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

by Barbara Nadel

  Mumtaz said, ‘Now Laila, or whatever your name is, if you don’t speak to us soon you will be arrested. These men are involved in a missing person investigation, which they think you know something about. If you try to obstruct them, you’ll be in even more trouble than you’re in now. And you are in trouble. Tom is sixteen.’

  The woman looked back at her.

  ‘What has Tom done?’ Mumtaz asked. ‘If you tell us, maybe it will help your case when you are asked to explain how you came to be in love with an underage boy.’

  ‘He has no mother. His father left him.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  It was a start. But Mumtaz could see that Lee and Tony wanted her to get back to the subject of Harry Venus.

  ‘The new Mrs de Vries didn’t want Tom,’ the woman said. ‘Such a beautiful boy! But she didn’t.’

  Mumtaz gripped her hand encouragingly.

  ‘Mr de Vries moved to a new house and left me to look after Tom when he wasn’t at school. We fell in love. He may only be young, but you have to know him.’

  ‘I’d like to know him,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Can you tell me where he is?’

  She tried to speak, but her throat closed.

  Mumtaz saw Lee take his phone out of his pocket and walk out of the room.

  *

  Henry Grogan saw his parents and his brother walk across the station car park and made a sound like a growl.

  ‘I shouldn’t say this to a police officer, I know, but I want to kill the little bastard!’

  His solicitor put a hand on his arm.

  In spite of herself, Vi Collins smiled. ‘Take your point. Although I must say I’m finding it hard to believe what you’ve just told me.’

  ‘Oh I can assure you it’s true, DI Collins.’

  ‘I’m not saying it’s not.’

  ‘That smell’s haunted me for days,’ he said. ‘In the trunk! In the fucking trunk!’

  ‘You’re sure it was your brother, Mr Grogan?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Or one of his friends. Who else would shit in an improbable place except an old Reedian? It’s a school custom called “depositing”, DI Collins. The chap who can deposit his faeces in the most obscure or dangerous place gets kudos, which is, of course, what Reeds is all about.’

  ‘You didn’t like your old school?’

  ‘Loathed it,’ he said. ‘Full of boys who think they’re special because their snobbish masters and their parents tell them they are. You may hate bankers, most people do, but at least we work.’

  Luckily, Vi didn’t have to respond, because her phone rang. ‘Excuse me, Mr Grogan.’ She left the interview room.

  ‘Vi.’

  ‘Lee,’ she answered. ‘You got the de Vries boy?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I do have his girlfriend.’

  ‘His girlfriend?’

  ‘Almost old enough to be his mum. De Vries has gone missing, according to this Miss Malik. And he’s gone with money. Vi, I think that Tom de Vries knows where Harry Venus is. We’re bringing Laila Malik in now, but you’ve gotta make those other kids talk. That Dan had the ransom money in his hands.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘will do. Let me know when you get here.’

  ‘Tony and Mumtaz’ll bring the woman back. I’m gonna stay here, if that’s OK. See what I can find. You have to see this place to believe it.’

  ‘All right.’

  She went back into the interview room.

  Still very obviously fuming, Henry Grogan said, ‘And you know where the little swine got the idea to shit in my trunk from, don’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bloody Alfred Hitchcock,’ he said. ‘Mr Malcolm McCullough and his obsession with Alfred effing Hitchcock. Another sod I could cheerfully murder.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Vi said, ‘that Alfred Hitchcock ever shat in a trunk.’

  Henry Grogan laughed. ‘I don’t think he did,’ he said. ‘But he was in every one of his films, which I do love. That’s partly down to Mr McCullough. He gave all his house groups Hitchcock posters when we left school. But McCullough had acolytes and still does. Boys who hang on his every word.’

  ‘Your brother?’

  ‘Yes. And I’ve no idea how this got started, but somehow the old “depositing” game became part of a Hitchcock homage. Georgie’s proud of the fact that in the past he’s dumped in a shower and on the school roof.’

  Vi frowned.

  ‘Psycho and Vertigo, DI Collins,’ he said. ‘Their plots are engraved on my memory for all time. The aim is to appropriately “deposit” for every one of Hitchcock’s films. And there are a lot.’

  ‘Does Mr McCullough know his boys do this?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure. I think he probably revels in it,’ Henry said. ‘McCullough is very old public school. He tells all his boys about his own “golden days” at school. He’s some sort of title. Laird or something.’

  ‘Does the school know? The headmaster?’

  He laughed again. ‘Oh, probably,’ he said. ‘They won’t do anything about a “tradition”, however disgusting.’ Then his face straightened. ‘But it’s supposed to stay in school. Doing that in my home is outrageous.’

  ‘But how do you know that’s what it is?’ Vi asked.

  ‘A shit in a trunk? It comes from Hitchcock’s Rope. Two vile American rich kids kill a younger school friend. They want to commit the perfect crime. They don’t, but before they get caught they amuse themselves by putting the boy’s dead body in a trunk they use as a table for a buffet – to which they invite their victim’s father and his fiancée. It’s actually based on a true story, I believe. Google it.’

  *

  Alison Darrah-Duncan had only ever met the Grogans once before. Still, she smiled at them and they smiled back. The glass wall that divided them made verbal communication impossible. But then what was there to say?

  As far as Alison was concerned, she’d been innocently researching her parentage, which had proved to be a poisonous subject, when she’d been thrown into this nightmare. She wanted to blame Mumtaz Hakim for putting her through this stress, but she knew it wasn’t her fault.

  Shaking, she said to her son, ‘It’s gone midnight now, they’re not going to let you go any time soon. You need to tell them the truth.’

  Charlie looked down at his hands.

  ‘You handled money intended for kidnappers. Whose idea was that? Tom de Vries’s?’

  ‘Why do you always think that Tom’s involved in anything bad?’

  ‘Because he usually is,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what he’s got over you, Charlie, but if it’s that you’re gay then it doesn’t matter. But you have to tell the truth, because if anything happens to Harry and you were involved, the police will throw the book at you.’

  He looked up. ‘I’m not involved. If I touched any envelopes then it was just a coincidence.’

  Alison’s shakes intensified. She took a tranquilliser. ‘And what will George say? Will he say it was a coincidence too?’

  ‘George has got nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Then why do the police think that he has?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘And where is Tom de Vries?’ she said. ‘You were all seen together weren’t you? Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She looked at him and watched his eyes fail to meet hers.

  ‘Even if you did, you wouldn’t tell me would you?’ she said. ‘When all this is over, provided you’re not in some young offenders’ institution, I’m taking you out of that bloody school.’

  *

  The alkie was a good idea. His inclusion created a story.

  He took a knife out of his pocket and watched it gleam in the moonlight. The drunk snored.

  He looked down at the alkie’s fire. An empty tin sat in the embers, occasionally throwing up a dart of red and yellow flame. What remained of the alcohol burning off. He stuck the knife into the thin chest. He hadn’t thought there’d be too much resistance, and
there wasn’t. Skin and bone like most seasoned drinkers, he just grunted once, softly, and then it was over.

  He looked down at the corpse. An ember from the fire flicked up and caught one of his trouser turn-ups. Did people who died under the influence even know they were dead? It was a good philosophical point. He’d have to ask.

  What he didn’t feel good about was where the drunk had died. Underneath a statue dedicated to kids who’d been killed in an air raid in the First World War. That was unfortunate. That would upset people.

  He hefted the sports bag up on his shoulder and felt in his pocket for the car keys. He knew he’d taken them. Obsessive compulsive disorder was a bastard.

  *

  ‘Do you know George Grogan, Harry Venus or Charles Darrah-Duncan – you might know Charles as Dan – Miss Malik?’

  Laila Malik hadn’t wanted a solicitor, but as soon as they’d left the de Vries house, she’d held on to Mumtaz.

  Tony Bracci repeated, ‘Miss Malik?’

  Mumtaz squeezed the woman’s hand. She was beautiful, her accent was cultured and educated. Why had she fallen in love with a schoolboy? But then why had she been briefly dazzled by Naz Sheikh?

  After a pause she said, ‘They’re Tom’s friends. Have you found him? Tom?’

  ‘No, but we’re looking. You know that Mrs Hakim isn’t a solicitor, don’t you, Miss Malik?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mumtaz said, ‘Laila, you really do need a solicitor.’

  ‘No.’

  Her refusal was absolute.

  ‘Miss Malik,’ Tony said, ‘have you been having sex with Thomas de Vries?’

  ‘We love each other.’

  ‘So that’s a yes?’

  She nodded.

  ‘For how long?’

  Mumtaz felt herself cringe. It was bad enough that Tom de Vries was only sixteen, but if she’d been sleeping with him before his latest birthday, she was in all sorts of trouble.

  ‘Just over a year.’

  Mumtaz briefly closed her eyes.

  ‘I was employed by Mr de Vries to be his housekeeper when he moved to be with his new wife two years ago,’ Laila said. ‘Tom was only home at holiday times. Mr de Vries would come and see him if he was in the country.’

  ‘What about his mother?’

  ‘No one talks about her,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’

  She shrugged. ‘Tom was so alone,’ she said. ‘A beautiful boy rejected. But he was proud! He wanted nothing from his father.’

  ‘Who pays his school fees.’

  ‘We could live without electricity. We made fires . . .’

  ‘You had sex with a boy who, you admit, was fourteen,’ Tony said.

  No one moved. Mumtaz hardly breathed.

  Tony Bracci looked down at a stack of notes on the table and said, ‘Tom de Vries turned sixteen on the second of August this year. Which means that if you were having sex with him just over a year ago, he was fourteen. You’re an intelligent woman, Miss Malik. You have to know what trouble that puts you in.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘So is that the truth? Or isn’t it? Because if you’re telling me you had sex with a child then you’re in a lot of bother. Think carefully.’

  She looked at Mumtaz.

  ‘Mrs Hakim can’t help you. Look at me.’

  Her face blanched.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Tom needed love,’ she said.

  Mumtaz felt the need to take her hand away from Laila’s, but she resisted. Instead she squeezed her fingers.

  ‘So you did.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tony cleared his throat. ‘You’ve admitted committing a serious offence against a minor that, under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, will mean that you will be subject to arrest. If found guilty you will receive a custodial sentence and your name will be entered on the Sexual Offenders’ Register.’

  She didn’t seem to hear.

  ‘But where is he? Where’s Tom?’

  Tony leaned forward across the desk. ‘All you can do is answer all my questions truthfully,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep on looking for Tom, but you’ve got to help us. Now tell me about these friends of Tom’s. When did you last see them?’

  She swallowed. ‘Tom left with Harry yesterday.’

  ‘Harry Venus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mumtaz felt her skin prickle.

  ‘To go where?’ Tony asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Didn’t you ask?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what was said?’

  She shook her head. ‘Tom just said he’d be back as soon as he could. Then we’d go away.’

  ‘And how did he and Harry Venus leave?’

  ‘I gave Tom my car,’ she said.

  Tony clicked his pen. ‘Registration number?’

  *

  The electricity supply was still connected. Down in the basement there was a great big state-of-the-art junction box. Lee threw the switches and then walked back up to the kitchen. He plugged in the computer he’d found in one of the bedrooms and watched it boot up. He was no expert when it came to technology, but the thing was a MacBook, the same computer Harry Venus had on him when he’d gone missing.

  When it asked for a password he’d probably be fucked, but then he also knew how obvious a lot of passwords could be. Kids, in particular, were notorious for using their own names or the name of their favourite band or even just the word ‘Apple’. He’d give it a go.

  He tried ‘Harry’ and then ‘Venus’ but it threw him out. The boy was such a fucking cipher he didn’t have a clue what bands, if any, he liked. If he shared any interests with de Vries then it wasn’t obvious what he liked either. There was another computer, a tiny MacBook Air, which had been lying on the bed Laila Malik claimed to have shared with Tom de Vries. But even if it did turn out to be de Vries’s machine, Lee still had the password problem.

  There was so little in the house. How could de Vries’s father let him live like this? He looked at the MacBook and went upstairs. Now that the lights were on he could see the place properly. It wasn’t in the bad state he’d imagined it to be when he’d seen it by candlelight. It was nicely decorated, there were radiators for central heating, there was just sod-all furniture. No carpets at all. A load of old and probably valuable books, just thrown around in almost every room. He started to look through a pile in the bathroom, then went back to de Vries’s bedroom and booted up the Air, just for the hell of it. Getting Laila Malik out of the house had taken a long time. First she’d refused to move, then she’d been sick, then finally she’d clung to Mumtaz, who had only then been able to, slowly, get her outside. Then he’d had to call Vi.

  Soon the fucking sun would be rising. Lee tried the password ‘de Vries’ once and gave up. Tom’s bedroom had been nice, once, probably when it had been used by his father. But now he looked closer, Lee could see that the boy, or someone else, had scrawled on the walls. He looked closely at a crude drawing of a woman sucking a man’s cock. Underneath was written, ‘Tru 2 U’. De Vries and Laila Malik? Whose handwriting was it? What did a woman like her see in a kid? But then something else caught his attention. Something familiar.

  He heard the front door open.

  19

  Vi threw her dog-end into the dew-soaked grass and walked over to a group of coppers, some of them in SOCO coveralls, crowded around a tent.

  Although not on her patch, she knew Poplar Rec. She liked the old church at the back of the park, mainly because she thought it looked like a location out of a Dracula film. There was something eastern European about it.

  Kev Thorpe was chewing on a sandwich. Vi smelt bacon.

  ‘This better be something,’ she said. ‘I’ve got two minors in custody with extensions coming up. I need to get myself to court.’

  ‘Vi, it’s a kid,’ Kev said. ‘If it hadn’t been a kid, you wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘I know.’ She rubbed his shoulder. ‘Want to sh
ow me?’

  He held the tent flap up to one side and Vi held her breath.

  *

  Shazia pretended to read Baharat Huq’s newspaper.

  Her amma’s brother, Uncle Ali, had arrived just before breakfast and was talking to the old man, who Shazia called her ‘dada’ or grandfather, in the kitchen. Both of them had loud voices, so it wasn’t hard to grasp what was going on.

  ‘Aftab wants to borrow eight thousand pounds and I have no problem with that,’ Ali said. ‘He will pay me back and I know he is a man of honour. But I wonder why he needs it.’

  The old man cleared his throat. ‘Business isn’t easy for mini-marts these days. So much competition from supermarkets! I’ve been telling him for years he should move into something the young trendy people want. Old clothes . . .’

  ‘In Manor Park? It’s not that kind of area, not yet. But Abba, there is something else. I wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t.’

  ‘Religion again? If your mother heard you speak the way you do, it would break her heart,’ her dada said. ‘Religion should not be a wedge between us . . .’

  ‘I don’t want to discuss that.’

  Uncle Ali sounded angry.

  ‘What do you want to discuss?’

  Her dada tried to sound frosty, but he failed. He just sounded upset.

  ‘I saw Ghazal.’ Aftab’s eldest daughter, who worked in banking, was not the sort of person Uncle Ali would approve of. ‘We spoke and I asked after her family and she said that she is worried about her father.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he has been asking her all sorts of questions about remortgaging,’ Ali said. ‘How long it might take, what it will cost. I didn’t tell her that he has asked me for money, but I get the impression he needs the cash quickly, that he is ultimately remortgaging his house to pay for whatever this is, and that my money is just a stopgap. Why would he want money so quickly?’

  ‘To secure stock?’

  ‘He should have enough cash to do that, and besides, he deals with suppliers he has known for years. They’ll wait for money.’

  ‘So ask him.’

  ‘I did. He said he couldn’t say. Abba, you were in business for years; you know what goes on. You know that there are people who want to provide services we don’t need.’