The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths by Harry Bingham Read Free Book Online

slip of paper.
    Amina’s handwriting. Her flat.
    She was the one real friend I made at YCS. Neither her life nor mine allowed much leisure, but we liked each other. Hung out when we could.
    I ring the bell, but knock as well. Glass door, single glazed.
    Amina opens it. That huge smile when she sees me. Baby lying in a cot in the tiny hallway. A man in a purple shirt sits in the front room talking loudly on the phone. A language I don’t recognize, but Somali I assume.
    Amina brings me through to the kitchen. The man glances at me, but not for long. The kitchen is a mess. Amina has been barbecuing lamb kidneys using an oven rack laid directly over the gas hob. Everything is splattered with fat. A vegetable broth stands in a large saucepan to the side. Smells of cumin, cardamom, cloves. There is a motorbike standing where you’d expect there to be a table. Tools and rags, but not much sign of action.
    I tell Amina I’ve lost my flat. That I’m leaving London.
    She doesn’t understand right away – her English isn’t brilliant – but when she does, she looks upset.
    ‘You can’t go,’ she says, waving a long black finger at me, then hugging me. As she steps back again, she adjusts her headscarf.
    ‘I have to.’
    Amina looks sad. She keeps readjusting her face to hide her sadness, but it keeps coming back.
    ‘Can you give these back to Mr. Conway? I haven’t told him.’
    I give Amina my YCS stuff in a plastic bag. Conway won’t be surprised at my sudden disappearance. His workforce changes with every passing wind.
    ‘Where are you going?’
    ‘I’m not sure yet. Maybe Manchester.’ I shrug.
    Manchester: my Fiona Grey legend involves a long-term, but abusive, relationship with a guy in Manchester. The abusive part is good because it means I don’t have to talk about it much. Also because it gives my legend a kind of messy unity. The kind of work I was doing in Wembley is essentially done only by immigrants. I was the only native Briton under Conway’s command, the only one to speak English as a first language. Aside from Milenka, I was the only one with white skin. People like me only turn out to clean toilets at four in the morning if their lives have gone badly astray somewhere. Abuse, in the case of Fiona Grey. God knows what in the case of Fiona Griffiths.
    The baby in the hall starts crying. The man in the purple shirt shouts through to us. Amina’s eyes change and I say, ‘I’ll go.’
    We hug again.
    Amina gets the baby. I open the front door. Amina says, ‘Wait,’ goes through to the kitchen, and comes back with some brown cake wrapped in a piece of kitchen towel. ‘Shushumow,’ she says.
    ‘Shushumow?’
    She repeats the word, gives me that smile again, and closes the door.
    Back at my car, I call Buzz.
    ‘Hey, stranger.’
    His voice is warm, full of love. I don’t quite feel as I ought to in return. I feel clumsy and cut off from the person I was.
    I act the part though. Act Fiona Griffiths, the one who’s in love with a handsome policeman, and as I get into role, my feelings start to come back a bit. I don’t quite feel like her exactly, but perhaps I might do with a little more practice.
    We chat for a while, then hang up.
    Plan for tonight is: drive home, get changed, fancy meal, lots of sex. The classic Buzz solution to any complex emotional situation, except that the first three parts of the formula are prone to change or cancellation without notice.
    When I’m on the M4, I try nibbling one of the shushumow cakes, but they’re way too sweet for me and I throw them out of the window when I’m crossing the Severn Bridge.
    Croeso i Gymru.
    Welcome to Wales.

8.
    We do, as it happens, implement the formula, just as planned. I go to my house, wash and change. Buzz has booked us a table at the restaurant where we had our first date. I don’t know if there’s meant to be some kind of significance in that but, if there is, I cooperate by wearing the outfit I wore then. Dark blue