She looked at her schedule again: French. She took down from the shelf her copy of Maupassant’s short stories. They suited her mood with their sad, bitter little twists. She thought he was an unkind writer but then the world was unkind, wasn’t it? She started, pencil in hand, underlining words and phrases, occasionally rubbing out her old pencil notes and rewriting them, but she had been at it only a few minutes when the doorbell rang. Her father had gone down to the church. Most likely he had forgotten his door key again, she told herself, but she almost slid down the stairs because it might – just might – be Farid.
The young police detective was on the doorstep, the one who had questioned her about her copy of The World’s Wife, but he had someone with him this time, a woman in a smart coat and high-heeled boots, who waved an ID card at her.
‘DI Paula Powell,’ she said, ‘and this is —’
‘DC Aaron Green,’ he said. ‘Theodora and I have met before.’
He smiled at her; she didn’t smile back.
‘May we come in?’ DI Powell asked. Dora’s knees felt so weak that she thought she might just fall down on the spot. Something bad had happened. To Farid.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked.
‘We’d just like to ask you a few questions.’
The woman spoke quite quietly, but she was giving her a narrow-eyed look that she didn’t like. Dora looked at Aaron Green.
‘What about?’ she asked.
‘About Farid Khalil,’ DI Powell answered for him, and took a step into the doorway.
Dora stood back, distracted for a moment by the realisation that she hadn’t even known what Farid’s surname was. DI Powell strode past her and stopped at the sitting room door. ‘We’ll go in here, shall we?’ she said, and walked in.
Dora tried a token protest. ‘My father’s not here,’ she said. ‘I want him to —’
‘You’re eighteen, Theodora,’ DI Powell broke in. ‘We can question you without your father present.’
‘And it’s just a few questions,’ Aaron Green put in. ‘No one’s accusing you of anything, Dora. You do like to be called Dora, don’t you?’
‘I don’t care,’ she said.
They sat down, DI Powell in her father’s chair by the fire, she on the sofa, where Aaron Green joined her. She had watched enough TV crime dramas to know that you were supposed to offer tea or coffee at this point, but she didn’t. Her knees had stopped shaking and she was ready to fight for Farid. If they were trying to deport him – to pin some crime on him – because she had heard that was what they did – so that they would have an excuse, then they would get no help from her.
‘I’ll come straight to the point, Dora,’ DI Powell said. ‘We’d like to know about your relationship with Farid Khalil.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ The answer came automatically and she wasn’t sure why. They couldn’t make anything of their relationship. She was eighteen and, anyway, she and Farid had never had sex. That was what a relationship meant, wasn’t it? They had never done anything except sit on the bus together and talk.
‘Come on. He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?’
‘No.’ Which was, strictly speaking, true, Dora thought, at the moment.
‘Yes, he is, Dora. You’ve been seeing each other. Kelly Field told your father about your relationship, and Farid threatened her, isn’t that right?’
‘People are lying. None of that is true.’
‘We have spoken to your father, Dora. Is he a liar?’
‘She lied to him,’ she flashed back. ‘She deceived him.’
‘She meaning Kelly Field?’
Dora could feel her face growing hot. That was stupid, to say she. ‘Farid is not my boyfriend,’ she said. ‘We just talked sometimes on the bus to school. It was no big deal.’
‘But your father thought it was, didn’t he?’
She allowed herself a minimal shrug but said nothing.
‘Where does Farid live, Dora?’ Aaron Green asked. ‘He lives somewhere in Dover, doesn’t he?’
‘Somewhere. I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know his address?’
‘No.’
‘But he lives somewhere in Dover?’
‘I suppose.’
‘So what’s he doing in St Martin’s?’
She looked at him. ‘He likes to cycle,’ she said. ‘Sometimes he borrows a bike and cycles along by the sea.’
‘But that’s not when you see him, is it? When he’s cycling? We’re talking about the bus.’
‘Sometimes he takes the bus back again.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s a long way.’
‘Where did he borrow the bike from?’ DI Powell asked.
She shrugged again. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Did he travel with you on the bus the morning that Kelly Field died?’
‘No.’
‘Did you see him here in St Martin’s that morning?’
‘No.’
‘One morning is much like another, isn’t it? How can you be so sure?’
‘Because I wasn’t seeing him then. That was after my father –
‘After your father stopped you from seeing him because Kelly Field told him what was going on and he threatened to make her sorry.’
Stupid. Another mistake. ‘He didn’t threaten her,’ she said, ‘and, anyway, if you think that’s a reason for Farid to kill her, why couldn’t I have done it?’
‘Did you kill Kelly?’
‘Maybe.’
Aaron Green said, ‘You can’t mess the police about, Dora. It’ll get you into trouble.’
DI Powell said, ‘We shall be asking your father about your movements that morning, and we shall need to take a look at your phone, your mobile. Can you fetch it?’
‘I haven’t got one.’
‘Really? I find that hard to believe. Well, we can check that, with your father, too – he’s down at the church, isn’t he? If we find that you do have one, you could be charged with obstructing us in our inquiries, so I’ll ask you again. Do you have a mobile phone?’
’No,’ Dora said, looking her in the eye. ‘I don’t.’
DI Powell stood up. ‘Well, we’ll see,’ she said. ‘And we’ll see what Farid says about your relationship.’ She looked at her watch. ‘We’ll be having him in for questioning as soon as we’ve tracked him down.’
As soon as Dora had closed the door on them, she raced upstairs. She had no scruples now about looking for her phone. She needed to delete Farid’s messages before the police got to her father and came back.
She couldn’t feel anything as she groped along the top of the wardrobe as far as she could reach, but when she dragged a chair over and stood on it, she could see the phone, in a corner at the back. Snatching it, she replaced the chair, scuffing with her foot at the marks on the carpet made by the dragging. Then she locked herself in the bathroom and switched the phone on. It was not out of charge; her father had turned it off soon enough for that. As it came to life it buzzed and twittered with messages. Ten times Farid had tried to call her. And then there were the text messages. She scrolled rapidly through them. He thought she was ignoring him; it didn’t seem to have occurred to him that her father would have taken the phone away. Now she was going to have to destroy them all. Precious as they were, she was too agitated now to grieve over them; she started pressing delete. Then there was the sound of the front door opening, her father’s return. At the same time, she remembered that she had heard that you could retrieve deleted text messages if you knew what you were doing. She would have to destroy the sim card, but before she opened up the back of her phone, she scrolled to Farid’s number and committed it to memory. Then she took the tiny card out. The sensible thing would be to flush it d
own the toilet but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It was her lifeline; without it, Farid would never be able to contact her again. She went to the airing cupboard. In there was her hot water bottle with its scruffy, padded Winnie the Pooh cover. She got it out, considered putting the card into the bottle itself but knew it would be too wet, then thought about the cover and the hole in the seam of one of Pooh’s ears. She pushed the card deep into the ear and bundled bottle and cover to the back of the cupboard.
She put the phone itself in her pocket and emerged from the bathroom to meet her father on the landing.
‘Are you all right, Dora?’ he asked, and she realised that her face was red and sweaty.
‘Stomach ache,’ she said. ‘You know…’
‘Ah, yes.’
He was still embarrassed by references to her periods; it was mean to make use of that but this was no time for scruples. She slid past him into her room and closed the door. She waited until she heard him go back downstairs, then slipped along the landing and returned the phone to its hiding place. It wouldn’t make much difference, really; when the police found the sim card was gone she would have to say she had destroyed it, and if they arrested her, well, so be it.
She went downstairs and heated up some soup for their lunch and, after avoiding the subject for a while, they eventually acknowledged that they had each had a visit from the police.
‘What did you tell them?’ he asked.
‘There is nothing to tell,’ she said. ‘What did you tell them?’
He cut himself another slice of bread. ‘I said nothing against the boy,’ he said. ‘I know nothing against him except that he saw my daughter in secret. That doesn’t make him a murderer.’
‘Of course he’s not a murderer, Pappas. How could I love a murderer? He is the gentlest, kindest – he wants to be a doctor, to heal people! He —’
He held up a hand. ‘We won’t speak of it, Dora,’ he said. ‘Finish your soup. You’re not eating enough and you need your strength.’
She swallowed a couple of spoonfuls and then sat rolling her bread into soggy pellets.
‘Did they ask about my phone?’ she asked.
‘They did,’ he said, and went on drinking his soup.
‘And?’ she asked.
‘And what, Dora?’
‘What did you say, Pappas?’
Still apparently absorbed in the business of drinking his soup, he said, ‘Well, they asked me if you have a mobile phone and I gave them a truthful answer.’
‘So you’re going to give them the phone?’
‘I gave them a truthful answer. You do not have a mobile phone at present, do you? So that is what I told them.’
She stared at him. ‘You told them I have no phone?’
He wiped a piece of bread round his empty bowl. ‘I imagine that you have messages from that young man on your phone, and I would not wish them to become public property. My daughter’s indiscretions are her own affair and they can have no relevance to this police inquiry.’
‘So you do believe Farid isn’t a murderer?’
For the first time in their conversation, he looked directly at her. ‘I believe in you, Dora mou. I believe you would know if a boy was a murderer. I think we will leave the phone where it is and say nothing.’ He got up from the table. ‘I have a baptism this afternoon,’ he said, ‘and you have your English coaching. You have been distracted lately. I hope you have done your homework.’
‘I’m just going to finish it now, Pappas.’
‘Good girl.’ He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and left the room.
She cleared the lunch things and waited for the sound of the front door closing. She watched from her father’s bedroom window, checking that he wasn’t going to turn back for something forgotten, then went downstairs, picked up the phone in the hall and dialled Farid’s number. This way the sim card could stay where it was, at least, and Farid’s messages need not be public property. But they would take Farid’s phone, of course, and find her messages, unless he got rid of it. She had to warn him.
He answered warily. ‘Yes?’
She couldn’t speak; her mouth was so dry she couldn’t prise her lips open.
‘Dora?’ he asked. Had he heard her breathing?
Then she spoke, the words tumbling out as though she needed to say everything at the same time. ‘The police want, you – they think you killed Kelly – or they’re pretending they think that – they’ll try to send you back home and I tried not to tell them about us but they know and they’re looking for you – my father took my phone – I couldn’t get your messages but now I did and I hid my sim card – you have to get rid of your phone – they’ll see our messages about Kelly and they’ll use them to get you.’ She stopped. ‘I love you,’ she said.
She thought she could hear him smiling as he said, ‘You could win a prize for speed speaking, Dora. Don’t worry. I’m not worried. I’ve done nothing wrong and no one is going to be able to say that I have. If the police are looking for me, I’ll go to see them and we’ll sort it out. Even if the Border Agency is rubbish, I still believe in British justice. Where are you phoning from?’
‘My house. The house phone.’
‘Ring me later, if you can. I’ll tell you how I’ve got on. And don’t worry.’
‘But your phone —’
‘I love you,’ he said, and hung up.
She stood, holding the receiver until it started to wail its complaint at being off the hook. Then she put on her coat, ran upstairs for her key and left the house. A surge of restless energy carried her down to the seafront, where she hurtled down the steps and started running along the wet sand, head first into the ferocious, rain-filled wind. She ran until her chest burned too much to carry on, and then stopped and leaned against a breakwater, gasping and heaving. She wanted to run on, because stopping made space in her head for terror, but she couldn’t. Her legs were shaking and it still hurt to breathe. She turned and walked back, glad of the wind driving behind her. She looked at her watch. It was after three. At four she had a coaching session with Gina and she had no essay to take to her. She had lied to her father; there had never been a chance of her finishing an essay this afternoon, even without Farid’s call. She had managed one paragraph yesterday before giving up and going back to bed. What was the point, after all? It was just stupid, wasn’t it, to be worrying about a 400-year-old play when the real drama was here, in her own life?
Back at home, she turned the TV on and sat, without taking her coat off, watching children’s programmes until she realised that it was after four, and she trailed, unwillingly, back to the seafront, to Gina’s house, where Gina talked and her words slid like warm oil off the surface of Dora’s mind.
As she walked back into the house, the phone was ringing. She picked it up without any particular expectation and heard Farid’s voice, ragged and rasping.
‘Dora. Thank God. I’ve been trying —’
‘I was at my English class. Is it the police? What’s happened, Farid?’
‘No, not the police. At least, I don’t think – I don’t know.’
She heard him draw a long, shaky breath.
‘I’m in detention, Dora.’
‘So it is the police.’
‘No. Immigration. The Border Agency. I went to the police station. They were pretty aggressive but they couldn’t keep me – they’ve got no evidence. So they took my phone – sorry – and let me go. But the Border Agency guys were waiting for me outside. The police must have told them I would be there. They say I’m a murder suspect, so that changes my status as an asylum seeker. They’ve got me in the IRC.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘The Immigrant Removal Centre. You know, it’s the big place like a castle, up on the hill.’
‘But that’s a pr
ison. They can’t put you in a prison. You haven’t done anything —’‘
‘Well, they can. I think they can do pretty much what they like. I think – I’ve been thinking about this while I’ve been trying to get through to you – I think they can’t send me back to Syria – not yet – because I have an asylum application pending. But I think the police are using this to keep me in detention. They can’t keep me themselves because they haven’t got a case against me, but they can keep me here and make sure I don’t sneak away and join the illegals in London or somewhere.’
‘You need a lawyer, Farid. Surely you’re entitled to a lawyer? On TV —’
‘I have a lawyer for my asylum case but I don’t think he’s any good. Everyone says the asylum lawyers are the worst. It’s the lowest-paid work and nobody wants it. There are just a few good ones who do it from good motives, but mine isn’t one of them. So here’s the thing. I’m allowed this one call but I don’t know if or when I’ll be allowed another one. So I have to rely on you, Dora. You have to find me a good lawyer.’
‘I…‘ She felt stupid and helpless. She had no idea how to find a lawyer, let alone judge if they were any good. ‘I’ll try, Farid,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll do anything I —’
‘There are two people who might help. There’s Ernest at the drop-in place at St Saviour’s Church. He may know of someone good. The other person – and you know her, so it might be easier – is Gina. She knows a lot of people; she’s the kind of person who gets things done. I think she may be the person to ask.’
Chapter Eleven
THE OLD DEVILS
Wednesday 19th February 2014
When Dora came back to see me yesterday with her wretched news, I knew absolutely what I had to do. Farid needs the best human rights lawyer I can find. I can’t tell myself that if he’s done nothing wrong, nothing bad will happen to him. I know that’s not true. He is in genuine danger of being stitched up. And I know just the man to sort this out. I know him very well, actually; I used to be married to him.
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