‘Maybe they want Abbas?’
‘Why? Abbas was a translator. That was it. He wasn’t a member of the Baa’th Party, he didn’t have anything to do with Saddam. Alright, he’s a Shi’a and ISIS don’t like them, but why him?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I needed to say it.’
‘I understand your anxieties, Mumtaz. And like I’ve said, you can stop this whenever you want.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t know why I’ve gone along with something so hooky meself. If DI Collins found out, neither of us would ever work in this business again. I s’pose I feel I still owe Abbas something.’
‘Because he saved your life? I’m sure Abbas doesn’t think about it like that,’ she said.
‘Ya think?’ He shook his head. ‘I invaded his country.’
‘In a legitimate war to liberate Kuwait,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Lee, it wasn’t like the second Iraq War. We didn’t get involved on the say-so of liars. There was no choice.’
‘But Iraq got worse after we went in,’ he said. ‘We should’ve finished Saddam off then. But we pulled back and so lots of people were just left to their fate. Abbas and Shereen never wanted to be exiled. And now this thing with Fayyad …’ He shook his head. ‘You know, Mishal should bring up the subject of photography again. Might take his mind off the evils of dancing.’
‘Mmm.’ Mumtaz turned her head away. ‘A bit technical for me …’
‘I think Shereen gave you a bit too much info.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll be honest, Lee, I have for the most part avoided it.’
‘You know that Bhatti lies, don’t you?’ Ali said.
‘And you know that he’s an old crook with an eye towards the main chance,’ Ricky replied.
Ali Huq’s lawyer, a man called Maurice Glass, also one-time resident of the Lane, said, ‘Do you have any evidence for this alleged relationship between Mr Huq and Mr Banergee, besides word of mouth, DI Montalban?’
Ricky had been both shocked and pissed off that Ali Huq had called his solicitor. He’d just wanted a quiet chat. But he could see where this could go. Glass doing him for harassment. Except that, under the circumstances, he probably wouldn’t. He held up his phone which displayed the photograph Zafar Bhatti had sent him.
‘What’s this?’
‘That,’ Ricky said, ‘is you and Mr Banergee on a day out to the Tower of London.’
They were holding hands, smiling and looking into each other’s eyes. It was a nice picture. What a pity they’d been too wrapped up in each other to notice they were being snapped. Bhatti had said, ‘I only took it because I thought they looked so happy and I thought I might give it to them later.’
But he hadn’t. Taking that photograph had had a much darker purpose. Not that Ricky could prove anything of the sort.
What had Bhatti been doing at the Tower? Had he followed the couple and, if so, from where?
‘Is that you?’ Ricky asked. ‘On the left?’
It was so obviously him if he denied it he’d be a bigger fool than Ricky already thought he was. Now he’d seen the photograph and spoken to Bhatti, it made sense. Ali Huq had always been a stranger in his own skin. Even as a kid he’d always set himself a bit apart from others, even his own siblings. And this religious stuff was too intense. According to the odious Bhatti it had come upon Ali suddenly. In his opinion, it had happened when Ali and Rajiv Banergee had finished their affair four years before.
‘Rajiv-ji just cried all the time,’ the old electrical shop man had told Ricky. ‘I quite feared for his sanity. But Ali-ji … Well, he had to keep it to himself, didn’t he?’
Ali said, ‘Did that come from Bhatti?’
‘Is it you?’ Ricky said.
Glass said, ‘You don’t have to say anything.’
But Ali ignored him. ‘Yes.’
The lawyer looked at Ricky and shrugged. Glass’s dad, Norman, had rented a room to Baharat Huq when he’d first arrived in London with one battered suitcase and a saucepan.
‘Ali—’
‘Maurice, it’s OK,’ Ali said. He looked at Ricky. ‘I suppose you want to know whether I killed Rajiv?’
‘Believe me, I’ve no interest in exposing your sexual preferences to the world …’
‘I don’t like being me. I am a sin.’
Neither Ricky nor Glass knew how to respond to this. Eventually it was Ali who spoke.
‘For a man to love another man, in a sexual way, is a sin,’ he said. ‘In order to mitigate that sin I have to either be punished or I have to abstain from that activity. I failed.’
‘You, your brother and your sister used to go round Rajiv Banergee’s shop when you were children,’ Ricky said. ‘Your brother Asif particularly liked being with him.’
‘I don’t know how you know that. Do you remember?’ Ricky didn’t answer. ‘Rajiv gave us sweets and tea and spoke to us as if we were grown-ups,’ Ali continued. ‘My brother was a normal little boy who saw nothing wrong with playing with a much older man who gave him treats. But then Asif is normal, why would he? I knew I had to keep my distance, not because of Rajiv-ji, but because of myself. He never behaved in a sexual way towards any of us. But I knew instinctively what he was. And when I grew up it was not Rajiv who initiated our affair, but me.’
‘Did you finish it too?’
‘We always met away from the Lane. We’d make arrangements using Bhatti’s PO Box. Old-fashioned, but how can anyone use a mobile phone with any degree of privacy now? People just pick phones up and look at them, email is not secure. And yes I was, and am, paranoid.’
‘You must’ve known Bhatti would always be a weak link?’
‘He’s also venal. I knew I could control him with money. When I finished it with Rajiv I gave Bhatti a thousand pounds.’
‘What for?’
‘For nothing.’
‘To buy his silence?’
‘I guess. He never asked about us and we never told him anything but of course he knew. I thought that if I could just finish it I could wipe my sin away somehow. But God isn’t bought off, is he?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ricky said. ‘I don’t do all that. Where were you the night Rajiv was murdered?’
‘At home.’
‘Anyone corroborate that?’
‘No.’
Glass put a hand on Ali’s shoulder. ‘You need to stop now and we need to talk.’
Ali smiled. ‘No, Maurice,’ he said. ‘That photo can’t be unseen. If I’d known about it, I would never have called you.’ He looked at Ricky. ‘I was alone.’
‘Which means that the two young men who are staying with you were out.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘I believe at a meeting.’
‘What kind of meeting?’
‘An Islamic study group, I believe,’ he said.
‘What did you do?’
‘That evening? I read and then went to bed.’
‘Read what?’
‘The Holy Koran,’ he said. ‘I read little else.’
‘What about online?’
‘I don’t have a computer at home, only at work.’
‘What about your boys?’
‘Yes, they have computers. They’re young. Young people can’t manage without computers.’ Then suddenly awash with tears he broke down. ‘I didn’t kill Rajiv!’ he said. ‘I loved him! May I be forgiven, but I loved him more than my life!’
ELEVEN
What was the time difference between the UK and Syria?
She looked at the time registration. Two hours. That meant that Abu Imad had tried to Skype her at just past four in the morning, Syrian time. There were messages on Facebook too.
Where are you Mishal? I need to talk to you.
He’d lived in the UK for years. Where did he think a pious teenage girl had been at 6 a.m.? Did he really imagine she’d been waiting for him to call as soon as she opened her eyes?
Mumtaz ignored it. She had a meeting with a woman in Dagenham w
ho suspected her aged father had fallen under the spell of an Albanian prostitute. The client, a Mrs Carter, was worried that her father had changed his will in favour of this woman.
She closed her laptop and put on her headscarf. Abu Imad would have to wait.
Then her phone rang. For a moment she wondered whether he’d somehow got hold of her number, but when she saw the screen, she realised it was her father. She answered.
‘Hi, Abba.’
‘Oh, Mumtaz,’ he sounded breathless.
Her heart began to race. ‘Abba?’
‘Your brother Ali’s house is being searched by the police!’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘No one will say! Your amma is just crying!’
‘Abba!’
‘Your brother Asif is coming. You must come!’
‘I’m working,’ she said.
‘This is family!’
‘I must go to meet a client,’ she said. ‘It’s too late to cancel. I’ll come as soon as I’ve finished. I will be as quick as I can.’
He went quiet for a moment. Good Bangladeshi girls were supposed to put family first, always. But her father was also a realist and, more significantly, he liked Lee Arnold.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘But please hurry.’
‘I will.’
As soon as she finished the call, she contacted Lee who said she could take as much time as she needed. Abu Imad would have to wait even longer.
The house was grim. Not dirty or even messy, just antiquated and scruffy. There was no music, no TV, no books, apart from the Koran, Hadith and learned commentaries on the Holy Book.
Bob Khan remembered Ali Huq when he’d been a handsome young graduate. A little more grave than his peers, he’d been someone that fathers pointed to and said, ‘When you grow up maybe you can be like him.’ Not knowing who he really was. But then nobody except Rajiv Banergee and Mr Bhatti had known that – as far as they knew. Now Ali Huq sat in his chilly kitchen with his head in his hands.
Montalban was at the nick interviewing the two Syrian boys who had lived in the one room in the house that contained significant amounts of stuff. In contrast to Huq’s thin mattress on his bedroom floor, both boys had new, comfortable beds, a TV, fashionable clothes and computers. Those had been taken away for analysis. One of the woodentops had told him that he’d found wank mags under one bed. It figured. Religious or not, Qasim Malouf and Nabil Abdella were young men with sexual needs. Bob wondered whether they would say whether Ali Huq had tried to satisfy those needs. He also wondered who the kids were.
They’d told Montalban that they both had refugee status and that Ali Huq was helping them to find jobs. So far there was no evidence for the latter. Was he screwing the kids in exchange for board and lodging or was the ‘holy’ act in fact real? If it was, did that mean the boys could be extremists? The police had been aware of Huq and his sometimes extreme, publicly voiced opinions for some time. But was that just a cover for his homosexuality?
His phone rang.
‘Khan.’
‘Bob.’ It was Montalban.
‘Sir.’
‘Caught a whisper that Zayn Chaudhuri might be in Wapping,’ he said.
‘Bit upmarket for him, isn’t it? Any idea where he might be, guv?’
‘He was seen on Prusome Street, round the old council flats,’ Montalban said.
‘A lot of them have been sold to posh people, haven’t they?’
‘Yeah, but some of the old tenants are hanging on. Can’t think of anyone round there who might give shelter to a gobshite like Zayn. You know Wapping, Bob?’
The Thames-side district of Wapping wasn’t a place CID went to all that often. Fiercely gentrified since the late 1980s, Wapping was loft-conversion land with a few council tenants thrown in for extra colour, to make it ‘real’ for the hipsters. Views of Tower Bridge and quiet streets made it very desirable.
‘Not much, guv,’ Bob said. ‘I haven’t got any family down there. Although my brother Najib has in-laws down there.’
‘They council tenants?’
‘Yeah. Can’t remember exactly where they live. I’ll call Naj. His mother-in-law is a right Asian Auntie, knows everybody’s business, disapproves of most things.’
Montalban laughed. Then he said, ‘I’m getting some size twelves on the ground. Maybe Zayn was just passing through, but it’s all we’ve got at the moment. CCTV’s a bit thin on the ground in that part of the manor.’
‘Why would you have CCTV when you don’t have anything?’ Bob said.
Mumtaz hadn’t seen her brother Asif for months. As usual, he was wearing clothes that made him look even more like a kid than he already did. The youngest Huq sibling, Asif was slim, pale and funny. He kissed his sister on both cheeks and then hugged her.
‘How you doing, Philip Marlowe?’ he said, referencing Raymond Chandler’s legendary Los Angeles PI.
She smiled. ‘I’m OK.’ Then she looked around to make sure that her mother was out of the room. ‘How’s Tracey?’
Although welcomed into the Huq family with open arms by their father, Mumtaz and Asif’s mother, Sumita, didn’t approve of his white, British partner.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘Last check-up went well.’
‘Good.’
Tracey was recovering from having a hysterectomy. Another bone of contention with Sumita. Now, unless he moved on to someone else, her youngest son would never be a father.
They both sat down.
‘Have you managed to speak to Ali?’ Mumtaz asked.
‘No. No one has.’
‘I drove past his house and so I saw the police cars outside.’
‘Dad reckons he’s in the house,’ Asif said. ‘DI Montalban, used to be Ricky Montalban …’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know him. He interviewed me about the death of Rajiv Banergee. I assume you know …’
‘Yes.’ He shook his head. ‘Poor Rajiv-ji. Where are we getting all these crazies from, eh? I don’t know this, OK, but I suspect that Montalban is doing Ali’s place because of those kids he’s taken in. Maybe he thinks they killed Rajiv.’
‘Oh, surely not!’
‘Mumtaz, they could be anyone,’ Asif said. ‘They could even be ISIS. You know how Ali has become! I can’t even speak to him these days. He looks at me as if I’m a piece of shit on his shoe. I’ve given up even trying to communicate.’
‘DI Montalban interviewed your brother late yesterday.’
They both started to get up when their father came in.
‘Oh, sit, sit,’ he continued. He sat. ‘To be honest, I have thought for a while that it is only a question of time before your brother gets himself into trouble. He has been mixing with bad people for a long while. Then these boys from Syria. Who are they? Why are they here? They make nuisances of themselves in the name of Allah. Persecuting people. The problem with so many these days is that they don’t read the Koran. Read it with your whole mind and you will not find hate, compulsion and all these evil things these people do. They follow false teachers, arrogant men who know neither Allah nor humanity.’
‘Abba, is Ali’s house being searched because of those boys?’ Mumtaz said.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I imagine so.’
Her computer beeped. Another message from Abu Imad. Mumtaz put it in her bag and ignored it. He’d have to wait.
Baharat Huq shook his head. ‘Your brother’s twisted take on religion has changed him,’ he said. ‘But I cling to the idea that I have brought up only good children and that he has not hurt anyone. But those two boys … They persecuted Rajiv-ji. I think they may even have beaten him. He had black eyes. If I’m asked I will tell DI Montalban.’
‘Of course.’ Mumtaz took his hand. ‘Rajiv-ji was always kind to us when we were children. I’m certain Ali would not have hurt him, however much he might have changed lately.’
‘Do you really think so?’
She just smiled. She didn’t know. Her brother had changed so much in recen
t years she had no idea what he might be capable of.
‘Abba, do you want me to call DI Montalban?’ she said. ‘I have his number.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ the old man said. ‘Will calling make it worse, do you think?’
‘Can’t see how it can,’ Asif said. ‘And we are his next of kin. Dad, how did you find out what was going on?’
‘From Morrie Glass,’ he said. ‘He told me that Ali had been taken by DI Montalban and that soon they would be searching his house.’
‘So Morrie knows …’
‘Of course he does! But he is a lawyer and so he cannot give out information!’
‘Has Ali been arrested?’
‘No.’
Mumtaz’s machine beeped again.
‘What is that?’ her father said.
‘Nothing,’ she said. She only kept the sound on in case it wasn’t Abu Imad. But a quick look at her computer screen confirmed that it was. She shoved it behind her.
‘Abba, I think that Asif and I should go to Ali’s house,’ Mumtaz said. ‘If he’s not been arrested there’s no reason why we shouldn’t talk to him.’
‘If he’s in. If he hasn’t run away and drowned himself in the canal.’
‘Abba, he won’t have done that,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Suicide is haram.’
There was a knock at the door. Asif got up and looked out of the window to see who it was.
‘Susi Banergee,’ he said. ‘What does she want?’
‘The poor woman is bereaved!’ Baharat said. ‘Let her in, my son! We must offer comfort and hospitality. Mumtaz, you must make tea!’
Tommy Moore, Lee’s off-the-radar absent father of at least three of his client’s seven children, lived in East Ham. It was a dark basement underneath a house of what Tommy called ‘Pakis’. Lee told him how lucky he was that the ‘Pakis’ even allowed a tosser like him to set foot on their premises. Tommy didn’t like paying for any of the estimated fifteen kids he’d fathered over his almost sixty years on earth. Unfortunately for him, Lee’s client Della Smith had other ideas.
‘I’m working my tits off to pay for them kids,’ she’d said when she’d engaged Lee’s services. ‘The other father’s dead but I know Tommy’s out there somewhere.’
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