by Iain Cameron
‘Did they socialise together?’
‘I don’t think so, he gave the impression the relationship wasn’t close, business acquaintances only.’
‘How does Cheema’s business look to you?’
‘Prosperous, I would say. All the women in the hall were busily hammering away on their sewing machines, loads of finished garments were sitting on rails and everyone seemed to be doing something.’
‘The detective in Kent I spoke to said hundreds of similar places exist. What do we know about this guy, Cheema?’
‘I’ve got that one, sir,’ Phil Bentley said.
‘Did you pull the accounts of his company?’
‘Yep?’
‘How do they look?’
‘In what way?’
‘I’ve been saying for a couple of weeks now, something doesn’t stack up about this business. Saunders’ wife reported him as being flush with money, and Nazari didn’t look to be short of a bob or two, driving around in a Porsche as he did. Now we can add the snappy dresser who runs the place.’
‘The profits do look modest. I pulled his accounts, VAT, Companies House records, and anything else I could think of. It’s a private company owned by Cheema and his wife, Nasreen. His daughter, Sadia, is the ‘S’ in S&H, the ‘H’ is his son, Hamid. Last year the business made a seventy-five-grand profit, the previous year, fifty.’
‘Turnover?
‘Half a million.’
‘Not exactly rolling in it, are they?’ Walters said.
‘It doesn’t look like it, but we’ll put the issue to one side for the moment as I don’t think we can resolve it today. What else have you got, Phil?’
‘Cheema lives in a very large house in the village of West Farleigh in Kent. If Google Maps is up to date, it has a swimming pool and tennis court.’
‘He didn’t look to me like he plays much tennis or swims,’ Wallop said. ‘He looks more like a man who lunches.’
‘It seems to me anyone connected to this company is rolling in money. Do we know if Cheema’s on the Met or a Kent Police watch list?’
‘I’ve done a quick search of the systems,’ Walters said, ‘and asked a few contacts, but I couldn’t find anything.’
‘Okay. Anything else, Phil?’
‘No, that’s it.’
‘Good work, you two. I’m beginning to think Cheema and S&H Oriental Fashions are at the heart of this case, but we need to know more. The only way we’re going to do that is probably with the testimony of an ex-employee, a search warrant or by putting them under surveillance. I don’t think we can progress any further with what we have.’
‘Aren’t the deaths of Saunders and Nazari,’ Walters said, ‘two men who both worked for Cheema and killed by the same gun, enough to get a search warrant?’
Henderson shook his head. ‘All we have is supposition. Nazari was a middle-man and dealt with hundreds of companies as well as S&H, and although I’m not convinced myself, the gun could have been rented or passed on to someone else. I agree with you, what we’ve found out so far is hard to ignore, but I think a good lawyer could ride a pack of wild horses through it.’
She acknowledged but didn’t look convinced.
‘Let’s move on,’ Henderson said. ‘Vicky, you were talking to Faisal Baqri, the young man who was the first person to be shot by the gun in question. What can you tell us?’
‘Faisal is nineteen and lives with his parents in Haringey. He was walking to Seven Sisters tube station on the way to college where’s he’s a drama student, when he was abducted and hooded. He was taken to a deserted warehouse, which he could only discern from the echo of the kidnappers’ voices. He was left there for a couple of hours before they came back and someone put a bullet through his thigh. Later, he was dumped outside Guy’s Hospital where he was treated.’
‘Curious. Has he recovered?’
‘Yes, he has, fully.’
‘I was wondering,’ Wallop said, ‘with him being a drama student, was he shot in the leg to give him a limp and bugger up his chances of becoming a professional actor?’
‘If that was their aim,’ Neal said, ‘they should have kneecapped him, as he walks fine as far as I could tell.’
‘What about motive?’ Henderson asked. ‘What did he say?’
‘According to the official police report, it was a case of mistaken identity. A local drug gang were pissed off when dealers from another area moved in on their patch. They thought Faisal was behind it.’
‘Was he?’
‘No way. He’s a nice young man from a good family. He says he’d never touch drugs.’
‘So the police report is right? It’s a case of mistaken identity?’
‘I could see when he was telling me the story his heart wasn’t in it, but despite the passing of almost five months since it happened, he wasn’t budging a word from the official line.’
‘What else could it be?’ Wallop asked. ‘He’s a drama student, for God’s sake.’
‘I don’t see how it could be anything to do with drugs,’ Neal said. ‘It’s against his religion, he said, and the lack of rebellious literature, music, or posters in his bedroom seemed to bear this out.’
‘If it was anything to do with drugs,’ Walters said, ‘and he was moving into someone else’s patch, they wouldn’t bother shooting him in the leg. They’d put a bullet in his head instead.’
‘You’re right, Carol, it doesn’t sound like drugs. Vicky, any idea for the real reason behind his abduction?’
‘Nope, and even Lisa, who was talking to his mum, couldn’t find out more.’
‘When it first happened,’ Newman said, ‘she thought it had to be the work of religious zealots, perhaps annoyed at his choice of college course, but she’d been told they wouldn’t use guns, but knives, or beat their enemies to death. She’s as perplexed as we are and accepts the mistaken identity story, but just so she doesn’t rock the boat. She’d like to move house and get away from the area, but the council are not being so accommodating.’
‘It’s annoying Baqri wasn’t more forthcoming,’ Wallop said. ‘Perhaps a car journey to Lewes and a spell in one of our interview rooms might succeed in loosening his tongue.’
‘It’s worth a try,’ Neal said.
‘I’ll think about it,’ Henderson said without much conviction. Baqri had no connection to Saunders or Nazari and this incident gave more credence to the rented gun theory. He looked down at his list of issues. One left.
‘Sally, you were trying to obtain the bank statements of Irene Jennings, Robert Saunders’ former wife. How did you get on?’
‘The bank sent me the information a few minutes before I came into this meeting, so I haven’t had a chance to look over it in any detail. One thing does stand out, though. Jennings receives, regular as clockwork every month, a payment of ten thousand pounds.’
‘What? And this for a woman who, as far as we know, isn’t working?’
‘It doesn’t look to be related to salary. I should be able to track down the identity of the sender once I can spend a bit of time on it.’
‘Good work. The plot gets thicker and thicker, but as yet I can’t see where this is going. As they say, if in doubt, follow the money.’
‘I think money is at the heart of this case,’ Walters said. ‘Saunders, Nazari, and Cheema are rolling in it and now, we find, so is Irene Jennings.’
‘The only one who isn’t rolling in it,’ Neal said, ‘is Faisal Baqri.’
‘He’s the exception to the rule in a number of ways,’ Henderson said. ‘He’s young, he received a wound in the leg and not a fatal shot, he isn’t rich like the other two, and he didn’t work in the textiles business.’
‘Maybe,’ Walters said, ‘Saunders and Nazari were shot for the same, or similar, reasons, and Baqri for something quite different.’
‘It certainly looks that way,’ Henderson said, ‘but until we know more, we’re speculating. Right, I think we’ve gone as far as we can take it this evening.
As I said earlier, I want you all to go off and have an early night. Before you do, Vicky, make a note to bring Irene Jennings in at the earliest opportunity, and likewise Sally, for you to follow up on those bank statements. See you all tomorrow.’
Henderson returned to his office and, mindful of his earlier advice and to set an example, began to pack up. He didn’t have a date with Claire this evening as this was her day for volunteering at a homeless shelter. It amused him to think of an eminent cardiac surgeon dishing out ladles of chicken soup, and as much as he admired her for doing it, he couldn’t see him joining her. If they ever found out he was a cop, they would refuse to eat and probably decamp to some other homeless shelter. Claire was sceptical on this point, but he didn’t want to prove it just to show her that he was right.
THIRTY-ONE
Irene Jennings arrived at the interview room in the company of a uniformed constable. Henderson decided not to meet her in Reception as he wanted to make her feel, in a small way, like a criminal. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but the money she received every month came from her former husband, Robert Saunders, and Henderson believed it had been obtained illegally.
If he remembered right, Robert Saunders was forty-seven, and if Jennings was of a similar age, looking at her now the years, or the surgeon’s knife, had been kind to her. She could pass for a woman ten years younger, making him wonder why Robert had gone off with Jasmine. She had a head of thick brown hair, a pretty face, fulsome lips, and teeth to make any dentist proud.
She and Saunders had two children, now adults according to Vicky Neal, and both still living at home. She hadn’t remarried, but she was living with a builder called Leyton Collins.
‘Thank you for coming in today, Ms Jennings.’
‘I didn’t have much bloody choice, did I? And it’s Irene, everybody calls me Irene.’
The accent was hard, carved from the mean streets of East London, but incongruous from such a pretty mouth.
Henderson chose his words carefully before he spoke. ‘We’re part of the team investigating the death of your former husband.’
‘I thought Surrey Police were dealing with it. I’ve already spoken to them.’
‘You’re right, they are, but I don’t know if you’re aware, the murder investigation teams of Surrey and Sussex are part of the same organisation.’
She gave him a sceptical look.
‘In addition, a separate investigation which we are undertaking may have connections with your former husband’s death.’
‘What separate investigation?’
‘I don’t want to get into it now, but suffice to say if we can solve the case we’re working on, it could help find the people who killed Robert.’
‘What I think you’re trying to say is the people who killed Rob have killed before.’
‘I said I didn’t want to get into a discussion about it, and I meant it,’ Henderson said. ‘Now, Ms Jennings, I mean Irene, talk to me about Robert.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘What sort of man was he?’
‘I’d still be married to him if it wasn’t for that gold-digger Jasmine getting her claws into him.’
‘Is this how you saw her, an opportunist?’
‘How else could I see her? She only turned up when he had money and pissed off when it was gone. She didn’t love him like I did, even though she said she did and fawned all over him like a new puppy whenever I saw them together.’
‘What about Robert, could he not see it?’
‘You know what they say, love is blind. Deaf and dumb as well, if you ask me. He was besotted with her, besotted with her big tits and legs going all the way up to her armpits. I put it down to a mid-life crisis, a man who thinks there has to be more than this. When a woman twenty years his junior appears and takes an interest, who wouldn’t take a chance? Any fool could see what was going on, but could he? If you think this is the bitter ex talking, maybe it is, but all my friends agree with me, and so did Rob’s.’
‘What was the attraction, do you think?’
‘Bloody obvious I would say.’
‘I meant, her to him.’
‘It wasn’t for his good humour and stunning looks, that’s for sure. Rob’s what you might call an acquired taste. I got it, but I’m sure she didn’t. It was the money she was after.’
‘What money is this?’
A guarded look passed over her face and her mouth clamped shut. She might not want to talk about it, but he did.
‘C’mon Irene, I want to find out who killed Robert just as much as you do.’
‘He’d been broke for a few years after a bout of unemployment. It shouldn’t have happened to him, he was good at what he did, but the haulage industry can be a cut-throat place and it was going through a bad time. When he got back into work, he was so happy to be earning, I suppose he kind of flashed the cash, maybe giving everyone the impression he was richer than he really was.’
‘Stop being coy, Irene. Admit it, he was rolling in it.’
‘In his mind, maybe–’
‘No, not only to him, to everyone else.’
‘I…I don’t know anything about it.’
‘Sure you do, but we’ll talk about it later. Tell me about Robert’s work.’
‘I told you, he’s a logistics guy, worked with haulage companies, making sure their lorries went out on time, there’s no wasted space on the containers, that kind of thing.’
‘What did he do for S&H Fashions?’
‘They spend a lot of money transporting textiles from the likes of India and Pakistan to the UK. It was a mess when Rob first joined, and he streamlined it and saved them a packet. They gave him a full-time job afterwards.’
‘How did he know Mr Cheema?’
‘Rob grew up in Haringey and so did Gohar. They were mates at school. The way Gohar tells it, Rob was the only one who stuck up for him when he was being bullied, even at the risk of being beaten up himself.’
‘I assume you’ve met Cheema? What’s he like?’
‘A good businessman, I would say. He built S&H up from nothing, from a lock-up, selling stuff on a market stall. We’d socialise with him and his wife, Nasreen, quite a lot when Rob and me were married; but never in pubs, as the Cheemas don’t drink. In restaurants, or at their house in Kent.’
‘Was the work at S&H satisfying enough for Robert? I mean, if he was previously used to working for companies with a fleet of say, twenty or thirty lorries. Was the challenge at S&H still there after he’d sorted out their transport problem?’
‘S&H is a bigger company than it looks, they have deliveries every day. They also export a lot of what they make back to Asia.’
Here again was the issue which for Henderson didn’t stack up. He didn’t know how many people bought saris or the other garments made from the textiles imported by Cheema, but he imagined it would be a cottage industry in the UK, with the bulk of goods being manufactured in places like India and Pakistan.
Henderson took a deep breath and ploughed on. ‘I put it to you, Irene, that Robert was engaged in importing something else along with the textiles, and you know all about it.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Rob was as straight as an arrow, he would never–’
‘Irene,’ Henderson said leaning forward. ‘You’re not levelling with me. I know something is going on, what is it?’
‘I’m here voluntarily, right?’ She stood and slung her bag over her shoulder. ‘I’ve said enough. I’m going home.’
‘Sit down, Irene. I’ve got something I’d like to show you.’
‘You’ve got nothing. Don’t you know I can tell when you guys are fishing?’
Henderson pulled a sheaf of papers from the file he had in front of him: bank statements, the Barclays logo prominent.
‘Sit down, Irene. I want you to take a look at this.’
With some reluctance, she sat down, but the bag remained on her shoulder. Her body position was tense, ready to flee.
&nbs
p; He pushed the papers closer for her to see.
She looked down, her nervous, irritated face gradually taking on a look of shock. ‘Where did you get these?’ she said, open mouthed. ‘They’re mine, what are you doing with my fucking bank statements?’
‘I know they’re yours. Would you like to explain to me why you’re so well-off?’
‘I’m saying nothing. I want a lawyer.’
Her hands were shaking and rubbing together as if over the sink and lathering soap. He reached out and put his hand over hers, trying to still her agitation.
‘Irene, I know these payments, in particular the ten grand a month, came from your ex-husband. Now, I don’t wish to know why a former love still feels the need to send you money, although I don’t think it’s maintenance, given you have two grown-up kids, but what I’d like to know is how he could afford it.’
‘I don’t know and that’s the honest answer.’
Henderson removed his hand from hers and leaned back in his seat. ‘You don’t expect me to believe that, do you? Your ex-husband gives you ten grand a month, one hundred and twenty thousand pounds a year, a salary many traders in the City of London don’t even make, and you don’t question it? The odd fifty, or two hundred now and again, I could understand, because he’d had some luck at the bookies or something, but not ten grand. For the last few months, he wasn’t even working.’
‘What can I say, Rob was always a giving person. It’s his soft spot, especially where Jasmine was concerned, a weakness she exploited, I might add.’
‘Did you never ask him about it?’
‘No, I–’
‘Irene, I’ve heard enough of your excuses. I know you must have discussed it with him. What did he say? The job was paying better than expected? He gets paid a large bonus at the end of every month? He found a bag full of cash? C’mon, he must have said something.’
‘He said he did some special work for Gohar and it paid well.’
‘Ah, now I think we’re getting somewhere.’
