“So how is the new job going?,” Sumita said. Using Mumtaz’s best cutlery she began to lay the kitchen table.
“OK.”
“So how is it being some sort of detective now. Does that mean that you have to follow people around?”
Mumtaz smiled. “Sometimes.” On Monday morning she’d have to walk along with all the other mothers to Anjali Butt’s school in Plaistow, watching.
“Mmm.”
Her mother clearly didn’t approve. Wandering about looking into people’s private business was hardly a dignified thing for a Muslim lady to do.
Mumtaz left the cooker and went over to her mother and hugged her. “Amma, I have to make a living. For Shazia and for me.”
Sumita pushed her away. “The girl’s own family should take her,” she said. “Then you could sell this house and come home.”
“Amma, we’ve had this conversation!” Mumtaz, angry, walked away and stood over by the kitchen window. All but one of Fatima Hakim’s immediate relatives were dead. Her brother, Faraj, worked in America. Ahmed’s mother paid for Shazia’s education but nothing else. Mumtaz had been through all that.
“I’m not selling the house, Amma. Not until I have to.” That wasn’t too far away but it was all she had, all that terrible man had left her. She deserved it—if she could hang onto it. Shazia deserved it too.
Sumita shrugged. “Remarrying under such circumstances will not be easy,” she said. “But you’re clever, Mumtaz, and this house is worth money, but the job and the girl … You know your father has some very well placed friends with lovely sons.”
Mumtaz always saw red when the subject of marriage arose. She’d been down that avenue once before and she didn’t want to go there again. “Amma, my view of marriage is a lot different to yours,” she said. “You have Abba. I had a monster.” She moved closer to her mother again and looked her in the eyes. “He wasn’t the Silver Prince, was he, Amma, he was a monster. A monster you and Abba chose for me.”
Sumita lowered her head. Her daughter’s words hurt because they were true. She wanted to say that marriage didn’t have to be the way it had been for Mumtaz. She would find a man just like Baharat for her—somehow. Mumtaz would see.
“Oh, fuck, not this again!” Roy Arnold took a swig from his bottle of cheap cider.
Lee looked at him with disgust. “Mum wants to watch it,” he said. “So it stays.”
Roy was eight years older than Lee. But he looked more like a seventy-year-old than a man of fifty-two. Being permanently pissed for thirty years would do that.
“Fucking Columbo!” Roy waved a wet roll-up at the telly. “We’ve all seen it a million times before.”
“Yeah, but Mum wants it on!” Lee persisted. He grimaced at his brother, that useless carbon copy of their useless father. “And it’s her house.”
“I live here too!”
He did and although Lee didn’t like that one bit there really was no answer to it. His mum let Roy stay on whatever he did to himself, the house or her, just like she’d done with their dad.
“Oh, let him watch what he wants,” Rose said. She pointed the remote control at the TV and changed the channel to motor racing. “It’s only bloody Sunday afternoon drop off to sleep telly.”
Roy smiled. “Handsome.”
Lee knew better than to argue. When he went, Rose would be left alone with him and if Roy had had a bad time with his brother, he’d take it out on her. Rose Arnold was a tough old bird but she was getting on and she didn’t need a beating from her son. Not that she’d ever told Lee about Roy’s violence toward her, but he knew. He’d seen her put make-up on her face just to do the housework.
As ever, Rose had cooked her boys a nice Sunday dinner. Roast chicken, roast spuds, carrots, onion gravy, all the trimmings. Then hot rice pudding with raspberry jam. Lee had wiped his plate clean while Roy had fitted in the odd spud between booze and fags. Rose sat in her favorite chair over by the window and closed her eyes to the sound of screeching car tires. Lee had to put up with this almost every Sunday! Spending time with some alcoholic asshole just so his mother could have a few hours free from worrying about what he was going to do next.
Lee’s mobile began to ring and so he slipped out to the kitchen to answer it. As he left, he heard Roy say, “Who’s that? Dr. Watson? Mrs. Colombo?”
Prick!
Lee closed the kitchen door behind him and answered the phone.
“Boss?”
It was Neil West. “Yeah?”
“I’m at Miss Peters’ place,” Neil said. “Can you get over here?”
Lee frowned. “What’s happened?”
“She wants us to pull out,” he said. “Completely.”
“What! Why?”
“Good question, boss. There’s just been an incident and if you ask me, I think she needs protecting more than ever now. Can you leave what you’re doing and get over here?”
She knew they were only really bothered about her because of all the money she represented. Potential earnings. “I don’t want to have my every move monitored any more,” Maria said. “I’m sick of it.”
She sat on one of her huge, overstuffed sofas while the two men stood. Later, Pastor Grint was going to come over and so she knew she’d have to dispense with these two soon and she wanted it over with. Hiring a private detective agency had been stupid. She wanted it finished before anyone apart from her mother and Betty got to know.
“Miss Peters,” Lee said, “you received a hate note, a threat of death today.”
Maria looked at her polished fingernails. “Just a prank.”
“Death isn’t funny? I don’t think so.”
“A lot of people know that I’m a comedian. It was a joke.”
“Miss Peters—”
“Mr. Arnold, I know that this job represents a lot of money for you—”
“You came to me, Miss Peters, you asked for my help.”
She didn’t say anything. She just watched his face turn red.
“If you recall,” Lee said, “we’re only in your life because you came to my office because you thought you were being watched. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but we’ve actually had no concrete evidence of anything untoward, apart from a pair of apparently mobile ceramic cats and some box you were fixated upon but wouldn’t talk about, until today. Now I’m worried, you’re apparently not. You have to help me here. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” But she looked away as she said it. “I’ll pay you until the end of next week and you can keep the retainer. I just …” She looked up into what she now noticed for the first time were his very green eyes. “I don’t like men watching me. It’s nothing personal.”
“That box you were looking at appeared after that prayer meeting—”
She held up a hand. “I’ve no interest in it!”
It was bollocks. No one whose life was in danger ever cared a toss about who was protecting them. Lee sat down on a pouf in front of the television. “Miss Peters,” he said, “Neil has told me you sent the police away too.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because they were questioning entirely innocent people.”
“In your opinion. Even church people can be wrong ’uns.”
“These people aren’t,” Maria said.
“Coppers have to start somewhere,” Neil added. “Your mates were at the scene. Coppers start with the scene.”
But she ignored him. “I would like you to switch off all your surveillance equipment now and then come and remove it as soon as possible,” she said.
“So you were mistaken about being stalked all along?”
“Clearly.” Her eyes looked wet and she bit her lip. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
Lee shrugged. “You’ve paid for it,” he said. “I’d be more worried about the coppers if I were you.”
She looked at him and frowned, as did Neil West. But not for the same reason. Neil’d told Lee about the little deal he’d
done with Vi Collins as well as how he’d nicked some of Maria’s hair from the brush in her bedroom, in confidence—or so he’d thought.
“The coppers sent that note of yours off for forensic examination before you called the whole thing off,” Lee said. “It’s in the system now. We’ve been coppers ourselves—we know. They’ll look for fingerprints, DNA. If we’re lucky we’ll get a known face. Each and every incident has an incident number and this’ll be no different. Whether you like it or not, the police are officially aware of it.”
Lee could see the way her confusion settled across her face in deep crevices. He felt as if he was watching some sort of internal struggle. She so clearly didn’t want this church she’d become involved with to get embroiled in anything potentially unpleasant even at a distance. She wanted, apparently above everything else, to protect them. But she was still scared, Lee could see that. Would now be the time when she admitted that she’d just stalked herself? He couldn’t imagine why she’d do that unless it was to raise her profile with the public. But she’d been, so far, very discreet about the stalking as far as the public were concerned. Falling apart on stage was what people knew her for. As yet it was hardly enhancing her career.
“You can waste our time, but you can’t waste the coppers,’” Lee said.
“I didn’t,” Maria said. “Neil—”
“Neil called the police out to what was and is a police matter,” Lee said. “Apparently concrete proof like that? With the possibility of nabbing the perp on the spot? I’d’ve called them myself! We watch and we gather information and we protect on request. But when something becomes a criminal matter a time will come when we have to hand it over to the police. Do you see?”
She said nothing.
“Miss Peters, if you’ve anything you want to tell us …”
“You think I’m crackers, don’t you?” She looked up at him with hatred in her eyes. “Think I’m a mad woman doing all this to myself.”
Lee didn’t want to lie to her but he didn’t want to make her even more angry either. But before he could formulate a reply she shouted. It sounded just like the old Maria.
“Oh, just get out the both of you! Send me your fucking bill, take your fucking stuff and leave me alone!”
Paul put his hands around Maria’s in the position of prayer.
“Jesus, we thank you so much for giving our sister Maria the strength to tell us the truth,” he said.
Maria’s closed eyes leaked tears. As soon as Pastor Grint had arrived with Betty, Maria had told him about the agency, the surveillance, the stalking. In return he’d told her something strange which nevertheless made sense.
“This is not the work of man,” he’d said. “This stalking as you call it, Maria, is the power of Jesus at work in your life.”
“The power of Jesus? Attacking me?”
“In a way, yes.”
She’d looked up at him and he’d smiled at her.
“But why?”
“Because he knows that you are both vulnerable and ready.”
“Vulnerable? How do you mean?”
He smiled his gentle smile again. “You are still in sin …”
“You mean my act?” She ran her fingers through her hair. She’d known all along it had been wrong; she’d tried to tell Alan, but he just hadn’t listened. “I’ll give it up.”
Paul said, “Giving up your act will be a beginning on the road to being reborn …”
“A beginning?” If her act went then in terms of sin what else was there? But then there was the past …
“Other sins,” Paul said. “You have other sins, Maria. Everyone who is not reborn does.”
Maria felt her whole body go cold. Did he mean Not funny? How could he know about that? She’d never told anyone. He couldn’t. But then someone had to know because of the notes and the shoebox.
“I had to fess up to my rotten past before I could move on. I had to leave a lot of people behind to do that, even my family,” Paul said. “Jesus wants us to lay all of our sins before him if he’s to make us born again and so ready for the Rapture, his kingdom and an eternity with those we have loved. You have to give it all up or the Holy Spirit’ll just keep on using your own fears to prod your conscience into a breakdown for your own good. You’re not being stalked, Maria, you’re being begged by Jesus to come to him. You have to stop using man’s solutions, like these private detectives. You’ve got to give it all up to God.”
“Then I will.” Maria began to cry again. “I’ll never go on stage again. Never!”
“As I said, that’s a good start,” Grint said. “We’ll get rid of the comedy and then we can work on other things, in time. Don’t worry, Maria, the church will support you. Tell us what you want to tell us when you want to. Jesus is always eager for a new soul, but he’ll wait for you. I know he will.”
Part Two
XII
Even though it was nighttime, it was out in the open where anyone could see. But what choice did he have? Jacob was running like a rabbit and if he didn’t catch him, who knew what would happen?
Matthias pounded the pavement hard, only just aware of how painful the stones were against his bare feet. His heart was so loud he could hear it in his head and when Jacob turned around to look at him with massive, frightened eyes, it became even louder. Why wouldn’t the stupid boy just stop and talk about it? But Matthias had no breath left to call out to Jacob, who rounded the corner that led into his own street. He was nearly home and if he got there, it was all over. Matthias pushed himself so hard his lungs felt like they were bleeding.
Round the corner, racing after Jacob, he was running so fast he almost missed the body on the ground over by the wall in front of Amin’s Grocery. Jacob had tripped. Instantly Matthias went down on one knee and leaned on the other boy’s rapidly rising and falling chest.
“You know what you must do!” he gasped.
Jacob shook his head.
“You got to be sensible, man!”
“You too late now, Matt.”
There were people in Amin’s, shopping, but no one was coming in or going out. Jacob shook his head again.
“You are …” Matthias began. But then he stopped because Jacob had taken something out of the pocket of his jeans. Matthias looked at Jacob’s knife and said, “Don’t do that!”
But Jacob stabbed the blade into Matthias’s arm and blood came out in a river. For a moment Matthias could do nothing but watch his own blood flow down onto the pavement. Then in a last-ditch attempt to stop Jacob yet again, as he tried to get away, Matthias took his own knife out and slammed it deep into the other boy’s chest. Tears in his eyes, he twisted it, hard. Just before he staggered away to the side of the road and was sick, Matthias saw the light in Jacob’s eyes die.
It was the last time that they would gather in what had once been the old bathroom factory, then a tire warehouse in Hackney Wick. The actual service had come to a close and Pastor Grint was going through the practicalities of where the new, temporary church was going to be.
“The building was a public house, many years ago,” he told the congregation. “The nearest station is Custom House which is on the Docklands Light Railway. As you come out of the station you turn left along the Victoria Dock Road until you come to a turning called Munday Road which is on your right and the building is on the corner. I know that a lot of you might be disturbed that it’s an old pub, but until our new center is completed, God has provided this.” He smiled. “Glass half full. At least we won’t have to worry about this man who has been exposing himself around the canal any more.”
People murmured, “Praise God.”
“But we still must pray for him and for his victims too,” the pastor said. “There are a lot of unhappy people who have lost their way out there and remember, guys, it’s our mission to get as many folk saved as we can before the Rapture. The more souls we can bring to Jesus the more pleased the Lord will be with us, and His pleasure is all we want, right?”
<
br /> Some said “Yeah,” others “It’s the truth,” while others still just prayed.
“So it’s a priority to get the new center up and running as soon as we can. Easter’s on our doorstep, guys, we all need to make that little extra effort. Let’s do it for the souls of the lost sheep we’re gonna save, people!” He began to clap his hands. “Let’s do it for the Glory of God! Come on!” He waved his hands, encouraging everybody to clap, and almost five hundred people smiled and then complied. Grint walked up and down the front of the stage, a look of pure joy on his face. “Let’s do it for all the people hungry for the love of Jesus! They are starving, people, starving for the Word, the Love, the Peace of Almighty God! We gotta give it to them! We gotta take that soul nourishment to them!”
“We have to save everyone!” a woman yelled. The whole crowed swayed in time to their clapping.
“Yes, we do, Sylvia!” Pastor Grint said. “You are ambitious for the Lord and that is a good thing, my friend!” Again he threw his arms out and waved his hands in the air. “Let’s all be ambitious for Christ! There is no soul so lost, so blackened and corroded by sin that it cannot be washed clean by Jesus. His love is endless, it is mighty and it can be seeded in the hearts of everyone in the whole world. All we need is the will, the ambition as Sylvia said, the faith, the glory and the sheer courage to build our chapel high, build it strong, build it so great it can take in each and every soul that each and every one of you goes out there and saves!”
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