Lee finished his call to Vi Collins and looked at Mumtaz’s computer screen. There was something in Mishal’s private inbox.
To his amazement she already had a message from Abu Imad. It said, ‘Hi. Like that you like me.’
FIVE
A lot of blokes boxed. The sport was particularly popular amongst the public schoolboys. But Amir still felt nervous. His left eye had almost closed up it was so swollen.
Guys patted him on the back, gave him knowing looks. Contact sports were huge, he knew that. But he couldn’t rest until he’d spoken to someone.
The number in his phone was for someone who insisted he call him ‘Grasshopper’. Amir knew his real name, but the guy liked the cloak-and-dagger stuff. That was OK. Quite exciting, really. Grasshopper – apparently related to some TV martial arts programme back in the 1970s.
He dialled.
A testy voice answered. ‘What do you want?’
‘Er, I just feel a bit exposed today,’ Amir said. ‘My eye’s, well it’s closed …’
‘Really? Well, big diddums. Get used to it or get out.’
Amir hadn’t expected that. Grasshopper had been, well, polite every other time he’d met him. Maybe he disliked using the phone?
He said, ‘OK …’
‘This number’s for emergencies,’ Grasshopper said. Then he cut the connection.
If Amir hadn’t still been buzzing from the night before, he would’ve chewed Grasshopper out for that. That was rude. But, in spite of everything, he was on top of the world.
The Sheikhs still had her. Her brother Ali and his radicalism had only ever been a footnote. The Sheikhs knew the darkest chamber of her heart.
Her husband, Ahmet Hakim, hadn’t been simply murdered, he’d been allowed to die. Not only had Mumtaz seen the handsome Naz Sheikh coming towards Ahmet with a knife, she’d not even tried to warn him. Then when the deed had been done, she’d allowed the boy to get away, while her husband bled into the ground. By the time the ambulance arrived he was dead and she was glad. Unlike Shazia, who lost not just her abuser, but her father, Mumtaz lost nothing except pain.
Shazia could never know. Apart from the love of her parents, the love of that girl had been the most important relationship in Mumtaz’s life. Shazia had no one else. If Mumtaz didn’t protect her, no one would. And if this meant also shielding her from the truth, then so be it.
DI Montalban put a cup of tea down in front of her. A few years her senior, Ricky Montalban had been to Cass Infant and Junior School with Mumtaz and her brothers. As he sat down, he smiled.
‘Not seen you for a good few years,’ he said.
He’d always been a big lad. Now he was overweight. But he was still the same old Ricky. She’d been relieved when she’d been told she’d be talking to him.
‘What you been up to? I heard you got married.’
He had to know what had happened to Ahmet.
‘I’m widowed,’ Mumtaz said.
‘I’m sorry.’ He sipped his tea. ‘I did hear a rumour.’
‘But every cloud, you know,’ she said. ‘I’ve inherited, if that’s the right word, a wonderful stepdaughter.’
‘And you’re a private detective,’ he said. ‘You was always a clever girl.’
She smiled.
‘So you might have some information about our dead man.’
‘Possibly,’ she said. ‘I knew Rajiv Banergee.’
‘We all did.’
‘He had a lot of trouble in recent years.’
‘Yeah, although he didn’t complain to us as often as you might think or as frequently as maybe he ought,’ Montalban said. ‘He moaned about lack of police presence, but he was never up for pressing charges if he had any trouble. He said it was just kids having a pop at him and they’d grow out of it. I told him I didn’t think that homophobia and racism were things what was going to go away.’
Mumtaz shook her head. For a moment, just before she entered Limehouse Police Station, she had questioned what she was doing. People on Brick Lane didn’t grass and yet here she was, about to dob in her own brother.
‘Ricky—’
‘Look, I don’t know what you want to tell me but I can see it ain’t easy for you,’ he said. ‘So let me say this: at this stage whatever you tell me is just between us. Depending on what you say, it might stay that way.’
‘I’m fairly sure it won’t,’ she said.
‘In that case it must be serious.’
She drank some tea. What was best? To lead up to it slowly or just to come out with it?
She kept her eyes on her teacup. She said, ‘My brother Ali is taking in people from the Middle East.’
‘So are a lot of people,’ Ricky said. ‘Legally or illegally, it’s a fact. We deal with what we find. What we talking here?’
‘I’ve no idea whether the young tenants in Ali’s house are legal or illegal,’ she said. ‘But …’ She stopped. She felt a bit sick. She swallowed. ‘Ali is not the person you remember from school,’ she said.
‘Who is?’
She looked up. ‘Ricky, his views are extreme now.’
All his levity disappeared.
‘He is virulently anti-Semitic and homophobic,’ she said. ‘He’s not like my brother any more. He rarely speaks to any of our family now. Having said that, Asif won’t speak to him. Now he takes in these boys …’
Ricky leant forward. ‘This is hard for you.’
‘We don’t grass,’ she said. ‘You know that.’
‘And you haven’t,’ he said.
‘Yes, I have. I’ve just told you my own brother has been radicalised.’
‘Yeah, which I knew,’ Ricky said.
‘You knew?’
‘We’ve been watching his place for … a while,’ he said.
‘So do you know who those boys are?’ she said.
He smiled again. ‘You know I can’t tell you anything,’ he said.
She did. She also knew that he was trusting her not to alert her brother.
‘If and when the law is broken, we will take charge of the situation,’ he said. Then he sat upright again and changed the subject. ‘You’re working with Lee Arnold.’
‘Yes.’
‘Got quite a reputation when he was at Forest Gate nick,’ he said. ‘Before my time, but I know of him. Think he worked with DI Collins, didn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Do you know her?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I know Vi very well.’
And that was how he ensured that she didn’t warn her brother.
‘Much as I appreciate you coming in today, as far as I’m concerned you was never here, Mumtaz,’ Ricky said as he stood up.
Did he think any less of her for dobbing in her own brother? As a one-time resident of Brick Lane, he probably did. But as a copper he understood completely – and he was grateful.
Just before she left, he briefly took her hand. He had to know that men shaking hands with covered women was usually haram. But he also knew Mumtaz.
She knew, for her part, that he would keep her in the loop.
Maybe Fayyad answered all his ‘Likes’? The idea seemed ridiculous, but stranger things happened. And ISIS, as an organisation, was busting a gut to get new recruits. They’d recently taken some defeats and were struggling.
Lee stopped looking at Mumtaz’s computer and picked up a large brown envelope. He had to serve notice to quit on a couple in a flat in Forest Gate. They hadn’t paid their rent for six months. But paradoxically, they’d been out every time anyone had tried to serve notice on them. Under the landlord’s instruction, Lee had watched the flat and had got to know what Chelsea Myall and her boyfriend Stanislaw Kanapka did during the course of a normal week. In the case of Stanislaw, that was working on a building site in Kent, where he slept with a load of other Polish men in a Portakabin. Chelsea busied herself spending Stanislaw’s money and not paying the rent. She drifted about all over the place. However, the one regular thing she did do was ta
ke her mum to bingo in Stratford every Wednesday.
Lee picked up the brown envelope. Today Chelsea was going to get more than a full house.
Just about to leave, he wrote a note to Mumtaz, which said, Mishal has made contact. You’ve a message in Mishal’s private inbox. Don’t do anything until I get back. Lee.
Very few people could remember the last time Susi Banergee was on Brick Lane. Baharat Huq was one.
‘Look! Look!’
He beckoned his wife, Sumita, over to the window and pointed to a tall, shapely figure on the street.
‘Who’s that?’ Sumita said.
‘Susi Banergee, Rajiv-ji’s older sister. Don’t you recognise her?’
‘Maybe …’
She did. But Sumita wouldn’t admit it. She’d never liked that woman.
Susi Banergee had to be seventy and yet she looked twenty years younger. Dressed in a figure-defining silver sari, Susi at almost six feet tall cut an extraordinary figure in Bangla Town. Heavily made-up and with her thick, black hair piled high on her head, Ms Banergee’s arms, neck and earlobes dripped with gold and diamond jewellery.
‘Ah, I think she is alone,’ Baharat said. ‘Look! Standing in the street with no one to assist her.’
He went outside immediately. When Sumita heard Susi’s piping voice she cringed. That woman had always been a man-eater! But then she had to be nice. Susi had just lost her brother in the most awful way imaginable. She went into the kitchen to make tea.
There was more than one message in Mishal’s inbox. Mumtaz counted thirteen. They almost all said the same thing, but in different forms.
Hi. Like that you like me. Can I be your friend?
Love your like.
Happy you like me.
Your Like made my day.
My heart sings for your Like.
Like me again.
Like me, I like you.
Salaam alaikum sister!
You are Muslim?
Happy I bring a smile to your face.
Like me again!
Your Like comes from a pure heart.
Like you.
She felt slightly breathless. If this happened when she’d simply liked his video, what would he do when she made contact?
Bombardment was a well-known tool in the armoury of extremist organisations. It worked particularly well on young people who could be flattered by constant and apparently earnest attention. Together with support for their nascent aspirations, this was a method that cults like Jim Jones’s People’s Temple had used to reel in young followers back in the 1970s. On an intellectual level, it was interesting but it also made Mumtaz wonder how she was going to cope with Abu Imad. If he was this keen now, what was he going to be like a few days down the line? And if, as his family believed, he was reaching out with a view to coming home, then why reach out to Mishal?
In her heart, Mumtaz hadn’t really believed he would get in touch. Girls ‘Liked’ extremist videos all the time. Why had he chosen her? Or was she just one of many that he bombarded? Was that in fact his ‘job’? And if it was, did he fight too or did he just recruit?
Who, if anyone, was watching what he did?
Mumtaz had to fight to stop herself visualising them. Another message dropped into her inbox:
Like to see a video of you.
‘Do you remember the Montalbans?’
Susi Banergee had always smoked Sobranie cigarettes, even as a teenager. The one she was smoking now was turquoise.
‘Yes, yes,’ Baharat said. ‘My children went to school with Richard and the girl, Carmel. Richard went into the police. Was it him who came to see you?’
‘He did.’ She sipped her tea. Then she looked at Sumita and smiled. ‘Much cardamom,’ she said.
She didn’t like it.
Sumita smiled back in spite of herself. Baharat ignored the tea.
‘Such a shock!’ he said. ‘Rajiv-ji was greatly loved.’
‘Clearly not by everyone,’ Susi said.
Most women would have just lowered their eyes. But Susi Banergee had always been a very forthright person. She’d probably had to have been. Baharat remembered her father, Krishna. He’d ‘dressed’. Baharat could clearly remember Krishna-ji swinging down Brick Lane in a black and silver sari singing tunelessly back in the early 1970s. He’d got beaten up, mainly by the white National Front who had stalked the streets of Spitalfields back then. Everyone had been amazed when, a few years later, Rajiv had wandered around in even more flamboyant clothes than his father.
‘Do the police have any suspects?’ Baharat asked.
‘They didn’t say.’
Susi seemed very calm. As a girl she’d been known for her hot temper. But that wasn’t in evidence. Maybe the lawyer or doctor or whatever he was she had married who had taken her to live in a mansion out in Essex had tamed her. But then perhaps she was simply holding her emotions close. There would be much for Susi to do in the weeks and months that were to come. Not least would be to decide the fate of the Leather Bungalow.
‘Have you parked your car somewhere safe?’ Baharat asked. ‘You are welcome to use one of my residents’ parking passes.’
‘Oh, that’s very kind,’ she said, ‘but the police brought me. I will go home in a taxi.’
He had rescued her from isolation in the street but now Baharat got the impression that Susi didn’t really need anybody. It seemed unlike her. A drama queen from her head to her toes, his recollections of her consisted of many men running about doing her bidding. Perhaps the shock of Rajiv’s death had made her humble.
‘I didn’t know the boys who worked for my brother,’ she said. ‘I have not yet been to see Rajiv’s business. But through the police I have told them to not come to work this week.’
‘Of course.’
‘But I have no idea when my brother’s body will be released to me,’ she said.
Like Muslims, Baharat knew that Hindus usually liked to, in their case, cremate their deceased loved ones in less than twenty-four hours after death. He also knew that in the case of a suspected murder that was impossible. Tests would have to be done, forensic material collected. Mumtaz had told him all about it.
‘The Antyeshti rites should be enacted soon.’
Baharat didn’t known what they were.
Susi put out her turquoise cigarette and lit up a yellow one.
‘It should be done by the eldest son,’ Susi continued. ‘But my brother had no son. I can’t think who to ask. Who would be appropriate?’
She had no other brothers and she didn’t mention that she had any sort of child.
Sumita said, ‘Your husband?’
Susi ignored her. ‘My cousin Prakesh had a son. But his mother is English.’ She put a hand up to her head. ‘This is awful,’ she said. ‘Just awful.’
But she still didn’t cry. Baharat imagined that she’d probably do that once she got home to her mansion in Essex and her husband.
SIX
Grace had said that she was going to go to some bar on a rooftop in Shoreditch. Apparently a lot of white posh people went there so they could mix with black gangstas. It was said that the boy Grace fancied so much, Mamba, went there.
Shazia wouldn’t have gone to a place like that anyway, but still, stacking tins of vegetables on Cousin Aftab’s convenience-store shelves was well grim by comparison. At least she got paid. A lot of girls she knew worked in shops for their dads or uncles and didn’t get a penny. They were just expected to do it.
Aftab was on a cigarette break when the old man she’d seen staring at her several times in the last month came into the convenience store. As well as smoking, Aftab was also talking to the Turkish man who ran the kebab shop next door and so Shazia stopped what she was doing and went behind the till.
The old man was quite sweet in a ‘granddaddy’ sort of way. Small and rather delicate-looking, he put his head on one side and said, ‘Do you please have any Gummy Bear or Haribo halal sweeties?’
He had a thick Ben
gali accent and moved his head from side to side when he spoke like a comedy Asian. That was annoying.
‘Yes,’ Shazia said. ‘There.’
She pointed to a display that was right in front of him.
‘Oh, yes.’
He looked, talking to himself in Bengali as he investigated his options. That, too, was annoying. But at least he wasn’t staring at her this time, which was an improvement.
After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, he chose a bag of Haribo Red Cherries and gave Shazia a five-pound note. Then, as she counted out his change, she saw that he was staring. Should she challenge him on it? She wanted to but she also didn’t want to make trouble for Cousin Aftab. He wasn’t actually her cousin, but the relative of her amma, so there was no blood between them. This meant he didn’t owe her a job or anything, really. But Aftab was naturally kind as well as being the most cockney Asian she had ever met. He made Shazia laugh. She kept her mouth shut.
But as she passed coins across the counter to the old man, he spoke.
He said, ‘Young lady, I know your stepmother.’
‘Oh,’ she said. She smiled.
Maybe he was an ex-client of the Agency.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Please do send her my good wishes, if you will.’
‘Of course.’
He started to leave when Shazia realised that she didn’t know who he was. She asked him.
Turning and smiling, he said, ‘My name is Wahid Sheikh.’
He left.
Just the sound of that surname made Shazia’s heart race. Sheikh? Was he one of them? If he was, why had he wanted to send good wishes to her amma?
Then she remembered the last time she’d seen a Sheikh in the flesh. That had been Naz. Thankfully he’d been dying.
Mishal’s inbox was pinging and pinging. Mumtaz would have shut the laptop down ages ago. But she knew that Mishal wouldn’t. Young people were always connected, they were addicted to connection.
Bright Shiny Things Page 5
