Silhouette

XLIII

Janette is in the Ikorodu police precinct, it’s a strange mixture, she reckons. The flickering monitors, the filing cabinets, the officers flitting back and forth; black upon black, like a choir of ravens.

She sits on a metal chair in a hallway. A light fixture up above flickers every now and then.

She checks her phone every five minutes. It has been fifteen minutes since she was led up here. She doesn’t dwell on what’s brought her here, she knows she’ll over think it if she does. Examine every facet and thread until her head hurts and then she’ll need a pen and a notebook and a lot of coffee and a couple of days to sort through her thoughts.

Janette doesn’t have a couple of days.

Janet checks her phone again, it’s been twenty minutes. She stands up, paces the small area where the wall covers both sides of the corridor.

A poster catches her eye and she goes to read it. It is an infographic about a series of pension packages for officers. Beneath the caption is an image of the marketing manager of the insurance company. She’s got the confident smile of a salesperson and a wide mop of curly hair.

It reminds Janette about Harry and his unruly mane. It reminds her of the way he ran his hands through it, the way he tugged it behind his ear or tied it up whenever he was engrossed in a book.

Janette turns away, her throat burns, her eyes tear up.

An officer approaches her. He says, “He would see you now.”

Janette nods. Blinks away the tears. She follows the officer down the corridor. The wall ends abruptly and through the railings she sees the detectives down below in the hall. Typing away at keyboards, scribbling, talking into phones, flipping through files. She sees Rose in a far corner, head buried in paper.

The walls come up again. The officer leads her on, they take a left. He stops at a brown oaken door. The name plate read: Anthony Madueke, Deputy Commissioner.

Janette thanks the officer, she makes two rapid knocks. There is a Come in.
Janette goes in. The office is deliciously cool. Madueke sits behind a large, cluttered desk. A gray man with weathered skin and jowls. A lot of jowls. The wall is littered with framed pictures, medals, certificates.

He watches her with squinty eyes. “The headquarters never really comes here. We go to them.”

Janette smiles softly, tries to temper the atmosphere. “Well, the taskforce isn’t really general knowledge. Hauling people over would make bring a less desired effect.” There’s the sharp ring of Janette’s phone in her pocket. “Excuse me,” she says.

Madueke nods.

Janette goes out, closes the door behind her. The caller is Emily. Janette smiles.

Emily Price was Janette’s colleague at Goldmans University. A revered authority in the often limited field of forensic psychology. And had written three books on psychoanalysis. All classics. Emily was a genius, sometimes she appeared rattled, other times she was too wholly absorbed in her butterfly conservatory to notice the world passing by.

“Emily,” says Janette.

“Janette,” says Emily, then she launches into a one-sided conversation about the weather in London and how frustrating her neighbor with the collie is.

Janette listens. She hears Emily’s accent, she sees her pasty skin and shock of red hair. She keeps the wave of nostalgia rushing in at bay.
She cuts in. “It’s nice hearing from you.”

“Learning about the reason for your absence from administration is a new low, don’t you think?”

Janette squeezes her eyes shut. “I had to leave.”