Bright Shiny Things

by Barbara Nadel

  The possibilities were mind-boggling. Abu Imad could be at this Good Easter place or not. But if he was there, then how had he got into the country? And if he wasn’t, what was waiting for her at this place, which may or may not be a village? She knew that there was a private airfield somewhere near Stansted because one of her old uni friends had taken flying lessons there. Maybe they were going to Amsterdam from that?

  She quickly glanced inside her handbag to make sure that she still had her phone.

  The trouble with luminol was that it had to be mixed with hydrogen peroxide in order to create a mist that could be sprayed on suspected bloodstains. And while the luminol itself didn’t degrade DNA material, the hydrogen peroxide could. This meant that there was a possibility they would never know the profile of the person who had bled onto Amir Charleston’s T-shirt.

  The lab said they’d call at five or thereabouts. It was way beyond that. Montalban was visibly twitchy. If the sample hadn’t degraded and it did come back positive for Rajiv Banergee’s blood, Amir Charleston was finished.

  The two Syrian kids hadn’t said whether they’d seen Charleston the night Rajiv died or not. What they had said was that they’d seen him with Taha Mirza, who they knew to be a Muslim ‘brother’. They claimed to like Mirza but had said that their landlord, Ali Huq, did not. Apparently there were a lot of ‘brothers’ Ali Huq hadn’t wanted the boys to be around. So far they hadn’t added anything to their sexual abuse charge against Huq. Significantly they hadn’t withdrawn it. But now that Huq was out of the church and actually in custody, hopefully they could begin to investigate his side of the story more easily. And if Ricky had his way, Ali Huq would soon be released into the care of his family. Hopefully, being in familiar surroundings would encourage him to open up.

  Montalban spoke. ‘You heard of “soft” radicalisation?’ he asked.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Bob said.

  ‘Means radicalising someone through some unconnected interest or activity,’ Montalban said. ‘Mirza goes to a meeting about Islam and meets a few blokes mildly interested in religion but really into fitness. He’s already running his own gym from his house for his mates, so he invites these new geezers along. They’re obviously looking for something. He says, according to Lewis and Cranmer, Charleston’s sparring partners, that he can train them for action in Syria. And Lewis and Cranmer, at least, liked the sound of that. Not because of religion, but because they both want to be Andy McNab.’

  ‘That’s pretty lame.’

  ‘Yeah. But I don’t think it applies to Charleston,’ he said.

  ‘Mirza’s not owned up to training for Syria, guv,’ Bob said.

  ‘Lewis and Cranmer disagree, as do the many truly vile bits of film he has in his house.’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘Did poor old Rajiv flutter his eyelashes at Charleston just after his Fight Club session when he was pumped full of testosterone?’ Montalban said. ‘Or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

  ‘But if Charleston did kill him, why?’

  Montalban shrugged. ‘Pumped up? Maybe he really did get the twisted religion of the jihadis? Islam may well mean more to him than the others because his mum’s Pakistani.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Anyway, we’ll find out,’ Montalban said. ‘Because we will hear from the lab any minute …’ He pointed at the landline on his desk, ‘… now …’

  Nothing happened.

  Bob smiled. ‘As a Muslim,’ he said, ‘I have to say it makes me so sick the way people make up their own Islam. Infidels!’ He shook his head. ‘They talk about infidels? They’re infidels. All different groups! The Boyz …’

  ‘Oh come on, with the Boyz, it’s just an excuse to beat people up and nick their drugs.’

  Bob smiled. ‘True. But this Mirza guy and Ali Huq and his network? That’s serious stuff, guv.’

  ‘I know.’ Montalban pointed at the phone again. ‘Now!’

  This time the phone rang.

  They stopped outside a house that Mumtaz’s mother would have described as a ‘typical English cottage’. Four-square and white, it stood in the middle of a large, well-tended garden. It even had roses round the door.

  The woman paid the cab driver and said to Mumtaz, ‘Come inside.’

  She opened the front door into a wood-panelled hall. It smelt of pine and rose. Mumtaz stepped over the threshold.

  ‘When can I see Abu Imad?’ she asked.

  The woman said, ‘Soon.’

  She led her into a large lounge where the balance of the house, in Mumtaz’s opinion, went a bit awry. Large, blood-red leather sofas and ornate gilded tables topped with marble didn’t look right. They also reminded her of Wahid Sheikh’s tasteless house. Like that place, there were no books, and in a room with ceiling beams that looked strange.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Mumtaz asked.

  ‘I am Umm Khaled,’ the woman said. ‘Sit down and be comfortable.’

  And then she left the room. Mumtaz heard her lock the door behind her.

  She sat down and tried to steady her breathing. She looked at the phone in her handbag and wondered whether she should use it. Umm Khaled would almost certainly hear her if she tried and also she was only supposed to use the phone to call Abu Imad.

  Then it rang.

  Her nerves already at breaking point, Mumtaz just managed to turn what would have been a scream into a whimper. But it wasn’t easy. She took the call.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, my darling!’ she heard him say. ‘Are you comfortable in that beautiful house in the country?’

  ‘Where are you?’ she said.

  ‘Close by.’ She heard him laugh. ‘I’m so sorry you had to go to all the bother of buying an airline ticket, but we had to make sure that nobody knew where you’d be.’

  Mumtaz felt cold. ‘Really.’

  ‘As I told you, I am a wanted man. Now listen, Umm Khaled will take care of you until I come. So you just relax and prepare for the flight we really are taking.’

  ‘What flight? Where?’

  He laughed again. ‘Well, not to Amsterdam,’ he said.

  ‘So, where?’

  ‘So, I will tell you when I see you,’ he said. ‘Be patient. All you need to know is that I love you.’

  He cut the connection. Mumtaz wiped sweat from her forehead. Stopping herself screaming at him had been tough. Maybe what he’d told her was correct, that he’d organised this change of plan for security reasons. But then it was also possible he’d planned it all along. Maybe he’d known all along, about her …

  Mumtaz heard noises from outside the door. A woman talking, a man’s laughter. Had he already arrived?

  Montalban charged him.

  Amir Charleston looked bemused. Eventually he said, ‘I didn’t do it.’

  Later, Ricky took Bob to the Ten Bells on Commercial Street for what he called a ‘few lemonades’. In Bob’s case that was true. Ricky, on the other hand, was on the lager.

  It was a warm evening and so they sat outside on the street watching as tourists went by and pointed at the pub.

  ‘That’s the place where Jack the Ripper met his victims!’

  It wasn’t. It was where Jack met his last victim, but neither Ricky nor Bob could be bothered to correct them. Jack the Ripper was a major industry in Spitalfields. Who were they to disrupt that?

  Instead, Ricky raised his glass and proposed a toast.

  ‘To luminol,’ he said.

  ‘To luminol.’

  Of course it hadn’t been the luminol itself that had pointed the finger of guilt at Amir Charleston. That had come about via a DNA test. But it had been the luminol that had shown the way when it exposed bloodstains from Rajiv Banergee on Charleston’s T-shirt.

  After the toast they sat in companionable silence for a few moments until Bob said, ‘You think Taha Mirza knew what Charleston did?’

  ‘No idea,’ Ricky said. ‘So far, there’s nothing to connect him directl
y to the killing of Rajiv.’

  ‘Yeah, but what about his connection to that dodgy lawyer in Newham? Didn’t his computer throw up contact?’

  ‘Yeah, but …’ Ricky shrugged. ‘Dunno. Super says that’s a no-go area.’

  ‘I wonder why?’

  ‘Could be anything.’

  ‘Terrorism?’

  ‘Who knows? Vakeel Uddin’s a lawyer, maybe it’s fraud?’ he laughed. Then he became grave. ‘Or maybe not. Whatever it is, it’s Newham’s business, not ours. We don’t touch it.’

  Behind the house and its garden was farmland. Flat and featureless, there were few places to conceal oneself apart from a half-demolished hay barn. It was, however, a good place from which to observe the house. But it was there that any advantages they might have, stopped.

  Lee didn’t even want to look at Abbas. Without him, he might stand a chance of finding out what was going on, but just his presence was driving him mad. Why the fuck had he thought that going to Amsterdam was a good idea? What did he think he might do when he got there? Lee didn’t bother to ask. What was the point? He was saddled with him in a village with no facilities – not even a shop that he could see – and no car. And Mumtaz was in trouble. What kind of trouble he didn’t dare think.

  He took pictures of the house on his phone and, when a man walked out of the back door, he snapped him too. Not that there was much to see, just a large figure wearing a greatcoat with the collar pulled up around his face. He was either cold or he was frightened of being recognised.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Abbas whispered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lee said. ‘Left me crystal ball at home.’

  ‘Sarcasm, huh?’

  ‘You got it.’

  Abbas moved back into the shadowed interior of the barn, leaving Lee alone with his guilt.

  Persuading Mumtaz to take this job had been easy. Just the thought of people’s kids hotfooting it to the caliphate made her shudder. As a Muslim herself she also felt it was her duty to prevent the spread of the ISIS ideology. He couldn’t know what that felt like. What he could and did know was how he’d taken advantage of that to help a friend. Not even really a client, a friend. So far, he’d made sweet FA out of the search for Fayyad. In fact he was out of pocket.

  ‘Look!’

  Abbas was back, pointing at one of the windows on the ground floor.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look! Look!’ He moved Lee’s head into the right position and then said, ‘Fayyad!’

  Lee squinted. There was a man and he did have a beard. But he couldn’t be sure it was Fayyad. From where he was, it could be almost anyone. He said so. But by that time he was speaking to thin air because Abbas was running, keeping low to the ground, towards the house.

  TWENTY

  His father was visibly relieved to see him. But Ali Huq’s mother didn’t even look at him.

  ‘She will come round,’ Baharat Huq said. ‘Inshallah.’

  Shamima Iqbal sat down opposite the two men and said, ‘DI Montalban will be round to see you in the morning. You know, Ali, he had to pull quite a few strings to allow you to be released into the care of your family.’ Then she added, ‘I assume it’s OK …’

  ‘This is my son’s home,’ the old man said.

  ‘Which you mustn’t leave for the time being.’

  Ali lowered his head. ‘No.’

  ‘That’s very important,’ Shamima said. ‘DI Montalban has charged an individual with the murder of Rajiv Banergee but we’re far from out of the woods.’

  Baharat frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The defendant will have to appear in court in order to enter his plea,’ she said. ‘I have to tell you that we think, at the moment, that he will plead not guilty. But that isn’t set in stone. He may change his plea at any time and also, of course, when the case comes to trial, he could lose.’

  ‘Could lose?’

  ‘Nothing is ever certain, Mr Huq,’ she said to the old man.

  She’d got the call from Ricky Montalban when she’d been in the crypt with Ali Huq. He’d charged the City banker just after the lab had confirmed that the blood on the suspect’s T-shirt had belonged to Rajiv Banergee.

  They’d had Mr Banergee’s sister in earlier, a Mrs Chopra. Shamima didn’t know what had gone on, but she’d seen the woman leave. She’d looked furious. Shamima had wondered whether she’d killed her brother but then maybe her expression had more to do with Mrs Chopra’s rather fierce personality.

  Sadly, Shamima had heard nothing more about the sexual assault charges made by the two boys against Ali Huq. Montalban was convinced they were making it up, but Shamima wasn’t so sure. Didn’t you always have to make believing child victims your starting point? Also there was something else going on, so she’d heard. Certain connections Montalban had made had led, so it was said, to a situation of stalemate. People had been implicated in the Huq investigation who could not be touched, not yet.

  Old embittered officers would sometimes mutter about villains under surveillance, sometimes for years, who were never brought to justice. Shamima didn’t like to think about it.

  Umm Khaled brought her mango juice.

  ‘Is Abu Imad—’

  ‘He’ll come,’ the woman said. ‘Here. Have a drink.’

  Mumtaz took the glass from Umm Khaled’s gloved hand. Why was she so completely covered indoors? Then she remembered she’d heard a man’s voice. It hadn’t sounded like Abu Imad’s but she couldn’t be sure. Was he already there? And if he was, why hadn’t he come to see her?

  Umm Khaled left and, again, locked the door behind her.

  Mumtaz sat down and sniffed the juice. She was very thirsty but she distrusted it and so she poured it onto the roots of a pot plant. Then she took her phone out. She couldn’t hear Umm Khaled any more but she also couldn’t see through the keyhole in the door – presumably because the key was still in it. She could be outside, listening.

  Mumtaz really wanted to call Lee. She had to trust that he was somewhere nearby. She looked out of the window and saw the taxi they had arrived in. It was parked behind the house. And yet she’d seen it drive away …

  What was happening?

  Then she saw the taxi driver.

  Without thinking any more, she punched Lee’s mobile number into her phone. He answered after one ring.

  ‘Mumtaz!’

  She whispered, ‘Lee this is bad.’

  ‘I know!’

  ‘The taxi driver who brought us here is one of them, whoever they are.’

  ‘Christ!’

  And then there was a sound of breaking glass, followed by screaming.

  ‘Mumtaz!’

  But she’d dropped the phone.

  Once Shazia arrived, Sumita Huq left her bedroom.

  ‘How are you, darling?’ she asked the girl. ‘I hope you’ll be happy staying here for a few days.’

  Shazia smiled. She didn’t much like being in Brick Lane. It was a long journey to college and also her step-grandparents, though kind, rarely left her alone.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But I will have to work, didima. I have my A levels …’

  ‘Of course. Of course. You can shut yourself in your room and we will all be as quiet as mice.’

  But Shazia knew that wouldn’t happen. First would come the many little treats her didima would cook for her, then they’d hassle for her to come and watch David Attenborough on the TV. Or something.

  Cousin Aftab had driven her to Brick Lane. Just lately he had become extremely protective. This manifested in fears about her walking the streets on her own. It was really sweet, if a bit irritating.

  ‘Now, your Uncle Ali is with us for a little while too,’ Sumita said. ‘He’s not very well.’

  ‘Oh. What’s wrong?’

  Her didima waved a hand. ‘Ah, nothing,’ she said. ‘He will be in his old room for most of the time. Just know that he isn’t ignoring you. He’s just not well.’

  Shazia went to what had become ‘
her’ room at the top of the house and looked out of the large weaver’s window into the street. Long ago the Huq’s house had belonged to Huguenots, protestant refugees from France famed for their silk-weaving skills. They had been clever people. British history was littered with Huguenot names like Isambard Kingdom Brunel the engineer and Joseph Bazalgette the man who had designed the London sewerage system. Shazia wondered whether, one day, the name ‘Hakim’ would join the long list of notable immigrant families in Britain. When she was the first Asian heritage, female Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, then maybe.

  She took her books and her computer out of her bag and lay down on the bed. She knew Uncle Ali wasn’t ill. He was implicated in a sex scandal and in the murder of Rajiv-ji. People said they had been lovers. Shazia could understand that. Uncle Ali, in spite of his outwards piety, had to have a sex life of some sort. Although why fun-loving Rajiv-ji had found that dried-up old stick attractive was beyond her. Shazia had never liked him. But he was her amma’s brother and she did worry about what Uncle Ali’s antics were doing to her.

  A voice from downstairs interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘Shazia, darling! Food!’

  At this rate she was going to fail her A levels and then she’d never be Commissioner of the Met. But what could she do?

  Shazia called back, ‘Coming!’

  The door opened and there he was. Abu Imad. Over his shoulder was a man who was either unconscious or dead.

  Mumtaz was behind the sofa, but he saw her.

  ‘Ah, Mishal,’ he said. First there’d been the sound of breaking glass falling to the ground, then voices, then a dull thudding sound. She stood up.

  With what looked like ease, he threw the body down on the floor. Small flecks of blood hit her face. To Mumtaz’s horror she recognised it. In spite of the blood that smeared his face and his neck, she could see that it was Abbas al’Barri. He had a great bloody hole in his chest where he’d been shot. What had he been doing in the house?