A Good Death

by Chris Collett

  ‘And he was clear where he was taking her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You described Taleyah’s visit as sudden,’ said Jesson. ‘Why was that?’

  ‘She wanted to come to England to visit family.’

  It sounded hollow to Mariner, but there were more important things to establish. ‘I’ll need to have contact details for the relatives in Bradford,’ he said. ‘And for Talayeh’s immediate family, to let them know and to arrange for confirmation of identity. Unfortunately, her body is badly burned, so this may need to be done through DNA.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Salwa left the room, and was gone for several minutes, returning with a page torn from a reporter’s pad. Her hand shook as she passed it to Mariner. ‘It’s all I have.’

  ‘I’d like you to wait here until I have checked with them,’ said Mariner. Leaving Salwa and Jesson sitting in a painful silence, he stepped out of the house to make the call immediately. If the death turned out to be suspicious – and right now it was hard to see how it could be otherwise – any delay would give the Shahs and anyone else an opportunity to confer and get their stories straight. He spent a few impatient minutes pacing the pavement outside the house until he finally managed to get through to the number Salwa had given him. Talayeh had not arrived in Bradford, but the woman he spoke to, Talayeh’s aunt, was unperturbed. She just had assumed that Talayeh was staying longer with the Shahs and had only been expecting her ‘in the next week or two’. She had seen reports of the fire in Birmingham, but as they knew little about the Shahs, she’d been unaware that it would have had anything to do with Talayeh. Mariner’s news was greeted with a shocked silence at the other end of the phone. Expressing his condolences, Mariner ended the call.

  When he returned to the house, Salwa Shah appeared to be in a trance. ‘We will need to speak to you again,’ said Mariner.

  She snapped back to the present. ‘Prayers are to be said for my father at the mosque tomorrow,’ she said. ‘So we will not be here.’

  It would be an opportunity to observe her and her husband. ‘We would like to come and pay our respects,’ said Mariner.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she forced a weak smile. ‘We would be honoured.’ As they left, Mariner saw her with Ettra, watching out of the window.

  ‘She didn’t seem too keen on that,’ remarked Jesson, as she and Mariner headed back to Granville Lane. ‘What do you think is going on?’

  ‘Two possibilities,’ said Mariner. ‘Either Salwa Shah’s an expert at faking it, and was covering the fact that Talayeh was there, or she genuinely didn’t know. If it’s the latter, then it’s pretty weird.’

  ‘That’s what I can’t get my head around,’ said Jesson. ‘How could she have been there without anyone realising?’

  ‘Beats me,’ said Mariner. ‘Something interesting, though: Salwa didn’t seem to feel an immediate need to tell her husband, and I’d have thought she’d want to do that. Is that because he didn’t need to be told?’

  EIGHTEEN

  Having established that Ursula Kravitz still taught at the university, it then took Bingley some time to locate on which of the several campuses she worked. If Sam Fleetwood had eloped, it wasn’t with Ms Kravitz, who was still very much around. She agreed to meet Bingley at her office, in between student tutorials. This was not a hallowed institution set in its own grounds, but one cobbled together from upgraded further education facilities, and whose buildings were scattered across the north of the city in an urban setting.

  ‘Much less daunting for some of our students,’ said Kravitz, as she and Bingley sat in her fifth-floor office in a modern block, the sun streaming in and making the small space uncomfortably warm. Somehow this wasn’t how Bingley ever pictured academia. In his mind they should be looking out over lush green lawns, not the number 997 bus meandering past the dog track and on towards the Aldridge Road. Ursula Kravitz was making coffee for them both, taking advantage of this snatched opportunity between appointments. She was, as Bingley had deduced from her photo, glamorous; pale and sleek with shoulder-length hair and features perfected by flawless make-up. More than a little intimidating, in fact. ‘So, Constable Bingley,’ she said, passing him a bone china mug. ‘Are you sensible, good humoured and lively?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Not a fan of Austen then,’ she concluded.

  ‘My dad drove an Austin Metro for a while,’ he offered.

  ‘Never mind.’ As she sat down beside her desk, her knees, exposed by her short skirt, were almost touching his. ‘Now, what was it you wanted to ask me about?’

  ‘It’s a bit tricky,’ said Bingley, sliding back a couple of inches. ‘Do you remember a student called Sam Fleetwood? He would have been here between about six and nine years ago, on your Environmental Studies degree.’ He passed Kravitz a copy of Fleetwood’s photograph.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kravitz, examining the picture. ‘I do remember him, though it would have taken me a while to recall his name. We see so many students each year. But he was a bright boy and worked hard. Sensitive, as I remember. He did well, I think, perhaps a first or at least a two-one, although – no, that’s right, he was on track for that, but had disappointing results after all.’

  ‘Have you any idea why that was?’ asked Bingley.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  She chuckled. ‘Oh gosh, now you’re asking. It would have been at graduation, if he was there. I mean, he probably was, but I don’t specifically remember.’ She looked at Bingley. ‘Is he in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Bingley. ‘It’s just that he hasn’t been seen for a few days.’

  ‘What on earth makes you think that I would be able to help, after all this time?’ Kravitz seemed genuinely perplexed.

  ‘It was suggested to us that while Sam was here, your relationship with him might have been more than just that of a student/teacher.’

  ‘By whom?’ Despite the incredulity, she seemed highly amused. It was not the typical response of the guilty.

  Bingley felt slightly foolish now. ‘It’s been suggested that the two of you might have been having a …’ Bingley grappled for the right word. ‘Relationship.’

  Kravitz’s well-defined eyebrows arched a fraction. ‘That’s outrageous, and absolutely not true. Quite apart from anything else, behaviour like that would be professional suicide and I’ve still got rather a large mortgage to pay – even bigger back then.’ She broke off in response to a knock on the door. ‘Yes?’ she called.

  The door opened and a man’s face appeared, bespectacled, with grey, thinning hair. ‘Sorry to interrupt. Just checking if you’re coming to lunch,’ he said, his gaze lingering on Bingley.

  ‘Can’t, I’m afraid,’ said Kravitz. ‘But you should hear this, Scott. This is my husband,’ she added for Bingley’s benefit.

  ‘What have you done now?’ asked Scott, jokingly.

  Kravitz gleefully recounted the conversation. ‘Could you imagine it?’ she said. ‘You remember Sam Fleetwood, don’t you?’

  Bingley passed the picture across and Scott frowned at it. ‘He does look vaguely familiar,’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t tell you anything about him. Pleasant lad, as I remember. But to be honest, once you’ve been doing this job a while all the students start to look like one another.’

  ‘Now,’ said Kravitz to Bingley. ‘My next student will be here shortly, and I need to prepare.’

  Bingley could see no reason to detain her further. ‘Before you go, though,’ he said. ‘Could I just ask where you live?’

  Kravitz looked bemused. ‘If you must; we live in Alcester.’ Off the M42.’

  Bingley left the university a disappointed man. He’d felt sure he was on to something and had hoped that he might be able to hand DCI Mariner a clear breakthrough, but now he was going back empty handed. Neither Mariner nor Jesson was there when he got back to Granville Lane, so he carried on with updating the policy book. There were still a number of
actions that needed following up on. If he couldn’t solve anything, at least he could be efficient at what he was meant to be doing. He was entering data when Mariner and Jesson returned, soon after.

  ‘How did you get on with your lecturer, PC Bingley?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘She was flirty,’ Bingley said, with slight disapproval. ‘She quoted Jane Austen at me. But I don’t think it’s her. She was too relaxed. And besides, I saw her at work, so where’s Sam Fleetwood, unless she’s abducted him and is keeping him locked in her cellar?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ said Mariner. He paused. ‘Why have you let us keep calling you Brown when it’s not your real name?’ he asked.

  Bingley shrugged. ‘I’ve been called worse.’

  ‘By Pete Stone?’ Mariner speculated. ‘What’s he got against you?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ said Bingley, turning back to his monitor, though Mariner felt sure that wasn’t true. ‘Anyway,’ Bingley added, ‘the joke’s on him, cos I’m from County Durham.’ And that seemed an end to it.

  ‘There’s been a further, rather unexpected development at Wellington Road,’ Mariner said, and filled the constable in on what had been found.

  ‘Crikey,’ said Bingley. ‘I don’t know if it’s relevant, but I’m sure that in the house-to-house notes, one of the neighbours said something about raised voices in the street earlier on the day of the fire.’

  Mariner and Jesson exchanged a look, as they waited for him to locate the record.

  ‘Yes, here we are,’ said Bingley eventually. ‘Mrs Grant at number eighty-nine. That afternoon she heard shouting in the street and looked out to see her neighbour Mrs Shah “in loud conversation with another young woman, who then got into a waiting taxi”. We didn’t probe any further because Mrs Grant didn’t think it was an argument, only a lively discussion. And she didn’t think there was anything wrong as such.’

  ‘Does she specify a time?’

  ‘It’s a bit vague. Sometime in the afternoon, so she says.’

  ‘Well, it at least might confirm that Salwa is telling the truth, in that Talayeh went off in a taxi,’ said Mariner. ‘We need to follow up with the taxi driver. If we can find him we need to make sure he took her to the bus station and find out if he has any idea what happened to her once she got there, and if there’s a reason she didn’t get on the bus.’

  ‘The bus station will have CCTV too,’ said Bingley. ‘Shall I get hold of that?’

  ‘Yes, and I’ll ask the press office to put out a description of Talayeh, and appeal for anyone who may have any information about her last known movements.’

  ‘There’s something else Mrs Grant said,’ said Bingley. ‘She was asked the usual questions about anything out of the ordinary that she might have seen recently, and she couldn’t say exactly when, but sometime not long back she saw Mustafa Shah unloading boxes of papers into that downstairs room. An accident waiting to happen is what she called it.’

  ‘Well, that’s easy, with the benefit of hindsight,’ said Jesson.

  ‘Mustafa Shah,’ said Mariner. ‘Have we established that he was definitely out of the country that weekend?’

  ‘We have,’ said Bingley. ‘He’s confirmed on the passenger lists going out on the third and coming back in on the seventeenth.’

  ‘We’ll need to ask him to provide a witness statement,’ said Mariner. ‘Even though he wasn’t there at the time of the fire. He will be able to confirm the details about Talayeh’s presence. It’s made me wonder why Talayeh had the sudden urge to visit her relatives in this country, especially given that she apparently ended up sleeping on the floor in what was basically a storage room. Not exactly a warm welcome, is it? It will be interesting to see if she gets a mention at the gathering tomorrow.’

  Both Mariner and Jesson attended Soltan Ahmed’s funeral at the mosque. The place was packed out, with more than two hundred people, confirming what Mustafa Shah had told them about his father-in-law’s popularity. Mariner said as much to Shah as he greeted them at the entrance.

  ‘Soltan was a traditionalist,’ he said. ‘I think in these uncertain times a lot of people in our community appreciated his wisdom. Salwa has told me about what you found yesterday. I can’t believe it.’ He looked genuinely stunned. ‘Poor Talayeh, I don’t know what we will say to her family.’

  Many of the mourners also seemed subdued and in a state of shock, and Mariner wondered how quickly the latest news had circulated. ‘It is a sad day,’ said the man standing beside Mariner. ‘I can’t believe anyone would want to do this to Mr Shah’s family,’ the man went on. ‘He’s such a good and faithful person.’

  Mariner nodded sympathetically. As he turned back, Vicky was waiting to catch his eye. ‘Over there,’ she said, gesturing subtly towards a woman standing nearby. ‘That’s Aisha, Mustafa Shah’s assistant.’

  ‘Perhaps you should go and talk to her,’ said Mariner. ‘Express your sympathy.’

  Afterwards as they went outside, Vicky did exactly that. ‘It’s a good turnout,’ she said. ‘Easy to see how popular Mr Ahmed was.’

  ‘Oh, that’s true,’ Aisha smiled and lit up a cigarette. ‘He was lovely. It has been a real shock about the girl, though.’

  ‘Did you know her?’ asked Vicky.

  ‘Not really,’ Aisha said. ‘I just met her a couple of times when Mr Shah brought her to the office.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘She was all right,’ Aisha smiled. ‘A bit of a live wire. I’m not sure if Mustafa and Salwa knew quite what they were taking on.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Aisha glanced around to see who was nearby. ‘I don’t know if I should be telling you this, but between you and me, I think Talayeh had caused problems back home, and the hope was to get her married off and out of trouble. But when she got here she wasn’t particularly co-operative and well, let’s just say things didn’t exactly go to plan. I know the first meeting didn’t go too well and Mustafa was pretty annoyed about it.’

  ‘What meeting was this?’ Jesson asked casually.

  ‘The family had fixed her up with one of Mustafa’s friends. He’s quite a bit older than her, so I think basically she turned him down. I don’t think she was very tactful about it either.’ She pulled a face.

  ‘Do you know who this man was?’ asked Vicky.

  ‘His name is Kaspa Rani. He’s well known in the community because he’s so successful.’

  Vicky glanced around the people still milling about. ‘Is he here today?’ she asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t think he’d show his face,’ said Aisha. ‘It was pretty embarrassing for him; this poor kid from a village in the Yemen, refusing him. I mean, there was obviously going to be an age gap, and he’s not much to look at, but he’s loaded. Stupid girl.’

  ‘How did Talayeh get on with the Shahs?’

  Aisha smiled. ‘She was a handful. Maybe because she was from this remote village in the mountains, but I think she just went a bit wild when she got here and Mustafa was constantly getting phone calls at work from Salwa about her. A couple of times she just disappeared without telling Salwa where she’d gone. I think after she turned down Mr Rani, everyone was terrified that she might hook up with someone completely unsuitable instead. That’s why Mustafa ended up bringing her to the office, but even then we had to watch her all the time. Soltan was kind to her, though. He had a real soft spot for the underdog. I think everyone was relieved they could pack her off to Bradford.’ She paused a moment. ‘Except they didn’t, did they?’

  ‘When was the last time you saw Talayeh?’ asked Jesson.

  ‘It would be the Monday before last.’ Five days before the fire and when Mustafa Shah was still in the country. The grandfather would have been around then too. A man came towards them calling across something in Arabic. His tone was sharp. ‘Sorry, that’s my husband. I’ve got to go,’ said Aisha.

  Jesson reported back to Mariner what she had learned.

  ‘So Tal
ayeh was a bit of a liability then,’ he said. ‘How interesting.’

  PC Kevin Bingley received a call, on Mariner’s behalf, from Sergeant Wheeler, confirming that Chantelle Brough’s contacts had been looked at, and there was nothing they could find to connect her, or any of her associates, with Sam Fleetwood. Every indication was that she had, just as she’d told it, stumbled across his wallet purely by chance. Another big fat waste of time, as had been Ursula Kravitz, and Bingley’s frustration was growing. He was already quite enjoying this foray into CID, they seemed a good team, and they treated him – well, like one of them. If he could do something to prove his worth, over and above what any other workhorse could do, he might get to stay up here a bit longer. But his best opportunity would be in the next twenty-four hours, before DC Khatoon came back on duty.

  Like DCI Mariner, Bingley liked maps, which meant he’d already noticed that the boss had a whole load of them in his office. He felt sure Mariner wouldn’t mind lending him one for a few minutes, while he took a break from the constant screen-staring. He went and fetched the largest scale map of the local area he could find, spread it out and, taking care not to drop any sandwich crumbs on it, began to work out from the point where Sam Fleetwood was last seen, just outside a village called Hopwood. It was mostly rural countryside around here and what sprang out at Bingley almost immediately was a collection of structures in a whited out patch labelled ‘waste disposal’.

  One of Bingley’s great strengths was his memory. He recalled from the policy book, what Clive Boswell had told DC Khatoon and Mariner about Carter’s; the operation that Sam Fleetwood had under surveillance. A Google search proved ineffective, so instead Bingley looked back at DC Khatoon’s notes from her visit to the Environment Agency. He picked up the receiver to call Sam’s boss, Mike Figgis. ‘Do you know an outfit called Carter’s?’ he asked, after identifying himself. ‘It’s in connection with the disappearance of Sam Fleetwood. Tell me a bit more about the situation there.’