled a little at the word. “Children to see aunties.”

Karen nearly shuddered, seeing old women with razors in their hands, or broken glass or stones. “You must believe I don't want to frighten you or distress you.” Was that patronizing? “But I have to tell you that the maximum penalty…” They wouldn't understand that, they wouldn't have the faintest idea. “The biggest punishment-do you understand?-is fourteen years in prison for a person who breaks this law.”

They were silent. From the next room came a sudden peal of child's laughter. Rashid Imran lifted his eyes, said, “We cannot speak of this. It is not right to speak of it. You must know that we take the children just on vacation, nothing else. You should go now.”

She had no choice. Shamis came to the door with her to see them out. Lyn bent down and kissed her. “Well?” she said when they were on the stairs. Karen shrugged.

“I don't know. They didn't say a word about being against female genital mutilation, but they didn't say they were for it either. I'll have to see what the guv says.”

She tried it on him when they got back. “We could have Shamis examined before they go and again when they come back.”

Wexford shook his head. “You know it's not as simple as that, Karen. On what grounds would we have her examined? We've no grounds except her older sister's opinion. Is she being ill-treated, abused? Absolutely not. It seems like a happy home, good attentive parents, happy children. There's a risk she will be very seriously ill-treated in the future but no threat has been made and we've no proof.”

“And when they bring her back and she's been-mutilated? I won't say ‘circumcised.’ It makes it sound like what's done to baby boys and it's not.”

“Karen,” he said, talking to her as if she were one of his own daughters, “I'm very sorry to have to say this to you. Believe me, I hate this business as much as you do. But it's only if the child comes back here very obviously mutilated, if the parents have to take her to hospital because she's bleeding or she's got septicemia, it's only then that we can act.”

“And if she's not? If they get her done under hygienic conditions, then what?”

“Nothing. We won't know.”

“Matea will tell us,” said Karen.

“Will she? If telling us means one or both her parents go to jail for up to fourteen years? It was one thing to say what she said when it was only a threat, but it'll be very different when the child's been mutilated and nothing can change that. All we can do now is wait and see.”

The sister Vivien came too. They were so alike that they might have been twins, tallish slender young women, their faces bare of makeup, their fingernails trimmed closely, but Selina with her dark brown hair in a bob with bangs, Vivien's long and tightly coiled on the back of her head. Selina was in jeans and a shirt, Vivien in a long skirt and silk jacket. They sat down in the two chairs that had been placed to face him on the other side of his desk and he sent for tea.

“It's good of you to come,” he said.

“Oh, no, not good at all,” Selina said. Her voice was low and sweet. “I can't tell you how wonderful it is to find our father.”

He was aghast but did his best not to show it. To make this assumption she had taken a great leap over a dozen obstacles and traps. “Miss Hexham, you mustn't take it for granted this is your father. We have very little to go on as yet. All we have is that we have found the body of a man of your father's sort of age who seems to have died on or around the fifteenth or sixteenth of June, 1995. You're here to help us find the truth.”

“Please call me Selina,” she said, not at all downcast.

“Vivien,” said Vivien.

“We would like one of you to provide us with a DNA sample. That's a very simple procedure, involving taking a swab from the inside of your mouth. Only one of you need do it.”

“And you'll know at once?”

“I'm afraid not, Vivien. It will take a few days. We should also like to know the name of your father's dentist if you can tell us that. Eleven years is rather a long time and you may not know.”

“Yes, we do,” Selina said eagerly. “She's still in Barnes. That's where we live, Barnes. I don't think I told you that. We still go to her.”

She wrote down the name and address of this dentist in a strong upright hand. The tea came, a pot and three cups, brought in by Bal Bhattacharya's replacement, a pink-faced young man called Adam Thayer. Though perfectly respectful, he eyed both girls with a kind of greedy hopefulness. As he poured the tea, Wexford reflected that he had better teach him about custody of the eyes. Neither Selina nor Vivien took milk, an almost universal departure from custom in the young, he had noticed, and Vivien looked at the liquid in her cup as if she intended to drink it for politeness' sake but would infinitely have preferred rooibos or maté.

“I've brought you a proof copy of my book,” Selina said. “That is, if you'd like to read the rest of it. Those were very short extracts in the Sunday Times. I was very glad to have it, of course-well, I was over the moon. It's marvelous advance publicity for my book.”