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

by Barbara Nadel

  There was a pause. Then her dada said, ‘You think that someone wishes to protect our Aftab?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Shazia shuddered. Both Cousin Aftab and her amma had told her that getting rid of her from the shop had been the end of the matter. But it hadn’t. She knew what ‘protection’ meant and how she had been the pretext for it. She could have said something about what she knew to her dada then, but she didn’t. She’d started this thing between Naz Sheikh and Cousin Aftab and she was going to finish it.

  *

  Tina cried. Her husband watched her. He didn’t want to touch her and he knew she didn’t want to be comforted by him. He’d never known Adele de Vries. He’d seen her once at a party he’d gone to with Tina, and then a few times, at a distance, at Reeds. At the school, she’d usually been drunk. He’d felt sorry for her husband, who had put up with it for far too long. Only Tina ever seemed to speak to her on these occasions.

  When she finally got herself under control again, Tina said, ‘It took Adele years to conceive Tom.’

  There had been a lot of abortions, Paul had been told. It had made him wonder about Tina and why it had taken her so long to conceive Harry. But now was not the time for that.

  ‘Tina, we’re struggling to find out what Tom de Vries was doing in a park in Poplar with an alcoholic,’ Paul said. ‘His father is out of the country and we can’t find his mother . . .’

  ‘Well, Adele’s mum lived in Poplar,’ Tina said. ‘On the High Street.’

  ‘Did you ever go there?’

  He wished to God that his office had proper walls instead of glass. He’d never liked it. He felt as if they were on television. That was her career, not his.

  ‘A long time ago,’ she said. ‘I stayed there for a few weeks when I was singing in the Grenadier in Clerkenwell. Adele was a dancer. That was how we met.’

  Why Tina always tidied her friends’ lives up, Paul didn’t know. Brian Green had never employed ‘dancers’ back in those days. If you were female and you weren’t a singer, you were a stripper.

  ‘Where did she live, Tina?’

  ‘A council block. Her mum used to put up some of the other artistes from the club too when I knew her, but the old lady probably died years ago.’

  ‘And if she didn’t? Or if Adele took over her mother’s tenancy after she died? She’s not lived with de Vries for five years. According to the woman who claims to be Tom’s lover, his mother never visits. What was Adele’s maiden name?’

  ‘Well, she called herself Adele da Rosa but her real surname was Berger.’

  ‘Right.’

  She began to cry again.

  Paul Venus picked up his phone and then put it down again. ‘Look Tina,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry that Tom de Vries is dead, but Harry’s still out there somewhere and we know that Tom, at least for a while, was holding our son against his will.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We don’t know yet.’ He picked up the phone again. ‘I’m going to have to make some calls.’ He punched in a number and waited for it to ring. When it didn’t, he said, ‘Where the hell is Arnold?’

  *

  Tom de Vries was dead. Found stabbed in Poplar Rec after what might have been a fight with an alkie, who was also dead. Although why a kid like de Vries would fight with an elderly alcoholic was a mystery. Lee looked across the road at the hardwood electric gates that hid Brian Green’s house from view. The old git had gone to a lot of trouble to get a mobile phone number that ended in 007. He’d had it for donkey’s years. What had it been doing scrawled on the wall of de Vries’s house in Spitalfields?

  Harry Venus had been in that house, Laila Malik had admitted as much, although she hadn’t said why he’d been there. Harry knew Brian and so it was possible he would have his mobile phone number. But why had it been scrawled on de Vries’s bedroom wall? And who by?

  Only Vi knew where he was and why. If Brian Green was involved in Harry’s abduction in some way, then great caution was needed. Although nominally straight, Brian was not a man to be trusted or taken lightly. He had a lot of money and a lot of friends and some very hot lawyers.

  He switched his phone on. No messages, but he recognised Venus’s number as a missed call. He was wondering where he was. Tower Hamlets plods had turned up to secure the house in Princelet Street, and when Lee had left he’d told them nothing. What could he tell them? If Brian was involved he had to be sure of his facts. Because if he wasn’t, Lee could find himself at the sharp end of the type of litigation that would put him out of business.

  *

  ‘You’ve gotta make this right now, George,’ Vi said. ‘I’ve just been to court and I’ve got you here for another twelve hours.’

  Dr Grogan said, ‘Oh, God!’

  The boy’s solicitor shrugged.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be this way,’ Vi said. ‘George, Tom is dead. I know that’s upsetting, but we also know, from his girlfriend, that before he died, Tom had Harry Venus at his house. Do you know why?’

  George looked away.

  His father went to speak, but the solicitor put a hand up to stop him.

  ‘Did you know that Tom had a girlfriend?’

  The solicitor looked at George and just gently shook her head. Oh God, the ‘No comment’ game.

  Vi took a breath. A different tack maybe? ‘Good news is that your brother Henry’s gone home,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if your parents got a chance to talk to him . . .?’

  ‘Er, no,’ Dr Grogan said. ‘He just left.’

  ‘Yes,’ Vi said, ‘he left because he was angry.’ She looked at the boy. ‘Tell me about “depositing”, George.’ Then she looked at his father. ‘Dr Grogan? I ask because we don’t have traditions like that here. Call us uncultured . . .’

  Nobody said a word. The solicitor looked confused.

  Vi smiled. ‘Sorry Miss Whittle, “depositing” is a tradition at George’s public school. It involves defecating in public places. It’s, um, it’s only done by, well, a certain type of boy, including George . . .’

  The solicitor went to speak.

  ‘Yes, it is relevant to the case,’ Vi persisted. ‘Because while looking for possible evidence about the disappearance of Harry Venus in Mr Henry Grogan’s flat, we found faeces in a trunk. To be honest with you, it was so fantastic I found it hard to credit what Mr Grogan was saying. But we will discover whether it belonged to George or not, and from your reaction, Dr Grogan, I have to conclude that what Henry said was true.’

  He tried to speak but ended up nodding.

  ‘Mind you, Henry was not happy that you deposited in his flat, George. Supposed to do that at school, aren’t you? But then this is a new game, isn’t it? An Alfred Hitchcock game. Just like – what’s that film where a couple of boys kidnap a kid and then kill him? – Rope.’

  Now he looked her straight in the eye.

  ‘I’ve sent for Mr McCullough,’ she said. ‘Because I’d like to know more about Rope. Wikipedia was a bit sketchy. Know what I mean?’

  *

  Tony Bracci hadn’t met Tom de Vries, but he’d never imagined him to be related to someone like Rene Berger. Tony recognised the type. Skint, disappointed, lonely, in front of the telly. In the past there’d probably been some old husband who’d lost his job in the docks back in the seventies and eventually died of something smoking-related. It was an East End standard.

  ‘She buggered off,’ the old woman said.

  ‘Your daughter.’

  ‘Last year. Got in with some bloke supposed to have a place in Tenerife. He was a drunk, so who knows where she’s ended up.’ Hard. It was as if she were talking about the budgie that sat in a cage beside her chair. ‘He broke her heart.’

  ‘What, this fella?’

  ‘No, her husband. Got fed up with her, got rid of her.’

  She was fat and the flat smelt of tinned fish and piss. Most of the other places in the block had been sold, but Mrs Berger’s was still owned by the council. Tony rec
ognised the décor – circa 1975.

  ‘My old man nearly died when she married one of them.’

  ‘One of who?’

  ‘Posh,’ she said. ‘Met him in one of the clubs she worked at. Sent our Tom to that school. Any wonder the kid turned out as he did.’

  She didn’t know that her grandson was dead. PC Rink was at his back, waiting to do the breaking-bad-news bit.

  ‘I s’pose it’s Tom you’ve come about,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  She looked up at PC Rink.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  Tony moved across the stained chintz sofa and Rink sat down.

  ‘I’m afraid, Mrs Berger,’ she said, ‘that your grandson was found dead in Poplar Recreation Ground this morning.’

  Tony looked away.

  ‘I’m very sorry . . .’

  They’d had to tell her. There was still a missing kid out there somewhere. How long would it take to get the old girl to calm down enough to tell them anything she might know?

  He heard a sigh and then she said, ‘How?’

  Tony looked at her. There wasn’t a tear in sight. Just a resigned look on her large, grey face. East End to her swollen feet, her daughter had been little more than a brass from what he could gather, then a drunk. Now the only person in her life who’d ever had any sort of privilege was dead.

  ‘We think he got into a fight,’ Tony said.

  Although if the skinny old alkie that Kev Thorpe had found with him had killed him it must’ve been a bloody miracle. Called ‘Happy’ by old-timers round and about Poplar High Street, Kev had discovered that most people had the idea he was dying of cancer. Unless that was just his shtick to con money for booze.

  She nodded. It had affected her. But she was doing what she’d always done. Hiding it.

  ‘He rung me yesterday afternoon,’ she said. ‘Out the blue. Said he had some business over this way and would I mind if he put his car in my garage round the back here. Hadn’t heard from him for a year or more. Didn’t know he could drive. I said yes.’

  ‘Did he come in?’

  ‘He had to, so he could take the garage key.’

  ‘After that?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ she said. ‘For quite a bit. Right chatty. But I knew he was in bother.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Said he was going away, so I reckoned he had to have a reason. I never asked. You don’t. You’re not from round here, are you?’

  ‘No. Newham.’

  ‘I had a brother, Hyman. DI Thorpe still alive is he?’

  ‘Yeah. Just.’

  ‘Well ask him about Hyman Blatt. He was in and out – you know what I mean. Tom had that same look to him.’

  No wonder Mr Marcus de Vries had seen the error of his ways with Adele. Tony imagined she’d been a looker before the booze took hold. She must’ve had something. Tom had been a good-looking boy, unlike his father, whose diplomatic profile included a photograph of a man with neither hair nor chin.

  ‘Did Tom come here alone?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And when he left, did you see the car go?’

  ‘No, I dropped off. He put the keys back through the street door like he said he would.’

  ‘If you didn’t talk about why he was going away, what did you talk about?’ Tony asked.

  ‘This and that,’ she said. ‘He talked a load of old pony about coming back and getting me, taking me to some Greek island. It was all cobblers. But I let him go on.’

  ‘Did you think to tell his father what Tom had in mind?’

  ‘Him? No. Up to the boy what he did. Dumped at that school, then left alone with some housekeeper. I thought good luck to him. Anyway, how would I know where his father was?’

  ‘You could’ve asked Tom.’

  ‘I hate his father. Why would I? You talked to him yet?’

  Marcus de Vries, Defence Relations Officer to Azerbaijan, was on some sort of field trip in a remote part of the country where you could just about use a landline if you were lucky.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, there you go.’

  The old girl was shaken, but she was holding up. So he asked her for her garage key. He looked at PC Rink for signs of disapproval, but she didn’t scowl at him and so he couldn’t have been too insensitive. He hoped.

  *

  What was he expecting Brian to do? If he looked around the side of one of those great hardwood gates, he could see that all of his cars, plus a few others he didn’t recognise, were on the drive. Someone was in because he’d seen curtains being pulled back in one of the top windows, but that didn’t necessarily mean that Brian was in the house.

  Lee went and sat back in his car. Fuck it! He called him. ‘Brian?’

  ‘Whaddaya want?’ He sounded groggy and grumpy. ‘You found Harry?’

  ‘No,’ Lee said. ‘But I’ve got a couple of questions for you. You home?’

  ‘Well, you should know,’ the old man said. ‘You’ve been sitting outside me house for long enough.’

  Lee ended the call, took a breath and then the fucking thing rang, just as he was getting out of the car.

  *

  Charlie Darrah-Duncan cried.

  The police had put the family in what they called the ‘soft’ interview suite.

  His father stroked his hair.

  ‘I’m sorry about Tom, old man,’ he said. ‘I know you were close.’

  Alison was shaky. She hadn’t slept and her ex-husband’s words made her furious.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, Chris!’ she said. ‘We can’t do anything about that!’

  She sat down next to her son. She’d never liked Tom de Vries. Arrogant, pot-smoking little shit. He’d bullied Charlie, they all had. All except Harry Venus. Now it seemed that they’d done something to him. Or de Vries had. That was certainly the way it seemed to Alison.

  ‘You have to tell the police everything you know,’ she said. ‘Whatever unnatural things were going on in that school—’

  ‘Reeds is a bloody good school, Ali.’

  ‘Oh, shut up Chris! Did you know about “depositing”?’

  He laughed. ‘Oh Lord, that still goes on does it?’

  ‘You knew? You knew that boys competed to crap in the most unlikely places?’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit of an old Reeds tradition. Unofficial,’ he said. Then he frowned. ‘Has Charlie been . . .?’

  ‘I don’t know! But one of them has.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with Harry Venus’s disappearance?’

  ‘I don’t know! Ask the police. Because they’ll be back and they’ll want to ask him questions again and I don’t think I can take any more of his silence.’ She bent down so she could see her son’s face. ‘I know you know something. And even if they do, by some miracle, let you out of here without charge, you have to know that if you have a secret, you have to tell it. Secrets fester. I know.’

  She’d told no one what Mumtaz Hakim had discovered about her parentage, but she would. There had been too much concealment.

  ‘Charlie, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Ali, leave him be,’ Chris said. ‘He’s upset.’

  ‘And you who don’t live with him ride to his rescue,’ Alison said. ‘Chris, I know you’re trying to protect that bloody school of yours . . .’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Ali.’

  ‘What you mean “silly”, like I was being when I dropped that first cup? Fucking hell . . .’

  ‘Ali! Please!’

  ‘Oh, swearing “not on” is it?’ she said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I blame myself too. I should’ve taken him out of the bloody school myself. I knew he was being bullied.’

  ‘No I wasn’t. I’m not.’

  ‘It speaks.’ Alison got up and paced. ‘Why is all this taking so long!’

  ‘Ali, a bit of adversity’s—’

  ‘Oh, spare me!’ She got up and paced the room. ‘I—’

  ‘Where’s the Super?’

  The voice came from ou
tside. A yell followed by running feet. ‘Where is he?’

  Other, lower level voices made an incomprehensible jigsaw of sound. And then more running feet. Then more.

  Alison, cut off mid-flow, looked at her husband and then her son, who had stopped crying.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ she said.

  *

  The crumpled figure half asleep in the corridor outside the ward was Tony Bracci. Lee collapsed down on the chair beside him.

  ‘How is he?’

  Tony groaned as he sat up. ‘Unconscious’.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t know yet. He’s hooked up to all sorts of machines.’

  ‘Venus is with him?’

  ‘And his mum. Coupla PCs. I was just gathering my wits to go back to the nick. Guv knows.’

  ‘You have to tell me about it,’ Lee said. ‘Where’d you find him?’

  Tony stretched. ‘I will, but we’ll have to go outside where I can have a fag or I’ll crash out halfway through.’

  They sat on the steps outside the old Royal London Hospital facade. Tony took his warrant card out of his pocket. ‘Anyone tells us off, I’ll show ’em this.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll be impressed, Tone.’

  He shook his head. ‘Whatever. We found the kid in a car in de Vries’s nan’s garage,’ he said. ‘In Poplar. You don’t think about public school boys having nans in Poplar.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised to find someone called de Vries in Poplar, these days,’ Lee said.

  ‘Oh no, she was Tom’s mum’s old girl. Proper old East End.’

  ‘How’d you find out about her? From the father?’

  ‘No, from the Super’s wife. She used to work with Mrs de Vries years ago when she sang in clubs. Her mum, Tom’s nan, used to put girls up from the club in her flat, including the Super’s wife.’

  When, Lee remembered, she sang in Brian Green’s clubs. He said nothing.

  ‘Tom de Vries went to visit his nan yesterday afternoon,’ Tony said. ‘He asked her if he could park his car, which was his girlfriend’s, in her garage. She said yes and they spent a few hours together. Harry Venus must’ve already been spark out in the back, although we won’t know for sure until he comes round. The old girl, Mrs Berger, hadn’t seen her grandson for ages and so they had a good chat apparently. Adele, Tom’s mother, buggered off to Tenerife with some bloke, his dad’s off doing arms deals in Azerbaijan, Tom was pretty much alone.’