by A. A. Dhand
‘You’ve shackled me with these rules of yours. Bradford doesn’t work with caveats.’
‘Maybe it’s time you quit.’
‘Not an option,’ said Ronnie.
‘Then our agreement stands.’
Harry thought about the green door he couldn’t knock on. Number 19 Belle Avenue.
‘There’s a line I won’t let you cross.’
‘Even now?’
‘Even now.’
The brothers let the silence linger, looking out of opposite windows at the dull, black sky.
‘Why am I here?’ Harry asked eventually, turning back to Ronnie.
His brother ignored the question. ‘Do you think I’m to blame?’
Harry didn’t answer immediately.
‘Got it,’ said Ronnie.
‘You’re not to blame. But … if you were clean, none of this would have happened.’
Ronnie nodded. ‘Can’t change that.’
‘You don’t want to.’
‘I didn’t build an empire just to give it away.’
‘The difference between an empire and a jail cell?’
Ronnie looked at him in silence, waiting.
‘Physical bars. That’s all.’
‘Poetic.’
Harry’s hand went to his jaw. ‘What are we really doing here, Ron?’
For a while there was no sound but the hypnotic drumming of rain on the roof.
‘I want to know which side you’re on.’
‘The one that gets my niece justice.’
‘Your version of justice doesn’t match mine.’ Ronnie turned his body to face Harry. ‘Before you left the house to come here tonight? What did you do?’
Harry’s eyes narrowed as he thought of Aaron and Saima, sleeping nose-to-nose.
‘How old is the little man now?’ asked Ronnie. ‘Eleven? Twelve months? Bet you walked into his room didn’t you? Watched him sleep?’
‘Ronnie,’ said Harry quietly, ‘don’t.’
‘You remember doing that with Tara?’ Ronnie’s face changed. ‘What about when she was six and slept in your bed because she was scared of the dark? Or when she was ten and you carried her from the car after Jasbir’s wedding? You put your jacket over her because it was raining. You got a chill so bad it put you in bed for two days.’
Harry was losing the battle to keep his emotions in check. ‘Ronnie, this isn’t—’
‘I want the bastard who did this,’ snapped Ronnie, slamming his hand against the dash. ‘In a dark fucking room.’ Ronnie almost hissed the next part: ‘What happens after that is nobody’s business but mine, and none of your shitty little schoolyard rules are going to stop me.’ Ronnie hit the dash again.
Harry gritted his teeth. Not because of Ronnie but because he couldn’t shake the image of carrying Tara from the car, his jacket wrapped around her, while the rain had soaked him. Her small body had been heavy as he carried her up the stairs.
‘I don’t know what you want me to say,’ he whispered.
‘Yes. You do.’
‘You know I’ll find him.’
‘And what then?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Harry truthfully.
Ronnie let out a long breath. ‘Past four years – since you left Mum and Dad’s shop,’ said Ronnie, ‘life’s been about one thing? No?’
‘We meet because you’re my brother,’ said Harry. Mention of the shop brought mixed memories.
Murderer.
‘Getting back what you’ve lost,’ said Ronnie. ‘The family? Reconciliation? One day. Any day. Tell me I’m wrong?’
‘It’ll never happen while Dad’s alive,’ said Harry bitterly.
‘You want to know how it is at home?’
‘I know.’
‘You have no idea. Mandy’s lost. In shock. Old man’s the same. We haven’t told the twins yet. How do we even start to?’
Ronnie paused.
‘And Mum—’
‘Stop,’ hissed Harry. ‘Just. Stop.’
‘Only in the darkest of nights, Harry, only then can you see the stars. Understand? Right now, in our grimmest hour – there’s a way back for you.’
Harry turned away from Ronnie and massaged his temple, closing his eyes.
‘The key to a reunion,’ said Ronnie, ‘is you knocking on my door late at night and handing me – handing us all the chance for justice. Put yourself on the line and prove you’re still loyal to the family.’
Harry didn’t want to hear it.
Could it be that simple?
‘I’ll find out who did this,’ said Harry. He inched closer to Ronnie. ‘What do I have from you?’
‘Anything. You. Need.’
‘I don’t know what that is yet.’ Harry stared down at his hands. ‘Look, I can’t promise this goes your way,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I can live with more than we’ve already done on my conscience.’
Blood.
Murder.
19 Belle Avenue.
‘Don’t get in my way. Not on this.’ For the first time, Ronnie was threatening his brother. ‘Because if you do, I can’t promise it goes your way. Understand?’
Harry banged his fists together, then jabbed Ronnie in the chest.
‘I want revenge as badly as you do. I want my family back.’ Harry’s voice cracked: ‘I want Tara back.’
Ronnie put his hand on Harry’s shoulder, squeezing it tightly.
‘Times like this make us realize there’s nothing more important than family. I need this, Harry. I let her down. I wasn’t there. I can’t live with that.’
There was a moment’s silence while the brothers looked at one another.
‘Two things,’ said Harry, removing Ronnie’s hand from his shoulder. ‘One – you might have issues with Nash, but the rule remains. You put him down, I put you down.’
Ronnie shook his head in disapproval. ‘And two?’
‘If I need your help, I’ll ask. You look after the family.’
‘I’ll agree – if you agree to one of mine.’
‘What is it?’
‘This rule of yours – I’m going to break it when you hand me the guy who did this.’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when—’
‘No. We won’t.’
‘Yes, Ronnie. I can’t give you carte-blanche when I’ve no idea what I’m looking at.’
‘Then when you leave this car, that’s it,’ spat Ronnie.
‘This isn’t the time to fall out.’ Harry sighed and pushed his knuckle back into the side of his head again. ‘This is messy.’
‘An eye for an eye. That’s my world,’ said Ronnie. ‘Your world too, if you’d stop obsessing about something that happened twenty years ago.’
‘I’ll make the decision once I’ve got him. If he turns out to be a deranged sociopath, he’s all yours.’
Ronnie leaned back in his seat, resting his head on the window.
‘When you have him. In front of you. Think about what he’s taken from us. Think about Aaron.’ Ronnie put his hand in his pocket and removed a single key and a wad of fifty-pound notes. ‘Tara’s house key. There must be something useful in there. Your team won’t locate it until tomorrow. I told them we didn’t know where she was staying and they won’t find it easily.’
‘How so?’
‘She was staying there as a favour to me. It’s owned by an affiliate of mine who can’t be connected to me. Lives in Dubai. Owns sixty houses in Bradford. The house is in his company name.’
‘Why there?’
‘Easier for me to keep an eye on her – if Nash had done his fucking job right,’ he added spitefully. ‘The cash is for whatever you might need it for. Don’t worry about CCTV.’ Ronnie checked his watch. ‘For the next three hours, Bradford has gone dark.’
‘How—’ Harry stopped. Truthfully, he didn’t want to know. ‘Nash was supposed to watch her twenty-four-seven?’
Ronnie opened his mouth to answer then closed it.
‘The truth, Ron.’
‘Just to make sure she was OK,’ whispered Ronnie, looking away ashamedly.
‘What’s the address?’
‘124 Killinghall Road. There’s no alarm.’
Harry made to open the door.
‘One more thing?’ said Ronnie, grabbing his arm.
‘Go on.’
‘I want real-time updates, every step of the way.’
‘Like I said,’ Harry replied, ‘you look after the family. I’ll take care of this.’
TEN
THE FLUORESCENT LIGHTING from late-night takeaways provided a welcome contrast to the night sky and the wretchedness brewing inside Harry as he drove up Leeds Road. He stopped at a set of traffic lights, Ronnie’s words at the forefront of his mind.
No loss of life. Was he still willing to enforce that rule? Did the fact that it was Tara’s murder change anything?
The lights turned to green. As he pulled away, his thoughts shifted.
If he did help Ronnie avenge Tara’s murder, would it open the door to his family’s home?
He parked outside the address Ronnie had given him, killed the engine and sat in darkness staring at a nondescript end-of-terrace Victorian house.
Do what you do, fix it your way.
The dash blinked at Harry, minutes ticking by: 03:05.
Experience told him one of three things had happened to Tara.
One, her connection to Ronnie and the business he ran had made her a target. Two, she had been killed in a crime of passion. Or three, Tara had been involved in something that would lead Harry to discover his niece wasn’t the innocent little girl he had always loved.
The location of the murder made the second theory less likely. He didn’t want to entertain the third.
What would he find in the house?
Ronnie’s words kept repeating in his mind.
This is your only way back to the family.
Harry pictured his own home, where Saima was sleeping next to Aaron. They were his family too, but as much as he wished they were all he needed, he knew he couldn’t be content until his parents had taken him back. Until they let themselves see past all their religious bullshit.
With his boss’s warning to leave the case alone fresh in his ears, Harry went to the boot and pulled out a SOCO suit and gloves. He couldn’t afford to leave a trace of himself here.
Inside the hallway, Harry turned on the lights. A photo on the sideboard stopped him in his tracks. Tara wore a purple Ralph Lauren dress. It had been Harry’s sixteenth birthday present to her; she’d begged him for months. He picked it up and traced a gloved finger across the glass. He swallowed the knots in his throat, opened the back of the frame and removed the photo, putting it in his pocket before getting to work and rifling through uncollected mail on the floor.
Tara K. Virdee.
Her middle initial stood for Kaur, given to all baptized Sikh girls, as Singh was to boys.
Kaur: princess.
A symbol that all Sikh girls were precious and to be protected.
There was no mail for anybody else and the envelopes in his hand all proved to be circulars.
Harry made a preliminary sweep of the house. This was no home, this felt more like a holding cell. Ronnie could have put Tara in one of the four penthouse apartments he owned in the centre of town. But Tara would have enjoyed that. This house was a way of letting her know: freedom had its limitations.
‘There’s monsters in the dark, Uncle Harry.’
‘I know,’ whispered Harry. ‘Let’s see if we can find them.’
His suspicions were confirmed.
No food in the kitchen.
Few clothes in the wardrobe.
Barely any personal belongings.
The bin outside the back door was empty. Collection day was tomorrow.
This house might have been where Tara was supposed to be living, but this wasn’t where she’d spent her time.
‘Tricksy little girl,’ sighed Harry.
He thought about Nash, beaten and bruised in that tunnel, tasked with keeping an eye on Tara. Sentry duty was always dull; without specialist training, it was too easy to zone out. Still, Nash might know more than Ronnie had cared to ask.
Harry finished his sweep of the building, preoccupied by only one thing.
I need to find where she was actually living.
So much for Ronnie giving him a head start; this place was full of shadows, nothing more. Tara must have realized he’d have been keeping an eye on her here.
Harry was preparing to leave when his phone rang.
His first thought was Saima, but the number was withheld.
‘Hello?’ said Harry.
‘Detective Virdee?’ The voice was unfamiliar, female.
Harry looked at his watch. ‘Who wants to know at half-three in the morning?’
A pause. He could hear her breathing, soft and rhythmic.
‘I have some information about a case. Tara Virdee.’
Harry glanced at the staircase, as if whoever was calling might suddenly appear at the top.
‘There’s monsters under my bed, Uncle Harry …’
‘I’m listening,’ he said.
‘Are you able to meet? Now?’
‘Now? I’m at home. Like I said, it’s half-three in the morning. What—’
‘Telling me a lie isn’t the best start.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You’re lying. Because if you were at home right now, I wouldn’t be looking at you.’
ELEVEN
HARRY STEPPED CLOSER to the panes of glass either side of the front door and killed the lights, plunging the hallway into darkness. ‘Where are you?’ he said into his phone.
‘Close enough.’
‘Why the secrecy?’
‘We don’t have much time, but I can help you,’ she said, ignoring his question.
‘How did you get this number?’
‘You’re off the books, right? An uncle working his niece’s case – that can’t be protocol.’
Harry hesitated, unsure how to proceed. ‘You called me, lady. What do you want?’
The line fell silent again.
Harry wasn’t interested in her power games. He took the phone from his ear and looked at the screen, luminous in the dark hallway. When it hit thirty seconds and she still hadn’t spoken, Harry hung up.
If this woman really wanted to help, she’d call back.
Harry’s phone rang.
He let it ring six times. ‘Yes?’
‘Hanging up isn’t—’
‘This is really simple. If you want to help me, offer me something. Show me you’re worth my time. Otherwise I—’
‘Tomorrow night, something terrible is going to happen in Bradford.’
That got Harry’s attention. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I need you to trust me. And I need you to believe that Tara trusted me.’
Harry walked into the living room and across to the window. Peering through a gap in the curtains, he tried to get a wider-angled view of the street outside. ‘Let’s meet.’
‘Later.’
‘Why?’
‘There’s nothing in the house. You need to go where heads of state once met in secret. Stay free tomorrow, H. I’ll call.’
‘What?
‘Hello? Hello?’ he said, looking at his phone, but she had gone.
She had called him H.
Only Tara had ever called him H.
Harry tugged aside the curtain and scanned the street beyond, looking for a face in a window, a car pulling away, but there were no signs of life.
‘Where heads of state once met in secret?’ he whispered. A memory was shifting in his mind, trying to rise to the surface.
Harry’s hand went to his pocket, pulling out the picture of Tara he had lifted from the hallway. ‘What the hell did you get yourself caught up in, kid?’ he whispered.
Where heads of state once met in secret.
‘Shit,’ said Harry, raising the photo so
Tara’s eyes were level with his.
It was something only they knew.
Who was that voice on the phone?
‘Heads of state,’ he whispered. ‘Heads of fucking state.’
Fulneck School Foundation was in Pudsey, on the border of Bradford and Leeds; a private school where all the Virdee kids and grandkids had been educated. Harry had spent some of the happiest years of his life here. When he was feeling low or struggling with a case, Harry often came to the horseshoe car park he’d just pulled into. Staring down the long, straight path that led to the school gave him a sort of peace.
Not today.
Harry got out of the car and made his way to the south of the building. On his left was a gravelled terrace stretching the length of the school; to his right, the science building. Midway between was an overgrown path which led into the valley, a golf course on one side, the school on the other.
Leaving behind the streetlights of Fulneck, he followed the path as it descended into an abyss of darkness. He pulled a torch from his pocket and strode through dense nettles and overgrown grass until he reached a towering oak tree.
There it was.
Harry + Tara were here, heads of state forever
The memory lodged in his throat, his breath came shorter and shallower. He touched the bark where they had spent half an hour carving out their message; that had been the last time he’d seen Tara. He had wanted to tell her in person why he wouldn’t be around any more, about the choice he had made.
Harry looked away.
Focus on why you are here.
Where heads of state once met in secret.
Harry had been head boy of Fulneck, and Tara had wanted to follow in his footsteps and become head girl. She’d succeeded, within months of that final meeting. Whenever Harry had visited the Great Hall, he’d sought out her name etched in gold writing on the honours board opposite the one that held his.
Whoever had sent Harry here knew Tara very well. That last meeting here had been their little secret.
An uncomfortable feeling crept over Harry, putting him on edge. The trees were a mass of shadows; he could hear the wind rustling through the overgrown brambles and bushes. In the sky the new crescent-shaped moon seemed to be looking down on him.
He shone the torch around, sweeping the area. There was something in the scrub not far from the tree. A leather satchel, well worn, buckle missing, top zip broken.
