The Lifers' Club

by Francis Pryor

  Alan was aware that the clock had started ticking, but last week’s farcical ‘interview’ aside, this was his first chance to view Ali close-up. Of course, he reminded himself, he hadn’t seen him for over seven years, but most young men in their mid-twenties, if anything, look better than they did in their late teens. They gain muscle mass and physically ‘fill-up’; they haven’t yet started to age – that begins to happen in their later thirties. Ali was still only twenty-six. To judge by the set of his arms and shoulders, Alan suspected he was taking regular exercise in the gym.

  They began by discussing Darwin and the development of archaeology. Alan kept on pushing at the science versus religion debate. As Mary Lane had been so keen to point out when all this started, an honour killing suggests fundamentalism. But Ali was pragmatic. ‘If that’s what the radiocarbon dates say, then that’s OK by me,’ seemed to be his attitude. He was far more interested in the nuts and bolts workings of radiocarbon dating: the way, for example, solar radiation bombarded the earth’s outer atmosphere. It didn’t seem to worry him that the scientific dates conflicted with religious texts. For a moment Alan wondered whether he had just not made the connection. Then he looked into those intelligent eyes again and no, there was no doubt: it just didn’t matter to him.

  His mind was now racing. Fundamentalism was one motivation. But only one. What about the family pressure? He only had ten minutes: he’d have to push him. Hard. But first he must re-establish trust.

  ‘I can only imagine what you’re going through, Ali. Being locked up, being watched all the time. I just want you to know that you can talk to me, about anything. Everything you say in this classroom will remain strictly between us.’

  Alan winced at the hypocrisy of this. Still, ends justified means. In the end, this would be for Ali’s benefit.

  ‘Ah, but walls have ears. Never forget that.’

  ‘In this case, Ali, they don’t,’ he replied, ‘I wasn’t prepared to do personal supervisions and have every word recorded. That’s why we have this horrible screen between us. It was what the prison authorities insisted on as the price of privacy. Security was far too in-your-face last time. I couldn’t think straight with that man standing over us.’

  Ali shrugged his shoulders. ‘Doesn’t bother me. You learn to cope once you’re inside. You have to. Have a bath, and a screw can come in. The bent ones love it. So you learn to take it. If you don’t, it’s game over.’

  ‘But you don’t seem too downhearted. You coping OK?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Alan detected a minuscule change: a squaring of shoulders; head held a fraction higher.

  ‘Yes, you look OK to me.’

  Ali leant forward.

  ‘I’m making the most of it.’

  Alan had no idea how to respond to this. If Ali noticed his discomfort he clearly didn’t care: he had a point to make.

  ‘It’s like my granddad always says, where your average bloke sees a problem, a businessman sees an opportunity. There’s competition and scams all around. Some blokes are making fortunes. It’s like the world outside, but you also get fed. And a bed at night. Could be worse, if you don’t weaken.’

  Ali’s stare was penetrating, but Alan didn’t flinch. He knew he would have to give as good as he got to regain his respect.

  ‘You were always the entrepreneur, Ali. I am sure your grandfather would be proud of you.’

  Ali dropped his gaze and looked away, suddenly awkward.

  ‘Yeah, so proud he won’t even set foot in this place.’

  ‘That surprises me, he always seemed to be… very much a family man.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. They say I’ve brought shame on the whole family… everyone in it.’

  How interesting, thought Alan. Exactly the opposite of what Lane had reported: that the confession had led to Mehmet acquiring status within his community.

  But that could wait. He had to keep Ali focused.

  ‘And what about Abdul?’

  At the mention of his brother’s name, Ali flinched slightly. Just a minute adjustment, but Alan had no doubt now. None at all.

  ‘Does he visit?’

  ‘Once. He couldn’t stay long. But we stay in touch.’

  The mobile phones, obviously. But that wasn’t Alan’s concern.

  ‘I suppose he’s kept busy with the plant hire business. Paul, my old colleague at Flax Hole, still has dealings with him.’

  ‘You still in touch with that wanker?’

  Ali looked genuinely agitated. In fact, the most agitated Alan had seen him. What on earth was his issue with Paul? Alan decided to provoke him further.

  ‘As it happens, he’s my boss now. He’s not that bad once you get to know him.’

  Ali shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘If you say so. It’s your funeral.’

  Now he was smiling at Alan again. That cold smile, neither hostile nor friendly. Alan felt, yet again, that he was losing control of the conversation. That Ali was now trying to provoke him. Time was running out.

  ‘The thing is, Ali, we’re not as different as you might think, you and I.’

  At this, Ali looked genuinely amused. Alan pushed on before Ali could derail him with any kind of comeback.

  ‘I’ve lost both my parents. My older brother, Grahame, took over the family business. He means well but at times he can be quite a bully. Telling me what to do, where to go, even though there’s only a couple of years between us.’

  Ali leant forward, as close to Alan as the partition would allow.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I was just trying to…’

  ‘Don’t give me that.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You know damn well. I’m here to learn archaeology, right? So stop messing with things that don’t concern you.’

  The last sentence was said, almost hissed, very softly indeed, lips barely moving.

  As Ali finished speaking, the door behind him opened and the escorting officer arrived with the next student. Interview over.

  * * *

  Outside the prison walls, Alan reached into his pocket for his phone. He rang DCI Lane’s number.

  ‘Richard, just checking we’re still on.’

  ‘I’ll be with you in half an hour.’

  And that was it. Lane rang off.

  Alan knew that he was just being cautious, not wanting to discuss anything over the phone. But after his conversation with Ali, this curt exchange made him feel even more isolated.

  He hadn’t wanted to meet Lane at the prison after the interview. It just felt wrong. There were too many eyes in that place, and if Ali managed to detect even the slightest hint that he was seeing the Law, then the whole project would be dead in the water. So he suggested The Slodger’s Arms.

  Traditionally, ‘slodgers’ were fenmen of the south Fens; ‘yellowbellies’ were their Lincolnshire equivalents. This pub was a small independent house with close links to a micro-brewery in Chatteris. Alan knew the beer was always good, the food plentiful and fresh, although a bit robust for London tastes, and the company relaxed. He liked it.

  He walked into the bar. A couple of the locals said hello, but then they left him alone. That was another thing he liked about the Slodger: Fen people never crowd you. He ordered a beer and a round of sandwiches, then sat down, taking a copy of the local paper from a rack by the fire. He was starting to warm up and relax. After a quarter of an hour, half a pint and a doorstep sandwich, Lane entered.

  A brief handshake and then it was down to business.

  ‘I’ve done a bit more homework with the local force and Ali was known to be a man on the up.’

  ‘Straight or bent?’

  ‘Straight, so far as I could tell. No, he was running a successful small business. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t done a few shady deals
along the way. He would have to raise cash somehow,’ he paused, ‘but no, my sources reckon he was OK.’

  Alan nodded in agreement. Ali was asserting his control, for sure but that didn’t mean he was a criminal. It just meant that he was protecting his interests – or someone else’s.

  ‘For what it’s worth, I think you’re right. I don’t think it’s Ali that you need to worry about.’

  Lane gestured to Alan to continue.

  ‘I tried to ask him a few questions about the family.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He shut me down. Told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.’

  ‘Well, that’s understandable, I suppose. If I were in Ali’s position in prison, the only thing that would keep me sane would be my own personal life. My family. I don’t think I’d like an outsider meddling in it, either.’

  Lane was frowning.

  ‘I don’t suppose you mentioned drugs?’

  Alan almost choked on his beer.

  ‘Christ no!’

  ‘I realise you have to go carefully, but I just thought…’

  ‘You don’t understand what it’s like talking through grills with cameras around. It’s not like being in a nice cosy pub. It’s harder to talk and everything you say seems significant. And I suppose it is. It’s not an atmosphere – an ambiance they’d call it down south – that invites intimacy.’

  He finished his beer, then feeling sorry for his friend, who was now looking crestfallen, he added, ‘So to answer your question: no, I didn’t get even the slightest hint about drugs or anything of that sort. Nothing.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. He’s not going to chat about such things openly, is he? So did he say anything, anything at all that we can even start to build on?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t what he said so much as…’

  Alan faltered, how the hell was he going to explain himself?

  ‘Richard, I think I’m going to need another pint.’

  Lane returned from the bar with a pint for Alan and a lemonade for himself. Alan took a large gulp of ale and braced himself.

  ‘The thing is, I’ve remembered something. About Flax Hole.’

  ‘Remembered? Just like that?’

  Alan could hear the scepticism in Lane’s voice. It was important, now more than ever, that he kept him on side.

  ‘It came to me the other day at work. I don’t know, maybe I’d suppressed it, subconsciously. It was pretty traumatic. And I’ve also been having these weird dreams…’

  Alan stopped himself. Don’t overdo it: stick to the facts.

  ‘I haven’t been keeping things back from you, Richard, I promise. I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Lane reached into his pocket and took out a note book and pencil.

  ‘It’s about his brother. Abdul.’

  Lane leant forward in his chair, focused on every word.

  ‘What about him?’

  Alan took another long drink and began…

  ‘He visited the site, just the once. I’d been giving Sofia a tour. We’d nearly finished. We were by the wet sieves. She was behaving a bit like a kid who’d bunked-off school. A bit overexcited. Three or four of our people were working at the wet sieves. It was getting late and they were messing around, ready to knock off. You know what it’s like: lots of clattering, buckets and mud everywhere, plus squirting water and a bit of horseplay. People were keeping their spirits up after doing a cold, muddy job on a freezing day in February. Anyhow, the din seemed to draw her over to see them. I decided to return to my trench where I was meant to be drawing yet another section of retting pit, but for some reason I still kept half an eye on the girl at the sieves.’

  ‘Was that just because she was a pretty young teenager?’

  ‘Funnily enough, I don’t think so, although I won’t rule it out. No,’ Alan continued, ‘to be frank I think I was interested in seeing how the crew at the wet sieves would react to her. But I needn’t have worried: they were great. They showed her what they were doing and some of the finds drying in a tray.’

  He paused for a moment. He was aware he needed to get the next bit right.

  ‘But she was quite a short girl… I’d guess five foot one or two. Something like that. But the point is, she couldn’t quite see into the sieve, even when standing on the breeze blocks they’d put there. So one of the blokes, a great mountain of a man we all called Wraith, picked her up in a huge bear hug. I must admit alarm bells rang inside my head, but everyone was laughing…’

  ‘Even the girl?’

  ‘Mostly the girl. She was loving it. Having a whale of a time. And then…’

  Alan paused and took another swig of ale. Lane looked up from his note-taking.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There was a shout from the site entrance. Abdul had come to collect her, but nobody had seen him arrive. He shouted and shook his fists as he ran over to the wet sieves. Of course Wraith put her down, but instead of having a go at him, as most normal…’

  ‘I think you mean Western,’ Lane added quietly

  ‘As most normal Western blokes would have done, he ignored Wraith and the rest of the sieve crew. It was as if they weren’t there. They didn’t exist. And then he shouted a load of angry stuff at her in Turkish and led her off, back to the offices.’

  ‘Did he hit her? Was he physical in any way?’

  ‘No.’ Alan shook his head. ‘None of that.’

  Alan paused. There was no going back now.

  ‘Anyhow, about four or five minutes later there was a loud scream from high in the office building. We could hear two men’s voices, shouting. Then silence. Everyone on site had stopped work and all were staring up at the building.’

  ‘How long did the shouting go on for?’

  ‘Not long. Not long at all. Maybe thirty seconds – on and off. A couple of minutes later we resumed work, but it was weird. No, creepy… the site was absolutely silent. We’d all been shaken.’

  ‘And then what did you do.’

  Alan looked down at the table. He was deeply ashamed. But it was important, now, that he finished the story.

  ‘I remember the drive back to the Unit was grim. Some people wanted to phone the police then and there. Others, more politically correct, thought they shouldn’t interfere.’

  ‘So what happened when you got back to the Unit?’

  ‘Somebody mentioned it to Paul…’

  ‘Your co-director at Flax Hole?’

  ‘And now my boss. He’s the PF in PFC.’

  Lane nodded. Alan continued.

  ‘Anyhow, he agreed we’d done the right thing.’

  ‘What, by saying nothing?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alan continued, ‘I don’t think he wanted to upset the Kabuls. They were the clients, after all.’

  ‘And that was the last time you saw her alive?’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  Lane was entirely focused now, scribbling down notes in his pad.

  ‘And it didn’t occur to you, after a few days, to ask where she was?’

  ‘Like I said, Paul was adamant that we shouldn’t interfere. Besides, shortly afterwards my shift patterns changed and Paul and I hardly saw each other, so I didn’t really have the chance to discuss it further.’

  Alan was aware how pathetic that sounded. To his credit, Lane didn’t remark on it.

  ‘Changed how, exactly?’

  ‘Paul suggested that we formalise things. He took charge of all admin and I ran the fieldwork. And that was that.’

  Lane leant back in his chair, and stared at Alan thoughtfully, sympathetically even.

  ‘You said you’d been having nightmares?’

  ‘About Sofia, yes.’

  ‘This memory loss thing, it’s more common than you
think.’

  Alan felt a huge wave of relief. Lane was onside.

  ‘We encounter it a lot. You obviously found the whole situation deeply upsetting, so you blanked it out. Then, that newspaper article was the trigger…’

  ‘That makes sense. I remembered the whole thing the other day, when I was moving bulk soil samples at PFC. Strangely, I think it was the smell of mud.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lane broke in, ‘we now recognise that smells can be deeply evocative.’

  ‘Really? But it was weird, like watching a film clip with me in it.’

  ‘That sounds about right. We come across it all the time. I gather it’s a variant of post-traumatic stress disorder.’

  Alan buried his head in his hands.

  ‘That scream, that was her being murdered, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’

  Lane paused, consulted his notes again.

  ‘You said, you heard two male voices, could you recognise either of them?’

  Alan shook his head.

  ‘OK, Alan, leave it with me. At the very least, we’ve got a witness to the event, within the family.’

  Alan couldn’t help himself, he laughed.

  ‘And you think they’ll come forward?’

  Now it was Alan’s turn to lean across the table, insistent.

  ‘Don’t you get it, Richard? Whatever happened, however it happened, they arrested the wrong brother.’

  Nineteen

  Alan slept fitfully that night. He wasn’t plagued by nightmares, at least not dreamt ones. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Sofia, being dragged away by Abdul. He couldn’t shake the sound of that scream from his mind.

  And behind the horror of the relived moment, there was a strong feeling of guilt. What he hadn’t told Lane, simply because he couldn’t bring himself to admit to it, was that he’d played a big part in persuading people not to make an official fuss. The excavation was just starting to slip behind schedule and their contract had big penalty clauses if there were delays. So at the time he told himself that it had made sense to keep quiet and keep digging. That way, he could criticise Paul all he liked for being self-interested and money-minded but really, when it came down to it was he, Alan, any different? What if he had spoken up? For God’s sake, what if the minute he had heard the screams he had run round to the Kabuls’ office and broken the bloody door down, would Ali be in prison now? Would Sofia still be alive?