Girl Zero

by A. A. Dhand

  Sarah rose to meet him. ‘We’ve both made errors where Tara was concerned,’ she said, and pushed him angrily in the chest. ‘I ran because I knew nobody would believe me. I didn’t know who I could trust. You’re not exactly proving me wrong, are you?’

  Harry turned away from her, his mind overwhelmed with conflicting emotions. Guilt, anger, suspicion.

  ‘I spent the whole of Sunday obsessing over what to do. Then I decided that even though Tara hadn’t managed to contact you, I had to try. I went back, and when I saw nobody had found her, I called the police.’

  Harry breathed in icy air, trying to calm his mind.

  ‘Put yourself in my shoes,’ he said, finally turning to face her. ‘Just for a moment. Can you hear yourself? How crazy this whole thing sounds?’

  ‘That’s exactly the point!’ She couldn’t help but raise her voice again.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Celebrities have been screwing young girls for years. Politicians, policemen? Go as high and as far as you can and it’s there.’ She stepped towards him. ‘We live in a world where my voice is ignored because you don’t want to believe it. Because you prefer to tell me how crazy it sounds, and that’s the end of it.’

  Her face had changed. Her eyes were cold. ‘The greater the scandal, the more nobody wants to hear it.’

  She took another step closer, so they were almost toe-to-toe. ‘Posh, educated white men have been doing this for decades. What makes you think an Asian gang couldn’t repeat it?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you dare fucking doubt it’s possible. I saw Tara murdered in front of my eyes and I’m telling you, we need to end this now or she died for nothing.’

  Harry recognized the anger raging behind her eyes, but he couldn’t hold her gaze. Turning away, he walked until he reached the nearest headstone. Then he stopped, dropped his head on to his chest.

  ‘See, what I now have to ask myself,’ said Harry, ‘is what does your definition of justice look like?’

  ‘I don’t want Billy in handcuffs,’ she replied.

  Harry grimaced. Now he had two people who wanted blood.

  ‘I’ve been through hell,’ she said, ‘which is where I want to send Billy – and more importantly, whoever the bastard is at the top of this chain.’

  ‘It doesn’t help,’ he said.

  ‘Easy for you to say. I am so sick of losing to these fuckers, Harry. I want them dead.’

  He repeated himself, something in his voice making Sarah look at him differently. ‘It doesn’t help.’ Harry was thinking of the door of 19 Belle Avenue.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve … crossed that line?’

  Harry told her about what he had done when he was fifteen, the weight of the last forty-eight hours weighing heavy on his shoulders.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ she asked when he had finished.

  ‘Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe because I want you to know everything in life isn’t black and white.’ Tara had trusted her and Harry wanted to.

  ‘You’re saying that after what I’ve been through?’

  ‘No,’ said Harry. ‘You don’t know what killing someone will do to you. What it might trigger. There are consequences, even if you can escape the law.’

  ‘You mean like your brother becoming a criminal?’

  ‘Yes. And … what I did to that boy’s parents.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m up against the same issues here,’ she said petulantly.

  ‘Just think about it,’ was all Harry could say.

  He put his hand in his pocket and found Billy’s taweez. Tara had died trying to unravel this mess and Harry intended to see it through.

  ‘I need your help if we’re going to get to Olivia before it’s too late.’

  Sarah’s eyes locked on to Harry’s. ‘In exchange, you need to let me decide what happens to him.’

  Harry started to shake his head.

  ‘Listen, I’m not sure I could even do it …’ She looked down at her shoes, then up into his eyes. ‘But I want the choice.’

  Harry checked his watch again, five hours.

  Trapped between two impossible choices, he was forced to concede – for the time being.

  ‘Fine,’ he said.

  Sarah smiled.

  ‘What do you need me to do?’

  Harry pointed to the nearest row of tombstones and dropped his voice. ‘You have to die.’

  FORTY-THREE

  RONNIE VIRDEE WAS alone in the wine and spirits section of his cash-and-carry, having sent the staff home and closed up early. He walked back and forth along the rows of whiskies.

  He’d ignored the dozen or so calls from his wife, along with several text messages that their house was being raided. Ronnie could not do anything to stop it anyway. His thoughts were too crowded.

  Every day, he worked in the shadow of this seemingly limitless supply of booze. He had to ignore the whispers from the bottles day in, day out. Tara’s death had turned the whispers into deafening wails.

  Ronnie selected a bottle. Chivas Regal, a twenty-one-year-old Salute edition which retailed at £110. If he was going to drink, may as well drink the best.

  Ronnie pulled a wooden step over to a powerful heating unit that blew warm air down from the ceiling. He put the bottle on the floor in front of him and stared at it.

  For fifteen years he had been sober. Until yesterday.

  Ronnie could remember little of his eldest daughter before she turned five; he’d been enslaved to the golden poison now just inches away. He looked at his hand resting on his knee and saw something he hadn’t experienced for years; his forefinger and thumb were involuntarily rolling an imaginary pea, something only alcoholics experienced.

  Ronnie could picture Tara standing there, right there by his office door, screaming at him after she found out about what he did. She had been disgusted by him, the hatred clear in her eyes.

  Ronnie felt empty.

  Tara was gone.

  His marriage was a lie.

  And his brother didn’t understand.

  Ronnie had put everything he had into his business.

  And what had he got?

  Nothing.

  He took a slow glance around the warehouse, packed from floor to ceiling but empty – no one in there but him.

  He closed his eyes and screamed until his voice gave way.

  He jumped to his feet, snatched the bottle from the floor and launched it at a steel girder where it smashed. Glass and whisky covered the floor.

  Ronnie screamed again and picked up the stool.

  He lashed out savagely, smashing everything within reach, only stopping when the lactic acid boiling in his arms forced him to. He found himself on his knees, his head drooping, in a pool of pungent liquor.

  This was where he had done it. Ronnie looked up, past the metal sheeting that screened off the rest of the cash-and-carry from where he sat. Tara had stood at the end of this aisle.

  How could he have done such a thing?

  So carelessly shown his daughter just how far power had corrupted him?

  Harry’s words were suddenly loud in his mind.

  Karma; that shit has a way of hunting you down.

  ‘Fuck you, Karma,’ he whispered, getting to his feet. ‘I write my own.’

  FORTY-FOUR

  AT EXACTLY SIX p.m. Victor parked in the car park of the Cow and Calf Rocks.

  He’d be glad never to return to this place again. The beauty of the moors had been forever ruined for him by the knowledge of what took place in the farmhouse.

  Not after tonight.

  On the passenger seat, Victor had the black bag Sarah had given him.

  He knew what he had to do.

  By the base of the rocks, Victor gathered a dozen or so stones and placed them carefully in a second bag before starting his ascent.

  It took him almost thirty strenuous minutes but he never wavered. Failure now would jeopardize everything. At the
top, Victor looked to the heavens, casting a disparaging glance at darkening clouds.

  In a corner close to the lip of the rock, Victor pushed the bag Sarah had given him deep into the shadows and carefully concealed it behind the smaller rocks from his other bag. Satisfied that it was well hidden, he stepped back, ensuring a cursory sweep of the area would not reveal it.

  Pulling his binoculars from his bag, he moved to the far side of the rock for a final look at the farmhouse. From here it almost looked inviting.

  He spat on the floor.

  ‘She’s going to burn you to the ground,’ he said, the wind slicing at his words. ‘Send you bastards straight to hell.’

  FORTY-FIVE

  SAIMA VIRDEE WASHED her hands, rinsed her mouth out and inhaled water into her nose, performing her ritual cleansing before she prayed. She scrubbed her face, then her lower arms from wrist to elbow, before cleaning her head and wiping her ears inside and out. Finally, she washed her feet. Each stage was repeated three times.

  Ramadan began the following day and she was starting the month of five times daily prayer early: it helped to still her worries about Harry. Aaron had hauled himself up in the bathroom, teetering precariously by a laundry basket, trying to repeat his earlier steps.

  ‘Learning to walk when your mum’s about to starve herself for a month,’ she said, grabbing a towel to dry herself. ‘Nice work, little man.’

  Aaron grinned before falling on to his backside.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, scooping him up from the floor.

  In the living room, Saima lowered Aaron into his playpen, put cartoons on the TV and rolled out her prayer mat.

  ‘Praying with the wheels on the bloody bus in the background,’ she muttered. ‘As if I’m not halfway to hell already.’ She turned the volume down low. Aaron stopped watching the wheels on the bus and stared at his mother.

  ‘Maa,’ he called out. ‘Maa?’

  Saima read her prayers quickly, ignoring the singing from the television and Aaron’s babbled commentary.

  She stepped off the mat and turned to her son, crouching beside him and blowing gently across his face. Aaron started laughing. ‘Everything’s a game to you,’ Saima said warmly.

  She had learned this from her mother. Saima walked to all four corners of the room, blowing her now purified breath at each point. From his playpen, Aaron puffed out his cheeks and copied.

  ‘Better get used to it,’ she said when she’d finished. ‘Five times a day for thirty days.’

  Aaron picked up a lone Rice Krispie from the floor and held it out for her.

  ‘Der,’ he said proudly.

  ‘Yes, der,’ she said, picking him up.

  In the kitchen, Saima strapped Aaron into his high-chair. He grabbed at the taweez around her neck, pulling it sharply.

  ‘Ow!’ she said, raising her voice suddenly. Aaron immediately started to cry.

  ‘No, no, no,’ she said, getting on her knees and kissing his cheeks. ‘Mummy didn’t mean it like that.’

  His cheeks were streaked with tears.

  ‘Here,’ she said, taking it off and putting it in his hands. ‘See, nothing to be scared of.’

  Aaron stopped crying once he held the taweez. He put it in his mouth.

  ‘It’s to protect our family from Daddy’s nasty work,’ she whispered, wiping tears from his face.

  Saima pinned a Ramadan calendar to the fridge and secured a red pen underneath. As a child, she had been in charge of crossing out each fasting-day as it passed, counting down to the festival of Eid. It had been her favourite time of year: presents, new clothes and celebrations with family and friends.

  Now, it was a more sombre affair. Like Harry, Saima had made her choice. She’d struggled to leave her family who, like Harry’s, had refused to accept their inter-faith marriage. But while Harry carried his anger on the surface, Saima swallowed her pain. She put on a good show, but Ramadan was difficult, lonely. Harry tried to help by ensuring they ate together in the evenings, but it didn’t fill the emptiness in her heart when faced with a lonely month-long fast.

  Saima opened the freezer and looked at its overloaded contents. At home she had done the family Ramadan shop for years and still hadn’t adjusted to her new family’s size, once again buying far more than she needed. She’d hoped that with Aaron’s arrival, things might have changed. The sight of the bulging freezer made Saima suddenly sad.

  She took the red pen and put a big round dot next to the first date, blinking away tears as she heard her mother’s voice.

  You’re the only person I know who looks forward to fasting …

  Saima had found it exciting as a child; waking up early, her brothers and sisters all meeting in the kitchen while the rest of the street was asleep. It felt secretive and special.

  ‘Thirty days to go,’ she whispered to Aaron. ‘I might envy you those jars of baby food by tomorrow afternoon,’ she said, waving one at him. Aaron put his hands out for it and Saima swapped it for the taweez.

  ‘Too easy,’ she said.

  She warmed a small portion of daal and when it was ready, carried Aaron’s high-chair into the living room, parking him in front of the television.

  Two spoonfuls down, the doorbell sounded.

  ‘Crap,’ she said, putting the food aside. ‘Amazon need to work on their timing.’

  The doorbell went again.

  ‘Coming!’ shouted Saima, and hurried to the door.

  Aaron started to cry as soon as she left the room.

  ‘Keys, keys, keys,’ she said, searching the hallway for them, knocking Harry’s mother’s slippers to the floor as she looked.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, hurriedly picking them up.

  The doorbell went again and Aaron’s crying became more frantic.

  Saima finally found the keys.

  She flung open the door and stared in confusion at the short hooded figure on the step.

  Time seemed to stop. With Aaron screaming from the living room, Saima was confronted by a face that made her heart stop.

  FORTY-SIX

  HARRY AND SARAH were standing outside Queensbury Tunnel just as the evening sun started to set and swollen grey clouds threatened rain.

  ‘What is this place?’ she asked Harry.

  ‘Hell,’ he replied, looking towards the metal fencing around the mouth of the entrance where Ronnie was making his way towards them.

  ‘When you said your brother was a criminal, I wasn’t imagining this,’ whispered Sarah.

  Ronnie stopped just short of them. He nodded awkwardly at Sarah, not sure what to make of her. Harry had updated him on the phone on the way over.

  ‘We set?’ asked Harry.

  Ronnie’s eyes darted between Sarah and Harry, then to the skies. ‘Going to rain,’ he said. ‘It gets noisy in there when that happens. Makes talking difficult. We haven’t got a lot of time.’ He paused, scrutinizing Sarah. ‘Some story you’ve got.’ His voice was neither accusatory nor sincere.

  ‘Stories start with once upon a time and end with happily ever after,’ she said quietly.

  Ronnie nodded.

  ‘Your show,’ he said, holding out a kitchen knife, waiting till she took it from him. He pointed to the tunnel entrance over his shoulder. ‘You sure you can do this? That place is hell without the fires.’

  Sarah felt the weight of the knife in her hand, her eyes darting between Harry and Ronnie. ‘I’m not unfamiliar with this type of place,’ she said bitterly.

  Droplets of rain started to fall, slow and heavy, thudding as they hit the already saturated ground.

  ‘Not much time,’ said Ronnie, turning to lead Sarah into the tunnel. ‘He’s about two hundred metres down on the right.’ He pulled a pair of night-vision goggles from his jacket pocket and handed them to her. ‘I’ll be waiting here, just inside. Shit gets too much, you come straight back.’

  Sarah nodded, spinning the handle of the knife in her hand.

  Harry handed Sarah the taweez and a torch. ‘Rem
ember, he needs to believe the dead have risen, that you’ve returned to drag him to hell.’

  Sarah turned to face the entrance. Her voice was steady.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I have.’

  The brothers watched Sarah disappear into the tunnel just as the clouds unleashed a torrential downpour. They followed her inside, watching the light from her torch bounce off the walls until she vanished into the darkness.

  ‘She’s not right,’ whispered Ronnie. ‘Never hesitated once.’

  Harry was thinking the same thing. He was beginning to worry about the deal he’d made with her.

  He checked the time on his watch. ‘Five o’clock,’ he whispered. ‘Three hours before this goes down.’

  ‘Whatever this is,’ said Ronnie.

  ‘You good here?’ Harry asked. ‘I’m going to check what Omar said about the houses behind Mughal’s restaurant, in case what we’re trying here doesn’t work.’

  ‘You be careful,’ Ronnie said. ‘I’m not sure we know everything we need to know here.’

  Outside in his car, Harry picked up his phone to access Google Maps; he wanted to get a better feel for the area behind Mughal’s restaurant. With only three hours before Olivia’s supposed sale, he had to pursue every lead.

  He didn’t get to open the app. There were eight missed calls from Saima, all within the last six minutes, and a single text message which made him drop the phone, start his car and tear away from Queensbury Tunnel.

  Billy was freezing. The tunnel was unlike any place he’d ever been. The noise of water flowing above the roof and the heavy crescendo of rain were sending him mad. How long had he been here? A day? More? Had the deal gone ahead uninterrupted?

  Billy was going to die, of that he was certain. He’d seen what had happened to Omar.

  Taking on the boss would have only one outcome, no matter how powerful the Virdee brothers thought they were. The thought warmed Billy.

  Sitting silently in a dry section of the tunnel, watching him through night-vision goggles, Sarah revelled in every shiver of Billy’s body. His hands and legs were bound, and he seemed to be muttering something. The tunnel was noisier than she’d expected, but that had worked in her favour: she’d been able to get close without him realizing.