The Cellar Read online

  Certain images kept recurring in her mind. Yetunde pushing coconut sweets between her lips. The feel of a man’s beard against her cheek as he carried her in his arms through a large hall. The sound of Yetunde saying the child was his daughter. The roar of engines. People sitting in rows. A sense of lifting from the ground. Being carried through another hall. Rain on her face. Waking here in the darkness of this cellar and never tasting coconut again.

  Muna thought the bearded man must have been Ebuka, but she had no explanation for why he had once pretended to be her father. She guessed the other memories were about a journey. The place she had left had been full of sunshine and colour but the only brightness here was in the greenness of the grass and the leaves on the trees. She wished she had made a mark each time they turned to golden brown for it meant another year had passed, but her child’s mind had been too intent on counting each hour of the day to think about the future.

  Through the bedroom windows upstairs, she could see over the high brick wall that surrounded the house. Away in the distance were tall buildings that reached towards the sky, but close to were houses like this one, hidden behind walls and obscured by trees. She saw more through the metal gates at the end of the short driveway when she was dusting the downstairs rooms than she ever saw upstairs. People walking. People in cars. It’s how she knew she was in a world of whites. She came to recognise those who passed the gates each day but they never glanced in Muna’s direction.

  If they had she’d have jumped behind the curtains out of fear. She wasn’t allowed to raise her eyes to anyone. She whispered words at night to remind herself she had a voice, but her dread of being heard was terrible. Yetunde had said Muna had demons inside her when she begged to go back to the schoolyard she knew, and had poured burning oil on the child’s bare foot to teach her that demons spoke words of ingratitude.

  Are you not happy to serve your aunt? Yetunde had asked. Yes, Princess, Muna had answered.

  Muna was very afraid the white in trousers could see through her skull and into her brain. She could feel the sharpness of the clever blue eyes boring into her head. Had her ears told her that Muna had used the same phrases twice? A knot of sickening fear tightened in Muna’s belly. Yetunde would wield the rod with even more cruelty if she could blame little Muna for the police not believing her.

  ‘Did you look to see if Abiola entered the gates after you?’ the white asked Olubayo.

  ‘No. I ran to join my own friends.’ Olubayo gave a sudden wail as if he knew he should show grief.

  ‘Do you blame my son for this?’ Ebuka Songoli demanded angrily.

  ‘Of course not, sir, but we’ll require the names of everyone he remembers at the gates when he arrived. We have a team searching the school premises in case Abiola met with an accident, but if he never went in, a parent or child may have seen what happened to him.’ She paused. ‘We need to establish if he left on his own or in the company of someone else.’

  ‘A stranger has taken him. This is a terrible country. Such things would never happen in ours.’

  ‘It’s more likely to be someone he knew, Mr Songoli. The area was too crowded and too well covered by CCTV for a stranger abduction. One of my team is going through this morning’s footage with the caretaker but any names Olubayo can give me will help. Tomorrow’s Friday. It gives us little time to find witnesses before the students leave for the weekend.’

  Muna sensed Olubayo’s nervousness on the seat beside her as he stammered out those he remembered. She thought him foolish to do it. Did he think no one would have noticed that he arrived alone? On each of the four days since the car had been cancelled, he had taken to his heels as soon as he and Abiola were hidden from Yetunde’s view by the wall surrounding the garden. Muna, whose first job every morning was to tidy the boys’ attic bedrooms, had watched it happen. While Olubayo ran away laughing, his fat brother waddled and wept in a furious rage behind him.

  It hadn’t occurred to her to speak of it to Yetunde for Olubayo would have kicked her and slapped her if she had. Nor did she want to be beaten with the rod for pausing in her duties to tell Princess things she didn’t want to hear. Muna’s task was to wash Abiola’s sheets, not care if he was abandoned in the road. She had no liking for him. He was a lazy, dirty boy who soiled his bed because Muna was there to clean it for him. Sometimes he smeared faeces on the linen to make the task of bleaching it harder.

  Laziness had made him stupid and for that Muna could thank him. He had found it so hard to learn English that Mr Songoli had paid for him to be taught in the house. Since Yetunde wasn’t interested in listening, the lessons had taken place in the dining room; and since Muna wasn’t allowed to be seen by strangers, she was ordered to stay in the kitchen while the teacher was there. She had often wondered why Yetunde hadn’t realised she would be able to hear what was said through the hatchway that linked the two rooms.

  Perhaps Yetunde believed what she always said, that Muna was too feeble-minded to make her own way in the world. Be grateful for my protection, she would say as she struck with the rod whenever Muna displeased her. Without a place in the Songoli home, you would be nothing.

  Muna was forbidden to watch television or listen to a radio, but even squatting in her place in the corner of the kitchen, she could hear what the family heard because they turned the volume so high. At first, she had only understood the language of Olubayo and Abiola’s children’s programmes, but as the years passed she absorbed the vocabulary of the daytime chat shows that Yetunde loved. And when Ebuka came home in the evening, she listened to the language of current affairs as she prepared the evening meals.

  War … murder … rape … violence … hatred … intolerance … cruelty …

  Muna could speak whole sentences in her head but she struggled to make her mouth say them. And more often than not she wondered if it was worth trying. From everything she heard, the world outside was as terrible and frightening as Yetunde and Ebuka Songoli described it.

  Three

  A week passed. Abiola’s face kept appearing on television, and Mr Songoli raged about journalists and cameramen camped at his gate, pointing their lenses at his windows. The fingerprints of everyone in the house were taken, while others were lifted from the furniture in Abiola’s bedroom. Olubayo was exposed as a liar when the CCTV footage showed that he arrived at school alone, and, worse, that Abiola never arrived at all. A woman in a neighbouring street said she’d seen a black boy being lifted into a car of the same make and colour as Mr Songoli’s.

  The house was searched a second time, far more thoroughly, and Ebuka and Yetunde were taken away for several hours to be questioned elsewhere. While they were gone, the white brought a Hausa speaker to question Muna. She was a woman of Yetunde’s age who spoke impatiently and stared hard at the girl as she translated the white’s words, adding phrases of her own.

  This officer’s name is Inspector Jordan, she said. Look up when you speak to her. Answer freely. You’ve no need to be nervous. There’s nothing to fear if you tell the truth.

  Muna doubted that. She had seen how viciously Ebuka had beaten Olubayo for bringing dishonour on the family with his lies. What if this Hausa speaker was a friend of Yetunde’s and refused to repeat what Muna said about the Songolis stealing her from an orphanage? The white – Inspector Jordan – would learn nothing and this woman would tell Yetunde of Muna’s ingratitude afterwards. And Muna dreaded to think of the punishment she would receive.

  Life was better as the Songolis’ disabled daughter. With a police liaison officer in the house, Muna no longer had to clean and cook from morning to night, sleep in the dark cellar or dress in a servant’s clothes. Instead she was allowed to wear the same sort of pretty dresses that Yetunde wore, go to bed in a room with windows and electric light and sit with the family each evening, watching and listening as the search for Abiola continued.

  Some of Inspector Jordan’s questions were easy, needing simple yes or no answers. Do you love Abiola? Yes. Did you see
him leave for school that morning? Yes. Did he come back after Olubayo abandoned him? No. Do you think Olubayo would have harmed his brother? No. Do you think your father might have harmed him? No.

  Some were harder because Yetunde had told such ill-considered lies at the start. What is the name of the woman who comes to teach you each day? There is no woman. Why did your mother say there was? She was afraid. Of what? That you’d make me go to school. Don’t you want to learn? My parents teach me. They are kind about my slowness. Wouldn’t you rather go to class as your brothers do? Not if I’m teased.

  The most dangerous questions concerned what Muna had been doing on the day that Abiola disappeared. Had she stayed in the house after Mrs Songoli left to meet her friend? What did she do to occupy her time? Muna told the truth. I cleaned and tidied for Mamma. Why didn’t you notice that Abiola hadn’t come home at his usual time? I can’t tell the time. Weren’t you worried when Olubayo came back alone? I didn’t know he was alone. Why not? I didn’t see him. I was in Mamma’s room, trying on her gold necklaces.

  The conversation seemed interminable, but when it ended the translator turned to Inspector Jordan and said she didn’t believe Muna was lying. ‘She’s too unsophisticated to fabricate stories. She has trouble speaking at all so I imagine it was the left side of her brain that was damaged. The words she uses are very simple but her mouth finds even those hard to form.’

  ‘But she sits so still and shows so little expression. Every instinct I have says something’s wrong. She’s small for fourteen … and her skin’s a lot paler than her parents’. She doesn’t smile … doesn’t frown … barely reacts to anything, in fact.’

  ‘I doubt she goes out much. You’ll have to ask her mother. It may be that the motor function in the muscles of her face are impaired.’

  ‘Her eyes work well enough. Why won’t she look at me?’

  ‘She leads a closeted life. Strangers frighten her.’ The Hausa speaker studied Muna’s bent head. ‘She comes from a different culture. You may not be reading her correctly.’

  ‘Except I had the strong impression she was afraid of her mother that first night. I’m certain she knows more than she’s telling us.’

  ‘Do you really think Mr and Mrs Songoli are involved in their son’s disappearance?’

  ‘It depends if Abiola ever left the house that morning. There are several witnesses who remember seeing Olubayo in the road but none who remember his brother.’

  ‘What about the woman who saw a black boy being put in a car?’

  ‘The description she gave doesn’t match Abiola’s.’

  ‘Whites are notoriously bad at describing blacks. Most of you can’t even differentiate between shades of brown.’

  A smile entered the Inspector’s voice. ‘Maybe so, but it’s hard to confuse a slender boy with a ten-year-old so grossly overweight that he had to walk with his legs apart. According to the school, he weighed in excess of eleven stone. It’s hard to imagine anyone lifting him … let alone a predatory paedophile looking for an easy target.’

  ‘A dead weight’s even heavier. If he died in this house, who carried him to the car? It would have needed both parents, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘And both to pull him out at the other end when they found a place to hide the body,’ the white agreed. ‘If one’s involved, it’s almost certain the other is as well.’

  Muna would have feared for herself if Inspector Jordan and the Hausa speaker hadn’t been in the house when Mr and Mrs Songoli returned. Ebuka’s anger was terrible to behold, and he would have taken it out on her if he hadn’t had to pretend she was his daughter. He accused the police of being racists for putting him and his wife through the indignity of an interrogation, and raged at Scotland Yard for appointing a woman to run the investigation.

  How dare such an insignificant person suggest that he or Yetunde had had anything to do with Abiola’s disappearance? A woman’s job was to run her kitchen, not exercise authority in a police force.

  The translator took him to task in Hausa. In this country it was an offence to make sexist remarks, she warned sternly, and Mr Songoli showed his ignorance by doing so. As father to Abiola, he would have been interviewed in the same way whatever his colour for it was a sad – but true – statistic that children were more in danger inside their own homes than on the street.

  Ebuka ignored her. ‘Abiola was loved and treasured by his family,’ he roared at the Inspector. ‘My mistake was to cancel the taxi that took him to school. My son was taken because he was walking. Are you too foolish to understand that?’

  ‘We have only Olubayo’s word that he ever reached the end of the road, Mr Songoli. Despite numerous pleas for witnesses, no one has come forward to say they saw Abiola.’

  ‘And because of that you accuse us? Why? You’ve searched our house from top to bottom and brought dogs into our garden … and you’ve found nothing. Have you done the same with the other properties in this road?’

  Inspector Jordan nodded. ‘All your neighbours gave my team permission to enter.’

  ‘And have you found Abiola?’

  ‘No.’

  Ebuka jabbed a finger at her chest. ‘Then I’m proved right,’ he declared. ‘My child was taken by a stranger on his way to school.’

  Muna watched the Inspector take a step backwards. ‘We think it more likely Abiola stayed here, Mr Songoli. His teachers say he was a reluctant student, and they all agree he would have chosen a day at home over one in class, particularly as he knew his mother would be out.’

  Ebuka glared at her angrily before turning on Yetunde with a raised fist. Does she speak the truth? he demanded in Hausa. You said you were in this house for an hour after the boys left. Were you lying? Did you see him return?

  Yetunde flinched. Of course not, my husband. Would I stay silent over something so important?

  Inspector Jordan caught Ebuka’s wrist and forced his arm to his side. ‘You have a bad temper, sir. I suggest you bring it under control before you give your wife even more cause for anxiety.’ She turned to the Hausa speaker. ‘What did he say? Why was he threatening her?’

  The woman’s translation was precise.

  The Inspector nodded. ‘This is what we know, Mr Songoli. Your son hid in the summer house at some point. It may have been Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. We found sweet wrappers and empty crisp packets on the floor with his fingerprints on them. Your contract gardener swears they weren’t there on Wednesday afternoon … and we have no reason to disbelieve him since I understand Mrs Songoli is very particular about litter.’

  ‘But the gardener’s not a man to be trusted,’ wailed Yetunde. ‘I have to watch him all the time to make sure he does as he’s told. Who’s to say he didn’t take my child?’

  ‘You and the elderly couple who employ him on Thursdays. You say Abiola left this house at eight fifteen last Thursday morning – the day he went missing – and the couple say the gardener was with them, some twelve miles away, from seven thirty until four in the afternoon.’

  There was a long pause before Ebuka sank into a chair with a groan, clapping his hands to his head as if he were in pain. ‘Is this why I’ve been interviewed so harshly today? And why my car has been impounded? Do you think Abiola was here when I came home from work that day? Do you think I lost my temper with him when I learned he’d been truanting?’

  ‘You waited a long time to contact us, Mr Songoli. Your wife says she phoned you at your office at six when she came home and discovered Abiola wasn’t here … yet your emergency call to us wasn’t made until eight twenty-three. That’s almost two and a half hours unaccounted for.’

  Muna listened to Ebuka huff and puff about being caught in traffic and taking time to search the house himself, claiming it would have been foolish to summon the police if Abiola had been hiding under a bed. He made no mention of clearing the cellar of Muna’s mattress and possessions or having to wait while Yetunde unpacked trunks of her old clothes, looking for a kaba small enough to
fit the girl. Even then the yellow garment had been too big, and the woman had hissed with fury at having to sacrifice one of her scarves to create a sash about Muna’s waist. All these things had taken time.

  Inspector Jordan stayed silent until Ebuka drew breath. ‘Are you saying you knew before you called us that Olubayo hadn’t taken Abiola to school?’ she asked.

  Ebuka looked confused. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Why bother to look under beds if you believed what Olubayo told you? The first thing you said to us was that a stranger must have abducted your son – and you’ve continued to repeat that accusation all week – yet now you want me to believe you wasted over two hours looking for Abiola here. Why, Mr Songoli?’

  Ebuka didn’t answer.

  ‘You’d do better to tell us the truth, sir.’

  Ebuka looked to his wife for help, and Yetunde pointed a trembling finger at Muna. ‘This girl can tell you if Abiola was here when Ebuka came back.’

  ‘She says he wasn’t.’

  ‘Then why do you doubt my husband?’

  The Inspector glanced at Muna’s bent head. ‘Your daughter’s word isn’t good enough, Mrs Songoli. We need provable facts, not hesitant responses from a child with learning difficulties. At the moment, we don’t even know if Abiola was alive on Thursday morning. The last sighting of him by anyone other than this family was at three thirty the previous afternoon, the Wednesday … some twenty-nine hours before your husband reported him missing.’

  Four

  Muna thought Ebuka very foolish to lose his temper again. Perhaps he felt free to do it because the Hausa speaker had left, but he should have learned by now that the white was cleverer than he was. While he shouted angrily that his word could be believed, Inspector Jordan took some papers from a case on the table and showed them to him. She said they were copies of the witness statements he and his wife had signed after their interviews at the police station.