Enough Rope: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery)

by Barbara Nadel

  Tina said nothing. On her way to work she’d just ‘popped in’. Together with fat Tony Bracci still sleeping in his spare room, she made the place feel overcrowded and claustrophobic. Venus resented them both. What he needed was time alone. DI Collins said that Charlie Duncan was denying everything. He didn’t know where Harry was and neither did George or Henry Grogan. Why would a merchant banker in his mid-twenties hang around with a load of teenage boys? Collins was going back to question Grogan. And where was that de Vries boy?

  ‘I don’t know how I’m going to function today,’ Tina said.

  Drama. But then she was an actress. What did he expect?

  ‘You will. You’re a professional.’

  ‘Ha!’

  She got up and walked out.

  Venus switched his phone back on and returned the call he had ignored.

  *

  ‘Hey, you!’

  Shazia turned, looking back at Forest Gate station. At first she didn’t recognise anyone.

  ‘Hey!’

  Blonde hair, bare midriff, baby.

  ‘Ludmilla!’

  She walked over and put out a finger for baby Tomasz to grab. ‘Hiya.’

  ‘I’m sorry, don’t remember you name,’ Ludmilla said.

  ‘Shazia.’

  ‘Shazia,’ she smiled. ‘Why you don’t work at Mr Huq shop now? He say when the old man is on his holiday you can do his job. You like it. I see this.’

  ‘Ah . . .’

  ‘Mr Huq don’t give you sack?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Shazia said. But then why had she left if Cousin Aftab hadn’t sacked her? ‘No, it’s just . . . Oh some Asian people, you know, they don’t like girls working and—’

  ‘Your mother? Your mother say no to working? Your father?’

  ‘No, not my mum. And my father is dead.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  Shazia shook her head. ‘No, some other people,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to upset Mr Huq’s customers and so I left.’

  Baby Tomasz giggled.

  Ludmilla shook her head.

  ‘Just the way it can be sometimes,’ Shazia said. ‘Religion, you know.’

  ‘I know. Pain in the ass.’

  In spite of herself, Shazia laughed. ‘That’s one way of putting it!’

  ‘Before we have communist in Poland, now the Church. Which is worse?’ She shrugged. ‘I think maybe Church. But you know, I think this is not many people who don’t want you in Mr Huq shop.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘No, really,’ Ludmilla said, ‘I think it is just one man.’

  Shazia began to feel her flesh creep. Oh God, she didn’t want any more trouble with Naz Sheikh, she didn’t even want to think about him.

  ‘That man who came that day and treated me like a whore,’ Ludmilla said. ‘I see the way he look at you, how he speak. He think I’m not there, but I watch him.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Shazia said. ‘I wouldn’t think about it. He’s just . . . one of those intolerant men.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Ludmilla shifted the baby further up on her hip. ‘But to behave badly to people you do not know is such ignorance!’

  ‘Yeah, but . . . So where are you going Ludmilla? Are you—’

  ‘I tell Janusz. He doesn’t like such behaviour. He will speak to this man I think.’

  Shazia’s heart hammered. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that. Who’s Janusz?’

  ‘My husband. He come to UK to work in Russian gym in Wanstead.’

  ‘Ah.’ And Naz Sheikh had called his wife a whore. Shazia imagined some huge Pole smashing Naz’s skull against the pavement, but she knew that was wishful thinking. In reality Naz would probably stick a knife in little Tomasz’s daddy’s guts.

  She took one of Ludmilla’s hands in hers. ‘Oh I wouldn’t make trouble with that man if I were you, Ludmilla,’ she said. ‘He’s not a good person. I wouldn’t like your husband to get into trouble.’

  But Ludmilla just smiled. ‘Ah, Shazia,’ she said, ‘but you don’t understand. This man he called me a bad name and my husband, he is a Polish man. There have to be trouble.’

  *

  Henry Grogan looked completely relaxed. It was his solicitor, a tiny woman in her mid-twenties, who looked as if she were about to have a stroke. Her eyes bulged. But then maybe, Vi thought, that was simply genetic.

  ‘I’ve told no one that Harry Venus is missing,’ Henry said. ‘He’s my brother’s friend. Why would I put him at risk?’

  ‘I’m not saying you told anyone,’ Vi said. ‘We’re searching your flat, Mr Grogan, because we think Harry might have been there.’

  ‘Well, he has. When I first moved in. He came with my brother. Why do you think I’ve got anything to do with his disappearance?’

  ‘The whole thing’s a mystery to me, sir,’ Vi said.

  ‘Are you looking for his DNA in my flat?’

  ‘Amongst other things, yes,’ she said. ‘Although you’d be surprised how often we solve crimes without involving scientists or even big transparent marker boards.’ She leaned across the table at him. ‘People leave things about. Bits of clothing, some of them bloodstained . . .’

  ‘I haven’t done anything to Harry Venus! Why would I?’

  Vi leaned back in her chair. ‘I dunno. Money?’

  ‘Money? I’m a banker, DI Collins. I’ve probably already earned more in the course of my short life than you will ever see in yours.’

  ‘It’s all right, you can call me old . . .’

  ‘I wouldn’t presume to be so rude!’

  Now he was rattled. His face was red and his breathing had grown erratic. The bug-eyed solicitor saw it too and put a hand on his arm. He ignored it.

  ‘As you know, we have another of Harry’s friends in custody,’ Vi said.

  ‘Charlie Duncan. Christ! He couldn’t harm himself, much less anyone else!’

  ‘Mr Duncan is not accused of harming anyone,’ Vi said. ‘Mr Duncan does, however, have a connection to Harry Venus’s disappearance.’

  ‘What connection?’

  Vi looked down at her notes. ‘You don’t live far from where Mr Duncan works, do you Mr Grogan?’

  ‘He’s got some little holiday job on Arnold Circus, yes,’ he said. ‘What of it?’

  ‘You’ve been seen with Mr Duncan, your brother and Mr de Vries around Arnold Circus.’

  ‘I know. You said when you came to my flat the first time. So what?’

  ‘Mr Duncan, as I’ve told you, has a connection to this incident.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mr Grogan, can you tell me anything about someone called Mr Shaw, please?’

  *

  Sometimes, to get more information, you just had to trust that those you were tapping up were on the level.

  ‘Malcolm?’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Lee Arnold.’

  ‘Oh.’

  It was weird for Lee being back in the nick again, especially sitting opposite Tony Bracci. At the nick he was on the spot.

  ‘Malcolm, I hope I can rely upon your discretion,’ Lee said.

  ‘You mean over Harry Venus going AWOL? Of course. I’ve not uttered a word. You don’t have to say anything, Lee. I imagine the family want to keep it quiet.’

  ‘I’d like to know about Tom de Vries,’ Lee said. ‘I’d specifically like to know why you didn’t tell me he’d been caught with cannabis on school premises.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Malcolm, I know your kind of school looks after its own. I get that. But de Vries is the only boy in Harry’s group we haven’t spoken to yet. I’m sure he knows about Harry, but reaching him seems to be hard.’

  ‘Oh?’

  All Lee could remember about Tom de Vries was an image of a boy with a bum-fluff moustache who dressed like an old-fashioned bank clerk and brayed about champagne. Since then, he seemed to have disappeared.

  McCullough cleared his throat. ‘His father, also a Reeds boy, is a diplomat. Azerbaijan, I believe. Paren
ts divorced. Mother had a bit of a drink issue. Of course this is just between you and me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’m not breaking any confidence when I say he’s got the highest IQ in the school. Belongs to Mensa. From my own point of view, he’s a gift.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Tom understands story,’ he said. ‘His own creative work is extraordinary. When he creates characters they have real depth and they don’t just do things randomly. So many boys, when they attempt to write, just have their characters suddenly burst out with inappropriate acts of violence or heroism that don’t make any sense. Tom’s work is nuanced. You don’t think that Tom’s mixed up in Harry’s disappearance do you?’

  Lee wondered whether what had kept Tom’s dope-smoking quiet was his talent or his father. When he got off the phone to McCullough he looked at Tony Bracci and said, ‘Well?’

  ‘Tom and his dad live on Princelet Street in Spitalfields,’ Tony said. ‘Very on-trend these days, as we know. But they’ve been there a long time. Bought by the family back in the seventies.’

  Lee shrugged. Upmarket types had been in the area for a long time, colonising the old Huguenot houses.

  ‘Dad also has a place in South Ken,’ Tony said. ‘Bought with new wife.’

  ‘Ah. When?’

  ‘Last year.’

  ‘We need to get this kid,’ Lee said. ‘He’s been seen with Charles Duncan, who took those parcels for this Mr Shaw from Imran Ullah.’

  ‘He’s still saying he never knew what was in them. And even if that envelope Kev Thorpe got from the electrical shop owner has got Duncan’s prints all over it, doesn’t mean that he knew what he was doing or why.’

  ‘Oh come on, Tone: he knows Harry, he handled ransom money intended to free the kid. He’s in this somewhere.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘The Grogan parents are on their way down here with George and we know where de Vries lives now. I’m going to have a word. With my PI hat on. Nice and gentle.’

  ‘Clear it with the Super then.’

  Lee looked across into Venus’s office. He had his head in his hands.

  *

  The anonymous figures in the white SOCO coveralls looked at the metal trunk in the middle of the floor. It was padlocked and the owner was in an interview. The one on the right stuck a short crowbar behind the lock and prised it off.

  ‘Easy.’

  They opened the lid. Then they both stepped backwards. The one on the left said, ‘Fucking hell!’

  *

  The girl was beautiful. Asian by the look of her, dressed in very fashionable and expensive clothes. Kev Thorpe had told Vi about a stylish Asian woman who’d gone to the electrical shop on Brick Lane for the mythical Mr Shaw.

  ‘Mr de Vries is rarely here,’ she said as she stood in the doorway of a house that appeared to be in complete darkness.

  ‘I know, he’s a diplomat,’ Lee said. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Mr de Vries’s housekeeper. What do you want?’

  ‘I’m a private investigator,’ he told her. ‘I have some information for Mr de Vries.’

  ‘There’s no one here.’

  ‘What, not his son? Mr de Vries has a son, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Not here,’ she said.

  ‘You know where I can find him?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘So you’re here on your own?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know you’re doing a really bad job of lying, don’t you?’

  ‘Mr de Vries is out of the country.’

  ‘Oh, I’m buying that,’ Lee said. He knew for a fact that Marcus de Vries was in Azerbaijan because Tony Bracci had phoned the Foreign Office. ‘But his son’ll do, and I think you know where he is.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘He lives here, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her face was blank, but there was a tension behind it, as if she were trying to hold some emotion in check.

  ‘Then where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you have his phone number?’

  This time she said nothing.

  ‘Well, do you or don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t have to tell you anything,’ she said. ‘You’re not the police.’

  She began to close the door. Lee jammed his foot inside.

  She shrieked.

  He pushed her back and found himself in a hall lined with dark-red wallpaper. The only light came from a candle beside a long, dingy staircase. The woman, whose eyes he could just see through the gloom, made no sound.

  ‘Now, look,’ Lee said, ‘I’m not the police, but the reason why I’m here is because someone’s life is in danger.’

  ‘Tom . . .’ Her eyes were wet. ‘Is it Tom?’

  She loved him.

  ‘Why should it be?’ Lee said. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘Oh, God!’

  ‘Tell me!’

  When she spoke, her whole face trembled. ‘He’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Lee moved away from her. But she didn’t try to run. She just cried.

  He said, ‘Did he take all the money with him?’

  And for a moment, he expected her to say, ‘What money?’ But she didn’t. She just said, ‘Yes.’

  *

  Vi sat down opposite Venus. He was white.

  ‘It’s all right sir,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t blood.’

  ‘Then what was it?’

  ‘Shit, er, faeces,’ she said. ‘Don’t know whose or what, but SOCO said there was a lot of it.’

  ‘In a tin trunk?’

  ‘Henry Grogan uses it as a coffee table. Very industrial-looking, very on-trend.’

  ‘God, do you know, DI Collins, I don’t think I ever want to go anywhere that has been gentrified again. Faeces! Where did Grogan say it came from?’

  ‘I haven’t asked him yet, sir,’ Vi said. ‘Waiting for his parents and his brother to arrive. To be honest with you, talking to Henry and little Dan, Charlie or whatever he’s called, is like trying to ice skate on shag-pile carpet.’

  ‘Public schools prepare boys for careers in professions like the law and so, though young, they are extremely articulate, DI Collins. Harry has run verbal rings around me for years.’

  Vi wanted to say something along the lines of how it served him right for sending Harry to the type of school where people were trained to be superior, but she had better things to do.

  ‘Sir, the science bods’ll be able to lift DNA from all sorts of things in Grogan’s flat, including . . .’

  ‘Yes of course, comparisons must be made with my son’s profile.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Any news about the envelope DI Thorpe sent off for analysis?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Vi said. ‘I wish we were like CSI Miami here in East London, but, as you know, in the real world of overworked technicians and budget cuts, things are a bit more leisurely.’

  For the first time in a long while, she saw him smile.

  ‘Thank you, DI Collins.’

  18

  Mumtaz walked into a shuttered room lit by candles. Two faces were familiar, one was not.

  ‘The electric’s off,’ Tony Bracci said.

  Mumtaz looked at Lee. ‘What’s going on?’

  He’d called her away from a night in front of the television. She’d had to leave Shazia at her parents’ house. She was disorientated and where she found herself now didn’t help.

  The candle-lit room was empty except for a wing chair. In it sat a perfectly still woman, about her own age.

  Lee took Mumtaz to one side. ‘I think this woman’s boyfriend, Tom de Vries, may have Harry Venus,’ he said. ‘I don’t know where. She seemed to think that her lover was missing before she went into this state, whatever it is.’

  ‘She’s silent? Motionless?’

  ‘As you see.’

>   Mumtaz looked at the woman.

  ‘I know she’s in some sort of shock,’ Lee said. ‘De Vries, who she loves, took their money . . .’

  Tony Bracci joined them.

  ‘The guv’d just give her a slap round the face,’ he said.

  Mumtaz nodded. ‘Which may work. But what do you want me to do?’

  ‘We need to know what the fuck is going on here as soon as we can,’ Lee said.

  ‘Clearly.’

  ‘I mean, this is like something out of Dickens,’ Tony said.

  The old Huguenot house was strange. Unlike most of them, which had been sympathetically restored, this one looked as if it hadn’t been touched for centuries.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Mumtaz asked.

  ‘When she did the silent thing on me I went through her handbag,’ Lee said. ‘I know she speaks English, but everything I found in her bag is like this.’ He handed her a stack of papers. ‘What is it? Arabic?’

  ‘It’s Urdu,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Her family are probably from Pakistan. You think that hearing her native language might wake her up?’

  ‘I dunno. Might reassure her. Is this psychologically all right or . . .?’

  ‘Psychology is not an exact science,’ Mumtaz said. ‘I studied it for three years. I know.’

  ‘You can do that language though, right?’

  ‘She’s called Laila,’ Mumtaz said as she looked down at the paperwork.

  ‘So you can.’

  She smiled. Then she walked over to the woman on the chair and squatted down on the floor. She took one of the woman’s hands and watched her blink – once.

  ‘Laila, you know there is a line in the rock,’ she said. ‘I know you know what that saying means. To stay silent is a sin.’

  The woman looked at her as if she didn’t understand. Mumtaz wondered whether it was the language, or the old proverb that basically meant that the ‘game was up’ that was eluding her. She switched to English. ‘Do you have any idea where Tom might have gone?’

  She looked away.

  ‘Why do you think that Tom left you without any money?’

  The silence continued. She had to be at least thirty and yet Tom de Vries was the same age as Harry Venus. Had they actually been lovers and, if so, for how long? While Tom was still under sixteen?

  Lee said something to Tony, who flexed one hand.