by Parker Bilal
Marouan fiddled with the trimmer blades as he began to speak.
‘People don’t know what’s going on. They don’t see the drone strikes, the gas attacks, the dead babies. The violence that is being done in their name.’
‘Isn’t it written that we have no right to judge others? Allah will take care of that on the Day of Judgement.’
Marouan gave a thin smile. ‘So you do remember something.’
‘The world is in a mess,’ said Drake. ‘But you’re not helping.’ He swivelled round to face Marouan. ‘Waleed may be out of his depth. You want to help, then tell me where he is.’
‘What difference does it make?’ Marouan sighed, sinking back into the chair by the wall where he had been sitting earlier, reaching for the tattered copy of Hello! ‘The last I heard he had come out of hospital. But where he is now, your guess is as good as mine.’
Drake headed for the door, where he stopped to look back. ‘Did he ever work as a labourer, on a building site, I mean?’
Marouan shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I know he worked for a time for that black gangster. The African. You know.’
‘You mean, Papa Zemba?’
‘That’s the one. African.’
‘Right.’
CHAPTER 22
Forty minutes later, Drake spun the BMW off Westbourne Terrace and dipped into the narrow mews behind Paddington Station. Immediately, he felt the wheels slip and juggle over wet cobblestones. When he climbed out of the car he looked around, wondering if he was in the right place. There was something rather sinister and removed about it. A dark, stony gully. The rain hissed down around him in sharp, icy nails, turning everything black. There weren’t a lot of doors to choose from, so it didn’t take long to find the right one. He pressed the intercom and squinted at the camera as a bright light beamed at him.
The door buzzed to admit him into what appeared to be a converted garage space. It had been cleaned up nicely and the floor was now tastefully covered with oiled oak flooring. Directly in front of him hung a heavy punchbag that didn’t look as if it was there for decoration. It swayed back and forth gently. He gave it a playful shove as he went by only to discover that it was heavier than expected. On the wall hung a pair of battered nunchakus. He took them down and flipped them around for a bit, before hitting himself on the chin and putting them back.
In the shadows to his left a customized Triumph Bonneville motorcycle rested on its stand. Midnight blue. Rather classy. There were tool racks fixed to the wall that didn’t look ornamental.
‘Innerestin’,’ Drake murmured to himself.
The rear half of the room was given over to a living area with a long, heavy solid wooden table in the middle that would have seated ten or twelve. To the left of this was an open-plan kitchen. At the far end, French windows looked out onto an enclosed patio. Big wooden doors that could be slid open in the summer.
‘Inspector?’
Drake turned to see Crane standing in a doorway to his right. She looked smaller, slimmer, and darker than he remembered. She was wearing sweat pants and a singlet. A towel loosely draped around her neck. She crossed in front of him to go behind the high counter into the kitchen.
‘Nice of you to come over. What can I get you?’
‘Oh, I’m fine.’ This wasn’t meant to be a social call.
‘A beer?’ She pulled open the refrigerator.
‘Sure. So, what’s the story here? You live here, work here, what?’
‘Both.’ She was piling chunks of kiwi, banana and carrot into a blender. Her arms were well defined and muscular, without being excessively so. The tightly cut singlet she wore was damp with sweat. He turned away so as not to be caught staring.
‘Nice neighbourhood.’
‘It’s all right, considering.’ Her voice was lost in the grind of the machine. ‘I don’t really know it,’ she said when it had finished.
‘So you didn’t grow up round here.’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Where then, if you don’t mind me asking.’
‘Tehran.’
‘Okay, so not local.’
‘Not exactly.’ She drank her smoothie directly from the jug. ‘Any progress on the case?’
‘I’d be lying if I said there was.’ Drake sipped his beer. ‘Not a lot to go on. You?’
‘A couple of things. That’s why I called.’
She led the way through the doorway she had come from. Drake took a last look around and followed through to what appeared to be the next house.
‘Very nice,’ said Drake, ducking his head to avoid a wooden beam.
‘This is the business side of things.’
He followed her up a creaky narrow staircase. On the first floor there was an open reception area to the right that was dark and deserted. Light came from inside a large tank on the far wall. Bright tropical fish swam through ferns and floating green fronds.
At either end of the landing was a door. One was still marked Dr Rosen. Crane opened the other. The interior was furnished in rich dark colours: bookshelves along both side walls, with a leather sofa and armchair in the middle of the room around a rug that Drake guessed was Persian. At the far end, between two low windows, was a wide desk.
Crane was behind this, shuffling through the papers until she came up with the photograph she was looking for.
‘This is what I wanted to show you.’
It was a high-angle photograph of the crime scene at Magnolia Quays. Drake looked up.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘Oh, sorry,’ Crane flashed a tiny smile. ‘Milo gave me a set of crime scene photos.’
‘Is that right?’
‘I hope that wasn’t wrong of him.’
Drake waved the matter aside. ‘What am I looking for?’ He placed his hands on the table and bowed over the photograph. Crane came round to lean over his shoulder. She gave off a warm smell, a combination of classy soap and shampoo laced with a light veneer of sweat. Not unpleasant.
‘This was taken, I assume, from inside the building structure.’ Crane pointed to the pattern traced in the mud. ‘What does that look like?’
Drake reached for the desk lamp, twisting it to shed more light on the picture. From that angle the crime scene looked like a flat, bare stage. At the centre was the pit and the grey pyramid of rubble.
‘I haven’t seen this before.’
Crane shrugged. ‘It was in the envelope Milo gave me.’
Drake thought about that, then he took another look. One of the forensics officers had taken the initiative to climb up into the frame of the unfinished building. The angle was not directly overhead, but still, it provided a view of the crime scene and its surroundings. The mound of rock in which the two victims were embedded stood more or less at the centre.
Crane reached over to point, her finger tracing a line in the mud.
‘What do you see there?’
‘What am I supposed to see?’
‘A line, running through the middle. Doesn’t that look familiar? The river.’
‘The Thames?’
‘You’re saying someone set up the crime scene to resemble the river running through the city?’
‘Does that sound crazy to you?’
Drake looked round at her. ‘No more crazy than anything else.’ He straightened up and watched her walk over to the armchair and sit down, legs crossed underneath her. He picked up his beer and settled himself in the sofa opposite her. ‘The obvious question is why?’
‘He’s turned the crime scene into a map of London.’
Drake asked himself why he hadn’t noticed this. He didn’t recall seeing the photo before.
‘But why, what is he trying to tell us?’
Crane shrugged. ‘I can’t say for sure, but if he is trying to draw our attention to the city, perhaps he has other things planned.’
‘Other murders?’
‘It’s possible.’ Crane moved over to the window to peer out. Rain was still hitting the
glass. She spoke without turning. ‘He sees his actions in a larger context, which adds importance to what he is doing.’
‘How does this connect to your ideas about sharia executions?’
‘I think he sees himself as morally superior. He’s trying to teach us a lesson.’
‘Morally superior,’ Drake repeated, reaching for his beer. ‘Maybe he didn’t like Orientals.’
‘Orientals?’ She raised an eyebrow.
‘Mr Hideo.’ Drake paused. ‘I’m sorry, is that . . . you know, not PC enough?’
Crane smiled. ‘You’re testing me? Trying to see if you can provoke me?’
‘I just like to know who I’m dealing with.’ Drake sipped his beer.
‘Right. Look, I don’t know what this means. Sometimes we read too much into things.’
‘That’s what you do, right? Help us to think outside the box?’
‘Something like that.’ Ray pushed herself off the wall and came over to tap the photo again. ‘There’s something else as well. I did some digging on Thwaite’s wife. Before she married him she was kidnapped.’
‘Kidnapped?’
‘Kidnapped, held for ransom. This was in Iraq, in 2008. There was a big deal about it. Thwaite hired a private contractor.’
‘They knew each other?’
‘It looks that way.’
‘He never mentioned it.’
‘Not so strange,’ Ray shrugged. ‘It was a while ago.’
Cal, suddenly restless, got to his feet and moved about the room. His eye caught sight of a framed photograph on the wall that showed Crane standing in the middle of the desert somewhere. She was wearing cargo pants and a long khaki shirt with rolled up sleeves. Alongside her were four men, all muscular and bearded, wearing sunglasses and carrying automatic rifles.
‘Security contractors.’ Drake tapped the frame. ‘Iraq? Afghanistan?’
‘Northern Iraq. You were there too, right?’
Which meant she had been looking into his background. ‘What were you doing there?’
‘Counselling.’
He held her gaze, waiting for her to go on. ‘Not something you can talk about?’
‘Classified, I’m afraid.’ Ray held his gaze. ‘I was attached to military intelligence.’
‘Right. How did that work out for you?’
‘Like I said, it’s classified.’
‘I can imagine.’ Cal nodded. ‘Dealing with the spooks can be tricky.’ He’d finished his beer. Ray reached into a cabinet and produced a bottle of tequila and two glasses. They sat down again as she poured.
‘So, tell me, what’s your story?’
‘Ah, this is what you learned about interrogation.’ He lifted his glass and drained it. She did the same before refilling both.
‘I understand you lost a witness.’
‘I’m sure you wouldn’t be asking me this if you didn’t already have the story.’
‘I wanted to hear your version.’
‘Things went sideways. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ He set down the empty glass and watched her refill it again. ‘You seriously want to dig up my fall from grace?’
‘Not if you’re uncomfortable with talking about it.’
‘Some other time, maybe.’
‘This is why you have a conflict with DCI Pryce?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘The case fell through when she disappeared. What was her name?’
‘Zelda. She called herself Zelda. A nickname.’
‘Why does Pryce not trust you?’
‘Because I didn’t tell him everything.’
‘You didn’t trust him.’
‘That’s what they call an impasse, I think.’
‘It’s more than that, isn’t it?’ Crane folded her legs up and sat back in the big chair. ‘It looks like he won’t be happy until he’s drummed you out of the police.’
‘Where’d you hear that?’
‘I think Wheeler mentioned something.’
Drake licked his lips. He still wasn’t sure he could trust her, but there was something about Crane that he liked. He set down his glass and got to his feet.
‘I’m working against the clock. I’d better get moving.’
Crane got to her feet. ‘I want to help you. That’s why I asked you to come over.’
Drake looked around the room. ‘What’s in it for you?’
‘You may have heard – I have a cloud hanging over me.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘I need to prove myself. It’s a boys’ club and they take a lot of convincing.’
‘I’m open to suggestion,’ he said, as he started for the door. ‘Right now I can use all the help I can get.’
‘So we’re working together?’
Drake stopped to look back at her. Something about the angle of the light through her hair struck a match inside him somewhere. He nodded. ‘Be careful what you wish for.’
CHAPTER 23
The big man perched on the bar stool at the Booty Parlour posed a serious challenge to gravity. He resembled a watermelon balanced on a toothpick. The striped green shirt added to the effect. Having said that, Papa Zemba didn’t look overly worried about his situation. The round face broke into a gap-toothed grin when he caught sight of Drake.
‘Who’s my favourite bobby? Where you bin, mon frère?’
Drake leaned in for the obligatory handclasp and shoulder bump, catching a whiff of stale sweat heavily laced with an industrial dose of some overpowering and no doubt ridiculously expensive cologne that the big man had drenched himself in. It wasn’t doing the trick. In the club’s low lighting, Papa Zemba’s fleshy, round face resembled a rubber ball of a mask. He went from happy to sad in a heartbeat. The story went that you didn’t see his anger until the pain hit you. Legend had it that growing up on the streets of Brazzaville had made him immune to emotion. It wasn’t true. Drake had witnessed how gentle he could be with his daughters. But there was no doubting the stories of savage beatings meted out to rivals, and of minions who were despatched in cruel and unforgiving fashion at the slightest hint of disloyalty. If rumour was to be believed, Papa Zemba was not averse to using a machete to remove fingers, and worse, in order to get what he wanted. Basically, you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.
On the catwalk that stretched the length of the U-shaped bar a woman wearing a fluorescent thong and matching purple lipstick strutted her stuff to the sound of 50 Cent’s ‘Candy Shop’. As she went by Papa Zemba rubbed a hand over his shaved scalp and waggled his fingers for another Jack Daniels and one for Drake. Around his neck he wore a heavy gold chain. Silver rings competed for space on his hands.
‘How’s business?’ Drake asked.
‘You never hear me complain.’ Papa waved over a bodyguard. There were never less than three of them around him somewhere. This one wore a black Armani T-shirt over steroid-swollen biceps. The Incredible Hulk’s African cousin. ‘Go see what’s keeping Vanessa.’
The Hulk grunted something indecipherable and turned away.
‘So, what brings you around here?’ The big man rattled the ice in his glass.
‘You know, a bit of this, a bit of that.’
‘I don’t know why you waste your time. Come and work for me.’ Papa Zemba spoke with an accent that was part French African, part London, part West Coast rap. He just absorbed it all and threw it together in his own unique mix.
‘Everyone seems to think I’m in the wrong game.’
‘Maybe you should listen.’ Papa frowned. ‘You still hanging around that Greek psycho?’
‘Donny? I don’t work for him.’
‘You need to stay away from him.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘People talk, Cal. That’s what they do. Sometimes they have something to say, other times they just make it up.’
‘So what are they saying?’ Drake reached for the glass that had appeared before him.
‘That he has something on you. That it buys him a
free pass.’
‘You believe that?’
‘Hey, din’t you hear? Truth don’t matter no more.’ Papa Zemba chuckled quietly into his drink. ‘You know what your problem is, right? You turned your back on God.’
‘This sounds familiar.’
‘Did I ever tell you that my father was a priest?’
‘A couple of times.’
‘You can say what you like about religion, but it provides a moral compass. What is right and what is wrong.’
‘If you ever give up the bar business you should become one of those evangelists they have on television. You’ll make a fortune.’
‘I’m being serious. You thought you were doing the right thing by joining the army, but the fact is you ended up on a crusade.’
‘If this is you trying to make me feel better, you’re failing miserably.’
Papa Zemba rapped his knuckles on the counter and the bartender jumped into action, replacing their glasses with fresh ones.
‘They pulled a fast one on you, mon frere.’ The big head rocked from side to side. ‘You swallowed their lies. Now we are all paying the price.’
Drake had long since accepted that Papa Zemba was more useful as an ally than an adversary. Their relationship was a delicate balance of trust. Papa’s strength lay in the network of contacts that rippled outwards from here into places Drake would have been hard pressed to find, let alone access. As for the gambling rooms, the betting shops, the massage parlours, Drake relied on Papa Zemba to stay within an unwritten code of limits. There were certain areas that Drake knew the other man would not stray into. Drugs was one. The abuse of children was another.
‘I hear they found a couple of bodies yesterday morning.’
‘A building site over by the river. Do you know anything?’
‘Not my area. We Africans don’t do building. We live in huts, right?’ The big head reared back as Papa Zemba roared at his own joke.
‘What about this trade in illegals?’
‘You know as well as I do: if there’s an opportunity, someone’s gonna step in for a cut.’ Papa Zemba shrugged. ‘You can order workers like you order take away. Day or night. You want someone to break down a wall, or rip out a bathroom? You want three men, four, forty? Two days work? Ten days? It’s like going to the Job Centre, only these people aren’t on their books.’
