Babel bak-6

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Just… just round the block.’

  Again Brock let his words hang, while he sat in silence, staring morosely at his notepad. The solicitor shifted in his seat. Haygill cleared his throat but didn’t speak.

  Then Brock reached down to the briefcase by his feet and lifted out a clear plastic bag containing the gun, and laid it on the table in front of Haygill.

  ‘I am showing Professor Haygill the handgun listed as evidence L4327/1010, a semi-automatic pistol of Czech manufacture, known as a Model 52. Have you ever seen this before, Professor?’

  Haygill was transfixed, eyes wide, body rigid. He stared at the gun for a long moment of silence, then, eyes still abnormally wide, rose slowly to his feet and turned towards the door.

  ‘I take it that means yes,’ Brock said quietly. Then, for the benefit of the tape, ‘Professor Haygill has got up to leave. I am suspending this interview at ten twenty-three hours.’

  They reconvened an hour later, after Haygill had had time to recover and confer with his solicitor. To Brock it was like looking at a man in the ring, slowly registering with every blow that he was out of his weight. He wanted to apologise, he said, so softly that Brock had to ask him to speak up. He wanted to set the record straight. He had been very disturbed to read the newspaper reports of Max Springer’s death, that morning on the flight up to Glasgow. The account of Springer being shot dead on the university steps had seemed utterly incredible, impossibly melodramatic, and yet it had actually happened. The people he met at the University of Strathclyde that day had heard the news too, and kept asking him about it. He couldn’t get it out of his mind, and at some point an awful possibility had occurred to him, one that at first he dismissed, but gradually began to haunt him. Suppose Springer’s death was connected to his feud with himself? Suppose someone on his side, on his team, had decided to put an end to Springer’s slanders for his sake?

  ‘So you considered that a definite possibility?’ Brock said, just for the record, disappointed with the line Haygill was taking.

  ‘Only because the prospect was so appalling. I have a tendency to imagine the worst. Anyone will tell you. When we look at a new experiment, my first question is, what’s the worst that can happen? Well, this seemed to me the worst possibility. I would never have imagined it before that day, but then, I would never have imagined that Max Springer could die like that.’

  ‘Yes, but you did think it a realistic possibility?’

  ‘There have been times, over the past year, when some of my people have become very emotional, very angry, about racist and bigoted intolerance that they have encountered in certain quarters. You know some of it, I think. I wondered if perhaps Max Springer’s outrageous attacks upon our work had finally provoked a reaction that had gone tragically too far.’

  ‘I thought he was passionately opposed to bigotry and racism?’

  ‘So he said. The irony had not escaped me.’

  ‘So, what did you do?’

  ‘As I said before, I drove to UCLE that evening when I returned to London. It was true what I said about the papers I needed, but I also hoped to see Darr there and find out about developments, and hopefully put my mind to rest. Unfortunately he wasn’t there, and I wasn’t able to get him on the phone. I went up to the labs. It’s habit, I always do that, to get an idea of the progress of work. There was an Evening Standard on one of the benches, lying open at a spread on Springer’s murder. They’d obviously been discussing it. I looked at it, and read that the police were still searching for the murder weapon, and the horrible thought occurred to me that, if one of the team really had been involved, it might even be there, in our building. I even thought, for a moment, that I might search for it, just to reassure myself, until I realised how impossible that would be. If somebody wanted to hide something in that building, I might search for weeks and never find it. And anyway, I was ashamed of the thought. Standing there in the familiar surroundings of our laboratories, the very idea of one of my team being involved just seemed ridiculous.

  ‘I went back to my office to sign letters my secretary had left and sort out the papers I’d need for the next trip, and at some point I must have looked up and noticed that the volumes on the book shelves on the wall facing me were out of order.’

  Haygill gave an apologetic little frown. ‘Sorry. That must sound unlikely. It was my bound volumes of the Journal of Medical Genetics, for which I was editor for several years. I was staring at them, thinking about something else, when I suddenly thought, “Why is 1990 in front of 1989?” So I got up, still thinking about this other thing, and walked over and pulled out the two volumes to switch them round, and then I saw a white plastic carrier bag rolled up in the space behind them.’

  He stopped and took a deep breath. His colour had faded again, the gleam of sweat returned to his forehead. ‘I’m sorry. I realise this must all sound totally unlikely. It still seems like that to me, like a bad dream, but it is the truth you see.’ Another deep breath. ‘I picked up the bag… it obviously contained something solid. Inside I found a brown paper bag, and when I lifted that out…’

  He came to a halt, and his solicitor looked at him in concern and half rose from his chair.

  ‘No, no… it’s all right.’ Haygill raised his hand to reassure him. ‘Inside was that gun.’

  They waited while he took a gulp of water.

  ‘What were your thoughts?’ Brock said.

  ‘What could I think? It seemed to confirm all my worst fears. But then I tried to reason my way out of it. I didn’t know if it was the gun that had killed Springer-is it in fact?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, God… Well, I couldn’t be sure. I thought, maybe if one of these characters owns a gun, and is afraid you might search their belongings after this murder, then they might want to find a hiding place for it. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more plausible that idea seemed, because surely the murderer would want to get rid of his gun completely-throw it in the Thames, for instance? Whereas whoever had hidden this gun obviously wanted to keep it, and recover it later.’

  ‘By “one of these characters” you mean your staff, do you?’

  Haygill nodded reluctantly.

  ‘And why would they choose that place?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I asked myself. I became quite angry thinking about how they had put me at risk. But then I reasoned that they had probably assumed that the boss’s office, behind the volumes that nobody ever looks at, was just about the safest place in the whole building. But clearly I couldn’t leave it there. I considered the options, and decided to dispose of it myself.’

  ‘You didn’t feel it your duty to bring it to us?’

  ‘I’m sorry. The implications, the consequences, were too… expensive. I felt we had too much at stake to allow this to derail everything.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I thought of the river, but then I remembered the cameras on campus, and the possibility of someone seeing me, so I put it into my bag, with the idea of taking it as far away as possible. Well, you know where I finally threw it, into the pond not far from our house. I thought I had been careful. I had no idea that anyone had seen me do it.’

  ‘Did you discuss it with anyone? Dr Darr, for instance?’

  ‘No, no one.’

  ‘So you considered him as a possible culprit?’

  Haygill opened his mouth as if to deny it, then changed his mind. He shrugged.

  ‘You had no theories? No specific suspicions? Who were the principal hotheads in the previous troubles?’

  ‘The two Iraqi chaps, probably, Sabri and Durak. Yes, I thought if anyone had smuggled a gun into the country it would probably have been them.’

  ‘Not Abu Khadra?’

  ‘To tell the truth, I never even considered him. He was the least militant, the least aggressive of them all. I was astounded when they said he’d been arrested.’

  ‘And even then you didn’t come forward and tell us where the gun was.
’

  ‘What good would it have done? And anyway, Abu was never tried, never found guilty, was he? There hasn’t been an inquest yet, has there?’

  ‘Perhaps it might have cleared him, Professor, did you think of that? If that gun ever had the killer’s prints on it, your actions effectively removed them.’

  Haygill looked stunned. ‘No… I didn’t think…’

  ‘And then, of course there’s the possibility that Abu didn’t act alone. Did you consider that?’

  He hesitated, then nodded. ‘I considered it. But nothing anyone said after Abu was arrested gave me any indication that they had helped or encouraged him, nothing at all. I mean, who do you suspect?’

  Brock stared at him balefully. ‘The obvious candidate is yourself, Professor Haygill. You’re the one who stood to benefit from Springer being silenced. You’re the one who attempted to dispose of the weapon, which, as you said yourself just now, is exactly what the killer would have done. And you’re the one who lied about it until you had no choice but to tell us the truth. Or a version of it, anyway.’ Brock looked at his watch. ‘I have to tell you that we have obtained warrants to search your home, your car and your offices. Is there anything else you want to tell me before I conclude this interview?’

  Haygill, looking defeated, shook his head. Then Brock added, ‘There is one other thing. I asked you before for your documentation on the BRCA4 protocol, and you refused. Now I must insist.’

  ‘There is a copy in the drawer of my desk in my office at the university. It’s locked, but my secretary has a key. I would ask,’ Haygill shrugged hopelessly, ‘can it please be treated as a confidential document. As I told you, it is commercially sensitive. I would hate to think of it floating around your offices, being photocopied…’

  ‘I propose to give it to an expert, to give us an independent professional assessment.’

  ‘Who did you have in mind?’

  ‘Dr R.T. Grice, Home Office.’

  ‘I know him.’ Haygill considered this, then reluctantly nodded. ‘Very well.’

  After they had gone, Brock turned to Bren. ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s him,’ Bren said flatly. ‘I reckon he picked Abu as the most pliable and dependable of the bunch. Maybe the most disposable, too.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Brock rubbed his knee, sounding unhappy. ‘But he could make that story stick.’

  ‘Finding the gun on his bookshelf? Come on, chief, that was the most improbable thing I’ve ever heard. Why would Abu leave the gun there? How did he even get into Haygill’s office?’

  ‘Mm. All the same, we need another angle, Bren. The money, we’ve got to tie that firmly to him.’

  ‘Yeah. No luck so far, but now we’ve got access to his records we may come up with something. Interesting to think, isn’t it boss,’ Bren added innocently as they made for the door, ‘if Leon hadn’t pulled that stunt the other night, we wouldn’t know anything of this.’ He hurried out before Brock could reply.

  20

  T hey found a parking space in the housing estate behind Shadwell Road and made their way through the rear lanes towards the cries of hawkers, the smell of roasting meat and the sound of amplified music throbbing on the crisp morning air. Market stalls had been erected down the centre of Shadwell Road, and the street was packed with visitors savouring the mixture of the exotic and the banal. A stall selling hijab headscarves stood next to one specialising in cowboy hats; the aromas of cumin and fennel from a spice stall competed with those of a hot dog barrow, saffron and purple silks with heavy metal T-shirts, sitar and koto with electric guitar.

  Distracted by an illustrated wallchart of selected positions from the Kama Sutra, Kathy was saved from being run down by a burly child on a scooter by a tug on her arm from Leon Desai. She stumbled against him and laughed and they moved on, flushed by a sense of intimacy in the mass of the crowd.

  ‘Did you ever see Chandler’s Yard?’ she asked, and when he shook his head she said, ‘I’ll buy you a cup of coffee at the Horria Cafe.’

  ‘Just so long as we don’t bump into Dr Darr and his mates,’ he muttered, sounding genuinely worried, and she laughed again, feeling unexpectedly light and happy this morning, with the sun overhead at last, the buzz of the crowd, and him at her side. She caught a glimpse of Sanjeev Manzoor in the distance, standing in the doorway of his shop, surveying the passing throng with a scowl of disapproval on his face, and she almost felt inclined to say hello to him and offer to shake hands, but wisely thought better of it and they turned instead out of the crowd, past the door to The Three Crowns and into the sudden quiet of the lane.

  The activity in the street hadn’t reached the Horria. There was one family of very pale-skinned visitors, looking slightly bemused by the menu at a table decorated with two small crossed and faded flags of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and the Yemeni Arab Republic, and there were two of the old men playing cards on a table at the back, but that was all and Kathy wondered how Qasim Ali made a living from the place. He was on his knees in front of the jukebox, fiddling with the switches. He gave a snort of disgust and struggled to his feet, giving the machine a hefty thump. Immediately a high-pitched female voice broke into an Arabic pop-song at full volume, to the consternation of the English family.

  Qasim welcomed Kathy as a great friend, and on her behalf accepted Leon. He seated them at a table at the front where they were only half deafened by the music and could look out onto the cobbled square, to a small printing works opposite on the right, and a tiny second-hand furniture store on the left.

  ‘Abu lived here?’ Leon murmured. ‘No wonder he was driven to murder.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not so bad,’ Kathy grinned. ‘Qasim turns the music down when people are praying in the mosque upstairs. We could have a look later if you like. Brock told me that your family were Muslim once. You never told me.’

  ‘It didn’t seem important.’ He looked at her. ‘We had other things on our minds.’

  She met his eyes, dark and intent, and she felt a familiar response stirring in her. No, she thought, I’m not falling for that look again. Leon’s adventure had brought them together again, but as friends, they had tacitly agreed. She was determined this time to move at her own pace, to try to keep control of the direction of her life. She looked out of the window and said, ‘Perhaps that’s why Brock agreed with you meeting Darr the first time.’

  Leon winced. ‘Don’t talk about that.’

  ‘Oh, but it was a success. From that everything fell into place.’

  ‘You mean Haygill’s world fell to pieces. And it was all a mistake. Mrs Haygill thinks her husband was spying on him when he wasn’t. I don’t feel very proud about that.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have told us about the gun otherwise. And anyway, their marriage was obviously on its last legs.’

  ‘We don’t know that. We don’t even know he’s guilty. How’s the money trail going?’

  ‘Nothing yet. They haven’t found any obvious withdrawals from Haygill’s accounts to correspond to the thirty thousand, and they’ve had no luck so far tracing the notes themselves back to his bank.’

  ‘Hm.’ Leon was silent for a moment, then said abruptly, ‘How’s Wayne?’

  ‘Wayne O’Brien? Didn’t you know? He doesn’t exist any more. They’ve changed his name, address and phone number, and he’s become somebody else. He’s working on another job.’ Brock had told her two days before, and at first she hadn’t believed it, thinking it was some kind of practical joke. But it was true. This happened in Special Branch, Brock had said, they come and they go. All the same, she would have liked to have said goodbye. She had felt an unexpected sadness, as if she’d just learned that Wayne had died rather than merely moved on.

  ‘Really?’ Leon’s shoulders straightened a little, and Kathy thought it looked almost as if a weight had been removed. ‘Hell, what a life.’

  ‘I liked him, Leon.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘He was what I needed at tha
t moment. Nothing too serious.’

  ‘And I was too serious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He looked disconsolate.

  ‘Well, now, ladies and gents,’ Qasim boomed and put their coffees down in front of them. ‘Mind if I join you?’ He offered them his cigarettes and when they refused, lit up himself. ‘How’s the detecting going? I see you caught another one.’ He puffed and reached across to a newspaper lying on the next table and showed them the report- ‘

  BOFFIN QUIZZED IN MURDER HUNT ’.

  ‘We’re not sure yet, Qasim,’ Kathy said.

  ‘He was Abu’s boss, right? Makes sense to me. Abu’d never ’ave done it on his own. Fact I still can’t hardly believe he did it at all. This guy must be a Svengali, right? Made ’im do it?’

  Kathy remembered Springer using that word too; Svengali the sinister manipulator, the evil hypnotist. Was Haygill really such a character?

  ‘The thing that blows me away is that those two actually met, here in this very place, before any of this happened.’

  ‘Which two?’

  ‘Abu and this bloke.’

  ‘Haygill, his boss? He came here?’

  ‘No, no, not him. Him.’ Qasim pointed a fat finger further down the page at a picture of the victim, Springer.

  ‘Abu met Springer here?’ Kathy stared at Qasim in disbelief. ‘Surely not.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s true. Briony brought that old geezer here one day. He was interested in the history of our family. We had quite a chat. Then Briony said she’d take him upstairs to see the mosque, and on their way up they met Abu coming down. Right there…’ he pointed to the stairs at the back of the cafe, ‘… halfway up, they met, and Briony introduced them and they shook hands. Spooky, init, yeah?’

  ‘You never saw them meet again?’

  ‘No. He didn’t come here again.’

  They had met twice, Kathy thought, both times on stairs, one going up, one down. The first time they had shaken hands, the second time one had shot the other dead. Very spooky.

  ‘How is Nargis coping now?’