I had begun to wonder whether Nissar was her actual surname or perhaps she was just using a middle name. I couldn’t find anyone Nissar of the same caste as Hamid’s parents in the whole of Lahore. They would obviously have to be of the same wealthy standing, property owners or maybe industrialists?
I studied her photographs for the umpteenth time. There were no telltale signs, like the time we spotted Renee’s nametag. This girl was clever. None of her pictures had anything in the background, just her and her friends. Adela was a strange looking girl. She appeared older than her seventeen years, the black headscarf emphasising her dark, sunken eyes. However she looked, she was still too good for that bastard Hamid. I moved from one photograph to another. Saving them, enlarging them, 41, 42, 43. Nothing. When I closed my eyes for a moment all I could see was her face. Those eyes. Those sad eyes. 58, 59, 60 and then there it was. The eyes had gone, the sadness hidden, behind sunglasses.
As those glasses grew on the screen, I almost felt like I was holding them in my hands, like I could whip them off her face and see those eyes again. I felt a shiver pass through me. I could see those boys kicking the man in the head. As soon as I saw that reflection, I knew I was about to find her.
*
I still had the image of those sunglasses in my head, as I waited at the bus stop opposite the graveyard. It was ironic how things were reversed now, like a negative. Sun had become shade and vice versa. Where the sunglasses would have been, there was now a mere slit from which to view the world. Where my face would have been bathed in glorious sunshine on such a January day, there was only cloth. Trapping my breath inside. Fuck I hate this burka.
Each time a bus pulled up, I stepped back. I didn’t need a bus, not yet anyway. My rectangle of vision was all that I required at present.
There were only two men present at the burial. One of which, I assumed was Fatima’s husband. The other may have been her boss from the mosque; I didn’t know and really didn’t care. The ceremony was over in less than ten minutes. A pauper’s funeral by all accounts. Her fate was in Allah’s hands now.
Another bus, another step back. The gravediggers were shovelling in the soil, stamping it down with a ferocity that intimated they knew what Fatima had been, what she had become. Then they were gone.
I waited and I watched. I thought about that building, the one in the reflection. If only it hadn’t been sunny that day, if only she hadn’t been wearing those sunglasses then maybe death wouldn’t be on her doorstep now. But it had been sunny, she had been wearing those glasses and that was, without a doubt, the Eiffel Tower. She had been in Paris with Hamid and Fatima and that is why I knew she would come to pay her last respects. Here, today, witnessed through the slit of my burka, Adela Nissar would make her last mistake.
Chapter 10.
I took another step back. Not because of a bus, this time, but because of her. Those sunken, sad eyes passed by not two feet in front of me. She was wearing her headscarf, but no jewellery this time. I watched as she crossed the road and walked defiantly past the “No Women” sign, displayed to the left of the cemetery gates and headed straight for her friend’s final resting place. That flattened rectangle of soil; stamped down by angry feet.
I felt like a sniper watching Adela through that slit. I knew she would be joining her friend soon, wrapped in nothing but a cotton shroud, facing Mecca together. As she stood saying her private prayers, I felt no anger towards her; the rage hadn’t surfaced. Not yet, but I knew it was only a matter of time.
Since the moment we had arrived in this country, I had felt a cloud hanging over me, no, more of a thunderstorm than a cloud. Charged with electricity and bolts of lightning capable of killing a man instantly. A cloud the locals called the Death Penalty. And by God this country wasn’t afraid to use it. I knew we had to be extra careful with everything we did, especially if the authorities were aware that we might be here. I had already been in touch with Serge; he said he would send the box immediately. It should arrive at the hotel within two days, he promised. All I needed now was to find out where Adela lived.
Three buses and ten minutes later Adela left the graveyard. Her task complete; mine just beginning.
As she walked amongst the sea of brown headscarves, I weaved my way through the busy streets trying to keep her within sight. Each time she crossed the chaotic, grid locked roads, I took my life in my hands. I had become desperately thirsty but there was no time to stop, let alone the possibility of drinking whilst I was still wearing the burka. The only thing I could hear clearly was my own breath. I felt like I was about to suffocate at any moment. We must have walked for well over an hour, past the electronic stores, mini-markets and clothes shops, through two bazaars before eventually finding ourselves in a more affluent residential area. There were advertising signs everywhere. Gulberg this, Gulberg that. I naturally assumed that we had arrived in Gulberg.
During our journey, the crowds had fallen away like autumn leaves. Adela hadn’t looked back once, but now there were only five of us en route. I hoped she would reach her final destination soon; the last thing I needed was for someone to spark up a conversation with me in their own language.
As we trudged on, I was beginning to get pissed off. It almost felt like this bitch knew that I was following her and she was giving me the run around. Like she knew I was dehydrating, sweating, finding it hard to see ten steps in front. My cheek was starting to throb, but I kept on walking, kept planning. I watched the rickety old postal van hit the speed bumps. I took note of which houses had surveillance cameras. I walked and walked and walked.
And then I heard it. The only word I had learned so far in their language, yet still one of the most important, “Abba,” Adela called out. It was her father. He was sitting in a large black Mercedes, waiting, as the electric gates slowly opened to allow him access to his driveway. The driveway in front of a house so big, if it was picked up and dropped in London it would easily be worth £60 million.
Adela was home, number 137, home with daddy. As I turned to walk away, I hoped they would enjoy their last 48 hours together. After all, none of this was his fault.
*
I spent the next two days going out of my head, locked in that bloody hotel, waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting for Serge’s box to arrive. Two whole fucking days I waited. I spent my time researching the remaining apples and tried to bury the overwhelming urge to go back to number 137 and cut that little bitch’s throat. Fuck! Why not finish off the rest of the family as well? They were tainted after all. Guilt by association. It was people like this that had forced me to stay locked up in hotel rooms, curtains drawn, for days at a time. Jesus! I wasn’t the enemy. I didn’t start this. They fucking started it!
Chapter 11
Serge proved true to his word. The hotel receptionist called me around noon to say that the box had arrived, so I asked them to deliver it to the suite. The timing was perfect, Norman had just returned from his buying trip in town. We sat on the bed looking at the two boxes sitting next to each other on the floor. One was empty, the other contained Adela Nissar’s fate and it would be her misguided love for that bastard fiancée of hers that would seal it.
The shopkeeper had warned Norman of its dangers when he bought it. He even gave him a list of private clinics that could administer an antidote if things went pear-shaped.
I couldn’t help feeling smug as I sat looking at those two boxes. Norman suggested we had a drink by way of a celebration, but I declined. We had a job to finish first, I told him, there would be plenty of time to celebrate afterwards.
It appeared that Serge had followed my instructions to the letter. The address label had been written in marker pen so that no trace would show on the box when it was removed. It peeled off with ease, allowing me to replace it with her address, number 137. The label bearing the sender’s address also came off without a problem, revealing the hole he had cut in the back of the box. The hole that would allow death to pass from one innocent-looking piece of fo
lded cardboard into the other.
Now, at this point, I was shitting myself. One wrong move and it was Game Over. Offline. I didn’t have the necessary equipment to make the transfer but it had to be done. I took Albert’s hands out of the safe, pulled them on and then wrapped a hand towel, from the bathroom, around my nose and mouth; at least it would be some protection in the worst-case scenario. Christ, I had gone over this so many times in my mind, yet I still found myself shaking. I was terrified.
I felt detached from my body as I watched Albert’s wrinkly old hand making that first incision, but he seemed to know what he was doing. He slowly cut out the circular hole to match the one on Serge’s box. I held my breath as the circle neared completion. It was vital that we kept it in place until the boxes were joined. The final cut and Albert slowly withdrew the blade. I watched in terror as the cardboard disc strained against the knife. The only thing standing between death and us was that small circular piece of cardboard. And then the knife was free.
We quickly pushed the boxes together, the holes lined up perfectly, I heard the cut out drop down inside, we slid them against the wall and wedged them tightly together with a chair. Then we waited.
The transfer of the deadly contents wasn’t half as exciting as I had imagined, merely a dull hiss, the sound of escaping gas. As the noise died down, we knew the transfer was complete. We had one second to replace the label over the hole and Adela’s time bomb was complete. I bet she wouldn’t wait to open it. Sent all the way from England by her loving fiancée, it must be something special? ... Very fucking special my dear.
*
Christ I wished Kalif was still with us, Albert looked bloody ridiculous in a turban, but we figured that using Kalif’s voice we could probably get away with it. Everything was in place. We had called the main Post Office, pretending to be in a rental apartment on Adela’s street, and found out what time the mail was delivered each day.
And so Albert waited, two streets away from number 137, the parcel hidden in his shopping bag. That time bomb. The ticking, ticking time bomb. To anyone passing he looked like any other elderly Muslim man resting his weary bones on a bench, granted he was a little lighter than his peers, but that was down to a vitamin deficiency. He knew that the mail van would stop next to him; after all he had sent twenty letters to the accountant’s office on the other side of the street. All of which had to be signed for. That should keep them occupied for five minutes or more; it was only a matter of time now.
As he waited, Albert kicked the box every now and again. He could see what was going to happen in his mind’s eye. If this went to plan, it was going to be one of our greatest triumphs. The Kill Family Robinson at it’s finest.
He recognised the van, from the day we followed Adela home, as it drove slowly down the road towards where he was sitting. It made one stop before it reached him. He kicked the box. The postman got out of the van. Albert saw his yellow envelopes in the man’s hand. He crossed the road with the mail. He went inside the office. Albert tried the back door of the van, it wasn’t locked, he opened it slightly then sat back down.
Our calculations had been wrong. It only took three and a half minutes for the mail to be signed for. It didn’t matter though, that was time enough. The van set off on its journey again. Albert followed it half the length of the street, to the next speed ramp to be exact.
As the driver hit it, the back doors swung open. It was time. Albert discarded the shopping bag and shouted for the van driver to stop, waving the box madly to attract his attention. “You dropped something,” he called out, “your doors are open.” The van braked suddenly, three more boxes fell on to the road, adding credibility to the story. The driver gave Albert a strange look as he took the parcel off him. He picked up the others from the road and drove off without saying a word.
*
Adela shook the box, like an excited child on Christmas morning. This is what she loved about Abdul, his spontaneity, like the time in Paris when he took her to Grand Vefour, a Michelin 3-star restaurant. The bill had come to over 3,000 euros, he had bought a bottle of Romanée Conti, “probably the best red wine in the world,” he had told her, “for the best wife in the world.” That was the night that he had given her the ring.
Her smile lit up those sad eyes, as she tore open the enveloped attached to the parcel. “To my dearest Adela,” it read, “this is something you deserve more than anything else in the world. We will be together soon, I promise. All my love, Abdul.”
Seconds later, Albert heard the screams from outside the house. He knew her parents would be at work; he had made an appointment to meet them at their engineering firm on the premise of discussing plans to build a multi-million pound recycling plant near the city. He knew absolutely nothing about recycling but that didn’t matter, he had no intentions of keeping the appointment anyway. He was listening to some football match on his portable radio, he didn’t have a clue who was playing or what was being said but the volume masked Adela’s cries. He knew that she would have seen the snake before it blinded her, that she would try and get out of the house to escape its fangs and he also knew that she wouldn’t be quick enough.
As Adela’s mother and father waited patiently for their millionaire client, their daughter lay on the floor, those sad eyes now on fire, unseeing. The Red Spitting Cobra slithering towards her, weaving its way between chair legs and beneath the sofa. Coiling its body; preparing for its final angry strike.
Albert turned down the radio. Silence. The street was deserted. The cries of pain were over. But she wasn’t dead, no, we had made sure of that. This snake wouldn’t kill her just paralyse her. A mere reptile wouldn’t be allowed the glory of ending this bitch’s life. That was our privilege and ours alone.
We had agreed that since the stakes were so high in this country, we could leave no trace of foul play. There would come an end to this passage, but not yet and not here.
Bereft of the technologies we had available to us back in England, Albert knew that the only way to get to Adela now was plain old-fashioned burglary. He made his way to the back of the house through a side alley. He didn’t care about climbing over the gate. So what if someone saw him? He had heard screams and was only trying to help.
He couldn’t call the back garden a garden, not anymore. It had been concreted over and block-paved, surrounded by high wooden fences and adorned by garish ornaments and religious-looking statues. It obviously belonged to people who didn’t have time to take care of plants and trees, people who couldn’t take care of their own daughter, people who couldn’t even choose a decent husband for her.
As he approached the large, sliding patio doors, Albert could see her lying on the floor. There was no movement. No sign of her attacker either. He looked for a point of entry. He checked to see if the back door was open, it wasn’t. The patio doors neither.
There was a smell of smoke. Small clouds drifted over the fence. He peered through a small crack. The neighbour was burning off dead branches. He threw on a large armful of leaves. A woman called to him in a strange language, he replied, and then disappeared from the crack. Albert could hear dishes and cutlery clattering. A door closed and then silence again.
Albert’s eyes darted around the concrete garden. The garden shed; surely there would be something useful inside, something to force his way into the house. He took a small concrete urn and, dropping the plastic flowers onto the floor, struck the rusty padlock. It fell apart at the first attempt. Albert had hoped that some of the long-redundant garden tools would still be inside, but he was wrong. It looked like daddy had found a better use for his shed. The small desk had neatly placed piles of porn magazines. The shelf above was stacked with packets of cigarettes, a can of lighter fuel, and an assortment of spirits. “Fuck me, if Allah could only see this,” thought Albert.
He grabbed the lighter fuel and stuck a bottle of vodka in his pocket. The magazines went untouched; we had seen enough of these whores to last a lifetime. Peering through the cr
ack he knew he had only one chance. Putting his sunglasses on, he tossed the can of lighter fuel over the fence like a grenade. It landed perfectly on the smouldering leaves. It was hard to tell how long. He ran with the concrete urn and waited in position by the patio doors. He had one chance. This would have to be a split-second reaction like all of those years ago, in Iraq. Albert’s cheek was throbbing. The urn raised high above his head, arms shaking, sweat starting to run down his back.
The explosions couldn’t have been more than half a second apart. The fence was ablaze now. The dining room filled with shards of glass. Shouts came from the neighbour’s garden and still the bitch didn’t stir.
That’s when it hit Albert, or so he told me afterwards. He tried to describe it but he couldn’t. Was it chemical? Neurological? or something deeper? He didn’t know. All he knew was that the rage had consumed his mind and body entirely.
Personally, I think it was the link. The bond. The similarity, if you like. No, let me correct that. The Irony. Here he was with Abdul Hamid’s wife-to-be.
Albert broke every single bone in that girl’s body. He thinks he used the urn but he’s not one hundred percent sure. What he does remember is her being like a rag doll before he tied her up into ball, so small, that she fitted into a rucksack he found under the stairs. He said she was like one of those balls you make from hundreds of elastic bands, like contortionists who can pass themselves through a tiny hoop.
The FACEBOOK KILLER: Part 2 Page 4
