She drove slowly down Chilimbulu Road and pulled to the shoulder. At seven thirty in the morning, the street was swarming with foot traffic—men sporting talktime dispensers, adolescent boys pushing carts overloaded with crates, children dressed in school uniforms heading to class, mothers in chitenge with infants strapped to their backs. A few hawkers tried to solicit her, but she ignored them, focusing on the apartment building where Priscilla Kuwema lived. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she had a feeling that morning might tell a different tale from evening.
A red jeep sat empty at the edge of the parking lot. She stored its license-plate number in her iPhone and began taking pictures. The four-story edifice was constructed of reinforced concrete with an open-air stairwell and balconies barely large enough to accommodate a clothesline. The windows were louvered and covered with grates, but Zoe could see movement behind a number of them. At the base of the stairwell, a group of men stood smoking.
After a minute, a young woman carrying a basket on her shoulder approached the men. One of the men gave her some money, and the girl handed him an oil-stained bag from her basket. Fritas, Zoe guessed. The girl then knocked on Priscilla Kuwema’s door. Zoe switched from photo to video and maxed out the zoom, hoping the cousin would answer the door. Instead, a different man appeared, wearing rumpled trousers and a tank top. He squinted at the girl, scratching the stubble on his cheeks. A moment later, Priscilla Kuwema stood in the doorframe, dressed in a miniskirt and a tight-fitting shirt. She gave the girl a wad of bills, took six bags, and closed the door.
Zoe replayed the footage she had captured. The way the man was dressed suggested he had spent the night in the apartment. Was he sleeping with Priscilla Kuwema? If so, who was the cousin? And why had the man not paid for the fritas?
Fifteen minutes later, the man left the apartment looking more presentable. He climbed into a delivery truck and drove off. Before long the door opened again and the cousin appeared, a pretty girl in tow. He was dressed in a pink Oxford shirt and jeans, and the girl was heavily made-up and clad in a low-cut blouse and high heels. They kissed beside the red jeep. Then the man left and the girl flirted with the chain-smokers, trading smiles for fritas.
When a third man—older than the others—left the apartment with yet another scantily clad woman, Zoe knew that the riddle of Priscilla Kuwema had only two solutions: either she lived with roommates who had regular amorous visitors, or she was a mahule—a prostitute.
Zoe checked her watch. It was after eight. She had five minutes before she had to head to the office. She looked down the street and saw the fritas vendor soliciting a man on a motorcycle. She locked the Land Rover and waded into the sea of pedestrians. When the motorcyclist left, she approached the girl, money in hand.
“Muli bwange,” she said.
The girl smiled with her eyes. “Ndili bwino. Kaya inu?”
“Ndili bwino,” Zoe said. “Do you speak English?”
“Some.”
“For fifty pin, I want a bag of your fritas, and I want to ask you a few questions.”
“Okay,” the girl said.
“Do you know Priscilla Kuwema?”
When the girl looked confused, Zoe pointed at the woman’s apartment.
A shadow crossed the girl’s face. She glanced down the street. “She not use that name.”
Zoe remained impassive. “What name does she use?”
“Doris.”
“Why doesn’t she use her real name?”
The girl took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
Zoe slid the money into her pocket. “If we are going to do business, I need the truth.”
The girl hesitated. “The men,” she said. “They call her Doris.”
“Where is her husband?”
The girl studied the ground. “She not have husband.”
“Who are the men?”
The girl looked scared. She handed Zoe a bag of fritas. “They come from the bars.”
“Is Doris a mahule?”
The girl nodded. “Now I go. Please.”
Zoe paid the girl and returned to the Land Rover, her mind churning with possibilities. Had Kuyeya’s mother also been a prostitute? Had she lived at the apartment with Priscilla Kuwema—Doris? How many of Doris’s customers had seen Kuyeya? Could one of them be a pedophile? On the other hand, if Doris was a mahule, then why did she move so quickly to report Kuyeya’s absence to the police? Joseph was right and wrong at the same time. Doris knew nothing of the rape, but Kuyeya’s mother was hardly immaterial to the investigation.
Zoe arrived at the CILA office a few minutes before the all-staff meeting. She looked around for Joseph but didn’t see him. She muddled through the meeting and the morning, conscious of her growing pile of work but consumed by the puzzle of Kuyeya’s case. At noon Sarge asked for an update on her research into the laws of Britain. She extemporized on the fly, but even her near-perfect recall of case authorities didn’t make up for her lack of progress.
Sarge raised an eyebrow. “I need something by the end of the day.”
“I’ll have it to you by four o’clock,” she promised.