‘Seven hundred pounds,’ she said.
He looked at her, his eyes fixed in obvious shock.
Then she said, ‘So there, you can do nothing about it.’
He didn’t say a thing.
‘And even if you could, what about next month, the month after that? And after that? Lee, my debts are a bottomless pit.’ Still he said nothing and so she pushed it further. ‘And the seven hundred pounds I need this month isn’t even all of it. As you’ve noticed, I’ve been selling things. Now there’s nothing left.’ There was a silence, into which she added, ‘Except the house.’
Lee sat back down in front of her again. ‘And if you sold the house …’
‘If I sold the house and got a good price for it, I may be alright,’ she said. ‘But that’s very unlikely, Lee, in this financial climate.’
‘So you’re stuck.’
‘Yes, I’m stuck,’ she said.
‘So if you’re stuck anyway, what’s the point of going off and looking for a new job that’ll only pay you a couple of hundred quid more a month than I do, at the most?’
She didn’t want him involved. ‘I can’t ex—’
‘I’ll get seven hundred quid out of the business account now,’ he said.
Mumtaz felt her eyes widen.
‘I won’t take no for an answer,’ he said. He stood up. ‘You don’t have to pay me back.’
‘But …’
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘We’ll take it month by month. I’ll give you the money this month and then if you’ve a shortfall next month then you can—’
‘I can’t do that!’ Mumtaz stood, smoothing a hand agitatedly across her headscarf. She paced.
Lee went back to his desk and put his jacket on. Watching him, she said, ‘Where are you going?’
‘Like I said, to the bank.’
‘No!’ She put an arm up to stop him from leaving. It rested on his shoulder in what looked almost like an embrace. ‘I can’t let you, Lee! I just can’t!’
He gently moved her arm out of his path and said, ‘Unless you let me sort out the bastards who’re threatening you, this is the way it’s going to have to be. This is the way I’ll make it.’
19
Now there was a sight for sore eyes: Majid Islam deep in conversation with Zahid Sheikh – and both of them smiling. That wasn’t right. Since when had Majid Islam been thick with any of the local gangsters? But then, Vi thought, since when had Majid Islam smoked cannabis?
John Sawyer’s body was due to be released to his family later on that day and there were no words of comfort that Vi Collins could give them. John was dead and they still hadn’t arrested anyone for his murder. She tried to comfort herself with the well-known fact that the friendless and dispossessed always presented a challenge if they were suddenly found dead. There was no-one to ask about their habits, their likes and dislikes, where they went and where they didn’t.
That John had been killed in the Plashet graveyard was no help at all. There’d been no signs of anyone climbing over the walls except for Majid Islam, Mark Murray – Bully – and Kazia Ostrowska. John had been stabbed so there had to be blood, but there wasn’t any, except at the site of his death. Why hadn’t he fought his attacker? It had to have something to do with the blow he’d received to the head before he was stabbed. Either he’d come to the cemetery unconscious somehow or he’d just materialised, dead, in the cemetery – with a skeleton in his arms. And where that had come from was anybody’s guess. It certainly hadn’t come from the Plashet and Vi was still waiting for DNA tests.
Everyone who’d been at the scene had been weird in some way – even Majid Islam, the erstwhile protector of the cemetery. None of them were what could be described as ‘regular’ people, but had any of them killed John Sawyer? No. Given that neither Kazia, Majid Islam or Mark Murray had any blood or fibres of any sort from John Sawyer’s body on them, it was unlikely.
And so that left just one possibility, the unknown man that none of the people involved claimed to have seen properly. The third man. She pulled up Bully Murray’s mum’s address on her computer system.
*
She was looking in the window of Topshop. All around her Westfield Shopping Centre buzzed with the sound of people. A couple of young girls looked at her and giggled, probably wondering why someone like Wendy was staring at a load of teenage clothes. She liked denim shorts over thick tights and she had the body to carry them off, but she was skint. She’d walked from Plaistow to Stratford so she could wander around Westfield because she was bored. She didn’t even have enough money for a cup of tea, especially not at the prices they were charging in there.
She turned away, about to look for the toilets and possibly get a drink of water, when she saw him. He was coming towards her. Paul. Wendy, in spite of herself, blushed. What was she going to say to him? What did you say to a man you’d had sex with AND liked?
For a moment it seemed as if he’d not recognised her. He walked past her without so much as a flicker of recognition in his eyes. But then, just as she turned to watch him go, he turned to look at her and then he smiled. He walked over to her. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Oh, I’m, er … I … I’m window shopping. You know …’
He smiled. ‘Not buying?’
Wendy shook her head. She knew she had to look dead scruffy in comparison to the bejewelled, scrubbed and hair-dressed vision he’d had sex with at Sean’s place. She’d only put make-up on to cover up where Sean had knocked her about.
‘I’ve been thinking about you, you know,’ he said.
Wendy felt herself blush again. ‘Oh, that’s nice.’
He leaned down so that his lips were level with her ear. ‘We had some fun, didn’t we?’
She didn’t answer. He smiled. Then he said, ‘Would you like to go for a coffee?’
Again she was embarrassed. ‘Oh, I don’t have, er … I’m not …’ ‘I’ll pay,’ he said. He took her arm in his and began to walk towards one of the exits.
Wendy was confused, but she didn’t say anything. If he was going to buy her a cup of coffee then that was a good thing, wasn’t it? She’d dreamed about meeting him again.
About a hundred metres before the exit, Paul suddenly veered off to the left and began to pull her towards the toilets. ‘Just pretend you’re sick,’ he told her.
‘Pretend I’m …’
‘Not very well.’
There wasn’t a queue for the toilets in the Ladies but some women were at the sinks, washing their hands and fixing their make-up.
‘Heave as if you’re throwing up!’ Paul hissed.
Wendy looked at him as if he was mad.
‘Heave!’
She heaved. It hurt and because she didn’t really feel sick at all she found it funny. At a run now he pulled her past the women at the sinks saying, ‘Sick! Sick!’ to all the startled ladies that they ran behind, until he pushed her into a cubicle at the far end.
As soon as he’d locked the door behind them he put his hands down her top and fondled her breasts. Wendy responded immediately by unzipping his fly.
*
Nasreen Khan put the cash on the desk in front of Mumtaz. ‘It should all be there,’ she said.
Mumtaz smiled. She motioned towards the chair in front of her desk. ‘Please sit down, Mrs Khan,’ she said. ‘Just while I count the money out and then print you a receipt.’
‘I don’t need a receipt.’
In case her husband found it? Mumtaz briefly caught the eye of Lee Arnold, who was apparently engrossed in his paperwork in the other office, but Nasreen missed the look that passed between them and sat down.
‘I don’t have much time,’ she said. ‘We’re moving into the new house, Abdullah and me.’
‘It won’t take long.’ Four hundred pounds in twenty-pound notes. Mumtaz made her way through the pile methodically, if not at speed. ‘You know that your husband works for some very unpleasant people,’ she said.
What Nasr
een Khan chose to do with the information she was being given was up to her, but Mumtaz was determined she should have it. Mumtaz herself had her eyes open with the Sheikhs. It didn’t help her pay her debts, but it did mean that she was prepared for anything.
‘The Rogers brothers and Yunus Ali are bad people,’ Mumtaz said. ‘And if they’re using your husband’s legal knowledge to—’
‘That’s no longer your concern,’ Nasreen said. She looked pale and suddenly more pregnant than she had before. Mumtaz finished counting.
‘I know you don’t want a receipt because you are afraid that your husband will find it.’
‘I …’
‘Hear me out,’ Mumtaz said. She switched to speaking Bengali. Whether Nasreen was aware of Lee’s presence or not, she wanted her to feel safe.
‘Nasreen, you came to me because you had concerns about your husband. I have not managed to allay your fears, but I can still help you if you need me.’ She pushed one of her cards across the table at Nasreen. ‘Please …’
‘No!’ She pushed the card away.
Mumtaz gave Nasreen a small parcel and said, ‘But you must have this.’
‘What is it?’
‘It is the mezuzah from your doorpost.’
Nasreen visibly cringed. She wanted to take it but then again she didn’t want to either. ‘I can’t take that,’ she said. ‘My husband …’ ‘It belongs to your house, Nasreen,’ Mumtaz said. She pushed the parcel towards her. ‘Take it.’
For a moment she hesitated, but then she picked up the parcel.
Mumtaz switched back to English again. ‘Thank you for your business, Mrs Khan.’
Nasreen rose, but as she did so, Mumtaz took one of her hands and, in Bengali, she said, ‘I am your friend. You know where I am.’
Nasreen Khan left. Mumtaz looked across at Lee.
‘I didn’t understand half of that,’ he said.
‘I was trying to make her feel at ease,’ Mumtaz said.
‘If her husband is the Rogers’ tame solicitor then she has to be careful.’
‘My research showed that no-one called Abdullah Khan, aged thirty-eight and from Bolton, Lancashire, is a practising solicitor in this area,’ Mumtaz said.
‘Maybe he was struck off the Roll.’
‘Struck off the Roll?’
‘Prevented from practising,’ Lee said. ‘If it’s a barrister they are disbarred, a solicitor is struck off the Roll. It wouldn’t surprise me. A lot of crime firms like Rogers and Ali use struck-off solicitors. They generally know a few struck-off doctors too. They’re useful if one of their soldiers needs patching up. But they only use such people as and when.’
‘But according to Nasreen, Abdullah Khan goes to work every day.’
‘Then maybe he does other things for them too. I don’t know any Abdullah Khan in connection to the Rogers brothers. But then they tend to keep those around them close and shady. People work for them, then they don’t, then they do again. Sean in particular likes to keep things mobile.’
‘Nasreen thought that Rogers and Ali were a firm of solicitors until I told her that they were property developers and landlords of the worst kind,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Her parents are quite well off, respectable people who would never have come across such characters.’
‘Mmm, well Rogers and Ali don’t do much business in the Asian community. That’s the Sheikhs.’ He looked up.
Mumtaz looked down. ‘If not living a lie as such, Abdullah Khan is not telling his wife the whole truth.’
‘But if she doesn’t want us to continue investigating him, what can we do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘If people don’t want you to do things or they won’t tell you stuff …’ He shrugged.
Mumtaz knew that he was talking about her. He’d given her seven hundred pounds of the company’s money to give to people she hadn’t named. Mumtaz still didn’t want him to know. She didn’t want him involved, even though she imagined that now he’d given her the money he would be watching her as closely as he could.
*
Bully Murray was pleased with himself. The Filth seemed to have backed off and although Kazia was fighting shy of him, he had some weed and a bit of whizz so what did he care? Anyway she’d been stupid to finger that Paki just for smoking a bit of blow. He was glad he hadn’t met her in the graveyard on Saturday night. He’d been on business that was proving to be lucrative. It had given Bully an entree into the big league. Soon, if he played his cards right, he’d have more than just drugs. Marty – he let him call him Marty – had hinted at maybe even a job. It was lucky he’d recognised that face in the graveyard, luckier still that Marty felt that information was worth something. Bully had almost allowed that old sack DI Collins to get a name out of him; lucky he’d pulled back just in time.
Bully lived in south East Ham, on Mitcham Road. But this evening he was going out. He planned to spend the evening at the Tollgate Tavern up by Asda in Beckton. To get there he had to walk past East Ham Jewish Cemetery down Sandford Road. The cemetery gates were closed that time of night but there was a little access road up to them, where the man who owed Sean Rogers a very great deal of money stood and waited, trembling a little from time to time, until Bully Murray came into view.
The benefit of surprise was all with the man. For seemingly no reason, he caught Bully round the shoulders and pulled him into the access road. For a few seconds Bully fought, grunting occasionally until finally he yelled out, ‘Who the fuck are you?’
The man, his shalwar khameez flapping wetly around his thin legs in the damp springtime air, hissed, ‘You get greedy, man! This what happen! This a message from Sean and from Marty!’
‘What?’ Bully could see that the man had to steel himself to hit him. The man smashed his fist down into Bully’s face. It glanced against the ring in Bully’s nose. The man’s hand, as well as Bully’s nose, bled.
Bully fought back. He was stringy and not very strong, but he managed to land a blow on the man’s cheek. The bone inside cracked. The man howled but he carried on hitting. He said, ‘They’ll hurt my family, I must do this, I …’ So Marty hadn’t responded well to Bully’s little adventure into blackmail. Suddenly afraid, even though the other man was so much smaller than he was, Bully wondered if he’d been sent to just rough him up or more. Bully, in his stride now, landed a second blow on the side of the man’s head. The man staggered.
‘Not so fucking brave now, are you, Paki!’ he said. ‘A fucking message from Sean and Marty? What kind of fucking messenger are you? Eh?’
Bully hit him again. Then one more blow to the head and he was on the ground. Useless tosser. If this was the best that Sean and Marty Rogers could do then maybe Bully didn’t want to be associated with them anyway. Bully, on his feet now, kicked the man in the groin, and while he scrunched up in a foetal position he kicked him in the back. Bully did see the man put a hand into the pocket of his waistcoat and grab hold of something but he didn’t pay it any attention. Bully pulled at one of the man’s shoulders to make him lie flat on his back.
‘You know I don’t want to hurt you but I have to,’ the man said.
‘You couldn’t hurt pussy, mate,’ Bully said.
‘I have …’
‘Little wrestling move this,’ Bully said, as he stood over the man. Then he just threw himself on top of him. The man, still holding onto the knife, felt it go through the wall of Bully’s chest. Then the man, in spite of the fact that he knew it had been inevitable, screamed.
*
‘You need rest,’ Abdullah said.
But the room he led Nasreen into was far from restful. There was a bed in the middle of it, but the walls were full of holes and some of the floorboards had been removed. She looked at him with what she knew was a horrified expression on her face. But he ignored it.
‘You mustn’t get tired or our baby’ll suffer.’
The bedroom was cold. And the bathroom, where she’d just been, had provided no more comfort even though
he’d put a new suite in. It was still full of dust, mess and holes. When she could speak, she said, ‘I can’t sleep here.’
‘Why not?’ He wasn’t angry, which was what she had feared, he was calm. But then when she didn’t answer him he reiterated his question. This time his voice had an edge. ‘Why not?’
Nasreen swallowed hard. She’d had to really push down that awful fried chicken he’d brought for their dinner. Sitting in that unheated kitchen, the plumbing from the sink exposed, had been like camping out in a war zone.
‘Abdullah,’ she said, ‘this place isn’t ready. It’s cold and there are holes and dust everywhere. We should go back to my parents.’
She saw his face harden. It did that when they had sex too. It made him look as if he was on some sort of mission that he had been forced to accept against his will. Before, when they’d made love on her wedding night, he had treated her with absolute tenderness. But most of that had very quickly and suddenly gone.
‘I don’t think so.’ He shook his head. He pulled the bits of fabric that served as curtains across the windows and said, ‘Your mum and dad were driving a wedge between us.’
‘No, they weren’t.’
‘Then why all the questions about my job? You know what I do because I told you.’
‘You work for Rogers and Ali.’
‘Solicitors,’ he said.
‘Are they?’
‘Of course they are!’ He walked towards her. ‘Who told you that they weren’t?’
Nasreen felt her face go hot, but she said nothing.
‘Your fucking parents.’ Abdullah raised his top lip in a sneer. ‘Talking lies to you, Nasreen. I know why.’
She looked up at him.
‘Because I twatted that fucking cousin of yours, isn’t it? Rafiq?’
‘No!’
‘Yes, it is,’ he said. Then he took one of her wrists in his hand. ‘You’re my wife now and so you listen to me. Not your mum, or your dad or some fucking sex-starved cousin.’
‘He isn’t …’
He pushed her in front of him, onto the bed. ‘This is your home, I’m your husband and you do as I say.’
An Act of Kindness: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 2) Page 15
