by Helen Bright
Two of my guards, Dave and Gordon, had stayed in Yorkshire. They had been liaising with a private investigator I employ. He’d sent some information through this morning that I found particularly disturbing. He’d found another house in Nottingham which was being used by Hassan Akbar’s uncle and several other men, three of whom were White British. Not only had they been taking in White British girls who looked to be from age twelve to eighteen, they had also roughly bundled in a Muslim girl in traditional dress and hijab, who was sobbing hysterically. This surprised me. From what Farid Ali had said, they’d targeted White British girls because they were against their western way of living. However, from what my PI, Graham Lacey, had discovered, these men also targeted Muslim girls whom they considered to be of a lower caste.
I know very little about the caste system—other than how grossly anti-religious it is. My good friend Imran has no tolerance for it. He and his family believe it has no place in Islam, yet it appears to be around in modern day Britain’s ever-growing Muslim population, where equality has little bearing among many of its own people.
I discussed with my PI how we could deal with this: how best to get the information to the police without giving away our involvement in the gathering of it. He told me he would make sure that the files would be on PC Foster’s desk tomorrow morning, along with a copy sent to the nearest police station in Nottingham. It gave me just a short window of time in which to execute my plan.
“I trust you had an uneventful flight?”
It seemed strange to hear those words in Russian. I was so used to speaking English, my mother tongue seemed foreign to me now. Even Ivan and I conversed more in English of late.
My brother Yuri had been waiting for me in the private aircraft hangar our family used in Moscow. He embraced me in a brotherly hug before patting me on the back and gesturing towards another Gulfstream 650 aircraft. He handed me the documents I’d requested.
“You will fly to Barcelona where you will pick up a passenger, Manuel Tigas, before flying over to Leeds Bradford Airport in the UK. So as far as anyone is aware, the flight originated in Spain. The return journey will be the same in reverse. You will fly from Leeds Bradford Airport to Barcelona, then back to Moscow. You will be photographed tomorrow afternoon outside your munitions plant before joining us for dinner.”
“Thank you, Yuri. You are as thorough and meticulous in your planning as ever. I only wish you could come and work for me,” I told him with a genuine smile; the first one I’d worn all day.
“You could never afford me, Kolya. And I’m sure if your young wife were to see how good-looking I am in person, she’d realise she’s married the wrong brother,” he joked. I laughed along with him as we made our way to the plane.
“I cannot wait to introduce you to her in person. Video calling is a great way to keep in touch, but I feel the distance more as the years go by,” I admitted.
Yuri stopped walking and took hold of my arm.
“I hope you are not implying that you wish to come back to Moscow, Kolya.”
“No, Yuri, I could never do that. Yet none of us are getting any younger, and we see so little of each other. Less so now than we did before James began studying in the U.S. If I have a child with Tess, I want you and Aleksei to be a part of their life.”
“Kolya, you made the right choice when you kept James away from Moscow. You know this. Seeing us once or twice per year was a good decision. Do not change that if you are lucky enough to become a father again. Bratva need only be a word your children hear when they are older. It does not have to be their way of life.”
“How is our father?” I asked when we approached the steps of the aircraft. “Does he know about any of this?”
“He knows your plane has landed; he does not know the rest. He is attending a pre-arranged function tonight. I believe the president might also be attending, though I am willing to wager that Roman Barinov requires more security guards.” Yuri chuckled before adding, “His paranoia regarding security has served him well over the years. He’s one of the oldest pakhans in Moscow.”
“Tell him I will see him tomorrow. And, Yuri, thanks again for arranging this. I’ll explain everything in more detail when I return.”
“I need no other explanation than you gave me earlier, Kolya. This is for my sister-in-law’s safety. She is family. We do not tolerate those who threaten our own. On this, I am bratva through and through.”
15
Kolya
Franco had been waiting in a specially procured vehicle outside the West Yorkshire-based Leeds Bradford Airport. Manuel Tigas—the wealthy property developer turned politician—had taken Nate along with him to a hotel in Leeds where he was having dinner with a friend. They had taken a separate car, leaving us plenty of time to get to Doncaster.
I wondered what kind of dirt Yuri and my father had on the seemingly mild-mannered Tigas. It must have been something substantial to make him fly to the UK with three new bodyguards at such short notice. But then again, property developers had taken some serious monetary hits since the recession, leaving many previously successful businessmen and women needing help from less than honourable sources. And, of course, the political arena has always been rife with corruption.
Passing through the private gates at the airport had been relatively easy. Not a single one of us had been asked for our passport, as with most VIP flights. It was late in the evening which always helped. As far as airport security was concerned, we’d been checked and cleared in Barcelona. I was glad of it. It was one less thing to worry about.
Franco had met with Rashid, Dave, and Gordon, making sure both the capture and detaining of Hassan Akbar had gone according to plan. It hadn’t been easy. Since being questioned by the police, he’d had a family member with him at all times. Rashid had suggested we take Hassan outside his mosque—a place where our target would feel safe—but there was no way that Hassan would leave without a struggle. If we took him there he’d alert everyone around him. Although, there was something I had in my arsenal I knew would work.
For many years, in situations like these, the bratva had been using Scopolamine, or Devil’s Breath, as it’s more commonly known. In the correct dosage, the drug makes the recipient more compliant, in an almost zombie-like state. It could also be used as a kind of truth serum. My father had given it to me after I’d had problems with an information leak at one of my manufacturing plants. He told me I should use it on anyone I suspected might be responsible for the leak, thereby ridding myself of the untrustworthy employee. Of course, as a respectable businessman I would never do that, abiding by the law of the country I call home. But as an overprotective husband—the youngest son of a Russian mafia king—I would do whatever the fuck I wanted.
The drug doesn’t show up in any toxicology screening and is administered without injection. You just have to find a way to get your target to breathe it in.
Wearing a traditional thobe, Rashid followed Hassan and his uncle into the mosque. Hassan had been alone for barely ten seconds before Rashid approached him, professing to be Farid Ali’s cousin with news of his whereabouts. Hassan took him into a cloakroom so they wouldn’t be overheard.
Rashid had previously emptied a small amount of the drug onto a thick cotton cloth, which he thrust into Hassan’s face, holding it over his nose while he struggled to pull it away. If Rashid hadn’t possessed such brute strength, it’s likely our target would have been able to wrestle the cloth away and would not have inhaled enough to leave him susceptible to our suggestions. Once the drug began to take effect, Rashid removed the cloth and wrapped it inside the surgical glove he’d worn. During this time, he told Hassan he should leave the mosque with him, and that there was a vehicle waiting for them outside. The target seemed almost catatonic at first but after a minute or so, with help he was able to stand. After another few seconds Rashid was able to steer him towards an emergency exit, where he called for Franco to collect them. And now here we all were in Fellbrook Woods, Do
ncaster, next to the boggy marsh where Sarah Crowther’s battered, decaying body was found.
“Do you remember me?” I asked the bound, prone man after he’d been dumped on the ground in front of me.
Hassan Akbar looked my way, his face a mix of anger and confusion. He was still a little groggy from the drug but that was wearing off fast; the fear and adrenaline surging through his body helping to rid him of the narcotic substance.
I delivered a swift, hard kick to his flabby stomach before asking the same question once again. “Do you remember me?”
“You were there that night the ginger-haired bitch threw a plant pot at my uncle’s car. I recorded it and I’ve shown the police.”
“I’m sure you have, Mr Akbar. I have also shown them footage of that very same night, when you came to Jean Brent’s house hoping to intimidate my wife, or to get her to retaliate, incriminating herself in the process.”
“I don’t even know your wife. What the fuck are you on about? I didn’t do anything wrong. That mad ginger bitch attacked us.”
“The mad ginger bitch you are referring to is my wife, Tess Barinov—formally known as Tess Robertson. I do not wish to hear her spoken about in such a derogatory manner again, is that clear?”
He did not answer, so I kicked him again—hard enough to hear at least two ribs break and leave him gasping for breath. I only wished my Italian leather brogues were steel-capped.
“Over the last three months, I’ve had a PI and his team investigate you and your friends, Mr Akbar. I’ve been receiving detailed reports from them weekly. My PI thinks we have enough written and photographic evidence to enable the police to take immediate action. It will be delivered to the local stations, both here and in Nottingham, in a matter of hours. I would assume, since your name appears so often on those reports, that the police will make it their priority to take you back in for questioning and keep you under surveillance. I could not have that, Mr Akbar. It would have made it so much harder to capture and kill you. As it stands, your last known whereabouts was the mosque you were taken from. We were lucky that the area around the mosque has limited CCTV. It meant that my tech experts had very few cameras to disable. If only it had been that easy when we captured and killed your friend Farid Ali.”
“Farid is dead?” He almost screamed out the question, understanding his own situation was going to end the same way. “I thought he’d gone to one of his cousins in Pakistan.”
“Is that where your brother is? With one of your cousins?” I asked. So far my efforts to find the elusive Tariq Akbar had come to nothing. This information might make things a little easier.
“I could spend a lot of time torturing you tonight,” I told him. “I have imagined many ways in which I could inflict pain on your wretched body. But luckily for you I have a flight to make in less than an hour. Therefore, your death will have to come much swifter than I had planned.” I turned slightly, gesturing to the man behind me. “Rashid, hand me my gun.”
“What? No, please. Whatever you think I’ve done, you have it all wrong,” Hassan yelled, slowly getting up onto his knees—the pain from his ribs evident in his face with every movement he made.
“I doubt that very much, Mr Akbar. I obtained a confession from Farid Ali before his death, and I have the evidence from my PI, as well as information from my wife.”
“They are lying! I’ve done nothing wrong,” he cried.
“Are you calling my wife a liar? You, a murdering paedophile?” I yelled before kicking him in the balls as hard as I could. He let out a loud cry which turned into a groan as he fell forward onto his face. Rashid, Jonesy, and Franco winced simultaneously and put their hands over their crotches. A reaction that seems pre-programmed into all men from an early age. After all, a kick to the balls is never forgotten.
When Hassan had finally stopped crying I crouched down beside him. Grabbing a fistful of hair I raised his head, pressing the muzzle of my Beretta 9mm between his bloodshot eyes.
“You have a habit of trying to scare people by making a gun shape with your hand, as if you are going to come back and shoot them when they least expect it. I thought it only a scare tactic at first, but my PI has photographic evidence of you—alongside two of your friends—buying a number of rifles and shotguns from the boot of a car. You were trading what appeared to be a package containing drugs, though my PI could not get close enough to confirm it.
“What you did not realise, Mr Akbar, is that on the night you tried to intimidate Tess at Jean Brent’s house—where you made your hand into the make-believe gun shape you are so fond of—is that she is now married to a developer and distributor of weaponry, the likes of which you can only imagine. I can disassemble a gun with my eyes closed quicker than you can get your zipper down to take a piss. So your threats did nothing to me, other than make me want to shoot you myself. But then I had a conversation with my wife. She was upset with me, and in her frustration she admitted that she wanted to bash your skull in with something hard and heavy. Tess wanted you to suffer the same injuries as her foster sister, Sarah Crowther, leaving your body to rot in a boggy marsh.”
“Please. I have a family. People who rely on me. My mother is disabled and—”
“Sarah had a family, too. A foster mother and sister who loved her dearly. She had a life to live. You had no thought for her or any of the other girls you murdered.”
Hassan began to protest his innocence but his words meant nothing to me.
“Farid Ali was very forthcoming with information after he’d sustained a harsh beating. I have to say, he took longer than you did to cry and beg. How does that make you feel, Mr Akbar? Knowing your friend was much braver in the face of his impending death than you.”
“Please don’t shoot me. Farid’s a liar. It was him that killed Sarah,” Hassan whined.
“Oh, I’m not going to shoot you. I promised Tess she would get her wish. And a husband should honour every promise he makes to his wife.” I handed the gun back to Rashid and asked Franco to hand me the item I’d had him buy before leaving Oxford.
The concrete plant pot was large—almost a foot long—and felt extremely heavy. It took some effort to swing it at Hassan’s head. The first blow to his temple did little but knock him to the ground. He’d seen it coming and had tried to get away but there was nowhere he could go. Though the weather had been exceptionally warm, the marshland at the back of him was still boggy. His knees sank into the wet earth, leaving him no room to manoeuvre. I struck him again with more force this time, hearing both a dull thud then a crack as his skull caved in. I hit him five more times with the heavy pot, twice in the side of his head and three times in his face, leaving him an unrecognisable, bloody mess. Once I had finished, Franco stepped forward with a black sack, in which I placed the plant pot. He tied the top of the sack and put it back in the boot of the car.
Some might question my choice of murder weapon; I thought it was…fitting. It was my wife’s weapon of choice just a week ago, so in a way, I felt it only right that I should honour the choice she made.
After donning gloves, Jonesy and Rashid each took hold of two long branches which they used to push Hassan’s body further into the marsh. Moving him wasn’t such an easy task. Though he wasn’t tall, the man had a stocky build and his dead weight was hard to shift. I usually have a strong stomach, but seeing Hassan’s brains and the back of his skull being left behind as my men rolled him away, almost made me gag.
“Boss, if you’re going to throw up, do it in a bag in the car. You don’t want to leave DNA evidence here,” Franco said. His tone was very matter of fact, as if what he was seeing didn’t bother him at all. But then, all the men with me tonight had seen active combat, and had no doubt witnessed bodies in much worse states than this. Some of those being people they had served alongside. Friends, even.
Jonesy and Rashid made their way back to dry, hard ground as carefully as they could, using the branches to scrape over any footprints left on soft muddy ground before t
hrowing them into the wettest part of the marsh. While Franco was making sure we had left nothing behind, the rest of us got into the vehicle. I knew that Rashid was troubled over what we had done. Had he not read the file of evidence collected by my PI and his team, I do not think Rashid would have even suggested going to the mosque to take Hassan.
He wasn’t the only one who’d been disturbed by what he’d read. And we had all come to the conclusion that, although there were many good police officers out there—such as PC Foster and her colleague, PC Winters—there were a number who couldn’t be trusted.
My PI had uncovered information regarding the previous imam of the mosque Hassan Akbar had frequented. He’d been accused of abusing young boys aged between seven and nine who’d attended the mosque. This had been happening for a number of years until two of the boys he abused alerted someone. There had been a meeting in which the boys’ family members decided to keep the matter quiet, so the boys would not grow up being known as victims of abuse. A stigma they feared would blight their chance of a normal life. But as more children came forward, it became clear they could not hide this from the authorities any longer.
The imam had been arrested and was taken to the police station for questioning, but he disappeared after being released. On further investigation by my PI, he found that Chief Inspector Carrick had approved his release, not even twenty-four hours after two of the boys had made incriminating statements.
Being ex-police, my PI thought this was an odd move, so he began to look for a connection between Carrick and the imam. It seems that the imam was a member of the same golf club that both Carrick and also the detectives my wife calls Dickhead and Twatface belonged to. It also transpired that two days after his release, the imam sold his house to Carrick for less than half the price of its current value.
