City of Sinners

by Dhand, A. A.

Up until that point, I had believed that size and strength were all that mattered.

  The wasp plays with the spider. She attacks him, panics him.

  And just as the spider sees that there is no escape, she backs away.

  The queen has my focus. Calm. Antennae twitching in front of her. Eyes dark.

  Holding for the perfect moment.

  Tormenting the spider.

  The spider runs.

  Charging for freedom.

  Body lowered, sting primed, the queen swoops in and injects her venom into the abdomen of the spider with devastating accuracy. As quickly as she attacked, she retreats.

  The venom is paralysing but it will not kill. It will simply allow her to lay her eggs in the spider’s crippled body, where the eggs will consume the spider, growing until they are ready to hatch into fully grown adults.

  Like the ones behind Usma’s eyelids.

  Difficult letting them go, after the time and effort I dedicated to them.

  The detective won’t understand.

  Nobody will.

  Did they fly out, proud and angry?

  That would have been something to see.

  Did Virdee scream when he saw them?

  I’ll ask him when we meet.

  He’s like the spider.

  A predator, until something much more dangerous arrives. Something which really shouldn’t be able to cause such paralysis.

  But I can.

  THIRTEEN

  MIDNIGHT WAS APPROACHING as Ronnie entered Undercliffe Cemetery, the ground treacherous with ice. It had once been a burial ground for the rich wool merchants of Bradford. The audacious tombs, some rising fifty feet in the air, a declaration of importance and wealth, made for a creepy walk through the darkness. The cemetery had long been opened up to public burials, no matter the wealth of the individual.

  Ronnie was carrying a bunch of white lilies, a thick blanket and a flask of hot chocolate. He arrived at Tara’s tomb, a modest granite stone which read:

  Tara Kaur Virdee, beloved daughter,

  granddaughter and sister, died aged 20.

  He placed the flowers on her grave then laid the blanket next to it. He sat down, removed a packet of cigarettes and lit one. Keeping it in his mouth, he opened the flask, removed an extra plastic cup from his pocket and poured two cups. Ronnie placed one on Tara’s grave.

  ‘Cold tonight, kid. Brought your favourite. They keep promising it’s going to snow. You’d have liked that, wouldn’t you? Old man sitting here with his arse getting wet. Raj and Kirin were talking about you today. GCSE English homework. Your mother was trying to help them and making a mess of it.’

  Ronnie removed the cigarette from his mouth, ‘Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m down to five a day. Like fruit. Think your mother’s on to me, mind.’

  He leaned back, rested his head on the tombstone and stared at the sky.

  No stars.

  Just a crescent-shaped moon.

  Ronnie lifted his cup of chocolate and took a sip.

  ‘AA meeting tonight was good. I talked. Not about the stuff that would get me jail-time. Just about the drink. Felt I needed it after today.’

  Ronnie told her what had happened with his father and how Joyti wanted to try and reunite with Harry.

  ‘It’s going to get messy, kid. Don’t think the family can take another loss after you. But, I’m not here to talk about that,’ he said.

  Yesterday Ronnie had told Tara about the horrific incident in his father’s corner shop, two decades before, when a teenager, Michael King, had tried to rob their store, brandishing a knife and slashing Ronnie’s mother when she refused to hand over any money. She had fallen and been knocked unconscious. In that moment, Harry had intervened, grabbing a pair of scissors from the counter and stabbing them into Michael’s neck.

  Michael had died.

  Ronnie had taken the scissors from Harry and assumed the blame. He’d gone to prison. It was the beginning of everything for Ronnie and until that night, only the brothers had known the truth of it. Ronnie had been glad to share it with Tara.

  Ronnie removed a tattered notebook from inside his jacket. ‘Where were we?’

  He leafed through the pages until he came to a folded corner.

  ‘Right, okay: 2005 and the trade. I said I’d be honest with you.’

  Ronnie spoke quietly, reading from the diary he’d kept while in jail; recalling the rude awakening that, in prison, drugs were currency. Ronnie was smarter than most of those guys in the prison, he’d been on track for straight As at A-level, but those avenues would be closed to him now.

  So he’d picked up the tricks of the trade from the dealers serving their sentences alongside him. He was a quick study, watching how the system worked and, crucially, the ways it didn’t.

  People.

  It was always people who messed it up.

  After his release, he’d drunk alcohol until it controlled him rather than the other way around. Harry, consumed with guilt over what Ronnie had become, serving time on his behalf, had helped him get sober.

  As Ronnie gradually took control of his addiction, he had followed his father into the family business and bought a corner shop.

  A year later, he’d bought another.

  Within two years he’d acquired several more and decided to open a cash-and-carry. He was making decent money.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  He was creating a cover, a viable, legal network, to help him enter the drug trade. He’d learned from the best in prison – it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity.

  He’d started small.

  Determined not to make the same mistakes that had landed others in prison.

  Determined not to be greedy.

  As he read that word, ‘greedy’, he paused.

  ‘That didn’t exactly work out, did it, kid?’

  He looked down at his daughter’s tombstone. No parent should have to bury a child, he knew that. But he also knew that he was being punished.

  His guilt would never dissipate.

  Shaking his head, he found his place and began to read again.

  He told Tara that once he’d started to make contacts across Europe and Asia under the pretext of forging cash-and-carry distribution deals, he had quickly established a different kind of distribution deal, working with one product other cash-and-carry owners didn’t touch.

  Heroin.

  He employed only ex-SAS operatives who had been injured in battle or turfed out for minor offences, usually to do with some bullshit procedure. They were bitter at not being looked after and proved to be perfect employees.

  Disciplined.

  Loyal.

  Trained to kill.

  Ultimately, he made them partners, meaning they had ownership for whichever area of Bradford they were in charge of. Buying their commitment.

  Ronnie organized his business like the old mafia movies he had seen.

  One family.

  ‘It wasn’t just the money, kid,’ said Ronnie, lighting another cigarette. ‘Sure, I wanted you guys to have the best of things in life, and having a record meant I was always behind in the game. But it was more than that. I realized drugs had always existed in Bradford and caused so much damage because these dealers kept cutting the drugs with all kinds of rubbish just to feed their own greed. Since drugs were always going to be part of society and always part of Bradford, I’d supply something clean. I felt like I could make a difference and earn a wage at the same time.’

  Ronnie finished his cup of hot chocolate and checked his watch.

  ‘You know, talking to you makes the time fly.’

  He packed up his flask, gathered his blanket and neatened the area around Tara’s grave. He left Tara’s hot chocolate and wiped down the headstone.

  ‘The meeting’s on Barkerend Road tomorrow night. Smaller crowd, but it finishes early so I’ll be here around eight.’

  Ronnie looked to the skies. ‘Snow tomorrow, I reckon. I’ll bring more hot chocolate.’r />
  Before he left, he smiled at the grave. ‘You do learn something at those AA meetings; seems that sharing is the only way to take on the demons. And it’s working, Tara. I promise. I’ve changed. I am changing. I’m going to get out of this game. Then and only then, will I ask you to forgive me for what I did. For what I became.’

  FOURTEEN

  ‘GET UP.’

  Harry woke up to his usual 06:30 alarm of Aaron trying to pull off his duvet.

  ‘Being a morning person isn’t a Virdee trait,’ grumbled Harry, getting out of bed and scooping his son into his arms.

  ‘I brush teeth,’ said Aaron.

  ‘Already?’

  ‘No, I want brush teeth, Daddy.’

  Harry carried Aaron into the bathroom where Saima was perfecting her make-up. When she wasn’t working nights, she had to leave before Harry. He squeezed her backside, making her jolt her lipstick.

  ‘Hey!’ she said.

  ‘He did it,’ said Harry, sitting Aaron on the cabinet by the side of the sink.

  ‘Look at what you made me do! I look like the bloody Joker.’

  ‘I saw it, I liked it, I squeezed it,’ said Harry, trying it again. Saima moved out of the way and slapped his hand playfully away. Aaron thought it was a game and started to laugh.

  ‘If you came home at a reasonable hour, you could squeeze whatever you wanted,’ she said and wiped the lipstick smear from her face.

  ‘That sounds like a promise to me,’ said Harry, handing Aaron his toothbrush. When Harry tried to squeeze toothpaste on to it, Aaron started a familiar meltdown.

  ‘Fine, fine,’ said Harry, ‘do it yourself.’

  Harry watched as Aaron made as big a mess as he could before standing back and allowing Saima to take over. She brushed Aaron’s teeth with military precision and as she lifted him to rinse his face, Aaron moved his head back sharply and butted it into Saima’s nose.

  ‘Ow!’ she screamed and almost dropped him.

  ‘Shit,’ said Harry, seeing the blood.

  Aaron started to cry.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ said Saima, turning away from Aaron and pinching her nose at the bridge as blood streamed steadily over her top lip.

  Harry picked up Aaron, carrying him out of the room as Saima tended to her nose.

  ‘What a bloody way to start the morning,’ he hissed as he returned to check she was okay, leaving Aaron in his room distracted with his mobile phone.

  Saima was hunched over the sink, blood dripping into the basin, face streaming with tears.

  ‘Definitely look like the Joker now,’ said Harry.

  After the nursery drop-off, Harry arrived at Trafalgar House fifteen minutes before the daily eight a.m. HMET briefing where all four DCIs in the team would update their boss, Detective Superintendent Conway.

  Barely forty-five minutes later, briefing completed, Harry was sitting in front of a computer with his team. He’d briefed them about his hunch about Gurpal Singh and tasked a couple of DSs with finding his current address, the name of his probation officer and the court transcripts from the storage facility in Sheffield. Harry also asked them to locate Indy, Gurpal’s ex-wife.

  The team now turned their attention to the grainy CCTV footage from inside Waterstones, the first time they’d get to see what had happened on Sunday evening.

  The quality was shit.

  They could make out Usma Khan locking up. According to the manager, she should have had someone with her – they weren’t supposed to lock up alone.

  As she put the key in the door to close for the day, Harry saw a figure dressed in a burka approach from the street.

  ‘Is that a weapon in the Burka’s hand?’ said Harry, leaning closer to the screen.

  ‘Can’t be sure,’ replied DI Palmer, the smell of coffee strong on his breath. ‘We’ve tried getting a close-up but these cameras have such low pixels the picture distorts.’

  Usma stepped back to allow the Burka inside the store. She was clearly afraid, backing away and looking around uncertainly. The killer pushed Usma towards the rear of the store where the stone arches blocked them from CCTV view. Harry could just make out the swift movement of an arm raised high – a blow to the head.

  ‘There’s nothing now until eleven p.m.,’ said Palmer.

  ‘And what time is this?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Four forty.’

  ‘There’s nothing?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘What, the killer just sat in the shadows for six hours?’

  ‘It’s the only blind spot. He must have known that. Next time we see him, it’s eleven p.m. and thereafter it’s all about the staging.’

  Palmer cut to another video file, this one in night-vision mode, giving the killer an eerie glow. He was still wearing a burka but now he was not at all perturbed by the cameras. He dragged Usma’s body from under the arches through the store. At least the SOCOs now knew exactly where the murder site was.

  As the killer started up the stairs, Palmer changed the video to another file, this one of a camera directly facing the windows in the upper dome above the shop.

  ‘Shit,’ said Harry as he watched the towering window shatter, the Star of David disintegrating as the killer smashed it with some sort of pole. Then, he quietly – methodically – went about the business of stringing up his victim.

  ‘Twisted bastard,’ spat Harry and turned to Palmer. ‘This is what – midnight?’

  Palmer nodded. There was more to come, Harry could see it on his DI’s face.

  ‘What time did the freak leave?’

  ‘Better brace yourself for this, boss.’

  Palmer changed the file again.

  ‘But this is store opening,’ said Harry. ‘You’ve missed the killer leaving.’

  ‘We haven’t,’ said Palmer, and suddenly Harry understood.

  ‘He was still there?’

  ‘Watch,’ said Palmer and pointed to the screen.

  At 07:55 on Monday morning, the store manager, Jane, could be seen opening up the front door. She turned the lights on and moved through the store, past a labyrinth of towering wooden bookshelves and tables piled high with new releases. It was only when she approached the stairs some eight minutes later that she saw the broken glass on the floor. Looking around for the cause of the mess, her head turned up and she found the body hanging from the ceiling.

  Jane then ran swiftly to the counter, picked up the phone and dialled the police. Then, as any other person would have done, she ran outside to the only other store open at that time, a pastry shop around the corner.

  Only now did the killer emerge, walking brazenly through the store, then pausing to give a jeering wave towards the camera before slipping outside.

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of shit in my time but this is something else.’ Harry stood up and looked Palmer in the eye. ‘Tell me we’ve got him outside?’

  ‘Oh yeah, it gets even better.’

  ‘Good better?’ Harry grimaced, knowing the answer.

  ‘Not exactly, Harry.’

  Palmer brought up CCTV surveillance of Hustlergate, the area around the bookshop. The killer couldn’t have picked a worse place to try to escape a murder scene, Bradford’s city centre was covered by CCTV. Harry’s team had a clear view of the killer as he walked calmly out of Waterstones towards City Park.

  Past the fountains.

  Across the road.

  Into Bradford Interchange train station.

  They’d have him in no time, the place was blanketed in surveillance. Looking at Palmer’s face, Harry lost confidence.

  They tracked the killer walking through the interchange into the ladies’ toilets.

  The time was 08:19.

  He never came out.

  At 08:30 the interchange swelled with commuters – workers and students alike. There were hundreds of Burkas and dozens of them entered the ladies’ toilets. Some came out as they had gone in but the vast majority emerged in western clothing. It was a sight Harry was well ac
customed to; Asian girls would leave their homes in traditional attire, then change into western clothing as soon as they could.

  ‘How many girls we got?’

  ‘We’ve got the footage for the whole day. So far, one hundred and thirty girls enter those toilets in burkas. Forty-two leave with them on. Impossible to tell where our guy is or even if it is a guy.’

  ‘I want officers there every morning at eight a.m. Canvass the girls – they must use those toilets every day. Start a log. Eliminate them from the footage. See what it leaves us.’

  ‘Already on it, boss.’

  ‘You’re telling me we’ve got no clue which of these people is the killer?’

  ‘Harry, even the girls who came out in western clothing were wearing heavy coats, scarves and hats. It was minus two out there yesterday morning, not much warmer today. It’s going to take us time.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Harry, sighing heavily. ‘This guy’s no fool, is he?’

  ‘He’s a brazen son of a bitch, I’ll give him that.’

  With the CCTV looking like a dead-end or at least one which was going to consume hundreds of man-hours, Harry was forced to look at what else they had at their disposal.

  Usma’s phone hadn’t been found at the crime scene or her home. The outside enquiry team had used cell-site data to determine that it was last switched on in the vicinity of Waterstones. It was probable the killer had taken it.

  Harry punched Usma’s number into his phone and stored it.

  Harry had read the witness statements from staff at Waterstones the night before. They all said similar things: quiet girl, kept herself to herself and loved drawing, especially nail-art. Harry instructed Palmer to interview the family members, now that they’d had twenty-four hours to process. They couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He also requested the tech guys to analyse the Waterstones footage and compare it to known footage they had of Gurpal Singh. Compare the two for height, build and gait.

  ‘There was a bloody footprint at the scene. Right?’ asked Harry.

  Palmer nodded.

  ‘See what shoe size we’ve got recorded for Gurpal and if it’s the same size as the print.’

  Palmer made a note of everything Harry had asked for.

  ‘Take DC Farooqi with you when you go to see Usma’s parents.’