The Lifers' Club

by Francis Pryor

  * * *

  Back at the City Centre Police Station the officers in charge of the two parties sent to arrest Abdul, either at his house or at the AK Plant Hire depot, reported back to Lane. Alan was sitting in the corner of the room.

  ‘We arrived at the Plant Hire shop and found it packed. Loads of customers getting stuff for the weekend.’

  ‘Yes, that’s why we thought he’d be there,’ Lane replied, ‘it’s a busy time.’

  ‘Well he wasn’t. No sign of him anywhere.’

  Alan cleared his throat. The three policemen looked towards him.

  ‘I know he had a meeting yesterday evening. I think it was scheduled to go on till late.’

  To his relief, nobody asked why he knew so much about Abdul’s movements.

  ‘So you found him at home?’ Lane asked the second Inspector.

  ‘Yes, as I reported in, sir, we arrived at the house and the suspect’s wife opened the door. A WPC asked for immediate admittance.’

  ‘So no problems getting in?’

  ‘None. It was a complete surprise. I had two of the lads standing by to thump the front door, but they weren’t needed. We entered and found the suspect standing at the top of the stairs in his pyjamas. He’d been having breakfast in bed.’

  ‘So you read him his rights and arrested him?’ Lane asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. He’s in the cells now. But not next to the other Mr Kabul, as you requested.’

  Lane seemed satisfied at this.

  ‘Very good. They mustn’t talk to each other at all. Understood?’ They nodded. ‘I want them to stew in their own juice. That’ll be far more effective than any amount of questioning.’

  ‘The younger man is demanding to see his lawyer, sir.’

  ‘Tell the desk sergeant down there to turn a deaf ear.’

  ‘I already have, sir.’

  ‘Good man.’

  Listening to this exchange, Alan found he was growing increasingly irritated. What about Paul? Surely he too had attended the previous evening’s meeting? And if so, why wasn’t he around? To the police, on the other hand, Paul was a minor figure. For Lane, the Leicester force and probably even the Yard, the real out-and-out villains were still the Kabuls.

  But Alan was determined that Paul should be held to account. He had, at best, turned a blind eye to events. And must have played a part in arranging the financial agreement that bound PFC and the Kabuls so tightly together. At worst, Paul had disposed of the body for them. And then what? There was still the question of the modern bones to deal with. A question that seemed to have slipped Lane’s mind entirely.

  The two officers left the room.

  When the door had closed Alan approached Lane.

  ‘Did the people you sent over to Priory Farm find anything?’

  ‘They reported the house was locked up. Deserted.’

  ‘What about the hangar?’

  ‘The main double doors were locked shut; so they cut the padlock, and opened up. The entire place was in darkness. No light at all.’

  ‘Sounds like they were spooked…’

  ‘Yes,’ Lane replied, ‘I think they were. Anyhow, they had a look around and were convinced it was empty.’

  ‘So what are you planning now?’

  ‘At Priory Farm? Frankly it’s slipped down my agenda. Don’t forget, if that body is indeed young Sofia…’

  ‘And I’m in no doubt at all that it is.’

  ‘And you’re probably correct. If it is her, then the Flax Hole honour killing will have raised its ugly head again…’

  ‘The press will go mad,’ Alan added helpfully.

  ‘You don’t say. But yes, the shit will hit the fan. The tabloids will go ape. And I’ll be the person who has to deal with it all. So if you don’t mind, Alan, I’d better start making practical arrangements. I’ll need to sort out a press centre, speak to the Chief Constable and God knows what else.’

  ‘So Priory Farm must wait?’

  ‘I’ve no alternative, at least till Monday morning. But I’ve had a word with Lincolnshire Police. They’ve detailed a local patrol to check the place every three hours. That should be enough.’

  Alan said nothing, but he didn’t share his friend’s optimism. The more he thought about it, the more he felt Priory Farm was relentlessly moving up the agenda. For Alan, Flax Hole and the Kabuls was yesterday’s news. A sideshow.

  * * *

  Nobody had said a word to Mehmet or Abdul that the police had found Sofia’s remains. Lane reckoned they should be left to stew in solitary, until the Scene-of-Crime Team and the forensic archaeologist from Norfolk had exposed her body fully. Then her identity could be confirmed from dental records. They needed maximum impact. Maximum shock. Somehow they had to smash through the two Kabuls’ confident complacency.

  Later in the afternoon, Alan returned to Flax Hole and looked down at Ruth. She was a large woman, but she wielded a white plastic spatula with speed and extraordinary dexterity. She was carefully exposing Sofia’s leg bones. He hadn’t come across her work before, and he was keen to see if she was any good. They both wore masks and disposable white forensic overalls. Alan found it hard to look down at the girl’s body without feeling sick. It wasn’t that she had been cut up or abused in any way, but no effort had been made to give her any dignity in death. Her body lay twisted and tumbled, as if shoved out of a wheelbarrow.

  Any normal person – any family member – would have made some concessions to her humanity: maybe they’d have straightened her legs, or crossed her arms; they wouldn’t have left her sprawled out in that fashion. She looked less like a young woman than a rejected doll, tossed into a landfill site. This had to be Paul’s work.

  Alan felt his anger rising. He’d once been on an excavation of plague victims in the East End of London. Although the dead had been buried in a long mass cemetery, the bodies had been properly laid-out, with arms at their sides; all were carefully aligned east–west, as in a churchyard. Even though doing this might have cost the gravediggers their own lives, they couldn’t treat their fellow citizens like garbage.

  But Paul hadn’t bothered with such refinement. And why? Alan wondered. It was just part of his character. It wasn’t deliberate. He wasn’t attempting to smear her reputation. No, he was just self-centred and thoughtless. He couldn’t empathise in the smallest way with her, or with anyone else who might have the misfortune to stumble across her body. As Harriet had observed: he couldn’t connect. For him, the burial of Sofia’s body for Mehmet and Abdul was just a process of disposal. A business transaction. Another contract. There was nothing human, or humane, about it.

  ‘Oh,’ Alan said softly, as he looked down at Ruth’s meticulous handiwork, ‘that’s horrible. Beautifully excavated, don’t get me wrong, but bloody horrible. She’s been dumped there, like a piece of meat.’

  Then his eye was caught by a patch of damaged bone at the side of her skull. He pointed at it. ‘Is that where I caught her with my road-spike last night?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, looking up at him, ‘I’ve seen worse. At least you didn’t hit her a second time. Or with a mattock.’

  ‘It was pitch black and I was working more by feel than anything else. I sensed the bone go crunch and recognised what it was. The trouble is, we couldn’t pussyfoot around. I knew we had to get our evidence by the end of the night. But I’m still very sorry about that damage…’

  He meant it. He paused and leant forward, looking more closely.

  ‘You’ve done a fabulous job on her, Ruth. Bloody brilliant. Thanks for that.’

  She sat up and straightened her back, shaking her shoulders to relieve the tension.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘there was something I was meaning to ask you, Alan. The pit filling’s incredibly corrosive. Were you doing anything unusual with the wet sieves?’

  ‘Back in 2002
?’

  ‘Yes.’

  For a moment he couldn’t think what she meant. Then he remembered.

  ‘That’s right. We used hydrogen peroxide to help break down the clay. We knew it wouldn’t damage the flax fibres. We bought it in bulk from an industrial chemist just up the road. Horrid stuff, but it seemed to work. You don’t see it used much nowadays, do you?’

  ‘No,’ she replied, resuming her work. ‘Same old story: Health and Safety. But it explains the slow decomposition of the flesh. It acts as a general biocide.’

  * * *

  At around seven in the evening, Lane called Alan to see him. Ruth had phoned to say that the body and grave were now in a fit state to be viewed. It had been a long and meticulous excavation and she was exhausted. Meanwhile, Mehmet and Abdul were being driven to Flax Hole in separate cars. Lane had been at the mobile incident room all afternoon, fending off questions from the dozens of press and television crews that now surrounded the crime scene. Although he had tried at first, it had soon become impossible to keep the forensic excavation a secret. The simple fact that a police team was back at Flax Hole was more than enough for the local hacks, who had immediately put two and two together. By lunchtime the story had gone national and two large satellite dishes had already been erected on the top level of a multi-storey car park nearby.

  Although becoming used to the ways of the media from his work with History Hunters, Alan had never witnessed anything on this scale before. It was bedlam. A feeding-frenzy and some journalists would stop at nothing. They were everywhere, like hungry rats. It got even worse when the two Kabuls arrived. The two men were bundled out of their cars, their heads draped in blankets, and were guided behind the tall screens, that now shielded the temporary shelter over Ruth’s excavation.

  Once past the screens, an officer was about to lift Mehmet’s blanket, when Lane intervened.

  ‘Keep the blanket on till I give the order! I want this image to stick in their minds for the rest of their bloody lives.’

  The group had gone very quiet. They weren’t used to seeing their boss this angry.

  ‘OK,’ he continued in a more normal voice, ‘take them in and get the lighting set up. But don’t lift the blankets till I say so.’

  The two Kabuls, grandfather and grandson, were positioned on either side of the grave, each one handcuffed to two police officers. Lane looked across to Ruth.

  ‘Everything ready?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well,’ he announced, ‘I hope you two feel proud of this. Lift their blankets.’

  Abdul passed out cold and was caught by the officers restraining him. Mehmet started as if to bluster, but Sofia’s body was so grotesque that he fell to his knees, sobbing.

  Ruth handed Lane a finds tray, in which were arranged strands of hair and silk from her blouse and headscarf.

  ‘Do you recognise any of this?’ Lane’s voice was icy.

  Mehmet nodded his head.

  ‘Speak up, sir. I can’t hear you. I repeat, do you recognise it?’

  Inside the shelter there was complete silence, while outside the background noise was, if anything, louder. Then Mehmet whispered. It sounded like the voice of a young child:

  ‘Yes. It’s Sofia… My little Sofia…’

  * * *

  The press had a field day. Anyone wearing a police uniform in the area was fair game and would be pounced on by reporters. Realising the story was growing bigger by the minute, the Leicestershire police had brought in a frame tent, which they erected in the depot lorry park. This was where they were to launch a major press conference. The press release was short and to the point:

  For immediate release, dateline Sunday, June 13th. Sofia Kabul’s body has been identified by her brother and grandfather at the Flax Hole Depot, Leicester. She is known to have been murdered in a so-called ‘honour killing’, in February, 2002. Two men have been detained and are currently helping police with their enquiries. The police confidently expect that charges will be laid within 48 hours.

  Mehmet and Abdul had identified Sofia’s corpse shortly before eight in the evening, and the press conference was scheduled for an hour later. Walking back to the new incident room with Lane, Alan had hoped to discuss what he planned to do next, but it was impossible. The news media and police PR people had taken Lane over completely. He was on his radio and mobile phone continuously. It would appear that everyone, from the Home Secretary downwards, needed to speak to him urgently.

  They were climbing the steps into the incident room. Alan had at last managed to catch Lane’s attention and was about to speak to him, when the policeman’s phone rang again. It was the Chair of the Community Inter-Action Forum, known to the police as the CIA. She was a notorious political motormouth with a high opinion of herself and views on everyone and everything. Lane closed his eyes in exasperation, as the torrent of jargon began. He gave Alan a resigned look and shrugged his shoulders. Then he sat down heavily on a wooden bench just inside the door and sighed, as the shrill voice jabbered in his ear.

  At that, Alan shook his shoulder and signalled goodbye. Lane acknowledged and Alan stood up. No sooner was he down the steps, than he melted silently into the crowd. He knew that staying in Leicester would achieve nothing. And he was needed elsewhere.

  Thirty-seven

  The police station car park was jammed full. It took Alan nearly fifteen minutes to escape. The streets of Leicester were busy with people travelling towards the city centre for the bars and nightlife, but traffic began to thin out as he drove down the Uppingham Road and reached the suburbs. He was driving east, with the setting midsummer sun now low in his wing mirrors. He breathed a sigh of relief as he left the city behind, and headed out into the low hills of Rutland.

  It was starting to grow dark as he crossed the county line into Lincolnshire, and became aware that his mobile phone was beeping. Its batteries were going flat. He hadn’t yet had the time to go into town and buy a DC adaptor for his new Fourtrak; so he turned it off. The noise irritated him and he needed peace to think.

  About a mile from Priory Farm, he turned the headlights off. It was a lonely road and he knew he was unlikely to meet anyone. He slowly drove along a hedged track that led to a long-abandoned duck decoy pond, which the County Conservation Trust had made into a mini nature reserve. He pulled up in a stand of reeds and willow, and got out. He approached the hangar from the rear, using the cover of the overgrown hedge.

  Alan crossed the boundary fence and crept along the hedge on the east side of the hangar, until he came to the corner with the small door. It was almost as he’d left it on Friday afternoon. But slightly wider open. He examined it as closely as he could in the moonlight, but could see nothing. No time to worry. Probably wind, or a fox.

  It opened easily. Once inside, he pulled the door closed behind him and stood on the toilet bowl. He pulled himself through the open trapdoor in the ceiling. After lowering himself back to the ground, through the gap left by the plywood panel, he stood stock still, listening. He was now inside the main body of the hangar. It was absolutely pitch dark.

  He knew he’d been as quiet as possible, but there is nowhere on earth quite as echoing and soundless, as an empty hangar on a still night. He could see why so many are thought to be haunted by dead bomber crews. If anyone was out there, in that vast space between the two stacks of Portakabins, they’d have heard him come in by now.

  He’d have to move fast. He took a pair of thick socks from his pocket and pulled them over his boots to muffle his steps. Then he ran along the north wall, in the space behind the Reference Collections Portakabins. He eased himself through a narrow gap between two of them.

  He felt his way along the front of the Portakabins up to the door of the General Office. Froze. Listened. Nothing. He pulled the key from his jeans and silently turned it.

  He was about to step in, when he heard it: a sound fr
om the other side of the hangar. Maybe it was nothing: just something shifting in the gloom. But it could have been somebody coughing or sneezing into their sleeve. He was up the steps and pulled the door, behind him. Again he froze, listening intently through a crack by the door. Was that it again?

  It was.

  But it had moved. It was further to the right, this time.

  And there was another sound: something metallic. A gun being cocked?

  He thought about what he’d heard. There were certainly two, more likely three people. He was pretty sure he knew who they were. As he’d guessed, Paul had tipped them off. Silently he closed the General Office door and locked it.

  The Innovations Space was entered by a corridor from the back of the General Office. There was no other way in or out, apart from the side door he’d blocked the previous evening. As he walked along the corridor, he resisted the temptation to run. He had to be methodical. Panic was not an option.

  Once inside, he locked the door behind him. First he checked everything was still in place. Then he did it again, just to be sure. He stood for a moment, his eyes closed. He tilted his head forward while breathing deeply. Slowly and methodically he relaxed the muscles in his neck, then his arms, then his back, his thighs and legs. Deep breaths. He could feel his senses sharpen. A few more breaths. It was time for action.

  He pulled out his lighter and lit the candles he’d fixed to the central table and above the door. Next he crossed over to the fume cupboard and cut the wires to the extractor fan. He removed the emergency safety goggles from behind their reinforced glass screen and slung them around his neck. Then he released the valve on the carbon dioxide cylinder, opened the fume cupboard doors and carefully tied them back. The gas was hissing as it escaped and he moved a short distance away to avoid it. He paused and checked what he had done. At this stage he knew he couldn’t make any mistakes. He took a few more deep breaths, while consciously relaxing his muscles. Again he stood still and checked everything. All seemed in order.