The man turned and looked over his shoulder as someone else entered the room.
“DI Yates, we’ve found Margie.”
Tim nodded. He, too, approached the bed. The armed policeman stood up. Tim took Margie’s hand.
“Are you hurt?” he said.
“Yes. I can’t move my legs.”
“There’s an ambulance waiting outside. I’ll ask the paramedics to come in right away. You’re safe, Margie, you’re safe. Everything’s going to be ok.”
Tim grimaced inwardly as he tried to comfort her with what to his own ears sounded like hollow platitudes. Of course he was glad that they’d found Margie alive, but God knew what horrible injuries she had suffered. Even if her physical condition was not as bad as it looked, the mental scars she bore would probably never heal.
Tim himself had just sustained a raw mental wound that he knew could not be healed. As long as he lived, he would never be able to forget seeing the poor broken body of Ayesha Verma as it lay sprawled on the bed in a room identical to the one from which Margie Pocklington was about to be rescued.
Chapter 76
Bahir Verma led Juliet and Verity Tandy into his sitting-room. Juliet had asked Verity to accompany her because Tim would now be delayed in London while he and Derry established as accurately as they could what had been going on at the Caspiania Hotel.
“How is your wife, Mr Verma?” Juliet asked.
“Anni is still not well. She needs some good news about Ayesha. But I can see from your face that you have not brought any.”
“No,” said Juliet, casting down her eyes. “Mr Verma, would you like me to ask anyone to sit with you? A neighbour, say? I’m afraid I do have some very bad news.”
He shrugged. “If you say you have very bad news, that leads me to expect the worst. Is Ayesha dead? If so, it is not possible for a neighbour to offer me any comfort. But please tell me your news. It is a torture to be kept waiting.”
“I’m sorry. Police in London have discovered the body of a young woman who fits Ayesha’s description. DI Yates was present when she was found and, although he never met Ayesha, he is satisfied from photographs that the body is hers. She will have to be formally identified, of course. Preferably by you or Mrs Verma.”
“I will do it. It is out of the question to ask Anni. Where did you find the body? Had she been dumped somewhere?”
“She was being held against her will by a gang in London. At a hotel for private clients. She died there.”
“Why did they want Ayesha? What could she possibly have done to them?”
“There’s a great deal we don’t know at the moment, Mr Verma, but it seems the hotel was being used as a cover for . . . deviant practices.”
“Do you mean they tried to turn her into a prostitute? Was she killed in a struggle trying to resist?”
“I really don’t know, Mr Verma. If I had more information I would give it to you.”
Maintaining his dignity, Bahir Verma wiped away a tear.
“I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but how soon might you be able to go to London to identify her? We’ll take you in a police car, of course. Will someone be able to look after your wife and the children while you’re gone?”
“I’m sure the neighbours will be falling over themselves to help, when they find out that I didn’t murder her.” It was the first time Juliet had heard Bahir Verma allow bitterness to creep into his voice. “May I ask you a question?” he continued.
“Of course.”
“If DI Yates hadn’t decided so soon that Ayesha was probably the victim of her own family and that, absurdly, I’d had some idea of killing her ‘for honour’, do you think she might have been found earlier, while she was still alive?”
His question smote Juliet’s heart. She swallowed while she considered her reply.
“That was only one line of enquiry, Mr Verma. I assure you that we pursued others. And although the police in London knew of the gang that kidnapped her, they had no idea that Ayesha had become one of their victims.”
“How did you find out, then?”
“It was a tip-off,” said Juliet. “One of the crooks who’d been working with them had second thoughts.”
Chapter 77
It is Monday morning. Tim is coming home at last. It is actually only a week since he left on the journey to King’s Cross and stayed the night with Freya, but it seems like an eternity. Giash Chakrabati has been sent by Superintendent Thornton to pick him up from the station. Showing unusual tact and consideration, the Superintendent has suggested he might like to come home for a couple of hours before returning to the police station for a debriefing.
Mrs Sims is looking after Sophia, as planned, but I haven’t left for work myself. Instead I am waiting for Tim, standing at the hall window so that I can see the car when it appears. I open the front door as Tim is saying goodbye to Giash and walk out to meet him. He enfolds me in an embrace. I don’t try to resist.
“Come inside, Tim,” I say. “You look absolutely bushed.”
He is very pale and doesn’t smile. We go into the house and he sinks down on to the sofa as if he has no energy left.
“Where’s Sophia?” he says.
“At Mrs Sims’. I’m supposed to be at work today.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry. Even the Superintendent expected you to want to see me first. Tell me about Margie.”
“When we found her she’d been sexually assaulted in a particularly horrible way. Damaged internally. From what I can gather, the Khans ran a sex business that catered for the perversions of very rich clients. The girls were subjected to greater and greater acts of violence. Only Ayesha Verma’s body and Margie were there when we busted them, but Derry is certain he’ll be able to link other mispers to the Khans now. There have probably been other deaths. Or some of the women may have been released once they’d served their purpose and told to keep their mouths shut. If so, maybe they’ll be brave enough to contact us when they find we’ve arrested Jas Khan and one of his brothers and the woman called Moura who acted as his Madam. Unfortunately, we haven’t got the third brother yet. He’s rumoured to be travelling in Eastern Europe, which may make catching him difficult. We have arrested the man who was abusing Margie. Unlike most of the Khans’ clients, he was British. A wealthy businessman, no-one I’d heard of.”
“Will Margie be all right?”
“She’ll need an operation. She’s in University College Hospital. The surgeon in charge of her thinks she can make a complete recovery, physically at least. Let’s hope the experience doesn’t turn her into a basket case.”
“What will happen to her when she comes out of hospital?”
“I don’t know. Nancy Chappell has suggested that she sets up a crowdfunding website for Margie. Apparently she’s done this for other victims of sex crimes in the past and it’s turned out quite successful. The idea is to collect enough money for her to go to university next year. She won’t be well enough when the first semester begins this year.”
“She can’t go back to that mother of hers. And her father doesn’t want her.”
“I suppose social services will sort something out. Katrin, I need to talk to you about what happened when I was in London.”
I look at Tim. He wears the most wretched expression I’ve ever seen on him.
“I think we have quite a lot of talking to do, but not about when you were in London. I bumped into Patti when I was helping Juliet and she told me what happened the night you spent in her room. I believe her. I just can’t understand how you managed to be so stupid as to get yourself into that situation and, having got into it, why you couldn’t just explain it to me in a straightforward way.”
Tim holds out both hands in a gesture of helplessness.
“Believe me, I’ve been thinking about that myself. I’m sure it was s
omething to do with the malaria tablets. Patti told me they could have strange effects, including hallucinations.”
“Hallucinations? You didn’t tell me about those.”
“No. I didn’t tell anyone. Freya was so determined to get at me that I decided no-one would understand. But the reason I was late back to hers last Monday was that somehow I managed to take a train to Ilford. I was walking down a street called Belgrave Road and I saw the shadow of a woman’s corpse swinging in one of the windows of a house there.”
“What made you go to Ilford?”
“I’m coming to that. The next day my computer seemed to go berserk. I saw vivid colours bleeding into each other. And I dreamt some horrible dreams of violent acts that I couldn’t have imagined before.”
“Sounds like a premonition rather than a hallucination.”
“You mean the Khans and their vile business? I hadn’t thought of that.” Tim pauses. “I guess you may be right. But I think I’ve got to the bottom of the Ilford thing. There was a girl sitting near me on the train to London reading one of those true crime magazines. I’d forgotten about it until I saw the magazine again in a newsagent’s at Gatwick. There was a silhouette of a woman being hanged on the cover, just like the one I saw in the window. Apparently someone called Edith Thompson lived in Belgrave Road in the 1920s. She was convicted of the murder of her husband and hanged.”
I’m dubious.
“Do you really think you could store all that in your subconscious?”
“Not normally. As I said, I think it was the effect of the pills.”
“If you say so. Coming back to Margie . . .”
Tim looks up sharply.
“You’re about to ask me something, aren’t you?”
“I think I deserve a couple of favours from you.” I say it as lightly as possible, but I know there is a tautness in my voice and I know Tim hears it, too.
“She came here the night before she vanished. She asked me if she could come to work as our nanny so that she could save for university.”
“Why do you want a nanny? Aren’t you happy with the arrangement with Mrs Sims?”
“Yes, but it was mainly Margie who was looking after Sophia. And I think Sophia’s too young to go out of the house every day, whereas . . .”
“Whereas?”
“If she was being cared for at home, I could go back to work full time.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
“If you agree, I think it is. I’ve enjoyed the last few days at work so much. I’m just not cut out for staying at home.”
“You know what I think about people who employ servants. Besides, even with you working full-time, we probably can’t afford it.”
“She wouldn’t be a servant. We could ask her to consider working on an au pair’s contract. She’d have fewer duties than a proper nanny – we’d just ask her to mind Sophia, not do any housework or laundry. If the crowdfunding project is a success, she’d still have the money for university. We might be able to contribute a bit to it, too. And she’d be a lot happier with us than staying with either of her parents.”
“Won’t you mind having someone else living with us all the time?”
“It’d only be for a year. I think we could cope with that.”
“She’d have to take the spare room. What would we do when we have visitors?”
I laugh.
“You mean, Nancy Chappell wouldn’t be able to come here on spec?”
For the first time since he walked through the door, Tim laughs, too.
“Neither would Freya! Come to think of it, that could be quite an advantage.”
“So you’ll give it a go?”
“If she still wants to do it when she comes out of hospital. You’ll have to ask her.”
The phone starts ringing before I can say anything else.
“Superintendent Thornton. Good morning. I’ll be with you in an hour.”
“Put him on speak,” I mouth at Tim. The Superintendent’s voice comes booming out, ebullient, as if he’s feeling pleased with himself.
“Take your time, Yates. No need to hurry. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been thinking about the DS’s job.”
“Oh yes?” Tim says, not quite sounding neutral.
“Yes. And my thoughts are that it wouldn’t do any harm to have a bit of new blood injected into the force. Someone with a different outlook from the rest of us. What would you say if we asked Nancy Chappell if she’s interested in applying?”
Chapter 78
Tim knew that he’d agreed to take Margie Pocklington into his home as an act of contrition, to try to atone for the death of Ayesha Verma. He also knew that neither this nor any other good deed could soothe his profound sense of guilt.
Chapter 79
Peter Prance, emerging from the cheap boarding house he’d found in Lille, decided he would splash out on an English newspaper and bought the international edition of The Times. When he saw that Jas Khan had been taken into custody, his delight knew no bounds. Virtue could be rewarded, after all, even if it was rooted in dishonour.
Acknowledgements
It’s difficult to express how much I owe to Chris and Jen Hamilton-Emery for their unbounded enthusiasm for and faith in the DI Yates novels, and also to Chris for the beautiful jacket and distinguished typesetting that have become the hallmark of my and indeed all Salt novels. I’d also like to thank the other members of the wonderful new Salt team: Hannah Corbett, whose inspired PR is second to none; Adrian Weston, who works tirelessly to sell the rights; and Medwyn Hughes and Julian Ball, of PGUK, and their amazing representatives who work with booksellers right across the UK to get the books into the shops.
As always, the novels would be as nothing without the readers, and from the bottom of my heart I’d like to thank all of you, including those whom I’ve actually met, those of you who have taken the trouble to ‘meet’ me or review my books on my blog or through social networks and everyone who has bought or borrowed my books to read. You are a constant source of inspiration to me.
There are many other people whom I ought to thank here, but as much as I’d like to it’s impossible to mention everyone. I feel I must especially single out four friends, all of whom have provided unstinting support and hospitality when I’ve been out promoting the books: Sally, who has always been a staunch supporter and whose house I’ve taken the liberty to ‘borrow’ for Freya; Madelaine and Marc, who are my chief champions in Lincolnshire; and Pamela and Robert, who as well as believing in the books have provided unrepayable moral and practical support in what began as a very difficult year. Once again, I’d like to record my appreciation for the talented Alison Cassels at Wakefield One and her generous and lively reading groups and for Sam Buckley and her reading groups at Bookmark in Spalding, who have followed DI Yates from ‘birth’. I’d also like to include Tim Walker and Jenny Pugh, of Walkers Bookshops in Stamford, and Charlie, the events manager at Waterstones Covent Garden. Finally, I must mention Harry, a young man whom I met at Charlie’s event at Covent Garden, whose high praise for The Crossing and subsequent impatience to read all past and future DI Yates novels exceeded all the accolades I could ever have hoped for.
My inimitable family continues to make its unique contribution. Once again, James and Annika have worked meticulously through the final draft, picking up grammatical inaccuracies and other minor inconsistencies with hawk-like precision. Emma has taught me afresh the power of language and how words may be discovered and combined in new ways by each succeeding generation. Chris has yet to read Rooted in Dishonour, but when he does I’m certain will pronounce judgement with his usual pithy and succinct charm.
My very sincere thanks to you all.
Christina James
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