One Way Out

by A. A. Dhand

  Harry said nothing.

  When the silence hit a minute, Harry reached into his pocket and removed the items he had found in Roderick’s bedside cabinet.

  A handful of Viagra tablets, a gimp mask and a nipple clamp.

  He dropped them one by one on the floor in front of Roderick.

  ‘They’re going to have a right old time with you in prison, aren’t they? So is it you or Azeez who gets to wear the mask?’

  Roderick didn’t need to reply. Harry saw the answer in his face.

  Harry pointed to the laptops stuffed inside the carrier bags, the ones Roderick had been running with. ‘Bet there’s a lot of saucy shit on those. Saw the leads hanging from the TV. No video camera, mind.’

  Roderick glanced at his rucksack, realized his involuntary mistake then looked away. Harry opened it and dumped the contents on the floor. A silver Sony camcorder clattered on to the tiles.

  ‘I don’t really give a shit about your sex life, Roderick. I want to know where Azeez is. You tell me that and you can get back to running wherever it was you were going.’

  Harry waved the camera at him, placed it on the table.

  Roderick looked at the dustbin.

  ‘Something in there you don’t want me to find? Something worse than what’s on that camera?’

  Suddenly Roderick stood, pulling open a drawer beneath the cabinet he was cuffed to and brandishing a knife.

  Isaac stepped back, just out of reach, eyes searching for Harry’s, who ignored him and folded his arms across his chest.

  ‘Really?’ he said, frowning.

  Roderick was waving the knife wildly at Harry, eyes glazed over, face twisted into a frightening snarl. Gone was the cry-baby.

  Harry picked up the chair he had been sitting on. ‘This only ends one way,’ he said, raising it to throw at him.

  Roderick shook his head. He was frightened and angry. Maybe the guy was mad.

  Harry tightened his grip on the chair. Once he threw it, Roderick would have to drop the knife to use his hand to defend himself. Harry would put him down with a swift kick to the balls and then, well, he’d be forced to play a little dirtier.

  Harry never got the chance.

  Before he could do anything, Roderick started laughing, shouting something incoherent in what sounded like Arabic before closing his eyes and putting the knife to his neck. Then, without hesitation, he cut his own throat, eyes wide and crazy.

  Isaac stood frozen in disbelief.

  Harry stood there, chair still raised, stunned, blood haemorrhaging everywhere as Roderick collapsed to his knees, wavering slightly before slumping to the floor.

  FORTY-THREE

  Joyti Virdee always found the act of making Indian tea soothing. Allowing water to boil, adding loose tea, cardamom and fennel seeds, then a generous amount of milk, and allowing it to simmer. The longer it simmered, the richer the tea. Her mind was on Saima. Trapped inside the mosque.

  Alone.

  At least she had seen that Aaron was asleep. Not that it had been easy. Aaron had cried incessantly, exhaustion finally taking over. Joyti doubted he would wake until morning.

  Today she allowed the tea to simmer for a quarter-hour longer than usual, her mind now going to Ranjit.

  He had been to the supermarket, bought Aaron clothes and a toy. Nothing from the usual range, everything from the premium line. A small detail but an important one, she felt.

  Joyti turned off the stove, poured two cups through a tea strainer and carried them into the living room along with a packet of Ranjit’s favourite, custard creams.

  Her husband was sitting quietly at the table by the window, staring outside, the brightness of the day starting to fade. She left the door wide open; if Aaron started to cry she needed to hear him. Joyti doubted he would. She had rarely seen a little boy as tired as he had been.

  She placed the cups on the table and sat down opposite Ranjit. He didn’t look up.

  ‘Tea,’ she said softly, jolting him from his thoughts. He looked in her direction, momentarily confused. She nodded towards the table. He hadn’t eaten anything all day.

  The silence lingered.

  Joyti blew gently into her cup, the heat rising from the tea.

  ‘You know, when our son bought us this house, I was so pleased,’ said Ranjit finally, taking his tea, leaving the biscuits.

  ‘It’s a lovely house,’ she replied.

  ‘I liked the view. The hills in the distance. It reminded me of the place I grew up in Punjab after my family had been forced to leave Lahore.’ Ranjit looked down into his teacup. ‘When I was a child, I wished I could run over the hills because I had heard stories there was gold on the other side.’

  Joyti listened quietly, unsure why Ranjit was telling her this. She knew how the partition of India had affected her husband’s family. One day they had woken up to find themselves living in the newly formed Pakistan. It had taken only three days before the looting had started. The British had fled, leaving Sikhs and Muslims to engage in a bloody conflict on both sides of the border.

  ‘We left our home on a Friday. I always remember it because I could hear the mosques sounding their call-to-prayer.’

  He laughed uncomfortably and took a sip of his tea.

  ‘My mother was carrying my younger brother’ – Ranjit paused – ‘Charanjit.’

  Joyti had never heard the name, had never known her husband had a younger brother.

  ‘You—’

  ‘He was my mother’s favourite.’ Ranjit spoke over her. ‘Youngest always is.’

  She smiled. Even Ronnie knew that Harry had always been her favourite.

  ‘Charanjit was my favourite too. He used to sleep in my bed at night and when it got too hot I would fan him until he slept.’ Ranjit wiped his eyes. ‘We left Lahore on this Friday. We had heard from our neighbours, a Muslim family called Baig, that we were not safe any more. They were good people. We used to go to their house for Eid dinner and they would come to ours when it was Vaisakhi. This Friday, though, they told us to leave because we were in danger. And we did, in the baking heat. My father, two older brothers and my mother. My mother carried Charanjit until she became too tired. Then I carried him.’

  He wasn’t drinking his tea any longer, but he gripped the cup as if the room had grown cold.

  ‘He was so heavy,’ said Ranjit, his voice now just a whisper.

  The expression on her husband’s face was one Joyti had never seen before.

  ‘There were thousands walking with us. We heard whispers that vandals were coming – to rape the women, kill the children, and the heat …’ Ranjit shook his head. ‘It felt like we were walking through fire.’

  He got up from his chair and moved towards the dark corner of the room, as if the pale light from the window was burning his eyes. His voice had changed. Was it pain? Or fear?

  ‘Charanjit stopped moving in my arms on the eighth day.’ He placed his hands on the wall as if the wind had been knocked from him and he could no longer stand.

  Joyti went to him but she didn’t embrace him. She didn’t know how. Why had she never heard this story before? In all their years of marriage?

  ‘We … wanted to cremate him but there was no wood. Nothing to make a fire. So … so …’ Ranjit broke down. ‘We laid him down by the road – next to other children – and covered his body with leaves …’ His voice trailed off.

  Joyti wrapped her arms around her husband.

  ‘We left him there! He was such a pure, innocent child. He should have been cremated so his spirit could have returned in the next life as something worthy! We could not do this for him. We … had to keep walking!’

  He smashed his fists against the wall. ‘What kind of God could allow that to happen?’

  Another crack of his fists on the wall.

  ‘My father kept pushing us to walk – he never cried. He just kept us moving. My mother, a part of her died that day. She was never the same again.’

  Joyti hugged him as ti
ghtly as she could, feeling his body starting to shake, her tears soaking into his shirt.

  ‘Those bastard Muslims took Charanjit’s life. They took my mother from me! They ruined us. Homeless, penniless and now incomplete.’

  Joyti heard a wheeze inside his chest, a sound she knew only too well. She moved to the shelf above the mantelpiece and snatched his inhaler, pushing it into his hands.

  Ranjit put it to his lips and inhaled deeply, repeating it several times, keeping his body in the corner as if afraid to step out from the shadow.

  ‘Charanjit had a birthmark behind his right shoulder. A perfectly formed circle.’

  Joyti felt her head swim.

  ‘That … that … child upstairs,’ he said, continuing to cry.

  She looked at him, pained.

  Ranjit pointed upstairs. ‘That boy, I swear to you, Joyti …’ He balled his hands into fists. Not bitterness but pain. He stared at his wife, disbelief on his face.

  ‘That boy upstairs has the same birthmark as Charanjit. I want more than anything to take him in my arms, kiss him, inhale the sweetness from his skin and never let him go! But I cannot.’

  FORTY-FOUR

  Saima walked up and down the grand hall, pushing a cart filled with food – the one thing the Mehraj mosque was not short of. As people ate, the edginess that had existed inside the room seemed to settle.

  Saima had not offered to help cook in the kitchen, instead volunteering to distribute food. It gave her the chance to walk among the worshippers.

  A sleeper cell? What did that even mean? Everyone she had so far seen appeared to be perfectly normal. A few faces she recognized; most, however, she did not.

  The room had fragmented into four clear groups. The elderly, men, women, and youngsters. The differences between them were stark. Saima was concerned about the last group – the young boys looked anything but passive. Tensions were rising – boredom, too much social media and, the most worrying aspect, anger. The older men seemed to be on it – watchful.

  Saima had been drawn towards the women in full burkas first, but then questioned it. Trying to be objective, was it not too obvious for the sleeper to be wearing a burka? There were half-a-dozen women dressed in the outfits. Saima had approached them, spoken with them and left, unfazed.

  Imam Hashim entered the room, pushing a cart full of drinks. He caught her attention: smiling, embracing those who needed it. He was the epitome of a man in control.

  Christ, she was being cynical but Harry’s words filtered into her mind:

  Look for the calmest person in the room …

  Hashim was certainly that.

  She thought back to her attempts at analysing the bomb, Hashim by her side. He had been the perfect example of calm.

  Finished with the food cart, Saima made her way back to Hashim’s office, located at the right-hand side of the stage. She had left her phone on charge inside.

  Having double-checked he was still at the other end of the grand hall, Saima sat down at his desk. She opened the drawers and found nothing more than religious texts. The computer was on and she moved the mouse, bringing the screen to life. Saima clicked on the email icon and scanned a few of the most recent emails.

  She frowned. They were in Arabic, which Saima couldn’t understand. She glanced at the keyboard – also Arabic. She took a few moments to figure out which the Send button was, then forwarded the last five emails to herself. Saima unplugged her phone, checked the emails had landed then deleted them from Hashim’s Sent folder.

  Nothing to it.

  She moved to the couch and used Google translate on her phone to decipher the emails. It took a short while to figure them all out. Once she had, she could hardly believe her own eyes.

  Imam Hashim.

  Saima stood up, alarmed, the phone shaky in her hand. She tried to call Harry but it went to voicemail. Saima needed to tell someone what she had found.

  Frost.

  She scrolled to his number and was about to hit Call when the office door opened and Hashim strode in.

  He closed the door then turned to look at her, clearly annoyed.

  ‘Put your phone down, Saima.’

  She stared at him, uncertain.

  He pointed to the corner of the room.

  Saima turned to see a small, dome-shaped CCTV camera, fixed in the ceiling. She hadn’t realized it was there.

  Hashim showed her his phone: real-time footage of them both.

  Saima’s thumb was poised to call Frost. Hashim closed the gap.

  ‘Give me your phone, Saima.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Let me explain.’

  She pointed at him, outraged. ‘You cannot do this, Hashim. I will not let you.’

  FORTY-FIVE

  Neither Harry nor Isaac moved.

  Blood pooled around Roderick’s body, the knife by his side. Harry couldn’t stop replaying how quickly and unhesitatingly it had happened. What the hell had made Roderick so afraid that he had slit his own throat?

  Harry looked away. In his experience, only a very specific type of fear or mental illness could make a man do such a thing.

  ‘You OK?’ said Harry, looking to Isaac.

  ‘I’m not the one who just slit my own throat,’ replied Isaac, voice surprisingly calm. Harry didn’t like what he saw in Isaac’s eyes. Something dark surfaced then disappeared.

  ‘Most people react after they’ve witnessed something like that.’

  Harry wanted to add, Especially ones who take medication for anxiety.

  Isaac met Harry’s gaze. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m not sure what just happened.’

  ‘Makes two of us.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to check his pulse?’

  Roderick’s arm was dangling awkwardly, still cuffed to a cabinet door. Harry unfastened the cuffs and put them in his pocket. ‘He’s as dead as anyone I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘So, what now?’

  ‘Why are you so calm about this?’ Harry grabbed Isaac by the arm.

  ‘I don’t know what you expect. I’m supposed to cry? Faint?’

  ‘All that and more.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint.’ Isaac shook him off.

  ‘He did that because he was afraid,’ said Harry. He stepped around the blood, still pooling on the floor.

  ‘Are you going to call an ambulance?’ said Isaac.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you really a police officer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t act like one.’

  Roderick had been staring at the bin just before he killed himself. Harry removed the lid. He couldn’t see anything except the black bin bag. He carried it into the living room, away from the blood, Isaac following behind.

  Harry emptied the contents on the floor.

  Four pieces of cardboard, four plastic sheaths.

  ‘Shit,’ whispered Isaac.

  ‘We need to move quickly,’ said Harry, alarmed.

  This time, he was comforted by Isaac’s tone. If the kid hadn’t reacted to what they were looking at, Harry wasn’t sure he could have continued to work alongside him.

  ‘You start down here. I’ll do upstairs. Tear the place apart,’ said Harry.

  Isaac was still mesmerized by the contents of the bin: four empty packages that had each clearly contained a large kitchen knife. ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘Azeez has a location in mind. He’s dreamt of this, obsessed about it, and most importantly coveted the location. We only covet areas we know well. In this house is a clue to where the sick fuck is headed. We need to find it, Isaac. Fast.’

  Isaac could hear Harry tearing the house apart upstairs. He was doing the same down here. They needed to find Azeez. Without him, Isaac couldn’t get to Nazir, to safety.

  He was angry at himself for letting the detective notice his reaction to Roderick’s suicide.

  Isaac knew Harry didn’t trust him.

  What he also knew, though, what he had experience
of, was that desperation often left a man exposed. Vulnerable.

  He wasn’t about to underestimate Harry Virdee.

  Isaac was banking on the fact that Harry would underestimate him.

  Upstairs, Harry ransacked both bedrooms, not completely focused. It was distracting, having part of his brain focused on Isaac downstairs. Harry had always had a sixth sense when it came to people. The kid wasn’t toxic, but there was something deeper going on that Harry didn’t like.

  For now the only question Harry needed an answer to was: could he trust Isaac not to have a pop at him?

  For now.

  Harry discovered a few photos of Azeez. Vanity snaps of him on a beach. Nothing that gave him any clues to where Azeez might be headed.

  Wherever Azeez was going, he intended to kill.

  He should call this in. What would he say? How the fuck had he got here and what about Isaac?

  The bastard had to be local. Probably close enough to go on foot. Someplace small yet with enough people to cause headline-grabbing casualties.

  Isaac’s voice startled Harry from his thoughts and he hurried downstairs.

  ‘Found something?’ said Harry, rushing into the living room.

  ‘Payslips.’

  Harry took them from him. The last three months. Each was for four hundred pounds, for part-time employment.

  Harry checked the front, found the address.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said, stuffing them into his pocket. ‘Come on.’

  Harry grabbed Isaac and together they headed for the back door, stepping past Roderick’s body.

  Outside they ran for the car, Harry praying they were not too late.

  Quebec Nursing Home, Dementia Specialists.

  FORTY-SIX

  Quiet.

  What happened now?

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Joyti asked finally. They were sitting back at the table.

  ‘Poured dirt in the grave,’ he replied. It was an old Indian saying. When bad things occurred, you simply buried the facts and never spoke of it again.

  Joyti’s heart broke for her husband.

  ‘When I first saw the boy,’ said Ranjit, pointing upstairs, ‘I thought I was seeing things.’