Safe from Harm

by RJ Bailey

  This made me think about Matt and Jess. He was claiming he’d go to court unless we could work out something ‘amicably’ about him having access (‘contact time’ as he called it) to Jess. To me, it seemed unfair that he could sweep back into our lives and reclaim his stake as if picking up his winnings from the bookies. I had broached the subject with Jess and, frustratingly, she seemed quite open to the idea of having a mum and a dad again. I didn’t mind the idea. Just not with that particular dad, that’s all. Now maybe someone like Tom Buchan . . .

  I felt a once-familiar flutter build, spreading down from my chest into the pit of my stomach, and continue south.

  You need a . . .

  Stop that. Why would some canal gypsy make a better father than a former drug dealer? Besides, the waterman had gone. When I had next passed, the mooring where Tom’s boat had been was empty. I had stood and watched as another boat, a more flowery number full of canal art – decorated watering cans, milk churns and plant pots – eased its way in.

  ‘You after Tom Buchan?’

  I had turned and looked at the woman addressing me from a neighbouring vessel, the Ragdoll. She was in her seventies, I’d guess, with rheumy eyes, straggly grey hair and she was smoking a roll-up so skinny it must have had but a single thread of tobacco along its length.

  ‘Just going to say hello.’

  She gave a phlegmy laugh. ‘What Tom’s best at is goodbyes. Hold on.’

  She had disappeared below and then came back up with an envelope, which she handed over to me. It had my name on it, printed in big blocky letters. I opened it. The single sheet carried a simple message: ‘I.O.U. one running top’. And then a signature: Buck.

  So what was I to do about Matt? The thought of sharing Jess made my stomach contract but, on the other hand, having somewhere for her to go if the Sharifs suddenly decided we needed to decamp to Monaco was attractive. I cursed myself for selfishness. It was what was right for Jess that was important. Not the convenience for my job.

  But just how reliable was Matt? This was a man who had sold ecstasy, meth, cocaine . . . you tended not to hang around with nice people in that business. But he claimed he’d given that world up. Or vice versa. Yet, when I had asked him about his source of income, he had been very vague. This and that, as far as I knew, was not a career.

  I put my head inside the Cessna. The inside was a mess, the seats slashed and torn, the controls missing so many instruments it looked like a collection of eyeless sockets. The afternoon sunlight caught the cat’s cradle of spiders’ webs crisscrossing the cabin. Something rustled in the stuffing of one of the seats and I backed out quickly.

  I started my way back towards Hangar 3. As I did so, I came to a decision. Fighting Matt was going to be time-consuming, expensive and maybe futile. I didn’t think he was going to end up on top of the Shard dressed as Batman, but I suspected he would fight hard and, if need be, dirty. What I needed to know, more than any court ever could, was how fit he was to have my daughter. So the answer was simple.

  I was going to have to spy on my ex-husband.

  TWENTY

  There is a lot of hurry-up-and-wait in the world of PPOs. In that way, it’s just like the army. A whirlwind of preparation, going to full alert . . . and then nothing, stretching ahead for hours. We are used to the unexpected announcement of a last-minute trip to the cinema or the shops or a flight to Zurich or Monaco, the cars are readied, the route planned and then . . . minds are changed, plans altered or cancelled altogether. Stand down.

  So, like most clients’ houses, the Sharifs had a room for staff to do their protracted waiting around in. Tea- and coffee-making facilities, a fridge full of soft drinks, an HD-TV, radio, a few CCTV screens showing the front and rear of the house.

  I was in there nursing a brew when Ali found me. The head of security was a handsome man in a throwback kind of way. I could picture him as a Moghul conqueror, sitting astride a white stallion, cutting a swathe through enemy armies. He had a moustache that had a life of its own, a lion’s mane of swept-back black hair and a chest that entered the room before he did.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he asked as he slumped down beside me on the sofa, which creaked in alarm. I wondered if they had to reinforce the furniture for him. ‘Settling in?’

  ‘Yes, fine, thanks.’ He got up and helped himself to a Coke, giving the sofa another joint bashing when he sat back down.

  ‘No questions?’

  ‘When do I meet Mr Sharif?’

  ‘He’ll be back soon. Later this afternoon, maybe.’ He looked at me in a way that could be misinterpreted, but I recognised a professional appraisal when I was subject to one. ‘You have any pictures of when you were in the army?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not on me.’ The only one I had was of me standing next to Freddie on a WMIK Land Rover during my blink-and-you’d-miss-it tour in Afghanistan. Behind us is Tom Jones, a Welsh kid (actually called Ewan Jones) who had both thumbs in the air. It was taken about two hours before he stepped on a legacy mine.

  Ali took a wallet from his inside pocket and produced a creased photograph of himself in a beret, his chest heavy with medals. ‘That was me. And here, in this one. Recognise the chap next to me?’

  The second photograph was of Ali in plain clothes, helping a second man move through a crowd. I stared at the face. The moustache and glasses of the middle-aged man he was chaperoning rang a bell.

  ‘President Musharraf.’ I thought that impressive chest was going to split with pride.

  ‘You were a presidential bodyguard?’

  He nodded. ‘And a major in the SSG.’ The Special Services Group was an elite unit of the Pakistani army that, after a shaky start, had acquitted itself well in anti-terrorism operations close to the north-west frontier.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The third assassination attempt happened. My wife says, enough. One day they will get him and get you. Apparently I was on the death list of Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alami. You know them?’

  ‘No.’ They didn’t have the kind of name that caused a warm, fuzzy feeling in your bones.

  ‘Fanatics,’ he said. ‘Bloody fanatics. So we moved here. First I make a living selling cars then someone tells me about bodyguarding jobs. It’s better than cars.’

  ‘Do you miss the army?’

  ‘Every day. Every single day. Do you?’

  ‘Maybe if someone hadn’t shot me.’

  He laughed at that. But it does colour your memory somewhat.

  I looked at the clock on the wall. ‘I’m on. Nuzha pick-up from school.’

  ‘Nice chatting.’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  And I knew I had someone who would be good in a tight corner.

  ‘Are you married?’

  I glanced up into the rear-view mirror and refocused on Nuzha. Normally my attention was on the outside of the car, rather than the passenger. She was in her green school uniform and had shrugged off the hijab she wore ‘because all my friends do’ and her thick hair, black and shiny as a liquorice stick, lay on her shoulders. She had a round, open face and eyes that could only have come from her mother. There was every chance she would grow up to be as beautiful as Mrs Sharif.

  ‘No,’ I said. It was true, of course. And I no longer wore Paul’s ring, except when totally off-duty. It always led to more questions. But if I had hoped that was the end of it, I was mistaken.

  ‘Why?’ she persisted.

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Aren’t you married?’

  I stopped at the lights opposite Golders Hill Park. I was circling back to Highgate via Hampstead, one of a half-dozen routes I had mapped out just to mix things up. I raised a hand to tell her to wait. Next to me was an X5, a harassed woman in her thirties at the wheel, yelling at a pair of children in the rear, rendered as shadowy ghosts by the ‘sun protection tinting’ as they like to call the privacy glass. I managed to lip-read part of the diatribe. ‘Do you know how much that school costs?’

 
I would imagine the kids in the back knew only too well how much the school cost to the nearest 50p, probably having been reminded with every B-grade and ‘Doesn’t engage in class’ comment on their report.

  Behind me was a UPS parcel van, to the left a solo motorcyclist, a young lad leaning over the bars, keen to be on his way judging by the incontinent bursts of revving. Behind him, a white VW Transporter.

  Colour? Let’s call it orange-yellow.

  As I pulled away, Nuzha asked again. ‘Why aren’t you married? You should be by now.’

  ‘Do you have homework?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. “Find out why your driver isn’t married”.’

  I turned at that and she had a wide, cheeky grin across her face.

  ‘That’s a funny old school you go to.’

  ‘It’s not like you’re ugly or anything.’

  ‘Nuzha. Please, I can’t discuss such things.’

  ‘Being ugly?’

  I had to laugh. ‘No. My personal life.’

  ‘But you have a child.’

  ‘Nuzha, please.’

  ‘Ammi told me.’ Her mother shouldn’t have. The PPO file was meant to be private. ‘So you had a child out of wedlock.’ It wasn’t judgemental, just a bald statement of fact. But it was too much.

  I pulled over to the kerb, causing the UPS van to give a short, irritated hoot, and turned in my seat. There was a flicker of anger in my voice and I doused it.

  ‘Nuzha. I will say this once. I was married. He died. I have a daughter.’ OK, so it was edited highlights, but it would have to do. ‘I cannot talk about politics, religion or my private life. I don’t have opinions. I am here to look after you and I can’t do that if we spend all the time gossiping. OK?’

  If she was in any way chastened she didn’t show it, simply nodded enthusiastically. ‘OK.’

  I reselected drive and pulled out, heading for the roundabout at Jack Straws Castle.

  ‘Some of my friends already know who they are going to marry when they grow up.’

  I simply nodded. No politics, no religion.

  ‘But I’m glad,’ she said softly, ‘that you were married once.’

  I caught up with the UPS parcel van and undertook him at the roundabout. I only got a glimpse of the driver, but it was enough to change everything from yellow to red. He had on the brown overalls of UPS drivers. He also had what looked like a turd on his head.

  Three: definite.

  Mr Sharif called me into his study after I had delivered Nuzha home. The main house was smart and modern, all sharp angles with plenty of steel and glass. The sort of home that had multiple skylights, which always made me think they must be a devil to keep clean. But people who can afford twenty-million-pound houses on Highgate Hill can probably stretch to a window cleaner or two.

  His study was unlike the rest of the building, far more traditional, with no skylights but Tiffany lamps, wood-panelling, a shiny rosewood desk and carpet as opposed to parquet flooring. It felt like the office of the CEO of a large multinational. Which, of course, was what Mr Sharif was.

  ‘Come in. Close the door.’ He was somewhere in his late-forties, maybe a dozen years older than his wife. He was wiry-thin – he had played squash competitively and, so Mrs Sharif had told me with some satisfaction, was still able to whip the twenty-year-olds at his club. Like his wife he had striking eyes, but these ones were of a different order – his were hooded and challenging, as if daring you to just try and lie to him. That stare of his must have been an asset in business. But PPOs shouldn’t lie to their Principal. Maybe just withhold a nugget of information or two.

  Like you think you are being followed.

  It might seem strange not to share that sort of suspicion, but it was not as reckless as it might seem. Firstly, every PPO thinks they are being followed as a matter of course. Or at least, acts as if they are. Secondly, you don’t want to concern the Principal overmuch. They usually have enough on their minds. You start to worry them when you see the first fleck of Red in the situation. Thirdly, you don’t want to appear an idiot when it transpires that plenty of young men, especially those who drive delivery vans, have that stupid haircut. No, it was Ali who would be first port of call. As resident, he would judge what was the correct response.

  Mr Sharif closed the lid on a gold MacBook laptop. ‘Drink?’ he asked, heading for a sideboard that turned out to double as a cocktail cabinet.

  ‘No, thank you.’ No drinking on duty, no cigarettes ever, now. They can smell it on your hair and on your clothes and it doesn’t project the right image. I can’t pretend that giving up the final two-a-day was easy, though.

  ‘Quite right. Please forgive me.’ He poured himself a half-inch of Talisker and invited me to sit.

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when my wife interviewed you.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir.’ I meant it. The rich rarely stay in one place for long, either for tax reasons or because they feel the need to bless their various habitations with visits every now and then. Most have a lot of habitations to get round.

  ‘I wanted to know how you are getting on. Just between you and me.’

  ‘Fine, sir.’

  ‘You know there was another candidate for your post. A Miss Gill. You know of her?’

  ‘There are plenty of female Personal Protection Officers in London these days, sir. I don’t know them all, I’m afraid.’ Only the good ones, and I’d never heard of Miss Gill.

  ‘No matter. Nice Muslim girl. But Nuzha thought she preferred you. The Tall Lady, she called you.’

  ‘That was quite a decision considering we only had five minutes together.’

  ‘She has strong opinions. She knows her mind.’

  ‘She’s a remarkable little girl. You should be proud of her.’ As soon as I said it I knew I had got the nuance wrong.

  ‘Should be? I am proud of her.’ He sat down behind the desk and appeared to gather his thoughts. It was a minute before he spoke again. ‘It pains me to say it, but I am not always a popular man in my country. You know about CatSlam?’

  ‘Catwalk to Islam.’

  ‘Ha.’ He seemed surprised and, possibly, pleased. ‘It is a phenomenon. The Financial Times writes about it. But to some, I am a devil. An evil man.’

  ‘Because . . .?’

  ‘Because they see CatSlam as a way of Westernising young girls. Of demeaning Islam by introducing foreign ideas of beauty. The thin end of the wedge, you might say. Today, a scarf inspired by Milan, tomorrow our daughters will be having sex before marriage and showing their breasts in public.’

  He took a drink and I wondered how I was meant to respond. I could see how someone with extreme views might interpret taking inspiration from the catwalks as an attack on their core values. But the strictly religious always disliked change, especially where fashion is concerned.

  ‘It doesn’t help, of course, that I am not one who eschews alcohol. That I only have one wife. Nor am I a man who thinks only sons have value in this world.’

  I said nothing.

  He held up the glass. ‘You know, if you were to take a photograph of me now, you could bring all this crumbling down around my ears. Of me, drinking this.’ He took a large gulp to make the point.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘My wife married beneath her station in life. I am a millionaire, but in the eyes of some, I will always just be a tailor who got lucky. So, to show my intentions were honourable, I created a family trust to run the business, to share the profits . . . generously. We all sup from the pot. As head of this trust, I sup a little deeper.’ He gave a crooked smile and I wondered if he was down the road on the way to drunk. ‘However, fearing that my base nature will one day shine through, they have a proviso that I can be removed if I ever bring disgrace on the family.’ He chortled and drank some more. ‘So, cheers.’

  ‘Your secret is safe with me,’ I said.

  ‘I know. Ali says he trusts you. As for Nuzha, rest assured, young lady, that I do love her. I know I
have something special there. Of course, I would like another son, but God decides such things.’ I thought his God had a position on whisky drinking, too, but again kept my mouth shut on that score. No religion, no politics.

  ‘Well, thank you, sir—’

  ‘You know today would have been his birthday. My son’s. You know I had a son?’

  I nodded. ‘How old?’

  ‘He would be eighteen.’

  Ah. Maybe that explained the whisky. I didn’t feel I could pry any further, because there were tears pooling in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. It must be difficult.’

  ‘Difficult? I am afraid dying is something of a family trait.’ He sighed. ‘Do you know my background?’

  ‘I know you built up a textile empire from a single shop.’

  He fixed me with those eyes and I resisted the powerful temptation to look away. ‘But do you know about Partition? The split between India and Pakistan?’ I nodded. ‘My family were on the wrong side of the border in 1947. One of a handful of Muslim families in a Hindu town. My father was a tailor, and a good one, but he knew he was no longer welcome when his workshop was burned down.’

  Yup, that’s a community making its feelings known.

  ‘This was before I was born, of course. They were forced to head north. But before they went, his former friends and customers used rocks to smash his hands so he could never sew again. And they raped and murdered my mother’s sister. At least, we assume so. Her body was never found. But then, she was one of some fifty thousand Muslim women and girls kidnapped. Although it is now known that some of those were killed by their own families to save them from dishonour.’

  I’m sure they were very grateful, I wanted to say, but didn’t.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, such things happened on the Muslim side too. We were no angels, as you say.’ He paused for a second and closed his eyes. It was like Xenon headlamps being switched off. I blinked quickly in the moment before he opened them again and continued. ‘The only family we had in this new Dominion of Pakistan worked in the brickfields, and that is what my mother and older brother did. But it was my mother who got the family out of there, it was my mother who opened that tiny cupboard – it was hardly a shop – in Karachi. All I did was build on her work. Muslim? Hindu? Sikh? Jain? British? A plague on all their houses. Business and family are all that matters in this world. So, you see, I do appreciate my daughter, what she might be capable of. I see my mother in her.’