A Traitor to Memory

“Winston Nkata,” the man then said. “New Scotland Yard.”


That got her attention. He extended an identity card which she looked at before she looked at him. A copper, she thought. A brother and a copper. There was only one thing worse than a brother who was a raas, and that was a brother who joined the Bill.

She dismissed the identification with a toss of her head, and the beads at the ends of her multitude of plaits offered him the music of her contempt. He was looking at her the way men always looked at her, and she knew what he saw and what he was thinking. What he saw: the body, all six feet of her; the face coloured walnut, a face that could have been like a model's face with a model's bones and a model's skin except that her lip—her upper lip, this was—was split permanently and scarred like an exploding purple rose where that bastard Roger Edwards had broken a vase against it when she wouldn't give him her Sainsbury wages or go on the game to support his habit; the eyes, coloured coffee and angry, angry but wary as well; and if she took her coat off in the cold evening air, he'd see the rest of her but especially the summertime cropped top she wore because her stomach was flat and her skin there was smooth and if she wanted to show off a smooth, tight stomach to the world, then she was going to, no matter the weather. That's what he saw. And what he thought? What they all thought, what they always thought: Wouldn't mind doing her for a lark, long as she wears a bag on her head.

He said, “C'n I have a word, Missus Edwards?” and he sounded the way they always sounded, like they'd lay in front of a bus for their mummies.

The lift arrived and the door slid open slowly, like there was melted cheese on its track. It slid like it was saying if you were so stupid as to get in and ride it to the third floor where you had your flat, you might not get out because the door might decide not to open again.

She tapped Daniel's shoulder to move him inside. The cop said, “Missus Edwards? C'n I have a word with you?”

She said, “Like I've a choice?” and punched the button marked three.

The cop said, “Cheers,” and got inside.

He was big. That was what she noticed first in the harsh overhead light inside the lift. He was taller than she was by a good four inches. And he had a scar on his face as well. It ran like a chalk mark from the corner of his eye right down his cheek and she knew what it was—a razor slash—but not how he'd got it. So she said, “What's that, then?” with a nod at his face.

He glanced at Daniel, who was looking up at him the way he always looked at black men: with that face so shiny so open so wanting, that face that revealed what'd gone missing in his life since the night his mum had taken on Roger Edwards one last time. The cop said, “A r'minder, this is.”

“Of what?”

“How stupid one bloke can be when he thinks he's cool.”

The lift jerked to a stop. She made no comment. The cop was closest to the door, so he got out first when it groaned open. But he made a point to hold the door back—like it was going to slide shut and smack either Yasmin or her son … fat lot he knew about the flaming lift. He stepped to one side, and she swept past him, saying, “Mind those bags, Dan. Don't drop the wigs. The terrace's dead grotty and you drop 'em, you'll never get the filth out.”

She admitted them into the flat and switched on one of the lamps in what went for the sitting room. She said to her son, “Mind you fill the tub. Be easier with the shampoo this time round.”

“Right, Mum,” Daniel said. He shot a shy look at the cop—a look that so clearly said This is our gaff, what you think of it, man? that Yasmin ached for him, physically ached, and that ache made her angry because it told her once again just what she and Daniel had lost.

She said, “Get on with it, then,” to her son and to the cop, “What you want, man? Who'd you say you were?”

Dan said, “Winston Nkata, Mum.”

She said, “Told you what to do, d'n't I, Dan?”

He grinned, with those big white teeth—the teeth already of the man he'd become far sooner than she wanted for him—shining in a face that was lighter than her own, a mixture of the colours of her skin and Roger's. He disappeared into the bathroom, where he turned the bath taps on, setting the water to roaring in a way that announced he was doing his job smartly, just like Mum'd told him to do.

Winston Nkata stayed near to the door, and Yasmin found that this irritated her more than if he'd sauntered through the rooms of the flat—four rooms only so it wouldn't have taken him more than one minute even if he was studying what he saw in every one of those rooms—inspecting every piece of her property. She said, “What's this about, then?”