Lynda La Plante - A Face in the Crowd

She led him through the parquet-floored hallway, polished like an ice rink, into a large, comfortably furnished sitting room which had patio doors looking out onto a lawn and flowerbeds. From the records Oswalde knew that she was a widow, and there was a stillness to the house, an unlived-in feeling, that told him she had no companion and lived here alone. She had been married to a Nigerian businessman, and there was a large framed photograph of him on top of the bookcase, along with several more of a dark-skinned girl, showing her at every stage from cheeky pigtailed toddler up to vivaciously attractive teenager.

Oswalde felt a flutter in his chest. Instantly, he hadn’t the slightest doubt. The resemblance to the clay head was as close as it could be. Part of him was elated- they’d found Nadine! -but then he had to prepare himself for what he knew was not going to be a pleasant duty. He started gently.

“May I show you these photographs?”

“Yes…”

They were of the carved ivory bracelets, and she nodded as she looked at them. “Do you recognize these amulets, Mrs. Fagunwa?”

“Yes. They belonged to my husband’s family. He gave them to Joanne.”

“Then I’m sorry to tell you that they were found with the remains of a young girl. May I show you a picture of a clay head that we’ve had made.”

Oswalde waited while she studied it. Her dark eyes in her pale face remained expressionless. He said quietly, “Does that look like your daughter?”

She nodded. “Oh yes. It’s very like her. How clever.”

“I’m sorry,” Oswalde said. This was horrible, he felt like he had a knife in his guts.

Mrs. Fagunwa gazed at him. “How did she die?”

“We’re not certain, but the circumstances are suspicious.”

“Don’t tell me she suffered.” And now there was a shadow of pain in her dark eyes, and her voice was husky. “Please don’t tell me that.”

Riding in the car seemed to have loosened her tongue; it was like watching a dam slowly crumbling, the unstoppable surge of water pouring out. Oswalde drove back down the M1; Mrs. Fagunwa, now she’d started, unable to stop.

“… her father died that year, you see. I still don’t know why she left home. She had everything. She even had her own pony, she had everything…”

“Did Joanne ever have any accidents as a child?”

“Oh, no, the usual cuts and bruises, you know.” Then she bethought herself. “Oh, yes-once she did. She broke her wrist. She fell off her bike.”

Mrs. Fagunwa looked across at him. For him to have asked that specific question meant that he knew, that he was certain. She refused to make herself believe it, but it did no good. She knew now that it was her daughter that had been found, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

Swallowing hard, she plunged on. “Well, anyway, then she rejected it all. She started having things woven in her hair. You know, beads and things. Her hair isn’t even black really, more a dark brown, with threads of gold in it. She was almost blond when she was little. Her skin looks more tanned than anything else. She was such a pretty little girl-we have so many photographs. I keep meaning to sort them out.”

She made a sound in her throat and her voice stuck. Oswalde gripped the wheel tightly, doing seventy-five in the center lane. Driving was about the best he could manage at the moment.

Mrs. Fagunwa took a deep breath, rallying herself.

“I don’t think the local police treated her disappearance seriously. Just another young girl leaving home, going to London. Loads of them do that, don’t they? I saw a documentary. It’s not just Joanne…”

Oswalde saw a sign for a service area, one mile ahead. His throat was parched and aching, and besides he needed to call base.

“She always thought the best of people. Perhaps we protected her too much. I don’t know. Do you have children?”

“No, I don’t. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Oh, that would be lovely.” Mrs. Fagunwa smiled at him. Oswalde signaled and pulled over to the inside lane. “Perhaps if ours hadn’t been a mixed marriage. Do you think that could have been the problem? Made her run off like that?”

Hands behind his head, Rosper leaned back in his chair, watching the videos on the TV in a corner of the Incident Room. He was enjoying himself, tapping his foot to the reggae beat. The band was on a makeshift stage out in the street, bathed in sunshine, a real carnival atmosphere. Many of the performers wore colorful African costumes, as did the crowd, packed close to the stage, clapping their hands above their heads. Rosper hummed along and tapped his foot.

Haskons came over and leaned on his shoulder. “How’s it going, Gary?”

Rosper looked up with a beaming grin. “I’m having a shanking good time, Skip.”

“Are you indeed.”

The incessant reggae beat was getting on people’s nerves; some of them complained, so Rosper turned the sound low, but kept his eyes glued to the screen as one band followed another, studying the faces of the backup singers and the women in the crowd. His perseverance paid off. Leaping to his feet, he peered closely at the screen, and just at that moment the camera obligingly moved in on one of three girl backup singers to the left of the stage.

“Yes,” Rosper breathed, and then louder, “Yes. Yes!”

It was she, no mistake, dressed in African costume, happily smiling in the sunshine, swaying and clapping, having one hell of a good time. So full of vibrant energy and youthful joy, her whole life ahead of her, a life that had less than twenty-four hours to run its course.

Standing in the busy hospital corridor, Tennison held one hand flat to her ear while she tried to concentrate on what Haskons was telling her over the phone. He was having to shout too, trying to be heard over the babble of noise as the men clustered around the TV. Not helped by the thumping reggae beat, which Rosper had turned back up.

“That’s right,” Haskons was saying. “And Bob Oswalde called in. He’s got a positive ID. Joanne… Fagunwa?” Not sure of the pronunciation. “He’s bringing Mum in now.” He shouted away from the phone, “Look, turn it down, please.”

“Brilliant,” Tennison said. “All right, thanks, Richard.”

She hung up and joined Muddyman, who was using his powers of persuasion on the Chinese female doctor, Dr. Lim, in the hope that they would be allowed in to see David Harvey. He wasn’t having much success.

“He’s a very ill man, you’ve seen that for yourself,” Dr. Lim said. “You’ve also seen how he has great difficulty breathing when lying flat. He needs complete rest.”

Tennison laid it on the line. “Dr. Lim. We have reason to believe that Mr. Harvey was involved in the murder of a seventeen-year-old girl. Now, I don’t mind what conditions you make, but we have to talk to the man.”

Dr. Lim didn’t say anything, because the discussion was at an end; the look in the eyes of the Chief Inspector told her that.

Mrs. Fagunwa was turning over Joanne’s things in interview room C3 off reception. She was bearing up well, Oswalde thought. Not a tear, not a quiver, just quietly picking things up-muddy Levi’s jeans, wrinkled Adidas sneakers-until she came to the blue sweater, and her hand shook as she held it up.

“This I recognize. My one and only attempt at knitting…”

She crumpled it in her hand, head bowed low over the table, her shoulders heaving. Oswalde did what he could to comfort her, uttering some soothing platitudes, his arm around her.

“Why her?” Mrs. Fagunwa moaned, tears dripping off the end of her nose. “Why her…?”

When she had dried her eyes, Oswalde asked if she would like a cup of tea in the cafeteria, but she said no, she’d prefer to start back. He walked her out to the car he had ordered, waiting in the parking lot.