A Quiet Death

by Cari Hunter

  “Sorry to drag you away from your shop,” she said. “I know you’re a busy man.”

  “I am,” he snapped, surprising her by abandoning his “no comment” ploy. “I don’t appreciate being back here, nor do I appreciate this department harassing my family and friends.”

  “Aye, that came through loud and clear less than an hour ago.” She had a list of questions about Cheviot Road and Parvez Bashir, questions that Sadek would no doubt be expecting were he at all involved in the business there, but she tucked that sheet to the back, opting for a different approach. “Were you working in the shop last night?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “On the till?”

  “Yes. We have CCTV installed, if you need to verify that.”

  “That’s good to know.” She caught sight of Nelson scribbling a note decorated liberally with asterisks. She paused to jot one of her own, letting Sadek stew over why he needed to establish an alibi. “You work long hours, don’t you? Keep the shop open till late?”

  He turned to his solicitor, who shrugged. “We open at six thirty a.m. and close at ten thirty p.m. I was there past midnight, cashing up and restocking.” He folded his arms. “I had a colleague helping me.”

  With Sadek’s presence in the shop confirmed far more easily than she’d anticipated, Sanne pushed the photograph of Cezar Miklos and his companion across the table. “Do you recognise these men?”

  Sadek picked the photo up, bullish enough to allow his fingertips to brush against hers. “No, I don’t,” he said, but his face seemed to pale slightly, and he was still staring at the image as he answered.

  “Take your time,” she told him.

  He shook his head in apparent regret and returned the photograph. “I don’t know what else to say. I’ve never seen them before.”

  She swapped the shot for its unedited version, one in which the backdrop of Sadek Foods could clearly be seen.

  “Try again,” she said. “Think back to about nine p.m. last night. These men appear to have bought quite a lot, and I would imagine they’d stand out in a shop whose clientele that same day was exclusively Asian.”

  The room fell so quiet that the rotation of the tape recorder sounded like an angle grinder. The colour rose again in Sadek’s cheeks, and he gripped the photograph tightly enough to crumple its edge.

  “You’ve been watching my shop?”

  “Yes,” Sanne answered without hesitation. “And you’ve just told us you were serving on the till when these men came in, so I’m a little puzzled as to why you would claim never to have seen them before.”

  “I serve a lot of customers,” he said, his voice growing in confidence. “And I don’t tend to make a note of their colour. Besides, aren’t you lot happy to see integration between diverse communities?”

  “Oh, we’re all for integration. But the gentleman on the right of that photograph isn’t someone you’d particularly want to integrate with.”

  “I’ll have to take your word on that. I don’t tend to check a customer’s credentials before I serve him.” He tossed the photo onto the table, sending it skidding past Sanne. She put a hand out to stop it going over the edge.

  “Clearly not.” She made a point of setting her card in front of him, just in case he’d mislaid the last one she’d given him, and then placed the photo on top. “You can keep hold of this. It might jog your memory. And if this man or his mate do come in again, call me on either of those numbers.”

  “Do your own fucking dirty work. You’ll be sat outside my shop anyway.” Sadek shoved the photo away. “Are you finished?”

  “No, I’m not.” She turned to her first page of questions. “You may as well get comfortable. We’re going to be here for a while yet.”

  *

  The newspaper left smudges of cheap ink on Eleanor’s fingertips, making her look like a perp and adding further insult to the indigestion brought on by the story plastered across pages three and four. She chewed a couple of Rennies, grimacing at their chalky texture as she used a wet wipe to scrub her fingers clean. Her phone rang right on cue.

  “My office, ten minutes,” Litton said, and hung up.

  She chased the antacids with paracetamol and dumped the paper in her bin on her way out. Ten minutes allowed her a trip to the bathroom, where she washed her hands thoroughly and repositioned the clip that had spent all day working loose from her hair. One of the toilets flushed, and Sanne came out of the cubicle to join Eleanor at the sinks. She looked as knackered as Eleanor felt.

  “Anything?” Eleanor asked.

  “No. He ‘no commented’ the second half.”

  “Fucking hell.” She balled her paper towel and launched it toward the bin, where it skipped off the rim and landed on the floor. “How long for the CCTV?”

  “The request is in.” Sanne shook the excess water from her hands and wiped her face with what remained. Several hours in Interview One had left her eyes bloodshot and her skin sallow, as if she hadn’t seen daylight in weeks. “But who knows what calamity will befall the tape in the meantime?”

  “It’s unlikely to be our smoking gun, at any rate. Sadek is too smart for that.” Eleanor hated the defeated note in her voice but couldn’t knock it out in time.

  Sanne turned her back on the mirror and leaned against the sink. Something in her neck cracked as she stretched it from side to side. “He seems to have every angle covered, doesn’t he? Look at Miklos last night. If he and Sadek really are working together, he was careful enough to leave the shop with full bags, even though he knew nothing about the surveillance.”

  “Are you having doubts about Sadek’s involvement?” Eleanor asked. She trusted Sanne’s instincts, and Sanne had spent more time with him than she had.

  “No.” Sanne’s answer was emphatic. “And not just because he gives me the creeps. He’s a game player, boss. He’ll look you right in the eye while he’s lying through his teeth, like he’s daring you to blink first.”

  “I think DCI Litton is about to blink,” Eleanor said quietly.

  “Shit. The Sheffield Post made it onto his desk, then?” She offered Eleanor a commiserative Polo Mint, and Eleanor sucked the sweet, its clear peppermint flavour helping to alleviate her heartburn.

  “I imagine so. Keep it under your hat for now, please. I’ll brief everyone as soon as I have a verdict.”

  “Will do.” Sanne picked up the errant paper towel and then held the door for her. “Good luck.”

  “Thank you.”

  Despite Litton’s summons and the deadline he had set, his secretary asked Eleanor to wait outside his office. Unwilling to shoot the messenger, Eleanor nodded her acquiescence and leafed through the latest issue of The Billboard as she listened to the secretary fielding phone calls with patience that defied belief. She hated being dragged down to the first floor, with its plush carpets and framed portraits. The darkened corridors seemed to stretch for miles, their office doors always shut. It was a far cry from EDSOP’s previous home in a dilapidated set of portacabins on a Hadfield industrial estate. The refurbishment project that had centralised Sheffield’s police admin had found a new home for EDSOP as well, bringing the department closer to the city and putting its staff right under Litton’s nose.

  When the secretary finally gave her the nod, she abandoned a half-read article on forensic podiatry and nodded politely in return, though she felt like kicking a hole in Litton’s door and demanding back the twenty minutes of her day that he’d pissed away. He closed a file as she approached, but a sickly smell of artificial vanilla told her he’d been puffing on his e-cig only seconds ago.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?” She locked her eyes on the window behind him, seeking out the floodlit flagpole in the car park and watching the material ripple in the breeze, until she was sure she wouldn’t blurt out anything more creative. He’d buttoned the jacket of his dress uniform, his way of signalling that this wouldn’t be an informal chat.

  “I’m assuming you’ve received a copy
of this?” He brandished a rolled-up Sheffield Post like a man attempting to swat a fly. Without waiting for an answer, he spread the newspaper across his desk, the page turned to a colour photograph of Rafiq Sadek, his mournful expression utilised to full effect as he posed with his equally anguished wife. The headline eschewed subtlety for impact: “Local Businessman Hounded by Police,” underscoring its claim with a candid shot of Sanne and Nelson escorting Sadek through a crowd of irate onlookers. Sadek’s request to contact a solicitor had evidently gone hand in hand with phoning the neighbourhood press office and arranging a mob to witness his alleged ill-treatment. He must have gone straight from Interview One to meet with the reporter.

  “Yes, sir. I’ve read the piece.” She didn’t know what else to say. The article hit so many nerves—racial harassment, the persecution and unscrupulous police surveillance of an honest local lad, and the lack of viable evidence that had inevitably led to the police targeting an innocent victim—that she was amazed Litton wasn’t rocking in a corner.

  “The Post has contacted our press office asking for a statement,” he said. “And Look North has requested an interview for tonight’s bulletin.”

  Even though she could sense what was coming, he let the silence drag out until she was forced to ask him.

  “What are you intending to tell them, sir?”

  He closed the paper and folded it carefully in half. “That I have revoked the surveillance of Sadek Foods with immediate effect. That EDSOP will not contact Rafiq Sadek, his family, or his friends again unless new evidence comes to light. The press office is working on the wording, but I think that about covers the gist.”

  Eleanor struggled to hear his closing sentence above the rushing of blood in her ears. Litton had always been an idiot, but he had never interfered to this degree, not to the point of jeopardising an entire investigation. She wondered which promotion he currently had his heart set on and hoped it would take him as far away from Sheffield as possible.

  “Rafiq Sadek is the best lead we’ve got,” she said, keeping it simple. Litton had access to everything case-related, and if he hadn’t been able to join the dots, she wasn’t going to do it for him.

  He picked up his pen, effectively dismissing her. “Find another one.”

  *

  Tempted though she was, Eleanor didn’t call her team together immediately on her return to the fourth floor. After Litton’s office, her own felt like a sanctuary, and she let its clean apple scent calm her nerves as she changed out of her sweaty blouse. Russ was the first to dare an approach, his hand appearing before anything else, waving a white paper towel.

  “Safe?” he asked.

  Eleanor sank onto one of the more comfortable chairs gathered around her small conference table. “As you’ll ever be.”

  He shut the door behind him, placing an envelope on the table before sitting next to her. “How bad?”

  “Bad enough.”

  He didn’t push. He had worked with her long enough to read her moods, and she was sure he could fill in the finer points for himself.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  She rubbed her temple with a heated palm. Litton would be preparing his sound bite for the local evening news, pointing out how distressing the case had been for everyone involved and acknowledging that mistakes had been made in its handling. Perhaps later he would call round with a sword she could fall on.

  “We’re going to carry on,” she said. “Sadek’s not playing the media because he’s innocent. He’s doing it because he dropped a bollock by having Miklos come to the shop and we’ve got him on the ropes. Litton’s ordered me to pull the surveillance and stop the interviews. So I want our focus on the tangible—the evidence from Cheviot Road, digging Miklos out from whatever hole he’s hiding in, and finding that fucking car.” She let out a breath and rested her head back on the chair, waiting a beat as Russ did likewise. “You don’t have to stay, Russ. It’s bad enough that I have to ask my team to support me in this. You should cut and run while you can.”

  “Oh, you know me, El, I like to see things through. Unless I’m getting under your feet and that’s your polite way of telling me to bugger off.” He returned her smile and handed her the envelope he’d brought in. “Didn’t think so. Well then, while we’re on the subject of Cezar Miklos, Meg Fielding put a positive ID on these for us.”

  The photographs featured a young woman with shoulder-length brown hair. Naked and posed, she seemed to look right through the lens of the camera. She was so thin that Eleanor could count her ribs.

  “The transactions recorded under her name indicate she was working at Cheviot until a week ago. There’s nothing after that, and no note of what might have happened to her, but the cut-off tallies with her attendance at A&E last Wednesday, and it also ties Miklos in with the traffickers. We are getting there, El. Slowly but surely we’re pulling it together.”

  She nodded, feeling the familiar rush as a cohesive pattern began to form. “Where the hell is this girl now?” she asked. There was a name on the back of one of the photographs: Mirela Costea.

  “She could be anywhere in the country.” Russ eased the photos from her hand. “My team are still working that angle, and I’ve already sent a nationwide alert to any hospital with an A&E. Without treatment for her burns, Meg said she’d probably be septic by now.”

  “She’ll be no use to them if she is. She’ll be another body on the moors.” Eleanor felt the sudden weight of responsibility crash down on her like a wave. It stole her breath for the seconds she went under. “Jesus, this fucking case,” she whispered.

  “You need to speak to your team.”

  The direct instruction grounded her somewhat. She went back to her desk and fired up her computer. “Give me ten minutes,” she said.

  *

  Sanne had never played with her food. As a child, she’d polished off whatever was set in front of her, her hand the first to go up if seconds were available. Aware that the evening meal might stretch thinly around her family of five, she had made the most of her free school dinners, though the stodgy puddings and the semolina with its wallpaper paste consistency had been anathema to most of her classmates.

  She didn’t usually mind the meals in the hospital cafe, either, but the gravy encircling her shepherd’s pie had formed a skin on its surface, and she’d busied herself dividing the mash and mince into chunks and arranging them in size order. Two tables to her left, an obese man in ill-fitting pyjamas stabbed a Spam fritter and began to devour it as if he’d slain it himself. The slick of grease dribbling down his chin made her push her plate away until she could no longer smell its contents.

  “Here, try this instead.” The quiet suggestion came with a bowl of chocolate sponge and custard, two spoons, and the scrape of the chair opposite as Meg sat down. They took a spoon each, Sanne getting stuck in properly when the taste hit home and stirred her appetite.

  “Almost as good as Mrs. Orcey’s,” she said. “Do you remember her? There were so many stains on her apron she looked like a serial killer.”

  Sacrificing the last of the custard, Meg dropped a straw into her can of Pepsi. “I remember she rapped my knuckles with a spatula when I wouldn’t eat my mushy peas. She was a nasty old bag, but she did make a mean jam roly-poly.” She sucked on her drink and then let the straw go. “How long were you up there for?”

  Sanne folded her napkin and placed her spoon on it. “About twenty minutes. He woke once and asked for a drink. I gave him some water, which probably wasn’t what he’d meant. They’re moving him to the GI ward tomorrow, and I wanted to ask when he might be coming home, but I couldn’t.” The spoon fell to the floor as she grabbed the napkin to blot her eyes and blow her nose. “Sorry. It’s been a shitty day.”

  “I know. I saw the paper.”

  “Yeah. That picture didn’t show the bloke who swung a punch at Nelson or the one who spat in my hair, but it’s made the DCI crap himself. He’s ordered the boss to leave Sadek well alo
ne, just as we were starting to build a case against him.” She sat on her hands so she wouldn’t touch that side of her head. Sadek had painted the police as the aggressors, but she had been scared that morning, hemmed in and completely outnumbered. Despite her attempts to wash her hair, she’d felt dirty all day.

  “Jesus,” Meg hissed. “What about the photos I picked out? Does your DCI really think Miklos was at that shop buying basmati rice and garam-fucking-masala?”

  Sanne pinched the can of Pepsi and swallowed a huge mouthful of sugar and caffeine despite the late hour, her sense of rebellion stoked by Meg’s outspoken incredulity. “I doubt he can think of much with his head buried in his arse,” she said. “And we’re not giving up on Sadek. As far as the boss is concerned, he’s officially a suspect now, though we can’t tell anyone that, and we can’t keep annoying him or his mates.”

  “Sanne Jensen, are you enjoying being all naughty and clandestine? Because that’s really not like you.”

  “I know.” She blew bubbles down the straw. “I probably should be worried about being dragged down on a sinking ship and all that, but the DCI has got this one wrong, plain and simple.” She knew it might not seem that simple at three a.m., when the doubts began to set in and she started to consider the impact on her career prospects, but in a brightly lit cafe with bacon popping on the grill and Meg sitting in front of her, she had absolute faith in Eleanor’s judgement.

  “Speaking of sinking ships, I should get back to the grind.” Meg leaned over the table and kissed her, lingering for so long that the obese man lost interest in his fried bread and simply watched the show. “Mm. I can’t wait till I’m done with this set of shifts,” she murmured.

  Sanne opened her eyes and ran her tongue over her lips. “You really have to go?”