Bright Shiny Things

by Barbara Nadel

  The boys said they had evidence in the form of their testimonies. Hafez explained that wasn’t enough.

  ‘The man who says you killed Rajiv Banergee also says he saw you do it,’ Montalban said.

  The boys exchanged a look.

  ‘This man has given accurate descriptions of the two of you,’ Montalban continued. ‘DC Khan is going through your things at your foster home now.’

  Nabil spoke directly to Montalban in English. ‘Is it the man we showed you?’ he said.

  Montalban didn’t answer. It was strange to hear one of the kids speak English even though he knew they had to have basic skills. Nabil, at least, had to be rattled.

  It has been a long time since Lee had drunk a sweet lassi. He’d forgotten just how ruddy sweet they could be. He put his drink down on the Huq’s ornate garden table and lit a fag.

  Mumtaz said, ‘What you did was natural.’

  ‘What? Putting you in danger?’ he said.

  ‘No! You wanted to save Fayyad. Lee, in spite of what you might like to think, you are far more than a cynical bloke who’s been there, done that and got the T-shirt. There’s a part of you that’s like … what? Well, King Arthur’s knights …’

  He laughed. ‘You what?’

  ‘You need to save people,’ she said. ‘You wanted to save Fayyad. If there was the slightest chance that he was reaching out to his parents you wanted to take that risk for him and it was a good thing.’

  ‘Mumtaz, Abbas is dead, Djamila is dead …’

  She looked down at the ground.

  ‘Djamila was one of them,’ he said. ‘I can still hardly believe it. She radicalised Fayyad!’

  ‘Umm Khaled. I saw her and her brother kill their driver and the young man I thought was her husband or boyfriend,’ Mumtaz said. ‘From what she said at the time it seems they never had any intention of taking the two men with them. The police—’

  ‘Don’t think the people who questioned us were strictly police, Mumtaz.’

  ‘Whoever they were.’ She waved a hand in the air. ‘Lee, they asked me whether I’d seen Fayyad kill his father, but I didn’t. He came into that living room with Abbas’s dead body over his shoulder and then threw him to the ground. I don’t know who killed him. I accept it looked as if Fayyad had done it, but I can’t swear to it.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  Mumtaz had left her phone on so that he could hear what was happening but Lee’s phone had died.

  ‘He said my name, he smiled. I remember the woman I knew as Umm Khaled, Djamila, asking if Abbas was dead. They both spoke and acted in ways that were totally emotionless,’ she said. ‘Except when I was alone with him.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘For a short time, yes,’ she said. ‘The others were bringing cars around and organising luggage.’

  ‘To go where?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe back to the airport? The man who interviewed me in hospital told me nothing,’ she said.

  ‘So what happened when you were alone? What did he say?’

  ‘Lee, he tried to rape me,’ she said.

  She saw him put a hand out to her and then quickly draw it away.

  ‘He was serious.’

  He’d been aroused. Had it been by her beauty, by her helplessness or her treachery?

  ‘Fucking bastard!’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But I fought him off and then his sister came in. That was when the other men came in too, and when they died.’

  ‘So who killed Djamila?’

  Mumtaz shook her head. ‘I was asked that in hospital,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. I thought they were going to kill me.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘They raised their weapons and pointed them at me,’ Mumtaz said.

  Sumita Huq came out into the garden and said, ‘Mumtaz! Ask Mr Arnold if he’d like to eat with us this evening!’

  Lee smiled. Life, which so often meant food, went on. Particularly in Asian households.

  ‘That would be very nice, Mrs Huq,’ he called back.

  Both Lee and Mumtaz knew that he didn’t have a choice. Sumita would just wheedle and bully until he agreed to stay. The guest as king as usual.

  When her mother had gone, Mumtaz said, ‘Sorry …’

  ‘Don’t be,’ he said. ‘Your mother’s a great cook, I’m honoured.’ He put his cigarette out and then lit another. ‘So? What happened after they raised their weapons?’

  Mumtaz shook her head. ‘I shut my eyes,’ she said. ‘It was more a reflex than a conscious act.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘Then there was this noise. For some reason, unlike when the two men were killed, Fayyad didn’t use a silencer. He took it off. I don’t know why. The noise was horrific: explosions, gunfire, smoke everywhere. I don’t know whether I screamed or not. Probably not, because I was sure I was dead.’

  This time he took her hand. She let him.

  ‘But then I realised I wasn’t dead because I was in pain,’ she said. ‘Fayyad was on top of me. I don’t, even now, know whether he had been shot or not. I don’t think he was dead. I have a memory of him being taken away. But whoever questioned me didn’t say anything about him.’

  ‘Because if he is alive, and I think he is, I think I even saw him, then they’ll be questioning him,’ Lee said. ‘I came here via the al’Barris’ place.’

  ‘Aren’t you not supposed to see them?’

  ‘Are you …’

  ‘I had to agree to make no further contact,’ she said.

  ‘Well, yeah, me too,’ he said.

  ‘So why …’

  ‘I didn’t knock or anything. But I could tell someone was in,’ he said.

  ‘What will happen to them?’ Mumtaz said.

  That was why Lee had gone. To try and find that out. But Shereen too had to have been warned to make no contact. He knew that without even being told. Not for the first time he wondered whether Vi Collins knew anything. But even if she did, would she tell him? She hadn’t told him she’d been involved with the al’Barri family in the first place and so it seemed unlikely.

  ‘Lee?’

  Roused from his thoughts he said, ‘I dunno.’

  And he didn’t know. It had to depend upon what had happened to Fayyad al’Barri – whatever that might be.

  ‘You wanna redeem this?’

  He didn’t even look up to see who had laid the pawn ticket down in front of him.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You wanna pay sumfink off?’

  The pawnbroker’s assistant, or whoever he was, wasn’t going to look up. Absorbed in the delights of his iPhone, interrupted only by a cursory glance at the pawn ticket, he had better things to do.

  Bob Khan sighed, took his badge out of his pocket and said, ‘Police.’

  Even that usually provocative word took a while to seep into the man’s consciousness. Maybe it was because he was young? Or maybe it was just because he was bored shitless?

  He looked up. Blonde, overweight and probably temporarily doomed to singledom by the many vast spots and carbuncles that littered his face and neck, he said, ‘Yeah?’

  ‘That ticket,’ Bob said. ‘I’d like you to tell me who took it out and what it’s for.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? I’m a police officer,’ Bob said. ‘Just do it.’

  Bob had been surprised to see this boy on the counter at Jones’s. Usually old man Jones himself was in situ.

  ‘Where’s Mr Jones?’ Bob asked.

  The boy was opening the door to the back office. ‘He’s been in hospital for a month,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Bob said.

  ‘Cancer.’

  ‘Sorry. And you are?’

  ‘Tyson,’ the young man said. ‘I’m his nephew.’

  Tyson moved quickly into the back office once he’d told Bob his name. There were few names that would have suited him less.

  Bob was sad to hear that old Gareth Jones was ill. There we
re some good pawnbrokers and some that were not so good. Gareth was firm but fair. He was also nobody’s fool and wouldn’t take on any item he had reason to believe might be ‘hooky’. Apparently his father had been just the same. Before that, according to Montalban, the Joneses had run a dairy on Brick Lane. Even their cows had been Welsh, apparently.

  Tyson returned and put a small velvet bag on the counter.

  ‘Says here it’s a ring,’ he said. ‘Diamonds and emeralds, 24-carat gold.’

  Bob opened the bag. The ring was clearly a product of the subcontinent. A diamond and emerald confection fit for a maharani.

  ‘Who was the customer?’ Bob asked.

  Tyson Jones showed him the photograph he’d taken. The face wasn’t that of either of the Syrian boys.

  ‘I felt sorry for Mishal,’ Mumtaz said.

  Her mother was engaged in preparing a full-on Bengali banquet and so dinner was still hours away.

  ‘I know she didn’t exist. But girls like her do.’

  Lee realised he was still holding her hand. Mumtaz saw it too and withdrew. He felt slightly bereft.

  ‘It’s hard for young people who have a legitimate interest in religion,’ she said. ‘Their families are so afraid of radicalisation.’

  ‘You think? I see more kids covered up than ever before,’ Lee said.

  ‘As a white man, you would,’ she said. ‘There are just as many who don’t cover, you just don’t see them.’

  Was she right? From Lee’s perspective, covered girls and boys with beards seemed to be everywhere.

  ‘Muslim women have always covered,’ she said. ‘The difference now is that it has come to mean something negative.’

  ‘Why do you cover?’

  He’d never asked her before. He felt nervous doing it now.

  ‘I started when I got married,’ she said. ‘Out of respect for my husband. I thought that if I behaved respectably towards him, he would reciprocate. My husband was a very charming and supposedly successful man. I didn’t want to give him cause to be ashamed of me. What I didn’t know was that he was a hypocrite.’

  Ahmet Hakim had been a drinker, a womaniser, a gambler and an abuser of his own wife and daughter.

  ‘So when you found out, why didn’t you …’

  ‘Take it off?’ She smiled. ‘Because it made, and makes, me feel safe. Whatever horrors may be happening behind closed doors I can hold my head high as a respectable Muslim woman. I don’t get hassled by men when I cover. And I don’t want their attention, so it suits me.’

  ‘Yeah, but what you said about people being afraid of radicalisation …’

  ‘Oh, I’ve had racist abuse,’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘Do you tell anyone?’

  ‘No. Why would I? To upset Amma and Abba?’

  ‘So tell me,’ he said. ‘I’ll sort ’em out.’

  ‘And have you put yourself at odds with other white people?’

  ‘Scum.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, Lee,’ she said. She touched her headscarf. ‘This is my fight. And anyway it doesn’t affect my work, does it? I take off my scarf if I need to for a job.’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘But most of the time it helps,’ she said. ‘Think of all the clients we get because I cover. Women who would never go and see a PI in a million years under normal circumstances. Because of who and what I am, I can find out what their husbands are doing behind their backs, I can even sometimes give them ammunition to improve their lives. But I wasn’t talking about me.’

  No, she rarely wanted to do that. He wondered where she was with the crime family, the Sheikhs, now that they apparently had no further hold over her. If that was the case.

  ‘Until genuine religious curiosity, like Mishal’s, can be looked at rationally, more and more girls will be radicalised,’ she said.

  Lee sat back in his chair. It was a beautiful late afternoon in the Huq’s idyllic garden. Spitalfields had many such secret green spaces. It was one of the many reasons why the area had become popular with artists back in the 1980s.

  ‘The radical narrative is so feared,’ she said, ‘people are scared to talk about religion with their children. The women I work for—’

  ‘Mumtaz, this martyr stuff is glamorous,’ Lee said. ‘It attracts the kids. Young men don’t go to be soldiers just because they’re young. I know, I was one. It’s raging hormones too! Do you think these girls would go to Syria if they weren’t gonna meet up with some handsome fighter?’

  ‘That may be part of it.’

  ‘That’s a big part of it!’

  She shook her head. ‘But there has to be some genuine religious feeling too. Otherwise why put your life on the line in a country that is at war? The caliphate, and by that I don’t mean this ISIS abomination, is a legitimate Islamic concept.’

  ‘Yeah, and these kids have to know it’s an abomination …’

  ‘They comfort themselves that the atrocities are lies spread by the enemies of Islam.’

  ‘Yeah?’ It seemed to him as if she was acting as an apologist. ‘It’s all over the media. Intercepts of jihadi conversations prove these kids know what’s what.’

  ‘Yes, but I repeat, if they could have proper discussions about Islam without being made to feel as if they are being traitors to this country, then maybe …’

  ‘Maybe what, Mumtaz?’ Lee said. ‘Maybe they’d choose the rational, un-hormone-fuelled way forward?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  He shook his head. ‘Let me tell you something about my daughter, shall I?’

  Jodie Arnold was the same age as Shazia. She lived with her mother, Lee’s ex-wife, in Hastings. Mumtaz had only met Jodi once. She’d not been impressed, but she hadn’t been horrified either. The girl was a teenager.

  ‘Last year,’ he said, ‘my ex called me to tell me that Jodie had a boyfriend. I’d been expecting it for some time and thought “so what?”. But then I learnt who the boyfriend was. An ex-con with a coke habit. So I went down there. What I found was a bloke who looked like a caricature of a BNP supporter, twenty years Jodie’s senior. I also noticed that my daughter had some bruises from what she described as “play fighting”. But my daughter loved him …’

  ‘Lee, I didn’t know.’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ he said.

  ‘So what …’

  ‘I told Jodie I thought it was her hormones talking, not her. She of course disagreed,’ he said. ‘Then she told me she was having unprotected sex with this man because she wanted to give him a baby.’

  Mumtaz put a hand up to her mouth. That was one of the greatest fears the parents of girls could have.

  ‘So I gave up on her and went for him,’ Lee said.

  ‘How?’

  He sighed. ‘I called up a mate, and no I’m not telling you who, and we kicked the shit out of the arse’ole. I knew violence was all he’d understand and I was right. I told him if he ever saw my daughter again, I’d kill him. He left Hastings after that and Jodie fell to pieces.’

  ‘She wasn’t …’

  ‘Pregnant? No, thank God,’ he said. ‘But she did cry all the time. Couldn’t understand why he’d dumped her, said her life was over. Drama, drama, drama – then, less than a month later, she was back getting fake tans and spending money her old man doesn’t have. And yet she would have “died” without this gorilla. If so many of these radicalised kids weren’t teenagers, I wouldn’t put so much store in the part their hormones play in all this. But they are.’

  The boys didn’t want to be separated. Qasim was visibly scared.

  Ricky Montalban started with the other one, Nabil. He told Bob Khan his cod-psychological reason for this.

  ‘If Qasim thinks Nabil’s spilt his guts, then he’ll follow suit.’

  He’d surmised, rightly, that Nabil would at least start the proceedings in silence.

  Ricky said, ‘Our witness has described the two boys he saw attack Mr Banergee. Both of Middle Eastern appearance, one slightly talle
r than the other. That one has got a scar on his left cheek. You’ve got a scar on your left cheek.’

  Hafez the translator told the boy what Ricky had said. Nabil did not respond.

  Ricky cleared his throat. ‘How did you know the boxer Taha Mirza?’

  Nabil said that he didn’t know anyone of that name.

  ‘So why’d my officers find a pawnshop ticket in the name of Mr Mirza in your stuff at Mrs Hearn’s place?’

  Hafez translated that the boy knew nothing about any pawn ticket. He claimed he didn’t even know what one of those was. Ricky explained.

  But Nabil remained silent. Then, when he did speak, he gave Ricky a right proper gift from God.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Mumtaz had thought she was alone until she saw Ali sitting down beside the garden shed.

  She’d woken at four and, unable to sleep any longer, she’d washed, dressed and gone to sit in her parents’ garden to watch the sun rise. There, she’d seen her brother for the first time in over a week. He looked pale and haunted. She sat down beside him and tried to take one of his hands, but he wouldn’t let her.

  ‘You should’ve come down for dinner last night,’ she said. ‘It was lovely. Amma made malpua for dessert. Shazia had never had them before. You’ve always liked them. I guess she made them for you.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘She wouldn’t use that much saffron if she didn’t have a reason,’ Mumtaz said. ‘It’s dead expensive.’

  ‘Lee was here,’ he said. ‘Europeans like sweet pancakes. She made them for him.’

  ‘And for you.’

  ‘She won’t even look at me.’

  Mumtaz knew that her mother was struggling with her brother’s sexuality. Sumita wasn’t leaving the house. But this wasn’t so much about Ali as about the poisonous and untrue story about him that had appeared in the local press.

  ‘She will,’ Mumtaz said.

  ‘I didn’t do anything to those boys …’

  ‘I know.’

  He looked at her. ‘How?’

  ‘Because I know you,’ she said.