Michael looks like he’s fighting some sort of internal battle. Finally he asks, almost to himself, “Can you stop it? If it’s even there, I mean. Can you stop this so-called proof from getting out?”
I don’t answer right away. What is he asking? Is he trying to threaten me? “Listen, whatever you do, torture me, kill me, it isn’t going to change things. The stuff is out of my hands now. It’s going to be released.”
Which, to be honest, isn’t exactly true, but Michael doesn’t need to know the details. Giving the dirt to Donatien is on me. I’m sure Omoko could trash Mr. Greyhill’s name some other way, but I want it to be Donatien who writes all the bad stuff up and publishes it. He can get it in the big papers. He’s got a stake in bringing Greyhill down and he will do it right.
Just like Boyboy will then hack Mr. Greyhill’s bank accounts the right way.
And like I will do blood.
Just right.
Michael lifts his chin. “What if I can prove my dad didn’t kill your mom? Would you be able to stop it?”
I frown. Normally, I feel like I’m pretty good at knowing when someone else is full of it, but Michael’s got hard to read since we were kids. “What do you mean?”
He doesn’t respond.
“Do you know something?”
He still doesn’t move, just keeps watching me.
I’m on my feet, lunging for him. Only the cuffs and the chain stop me. “Don’t play with me, Michael! Do you know something about my mother’s murder?” I can’t quite reach him. “Is it the video from that night? From the camera in the office? Do you have it? Do you?”
His nostrils flare. “No.”
I tell myself to calm down, to let the numbness I’ve worked so hard to cultivate sweep me under. I do not exist. I will not exist, not for him. “Then you don’t know anything,” I say finally, backing up.
“You’re going to ruin my father—ruin all of us—because you think he killed your mother. You don’t even know for sure!”
“I do know! You know it too, or you wouldn’t have asked him if he did it!”
“He said he didn’t kill her, and I believe him!” Michael shouts.
Why do you care whether Michael believes it or not? I ask myself. He doesn’t matter. Leave it.
But I can’t. “I saw them,” I say.
Michael freezes. “You saw him . . . kill her?”
“No,” I say. “But I didn’t need to. The night before she was killed, I saw them together in the garden. They were arguing. My mother knew his secrets, and she threatened to expose him. And do you know what he said?”
Michael doesn’t move.
“He said, ‘Do that, Anju, and I’ll kill you.’” I pause, letting my words sink in. “She sent a message to a reporter the next day, asking him to meet her. And eight hours later, she was dead.”
EIGHT
Rule 9: Thieves and refugees don’t do police.
? ? ?
If I hadn’t seen them in the garden that night, maybe my whole life would be different. Maybe I could have put her death behind me, gone to school with Kiki, convinced myself it was a robbery gone wrong, like Mr. G said. I could have tried to forget.
But I did see them.
Their angry voices pulled me out of bed. I came upon them standing under the plumeria tree. Its blossoms pulsed in the dark like attendant stars. Greyhill had his hands around Mama’s throat. His threats were soft and intimate.
Seeing them, I tasted that old, familiar terror in the back of my mouth. And when I howled, Greyhill had broken away from her and slunk off.
Once he was gone, I went to Mama and she held me close. She told me to hush, that there was nothing to be afraid of. He didn’t mean what he’d said. Everything was going to be fine.
? ? ?
I could have tried going to the police. I could have told them what I’d seen and heard, let them investigate, waited for justice to prevail.
Sure.
Right.
And Kiki and I would live happily ever after in a castle made of rainbows and gumdrops.
No, here’s the thing with Sangui City (it’s pretty simple; take it to heart):
The police do not give a shit.
They certainly don’t if you’re a thief, and especially not if you’re a refugee from Congo. We are just walking ATMs to them, good for all sorts of “fees”: for walking down the street; for having a mole on your chin; for wearing red shoes. What a little refugee girl had or hadn’t seen in the mist was not going to interest them.
Nope. You have a problem, you deal with it yourself.
The cops came the next day to her murder scene, of course, to take photos and gawk at the famous Greyhill mansion and write up a few notes in terrible English. “Gunnshott too abnomen” was apparently the official cause of death. Says so right on the forms. I have them. Boyboy hacked the whole file out of the police server for me.