Bright Shiny Things

by Barbara Nadel

  Baharat said nothing.

  ‘I took lovers,’ she said after a pause. ‘I knew it was wrong. But Dilip was unfaithful first. Not that I’m using that as an excuse. And he was far more discreet than I. That was my mistake.’

  ‘He has some proof …’

  ‘Yes. I am a silly woman. I knew I wouldn’t come out of any divorce well, given the circumstances. With no children, and having not had a job since I married him, I knew that Dilip could get everything. My brother said I could come and live with him, which was kind. But I baulked at it. Back on the Lane? After all these years? Imagine how people would laugh!’

  He wanted to tell her about his own recent experiences regarding his own family’s reputation, but he let her carry on. She had to know most of it anyway.

  ‘I begged Rajiv to sell. I said we could both move to wherever we wanted from the proceeds of the building and the business. Papa left it to both of us, you see. Over a million pounds each. We could have nice new apartments in Southall for half a million, or a pair of cottages in Canterbury – Rajiv always liked Canterbury. We’d have money left over, so we wouldn’t have to work …’ She shook her head. ‘But he wouldn’t even discuss it. He said he needed time. I said I didn’t have time and then I was very rude and told him that I couldn’t live in that damp old flat upstairs where we had both been brought up. I said it just wasn’t good enough. Who do I think I am, eh?’

  Baharat smiled. Susi Banergee had always thought herself to be a cut above. As a teenager he remembered her telling people that she was the granddaughter of a maharajah. Although to be fair her late father had put that idea in her head. There was a man who should have been on the stage.

  ‘I was sorry as soon as I’d hit him,’ Susi said. ‘But by that time, it was too late. Rajiv was good about it, but I had to go. I meant to apologise in the morning. But of course by that time he was dead. I take it you now know who killed my brother, Baharat-ji?’

  ‘Indeed. And I apologise to you that the people who committed this terrible sin were given shelter by my son,’ he said.

  ‘I am just relieved that it was not Ali-ji who did this thing, not that I ever believed that he did,’ she said. ‘You know, Baharat-ji, that my brother and Ali …’

  ‘I know now,’ he said. ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘Only after his death,’ she said. ‘I found some letters. I didn’t tell the police. In fact I didn’t tell them much, to begin with. I thought if I told them I had attacked my brother they would think that I killed him.’

  He said, ‘Now we all know better.’

  ‘We do.’

  They sat in silence for a few moments and then Baharat said, ‘So what will you do now, Susi?’

  She smiled. ‘You know, after all of my raging at poor Rajiv about being stuck here back on the Lane, I am going to stay.’

  ‘Stay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You know, Baharat-ji, I can make enough money from renting out the shop to be able to live a decent lifestyle. Admittedly I won’t be able to buy any more genuine designer handbags, but so what? Our old flat is not exactly to my taste but I can change it.’

  ‘Are you not still worried about what people might say?’

  She shook her head. ‘Of course I am,’ she said. ‘But to do anything else is impractical. The shop will give me an income, the flat will be my home. Most people don’t have such luxuries. I may be alone in the world now that my brother has died, but apart from that I am a very fortunate person.’

  ‘You are,’ Baharat said. ‘And, if it helps at all, Susi, you are not alone.’

  Mumtaz sat on her old bed in her old bedroom with her knees up to her chin. When she’d been a child, she’d spent hours looking down into the street, spying on the boys attempting to lure customers into the restaurants. Now she had other things on her mind.

  Shazia’s revision was going ‘OK’ according to her. That probably meant she was doing really well. When she’d been doing her GCSE revision she’d said that had just been ‘OK’ too. She’d gone on to get mostly A-stars. But rocking the girl’s world in any fashion before her exams were out of the way was out of the question and so she couldn’t say a word to Shazia until the end of July.

  It had been the unexpected deaths of Djamila and Abbas al’Barri that had made her think about the last hold the Sheikh family had over her. Death could come out of the blue, at any minute, second, moment. Life was at best precarious. Mumtaz knew that if anything happened to her while Shazia didn’t know the truth about her father’s death, someone with ill intent, namely Wahid Sheikh, may well tell her. And he would take a certain view which would not be complimentary to her.

  And so Mumtaz was decided. In just over three months she would tell Shazia her deepest, darkest secret. She would risk the girl’s hatred. She had also decided not to tell Lee until after the deed was done. Then she’d risk his hatred and, possibly, unemployment. How could he, knight in shining armour that he was, employ someone who had watched coldly as another human being died in front of them?

  TWENTY-SIX

  Chief Superintendent Vine told Ricky Montalban to shut his office door and sit down.

  ‘As you know,’ he said, ‘our own investigation into the activities of Aziz Shah and the late Taha Mirza are at an end.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The tailor had been taken to Scotland Yard by counterterrorism officers. From Tower Hamlets’ point of view, the matter was closed. All Ricky knew was that whatever had been gleaned from Shah’s testimony so far went way beyond one single London borough.

  ‘However, I think it’s important that those intimately connected to the investigation be allowed to know whatever has been officially sanctioned for them to know. That said, what I am about to tell you cannot go outside this room.’

  Bloody national security spook stuff. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Know also, Montalban, that what I am about to tell you is not the definitive story. I may never know that myself.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Vine breathed in deeply. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I think you know that Shah, Mirza and Shah’s brother-in-law Vakeel Uddin were involved with an organisation called the Light of True Belief.’

  ‘A Muslim study group in south London,’ Ricky said.

  ‘Peckham. Well, as I am sure you will have deduced, the Light of True Belief was not an organisation sanctioned by the mainstream Muslim community. On the face of it, the Light was indeed a study group, but its aims diverged from religion into extremism. The sect, as far as we know at the moment, possessed the twin aims of identifying people likely to be open to extremist rhetoric and “developing” those individuals with a view to facilitating their passage to Syria in order to fight for ISIS. They also raised funds to help children and young people from Syria to leave that country. That would have been laudable had said youngsters not then been obliged to attend their meetings and inculcate their philosophy.

  ‘With regard to this latter activity, it was Vakeel Uddin who identified the children,’ Vine continued. ‘He processed asylum applications for them and then passed them on to Shah whose job it was to secure accommodation. Not easy, you would think, amid the atmosphere of paranoia about anyone of Syrian origin these days. However, it was Shah’s job to find people who were vulnerable in some way on the basis that such people will not tell if they discover that what they are doing is wrong. In the case of Ali Huq, Shah knew that he was homosexual.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Shah knows the owner of the electrical shop on Brick Lane, Mr Bhatti.’

  ‘Oh Gawd.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Oh yes. Massive gossip, sir. Got chucked out of the committee of the local mosque for financial irregularities. The Huq family reckon it was Zafar Bhatti who contacted the local press about Ali. Bhatti once ran a dodgy PO Box, which is where, apparently, he got his intel on Ali Huq and Rajiv Banergee.’

  ‘We’re in the process of identifying other hosts either recruited or blackmail
ed by Shah,’ Vine said. ‘To be frank, DI Montalban, this organisation was not large, but it was growing. Taha Mirza, on the other end of the operation, was involved in training martyrs for Syria using his own version of Fight Club to tempt stressed-out City executives. These people, we should also note, have money.’

  ‘The Light was gonna tap ’em up?’

  ‘Eventually, yes. It was a clever system,’ he said. ‘Neat, self-contained. It also made a considerable amount of money for Shah and Uddin personally.’

  ‘From the families of the Syrian kids?’

  ‘Exactly. Desperate parents send their children here to keep them safe, get fleeced in the process and then may or may not discover that their children are being radicalised. Or so we think. That was certainly the case with the two boys taken in by Huq. They attended meetings in Peckham and were being prepared to go and learn fighting skills from Taha Mirza. They met him before he died. They knew what he did and had observed the men who attended his gym.’

  ‘What about the two boys, sir? What happens now?’

  Ricky had felt sorry for the kids in spite of what they’d done. The poor little bastards had been fucked up by war and by evil men like Aziz Shah.

  ‘No longer our problem, DI Montalban,’ Vine said. ‘But they have admitted they killed Rajiv Banergee and so they will be put to trial. However, I can tell you that they are co-operating with the investigation into the Light of True Belief. As you know, they withdrew their allegations of sexual abuse against Huq. These they have now transferred to Aziz Shah, although whether, given the boys previous record of lying about such matters, they will stick, I don’t know. The good news is that across two London boroughs and one national organisation, we have been able to uncover a terrorist organisation before it managed to send those it had recruited to fight with ISIS. We should all pat ourselves on the back.’

  But Ricky wondered. As he left Vine’s office he knew he still had questions – like how had Uddin found these Syrian families he and Shah had exploited? Logically there had to be some sort of connection in the Middle East to act as go-between?

  On the one hand Ricky knew he should have asked, but on the other he had a hunch that Vine wouldn’t have told him even if he knew. What was at the ‘other’ end of the Light of True Belief operation would have either closed down or transformed into something else. Ricky realised he may never know. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to.

  Whoever had been meant to be responsible for taking kids like Qasim and Nabil and City boys like Amir Charleston into the hell that was Syria was certainly not an entity that Ricky would want to meet in the flesh. That was a person, or persons, who clearly lacked a soul.

  Nothing was going to happen. In spite of his involvement with the police, not to mention a dubious Islamic organisation, Amir Charleston was going to keep his job. The current chief exec. of Vanek Brothers, a man younger than Amir by a full five years, had wanted to fire him. Not because Amir had been in trouble with the police – a lot of young men in high finance had records. It was the connection to Islam that had made him baulk.

  But Amir’s father had smoothed that all out with Mr Vanek senior, or Milan. Soon it would be as if Amir’s small dalliance with ‘meaning’ had never happened. And that was a good thing. He’d been naïve and impulsive and had been swayed by his passions.

  Next time he’d be much more measured – and discreet.

  ‘Fancy falling over at the airport!’ Julie shook her head. ‘Poor Mumtaz! Any idea when she’s coming back?’

  Lee had a considerable stable of part-time and casual PIs at his disposal. Julie was one of those who was just as happy in the office as she was out in the field.

  ‘About three weeks’ time,’ Lee said. ‘At the moment. Depends how her ribs heal.’

  ‘Where was she going?’

  ‘Amsterdam,’ he said.

  ‘What, for a holiday?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  They’d decided to stick to the main facts about the trip so neither of them would make a mistake.

  ‘I don’t see Mumtaz down the coffee shops or in clubs,’ Julie said. ‘I may be wrong but …’

  ‘She’s got a cousin who lives there. They were gonna do a load of museums together.’

  ‘Oh.’

  That was what people would expect. Covered woman, in a city, with a relative, looking at art. He wanted to laugh. Oh, there was an element of that in Mumtaz’s character, sure. But he knew that if she ever did get to Amsterdam, she’d be diving into the more dubious backstreets and sticking her head around coffee shop doors.

  The office phone rang and Julie picked it up. ‘Arnold Agency.’

  Lee mouthed that he was going outside for a smoke. He’d just opened the door when Julie grabbed his arm. ‘Lady says she has to speak to you,’ she said.

  Lee took the phone and heard a familiar voice say, ‘Lee? Is that you?’

  It hurt to move, but Mumtaz had to get out of the house. Her mother’s constant attention was driving her mad. Every five minutes she was asking her whether she wanted to eat, whether she wanted the TV on and interrogating her about how she was feeling. Thank goodness Ali had gone to stay with Asif and Tracey! While he’d been in the house too it had been unbearable. If only her mother would talk to him!

  She decided to walk as far as Christ Church. It was a bright, warm day and the district was alive with Bangladeshi traders going about their business, young hipsters looking studiously outré and the air was perfumed by the smell of spice and fresh bagels. Had she not been in so much pain she would have felt glad to be alive.

  ‘Mrs Hakim?’

  But then her blood froze. What was Wahid Sheikh doing on Brick Lane? Had he been lurking on the off chance of catching her alone?

  ‘What do you want, Wahid-ji?’ she said.

  ‘I am simply enquiring after your health,’ he said. ‘I hear you had a nasty accident. Stansted Airport, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  How the hell did he know? Then she chided herself for being so naïve. People like the Sheikhs knew everything.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I trust you will be healed in time for your daughter’s wedding.’

  She was so tempted to tell him that was never going to happen. But if she did that he’d make trouble. So she said nothing.

  ‘Her A levels will have finished in twelve weeks’ time,’ he said. ‘Have you told her yet, Mrs Hakim? Given her something to look forward to after her examinations.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  He smiled, doing his sweet old man act. He was very good at that.

  ‘Shame,’ he said. ‘But then again I suppose if it comes as a surprise it will be better. You know I am having the finest gold and diamonds fashioned into a spectacular necklace for my bride. I know she will be impressed. Any girl would.’

  Just not Shazia. She hated elaborate jewellery, she found it vulgar. Although it wouldn’t be as repellent to her as he would. Not that Shazia would ever find that out.

  Mumtaz began to shuffle away. If she talked to him for any longer she might tell him what she was going to do. And like him, she was rather fond of the idea of surprises, albeit only when it came to Wahid-ji and his family.

  She felt his eyes on her back as she turned from Brick Lane into Fournier Street. Men were coming and going to and from the Great Mosque, so she was pretty sure he wouldn’t make a scene.

  And she was right. But just before she reached the church she did look back once and saw that he was still watching her.

  Mumtaz smiled. She was going to enjoy disappointing that vile old man.

  Lee took the call on one of the hand-held phones on the metal steps outside the office.

  ‘What you calling me for?’ he hissed. ‘We’re not supposed to communicate!’

  ‘Oh, Lee!’ He heard Shereen’s voice catch as if she was just about to cry. ‘Lee, they won’t tell me anything!’

  ‘Shereen …’

  ‘How Abbas and Djamil
a died, where my son is …’

  ‘I don’t know the answer to any of those questions,’ he said.

  ‘But you were there! Abbas called me from the airport. He said that you were there with Mrs Hakim. I can’t even speak to Djamila’s boyfriend, Fazil … But then he didn’t phone …’

  Fazil was dead. But he couldn’t tell her that. He couldn’t tell her anything. But she deserved something, poor woman, just how much could he tell her without compromising himself?

  She’d called from a mobile number he hadn’t recognised. But that didn’t mean much. If Shereen and the kids had been taken away by the security services then they were being monitored twenty-four seven.

  ‘Shereen, I’ve nothing to say, because I don’t know nothing,’ he said.

  ‘You do! You have to! You’re lying!’

  She was falling apart. He couldn’t stand it. He felt his eyes fill up. This woman was the wife of the man to whom he owed his life.

  ‘Lee! Please!’

  What were ‘they’ going to do? Kill him? Maybe. But he said, ‘I didn’t see Abbas die, Shereen. I don’t know who killed him, but—’

  And then the line went dead and Lee put a hand up to his head. They knew. They’d heard his voice and now they knew that Shereen had contacted him. What would they do to her? And what would they do to him to make sure that never happened again?

  Vi Collins slid her newspaper along the bar until it was underneath the nose of DI Montalban.

  Ricky didn’t often get out of Tower Hamlets and so being in the Boleyn, arguably Newham’s finest pub, was a bit of a treat. Also, you didn’t throw away an invitation to drink with Vi Collins lightly. He picked up the newspaper and his pint and led Vi over to a small table at the back of the saloon bar.

  When they’d both sat down, he pointed to the newspaper headline and said, ‘Anything to do with you?’

  ‘Not directly.’

  He read the article, which said that two members of staff at prestigious London department store Harrods had been arrested on suspicion of recruiting people to perpetrate terrorist offences.