‘Some would,’ Mumtaz said.
‘Would Mishal?’
Mumtaz thought about Wahid Sheikh. No young girl, however obedient, would want to marry a man like that. Old and odious. He’d get his hands on her Shazia over her dead body. And yet old men were what some, so-called religious families, expected their girls to marry. Sometimes even quite secular families, like Mishal’s, entered into such arrangements, particularly if it was financially advantageous. If only she hadn’t had to speak to Wahid Sheikh. But if she’d made a scene, DI Montalban and his young constable might have come over. And that would have been awkward. The old man had delighted in telling her how he was planning to treat her daughter like a whore.
‘Mumtaz?’
‘Sorry.’ She didn’t want to tell him about it. Not yet. ‘She probably would,’ she said.
‘Although neither of them have spoken much about what he does yet, have they?’
‘I’ve avoided it. Not wanting to be too keen.’
‘What about him?’
‘Well, it’s acknowledged that there are similarities between paedophile grooming and extremist grooming. The former proceeds slowly, gradually gaining a child’s trust and affection. Only towards the end of the process does sex come into the equation.’
‘By which time the kid’s hooked.’
‘The child will have become dependent on the relationship. The thought of disappointing their new friend is very uncomfortable, particularly if they think that friend is their own age. So they do take naked selfies, and worse, and they do worry about their parents finding out. But all the time their, what’s known as latitude of acceptance, is being pushed ever outwards by their abuser.’
Lee sat down behind his desk. ‘So, do you think it’s time to give Mishal’s Skype address to Abu Imad?’
As well as being repellent, Mumtaz had found the few conversations she’d had with extremists in the past very boring. They were monomaniacal, never listened and didn’t know what they were talking about. They also defamed the religion she loved and that made her skin crawl. She never knew whether to laugh or scream at their ravings.
‘If Fayyad is trying to use Mishal to get to the West, we have to help him,’ Lee said.
‘And if he’s not?’
‘Then we drop him,’ Lee said. ‘If he really wants to get out, he will find a way to get to us. If Abbas is right, he’s been to Amsterdam already.’
He was right. The whole point of what they were doing was based on an assumption that Fayyad was lying as well.
Mumtaz stood. ‘I’d better go and buy a niqab, then,’ she said.
TEN
Zafar Bhatti’s electrical shop rarely closed. When the old man couldn’t be in there himself his son, Jabbar, took over. The ‘boy’ – he was forty – was cross-eyed and so his father treated him like an idiot. But he wasn’t. He was just bored. Both Ricky Montalban and Bob Khan had known the old man and his son all their lives. Walking in to Bhatti’s shop was like getting into a time machine back to the 1970s. Despite advertising itself as an ‘electronic’ shop, there were no computers or in fact any actual electrical devices on sale. Bhatti’s was all about individual plug sockets, cable, boxes and boxes of light bulbs and, if you asked Zafar himself and he liked you, the odd dodgy electricity meter.
Ricky saw the old man before he saw him. This was fortunate. Just before he had retired, old DI Kev Thorpe had felt Bhatti’s collar about his PO Box business. That had involved the shifting of money gained by blackmail. Lee Arnold had worked that case on behalf of the victim who had been Chief Super at Newham nick. He was long gone, but Bhatti, like the dirt in Brick Lane’s gutters, remained.
When he did clock Ricky, the copper saw him jump.
‘Hello, Mr Bhatti,’ he said.
‘DI Montalban!’ He straightened his spine against the back of his chair. ‘Oh, what now?’
Ricky, like most locals, knew that Bhatti was a villain, but he was also physically harmless and was likeable inasmuch as he represented the old-style ‘dodgy’ bloke, often beloved of East Enders.
‘Don’t worry, you’re not in bother,’ Ricky said. ‘Unless you’ve something to tell me …’
He sat down next to the old man in what was usually cross-eyed Jabbar’s seat. It smelt a bit animal-y for some reason.
‘No, no, no,’ Bhatti said. ‘Life is as life is. My son is still unmarried, which breaks my heart. But, thanks be to God, we are all still living even if putting food on the table takes more and more effort every day. Giving up the PO Box business did me no good, DI Montalban. Even though, of course, it was quite the right thing to do.’
‘Well, it’s that I’ve come to talk to you about,’ Ricky said.
The old man’s face paled. ‘Oh, but I told you that is finished now!’ he said. ‘I swear that is in the past! Why would I lie? DI Montalban, if you saw my bank statements now, you would weep. Truly. I make nothing now because I do the right thing. And I do it with a good heart, you know.’
‘You’re a model citizen Zafar-ji,’ Ricky said. ‘And there’s no suggestion you’ve done anything wrong. I’m here about secrets, not wrongdoing. Nothing criminal.’
‘Secrets? What secrets? I don’t know any secrets!’
‘Ah, but I think you do,’ Ricky said. ‘Not, as I say, criminal stuff. But when you run a PO Box service it’s not easy to ignore who is passing messages to who. Now I know you know that we’ve had a murder on the Lane …’
‘Rajiv-ji,’ he said. ‘A terrible incident!’
‘Yeah.’
‘And who would do such a thing! Such a kind man, he was. Strange, but kind. You know it makes my old heart bleed the way these young people these days behave! So the man is a homosexual! This is Britain, he can be a homosexual. You might not like it, but provided he doesn’t make others homosexuals too …’
‘We don’t know who killed Rajiv-ji,’ Ricky said. ‘Not yet. We’re still looking into who he had contact with.’
‘Those gangster boys abused him,’ Bhatti said. ‘You know that boy who is their leader? His father is a drug addict—’
‘Rajiv-ji used your PO Box service, didn’t he?’
Ricky needed to cut Bhatti’s youth-blaming crap. He didn’t like the Briks Boyz or indeed any of the other kids on the Lane. Moaning about them was his thing.
‘I’ve solid intel that he used your service,’ Ricky said. ‘So don’t deny it.’
The old man shrugged. Then he said, ‘What can I say? It was a long time ago. The poor, unnatural man needed a friend. I made that possible for him.’
‘For a consideration.’
‘DI Montalban, we all have to make a crust. Rajiv-ji knew this. He was grateful to me.’
‘And in your debt.’
‘No!’ He shook his head. ‘He made a friend. That’s all! What good would it do to me to break his trust?’
‘His “friend” was a Muslim.’
Bhatti blanched. ‘Who tells you that?’
‘Never mind. I know,’ Ricky said. ‘And they weren’t just friends. You know that, Zafar-ji.’
‘I do not! It was a friendship. Between men. Normal and honourable.’
‘Oh, don’t give me that!’ Ricky said. ‘Why the PO Box bloody subterfuge if they was just friends? Don’t treat me like a fucking idiot.’
Flustered, Bhatti shook his head. ‘I swear I didn’t know of anything sexy …’
‘Zafar-ji, Rajiv-ji is dead,’ Ricky said. ‘Someone smashed him up and then stabbed him until he looked like something out of a splatter film. And I know you used to peddle them too. But what the fuck. We have to catch whoever killed Rajiv before they kill someone else. To do that I have to know everyone in Rajiv’s life. Now how long ago, exactly, did he have this PO Box?’
Bhatti looked down at his hands. ‘Last time, three years ago.’
‘You sure?’
He pointed to his head. ‘It’s all up here, DI Montalban,’ he said. ‘I remember everything. People say I should hav
e been a secret agent. Like James Bond.’
‘Don’t think you’ve got the body for it, but I see what you mean,’ Ricky said. ‘Now I want a name.’
Bhatti frowned. ‘Oooh.’ He shook his head.
‘Oh God.’
‘Now that would be betraying a confidence, DI Montalban,’ he said. ‘Rajiv-ji is dead, but his friend is not. My business, though defunct, was all about confidences. What would people think—’
‘Who the fuck do you think you are? A priest? A bleeding psychiatrist?’
‘Well …’
‘Bhatti, we can do this the easy way, which is what I’m attempting to do now, or the hard way, which means I get a warrant to tear your property apart so I can get that name,’ Ricky said. ‘And that would also involve my doing you for obstructing my investigation. Now what’s it to be?’
One of the things that had attracted Mumtaz to her late husband, Ahmet, was the fact that he didn’t have a beard. A lot of Muslim men did, but she didn’t like them. She wasn’t surprised that Abu Imad had a particularly straggly example. Militants did. But, sartorially, it did him no favours.
‘I wish I could see your beautiful face,’ he said.
Mumtaz was glad that he couldn’t. She had never considered wearing a niqab and probably never would, but at that moment it made her feel safe.
‘But I respect your covering,’ he continued. ‘If only all women knew how beautiful modesty can be.’
‘I would love to cover all the time,’ Mumtaz said. ‘But my parents say that they are afraid for me if I do it.’
‘They think you’ll be looked at as what people call a “militant”, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, they’re right but they’re wrong to stop you,’ he said. ‘There is nothing “militant” about covering. And anyway, who and what is a militant?’
‘My dad says it’s people who do jihad.’
‘Jihad is a religious duty,’ he said. ‘Is your dad a Muslim?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then he should know this. Don’t listen to him, Mishal.’
‘Aren’t we supposed to obey our parents?’
‘Not if they lead us away from the path of Islam,’ he said. ‘However much we love them, we have to oppose them if they try to stop us on our journey towards a World Caliphate. That’s stifling our Islamic destiny. My parents were the same.’
‘Do you speak to them?’
‘Not now,’ he said. ‘Even your closest family can’t get in your way if you want to come to support the Caliphate with all your heart. Do you want to do that, Mishal?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘You must’ve been looking for something when you found my video,’ he said.
‘I have been praying,’ she said. ‘I want to be useful. To the umma. So many Muslims have taken on these values of the West, like disrespecting motherhood and just thinking the whole meaning of life is about shopping …’
‘Totally!’
His eyes were so bright and so wide, they looked as if they were about to pop out of his head. The rings of kohl underneath them, to deflect the sunlight, further accentuated their size.
Where he was, exactly, Abu Imad wouldn’t say. She had to be content with ‘in the Caliphate’ for now. His surroundings looked hot and desert-like. Every so often a Kalashnikov-carrying, sand-stained ‘brother’ would walk behind him as he sat on the saddle of a motorbike. The image he was clearly going for was hard, handsome and cool. And without the beard, he was handsome, to Mumtaz. With it, he was very appealing to Mishal. She had to remember that.
‘And you say you support the Hammers!’ he continued. ‘A girl who realises that materialism is wrong, who covers and who is also a Hammer! Man, you are just the perfect woman, Mishal!’
In spite of her niqab, she lowered her head. Was he goading her or did he mean it?
‘And, of course, Palestine,’ she said. ‘Something has to be done.’
‘And ISIS is the outfit to do it!’ he said. ‘World Caliphate means no more Jews!’
‘Send them to America!’
‘No, Mishal, kill them,’ he said. ‘Or make them slaves. There’s no place in the World Caliphate for unbelievers!’
‘Yeah, but isn’t killing, like, a sin?’
‘Only if you kill a Muslim brother or sister. Don’t you know that?’ He laughed. ‘Oh poor little Mishal, you’re such an innocent. You must’ve seen ISIS videos on telly or online. Who do you think those people we’re beheading and burning are?’
‘I … er, I saw the Jordanian pilot in the cage …’
Back in January 2015 a Jordanian Airforce pilot called Muath al-Kasasbeh had been burnt alive in a cage by ISIS. He had been, according to his family, a devout Muslim.
‘He wasn’t a real Muslim, Mishal,’ he said. ‘He came to destroy the Caliphate. There are millions of false Muslims out there. We can’t show them no mercy. If we do, they’ll try to destroy us. They won’t, but they’ll try.’
She could hear the nervousness behind the bluster and the overcompensation. In spite of the motorbike, the camouflage gear and a very large pistol in a holster at his hip, Abu Imad was shitting himself. But was this because he was trying to use her as an excuse to get away? Only time would tell. But for the moment, just this short conversation had exhausted Mumtaz. She said, ‘I’ll have to go in a minute.’
‘No! Why?’
He looked genuinely hurt.
‘Why?’
But her mind had gone blank. Trying not to look at Lee across the other side of the office, she said the first thing that came into her head.
‘I’ve got a dance class,’ she said.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lee grimace.
‘A dance class! Oh, Mishal, you shouldn’t be doing such things! Dancing is haram, you must know that?’
Had she said ‘dance class’ because that was what she had done when she was a teenager?
‘My mum and dad make me do it,’ she said. ‘I broke my leg when I was little and the doctor suggested I do dance to strengthen it.’
He shook his head. ‘Your leg was beautiful as it was,’ he said. ‘It was broken at Allah’s behest and it would have been fixed by His grace too. Why do you make it ugly in this way?’
She didn’t know what to say. She knew that extremists thought like this. She’d heard them ranting on Brick Lane for years. But to actually have to confront it herself was a new experience. It was one that both alarmed and exhausted her.
‘Mum’s coming!’ she said.
‘Mishal—’
She cut the connection. Then she switched the laptop off.
Lee said, ‘Jesus!’
Mumtaz put a hand up to her head. ‘That,’ she said, ‘was horrifying.’
The shop was closed for the day and so they went to his house. Bob and a couple of uniforms round the back, Ricky plus two other woodentops, knocking the front door.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Ali Huq?’
‘You know it’s me, DI Montalban, what do you want?’ Ali said.
‘I’ve a few questions,’ Ricky said. ‘About the late Mr Rajiv Banergee.’
Ricky examined Huq’s face for signs of nervousness. Nothing.
‘What about him?’ Ali said.
‘I’d like you to come down the station and answer a few questions, please.’
‘About Rajiv? Why? I don’t know anything about him!’
‘Come voluntarily or come under caution,’ Ricky said. ‘It’s up to you, sir.’
Lee put a mug of strong tea on the desk in front of Mumtaz and then sat down.
‘I’m drained,’ she said.
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘I wanted to argue him to oblivion when we were talking about my leg!’
‘Did you break it?’
‘When I was seven, yes,’ she said. ‘And I did end up going to dance classes. My friend Amy used to do ballet and tap and her mum suggested to my mum that I go too. I’m s
ure I don’t walk with a limp now because of those exercises. But of course, according to the ultra-conservatives, I should. Fate or qadar is something one has to accept as a gift from Allah. And I do accept this. But it depends how far you choose to take it.
‘There are people who believe that we shouldn’t intervene in what fate hands out to us at all. Therefore, if you break your leg, you should leave it broken. But this is all very well until it happens to you.’
Lee smiled.
‘When it’s you, of course you get it fixed. Just like whenever you can’t get reception on your mobile, you move until you can. So there’s a lot of hypocrisy. Much of it is played out by extremists, like Abu Imad. If we try to help ourselves as mere mortals, we are in sin. Except if we do just sit back and do nothing we risk the sin of starving ourselves to death. They use the concept of qadar selectively.’ Then she said, ‘Lee, this idea about luring Abu Imad to Europe …’
‘Yeah?’
‘We know he’s been here because the tooth was posted in Amsterdam. If we assume he posted it himself.’
‘Nothing else makes a lot of sense.’
‘It’s common knowledge that ISIS fighters come in and out of Europe all the time,’ she said. ‘But everything I’ve heard about the women who join them seems to involve a journey out to Syria. I wonder if it’s some sort of test for prospective brides?’
‘I guess we’ll find out.’
‘We don’t know that Fayyad wants to leave ISIS, do we?’
‘No. But he was saying something when he sent the tooth to his parents.’
‘Or was he? Maybe he rescued the tooth from the mosque as a sort of reflex. Perhaps it caused him to think about his parents affectionately one last time. What if that feeling is now out of his system?’
‘He took a risk sending that parcel to his family,’ Lee said. ‘ISIS don’t do relics, just like they don’t do people’s parents.’
‘Unless it was ISIS who told him to send it,’ she said.
He sighed. ‘You think I’ve not thought of that?’ he said. ‘But why would they do that? To draw family members to them? Fayyad would know his father would be watching his brother and sisters like a hawk.’
Bright Shiny Things Page 9
