by A. A. Dhand
‘Look … all this work.’
But Olivia would not stop screaming. Ali balled his hands into fists.
Why couldn’t she see?
All this for her!
He began panting. He looked at Olivia and instead of the little girl he had coveted for so long, he saw the girls in the playground, screaming and running away from him. That fear had seemed so exciting then, but it was devastating now.
‘Just like them!’ he hissed at Olivia, who cowered in a corner of the bed.
Ali snatched a bottle of chloroform from the shelf, seething as Olivia’s face merged with others who had ruined him. He searched for a cloth – he couldn’t use the one covering the jar containing his mother’s eyes; she didn’t need to see this.
He grabbed one of the new pink towels and unscrewed the bottle.
Ali descended on Olivia, all sense of reason lost.
‘You are mine!’ he hissed. ‘And you will love me.’
FORTY-ONE
HARRY STEPPED OUT of Trafalgar House to see Ronnie’s Range Rover in the car park. The family had been notified within the past hour.
He checked his phone; twelve missed calls from Ronnie and four from Sarah. She’d also sent him a text.
Meet me at Undercliffe Cemetery. We need to talk.
Harry replied before he hesitantly climbed inside the Range Rover.
Ronnie’s eyes were red, his hair a mess. Harry wondered if he’d even been home.
‘What the fuck, Harry?’ he said, even before the door had shut.
‘I know,’ replied Harry, bracing himself.
‘Did you do this?’
‘Don’t be stupid. We’ll get to that. First, they are raiding your home.’
‘What?’
‘Standard practice. Are you clean there?’
‘They’re raiding—’
‘Are you clean there?’ snapped Harry.
Seeing the panic in Harry’s face, Ronnie nodded. ‘Home is home. Nothing to do with work there.’
Harry relaxed a little. Now that was out of the way, he was finding it difficult to know where to start.
‘Dad didn’t do it,’ he said.
‘No shit, Sherlock! Mum’s going crazy.’
‘She’ll be worse when the police arrive for the raid. You need to get back there.’
‘You’ve seen him?’ asked Ronnie.
Harry explained what had happened.
‘When will he be out?’
‘Once the alibi checks out, they’ll bail him. Probably later today.’
‘Bail?’
‘It’s only a formality.’
‘Get him out,’ snapped Ronnie. ‘And stop the raid. I can’t deal with this right now.’
‘I can’t. It’s not my call.’
Ronnie looked to the ceiling in despair.
‘You enjoyed seeing him in there, didn’t you?’
‘Hey,’ snapped Harry. ‘I might not like the guy, but he’s still my father.’
‘Is he safe?’
‘Nobody’s letting him suffer. His alibi – temple all Saturday night into Sunday morning – were you there too?’
Ronnie nodded. ‘I’m going in there to tell …’ he checked his phone, ‘DI Palmer.’
‘Good,’ said Harry.
‘That gets him out?’
‘It helps.’
‘What is it? Do you want him to stew?’
‘Enough, OK! I told you – I’m on it. He should have at least told you he visited Tara on Saturday night. What’s that about?’ asked Harry incredulously.
Ronnie hesitated.
‘What are you not telling me?’ Harry pushed.
‘Nothing,’ Ronnie whispered, closing his eyes.
‘Send it elsewhere, Ron.’
‘The old man and I aren’t the greatest of friends right now.’
‘Because of Tara?’
‘Yup.’
‘Looks like you finally understand what it’s like to be me.’
‘He blamed me for her leaving. Said I was weak, that I should have shut it down. We had … an altercation.’
There was a flashback in Harry’s mind.
Ronnie read his thoughts: ‘Nothing as dramatic as what happened with you.’
‘How bad?’
Ronnie shrugged. ‘We haven’t spoken since I let Tara leave.’
There was silence. The brothers looked each other over.
‘You know, don’t you?’ Ronnie whispered.
Harry sighed. ‘Fuck me,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Fuck me.’
‘How?’ asked Ronnie.
‘I bumped into Nash.’
Harry turned to face Ronnie and dropped his voice. ‘Gay Asian girl moves out of home, family disapprove, girl ends up dead,’ he said bluntly. ‘You see how it looks? They’re going to come for you, Ron.’
Ronnie pulled a joint from his pocket, put it between his lips and wound the window down.
Harry snatched it from him. ‘We’re outside the damn station! You’re about to go in there as Dad’s alibi. Think!’
‘Then stop looking at me like that. This shit’s hard enough to say without you glaring at me.’
Harry shoved the joint in Ronnie’s pocket then turned to stare out of the passenger window.
‘Tara was at my warehouse,’ said Ronnie. ‘I had this prick working for me, in charge of Bradford West distribution. Never liked him. Bastard picked a fight. There was just me, him and Tara. The argument got heated and he told Tara what we really did. I denied it, but he opened a container, showed her the drugs.’
‘What did you do?’ said Harry, still looking out of the window.
Ronnie shuffled in his seat.
Harry turned to face him. ‘In front of Tara?’
‘She wouldn’t leave.’
‘Ronnie, you fucking—’
‘Hey! I messed up. I know. I tried to explain it to her. Tried to …’
‘Turn her?’
‘I guess. There was nothing else I could do, Harry. I wasn’t about to lose my daughter.’
The brothers looked at each other.
‘I made her an offer.’
‘Life-long riches?’
Ronnie shrugged. ‘Instead, she saw her opportunity. She told me she was gay and that she wanted out. I was cornered. But I couldn’t tell the family. Couldn’t do shit except give in.’
‘Christ, Ronnie, does Mandy know that Tara was gay?’
‘No.’
Harry looked at his watch, he needed to get back to Sarah.
‘I envied you then,’ whispered Ronnie. ‘After she’d gone.’
‘Envied me?’
‘Inside the four walls of that little house you live in, it’s happy, right?’
Harry nodded.
‘You picked the woman you loved. And even though the world collapsed around you, you never wavered. I envied that selfishness to protect you and yours at all costs.’
‘What are you talking about? You and Mandy are—’
‘Arranged. I was out of jail, drinking heavily. She was a traditional girl. We fell into it, but we don’t love each other like we should. Throw in living with your parents and then you’ll understand why I work like I do. I need something to focus on – something I own, Harry. Something I control.’
Harry had never realized his brother felt this way. ‘When I lived with you guys, you were the happiest couple I knew. Shit, before I met Saima, you guys gave me faith in arranged marriages.’
‘We put on a good show.’
Harry’s head was starting to pound.
‘Finding the bastard who did this to Tara is the only way I might get some respect back.’ Ronnie looked at the floor. ‘I know what you feel like now.’
‘No. You don’t. But you soon might, if this life drags you under, Ronnie. You might actually lose them. You need to stop.’
‘I know,’ he replied.
Harry stared at him in disbelief.
‘Yeah, you heard me,’ said Ronnie. ‘I know. B
ut first? I need the son of a bitch who did this to Tara. After that? We’ll see.’
The brothers let another silence linger. Harry wasn’t sure what to believe.
‘What happened with Billy and Omar?’ asked Harry finally.
‘Not much,’ said Ronnie. ‘Shit goes down at eight o’clock tonight. No idea where. And this Ali guy? Freak show, apparently. Omar reckons he knows where he lives.’
‘Where?’
‘Not exact. Houses behind Mughal’s restaurant? One of them, he thinks.’
‘Thinks?’
‘These guys are ghosts to each other.’
‘You look ready to collapse, Ronnie.’
‘Don’t. Just check out the location, OK?’
Harry glanced at his watch. ‘Sure. But I need to see Sarah first.’
How did she know about Tara’s death?
Harry wasn’t sure he could accept everything she’d been telling him. Perhaps she hadn’t been one of Billy’s girls either.
‘Anything I can help with?’
‘No, no. Sort Dad’s alibi, then get home and tell Mum everything’s under control. She’ll be a mess once the raid starts.’
‘She already is.’
Harry couldn’t go there.
‘I’ve an idea how we can break Billy,’ he said.
‘How?’
Harry produced Billy’s taweez. He’d taken it from the bin outside his home where Saima had dumped it. Now, he handed it to Ronnie, telling him his plan.
‘It’s … ambitious,’ said Ronnie, handing it back.
‘Got any better ideas?’
Ronnie shrugged. ‘I can’t go home and be there for them when the raid starts if you want me at the tunnel in an hour?’
Harry sighed and drummed his fingers on the dash. ‘Leave them to deal with it,’ he whispered, almost ashamed of himself. ‘There’s no time for you to get bogged down. Are you up for this, Ron? You look like hell.’
‘I’m on it.’
‘Good,’ said Harry, opening the door to leave. ‘It’s about time the dead came back to life.’
FORTY-TWO
HARRY ENTERED THE cemetery, once an exclusive burial ground for wealthy wool merchants, but now anyone could be laid to rest inside the grounds. Scattered amongst grand, awe-inspiring tombs decorated with serpents and eagles were more modest granite headstones.
He went in through the open gates; the place was deserted. He headed towards the newest tombs at the far end and saw an outline of a lone figure, clad in black, familiar blonde curls resting on her shoulders.
Sarah didn’t move as Harry arrived by her side. She was looking at a small grey tombstone with a fresh white lily laid across it.
Amy Brewster, 1980–2010, aged 30.
No embellishments or kind words. Just the facts.
Sarah was crying. Harry stood beside her and waited. Finally she broke the silence.
‘You know, don’t you?’ she said quietly.
Harry pointed to a bench away from the graves. ‘Can we?’ he said.
She nodded, kissed her fingertips and touched the headstone before following Harry.
‘You weren’t just one of the girls they hung around with,’ said Harry, sitting on the bench beside Sarah.
‘No.’ Sarah’s body deflated as she admitted the truth. ‘They groomed us. When Mum was at her weakest, Billy promised her a new life. So stupid not to have seen it,’ she hissed angrily.
‘How old were you?’
‘Eleven.’
‘Don’t think any eleven-year-old would have seen that coming.’
‘I worshipped him,’ she said, turning to Harry, her face flushed in the cold air. ‘He treated me like I was his daughter. Spoiled me. Made me laugh. I loved him like he was my father.’
They both fell silent as a teenage boy walked past, hands deep in his pockets.
‘What happened?’ Harry turned towards her.
Sarah shrugged. ‘We packed up. We’d moved a couple of times. Lost all our friends. Nobody really gave a shit. Mum had me when she was fifteen. She was … difficult. She had a few boyfriends after Dad left, and then Billy came on the scene. He isolated her, ruined her. He …’ Sarah pointed towards the tombstone in the distance.
‘Why did you lie to me?’ he asked bluntly, an edge to his voice that he didn’t try to hide.
‘I needed you to see it yourself.’
Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He needed to go through all of this before he could get her to talk about Tara.
‘So you were taken?’
Sarah met his gaze and nodded.
‘We went to some farmhouse on the outskirts of Bradford – I can’t remember why. Billy said we had to stay there a few days before heading to London. It was a nice place, big TV, I thought it was great. One evening I went to sleep and the next time I woke up, I was somewhere else … captive, with the others.’
‘Others? You weren’t the first?’
‘No. I was the first white girl though. The others were Asian.’
‘Asian?’
‘From Pakistan,’ she said. ‘Kashmir.’
‘Who kept you, Sarah?’
She looked away, back towards the gravestones where an elderly man crouched to lay flowers at a headstone.
‘A big Asian man. Fat, hairy, a bit of a beard, and he had a finger missing on his left hand. I never saw more than that. He kept his face covered when he came to … use us.’
‘How many other girls were there?’ asked Harry.
‘When I arrived, there were six Asian girls, but they soon disappeared. Once he had me, he lost interest in them. They were all fair-skinned and made to look white, their hair was coloured and they wore western clothing, but they weren’t the real thing. Melissa arrived a year later, then Anna. Then Lena, Zara … and by that point, I was sixteen. I’d outgrown my appeal.’
‘So he just let you go?’ Harry asked incredulously.
Sarah shook her head. She turned her body to face him, raising her knees, folding them on the bench.
‘Let me go?’ she said sarcastically. ‘Would you?’
‘No.’
‘Some low-life was supposed to take me down to the river and drown me. But he didn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘A sixteen-year-old white girl in that part of the world? I was worth something and he knew it. He sold me.’
‘To whom?’
‘Some other low-life,’ she said, thinking of Yasser. He’d spent four years teaching her how the debauched ways of the western world had led to her being trafficked. He taught her that she needed to return as a messenger of God to take her own revenge. She’d listened and learned, knowing that, if she proved her worth, she’d be sent back to the UK eventually. But Sarah didn’t tell Harry any of this.
‘Just another low-life,’ she repeated. ‘But he wasn’t as careful. I ran.’
Harry sighed again, overwhelmed by the scale of it. If Sarah was right, they only had a few hours before another girl vanished.
‘How did you get back here?’
‘I crossed over to India and managed to get to the British consulate in Delhi. By then I was nineteen. I told them I’d been doing charity work and lost my passport. They didn’t believe me. I had no evidence, but I made a big show, cried a lot and caused them a headache. After a few weeks, once they’d contacted my grandfather and verified who I was, they brought me back.’
Sarah had rehearsed that part many times, it came out as easily as truth.
‘Your grandfather?’
‘Percy,’ she replied. ‘You met him at the New Beehive.’
Harry sighed and got up. He began pacing the path in front of the bench.
He thought about Tara charging down the street outside Gerard House, frantically trying to save Olivia.
‘So Tara knew all this?’ asked Harry.
Sarah nodded.
‘Where did you two actually meet?’ he asked. He knew what she’d say before she opened her mouth.
‘The Candy Club,’ she replied.
He nodded. ‘Were you two together?’
‘Yes.’
He looked at her. Really looked at her. Determined not to let his pity for her get in the way.
‘You were there when Tara was killed, weren’t you?’
Sarah placed her feet back on the ground and leaned forward. ‘Yes,’ she said.
A current went through Harry’s body, forcing him to clench his fists.
‘And you didn’t st—’
‘Don’t. I need you to understand. Tara knew she could never tell her family the truth about being gay unless … she became hugely successful or did something to make everybody proud. It’s the way your community works, isn’t it? Shame is only countered by success, right?’
Harry nodded.
‘She was out for revenge, not just for me but for herself too.’
‘So how the fuck did she end up dead?’ Harry began pacing again, his shoes crunching slowly on the path.
Once Tara had seen Olivia being driven away, she’d panicked. She knew they didn’t have long because it was all happening on Wednesday, so she arranged to see Billy on Saturday and he suggested Wapping School.
‘And no alarm bells went off then? Fuck’s sake, why would she agree to that?’ said Harry bitterly. If only he’d returned Tara’s calls.
‘She didn’t have much choice, which is why I insisted on going with her.’
‘So what went wrong?’ asked Harry.
‘It wasn’t Billy that turned up,’ said Sarah.
Harry thought back to the night before, how he’d confirmed Billy had been in Birmingham.
‘Who was it?’
‘A small guy, big hood. I thought he was a junkie passing through, but …’ she struggled to finish the sentence. ‘He just walked up to Tara and … you know.’
‘What?’ said Harry.
There was a pause. ‘He stuck a knife in her chest.’
‘And you—’
‘I … froze.’ Sarah started to cry, guilt spreading across her face. ‘I … ran …’
Harry stopped pacing, looming large over Sarah.
‘I panicked, OK!’ she snapped. ‘You think I haven’t relived that moment a thousand times? I … I was terrified.’
‘You left her?’ Harry yelled.
For a moment, the cemetery fell silent as they stood glaring at one another.
‘Why didn’t you call the police? An ambulance?’ Harry continued, still towering above her.
