Out of the Ashes

by Vicky Newham

  I left the Portakabin with my mind racing.

  As I stood facing the debris from the fire, I developed a creeping feeling that someone was watching me from behind. Just as I wheeled round, a net curtain dropped into place in one of the windows above Rosa’s shop, and a light was clearly on in the room beyond. Then a hand drew both curtains. That was strange. Burglars didn’t tend to put lights on if they could be seen through net curtains. And if Rosa had gone to Agnieszka’s, who was in the flat above the shop?

  Maya, 1.30 p.m.

  ‘She’s not at Tomasz’s either?’ I was on the phone to Rosa’s daughter. ‘I think I know where she is in that case.’ I told Agnieszka about the light I’d seen in her mother’s flat. ‘I’ll give her a quick knock and make sure she’s OK.’

  When Rosa appeared at the shop door a few minutes later, she was back in her own clothes and had managed a thin smear of lipstick. ‘Oh, hello, Inspector.’

  ‘For some reason you don’t seem surprised to see me,’ I said, teasing her.

  ‘I know they mean well but I don’t need nurse-maiding. I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.’ Her tone was triumphant. ‘That’s if my daughter doesn’t arrive in a few minutes and cart me off. I’m guessing you told her I was here?’

  ‘I saw the light on and had to call her to ask if you were there. Everything alright up there?’

  ‘Perfectly, thank you.’

  Her determination made me chuckle. ‘You take care now. OK?’

  I was soon on Ben Jonson Road, heading back to the office. The traffic was at a standstill while a bulldozer and a bus tried to pass each other in a narrow street with cars parked on either side.

  My phone rang. I switched the loudspeaker on. ‘Hi, Doc. What’s the news from the lab?’

  ‘As we suspected, both bodies were badly burned. I’ve taken dental samples and sent the woman’s for fast-track analysis. If she has records, those should enable an ID. The forensic scientists aren’t sure if they’ll be able to extract enough DNA strands from the samples I took. She had a lean frame and there’s very little tissue on her bones. We’ll have to keep our fingers crossed. It might just be family details, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s fine. It’s more than we have currently.’

  ‘Righto.’

  ‘Someone must be missing her and know where she lives.’ I heard the frustration in my voice. ‘We can use reconstructive identity when we’ve got more facial details. Until then it’s fingers crossed the forensic odontology and DNA analysis turn something up.’

  *

  Ten minutes later I arrived back at the office. There was a buzz of activity in the incident room.

  Alexej met me at the boards, waving a print-out. ‘We’ve got a match on one of the sets of prints from the speakers at the flash mob. Guy called Kenny Hayes. Last known address was in Manchester. Before that, he was in Scotland. Currently no fixed abode, and heavily involved with Class A.’ He paused. ‘There were other prints but the CSIs don’t have a match for them.’

  Dan joined us. ‘Is he a dealer?’

  ‘Big-time. At one point the police knew he was dealing but he was clever enough not to sell directly himself, and they couldn’t catch him.’ Alexej was in full flow. ‘Had an army of worker bees who did his dirty work for him. Most of them were illegal immigrants and asylum seekers who were desperate for money while their applications and appeals were going through.’

  ‘What a scumbag. So, this is what Jackie was talking about. Any idea how he’s involved in the flash mob?’ I felt a rush of blood to my head. ‘Those cases in Glasgow and Manchester. What if this is what Kenny Hayes is up to?’

  ‘I checked his record,’ Alexej continued. ‘He’s a nasty piece of work. Possession of Class A. Several arrests for physical violence: common assault, assault on a prison officer, assault on a constable in the execution of his duty, ABH and GBH.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s what Jackie said – he’s involved with social action around anti-gentrification as a front for criminality? You got a mugshot?’

  Alexej turned his monitor round so we could see.

  ‘Check out the scar beside his eye.’ Dan pointed at the screen. ‘Much closer and he’d have been screwed. Doesn’t do much for his looks, does it?’

  It was a face that would give anyone nightmares.

  ‘I’ve distributed his photograph.’ Alexej showed us the range of shots. ‘He’s pretty adept at changing his appearance, but we’ll get him. He can’t alter his height or his DNA.’

  ‘Any links with LfA?’

  ‘Not so far.’

  ‘This is good timing, actually,’ I said. ‘I’ve asked Shen to set up a press conference. We can appeal to the public for information on Hayes too.’

  Alexej was still at his computer. ‘I’ve set up google alerts for all flash mobs in the UK, and have set up a dummy account on the LfA forum. I’m about to log in. D’you want to have a look?’

  I checked my watch. ‘Sure.’ I pulled out a chair and folded down onto it. Leaned over to see the screen.

  Alexej keyed in the username he’d created, ‘LP5’, and had a click round the site. It used an old-fashioned, basic template, and was hosted with a cheap company in Canada. There were large blocks of plain colour and text, interspersed with a few generic skyline images. The menu was a string of topics to click on. ‘There’s no mission statement, no biographical information about key people.’ He looked at me. ‘The technicians are checking who the website is registered to.’

  ‘Very clever. The lack of biographical information makes it harder to find out who’s behind the site.’

  Alexej signed into the forum. In LP5’s profile, several unopened envelopes indicated that we had correspondence. He clicked on the ‘welcome’ message and scrolled down to site rules.

  ‘Look.’ Alexej highlighted the text. ‘No mention of age.’

  Another message asked us to sign up to a newsletter, and to enter an email address and mobile phone number.

  ‘I can’t believe people are willingly giving out this information.’ He was shaking his head.

  Two messages were greetings from other users, and one was a reply to a message that Alexej had sent, asking about forthcoming flash mobs in London. It was from a user called ‘s10s’ and simply said: ‘yes very soon watch forum.’

  From there, Alexej clicked through some of the discussion threads. A week before the fire, ‘Frazer’ had posted a notification of a flash mob gathering in Brick Lane. It gave the date of the event and stated ‘afternoon’. Ali had mentioned some brief information about anti-gentrification. However, no details about the protest’s aims were given, just a prompt to enter your contract details in another box. It was probably sent out via the follow-up once people had registered interest. It was the foot-in-the-door technique of asking for increasing commitment.

  ‘Sign up. See what happens.’

  Alexej clicked on the link.

  Too late, comrades!

  Watch and listen

  We need u

  ‘That’s interesting.’ I turned to Dan. ‘It looks basic but they’ve got it plugged into dates and times.’

  A scan through some of the other discussion threads revealed three interesting facts. There were no posts from ‘Frazer’ since the day of the flash mob and fire. Ali and Sophie Williams were regular forum users. There was one new post:

  s10s: who’s got stereo from 5/4 it’s mine

  user9: feds

  ‘Post a reply. Say you have the stereo.’

  Alexej typed:

  ‘It aint wiv feds i have it safe message me bro.’

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘These forums are the contemporary equivalent of back-room meetings. They’re the perfect breeding ground for criminal activities. User-names are nonsense. Most people have non-human avatars.’

  ‘Yes. It’s always possible to exchange information if people want to badly enough.’ Alexej faced me. ‘It looks anonymous and a lot of these people think they can�
�t be traced. But every click can be monitored. And if they’re targeting kids, it could be mine one day.’ He pointed at the photograph frame on his desk of his wife and two children. ‘I intend to make sure that doesn’t happen.’

  Alexej’s computer dinged.

  ‘Here we go,’ he said, ‘s10s has just posted. There’s another flash mob in London a week from today.’ He clicked into the ‘sign up here’ screen and entered the details for our dummy account, including the Gmail address and mobile phone number that Alexej had set up. Immediately, his Gmail account issued a message notification. ‘Bingo.’

  ‘Let’s make our voices heard. Working class areas of London are becoming the domain of the privileged. Join next week’s protest. Let’s bring dance to the streets of Limehouse and show the men in suits, the non-dom wankers and oligarchs that London doesn’t belong to them. We don’t want plush apartments, gastro-pubs and mindfulness classes. We want libraries, community centres and proper pubs. Most importantly, we want affordable housing.’

  Underneath the post, there was a question.

  mac: was last one invlvd with fire?

  Alexej quickly screenshot mac’s question in case it got deleted, and clicked on the user’s profile. The forum offered the option to send private messages. Alexej typed one to mac: ‘u go to that one m8? proper scary.’

  ‘That’s enough for today.’ He logged out. ‘The analysts will be monitoring the forum. Too much activity looks suspicious.’

  I checked the office clock. The press conference was in twenty minutes. I needed to decide how to phrase things to get the public on board.

  Dan, 2.30 p.m.

  Dan switched on the plasma screen in the office. ‘Here we go, team. Grab your popcorn. She’s on.’

  ‘ . . . am Suzanne Innes from the BBC,’ said the smiley reporter, ‘and we are live from Limehouse Police Station where there are developments on the recent arson investigation in East London. I’m here with Detective Inspector Maya Rahman from the Metropolitan Police who is about to release a statement.’

  ‘Thanks, Suzanne,’ Maya said. ‘Yes, we have some worrying developments and urgently need the public’s help with these.’ Maya looked straight into the camera. ‘Yesterday’s fire in Brick Lane was caused deliberately, and resulted in the death of two members of our community. This is now a double murder investigation. It is vital that we speak to anyone who has information about who might be responsible, but hasn’t yet come forward. I would also like to appeal again to anyone who captured video footage of the flash mob or the arson attack. If that’s you, please get in touch.’ The screen displayed the contact details for the incident room. ‘We also need to speak to anyone who has recently been approached about joining local protests or flash mobs, either online or at local youth clubs and community centres. We know that people have been offered masks with logos like these.’

  The screen showed a computer artist’s representation of the black masks with the LfA logo.

  ‘It’s important to stress that some of these protests are made to sound innocent and fun, but we strongly suspect that some of them are a front for very serious crimes, and we need your help to keep you and your children safe.’ Maya paused. ‘We wish to speak to this man in connection with the arson and need help with finding him.’

  At the bottom of the screen, portrait and profile shots of Kenny Hayes appeared.

  ‘Kenny Hayes is British, approximately forty years old, six feet three, thin build, and has a distinctive tattoo on his neck. Mr Hayes’ last known address was in Manchester and he has connections in Scotland. He has a string of convictions and arrests for violent offences and is believed to be extremely dangerous. We are appealing to the public for information as we strongly suspect he is involving children as young as ten in serious criminal offences.’

  The screen showed a bullet point summary of the key request areas and the segment closed with the police contact numbers.

  ‘Nice one,’ Dan said, and rubbed his hands together. Maya wasn’t the sort to give up easily and he respected that. ‘Let’s hope those phones start ringing.’

  Dan, 3 p.m.

  It was early afternoon when Dan and Maya arrived in Limehouse to speak to Ali.

  ‘Rima’s either here or on her way.’ Dan checked the time on his phone. ‘It certainly makes me suspicious that Sophie Williams contradicted Ali’s account of when he arrived. Shall we knock? Maybe Rima’s gone in.’

  A stocky, middle-aged man opened the front door of the Georgian house, and Vivaldi bounced into pretty York Square. Concern shot over the man’s face when he saw Dan and Maya, and he held the door close to his body.

  ‘G’day, Sir. I’m Detective Maguire. This is DI Rahman. Sorry to knock you up like this . . . ’ Dan smelled cooking. ‘We’re looking for Ali Kousa. Are you his—?’

  ‘Who?’ His accent was English. As he frowned, his round spectacles bobbed down and then up again.

  ‘Ali Kousa. He’s a ten-year-old Syrian boy. Gave this as his address. Said he lived here with his brother, Riad.’ Dan double checked the house number. ‘Twenty-eight, York Square?’

  ‘That’s us. There are no children here though.’ The man was shaking his head. ‘I think you’ve been run up the garden path, Detective. It’s just my wife and I here. She’s in the kitchen. We’re a bit late having lunch today. You’re welcome to come in and look around, if you want to check.’ He stepped back and motioned for them to enter. ‘Darling?’ he yelled over his shoulder. ‘The police are here.’

  Maya, 3.30 p.m.

  Having found no Ali to interview at the address he’d given us, Dan and I reached Rosa’s newsagent’s sooner than expected.

  Agnieszka opened the flat door in tracksuit bottoms and a baggy jumper. ‘Come in.’ A smile warmed her features. ‘Mum’s upstairs. I’ve just put the baby down.’ She spoke over her shoulder in Polish to her children before returning her attention to us. ‘I’ve taken the day off to make sure she’s OK. I’m still trying to persuade her to come back to ours.’ She led us upstairs into the lounge.

  Rosa looked ten years younger. Colour had returned to her cheeks, she’d stopped coughing and was more perky. She was installed on a worn but cosy-looking sofa, surrounded by her family. She had one granddaughter beside her and another on the floor by her feet. Photographs covered the carpet. Mainly black and white. Tatty, dog-eared and time-bleached.

  ‘OK, you two, I’d like you out of your school uniforms, please,’ Agnieszka stated firmly in their direction. ‘Come in. Have a seat,’ she said to Dan and I. ‘The girls have just got home from school and Mum’s showing them some of the pictures of when she and her parents came to live in London.’ She stopped and smiled. ‘None of us have seen them in ages.’

  ‘How are you, Mrs Feldman?’ I asked.

  ‘You got me into trouble, you know,’ Dan added. ‘Going walkabout like that.’

  Her expression lifted, and a guilty grin spread over her features. ‘Sorry about that, Sergeant. I rather thought I was due for a telling off. I got halfway to East Ham and realised I wanted to come home. Much as I love my daughter and grandchildren, my life is here.’

  Agnieszka looked at me and gave a gentle roll of her eyes. She was tidying toys away and had her back to her mother. ‘There’s always room for you with us, Mum,’ she said, in the sort of affectionate, sing-song-y way that suggested they’d had this conversation a few times already. ‘I keep telling you.’

  ‘I was showing the girls the photographs of the soup kitchen in Brune Street,’ Agnieszka said. She held the image out to me. ‘Four days a week they would give soup, bread, margarine and sardines. No questions asked. At one point, they had over four thousand people pass through the doors, according to Mum.’

  What she said made me feel sad. It was often hard to look back on times gone by, especially when you’d lost people. Even if those times weren’t good, hindsight seemed to weave a rosy glow round the memories, making them seem as if they were somehow better. Particularly if the p
resent was unsatisfactory; if it was haunted with ghosts and memories, the past could be such a cruel tormenter.

  I took the black-and-white image from Rosa’s daughter. The old red brick building seemed so solid and proud. On its steps, people were queuing, thin as coat hangers inside their threadbare clothes, their skin stretched tight with hunger and desperation over protruding cheekbones.

  ‘Neska says the soup kitchen has been sold now. Converted into luxury flats. How much did you say, love?’

  ‘There was a one-bedroom penthouse apartment for sale on Rightmove for one and a half million pounds. No garden, no parking. It’s gone now. Sold. Snapped up no doubt by someone with more money than sense.’

  Rosa was tutting irritatedly. ‘It’s wrong. That’s what it is.’ She took her spectacles off and tucked them into a case. ‘That building was enormous. Several floors. The equivalent of two or three shops in width. Imagine how much profit they must’ve made from that development.’

  ‘So much has changed.’ Agnieszka looked wistful. ‘Makes me furious. I grew up in this flat, but Olaf and I can’t afford to live in Tower Hamlets.’ She closed the living room door behind the children. ‘It’s people like Mum I’m worried about. People who have lived in Brick Lane for years.’ She paused, seemed to think about what she wanted to say. ‘Why don’t you let them have the shop, Mum? Buy somewhere near us and make a new life for yourself?’

  Rosa sighed.

  ‘They keep pressuring you to leave. Why not give them what they want? It would make your life so much easier. Or take Tomasz’s help.’

  ‘Your father would turn in his grave. I can’t let those opportunist whatsits cash in on this place. Your father’s parents ran the shop before we took it over. It’s part of our family history. I feel like I’d be letting them all down. They fought so hard for the place.’

  Agnieszka fidgeted and sighed as she picked up the array of photos which covered the floor. She passed me one. ‘Look. That’s the four of us. Mum, Dad, Tomasz and I. Opposite the newsagent’s, in the Jewish bakery. We loved their bagels.’