Raya’s reflection appears behind hers. She doesn’t seem to know whether she should be relieved or concerned. It’s very strange for bruises and blisters to appear for no reason. Stranger still for them to disappear as though they’d never been there in the first place.
“Let’s put the kettle on,” Alisha tells the girl in the mirror. “I’ll tell you everything that happened once the tea is made.”
Of course, Raya seems very concerned about all this: going out after midnight with the neighbour boys, seeking out the sordid results of a criminal act, discovering a dead body—or, at very least, a bloated suitcase. But there’s a glimmer of something else in Raya’s eyes: of pride, perhaps. Her wife, the sensitive. Her wife, the crime-solver.
Alisha’s glad to get back to work, not that her bos
