Locked and Loaded: A Riz Sabir Thriller Omnibus

by Charlie Flowers

  The screen faded to an EDL logo and a Latin motto.

  We went into the local store. I wanted to see if they’d seen anyone putting the stickers up. I nearly stumbled over the shopowner, who was fussing over a smashed front door. ‘What happened chief?’

  He looked up. ‘Crazy Paki girls, mate. They tied a strap to my cash machine and dragged it through the door on the end of a Subaru. They went all the way to Canary Wharf.’ He shook his head and went back to drilling.

  I looked at Bang-Bang. She had her tongue in her cheek and was avoiding my gaze. ‘Holly. It’s bloody Roadrunner and her lot, isn’t it?’

  ‘Babe, if you recall, you asked the Blackeyes to come to this neck of the woods to help out. This is what you get if you summon Roadrunner.’

  ‘That girl’s a one-woman crimewave.’

  We walked to the nearest Docklands Light Railway stop and took the first train west into town. I wanted to see the killer’s terrain, his hunting ground, from the air, and right now the elevated train was the best way to do it.

  The carriage smelt of stale sweat and spiced food. We pressed our hands to the windows and watched Limehouse roll past. Here was Limehouse nick. A statue of Jesus, high in the sky, on the roof of a church. Things you wouldn’t see from the ground.

  Bang-Bang looked lost in thought. She tapped absently at the window. Maybe I was subconsciously looking for where a sniper might make his eyrie, too.

  23.

  Back at Bethnal Green nick, a white-haired man who looked every inch the professor was going over some videos on the flatscreens. He was nodding to himself. ‘Yes. Yes. Freeze and rewind please. Can I see that with the other video?’

  Lennie gestured me over. ‘Riz, this is our man Hayden. Forensic Gait Analysis and expert witness. He reckons he can make a match.’

  Hayden turned and regarded me with rheumy eyes. ‘So you must be Riz. Hello!’ He turned back to the screens and tapped on them. ‘Thus far I’ve identified three indicators I feel we can work with so far – a tall man, jerky walking style, a quick and full right arm swing, and a small amount of genu varum.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  He smiled. ‘I’m sorry. Genu varum is bowing of the legs. With more viewings I can isolate more indicators.’

  I nodded. ‘This is good. This could work. So we can place our man at Bethnal Green and Ikhwan?’

  Lennie shrugged. ‘Could well be.’

  The Met’s tech people had brought the profiling software, and as Bang-Bang and I took notes and set up our access passwords, we were shown the graphics. The David Canter dragnet programme. We learnt about the different types of sexual predators, another layer to go on top of Lennie’s four types. The Hunter, the Poacher, the Troller and the Trapper. The marauder and commuter geographic models were flown across the screens before us, 3-D, colour coded. Jeopardy Surfaces to help pinpoint attacks. Thomas Bond’s profile of Jack the Ripper. After a while I wandered off to phone the Colonel. Bang-Bang was absolutely rapt again and taking notes, but this stuff left me cold. After all, it hadn’t done Colin Stagg a whole lot of good.

  Lennie nodded in approval and spoke up. ‘Slightly off-topic, but we’re expected at a community reassurance meeting in three days’ time. Muslim Communities Forum. Look lively.’

  A groan went round the office.

  ‘And then I’ve got to explain the last few days’ events to the Borough Commander. Who is not happy.’

  We all left on our separate missions. PAVA sprays, cuffs, and stab vests were retrieved for those who needed them. Charged radios were swept up; car keys picked up and signed for in the logbook near the main doors. Lennie suddenly smacked his forehead, rummaged under some files and jogged over to us carrying two clipboards. ‘This is kind of thanks for last night. You can park your hire cars anywhere during this enquiry if you stick these on the dashboards.’

  I turned one clipboard over. It had the “POLICE” part of a “POLICE AWARE” sticker stuck to it. Simple but effective. Bang-Bang took hers and jumped up and down in delight. We both said ‘Thanks Lennie!’ at the same time. I suddenly stopped and realised what mischief she could get up to in her car with that sign. But it was too late, as she’d skipped away to the door and was doing a little dance in the hallway. She called out to us. ‘I’m getting out of here! I can sense DS Rich is back in the building. I can hear the mice flinging themselves onto the traps! Byee!’

  24.

  That evening Tara Khani held a council of war in enemy territory, where Brick Lane seeped into Commercial Road. The Rakta Kambal restaurant was one Monopoly square on the Curry King’s empire. It was also right next door to the hotel where most of the Blackeyes had been billeted for the length of the enquiry. It was the proverbial red rag to a bull.

  I got there at 7pm. The restaurant was deserted. Not surprising. Brick Lane was a ghost strip these days. I made my way to the rear dining saloon. Tara was holding court at the biggest table, at the back, right by the kitchen doors so she could see who came and went. Fuzz was there, and so, to my surprise, was the Colonel, although by now I shouldn’t have been. He tended to materialise like Darth Vader just when you weren’t expecting him.

  As I entered, the staff shrank from me like vampires from a crucifix. The Colonel beamed at me. ‘Thought I’d drop in to see how you were doing. The Home Secretary’s getting a bit twitchy.’

  ‘Is she now?’ I muttered.

  At that point there was a kerfuffle out in the front. Maryam limped in, sat, parked her bad leg and glared. ‘They’re gonna put pins in it. And a tinyanium…?’

  ‘Titanium…’ we all chorused.

  ‘Yeah, Plutonium plate innit. Gonna spend the rest of me life setting off alarms, so yeah I'm pissed off.’

  She palmed a handful of antibiotics and washed them down with a swig of my beer. ‘But only a bit, doe.’

  I fixed her with what I hoped was a stern look. ‘This has entirely messed up your GCSEs, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yeaahhhh.... don’t worry, I’ll resit them.’

  I got to wondering when me and Bang-Bang had become her surrogate parents, until I realised this was her family.

  Tara waited till Maryam had sat and then started placing salt cellars and cutlery in a strange formation. ‘Right, troops. This is why Toots asked me in on this thing. Watch and learn. I will now explain…’

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that none of the staff were moving and every single one of them were looking at Tara as she outlined… ‘The connections that run this neighbourhood.’

  She started tapping various accoutrements. This was the same speech I’d given Lennie, but Tara was doing it for the benefit of the staff as well. The Colonel watched attentively. Tara began speaking. ‘Mayor. Curry King. Money. IFE. Jamiaati. Block votes. Back and forth the money and influence flows. The guy that owns this restaurant, Mr Rahman Begum, is central.’

  You could have heard a feather drop.

  She carried on. ‘Mister Begum, is a local mafia boss who bankrolls the Mayor, and all the local Bengali Jamiaati political campaigns, in return for nice council deals. He’s also into the Baishakhi Mela. You know the Mela?’

  Our table nodded.

  ‘Yeah, The Mela, the annual festival here. Another nice little earner. Mostly attended by people from outside the borough, but funded by those lucky local council tax payers. Mister Begum, was rewarded as a chair of the advisory board to the Mela, that gold mine, in return for bankrolling the Mayor. It gets better –’

  She slapped down a small flowerpot and tapped it –‘They bring in acts from Bangladesh to the Mela to perform but Mister Begum takes a cut from them, for the privilege of coming to the UK and the potential to settle in the UK. With me?’

  She suddenly stopped and glared at the service doors. ‘That's a point. I’m going to ask them where he is.’

  She stood and pointed at a hapless waiter. ‘Bhaiji! Where is Rahman Begum tonight, please?’

  The waiter’s hands flapped and his mouth opened a
nd closed like some exotic guppy. No noise came out. Tara bustled away from the table, brushed past him, and through the double doors. After a short pause we heard pans crashing and raised voices in Bengali.

  The Colonel caught my eye and we both started laughing. Maryam took out a handrolled cigarette and ostentatiously lit it, then puffed a smoke ring towards the dim ceiling lights.

  The double doors swung open and Tara came back. ‘He’s “away”. Right. In the one time of year when he’d never be away. The buildup to the Mela.’

  She nodded at the staff. ‘And they know why we’re here.’

  Suddenly the head waiter galvanised them into action. Poppadums and chutney servers appeared from nowhere. New drinks magically appeared. OK, this I could live with. Looked like it was on the house tonight.

  Fuzz spoke. ‘So we know the linchpin has left town in a hurry. What do we know and what don’t we know about the Ripper?’

  ‘Known unknowns’ said Calamity. I looked at the whole gang. I spread my hands on the stained tablecloth in front of me. Maryam sat and puffed a haze of blue smoke. ‘It’s all bollocks’, she coughed as she peeled at the label of the Cobra beer bottle in front of her. Finally I spoke. ‘I don’t know. What I do know is that he’s local with local knowledge, and you can discount all this “he’s a halal butcher or a surgeon” stuff. He cuts so well because he’s a sociopath, and sociopaths just don’t care. He may be connected to Jamiaatis. He may be connected to al-Muj. We don’t know yet.’

  The Colonel, who had been watching all this to-and-froing and shouting with interest, finally spoke. ‘Riz. Ladies. The threat assessment cell at our office has a theory. They are of the opinion that our killer may be attending local strip clubs and scoping out the acts. Hence the murder of Fifi Blitz.’

  Tara nodded. ‘Could work.’

  The Colonel fixed me with a stare. ‘Is your wife working tonight?’

  ‘She is, as a matter of fact, and not far from here.’

  ‘Then you lot should go look at the audience.’

  A cheer. Maryam finally removed the Cobra label and proudly held it aloft. ‘Seconded!’ she called. This was obviously the best idea since sliced bread. At that point the Colonel ducked out, grinning, and an aide appeared from nowhere to usher him away. ‘Ladies! Riz. It’s been fantastic. But as you know, I’m happily married. And it’d be like watching my daughter-in-law. Have a good evening.’ He, and his aide, vanished to their staff car.

  Tara also stood. ‘And I’m a happily-married woman and I’ll leave you lot to it. My husband’s looking after the kids. I fear they may have crayoned everything. Goodnight and good luck.’

  She left for the tube.

  I texted Bang-Bang, grinning from ear to ear. Within a minute I had a reply. ‘Don’t you bloody dare’.

  I looked up. ‘OK ladies. Let’s go!’

  25.

  The Mystique Club was on Leman Street, directly opposite the headquarters of SCO19, the Met’s firearms teams, who had been strangely quiet in the area for the last six months. The poster read “Bang-Bang Khan and The Perils of the Desert Exotica!!”

  Directly under it was a pasted sign that said “last week before council closure.”

  ‘Looks great’, said Maryam. Fuzz and Calamity laughed and brought up the rear. ‘She’s gonna kill you’ said Calamity. She was probably right.

  We made our way through the box office, down the velvet-themed bar and into the auditorium. On the way down, Maryam bought a bucket of popcorn the size of an ornamental vase. Calamity and Fuzz glared at some classic dirty old men, and some City boys shrank away from our approach. I was guessing they didn’t get too many women in here. We took the seats at the front.

  The curtains drew back. Darkness.

  With an almighty crash Rob Zombie’s Dead Girl Superstar started up from the PA system and dry ice whooshed left and right. Bang-Bang strutted out from stage right, clocked us all giggling in the front two rows, and leant down to my face. She was grinning too. Her nose was blackened and she’d drawn the whiskers on with shoe polish, as befitted a Fox Princess. She yelled for my benefit over the thumping beat. ‘Don’t you worry, Sabir, I’m gonna get my own back.’

  I couldn’t stop laughing. Ah well. She stepped to centre stage and stopped. Ostrich feathers to south. One Christian Louboutin cocked. A smoky look over the shoulder. And we were off. The strobe lights started up. Our lot whooped. Calamity placed her hand over Maryam’s eyes. I nudged Fuzz and shouted in her ear over the piledriving bass. ‘Remember why we’re here. Take a look over your shoulder.’

  She nodded and started taking glances backwards into the audience. Calamity fought her way backwards to the bar, stumbling and apologising. I knew what she was doing, though. She was bumping into people for Fuzz to take a photo of. I nodded inwardly. Very good.

  Onstage a guitar solo squalled into life over B-movie samples. The crowd cheered as Bang-Bang did a bump with her hip and turned her back on us. She looked over her shoulder, fluttered her batwing eyelashes, did a little teeth-biting-lips vamp, artfully unhooked her bustier one-handed and flung it offstage. The crowd went mental. The city boys were throwing notes onto the stage. They flickered downwards in the harsh blue lights.

  Calamity came back from the bar carrying three wobbly plastic pint glasses and handed them out. She dropped into her seat and began flinging popcorn into the air. Fuzz grinned and nodded at the stage. ‘Bit of blue for the lads.’

  Tinsel shot into the air from cannons and fell in our drinks. Maryam started cursing at this. The lights went out. Then it started again. The stage was dimly lit and populated by Nubian slaves and harem girls in artfully draped deshabille. Orchestral music hummed ominously and then a strange Middle Eastern snakecharming tune started up. Calamity stood up and whooped. ‘Hayyeeee!’ We pulled her back down. We looked out onto a desert scene.

  Bang-Bang rose like a twist of smoke and growled ‘I’m mad about a Sheikh…’

  Oh, I knew this one alright. I nudged Fuzz. ‘Holy shit. Stand back.’ BB turned her back to us again and snapped some Chinese finger cymbals. She shimmied across the stage and dipped down and tipped a guy in the front row under his chin. She cooed at him. ‘You belong to me...’

  Her chorus girls snaked behind her, following the moves. She let go of the guy’s tie and danced away, snapping the finger cymbals. ‘We both have a horse…’ she sang, and the whole chorus line’s butts seemed to do the standard boom, tish; ‘but mine is big and white...’ The horns blared and the spotlights glared gold. ‘On the desert sand. Ha-ahhhhhhhh…’

  The harem girls, the slaves, and Bang-Bang, all draped themselves slowly to the ground. The audience behind us was whooping and on their feet. Darkness fell onstage.

  I nudged Calamity. ‘D’you reckon this is when they bring the ice creams –’

  Blam!

  The stage lights flared actinic blue and Rob Zombie punched from the PA again. Dead Girl Superstar reprise. The guy next to me jumped in fright and dropped his drink. The Nubians now all wore voodoo skull makeup. They carried an open coffin, which they placed upright before us, centre stage, and from which stepped Bang-Bang. The feathers were now wings, which unfurled. She regarded the paralysed audience, twitched her black nose, and smiled.

  Onstage, two slaves carried Bang-Bang to the sacrificial tinsel volcano. Fake tinsel-strip flames erupted. Then died down, an allegory? She was dropped back to centre stage and spread the feathers like the wings of a swan and glared at the audience like a challenge. The track ended in a howl of distorted guitars and drumbeats. Silence.

  The crowd roared and we rose to our feet in applause. Suddenly there was an almighty boom and a cartridge splattered stage blood all over her, and all of us in the front row. Bang-Bang stood in the blue-white stage light and the blood dripped. The audience was muzzled, stunned. Bang-Bang bowed, curled the blood-smeared white wings into herself and the stage lights died.

  The lights went up again. Lounge exotica music was playing and everyo
ne was piling into the bar before the next act. I coughed and tasted the blood, syrup? ‘Erm, right, Fuzz. Get anyone?’

  ‘Maybe. We’ll have to look at the shots in better light, or on a PC.’

  Calamity nudged me. ‘I didn’t know your other half shaved her noo-noo.’

  Our contingent cracked up. What could I say? ‘Showbiz, folks. OK. Follow me. Backstage to grab my other half.’

  We convened in Bang-Bang’s dressing room. Champagne was in ice-filled buckets. The mood was good. It had been a packed house. ‘Christ, Holly,’ said Fuzz, wiping at the syrup, ‘what d’you do for an encore, cough up a mouse?’

  Bang-Bang had put on a Pakistan cricket shirt and bunched her hair into two black gull-wings. Beer bottles sat in the sink. She sat down cross-legged before us and snapped open a pack of cards, slicing the cellophane wrapping with one sharp black nail.

  Bang-Bang riffled her cards. ‘Eyes down, chicas and chicos, watch.’ We watched. ‘In all of history, and all of history to come, no matter how many times a deck of cards is shuffled, the same combination will never, ever, ever come up. How can that be? Well…’

  Calamity raised a hand. ‘I’m not following, Holly.’

  ‘I’m just demonstrating different kinds of random. Just humour me for a minute.’

  Fuzz laughed. ‘We always humour you, doll, as none of us understand what’s going on in that mind of yours.’

  Bang-Bang glared at us, the audience. She’d forgotten to wipe the fox makeup off, which made her glare slightly incongruous. ‘Right, you ingrates, do you want to see this or not?’

  A ragged chorus of assent and apology.

  Bang-Bang carried on slicing and dicing the card deck. ‘The 52 cards in a deck can be arranged in roughly ten, to the power of 68, different ways.’