By now Carver could feel his heart pumping. He knew that if he raised a hand to his brow, he would find beads of sweat. He hadn’t felt this way since those sessions he’d attended after Edmund Hart’s trial. And Kahramanyan had a point. What was different?
‘It… It’s not that simple.’
‘Isn’t it? I think it is.’
‘Yes, well you’re not sitting where I am sitting.’
‘No I’m not. But I’m not sitting at all. I came over here because I thought you are the right man to catch this monster. I still think that.’
‘So what are you thinking I should do? Tell them all to fuck off and start my own operation?’
‘Is that not what you did in Paris?’
‘That was different.’
‘Was it? My understanding is that a killer needed catching or else people would die, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘So. No difference at all then.’
Carver said nothing. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. Maybe it didn’t matter what he said. Maybe what mattered, was what he did. He thought about what Kahramanyan had said, about things being simple. Were they? Really? At that moment an image came to him. It was of the yet-to-be-identified Danelian family, arranged as in the photographs Kahramanyan had bought with him.And like the Durzlans. Butchered.
He looked across at the psychiatrist.
‘You’re very good Mikayel.’
He didn’t smile. ‘I am just a poor psychiatrist.’
Carver shook his head. ‘So you think I ought to throw caution to the wind and just jump in?’
Kahramanyan put his hands up. ‘Oh, it is not for me to tell you what to do. I am not a policeman. You must do what you think is right.’
‘But if Vahrig Danelian kills his family, and I haven’t tried, you think I’ll suffer more guilt, right?’
The other man gave the sort of shrug a Frenchman would have been proud of. He seemed to give it some thought.
‘Sometimes people choose to do or not do something because it is the easiest option. It is only later that they come to wish they had made a different choice. It is why people continue to smoke cigarettes when they know it is killing them is it not?’
‘I guess it is.’
For the next few minutes they drank coffee and, to Carver’s relief, spoke about matters other than himself. But when Jess’s name came up, Carver wasn’t sure if the psychiatrist wasn’t trying to make a point when he said, ‘Now there is a young woman who does not lack confidence.’
Carver gave him a sideways look. ‘No, indeed.’
‘And what does she think about the matters we just discussed?’
Carver returned him a pointed look. ‘Something tells me you already know the answer to that question, Mikayel.’
Kahramanyan smiled. Touché.
Having finished their drinks, conversation began to wind up. As Kahramanyan made ready to leave, Carver asked the question that had been forming.
‘Just answer me this. In your experience, what happens to people who deny themselves what they really want to do. Deep down I mean?’
As before, there was barely any hesitation.
‘They wither. Then they die.’
After Kahramanyan had left, Carver stared out the window for a long time, letting his voicemail do its work. Eventually he reached into a drawer and took out the Manchester Force’s Internal Directory. Finding the number, he dialled it.
After a few short rings a woman’s voice, slightly breathless, said, ‘Community Affairs, Constable Skelton.’
He was in luck. Carver imagined her having rushed across the office to pick up. Voicemail isn’t popular with uniform staff.
‘Hello Bones. It’s Jamie Carver.’
‘Mr Carver!’ She managed to make it sound like she was excited to hear from him. ‘Are you a Chief Super yet?’
‘Still only a lowly DCI I’m afraid, Padma. As I’m sure you know.’
‘What a shame. But don’t despair. It can only be a matter of time.’
He chuckled, amused by her teasing. She hadn’t changed.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘There’s something you may be able to help me with. Are you busy?’
CHAPTER 30
Like Warrington, Harpurhey Police Station is an old, Victorian nick, one of the few the Manchester force retains within its estate and a throwback to the Dixon of Dock Green era. Once a Divisional Headquarters, today its warren of hidden rooms and endlessly twisting corridors house a disparate array of specialist squads and Area Support, including the Neighbourhood Policing Team. Ridiculously cramped for the number of officers posted there, the inhabiting factions wage a continuing battle for office space. Of its three floors - rumoured to stretch to four in the more remote parts – the third is the most sought after. Visiting Senior Officers rarely trust themselves to wander above the second, either for fear of what they may come across, or never finding their way out again.
The Eastern Area Community Affairs Department occupies one half of the floor and consists of three offices. The unit’s complement of constables and sergeants, and the pair of job-share support staff occupy one each, whilst the Department Inspector’s desk fits snugly into what is little more than a cubby-hole at the end of the corridor. The story is it used to be the ‘upper larder’ in the days when most of the floor was given over to the Senior Officers’ Dining Room.
As he waited, Carver studied the montage of posters, pamphlets, bulletins, community newsletters and other paraphernalia that covered every inch of wall space. Printed in a range of languages and dialects, they attested to the diversity of the department’s work, though Carver thought he remembered many from his last visit, which had to be over a year ago.
One section was new. A green felt notice board bearing the legend, ‘Department Performance Monitoring’ hung behind the door. Pinned to it were a range of coloured graphs, bar-charts and league-tables. Each one corresponded to some performance measure or target, comparing data-set periods. The targets covered areas such as the number of Community Contacts made, School Visits carried out, Neighbourhood Forums attended, and a host of others. Carver shook his head at the thought that some still believed that a nebulous field such as maintaining good Police-Community relations, lent itself to the sort of Target-and-Measure nonsense that afflicted most of the service these days.
‘Hope you’re impressed,’ the officer said as she came back into the office.
Community Constable Padma ‘Bones’ Skelton was carrying two brightly coloured mugs. They were both emblazoned with a cartoon-like figure showing a badger wearing a police uniform and bearing the logo, ‘Bobby Brock says, Never Go With Strangers.’ She offered one to Carver. Taking it with a smile, he settled himself on a desk while the woman he had come to see took one of the metal-framed office chairs that looked like it may have been saved from landfill.
As she sat down, Carver noted that she had barely changed since their last meeting. As slight and slim as ever and with a burnt-coffee complexion that was somehow ageless, she could still pass for a probationer. Of Indian extraction – ‘Bones’ was a play on her surname – Carver knew that she was in fact mixed race, her tiny, Kolkata-born teacher-mother having somehow ended up married to a Lancashire dairy farmer. Carver had once met her parents at a Community Officer Of The Year ceremony where Padma’s work with Manchester’s diverse communities was finally given the recognition it deserved. Possessed of her mother’s beauty and her father’s down-to-earth manner she was, in appearance at least, the antithesis of what some - the more traditionally-minded - may imagine in a British Community Bobby. She also happened to be the most gifted community mediator and ablest informant handler Carver had ever come across.
Carver first met Padma during the Ancoats Rapes Enquiry where, almost single-handedly, she managed to bring the local Asian population round to cooperating with the investigation. He had made use of her skills several times since, mostly in cases where he ne
eded to establish trust within communities where there was none, or to garner information from those whose opinions of the police might prevent them coming forward. Commended, several times, by her Chief Constable, Padma had been feted at the Home Office for her community work and details of her initiatives were constantly being cited as good practice. Years before, Carver had initially taken it as a personal failure when she rejected his implorings to join CID. Since then he had come to realise that she was one of those police officers who were increasingly rare - ideally suited to her role and with no interest in promotion. The time she stood up before an assembly of Senior Officers and berated them for their collective ignorance of both Islam and prevailing attitudes towards the police amongst Manchester’s Muslim population, had passed into legend.
She raised her mug. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers,’ he answered.
As he savoured the coffee’s rich, dark flavour Carver purred his pleasure.
‘Glad to see CAD still makes the best coffee on the force. Eusebio’s?’
Padma nodded into her mug. ‘His son took over the shop last year, but it’s not changed.’
Carver made a mental note to call in on his way back. Eusebio’s Coffee House, just off the main Rochdale Road, stocked the widest range of coffees he had ever come across. The chance to replenish both his home and office stocks with something more substantial than the supermarkets’ ‘so-called ‘premium blends’ he’d fallen back on of late, was a rare opportunity.
‘So what are you after, boss? I heard you’d given up CID for a desk job?’
Seeing the mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes, Carver thought again on how her broad Lancashire accent belied her exotic looks. But though she was probably closer to the truth than he cared to admit, he responded to her dig by sending her a look that was part admonishing, part weary.
He briefed her on Aslan, and its background.
‘Armenia?’ she said when he finished. ‘That’s a bit different.’
‘How so?’
‘They’re not like some of the other communities around here. When they started arriving here, mostly in the eighteenth century I believe, they never settled in any particular part of the city. Physically and geographically, they integrated with the rest of the population, though there’s a thriving cultural community, mainly based around the Holy Trinity Church in Upper Brooke Street.’
‘I know it,’ Carver said, impressed but not surprised by her ability to speak with authority about a community he had mentioned for the first time only moments before. ‘So what if I wanted to trace a particular family?’
‘Well… I might say the church would be a good place to start, but….’ She gave a guarded look.
‘But what?’
‘I take it you are talking about a family that might not want to be found?’
He nodded. ‘Quite possibly.’
‘Illegals?’
His eyebrows jerked upwards.
She thought about it. ‘How long ago you say?’
‘Ten years. Thereabouts.’
She thought some more. ‘The church is no good then. They’re very cagey and wouldn’t openly admit to having illegals within their congregation. Even to me. We need someone closer….’ She stood up so suddenly he jumped, nearly choking on his coffee. ‘What are you driving these days?’
He coughed. ‘A Golf. Why?’
She looked disappointed. ‘A Golf? Where’s the ruddy BM?’ He tried to look hurt. ‘Never mind, it’ll do. Come on. Take me for a ride.’
She was already heading out the door as he rushed to gulp down what was left of the drink he’d been enjoying. ‘Where to?’
‘You’ll see.’
CHAPTER 31
Half an hour later, Carver pulled up outside the block of shops Padma had indicated. Though he had driven through Openshaw many times, he wasn’t familiar with this particular part of the East Manchester district or the estate to which Padma had directed him. But the iron shutters over the windows, the graffiti and the stripped-out cars littering some of the open spaces around told their own story.
‘Here we are,’ Padma said, slipping off her seatbelt.
Carver surveyed the row of tired-looking shops. ‘Where’s here?’ he said.
She pointed to a grocery next to the hairdressers on the end. The shop’s frontage was stacked full of produce boxes, almost to half the height of the front window. ‘The place everyone comes when they first arrive,’ she said.
‘Don’t tell me. Tea bags and cabbages are the first thing a family of illegal immigrants need when they get here, right?’
She threw him a lop-sided grin as she got out. ‘Something like that.’
Inside, the shop was cramped, with closely-packed rows of shelves running down its length. With the boxes out front shading the window, it was even dimmer than it looked from outside. Padma exchanged nods and smiles with a young girl on the till at the front door before leading Carver through towards the back. As they made their way down the aisle, Carver checked the display lining the wall to his right. Blue plastic baskets overflowed with every kind of vegetable he knew, and many more he did not recognise. To his surprise, they all looked fresh, clean and succulent. At least they eat well around here, he thought.
At the back of the shop, a slim, dark-haired youth who looked like he might be the girl on the till’s brother, was carrying boxes through from a storeroom. Their dark features put Carver in mind of the various Balkan factions he kept coming across and whose prominence in the city’s underclass had increased so dramatically in recent times. The young man beamed when he saw Padma, but the smile vanished as he spotted Carver.
‘Hello Eric,’ Padma said. ‘Is your Dad about?’
The youth eyed Carver with suspicion before nodding over his shoulder. ‘In the back. But he’s with someone.’
‘That’s okay. No rush.’
Padma squeezed passed him and as Carver followed, he was aware of Eric’s attempt at an intimidating stare. Another time he would have met it. But this was Padma’s territory. It wasn’t for him to fall out with her contacts. Nevertheless, he gave the lad a wink as he passed.
As they came through into the storeroom, a heftily built man with a full beard and who was perched on a stool outside a door to a small office, dropped the paper he was reading and stood up, unwinding himself to display his considerable bulk. But even as a huge hand balled into a fist and the other reached inside his jerkin, Eric called to him from behind. He said something in a language Carver didn’t recognise and the man relaxed. Retrieving his paper – it was in Coptic Carver noted - he returned to his post.
Eric came forward and knocked. A man’s voice, gruff and impatient, sounded from within. Eric spoke through the door. Carver heard mention of Padma’s name. The voice inside shouted something back, the tone softening noticeably.
‘Give me a minute, Padma,’ he called through the door.
As they waited in silence – the gorilla on the stool was engrossed in his paper again - Carver checked out the shop’s rear door. As he’d expected, it was made of steel, which he guessed would be reinforced. Bolts fitted to the door itself and sturdy looking hinges fixed to the brickwork around the frame indicated that the back of the shop could be locked-up as tight as Fort Knox. Whatever goes on here, Carver mused, it’s not just selling tins of chick-peas.
Carver’s first thought had been drugs, but he ruled it out immediately. Padma hated the dealers who dealt death and misery within the communities where she worked. She would never even pretend to be on as friendly terms with these people as Carver had judged from the reactions he’d seen so far - King Kong excepted. But if not drugs, what then?
The sound of latches being drawn and keys in locks sounded through the office door. A moment later it swung open. An elderly couple, vaguely Mediterranean in appearance and formally dressed in a Sunday-best kind of way, were ushered out by a small, balding man with a thick black moustache. Again Carver was surprised. From the voice, he had expe
cted someone bigger. As the couple made to leave, there was much hand-shaking and smiling. Several times they joined hands, as in prayer, and nodded their respects to the man. It put Carver in mind of a scene from, ‘The Godfather.’ Realisation began to dawn.
Eventually the man managed to get the couple to desist and, as they turned to leave and saw Padma and Carver, they fell silent. Their heads went down and they scurried out through the shop, the man pulling his coat round him to conceal the package he was carrying under his arm.
The man with the moustache turned to Padma, smiling widely. ‘My Little Jewel.’ Placing his hands on her shoulders, he kissed her on both cheeks before enveloping her in a fatherly embrace. Letting her go he turned to Carver.
‘Radi Maleeva,’ Padma said, ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Carver. But you can call him Jamie. He is a good friend of mine.’
‘Then you are most welcome, Mr Jamie,’ Radi said. As they shook hands, Carver noted that though much smaller than himself, Radi’s grip was the fiercer. The way his dark eyes held Carver’s made no secret of the fact he was appraising him and Carver returned the gaze evenly. Apparently satisfied, the man turned and called to the youth still hovering near the doorway.
‘Eric. Coffee and schnapps for our guests.’
It was clear now to Carver that they were father and son and that the shop was a family concern, like many such small businesses around the city.
Radi pushed open the door that had sprung shut as he’d shown the other couple out. ‘Please. Come in.’
As they entered the office, Carver just caught Radi’s slow shake of his head to the sentry on the stool and the man’s confirming nod. He read it as, ‘No interruptions.’
Inside, Radi made sure the door was firmly closed and locked – force of habit Carver guessed - before turning to address them. ‘Please, sit.’
Carver took in his surroundings. It looked and felt like an ancient accountant’s office, ledgers and books stacked on shelves everywhere. In the far corner was the biggest, oldest safe Carver had ever seen. Dark green and embossed with the name, ‘Hall and Hall,’ it confirmed Carver’s growing suspicions.
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