I feel as if I should apologise for sending you so many messages but, at the same time, I make no apology for my love. And love it is, my perfect Mishal. How can I not love someone who watches my video? Especially someone as beautiful as you! I saw immediately from your Facebook that you are a Muslim. That makes me so happy! Do you like what you see? Tell me that you do!! Knowing that you appreciate me will make me stronger!!!
Abu Imad had contacted Mishal before she could get in touch with him. Was it all too quick and ardent to be true? What was happening? How could they find out?
Lee scanned articles about radicalisation online. Was doing all this for mates’ rates, in Abbas’s case, worth it? Of course it was! But …
‘I’ll have to get back to him soon,’ Mumtaz said.
‘Yeah, alright. It says here …’
‘I’ve got Hello Abu Imad. Wow, I can’t believe so many messages from you!’
‘You’ve probably got to use youth speak,’ Lee said. ‘Fayyad is in his thirties but he thinks that Mishal is a teenager. So all that LOL, reem stuff …’
‘Reem’s The Only Way is Essex,’ Mumtaz said. ‘He won’t say that!’
‘Won’t he?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s religious.’
‘Yeah, but what I’m reading says that they use youth speak.’
‘Yes. LOL, emojis, ROFL …’
‘ROFL?’
‘Rolling on the floor laughing,’ she said. ‘But I doubt he’ll do that.’
Lee threw his arms in the air.
‘You have to be proper excited he’s so into you,’ he said.
‘While at the same time being modest,’ she said. ‘If I’m overkeen he’ll go off me. Trust me.’
Lee shrugged. Alongside trying to get as much information as he could about men in Fayyad’s situation he was also attempting to get his accounts up to date.
Mumtaz thought, wrote, and then thought some more. Eventually she said, ‘How about I add this?’
He looked up. ‘Shoot.’
‘Hello Abu Imad. Wow, I can’t believe so many messages from you! I didn’t think you’d contact me. I really appreciate your time. Thank you.’
‘Is that it?’ Lee said.
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Bit short. Shouldn’t she be a bit more into him?’
‘Not if she wants him to think that she’s a nice girl,’ Mumtaz said.
‘Do you really think he wants a nice girl?’
‘Did Fayyad like nice girls?’ she asked.
‘As far as I remember Fayyad’s sex life didn’t exist,’ Lee said. ‘But then that’s according to my knackered memory, who knows?’
‘Well in his guise as an ISIS fighter, he will only be able to like nice girls,’ Mumtaz said. ‘And so that is what we will give him.’
Ricky had seen it happen.
‘She looked him straight in the eyes and then hissed like a snake.’
‘Did you manage to catch the boy?’
‘Yeah.’
Chief Superintendent Vine always wondered about local coppers. On the one hand their knowledge of their manor was excellent, while on the other he sometimes wondered where their loyalties lay. Less so with Montalban who, though Brick Lane born and bred, didn’t actually belong to any sizeable group as far as Vine knew. Which was a fair bit. Although originally from West Yorkshire, Vine had made it his business over the years to get under the skin of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
‘He’s called Akbar Maan,’ Ricky said. ‘I know him of old.’
‘One of the Briks Boyz?’
‘Nah. Just a lone scrote. Done a bit of shoplifting, bit of weed …’
‘Do you think he’s vulnerable to radicalisation?’
‘Nah. Says his prayers but likes getting pissed. He’s just a twat.’
‘So what was he doing in the Leather Bungalow when you were escorting Rajiv Banergee’s sister around the premises?’
‘Probably looking for a new jacket, sir,’ Ricky said. ‘He’s a chancer. Mind you, that’ll be the last time he goes on the rob for a while, I reckon.’
‘Because of Mrs Chopra.’
‘She frightened me!’ Ricky said. ‘Thought Akbar was gonna shit hisself. Hissin’ at him like that!’
‘Did you ask her about her behaviour?’ Vine said.
‘No. I remember her from when I was a kid. The whole family was a bit weird. The old man, like the victim, used to cross-dress. Susi Banergee was never someone you messed with. But when she got married, years ago, she left the area. Never seen her since. It’s said she’s got money. She’ll have a bit more now.’
‘Is she the victim’s only heir?’
‘As far as we know.’
‘So what about the problems Mr Banergee had in recent years?’ He opened a file on his computer. ‘Criminal damage, 1999, criminal damage 2005, a couple of instances of minor assault, homophobic graffiti …’
Ricky sighed. Here it was. He knew there was some truth in where Vine was driving but he also knew that Rajiv Banergee had had a complicated life.
‘My first thoughts when we found Mr Banergee was Muslim kids,’ Ricky said. ‘You and me both know what goes on. I was straight onto the Briks Boyz, particularly Zayn Chaudhuri. Dunno where he’s crawled away to but he’s on the missing list.’
‘Can you see Zayn as a killer?’
‘Yeah, but only him,’ Ricky said. ‘The others are just all mouth. Also they come from decent homes, most of ’em. Zayn’s old man’s a crackhead. The kid’s basically dragged himself up. I can’t work out whether someone radicalised him or he decided that religion was a good way to control people. But he’s all over the evil West stuff, calls people poofs, anti-Semitic graffiti a speciality. More worrying for us is that Zayn has spent some time with a bloke we’re watching who’s taken in some Syrian refugees. Now he is a person of interest.’
‘Mmm. Ali Huq. Yes?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Mumtaz leant against the side of the bus stop. Shazia had seen her, but she’d guessed she was working and had turned away. She was a good kid. So were the girls she hung around with, even if that Grace wore skirts so short you could almost see her knickers.
Whenever she had a job that required observing a kid at Sixth Form College, Mumtaz had ‘issues’. Because Shazia studied there it was always possible her target was a youngster that she knew. But not in this case. Soni Kaur was in the first year of her A-level studies and, as far as Mumtaz could tell, was part of a group of other Sikh girls plus a couple of white kids. They were a loud and excitable bunch and Mumtaz hadn’t been able to find anything worrying about Soni’s behaviour.
Parents worried about what was actually a narrow range of problems. Drugs, booze, sex and ‘getting in with the wrong crowd’ covered most of it. Soni’s parents had a notion their girl was smoking cannabis. But, so far, there was no evidence to suggest that she or any of her group indulged in spliff sessions. What they did do was hang out around the chicken shop at the Green Gate rather more than was good for them. But then so did young Grace. So did a lot of kids. Supposedly ‘safe’, in terms of being both halal and beef-free zones, chicken shops were where a lot of Asian kids gathered. White and Afro-Caribbean youngsters liked them too and so they were good places to arrange to meet outside college. Unless you were Shazia.
Chicken and chips was not an expensive meal, but for Mumtaz and Shazia it was a luxury neither of them could often afford. Although she’d railed at the unfairness of having to take a packed lunch to college every day and eat at home in the evening, Shazia knew she had no choice. Her earnings from Cousin Aftab’s convenience store had to go on clothes and books. It was what the children of debtors had to do and she knew it. And Mumtaz had been very quick to point out that her skin was all the better for avoiding fried food.
Mumtaz’s phone beeped.
Soni and her friends stopped chatting on the pavement and began to walk in the direction of the chicken shop. Mumtaz looked at her phone. Something
for Mishal.
You are the girl of my dreams.
EIGHT
People came to the Leather Bungalow from all over. Some cousins and an ancient uncle from Brentford, the husbands, wives and children of other cousins from Redbridge, Brentwood and Hertford – an aunt from Brighton. The Banergee diaspora had abandoned their Brick Lane home turf a long time ago.
As she sat in the middle of the sales floor in a chair that looked like a throne, Susi Banergee heard what they said. Cousin Indira, who had always been a massive bitch said, ‘Why was Rajiv living here still? How did he make money from this old place? Hidden away in all these so-called curry houses.’
A young girl that Susi didn’t know replied, ‘All the bankers from the City come to Brick Lane.’
‘For curries, yes,’ Cousin Anita said. ‘Not for leather jackets. They’ll go to Prada or bugger off to Dubai or something. You know that my neighbour is forever over to Dubai. Handbags. All fake, but cheap and you’d never know.’
It was only the keen, if ancient eyes of Uncle Chandresh that noticed someone was missing. Or at least he was the only one who said anything.
‘So where is Dilip?’
Susi felt her face drain.
‘He is in surgery today,’ she said.
She saw Cousin Indira narrow her eyes. ‘And he couldn’t be spared when his wife is bereaved?’
When they’d all been children, Indira had possessed a reputation for being a busybody. She knew everything and everyone and the Muslim kids had thought she was a witch. Did she know something now?
‘Orthopaedic surgeons are not ten a penny. He had no choice,’ Susi said.
Indira knew what she was really saying and she retreated to the back of the room. Her husband, Max, was a lowly GP in Golders Green. And he was a Jew.
The relatives milled. Arriving all the time, there were so many, Susi didn’t know who half of them were. But she accepted their condolences with grace and they, in turn, availed themselves of the food and drink she had managed to persuade Dilip to pay for. He had liked Rajiv.
‘So what do the police know so far?’
Fat, short and sweaty, Cousin Gangi’s husband Vipul was not a man to mince his words even in the face of death.
‘Do they think it’s one of these Muslims? Rajiv had problems with those bastards, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, but whether they killed him, I don’t know,’ Susi said. ‘In this instance the police have been very good. They have largely left me alone to grieve.’
‘That’s good.’
It was.
He went back to Dilip’s whisky. Greedy little grocer!
Susi looked around the room. In fact her whole family were greedy – drinking liquor as if their lives depended on it, stuffing pakoras into their fat mouths. Fat and complacent and entitled. They’d laughed behind her father’s back all his life because of how he dressed. And Rajiv. But they’d never laughed at Susi and they never would.
Lee stayed over. He didn’t sleep, but then neither did Mumtaz. Shazia, watching Game of Thrones in her room, was blissfully unaware of what was happening in the living room.
You must give me your Skype address. I need to see you.
Mumtaz shook her head.
‘For a wanted man Fayyad is moving fast,’ she said. ‘I’ve gone from being no one to the girl of his dreams, to someone he has to see, in just over a day.’
Lee frowned. Did Fayyad know what was happening? Was he making contact with a view to getting out of Syria as his parents believed?
‘But then men from the subcontinent and the Arab world are accustomed to making their minds up about women quickly,’ Mumtaz continued. ‘Some of them, even now, have only to look at a girl to propose marriage. It’s the mothers who find out about a girl’s character. The man just looks and if he likes what he sees, the deal is done.’
Lee didn’t comment.
‘I really don’t want to show my face to this man, not yet,’ Mumtaz said.
‘So cover your face.’
‘Mishal doesn’t,’ she said. ‘Her parents won’t let her.’
‘Yeah, but in her room she can do as she pleases.’
‘Well, she would if she had a niqab,’ Mumtaz said.
‘That’s the …’
‘The thing that covers the face, yes,’ she said. ‘I don’t have one. Mishal, were she really serious, would have bought one on the sly.’
‘Maybe her parents confiscated it.’
‘Maybe. But if I don’t talk to Abu Imad in niqab he may think I’m not a nice girl,’ she said. ‘And besides can I really pass for eighteen in the flesh? I don’t know.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m going to say there are too many people about to Skype.’
‘OK. But I don’t think you need to worry about how you look,’ Lee said.
She ignored him.
Mum, dad and brother not leaving me alone. They’ll hear me Skype. If they hear me type, they won’t think anything. Can we just do this?
She made them tea while she waited for a reply. Lee went out into the garden to smoke. When he came back she was sitting in front of the computer looking troubled.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘It’s like a job interview,’ she said.
Where do you live? What do you like to do? Were you born Muslim? What do you want from your life? Do you like children? Are you a virgin?
‘He’s asked me if I’m a virgin before.’
Do you have a boyfriend?
Lee said, ‘We must be careful what we tell him.’
‘In what sense?’
‘Tell him too much and he’ll be suspicious. Tell him too little and he’ll lose interest.’
Mumtaz typed what she thought he might want to hear.
For some hours after that it seemed as if the only thing that Abu Imad was interested in was Mishal’s devotion to West Ham United. She told him she enjoyed photography, but he ignored that.
Oh wow! You’re a Hammer! So am I!
Lee took over. Abu Imad was as sad as he about the move away from the Boleyn Ground at Upton Park to the Olympic Stadium at Stratford.
It isn’t the same! Boleyn is our home!
Mumtaz interjected here. Yes, but at least it means that I’m not getting called Paki every time I go down Green Street on a Saturday any more …
Abu Imad agreed that was a good thing. Then he wrote, Just hope they don’t now move the Bobby Moore statue to Stratford too. That would be really sad. Hey, Mishal, did I ask you whether you have a boyfriend?
‘He’s insistent, I’ll give him that,’ Lee said.
It was 1 a.m. and they were both tired. But Abu Imad still appeared to be as fresh as a daisy.
Mumtaz typed. SMH. Of course I don’t have a boyfriend! I’m saving myself for my husband.
‘SMH?’
‘Shaking my head,’ she said. ‘I’ve been mugging up on youth acronyms.’
‘God.’
Of course you are, Abu Imad responded. I’m sorry, Mishal, I’m just so anxious that having found you, you really are as perfect as I think. You haven’t told me whether or not you’re a virgin yet and it’s making me nervous.
‘God he’s obsessed! I’ve told him twice! What’s he trying to do, catch me out or something?’ Mumtaz shook her head. ‘Yetch! He wants a child-bride. Sick!’
‘Yeah, but she’s eighteen,’ Lee said. ‘Legal.’
‘Just. I’ve told him I’m saving myself for my husband, but it’s not enough for him.’
‘So tell him you’re a virgin one more time.’
‘You think?’
Abu Imad’s response was instant.
You have made me so happy, Mishal. A Muslim sister and a virgin! And a Hammer! Oh, you know what I wish? I wish you could be with me here in our wonderful Caliphate. Of course, only as my wife. There are no unmarried sisters here. But many warriors are alone. Like me. You know you’d love it here. We have everything. Beautiful apartments, fantastic shopping and we have no bills! Everything
is provided. You’d love it.
Mumtaz leant back in her chair. ‘Shopping, home, bills, children, sex – not necessarily in that order,’ she said. ‘God!’
‘Well he’s not going to be a feminist, is he?’
‘No, but it’s all so – primitive!’
Lee wondered whether her husband had also been ‘primitive’ but he didn’t ask.
‘Was Fayyad like this before he was radicalised?’ she asked.
‘Not that I know of,’ Lee said. ‘His parents have always been very liberal as far as I know. Grandparents too. His sister works for that designer label …’
‘Which one?’
‘Alexander something …’
‘Alexander McQueen!’
‘Yeah, in a shop up west somewhere,’ he said. ‘She don’t make dresses, she sells them.’
‘Even so …’
The computer beeped.
Where are you, Mishal? Has what I said about you becoming my wife been too much for you?
Mumtaz looked at Lee and said, ‘I think I’ve just been proposed to.’
Both boys were online. Contacting Muslim brothers back in Syria he imagined. So why did Ali Huq feel unsettled? And why was he so concerned that his Arabic wasn’t up to following all their conversations?
They’d both been out when Rajiv-ji was murdered. He hadn’t asked them where. He didn’t know how they’d react if he did. The younger of the two, Qasim, was quite approachable but the older boy, Nabil, was a closed book.
He’d been told by Aziz the tailor that they came from Aleppo, which had been all but destroyed. But neither of the boys had ever alluded to it. They just said that they were Syrian, they were Muslims and they wanted to go back. Sometime. Aziz the tailor, who co-ordinated the settlement of Syrians on and around the Lane, said they’d go when they were ready.
Although it made him feel guilty, Ali knew he wanted them to go. He’d never encouraged them to hurl abuse at Rajiv-ji, much less punch him in the face, but he had turned a blind eye to their activities. He’d had to.
Rajiv Banergee had always been ‘wrong’. A man who dresses as a woman, a man who has sex with other men. It was an abomination. It was especially wrong when Rajiv deliberately set out to tempt Muslims, which he did. Ali knew who, and that knowledge made his skin go cold. Because he also knew that someone else knew that too.
Bright Shiny Things Page 7
