Baghlan Boy

by Michael Crowley

  Except the instrument played one last phrase from the alley: ‘Hey, Englishman, you better not be lying. You better not fuck with me.’

  Vinnie looked sideways; he didn’t even look in his opponent’s direction, but the glance was enough.

  ‘Because if you do, I’ll come for you. Believe that.’

  Vinnie’s composed exterior fell away, keeled over and died, and his nose was suddenly flush against Black Vest Guy’s chin. ‘Listen, Tarzan, I owe you fuck all, understand? You can get yourself to fuckin’ England.’

  Vinnie left a pause for the guy to make his play; he didn’t. But as Vinnie returned to the garage it sunk in that this man wasn’t going to take him anywhere now, was nothing but an arrogant and ultimately weak English piece of trash. He paced over and shoved Vinnie from behind. It was on; it had to be.

  *

  O’Grady studied the table tennis of questions and answers between van Duren and Katz, writing the subtitles for himself. He read the meaning behind every question and answer, the pauses before Katz’s answers; he could tell that her posture of clasped hands upon her lap, elbows to her sides, was an admission of guilt, but not hers, his. He could tell when the interview was coming to an end. Hans laughed at some droll remark from Katz as he stood to hold the interview door open for her.

  ‘Constable!’ ordered Hans.

  O’Grady didn’t sit and didn’t close the door behind him.

  ‘Have you reached a verdict?’

  ‘Not quite. I have to go to see the casualty now, to get a statement. Best if you guys hang around for a couple of days until I can make a decision on this – you never know, you might even find your suspect.’

  ‘Well, that’s the plan, Hans. Brigitte over there tells me you have traffic cam software, just like us. We could have run Gilheaney’s number plate an hour ago.’

  ‘I’ll see to it, later,’ said van Duren.

  O’Grady raised his voice a quarter-turn of a dial. ‘Later, Hans, our people smugglers might be in Poland or somewhere.’

  Katz raised her head a few degrees, signalling her disapproval to O’Grady. ‘Gavin, why don’t you go and arrange a hotel for us? I’ve got a few things to sort out here.’

  Back in his corner Brigitte was occupied on a call. It was twenty minutes to the end of her shift, but now two officers were urgently required to a location, putting paid to the gym and the spa. O’Grady watched her interrogate her caller. She was on her feet before the receiver was down.

  O’Grady raised his hand for attention. ‘You don’t know a half-decent hotel, do you, a few stops away?’

  ‘I’m going towards town now. I can drop you at a tram stop on the way. Come.’

  O’Grady waited in the underground car park whilst Brigitte and her partner got kitted up in a locker room. They were larger when they emerged, something protruding from every pouch. The vehicle was dark and menacing inside, the sat-nav a little smaller than an ATM screen, its voice militaristic in tone.

  ‘What’s the job?’ asked O’Grady.

  ‘Reports of a disturbance,’ said Brigitte, imitative of the sat-nav. ‘Routine for the locality.’

  From the backseat O’Grady looked out into the sunshine, at the coffee drinkers under awnings and parasols. He remembered a student holiday with his first girlfriend, how she had saved every train and bus ticket, and then put them in their photograph album. He found himself asking Brigitte about places to eat, drink and visit.

  ‘I thought you were here on a case,’ she said.

  ‘I am, and now I’m a suspect in another.’

  He failed to elaborate.

  The sat-nav led them through an expanse of suburbs that had the character of an exclusive caravan park. Perhaps it was the sunshine, but the streets looked clean and ordered and safe. This was social housing, but not like merry England. The shops propping up the apartment blocks were almost elegant; there were no iron grills to be seen and no devil dogs. Citizens were better dressed – they had a better body mass index and superior sunglasses.

  Brigitte pulled over and peered into the rear-view mirror. ‘I’m sorry, we’re off the tram route here. But it’s in that direction,’ she said, pointing.

  ‘Right.’ O’Grady paused on the door handle. ‘Or I could tag along… to the disturbance…?’

  A question crackled out of her partner’s radio. She spun the steering wheel; a siren began to wail and all three tensed to the G-force.

  ‘Alright, but stay in the vehicle.’

  As they rounded the corner, the melee ahead began thinning at the edges, but no one was heading indoors; instead they backed off to observe the forthcoming scene. A bunch of around ten still huddled around whatever it was in their midst. They rolled back and forth like a scrum whilst someone bawled encouragement from a balcony above. It was a scrap alright. Brigitte strode purposefully towards the crowd, cleaving a passage right through to the source. O’Grady watched her lodge herself between the two combatants whilst her colleague unsuccessfully tried to shoo the gathering away as if it consisted of pigeons. Brigitte knew that anything less than maximum assertion was only encouragement to the mob. She was good. A solid bobby, sound in a bundle. Her partner led his heavyweight contender a good ten paces away from his opponent who remained rigid, bloodied.

  What are they fighting about? Money, no doubt, or some imaginary slight on their masculinity. Who is he? He looks like… he is… fuck me… it is him. Gilheaney. Who had given him the slip twice, who had made him look a fool, made him run over a pain-in-the-arse cyclist, who had robbed his camera and, also, who had killed at least four people. Brigitte began to tell spectators to move along; you don’t do that if you’re going to cuff someone, if you’re going to make a collar. O’Grady sensed she was going to give him a caution, possibly an invite, to report at his convenience. He gave it two beats for a second thought, for a breath, before O’Grady walked, then charged, head bowed at his suspect, taking him to the ground from below the hip. Vinnie swung his fists as the O’Grady hung on to him at the knees. He was twisted and dragged like crocodile prey, but still he hung on.

  Brigitte shouted, ‘Let go of him, let go!’

  ‘Cuff him! Cuff him,’ replied O’Grady from under Vinnie’s backside.

  ‘We’re not arresting him!’

  ‘He’s my people smuggler.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  Atherton rushed over and attempted to wrench O’Grady away from Vinnie, but he only succeeded in tugging the two of them across the grass. Atherton kicked O’Grady’s ribs, three, four times in succession, swinging hard from the knee. O’Grady cried out. Brigitte and partner got busy, with the batons, the boots and the cuffs on Vincent Gilheaney and his nephew Michael Atherton.

  *

  Vinnie wouldn’t say a word to plod. He did, though, put together the bones of a story for his glum brief, along the lines of…

  ‘I was at the shop around the corner, and he, the big guy, is asking me for money, like a beggar, an aggressive beggar, and I just said, “No,” but then he gets angry and puts his hand on me, gets a little pushy, like…’

  His brief wrote it all down, keeping pace with Vinnie’s speech, and then when it came to interview, recited it all to O’Grady and the tape recorder. O’Grady wasn’t exactly listening. He smiled at his prey and at the satisfaction of having collared him. Brigitte had agreed to overlook his unofficial part in the arrest in her report in exchange for her credit in the collar of the people smuggler. It meant that Atherton wouldn’t be charged for the salvo on his ribcage, but that was the least of his crimes.

  Vinnie’s lawyer finished his tale. ‘…my client didn’t want to fight… he absolutely didn’t, but had no choice…’ He clicked the top of his pen for a full stop.

  For once O’Grady spoke softly to a suspect. ‘I believe you, Vincent, I honestly do.’ He paused as if he had just said, ‘Now a
re you sitting comfortably?’

  Vinnie finally spoke to plod. ‘So, what am I doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘Because, Vincent, I can link you to the people watching the fight, the flats they live in, to your lorry back in Hull, the ferry journeys and… the bodies in the Humber. And I can do all that without asking you a single question.’ O’Grady paused. ‘This isn’t going to end in a manslaughter charge, Vincent – it’s going to be murder.’

  Michael Atherton had been in more police interviews than his uncle. When required he could do silent, for days at a time if needed. He had done silent all the way through court proceedings – he was a soldier. But this time there seemed no point, he was wanted for being ‘on his toes’ and he had been caught. They had his name and his prison number, and a photo to match. He hadn’t asked for a lawyer; there was only one question bothering him.

  ‘Am I going back to the same jail?’

  Katz was turning the pages of his pre-convictions print-out. ‘No, you’re not, Michael.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  She put her answer to one side for a moment, lifting her head to look at him. She squinted as if the concentration of her eyes might probe what was going on behind his. They were blue and distracted; when he turned to one side it was as if he was sitting on a bus, raking over a memory from his childhood.

  He broke into a half-smile. ‘I didn’t exactly break out of that van, did I? Someone else broke in.’

  Katz nodded as if to say, ‘I’m listening…’

  Michael prodded the table with his index finger. ‘I didn’t even know who they were… They just offered to give me a lift… Not what you’d call an escape…’

  Katz tilted her head back slightly. ‘What part did you play, Michael?’

  ‘In the escape? Hardly any.’

  ‘In the murders, Michael?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about the murder of four migrants. Stuffed into boxes where they couldn’t breathe and then dumped in the Humber.’

  Michael’s neck tensed. He took a breath. ‘No idea what you’re chatting about.’

  ‘A search of the property you were outside this afternoon found packaging identical to the type found in the victim’s stomachs…’ She was about to say something else then switched to, ‘Do you know where Farood Abdali is?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Roodie.’

  He shook his head, clenched his fists. ‘I want a brief. Now. Go get me one.’

  Katz left the interview room to observe him through the one-way glass. She knew the chances of him cooperating against his uncle were currently less than even, but that would change. She had, however, secured one interesting immediate result. She had texted the other wanted escapee, ‘Roodie’, from Atherton’s phone. What u up 2 Roodie? A reply pinged back with the name of a town on the western edge of Turkey.

  Thirty-One

  Dikili, Eastern Turkey, July 2012

  A tourist town by the sea, with a harbour mid-way, jetties at either end and hillsides behind; a town with fixed borders against land and sea. The small hills provide a cushion against winters that sometimes bring snow. The hills are low but steep enough to deter developers advancing up the slopes. A town of sunsets. In July the sun shines down so abundantly you can feel its warmth on the soles of your feet as you walk along the front, looking out towards the brushstroke in the distance that is the Greek island of Lesbos: an island that has been conquered and reconquered by armies from Greece and Turkey since the days of Homer. The tourist town appeared affluent; polished shop fronts sold stylish jewellery and scarves; there were marble verandas and new cars outside houses with west-facing glass walls. In the harbour and around the jetties were yachts, pleasure cruisers and a ferry offering daily return trips.

  Between the hills is a valley that holds a road that runs straight east. At this time, it was bordered by fields of vegetable crops and meadows and in places lined by willow trees that embraced one another. Since the previous spring the road had carried thousands of people from Syria: families and fragments of families, escaping one army or another, one religious doctrine or another. People had clambered out of the ruins of their houses, wiping the dust from the faces of their dead children, the same grey dust that had turned black under their fingernails by the time they picked the unready knee-high kale to eat on the roadside. Some walked the road to town, knowing they would have to hand over what they had to pay for the boat to Greece, others could afford to pay for a bus or had been put on a bus by the police in towns to the east. They gathered near the harbour, on the beach and the pavement either side. Some erected tents, most sat upon blankets and coats. For such an assembly they were quiet, scores of them were silent, they lay or they wandered between sleep and wakefulness. The dozen old men from the town that met on the benches that surrounded the town square made more noise. Few begged. Some stole from a supermarket but were caught and kicked by security staff. After that the supermarket put collection boxes at the end of each checkout and most mornings a group of school students handed out fruit, bread and water, starting at either end of the line along the seafront.

  On their first morning, Farood tailed Berzan from one gift shop to the next as he searched for something for his daughter. He asked Farood’s opinion, holding up scarves, brooches and necklaces, to which Farood gave his positive approval every time. Farood looked at the postcards. He picked out one with a silhouette of a couple holding hands, in front of a sunset. He would send it to Sabana, to show her that his life was going on, in some place better than where she was. She was never going to be his wife; she only ever pitied him. He understood that now. There would be no message, only his name. Maybe he should send one to Atherton, who would be wondering when he would be back, but then he would have to write that he didn’t know.

  Berzan bought his teenage daughter a scarf and nodded Farood out of the shop. They headed along the front in search of a café. Berzan did not give the group of people assembled by his feet a second look; Farood looked down at every face, observing what they wore, what they carried. He saw how some were wearing too much, carrying too much. But they had left behind homes where they had possessions, whereas he had left behind nothing much beyond a cave. They passed by a squabble over a blanket. An old man had one end and an old woman the other: she was shouting at him whilst a young man put his forearm around the old man’s throat. As he squeezed tighter, she pulled harder and the old man released the blanket. Two strolling police officers crossed over from the other side of the road and politely acknowledged Berzan. At the other end of the harbour he chose a café, and they sat outside in the cool of its awning’s shadow.

  They ordered coffees and water, cheese and salami sandwiches. Berzan showed the waitress the scarf he had bought; she smiled in approval, asking who it was for. The bread, dry and crusty, flaked over the tablecloth. To be in the shade, even at this hour, was reviving.

  Across the road a mother and two sons were dragging themselves towards the assembly at the harbour. The woman carried bloated bags whilst holding the hand of a small child and a little ahead of them, her elder boy: maybe ten or eleven years old. They stopped to sit on the wall at the top of the beach; the ten-year-old’s feet dangled off the ground – one of his shoes split. Covering his face with his palms, he peered through a crack between his fingers, and noticed the two men opposite with their sandwiches, looking in his direction. He dropped down, walked into the road, looking straight at Farood, whose chewing slowed. The boy took from his pocket a bay leaf and began to shred it between his fingers. Then another. Berzan stared back and swallowed; Farood went into the café, bought more water and sandwiches, and took them to the boy and his mother. She clasped her hands together in gratitude.

  Berzan laughed. ‘You’re going to feed them all?’ he shouted.

  ‘Just them,’ replied Farood.

  ‘You shouldn’t start s
omething you can’t finish. They need to find their own food. Like you did. The boy must learn to steal. Better to steal than to beg.’

  They walked around the rest of the little town, the square with the statue of Kemal Ataturk, the narrow back streets of bars, barbers and metal workshops. A car mechanic emerged from shadow, wiping his hands, wanting to know who they were.

  ‘Business people,’ said Berzan.

  They returned to the front, with Berzan now leaning on a rail, studying the Syrians. In the last hour, more had come, but none as yet were leaving on boats. They watched tourists board the ferry, the ticket collector asking occasional questions and pointing to seats.

  ‘Okay,’ said Berzan, ‘let’s take a trip to Lesbos. Your job is to fetch me the cargo.’

  ‘How many?’ asked Farood.

  ‘Twenty. But we need the right cargo at the right price.’

  ‘What’s the right cargo?’

  Berzan spat onto the gritty sand. ‘The right cargo pays a hundred lira and doesn’t take up much room.’

  ‘What about children?’

  Berzan scratched his head as he negotiated with himself. ‘If they’re carried, that’s okay. If they take up a seat, it’s a hundred like everyone else. Same as an aeroplane. And only lira. No Syrian money. It’ll be worthless soon.’

  Farood was given an hour to bring them to the boat at the northern end of the harbour. He set about being as business-like as he could, directing some to the bank to exchange money and refusing those who offered him watches and jewellery as part payment. Many were unfriendly to him, talking to him as if he was a criminal. A woman who was handing out food told him he ought to take people across to Greece for nothing. ‘They’re refugees, for God’s sake, they’re escaping war.’ But most had the money and agreed to pay. He longed to tell all about his journey, how far he travelled as a boy. He came across an English teacher from Aleppo and told him how his father was killed and how his mother had to sell their sheep for him to get to Greece.