by A. A. Dhand
‘Upstairs,’ the voice said. Ali stole a glance into the living room where Olivia was watching television. Having caught a fleeting glimpse of a prize he had coveted for years, Ali felt suddenly overwhelmed.
Focus, Ali, focus.
‘I … need to go upstairs first,’ he said. ‘Billy said I was coming? Right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is your mum asleep?’
‘She won’t be bothered,’ the girl replied. ‘She’s on medicine.’
‘Thanks,’ said Ali, and hurried away, the syringes burning a hole in his pocket, his heartbeat deafening inside his head.
Upstairs, he found Lexi Goodwin asleep in the end bedroom.
The boss. His identity had sent shock waves tearing through Ali.
He hurried over to the bed, afraid he might lose his nerve. He shook her shoulder.
Lexi didn’t respond, her breathing shallow, dried saliva around her lips.
Ali pulled out the syringe, rolled Lexi on to her front and, seeing she had no underwear on, jabbed the needle into her backside.
In the living room, Ali was relieved Olivia still had her back towards him, focused on the television. He was holding a syringe in his hand; he was loath to use it to pierce Olivia’s flawless skin, but it was a necessary evil.
This was about to happen.
Ali marched purposefully towards Olivia, adrenaline searing through his veins.
Her reaction was instinctive as Ali grabbed her and dragged her to the floor. He used his knees to pin her shoulders and used a rough hand to turn her face away from his. Olivia thrashed wildly, almost sending Ali toppling over. His knee slipped from her right shoulder and she raised her hand and clawed her fingers into his face, covering her hands in his thick make-up. Ali plunged the needle into her thigh, waiting the few minutes it would take the drugs to work.
Panting heavily, hood dislodged and with blood running down his face where Olivia’s nails had caught his fragile skin, Ali moved away to wait until she had faded.
Then at last he came face to face with his prize.
The revelation of the boss’s identity had taken the ground from underneath him, but now with shaky hands stroking Olivia’s face, Ali Kamran could think of only one thing:
He was going to keep this girl, for ever.
THIRTY-NINE
HARRY REMAINED BY the doorway as his father sat stony-faced, ignoring the objections of DI Palmer outside.
Harry walked to the empty chair and sat down. Both men stared at each other. Harry took in new details about his father: wrinkles across his forehead, grey hair escaping his turban and painfully hollow eyes.
He didn’t do it.
The first thing Harry thought.
He can’t have done.
This was why he had not been allowed to work the case: the risk of loyalty undermining his objectivity. He was searching for an opening sentence when his father shattered the silence.
‘You killed her,’ he said in Punjabi.
Of all the things he could have said, Harry hadn’t expected that.
‘What?’
Ranjit was calm.
‘What you did. It paved the way for Tara. Leaving home, breaking your parents’ hearts, disgracing your community.’
‘Did you kill her?’
There was no emotion on Ranjit’s face. No reaction at all.
It hit Harry, like a brick.
Jesus Christ, you ruined him when you left. He’s broken too.
‘Do you think,’ Ranjit asked softly, ‘that I did?’
Harry didn’t reply. He’d been expecting fireworks.
‘I hate you,’ said Ranjit calmly, quietly. ‘With everything inside of me. Every bone, every cell, every memory you ever created – all of it.’
Harry felt light-headed.
Christ, not this.
He needed anger – fury, not guilt. He had enough of that on his own.
‘I brought you home, from the hospital. January first, 1979. New Year. New life. I raised you. I fed you. I clothed you. I worked in that damn shop, fourteen hours a day, to give you the best of everything—’
‘You’ve said all this before,’ said Harry, not wanting to repeat the conversation they’d had four years ago.
Ranjit pointed to the door Harry had sealed. ‘You think you’re going to get some confession from me? No.’ Ranjit shook his head. ‘You’re going to suffer, same as me.’
Harry blinked profusely. Don’t crack. Not here. Not in front of him.
‘I see it,’ said Ranjit. ‘In your eyes. I gave them to you. You think I cannot see your pain? I’m your father.’
Harry clenched his teeth, grinding his jaw, thinking of Tara’s secret.
‘What were you doing at Tara’s?’ he asked.
‘Having a conversation I should have had with you a long time ago. Before it got out of hand.’
Don’t. Don’t say it.
‘I asked her to come home.’
Harry felt pain in his chest, heat spreading.
‘I asked her to think again about what she was doing,’ Ranjit continued.
‘What she was doing?’ Harry could only manage a simple question.
‘I told her not to do what you did. She had moved out, she had shamed her family. I did not want her going against our community like you had. Our girls do not leave home until they are married. It is not how our culture works.’
‘Why didn’t you tell that to the guys who interviewed you?’
‘I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know that you killed her.’
‘I didn’t,’ whispered Harry, feeling drained. He put his hand in his pocket, feeling for the keyring of the candle and crescent-moon Saima had given him for Diwali. He found Saima’s taweez instead.
‘If you hadn’t done what you did, if you’d married someone respectable, Tara would still be at home and this … tragedy wouldn’t have happened. You started it all – you gave Tara all the ammunition she needed.’
‘You disowned me,’ said Harry, searching his other pocket and finding the keyring, squeezing it tightly. ‘Tara knew nobody would tolerate her independence. Not after what happened with me.’
‘Her father tolerated it. Ronnie never had the strength to do what I did.’
‘Strength?’ Harry dug the edges of the keyring into his fingers, trying to keep calm. ‘Strength? Is that what you think it was?’
‘What would you call disowning a son? You think it’s easy?’
‘Weakness. That’s what I call it.’
‘When the boy in your house grows to be a man, you decide whether it is strength or weakness.’
‘There’s nothing my son could do to make me disown him.’
‘You allowed the devil into your house and you think—’
Harry got to his feet and leaned over the table, towering above his father.
‘Don’t you call my wife that. Ever,’ snapped Harry, letting go of the keyring and pointing angrily at his father.
‘Not your wife. What she believes. It is incompatible with everything we believe,’ said Ranjit, unmoved in the chair.
‘It’s not incompatible with what I believe.’
‘You have converted?’ Ranjit spat on the floor.
‘No.’ Harry tried not to lose it. ‘I believe what I always have. There’s no place in my world for religion, but I’m not going to stop anyone else believing.’
‘And the boy in your house?’ Harry was sure his father knew Aaron’s name, but he refused to use it.
‘When he’s a man? When he’s old enough to decide, he’ll make up his own mind.’
‘That’s not how those people work.’
‘Those people? You can’t even bring yourself to say the word “Muslim”?’
Ranjit looked away.
‘And the woman in your house, she agrees with you?’
‘She puts family before religion.’
Ranjit shook his head, smiling patronizingly. ‘You are so misguided and foolish. This decision
will be the end of your life.’
‘Guess we’ll see.’
‘Did I really raise you so badly?’
‘How have you not figured this out yet?’
‘What—’
‘You forced me to go.’
‘I did not.’
‘You came at me with your kirpan.’
‘I wish your mother hadn’t stopped me.’
‘What kind of father wishes his son’s death?’
‘I gave you life. It is for me to take it away.’
Momentarily lost for words, Harry stared at him in disbelief. His legs felt unsteady but he remained standing. ‘Do you want to know the truth?’ he said.
‘My conscience is clear.’
Harry put his hands on the table, steadying himself for what he was about to say.
‘Let me tell you why me marrying a Muslim is all your fault.’
Ranjit met Harry’s gaze. ‘Show me how the woman in your house has twisted your view of your own family.’
Harry took a breath, his temper crumbling when his father spoke about Saima.
‘You moved to this country. You left your parents in India, so that you might have a better life. You never had to worry about them – your brothers were left to look after them. All you ever worried about was making money and raising your family.’
‘I’m proud of what I achieved.’
Harry continued, determined. ‘Good education, mixing with English people from all backgrounds. We became English citizens in a country where this religious melodrama of yours is laughed at. You bought us that education, you were proud of this open upbringing you’d got for us. But you had one rule: be tolerant, mix with everybody, but never associate with Muslims. It was totally flawed. It was never going to work. We don’t live in India, we’re not “Indians” like you think we are. You can park your bullshit, Dad.’
Anger started to show on Ranjit’s face, but Harry continued. He couldn’t have stopped if he wanted to; it felt as if his blood were on fire.
‘If you wanted that life, you should have stayed in your own damn country,’ said Harry.
Ranjit cursed loudly and smashed his fists on the table, making Harry jump. ‘Ungrateful bastard! I gave you the best of everything!’
‘My wife, Saima—’
‘Don’t say her name in my presence! That dog took my son from me!’
‘Don’t. Call. Her. That.’
From outside, DI Palmer must have seen the mood shift. He started urgently knocking on the door.
Harry pointed at his father. ‘Get up.’
Ranjit didn’t move.
‘On your fucking feet!’ shouted Harry, losing control. ‘Before I drag you.’
His father stood.
Ranjit wiped his eyes, unwilling to shed tears in Harry’s presence. ‘She took you from me! Look at you, choosing her over me. Again!’
Harry smashed his own fist down on to the table.
‘I’m standing right in front of you, Dad. There is no choice. There never was. I’m still your son.’
Both men glared at each other, the ice they were standing on fracturing. Harry’s fists were still clenched, digging nails into his palms, sweat bleeding into his clothes.
‘Tara’s blood,’ hissed Harry, suddenly remembering why they were in the room. ‘How did it get under your ring?’
Ranjit looked past Harry to the far wall, then fell back into his chair, his anger and energy suddenly drained.
‘If you don’t tell me, they’re going to do you for her murder,’ said Harry.
Ranjit rubbed both hands over his face and wiped his eyes. He looked as broken as Harry felt.
‘She cut her hand on a glass,’ he said dejectedly. ‘I grabbed it to look at it, because she was crying. That is how. Very, very simple.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I don’t care. It’s the truth.’
He hadn’t killed Tara.
Relief flooded Harry’s system. He hadn’t realized how fearful he’d been of the possibility it was true.
‘Why didn’t you tell them earlier?’
‘Four years ago I lost a son. Now, a granddaughter.’ There was a tremor in his voice as he continued: ‘I’m broken. That day …’
Harry nodded.
‘I wouldn’t have done it. I wouldn’t have hurt you. I’m weak. I should have been able to. But I know I couldn’t have.’
Harry had never seen his father cry.
‘Not having the ability to take your son’s life doesn’t make you weak,’ he said, his voice softer now.
‘I didn’t kill Tara. You think I could take my granddaughter’s life when I couldn’t even take yours?’
Harry didn’t. ‘You need an alibi for Saturday night, after you left her place.’
‘That’s easy.’ Ranjit dropped his head on to his chest, tired. ‘I was at the temple all night until Sunday morning. There was a do. Hundreds of witnesses. I got a lift home at nine o’clock and I didn’t go out all day. We have CCTV cameras at the house – you can check.’
‘You could have saved a lot of trouble by saying all this earlier.’
Ranjit lifted his head. ‘I wanted you to come here to see what you have done. We are all dead inside and now we have lost another part of the family – because of you. Your mother is no longer the woman I married.’ Harry looked away, unable to maintain eye contact with his father. ‘Damn you, Hardeep. Damn everything about you. Your kismet is black like your blood. The woman in your house will ruin you, just like she did us.’
There was no anger any more. These were the facts as he saw them.
‘You’re a foolish old man,’ whispered Harry, shaking his head. Then he walked towards the door.
Palmer stepped aside, glaring at Harry, waiting for the door to open.
‘And you’re wrong about Saima,’ said Harry, remembering his wife’s words. He kicked the wooden block from the base of the door, but kept his foot pressed against it. ‘You don’t hate her because she’s a threat. You hate her because she isn’t. Because if you met her, she would shatter your preconceptions and then … And then what the hell would you do with all your hate?’
Harry opened the door, and stepped outside.
‘All yours,’ he said to DI Palmer. ‘All fucking yours.’
FORTY
ALI GENTLY LAID Olivia’s body on the single bed in his cellar, having moved Gori’s lifeless body on to the floor.
He stroked Olivia’s hair, gently sliding a pillow under her head and spreading a blanket over her little body.
Then he sat beside her, a calmness stilling his thoughts.
He couldn’t wait for her to open her eyes.
Over the course of the last year, Ali had worked tirelessly in his cellar. Much like his face, he had transformed it from a ruin. The walls were painted warm pink and he’d stuck glow-in-the-dark stars across the ceiling. He’d loved them as a kid, counting them every night to relax his mind from the torment of surviving another bruising day at school.
Ali lifted Gori’s body from the floor; her skin, as usual, was icily cold. He dragged her upstairs, her feet bouncing clumsily on the stairs. Unsure what to do with her, for now, Ali laid her on the kitchen floor and hurried upstairs.
He needed to get ready.
He took far more care than he usually did. He needed to look just right for when Olivia woke up and saw him for the first time.
There was no time for the bath. But Ali painted, smudged and repainted his face until it was perfect. He lifted a piece of broken glass from the floor, hesitating in his excitement. One deep breath.
He looked good.
Olivia would be pleased.
He even allowed himself to smile.
Back in the cellar, he paced the floor while Olivia slept.
‘I have the most beautiful girl anybody in our community will ever have seen, Mother.’
He scratched at his hands.
Why did you curse this family?
‘I didn
’t curse this family.’ Ali fell silent, dejected. ‘I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Look, let me show you.’
Ali’s hands were shaky as he stood in front of the shelf he usually shied away from at the far end of the room and pulled back the black cloth. The jar sat alone. Two eyes floated in yellow liquid. They didn’t shine like they once had, but they had at least lost some of their judgement over the years.
‘Look at me,’ he whispered, his voice unsteady. Look!’ he hissed, stepping aside and pointing at Olivia’s body, which was starting to move on the bed.
‘I knew you’d have nothing to say.’
Ali returned to his pacing.
‘She’s mine, Mother. I proved everyone wrong. She’ll love me and I’ll no longer be an outcast.’
Olivia was starting to come round, mumbling incoherently. Ali hurriedly covered the jar with the black cloth.
‘You don’t get to see her any more, Mother,’ he hissed, then stepped aside, looking into a mirror hanging on the wall to check his appearance. He pulled his hood down. Good.
Nervously, excitedly, he crept towards Olivia and knelt by her side as she started to awaken.
He smiled and reached out his hand, lovingly tucking her hair behind her ear.
‘Hi,’ he said as she opened her eyes.
Their eyes locked and for a moment, nothing happened.
Then, as if Ali was viewing it in slow-motion, her eyes narrowed, her body coiled and she did the one thing that was guaranteed to break Ali’s heart: Olivia screamed.
She pushed her body back, away from Ali, until she felt the wall behind her.
Stunned, he got to his feet. He marched around the room, showing her how he had provided for her. Urging her to stop screaming.
She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Between screams, she gasped for air, struggling to breathe. Terror was etched into every inch of her face.
‘It’s OK,’ said Ali, turning his face away. ‘I … saved you,’ he said pathetically.
‘Mum,’ she sobbed. ‘Where’s … my mum?’
Ali backed off a step and put his hands out. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re going to stay here with me. We’re going to be happy.’
He gestured around the cellar, at all the toys he had bought, and pointed at the new outfits, hanging pristine in the wardrobe.
