The Kill List by Nadine Matheson

Author:Nadine Matheson [Matheson, Nadine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2024-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

26

Henley turned off the car engine and leaned forward to take in the view of the last house on Cranbrook Road in Deptford. It had taken Melissa Gyimah’s parents seven years to finally move from the flat where their life had been violently interrupted by their daughter’s murder. Her mother had often said that there was no way that she could have continued living so close to where her child’s body had been found. Henley would often see Melissa’s dad standing on the balcony that overlooked Deptford Green and the river beyond. She always wondered what he was waiting for, when he knew that his daughter was never coming home.

‘Oh my,’ Tenneh Gyimah placed her hand to her chest, covering up the gold locket and small crucifix that hung from the chain around her neck. ‘Anjelica. You haven’t changed. Older yes, but you haven’t changed.’

‘Definitely older and I’m sure that I’ve changed,’ Henley replied, stepping into the narrow hallway. ‘It’s good to see you, Mrs Gyimah.’

‘Come on now, after all this time you can call me Tenneh.’

‘That doesn’t feel right,’ Henley replied. She took in the woman standing in front of her. Grief had aged her. She’d always been the glamorous one when Henley was younger, fashionably dressed and changing her hairstyles fortnightly. Now, her once thick black hair was cut short and every curl was grey. The skin on her face had thickened and the lines that radiated from her eyes were deep set. People who didn’t know Tenneh would have called them laughter lines, but Henley knew that it would have been difficult for Tenneh to find anything to laugh about.

‘Come on, come through. Are you hungry? I’ve made jollof rice and beef. I can make a plate for you. Or tea, coffee, a sandwich. Anything?’

‘I’ll have a small plate of jollof,’ Henley replied, knowing full well that there was no point in refusing Melissa’s mum when she offered to feed you. She smiled sadly to herself, hearing Melissa’s voice in her head.

‘Mum. We don’t need food. Stop embarrassing me. Why can’t you cook normal food?’

‘And what is normal? Sausage, egg and chips, pizza, frog in the hole?’

‘God, Mum. It’s toad in the hole.’

Henley shook the memories from her head and followed Tenneh down the hallway. The house smelled like a home, but even with all the usual artefacts of family life on display – the basket of clothes left on the stairs, the photographs of Tenneh’s children and grandchildren on the wall, their paintings and save the date reminders for weddings on the fridge door – there remained a strong sense that something was missing, that there was a hole that would never be filled.

‘Sit, sit,’ Tenneh said, opening the dishwasher and taking out a clean plate and cutlery.

‘Do you still run?’ Henley asked. She could see leggings and a dripping swimsuit hanging on the washing line, and there was something about Tenneh’s slender build and the way she moved around the kitchen that made Henley suspect Tenneh had channelled her grief into exercise.

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