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the hall. A man urged Mr and Mrs Songoli to be calm. They could accompany their son to hospital but first he needed answers to some questions. Had Olubayo ever had a seizure before? How long had this one lasted? The voices were muted inside the sitting room, but it wasn’t long before feet tramped through the hall, the front door closed and silence blanketed the house.
    Muna listened to the vanishing wail of the siren as it disappeared into the distance. Had all the Songolis gone? she wondered. Was she alone in the house for the first time since Abiola vanished? She rose to her feet and stood at the closed kitchen door, straining to hear footsteps or breathing. She waited through an interminable space of time before carefully easing the handle on the door and tiptoeing into the hall.
    She saw Ebuka emerge from the sitting room but had no time to retreat. He was upon her in a single step, catching her round the throat with his forearm and clamping a hand across her mouth before she could cry out. Her terror was so great that she prayed for death.
    He hissed the same words into her ear that he always used. Bitch … Whore … Temptress … Polluter of men … But they meant no more to Muna now than when she lay on her blood-soaked mattress, unable to move beneath his weight. All she knew was that they were the precursor to unendurable suffering.
    His arm was hooked too tightly around her neck, robbing her of breath, and her mind grew dark. It meant she had few clear memories of what happened next. She remembered the light coming on at the top of the cellar steps, remembered her knees folding beneath her as she slipped from Ebuka’s grasp. But the rest was a series of half-formed images. She saw the black bowels of the earth open before her, felt Ebuka being lifted over her by a giant fist, watched his body tumbling down the steps.
    More clearly than anything, she heard the Devil laugh.
    She dreamed of Abiola. He stood at a distance from her, his hands cupped in a begging gesture. He called to Muna for help but she turned away to look at children playing in a sunlit courtyard. It was a strange dream. When she looked back, her eyes were open, the tufts of the hall carpet caressed her cheek, and she was staring down the cellar steps at Ebuka.
    She lay for a long time, watching him. He wasn’t dead, which she thought a pity, but he didn’t seem able to move. One of his legs was twisted beneath him, the table had fallen over, trapping his arm, and his head was jammed between two of Yetunde’s trunks. She gazed impassively into his wide-open eyes, noting curiously how his expression alternated between fear and pleading.
    She rose when he began to threaten her with Yetunde’s anger if she failed to help him. She crept down the steps and squatted in the dust beside him. Close to, his fear was very strong.
    I can’t feel anything, he whispered. My arms and legs don’t work.
    Muna made no response. She had more patience than Ebuka and could stare at him for hours if necessary.
    As time passed, he grew angry with her. Do something, he ordered. Do something … do something …
    What, Master? she asked when it finally pleased her to answer him.
    Use the telephone. Dial 999. Request an ambulance as we did for Olubayo.
    I don’t know how to, Master, and no one would understand me if I could.
    Then bring me my mobile and hold it to my mouth while I speak.
    I can’t, Master. The white took every telephone in the house except the one attached by wire to the wall in the sitting room.
    Ebuka’s tongue flickered across dry, nervous lips. Go to the front gate, he begged. There are men out there with cameras. Bring one of them to me.
    Princess doesn’t allow me to show myself to strangers, Master. She’ll beat me with the rod if I disobey her.
    She’ll beat you harder if you leave me to die. Are you too stupid to understand that?
    Muna found it strange that his mouth and eyes worked when nothing else did. She touched a finger to one of