Jericho Road: A Nathan Hawk Mystery (The Nathan Hawk Mystery series Book 5)

by Douglas Watkinson

  “Where are you from?”

  He didn’t answer immediately so I stooped again and as he wriggled away Taniel stepped in and said quietly,

  “Please, don’t. You frighten him.”

  I turned to him. “What are you, then? Godfather? Big Daddy?”

  “Foreman.” He nodded at Ghayas. “He is from Syria. He is a plasterer with many skills. Fine lines, intricate mouldings, some electrics...”

  Grogan took an antique notebook from his inside pocket, removed the pencil from the wired spine and wrote Ghayas Ovadia's full name, though God knows how he spelled it.

  “How old are you?” I asked Ghayas.

  “Twenty-two.”

  I nodded and turned back to Taniel. “Now tell me why he squealed when I mentioned Maryan.”

  Taniel thought about that for a moment

  “He will tell you himself."

  Ghayas sat up, a skinny torso, ribs casting shadows one on another. I wondered if he’d been born that way or had just been underfed. He kept his head bowed so I couldn’t read the face.

  “She came here to find me one day. She was...”

  He hesitated and started to mime, hands out as if gripping handles.

  “On a bike. Why you? Had you met before? Did you know her?”

  He shook his head and pointed down the cabin to the black kid.

  “She asked Osman which of us is me...”

  “So she knew your name, but not you. What did she want?”

  He looked at Taniel for help with either the story or the language.

  “It’s true what he says!” said Taniel. “She thinks Ghayas knows a friend of hers, maybe thinks the friend came to England with him. The name she does not say, but as she goes to him our boss comes out of the barn and starts to shout.”

  “Russell Taylor?” He nodded. “And?”

  “He tells her to leave, to not come back...”

  “And off she went? Without a peep?”

  “What is peep?”

  “Did he smack her about?” I was losing him with the slack language. “Was he angry? Did he hit her?”

  “He was angry, yes. She was afraid. But he did not harm her.”

  I straightened up. It seemed I had another name to add to my whiteboard and the list of suspects. Russell Taylor. There he was, with a top class workforce, paying them a pittance no doubt, having them live like pigs and then in walks Maryan Kashani who might just have brought it all tumbling down.

  “So which of you took time off the other day?” They didn’t understand, didn’t want to. “Pressing family matters to deal with, your boss said. Which of you wasn’t here two days ago?”

  It takes a fractional glance to betray the answer to such a question but nobody’s eyes moved. I was already talking to the answer. Of course. Ghayas was the name I thought I’d heard Tina Russell and Taniel discussing as Guy. He got to his feet and tried to melt into a corner. I could see his face clearly now. A handsome hotchpotch face. Mainly Arabic in features, I guessed, with European touches - Italian, maybe. Long black hair tied in a pony tail, a few scars on his face and a crooked nose that spoke of too many lost fights. As I closed on him his hands flew defensively to his crotch.

  Taniel must’ve thought it was time he took control again, insofar as it was possible.

  “So, we maybe tell you our names...”

  “No!” said another man at the far end.

  Taniel responded to him in Russian, all front of the mouth and lots of spit.

  “English,” I snapped.

  “I tell him that the problem is not our names but that you have found us. Are you some kind of police?”

  “We used to be. Not any more.”

  I’m not sure he understood that, a matter of past and present tense. It didn’t seem to bother him either way.

  “So, our names.” He shrugged. “A name is just a name.”

  A lippy sod, in any language. I saw Grogan pause and glance up at the strip light, so far keeping his cool.

  “You mean you’ve got a name for each day of the week?” I said. “Okay, Fred Sunday, he had a day off work. Why?”

  Despite the warmth of the night, Ghayas was cold, shivery. He stooped to pick up a dusty, oily shirt and put it on, almost in defiance. And at that point I suddenly felt foolish. I’d asked Grogan to accompany me on this outing, he’d brought his Glock, I’d brought the Smith & Wesson. God knows what I’d expected to find here, but I was looking at six people, different ages, holed up in this tin box of terror. It was the kind of fear that can’t get any worse, no matter how many threats you pile on, no matter how many Grogans bear down on you, and so, mysteriously, it transforms itself into courage. These guys had come too far, sacrificed too much, to be affected by men like us. They’d no doubt lost family, friends, loved ones, to say nothing of money and possessions, to say even less of dignity, pride and the common courtesies of freedom. Sure, we could have turned over their belongings, found real names, ages, nationalities, but how far would that have got us in a search for Maryan’s killer? Maybe a gentler approach was called for.

  I took Taniel to one side and we spoke in a virtual whisper. All I cared about was finding Maryan Kashani’s killer, I told him. So long as it wasn’t one of the six people in this cabin, I wasn’t interested. But if he messed me around I would go to his boss, police, border control and throw an outsize spanner into the works. He struggled with the actual words but was in no doubt as to my intentions. So where was Ghayas the other day?

  He gestured for Ghayas to step forward which he did, dark intelligent eyes, defiant in their way but wary of trusting me.

  “The truth. No games,” I said.

  “I went to see my sister. Call her Amira.”

  I took a moment or two to digest that and even then it repeated on me.

  “Sister? Where?”

  He didn’t want to tell me and referred to Taniel who I’d misread. I’d seen him, meek and mild in front of Tina Taylor, asking about money, but he was more than just a go-between, boss to workforce and back again. He was a father figure to these guys. He nodded consent to his child,

  “We meet in a ... kind of farm,” said Ghayas.

  “What do you mean ‘kind of’?”

  He kept staring at me. “There is a café there.”

  “She works there?” He was hesitant. Again I put it down to the language. “Name the farm.”

  “Is called Fielden Farm.”

  I had a sudden vision of a young woman doing a 60 hour week picking soft fruit in a polythene warehouse and being paid peanuts.

  “You went to see her because she was sick. How did Russell know she was ill?”

  Ghayas took back his side of the conversation. “His wife told me.”

  “How did she know?”

  “Facebook.”

  “Christ, what is this! You live in a bloody tin can but with access to social media?"

  I thought I saw relief in Ghayas’s eyes, belief that he'd dodged a leading question. Before I could challenge him, Taniel said,

  “You don’t understand. This man, Russell Taylor, is a good man. He treats us with respect.”

  “And puts you up in five star accommodation,” said Grogan from the periphery.

  “It is safe here.”

  “How much does he pay you?”

  “Two pounds every hour.”

  “That isn’t respect, my friend. That is...”

  Now wasn’t the time, this wasn’t the place to discuss the exploitation of six skilled workers. But I promised myself that Russell Taylor and I would have a chat about it some day soon. Meantime, I asked if the six had known each other before they came to the UK. They hadn’t. They’d heard on some migrant bush telegraph that someone in England was looking for craftsmen. Taniel was in Germany at the time, a refugee, and made his way to France...

  “Whereabouts in France?”

  “A place called Abbeville.”

  The market town where, if only in my mind, Leonard Blake sold cod a
nd chips. And bought ‘fournitures medicales’. I asked if they’d had to pay money to get here, a transit fee. He whispered the exact amount. Two thousand pounds each. And the man who ferried them, what did he look like? Was he mid-forties, fat, beard, no chin? Clearly they didn’t recognise the thumbnail of Leonard Blake. After minimal exchanges they settled on him being my height, late twenties, short fair hair, parting down the left, pock marked face. It was a perfect description of Terry Baines.

  “When was this?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “And he brought you all here, straight to Hillside Farm?”

  “No, no, first to a big house which we restore...”

  "Where? What was it called?"

  "I don't know. Like here, we live on the site. In the attic.” He smiled. “The penthouse.”

  “You never went outside, never saw the landscape, heard any traffic?”

  “Everything we needed was there!”

  “And just like here, you were safe.” He nodded. “One more question. When you came from there to Hillside? Who drove you?”

  “Mr Taylor. He comes one night to get us in his truck.”

  “How long did the journey take?”

  “Five minutes.”

  The best answer I’d had all night. I think at that point I clapped him on the shoulder, partly out of delight, partly to let him know we were done. On my way to the door I paused at the girl, late twenties, strong face with sharp features, hair cut short so as not to get tangled in machinery. She sported a touch of femininity in the drop earrings, emeralds, I thought as they glinted in the light. She was the least afraid of them all, though God knows why. Lone female.

  “Safe here for you as well? What’s your name?”

  “Roma Taburov.” She looked at Grogan. “You want me to spell?”

  He smiled and shook his head. His notebook had been consigned to his pocket after the earlier remarks about a name being just a name.

  Taniel wanted confirmation of my earlier promise. “So you’ve found us, now what?”

  “So long as one of you didn’t kill Maryan Kashani, you don’t exist.”

  I’d no idea where Taniel came from but I reckoned it was a country where lying was run of the mill, so why should he take my promise at face value.

  “No army, no police, no border control, no ... trouble?” he asked.

  “No.”

  ***

  It was a quiet ride back to Beech Tree but at least Bill Grogan didn’t strap hang, or suck in air every time I went round a bend. He was thoughtful and I guessed he was indulging the forbidden weakness. Empathy. For all his hard as nails pretence, his monosyllabic sentiments, he was a fully paid up human being. He broke our gloomy silence.

  “They’re what used to be called illegal immigrants,” he said. “Now known simply as people who shouldn’t be here. You know why Russell Taylor uses them?”

  “Cheap.”

  He nodded. “That’s a bonus, yeah, but each one’s worth two of those you can hire locally. Ask any builder round here, they’ll say their English, Irish labour turns up late, gets pissed at lunchtime and knocks off early."

  "We both know why they're here, Bill. For the chance of a better life."

  "Did I say otherwise? Odd though, your man Ghayas being the one Maryan came looking for. And then he takes a day off. Mean anything?”

  All I knew, I told him, was that Russell Taylor and his wife were now definitely in the frame. He went on to point out that I’d been left with a hell of a dilemma. By rights I should be telling DCI Finchum, first thing tomorrow, that up at Hillside Farm there were six border busters and let him take it from there. Trouble was they’d all be taken into custody and shipped off back to where they’d come from. He was right. I'd given Taniel my word that nothing would happen unless one of them turned out to be the killer.

  I pulled up beside Grogan's car, parked under the big beech, and thanked him.

  “Not sure I did much,” he said. “What next?”

  “I haven’t the faintest. Can I call on you if I need help?”

  He nodded, got into his absurdly small car and drove off.

  - 16 -

  It was three o’clock in the morning and I’d intended to sleep after my visit to Hillside Farm, but the bottle of Bells called to me from the back of the dresser and I answered. I sank a double with some icicles from the freezer which badly needed defrosting.

  I added the names Russell and Tina Taylor to the whiteboard wall, alongside Bag Man Leonard Blake, Barista Steve Bellamy and stall holder cum driver Terry Baines. Plus Tom Manners, of course. I put the Hillside Workforce down as one suspect. They hadn’t told anyone their real names but they all had good reasons to prefer Maryan dead.

  Then I had a second ring of the Bells, scraping freezer frost into the glass. There might’ve been a third, I can’t remember. But what I am sure of is that abstinence makes the heart grow fonder and the body less able to take a sudden hit in its stride.

  Hillside Farm had certainly been productive but as Grogan had pointed out, was I going to use any of what I’d learned? The Hillside Six would be scooped up and sent back to their countries of origin, I told the dog, and they’d end up with their heads on sticks to serve as examples to others. Overstatement, the dog said. I shook my head. We’d seen too many rolling heads of late. These people, Taniel and the rest, had come here willingly and albeit they were shacked up in a rickety portakabin this side of Easington, their fears had turned to hope, their hopes were on the verge of being realised. So who was I, in the Great Scheme of Things to shatter all that...?

  I was seated at the kitchen table and laid my hands down over the map of Australia, the wood knot that’s exactly where my fork goes when the table’s laid. I placed my head on the backs of my hands and began obsessing about Leonard Blake. I’m not sure why I’d taken against him more, more ... Christ, the word was dancing in front of me but wouldn't settle ... more fiercely, fervently, ferociously than like-for-like scumbags down the years. I’d been right all along, though. He’d lied about not knowing Maryan, he hadn’t reported Tom for vandalising his canopies, didn’t want police poking around ... and he’d called me ‘chum’. Okay, calling people chum isn’t a crime, more’s the pity. But people smuggling is. I’d asked the Hillside Six for a description of their courier, France to England, and they’d given me Terry Baines. And he wasn’t just the driver. He was also the fall guy. If anything went wrong, he'd be on his own.

  And where had he taken them? To their first job, a ‘big house’ just five minutes drive away from Hillside. How many big houses in that radius? Two. One of them was Waddesdon Manor, the other Wotton House. So to hell with Jenny Leveque and Alicia Blake being volunteers in the same Oxfam shop. They’d turned up at the garden party because the husbands were in business together, supplying human beings to order.

  I looked along the grain of the wood which dared me to walk along it and jump off the edge. As I began the journey, I must’ve nodded off...

  The next noise I heard, about three hours later, was a cistern flushing overhead and Laura moving about. Like every other noise in my house, her footsteps rumbled on through beams and joists. I opened my eyes, peeled my face off the table and sat up, causing the brick in my head to fly into orbit and crash land right behind my eyes. I went over to the sink and drank a pint of water from the tap, using my hand as a cup.

  I heard Laura’s feet on the stairs and straightened up, tried to put on a show. It didn’t work. She came into the room, took one look at me and retied her dressing gown, tight as it would go. Her eyes drifted to the empty glass, centre of the table. Without saying a word she eased me away from the sink with the back of her hand and filled the kettle.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me...?” I began.

  “How did it go, Hillside Farm?”

  I pointed to the new names on the whiteboard and she homed in on the connection I’d made between Leonard Blake, Rollo and the Hillside Six. I told her they’d lived in Roll
o’s attic while they worked on his house.

  “Were they just a one off ... batch?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  She nodded and asked, haltingly, “In that case are we...”

  “Yes, we’re talking about people smuggling. Sounds almost romantic, doesn’t it. Put it another way. Modern slavery.”

  It’s all the rage now, I added, bringing in dirt cheap labour from an ever widening pool of humanity. Customers ready and waiting, chomping at the bit to cut their costs.

  “So where did Maryan fit into all that?” she asked.

  “Maybe they brought her in too. But let’s say they’re importing people on a regular basis, three grand a head, and Maryan was about to blow it, that’s motive and a half to kill her.”

  That said, I didn’t think she was on some kind of crusade to bring traffickers to justice. I thought she was looking for someone. Male, female, friend, relative? I hadn’t a clue, but I was sure she didn’t come all the way from Syria, zoom in on a tin-pot town like Thame just on the off-chance. She made the journey because she knew something.

  “She wasn’t looking for one of the Hillside Six?”

  “No. Which means there are others. I know of one. Her name is Amira, sister of a kid at Hillside, calls himself Ghayas. She works in a Fielden Farm near Wycombe...”

  “Doing what?”

  I shrugged and then winced. Odd how raising your shoulders can send such a sharp pain through your head. Finchum must have lived in constant agony.

  “Picking, planting, milking,” I said.

  “You do know that Fielden isn’t a real farm, Nathan, it’s a farm park. Take the children, show them what a pig, a sheep, a cow really is. Slides and climbing frames, shops and cafés and...”

  She paused as something occurred, looked at me, wondering how well or badly I’d receive the idea, perhaps because she could hardly believe it herself. She went over to the whiteboard.

  “Circus,” she all but whispered.

  “What about it?”

  “A patient of mine whose child suffers from epilepsy ... I say suffers, it’s such a ridiculous word when you consider the diseases of childhood, the cancers, deformities, growth disorders...” She stopped herself from going off on a lecture. “Flashing lights at a circus had triggered a seizure in this child. The circus at Fielden Farm Park.”