You might think that sounds impossible. But I saw it with my own eyes.
When I first moved to the UK, I stayed with a friend and her family. Things were okay at first—until her husband started behaving inappropriately. This was someone who, back in Lagos, couldn’t even look me in the eye. At the time, I was a senior banker. He was unemployed. They had only been able to leave Nigeria because of her job—she carried them both abroad almost eight years ago.
Now they were living comfortably in a three-bedroom house in Kent with three kids. But I didn’t come here to talk about him. I’m just giving context. Because once the man began brushing past me a little too closely in their narrow hallway, once his fingers began to “accidentally” graze parts of my body, I knew I had to go.
I didn’t tell my friend the reason I was leaving. I just reached out to a colleague—a fellow Nigerian—about sharing a flat. She had been through the same route: arrived as a student, stayed after, made her way. This colleague connected me to another lady who wanted to flat share. That’s how I met my new flatmate.
Let’s call her Risi.
Now, Risi wasn’t a friend. But we understood each other—both Nigerians, both trying to survive in a country that doesn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat. Still, there was something about her that was… different.
She had come years before me and had been through it. Hard. She told me she once got involved with a guy—turned out he was in a gang. At the time, she was desperate for a job that could offer sponsorship. No stability, no home of her own. She’d ended up with some Jamaican guy who used her, left her worse off. It affected her deeply. Her mental health took a hit.
And let me just say this: when people here talk about “mental health,” they’re not exaggerating. The hustle abroad is real. People snap—Nigerians too. Especially in winter. When the cold sets in and there’s no family around and you’re doing jobs that are far beneath your qualifications… it starts to eat at you.
So Risi got pregnant.
And what happened next still haunts me.
I had no idea. We mostly kept to ourselves.
Occasionally, when I cook jollof rice or pounded yam, I’ll invite her to join me. But even so, I did sparingly. You see, you don’t want to owe too many favours over here. People can exact repayment in ways you’re not prepared to give. So when someone is too generous, you get cautious.
Anyway, she got pregnant. Everything I’m about to share, I pieced together after the fact. I had no clue when most of it was happening.
Sadly, she lost the pregnancy. And again—I had no idea.
Why?
I take on extra shifts—weekends, nights, bank holidays, you name it. Not because I want to, but because I have to. There’s no sense sitting at home when I could be making a little extra. That’s how I survive—and how I manage to send something home, even if it’s not much. My salary barely stretches. Once rent and bills are sorted, there’s hardly anything left.
We split everything equally. I pay half the rent, half the utilities—all transferred to her account, since the flat is in her name. And thankfully, we’ve never had any issues about money. Trust me, that alone is rare. Money—or the lack of it—is usually what breaks flatmates apart.
If it’s not money, it’s a mess. Dirty dishes, cluttered spaces, endless fights about the smallest things. But not with Risi. She was clean, almost obsessively so. Tidy to a fault. No dirty counters or bathroom meltdowns. Just silence. Steady, quiet, controlled.
Now, when she miscarried, she should’ve called the 999 emergency line once things felt wrong. I still don’t understand why she didn’t. I was probably unavailable as I may have been at work then or probably sleeping. That’s the other thing I do a lot here.
Anyway, the fetus came out. She wrapped it… and placed it in the freezer. Cleaned up. Carried on. For five months.
How did I find out?
Summer came. And the flies started gathering, buzzing around the kitchen, dancing above the freezer.
Now, in our flat, we had two freezers. One came with the flat, the other was one Risi picked up off the street—someone had left it out for collection. From the beginning, she made it clear that I wasn’t to use that one. Honestly, I didn’t argue. The thing was always packed—loaded with frozen soups, meat, food containers—there was never any need for me to even touch it.
Besides, the main freezer that came with the flat was big enough. Even when I cooked in bulk for the week—portioned and packed my lunchboxes for work—I still had more than enough space. So I respected the boundary and left hers alone.
Looking back, I should have been more curious. But she’d always been a private person, and I’d learned not to press. I knew she was struggling mentally—she didn’t go out like she used to, and barely spoke unless spoken to. I asked her a few times if she was alright, but I didn’t push it. We were housemates, not soulmates. I kept my head down and minded my business.
So when I say I didn’t know she’d lost a pregnancy—five months along—I mean it. I really didn’t.
With the flies, to be honest, at first I didn’t think much of it. I figured some food in her freezer had gone bad—maybe forgotten soup or leftover meat—and she just needed to empty it out, maybe give it a good clean.
But then days passed. Then weeks. The flies got worse. And it wasn’t just a few—there were swarms of them now, buzzing around the kitchen, always circling that one freezer. It became a real nuisance. A daily bother.
Eventually, I told her—calm but firm—that she needed to clean out whatever was rotting in there. The smell, the flies… it had to go.
She just looked at me. No words. Not even a shrug.
And after that, I started to worry—not just about the freezer, but about her. Something had shifted. She barely spoke, barely moved. She seemed like a stranger living in the same space. Something wasn’t right.
Then one day, maybe two weeks after our last exchange, she broke the silence.
“Promise you won’t freak out,” she said.
Immediately, I responded, “Ha! Don’t tell me not to freak out. What is it? What do you want to show me?”
She didn’t explain. She just walked over to the freezer, opened it, pushed aside layers of frozen food, and pulled out a tightly wrapped package.
“Meat?” I asked, already uneasy.
She shook her head.
“No. My baby.”
I ran. I didn’t wait for another word. I ran out of the flat and called 999 on the spot. This is the kind of country where you do not want the law to mistake your silence for guilt. I needed them to know—I had nothing to do with it.
The paramedics arrived. They asked her what had happened. She told them.
I refused to be listed as a witness. My immigration status wasn’t complete, and I wasn’t about to take chances. I kept my distance.
They asked her what she wanted to do with the fetus. She said she wanted to take it to Nigeria. By then, they seemed to understand she wasn’t well.
That’s when I learned—through bits of conversation I overheard—that she had been raped by her ex. The one involved in gangs. She got pregnant, possibly didn’t even realise it until it was far along. She never told anyone. No medical care, no support. And maybe, because of her mental state, the pregnancy ended on its own.
In the end, they had to section her. She wasn’t okay. Not by a long stretch.
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)