Bright Shiny Things

by Barbara Nadel

  It did it again. All she wanted to do was lay on the sofa and watch Master Chef but, even if she put the laptop in her bedroom she could still hear it. If that was Abu Imad then he had to be wondering why Mishal wasn’t answering. Kids always answered, often straight away.

  She called Lee. When he picked up the phone she heard his mynah bird, Chronus, in the background.

  ‘Up the ’ammers!’

  The poor thing had been coached in West Ham United songs and chants ever since he’d been given to Lee.

  She heard Lee yell, ‘Chronus! Wind it in for a second, will ya!’ Then he spoke. ‘Mumtaz. Hello.’

  She told him about the laptop and the pinging.

  ‘So switch it off,’ he said. ‘Do Abu Imad good to sweat about what Mishal’s thinking for a bit. You accepted him as your friend so this is going to happen.’

  ‘Yes, but Lee, kids like her are always online. They’re plugged in morning, noon and night.’

  ‘Yeah, but remember that her parents aren’t into this radical stuff and so she has to be careful. There are going to be times when she can’t get back to him. You’re gonna have to chill.’

  Mumtaz sighed. ‘I know. I’m both pleased we’ve made contact so easily and nervous we might lose him.’

  ‘Which is why you can only be in contact when I’m with you,’ he said. ‘You should’ve waited for me this afternoon, but … You’re the psychologist, I don’t need to tell you that.’

  ‘I know.’

  There was a pause, then he said, ‘You heard from the Sheikhs?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Wahid-ji has kept to his agreement to leave us alone until Shazia has finished her A levels. Have you found anything?’

  ‘They’re a slippery bunch. They pay their taxes and keep their noses clean. But there’ll be something, trust me. I know their type. What happened at Tower Hamlets nick?’

  She told him about Montalban and how she knew him. ‘He knows about my brother,’ she said.

  ‘Great!’ he said. ‘Bloody marvellous! That means that the Sheikhs have got nothing on you. Result. Why didn’t you ring me up immediately? I’ve a couple of possible leads, with working girls, which I can go for if you want me to. Old Rizwan Sheikh used to have a threesome with one of the ladies plus a bloke, before he got ill.’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Yes!’

  Had he detected the caution in her voice? Of course the Sheikhs still had her. While Shazia needed to be shielded from what she had done to her father, they always would. But she couldn’t tell him that.

  ‘I … I just want them brought down,’ she said.

  ‘They will be.’

  But when? And how? And why wasn’t she letting Wahid Sheikh do his worst and tell Shazia? She could deny it. But she knew she didn’t trust herself to do that. How could she, when in her own mind she was as guilty as hell?

  The laptop beeped again. This time, Lee heard it.

  ‘Switch it off!’ he said.

  ‘OK.’

  She powered the machine down and shut the lid.

  ‘You know, Lee, if my brother Ali has anything to do with Rajiv-ji’s murder my parents will never recover,’ she said.

  He paused for a moment, then he said, ‘Mumtaz, you need to get support from your other brother. He’s not like Ali, is he?’

  ‘No, no. Asif lives with a white girl in south London,’ she said. ‘He fell out with Ali a couple of years ago. He’ll go mad when he finds out what’s happened.’

  ‘He doesn’t know?’

  ‘No. He used to work on the Lane, but now he’s got a job in the City.’

  ‘Which isn’t far,’ Lee said. ‘Talk to him. Get his support with your parents. And remember, we don’t know whether Ali’s involved in Rajiv Banergee’s death or not. He probably isn’t.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘From what you’ve told me about him, he sounds like a decent geezer at heart.’

  ‘He was always a good Muslim.’

  ‘So he’s lost his way,’ Lee said.

  ‘Yes, but so have all these other men from decent families, and they kill,’ she said. ‘Look at Fayyad.’

  ‘I know, but we do have to trust, just a bit,’ he said. ‘If we don’t, we lose the plot. And this is England, remember? Innocent until proven guilty? That applies to your brother just like everyone else.’

  ‘You shouldn’t keep looking at it.’

  Djamila put a hand on her mother’s shoulder. Shereen had been sitting at the kitchen table looking at the Tooth of Jonah for hours.

  ‘It’s my meditation,’ Shereen said. She looked up at her daughter. ‘Do you remember when we used to go to see the tooth at the mosque when you and Fayyad were both little?’

  ‘Of course.’ She sat down. ‘Mum, Fazil and I are going to meet Monika and her new man. Will you be OK on your own?’

  Abbas had passed out drunk hours ago.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Shereen said. ‘Hasan is in.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘I know you’d never know it,’ Shereen said.

  ‘He’s not still playing Call of Duty is he?’

  The young man standing behind Djamila said, ‘It is addictive.’

  ‘Yeah, Fazil, right,’ she said. ‘Just as long as CoD is all he’s doing up there.’

  Shereen took her daughter’s hand. ‘Djamila, darling, don’t you think that I watch him all the time? After what happened to Fayyad?’

  The young woman sighed.

  ‘I know how those people can worm their way into people’s homes,’ Shereen said. ‘I had to learn that the hard way.’

  Djamila kissed her. ‘As long as you’re sure.’

  ‘I am.’

  Shereen’s daughter and her boyfriend left for some club in the West End. Once she was certain they had gone, Shereen returned to her meditation.

  Zayn Chaudhuri had gone to ground. Predictably. A weeping, snivelling Sultan Ibrahim had finally told Bob Khan about as many of the places where the Briks Boyz ‘hung’ that he knew about, but clearly he didn’t know them all. Or he was lying.

  Ricky Montalban knew Zayn’s dad, Suleiman, of old. A crackhead with a fancy for hard-core porn, he lived in a filthy flat on Old Montague Street. His son spent very little time there. But he did, sometimes, go home to sleep. Ricky knocked on the door. Through a small window beside the door he could see light from a television flickering in the darkness. He knocked again. Suleiman was always off his neck and so it would take him a while to register he had visitors.

  Ricky looked at Bob and shook his head. Bob shrugged.

  Ricky knocked again. ‘Oi! Suleiman! It’s Rick Montalban! Open up!’

  A couple of minor members of the Briks had been picked up earlier, but they’d had alibis for Rajiv Banergee’s death. All tucked up in bed according to their parents.

  ‘Police! Open the fucking door!’ He banged on the door again. This time, the lights from the TV went off and a light in the hall came on.

  ‘Come on, Suleiman, I ain’t got all night.’

  The door opened slowly.

  ‘Fuck me.’

  Suleiman Chaudhuri looked bad even by crackhead standards. He wasn’t big anyway, but he was also emaciated. Ricky had him down as forty-nine but he could have easily been sixty – or eighty. Having no teeth, yellow skin and tatty, salt-and-pepper hair didn’t help. He wore a shirt and only a shirt.

  Ricky pushed past Suleiman and went inside.

  ‘Smells like a bog in here, Suleiman,’ he said.

  Bob joined him. His ‘guv’ wasn’t wrong.

  ‘I don’t have no nothing.’ Suleiman had a weak, whining voice. He shuffled past the officers and into the room with the television and one, greasy sofa.

  ‘You been wanking, Suleiman?’

  Ricky picked up the TV remote control and turned it on. Writhing, barely identifiable flesh flashed onto the screen accompanied by guttural groans.

  ‘Avert your eyes, Mr Khan,’ Ricky said. ‘This stuff’ll make you
go blind.’ He turned the TV off. Then he said, ‘I’m not here about rocks, Suleiman, or even about your taste in porn. Wanna know where Zayn is.’

  Suleiman sat down on the sofa. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘What do you think he’s done?’ Ricky said. ‘Oh, and if you can’t put any pants on will you cover your knob with something? It’s making me want to fucking throw up.’

  Suleiman put a hand over his shrivelled genitals. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘He ain’t here.’

  ‘Mind if we look around?’

  ‘Knock yourself out.’

  Bob took what he imagined was a bedroom. There was a single mattress flung on the floor surrounded by random clothes and dodgy-looking tissues. There was nothing else. The bathroom contained all the usual bathroom fittings but with extra grime. As far as Bob could see there was no soap. He opened the door to a cupboard, which contained an old water tank and a load of newspaper. There were no towels. Did the old man dry himself on copies of The Sun? Bob shut the cupboard door. He met Ricky in the hall.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Kid’s bedroom’s remarkably clean,’ Ricky said.

  ‘But no kid, guv?’

  ‘No.’

  They went back into the living room. Suleiman, still sitting on the sofa with his hands over his genitals said, ‘So?’

  ‘So I need to speak to Zayn,’ Montalban said. ‘And with or without you, I will Suleiman. But if you help us out it’ll be better for you, know what I mean?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘I do. And believe me, it’ll be better for both of you if you bring him in.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘Dunno yet. Until he answers my questions I won’t know. Do you know where he was last night, Suleiman?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘You seem very sure of that for a bloke who’s usually off his neck by teatime.’

  ‘I know when me son’s in.’

  ‘Good for you. You’re obviously improving, Suleiman.’

  They left.

  Suleiman left it a good fifteen minutes before he went and pulled Zayn out of the space behind the old water tank in the bathroom. That fucking Bob Khan had always been a daft kid, couldn’t see for looking, stupid little cunt.

  Once Zayn was out, Suleiman said to him, ‘So what did you do then, you useless fucker?’

  SEVEN

  Mumtaz opened her laptop. That photo that Shereen had taken of her must have impressed Abu Imad. There were so many messages she couldn’t possibly read them all.

  Lee, staring at the screen, said, ‘You can pull out of this now.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But we’ve made contact and who knows, maybe he’s in touch with a lot of other women. Maybe he’s seeing which fish will bite.’

  ‘Makes you wonder when he’s got time to fight.’

  ‘And yet that video appears to have been shot in the Middle East,’ she said. ‘He’s out there or he’s been out there. What do we do now?’

  Lee sat down. ‘Send him a message.’

  ‘Saying what?’

  Lee had been a copper and he’d fought in Iraq, but he had very little knowledge about the ISIS mindset. But then who did? Talking heads on the telly claimed to have insight but did they really? Both politicians and community leaders seemed to be at a loss to stem the flow of young people out to the caliphate and so, logically, it seemed that they couldn’t know much.

  He said, ‘Well, let’s think it through. Mishal’s seen Abu Imad’s video, which she liked enough to Like. This means she has to have extremist sympathies, plus her hormones are ruling her head.’

  ‘Even coming from a fairly liberal family, she will not have had sexual contact with boys,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Her understanding of sex will be … Well, it could be minimal or it could be distorted. Some girls are very clued in, in spite of what you may think.’

  ‘But not Mishal.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I see her as one of those who has on the one hand a sort of Mills and Boon romantic fantasy about relationships while at the same time being afraid of sex. Many girls are raised with the expectation that it’s something to be endured. And yet they still have feelings and so many of them live in hope that their husbands will be different.’

  Lee wondered whether Mumtaz had felt like that before her marriage, but he didn’t ask. As he saw it, there was a line between himself and Mumtaz that he couldn’t cross. Whether that was real or not, he didn’t know. She was the only Muslim woman he had ever worked closely with. She was certainly his only Muslim female friend. He wished she could be more …

  ‘Mishal is a virgin,’ Mumtaz said.

  ‘Yeah, well I imagined …’

  ‘Not all Muslim girls are,’ she said. ‘You might be surprised. And you know that a lot of our men know that. Abu Imad does.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because in amongst all the pleas and protestations and nonsense he has sent to Mishal, he also asks her if she is a virgin.’

  She showed him on the laptop.

  Mishal, the message read, I know that you are pure. But just to put my mind at rest, can you confirm to me that you are a virgin?

  ‘I had nothing to do with the death of Rajiv Banergee.’

  Ali Huq began to walk away from his father. But Baharat, in spite of arthritis, sore feet and all the ills that attended his seventy-five-year-old body, hobbled after him.

  ‘Don’t you walk away from your father!’ he roared. ‘I don’t care how old you are, you’re still my son and you will listen to me!’

  Baharat Huq was a man of conscience but his sense of appropriate timing was poor. To challenge his son about the death of Rajiv Banergee in Ali’s own shop was a mistake. And although the Islamic clothing outlet had once belonged to the old man, it had been in the hands of his son for ten years. It was also full of customers.

  ‘I will speak to you later, Abba,’ Ali said.

  ‘You will speak to me now, you insolent monkey!’

  Ali pushed past two apparently outraged boys and said, ‘I did not kill Rajiv Banergee and neither did anyone I know!’

  ‘And yet you argued with him,’ Baharat said. ‘People saw you. And one of those terrorists you give shelter to abused him!’

  ‘Abused him? How?’

  ‘Running into his shop and shouting obscenities!’

  Ali ignored him …

  ‘And someone beat Rajiv-ji before his death,’ Baharat said. ‘I saw a bruise on his face the last time we spoke.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me.’

  Baharat shook his head. ‘When the police ask, I will tell them everything I know,’ he said.

  ‘So tell them.’ Ali took his father’s arm and pulled him into the small office at the back of the shop. He shut the door. ‘How dare you come here and accuse me of these things!’ he roared. ‘For your information, I do not shelter terrorists!’

  ‘Oh, no? Then why do you have those boys living in your house?’

  ‘They are refugees from Syria!’

  ‘They cause trouble,’ Baharat said. ‘Saying bad things to girls! Writing bad words about Jews!’

  ‘They have been traumatised! They don’t understand this country where women walk about half naked! They are observant …’

  ‘Which makes their bad behaviour alright?’ the old man sat down. ‘I have spoken to you of this before. Ali, my son, there are Muslims who are bad …’

  ‘You!’ he said.

  Baharat’s whole body jolted backwards.

  ‘You drink and smoke and you have no idea about what is happening for young Muslims in this country,’ he said. ‘You’re what black people call an “Uncle Tom”, an apologist for this Islamophobic country, a friend of the Christians, a—’

  ‘Oh and listen to the “good” Muslim as he abuses his father!’ Baharat said. ‘Those Arabs you shelter are not right. They are friends to no one, least of all you. I wish I knew who you got this idea that you are superior to everyone else from, but if
I find out I will thrash that person. This is not you! Being cruel and discriminating—’

  ‘The Holy Koran teaches—’

  ‘The Holy Koran does not teach hatred!’ Baharat shouted.

  Through the office door both men could see Ali’s customers looking and listening.

  Baharat waved an arm at them. ‘And you can all shut your ears, you nosy parkers!’

  ‘Abba …’

  ‘If I find that you have had anything to do with the death of Rajiv-ji, I will put you down like a dog!’ Baharat said. ‘You? A good Muslim? You just bring shame to Muslims! You bring shame to your family! And you make your mother cry.’

  ‘I’m helping refugees,’ Ali said. ‘Displaced children.’

  ‘And how do you come to get these children?’

  ‘There are Muslim aid organisations.’

  ‘Oh, are there?’ Baharat said. ‘And they chose you, a single man with hatred in his heart for anyone who isn’t like him to look after children? Don’t you think that is a little odd? I do. But then, maybe these good people do not know that you are a bigot.’

  Ali looked at the floor.

  ‘Until four years ago, you were my good son, Ali,’ Baharat said. ‘What happened to you? And do not blame our religion for this. Whatever you are doing, it is not from faith. This is politics. This is Jews against Muslims, Muslims against homosexuals. This is war.’

  Ali looked up. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you’re right, Abba. This is war. But it isn’t the one you think is happening.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘This world is filthy and corrupted. This is a war for the soul of a world that will descend into chaos unless mankind bows to the Will of God as it should. When all the world accepts that the laws of God cannot be broken, all this horror will stop.’ And then, suddenly, he cried, ‘If this doesn’t happen we will all burn! We’ll burn and it will be terrible!’

  As Baharat watched him, his son sank to his knees and then lay on the floor weeping, just like he had done when he was a child. Confused, but also full of tenderness for the vulnerable child Ali still clearly was, the old man put a hand on the side of his face and said, ‘Ssshh. Ssshh.’