He looked into her eyes, trying to work out whether she was telling the truth. Then he looked down at her legs and he knew that she was. He lowered his hands to his sides
‘I need antibiotics,’ she said. ‘If I don’t get them then the baby will die.’
He thought for a moment and then he said, ‘But if I get them you’ll only be able to take them at night.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s Ramadan,’ he said.
Nasreen gathered every iota of strength that she had and yelled, ‘But I’m pregnant, I’m allowed to eat and drink! If you don’t get them then your baby will die.’
He went on his way, leaving her rolling around on the bed, her body bent in agony. The baby could be dead already – it hadn’t moved for at least a day now.
*
Mumtaz watched Lee eat something that she would normally find absolutely abhorrent. It was a white bun filled with fake cream and cheap raspberry jam. But she only had herself to blame and she knew it. Lee had offered not to eat or drink in front of her, but she’d said that she really didn’t mind. She’d told Shazia exactly the same thing. Except that now she regretted it – bitterly. Getting up at four in the morning with the intention of stuffing your face until the sun rose didn’t really work for Mumtaz. In the mornings she was often vaguely nauseous, while by the time she got home for iftar in the evenings, she was often past caring about food at all.
But she couldn’t very well change her mind now and ask Lee to stop eating. He’d been so good to her that to rob him of the simple pleasure of a bun from Percy Ingle’s was beyond the pale. Mumtaz looked down at the stack of bills on her desk that needed paying, and shuffled uncomfortably in her chair. She couldn’t concentrate.
‘Why don’t you go down and get some more stamps from the post office,’ Lee said without taking his eyes away from the photograph on his computer screen. ‘I know we’re low and there’s a few bills to post out today.’
‘OK.’ Mumtaz got up and went to the safe to get petty cash. ‘How many do you want me to get?’
‘Couple of dozen,’ Lee said. He pressed his keyboard to bring up another picture which he frowned at.
Mumtaz took a twenty-pound note out of petty cash and put it in her purse. She had just one appointment with a potential client later on that afternoon, so she knew she didn’t have to hurry back. Lee clearly understood what she was going through and was fine with it.
‘See you later, Lee,’ Mumtaz said.
‘See ya.’
She closed the door behind her and Lee Arnold let out a long sigh of relief. Being around Mumtaz when she was fasting wasn’t easy, even though she never said a word about it to him. Lee took the bag he’d got from Percy Ingle’s out of his drawer and put it on his desk. There were two other buns and an éclair to get through before she came back.
*
Paul had phoned to say he was fine, which was such a relief that Wendy almost cried. He’d gone on to say that he wanted to see her as soon as possible. She’d nearly gone mad with it. Make-up, perfume, making sure her legs were silky smooth.
Wendy paid Dolly to take the kids to the park for a few hours. She told her she needed to go shopping. Then, once they were out of the way, she went off to meet Paul. It wasn’t far, although it still seemed like a funny place to meet. But he’d been insistent. Maybe he had some sort of kink for derelict places, but she didn’t care. Wendy walked across the Barking Road and down Credon Road until she came to the walls of the old hospital between Credon and Western Roads. As instructed, she turned into Western and made for what had once been the main entrance.
Her gran had died at what used to be called Samson Street Hospital. Once a smallpox clinic, back in the 1980s it had become a place where people with dementia were ‘stored’, as Wendy’s mum had put it. Then in 2006 it closed. Now its damp-riddled walls were threaded with convolvulus and ivy, and barbed wire sat in heavy rolls around gaps in the old metal gates that had once given entry to the hospital. One gap was unencumbered by barbed wire. Instead, there stood Paul, smiling at her.
Wendy smiled back. ‘I can’t decide whether this is a new kink of yours or what,’ she said.
He put his fingers up to his lips. ‘Sssh.’
‘Oh, we not supposed to be here? I …’
‘Sssh.’
He held a piece of bent metal aside so that she could get inside and then he pulled her into some bushes. She put her arms up on his shoulders and said, ‘The coppers said you shot your way out. I heard a crack but …’
‘I had to let off one round,’ he said. ‘The police took you to Forest Gate.’
‘Yeah, but I never told them nothing,’ Wendy said. ‘I said that joint was mine. I got a caution.’
She kissed him but, oddly for him, he didn’t respond. Then she noticed that he was sweating. He didn’t usually sweat, not much at least.
‘Are you alright, babe?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer but held her close, and although she was surprised she thought that having a hug was rather sweet. Even though she hadn’t come for that.
She’d woofed her hair up so high and with so much spray that Wendy didn’t feel the cold metal as it rested against her head. She heard him say, ‘I’m sorry,’ which did make her wonder, for just a second, what he was on about. But then he pulled the trigger.
*
It wasn’t far to Strone Road and if Nasreen was in then she might be interested in what Mumtaz had found out about her house. It had been some time since she’d last tried to visit Nasreen and she could have gone into labour already, but Mumtaz wanted the walk. It would only have taken her five minutes to go to the post office and Lee needed rather more time than that to get through all the cakes he’d bought for himself from Percy Ingle’s. He’d thought she’d not seen all of them, but she had. How he kept so slim she didn’t understand. She walked down Green Street and turned into Strone Road. Nasreen lived right at the other end which, through the vague heat haze that was building, looked like miles away.
Mumtaz kept walking. The streets were quiet in spite of the fact that the children were on holiday. But then everybody had become accustomed to being indoors because of all the rain. Now it seemed to have stopped, just in time for the Olympics. For once, the Afghan women who wore burqas didn’t seem to be soaked from the knees down.
As before, the house was quiet and when Mumtaz knocked on the front door a hollow sound came back at her from inside. It made her want to look through the letterbox and see if it was empty, but she resisted the temptation – for a few seconds. She knocked again and this time she did lift the letterbox flap. What she saw was worse than empty. The hall at least looked as if it had been bombed. Old wallpaper, lumps of plaster, wood and ancient paint splinters were everywhere. What had happened? She knew that Nasreen and her husband had been decorating the house back in the spring, but this looked as if someone had gone in and beaten the place up with an axe. Had they perhaps moved out and vandals got in?
Mumtaz put her mouth up to the letterbox and called out, ‘Nasreen? Are you there, Nasreen? It’s Mumtaz Hakim. I have some information about your house that you might find interesting.’
But nobody answered. Her voice reverberated through the shattered hall.
*
At first Nasreen thought she had to be hallucinating. Abdullah had gone out and then there had been nothing until the voice. Initially she thought that it had to be him. Then she heard it was a woman’s voice and she wondered whether he was just putting it on to trick her. But then she’d heard that name. Mumtaz Hakim.
Nasreen’s eyes began to water with tears. How and why had Mumtaz Hakim remembered her when the rest of the world seemed to have forgotten? She’d been a nice woman but Nasreen remembered that they hadn’t parted on the best of terms because Mumtaz had tried to tell her that Abdullah was no saint. She’d been right.
She heard her call again. ‘Nasreen … ?’
If Abdullah found her at the house he’d g
o mad, but Abdullah was out. Nasreen looked at her feet and wondered how she could get over to the window to call back. For a moment, just the look of her feet made her lose all hope. How could she stand on things that were so red and sore and infected? The floor of the bedroom was covered with plaster and wallpaper. Who knew what further damage she’d do to her feet if she tried to walk? But did she have a choice? If Mumtaz Hakim was outside her house, calling to her, then she had to be the best hope that Nasreen had of getting medical attention. Abdullah was supposedly getting antibiotics for her, but how could she know whether he really was?
The muscles in her sides and across her back hauled her vast body into a sitting position and for a second she just panted on the bed. The first time she stood it was so painful that she screamed. Her feet felt like balloons, walking on them a precarious act of balancing on agony. The route from the bed to the window was strewn with litter and muck and there was nothing for her to hang on to. Nasreen had just made up her mind to pull herself to the window when she heard Mumtaz’s voice again.
‘Nasreen,’ she said, ‘is that you?’
‘Yes! Yes it is me! Please help me!’ Nasreen shouted. ‘Please!’
The sound she heard next was of breaking glass as a stone shattered the small window in the front door.
*
What had once been a beautiful young woman was now a creature crawling on the floor amongst gobbets of plaster and tumbleweed-sized bolls of dust. Mumtaz bent down and put her hands around Nasreen’s shoulders. ‘What has happened to you?’ she said.
Nasreen wiped a string of snot away from her nose. ‘He happened to me,’ she said. ‘You were right.’
‘Abdullah?’
‘I don’t know who he is anymore.’ She began to cry.
Mumtaz took her phone out of her handbag. ‘We have to get you to hospital,’ she said. She wondered why Nasreen’s feet were so swollen and infected, but she also knew that she didn’t have time to ask. Whatever had gone on, she had to get the young woman medical attention as soon as she could. She dialled 999 and asked for an ambulance. Once she’d given all the details she could to the operator, she turned back to Nasreen and tried to make her as comfortable as she could. She didn’t want to risk moving her, so she just draped a blanket around her shoulders and propped her head up against a pile of filthy pillows.
‘The ambulance’ll be here soon,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll get you and the baby to hospital.’
‘The baby’s dead,’ Nasreen said. ‘It hasn’t moved for days.’
Mumtaz stroked her forehead and watched as the young woman sighed with something akin to relief underneath what she imagined had to be an unusually affectionate touch. ‘You don’t know that, Nasreen,’ she said. ‘Sometimes babies don’t move very much during the last few days in the womb.’
As soon as she’d said it Mumtaz felt stupid. What did she know? She’d never had a baby.
‘Mumtaz, I think that Abdullah has killed someone,’ Nasreen said.
One thing that Mumtaz did know was true was that pregnant women often suffered from high blood pressure. She smoothed Nasreen’s filthy hair back, away from her face, and said, ‘Don’t worry about that now. Just keep calm, Nasreen. We’ll talk about all of this later.’
‘He killed John Sawyer, I’m sure of it,’ she said. ‘He’s jealous of everybody. John used to come to our garden sometimes. I used to leave food out for him. Abdullah must have seen me talking to him. If he even found you here …’ Her chest began to pump in panic. ‘Oh God, he’s coming back,’ she said. ‘I asked him to get antibiotics for me and then he was coming back.’
‘When?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
Mumtaz looked at her watch. ‘When did Abdullah go out?’
‘I don’t know. Some time ago.’ Her head lolled back onto the pillows again.
Mumtaz rubbed one of her hands, which was hot and clammy. Nasreen would be lucky to get away with her own life given the extent of the infection in her feet. ‘Ambulance’ll be here soon.’
‘Good.’ She panted and Mumtaz took a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped some of the dirt away from Nasreen’s mouth and eyes.
‘There.’
‘Thank you,’ Nasreen said. ‘You know, he tipped a hot pan of curry over my legs.’
Mumtaz shook her head. ‘Why?’ Although as soon as she’d said it, she wondered why she’d asked – Abdullah was a man. Ahmet had once knocked her unconscious just for changing the channel on the TV without his permission.
‘Because I displeased him,’ Nasreen said. ‘Because I hoped and prayed that he was better than that. But he wasn’t.’
‘Don’t think about that now,’ Mumtaz said, stroking Nasreen’s forehead once again. ‘Don’t think about him now.’ She leaned forward and kissed her on the head and then she smiled.
‘Who are you? Get away from my wife!’
Neither of them had heard Abdullah come into the house and tiptoe up the stairs. Now he stood in the bedroom doorway, his face red with fury.
‘Mr Khan, your wife needs a doctor,’ Mumtaz said. So this tall, handsome, furious man was the lawyer husband. It was the first time that Mumtaz had seen him. She could imagine how he could easily have turned Nasreen’s head. She knew the type. She stood up and walked over to him. ‘I’ve called an ambulance.’
‘Why? She’s my wife.’ He leaned towards her. ‘Did you break my front door window?’
‘I did,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Your wife was screaming out in pain. Someone needed to get to her.’
‘You have to go now,’ he said.
Mumtaz remained calm. ‘No.’
There was a moment when he didn’t seem to understand her. Then he grabbed her arm in a grip that was as hard as death and pulled her towards him. Practised in the art of not giving men the satisfaction of hearing her pain, Mumtaz didn’t murmur.
‘Get out of here,’ he hissed. ‘Now.’
His fingers dug into her flesh, clawing through her jacket and her blouse. ‘No,’ she said.
And then they all heard the siren.
‘Oh, they’re here,’ Nasreen said.
‘Yes, they are.’ Mumtaz turned to smile at her. Then she turned back to the infuriated man. ‘Paramedics’ll be coming in any moment now, Mr Khan,’ she said. ‘If you’d rather leave …’
And then he did something that Mumtaz had not anticipated. He put his hand into the pocket of his jacket and took out a gun.
The bullet exploded into the bedroom ceiling. Mumtaz covered her head with her hands and hit the floor. Then he shot out the smallest of the bedroom windows. Another explosion. Outside on the street she heard a man scream. Abdullah Khan said, ‘It’s too late for any of us to leave now.’
27
‘I can’t work out what it’s for,’ Vi said.
‘Well, it’s a festival of sport, isn’t it,’ Constable Roberts said.
‘Yeah, but who wants it?’ Vi dragged hard on her fag, in the full knowledge that Superintendent Venus could see both her and Roberts from his eyrie at the top of the police station. If he had been looking, which he wasn’t.
Roberts, a young black copper originally from Notting Hill, said, ‘David Beckham, Lord Coe, Boris Johnson …’
‘Oh, so we should all go mad for sport because a bloke who calls his kid after a number, a Tory windbag and a man who looks like he’s got a blizzard on his head says we should?’
Roberts shrugged. ‘It is what it is,’ he said. ‘I’d like to be able to buy a flat back near me mum and dad but it ain’t happening. Life’s not fair, guv.’
She looked at him and shook her head. ‘You must fucking hate Hugh Grant.’
He laughed. ‘Oh, we had the Portobello Road effect years before that film came out. Anyway, I think the Olympics’ll be good. We’ve got some great sportsmen and women in this country and by that I don’t mean any dumb footballers.’
Vi laughed.
‘Oh, it’s crap though, isn’t it, guv?’ Roberts sa
id. ‘Some bloody boy paid £200,000 a week …’
‘You’re just jealous …’
‘Well, yeah, maybe but …’
‘Guv, you gotta come! Quick!’ It wasn’t often that anyone saw Tony Bracci run and it was never an edifying sight, involving as it did a lot of sweat and redness about the face. But this time he looked white bordering on grey. ‘Tone?’ She ground her fag butt out with her heel.
‘Something’s going on in East Ham,’ Tony Bracci gasped. ‘The Super’s called out SCO19 …’
‘So it’s an armed …’
‘We think so, yes,’ Tony Bracci said. ‘We’ve got to get to it. The Super wants us all in now.’
He turned and began running back towards the station. Vi and Constable Roberts followed.
*
Lee looked at his watch and wondered what was keeping Mumtaz. She’d been nearly an hour and he knew that the queue in the post office couldn’t possibly be that long. He put the final bun into his mouth and went over to the window to look down into Green Street. It was a slow Monday during Ramadan and so there wasn’t much movement. There was certainly no Mumtaz. But then he’d sort of implied that she take her time. She didn’t have any appointments until the afternoon and business was slow. People were on holiday – cheating husbands were temporarily tolerated, wayward daughters curbed by the strictures of being in close quarters with their parents for two weeks and even moonlighting workers were taking a break. Everyone who could had buggered off to get away from the Olympic influx.
Lee went outside and sat on the metal stairs to smoke. The weather seemed to be heating up, which was good news for the Games. Much as he didn’t feel anything much about them himself, he hoped that they went well. He didn’t want any incidents to mar the occasion. Over the years, London had had more than its share of terrorist outrages and bomb scares. When Lee had been a kid it had been the IRA, then later it had been offshoots from the IRA, then, in 2005, the day after the Olympic bid had been won, al Qaeda had taken their turn. Poor old city. When his parents had been children it had been bombed to bits, although maybe all of that ‘poor old London’ thing was on the wane now. Vast new apartment blocks had risen up everywhere, including in Newham, and flashy landmarks like the Shard on the south bank were giving London a whole new world city vibe. But that was only part of the story and Lee Arnold knew it. Down in Custom House, his mum still rented the same council house she’d had since before his older brother Roy had been born. She still bought her groceries off cheap markets and her household goods from pound shops. A lot of people were being left behind by the reality of shiny new London.
An Act of Kindness: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 2) Page 21
