The Cellar by Minette Walters Page A

broth on a tray. Olubayo glared at her, seeing the intrusion for what it was – a way to attract Ebuka’s attention to herself – but she pretended not to notice. Instead she made a point of praising him.
    You look happier, Master. I said your son would be a comfort to you. He won’t let harm come to you. He is stronger and more determined than his mother knows.
    He wants me to call the police.
    Muna stooped to put the tray on the coffee table. Perhaps he’s right, Master. Mrs Hughes thought the same. She seemed very shocked that Princess had hurt you so badly. The Inspector will ask many questions about why Princess lost her temper … and some might be hard to answer … but she’ll know you have reason to fear your wife when you show her your bruises.
    Olubayo didn’t like Muna giving her views. The Inspector won’t come, he said scornfully. It’ll be a man in a car who’ll tell Dada to keep the door locked and call again when Mamma returns.
    He’ll know that Abiola’s still missing.
    What if he does?
    He will tell Inspector Jordan that Princess caused her husband damage, and she will come here to find out why. She believes the Master lost his temper with Abiola. It will interest her to learn that Princess’s anger is worse.
    Ebuka told them to stop arguing and ate his broth in silence. When he’d finished, he ordered Muna to bolt the front door. There would be time enough to decide what to do when Yetunde returned. They would know what mood she was in as soon as she discovered she was locked out.
    Muna listened outside Olubayo’s door for several minutes before she eased it open to make sure he was asleep. She had no need of a light. Years of confinement had trained her to interpret every shadow in the darkness, and she could see Olubayo quite clearly. He lay curled on his side, his lids fast closed, his breathing deep and regular.
    She slipped silently down the stairs to check on Ebuka and found him as dead to the world as his son, his snores reaching her even before she opened the dining-room door. It was good that his doctors had given him pills to send him to sleep. She knew them by the colour of the packet, and it had been easy to crush two into his night-time drink and one into Olubayo’s.
    Poor Yetunde. Even if she were able to call for help, no one but Muna would hear her.
    Muna placed a lit candle on the cellar floor and crouched beside it, seeing with satisfaction that Princess’s eyes were open. Cold, fear and pain were keeping her awake for the brain and the body couldn’t rest when these three evils existed together. Muna understood this and exulted that Princess had learned it also. It was right and just that she should suffer as Muna had.
    Her position had barely altered since Muna had wrapped parcel tape across her mouth and secured her fractured wrists to the handles of two heavy trunks. Only her uninjured leg had shifted slightly, as if to relieve pressure on a nerve or a muscle. Perhaps the agony of movement was too great or the shallowness of her breath had robbed her of energy. Every inhale and exhale was through her nose, and each was constricted by the mucus her grunts had caused.
    How frightened she looked, Muna thought. Had she prayed and prayed that someone who cared for her would come down the steps? Or had she heard the Devil’s laughter in the walls? Muna could hear it and feel it. A deep rumble that set the air of the cellar trembling and vibrating.
    She watched Yetunde patiently for several minutes, and would have watched longer if she hadn’t felt the need for sleep herself. The day had been tiring and she still had much to do. But it gave her pleasure to see terror in Yetunde’s wide rolling eyes. She placed her hand on the packed suitcase that she’d left beside Yetunde that afternoon.
    All hope is lost to you, Princess. Olubayo has searched your room and discovered this gone, and the Master has looked in the sideboard and knows your passport is missing. They believe