by Liz Mistry
Table of Contents
1998 Prologue
2016
Thursday
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Friday
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Saturday
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Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Sunday
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Monday
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Three weeks later
Chapter 91
Acknowledgments
Uncoiled Lies
Liz Mistry
Copyright © 2017 Liz Mistry
The right of Liz Mistry to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2016 by Bloodhound Books
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.bloodhoundbooks.com
978-0-9956926-3-3
Have you read Unquiet Souls? The best-selling, first part of Liz Mistry’s DI Gus McGuire series.
Amazon UK – Amazon US
To Nilesh, Ravi, Kasi & Jimi.
1998 Prologue
November 5th
The Catherine wheel sizzled and whirred, before crescendoing to a screech that had Sadia clambering onto the sofa. Her hands gripped the back and her eyes blazed in excitement. The stained-glass panes rattled as she pressed her nose against them, searching the sky for the floral shower that should have accompanied the firework. The sky remained dark. Disappointed, Sadia’s mouth drooped, but, as she turned to slide from the sofa, an orange flicker appeared outside. With a frown, she rubbed a clear circle onto the steamed-up window. Strange sputtering sounds, followed by a low hum, drifted through the darkness. It sounded like the distressed ‘moos’ of cattle on their way to slaughter.
Then, the meaty smell of overdone barbecue seeped through the rotting wooden window frames, making her retch. With the fingers of one hand pinching her nostrils and the other kneading the sofa cushions, she stared, all trace of excitement replaced by horror, at the ball of flames outside her gate.
The distorted human form weaved from side to side; a ghastly puppet, arms flailing against the flames. Suddenly, a sharp pop rent the air and blue sparks burst from the eye sockets. The puppet fell to the floor, melting like a grotesque ice lolly before her eyes.
She screamed and dived off the sofa landing on her knees before the coffee table. Her skinny arms reached up to cover her head and, as she lay there, she heard the sounds of sirens approach.
Her father’s strong arms lifted her up and crushed her against his chest. The rough fabric of his jacket was soaked in the fetid stench of burnt flesh and petrol. The girl struggled, pulling away, lashing out blindly at imaginary flames.
‘Beti, beti! It’s okay. It’s me.’ Her father gently cupped her cheeks and pulled her head to his until their foreheads met. ‘Shh, Shhh. It’s all over now. Finished.’
Sadia breathed deeply, hiccupped and fell against him, sobbing. He held her, rhythmically smoothing her long dark hair. When her cries faded to the occasional hiccup, he glanced at his wife who stood by the door, arms folded tightly round her chest. Her face was strained and her fragile body trembled. His smile was sad as he held his hand out to her. She pushed away from the doorframe and approached him, pulling her dupatta over her hair as she walked. For long seconds they looked at each other, each understanding that protecting their daughter was the priority. Bowing her head, she joined her daughter in his embrace.
He cradled Sadia’s head against his shoulder, protecting her from the scene outside, as he and his wife watched the paramedics work on the burnt lump that had been Millie Green. Firemen, no longer needed, loitered nearby, their helmets respectfully removed. Sadia pulled away from her father and, despite his pleas not to, peered outside. At the very back of the crowd was Millie’s daughter, Jessica. A tear rolled down Sadia’s cheek as she watched Jessica struggle to reach her mother, her cry a mewing monotone.
Behind her, Jessica’s half-brother, Shahid, yelled at the police officer. His pleading words so loud they almost rattled the brittle windowpane. ‘Let me have her. I’ll look after Jess. She’s my sister.’
Jessica twisted round and spat in his face.
‘I’m not going with you,’ she shouted, kicking him in the shins. ‘You fucking bastard! You did this! You burnt me mam! You and your fuckin’ dad.’
Sadia felt her father’s hands firm on her shoulder as they watched a police officer, aided by a woman in a heavy coat, pull Jessica towards a police car. Shahid lifted his arm and, with his sleeve, wiped the spit from his face. As the car drove off his final words drifted through the Hussain’s window and hung in the air. ‘I didn’t burn your mam, Jess! I didn’t!’
With a sigh, Sadia’s dad guided his family through to the hallway. Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, he knelt before Sadia. ‘I’ve got to go to work now, beti, okay?’
Sadia sniffed and nodded. ‘Yes, Bapa, I know.’
He ruffled her hair and turned to speak to her mother. ‘You two go straight upstairs and have a shower. Get out of those smelly clot
hes and put them in a bin bag – we’ll chuck them tomorrow.’ He looked directly at his wife and his tone changed. ‘You will do this now, won’t you, Amina?’
Sadia, puzzled, looked to each parent in turn. Her mother avoided her husband’s eyes and nodded.
A loud knock on the door startled them, then a male voice yelled through the letter box. ‘DS Hussain, sarge says we need you outside.’
Hussain pushed Sadia towards her mother. ‘Go now.’
Sadia slid her small hand into her mother’s and together they walked upstairs.
Running his fingers through his hair, Hussain replied, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming!’ and, with a single backward glance at his wife and child, he shrugged his overcoat on and left the house to join the rest of his team.
2016
Thursday
19:50 Leeds Road
Halfway up Leeds Road, past the Sikh gurudwara, Pakeezah Halal Food Depot and half a dozen Asian Restaurants, Shahid Khan’s club, The Delius, stood back from the road with a car park fronting it. It had once been an enormous single-storey sandstone hardware store owned by a Sikh family. When the parents retired, after years of working thirteen and fourteen hour days to send their kids to medical school, they found they had over-educated their family and done themselves out of someone to take over their family business.
When Shahid took the opportunity to buy it, he had immediately added an upper level to house his office and the administrative side of his various businesses. The Delius became one of his legitimate concerns. Securing the area behind the club with huge metal fences, he had reduced the risk of trouble making its way into the club and of guilty parties disappearing into the labyrinth of terraced streets that could provide cover all the way up to the Thornbury roundabout through the mainly Pakistani-owned residential area. Near the building stood a canvas-covered deck with gas heaters and picnic tables for the smokers. He made sure to keep good relations with the long-established neighbouring communities. Especially as when his father died and his step-mother moved back to Pakistan he and his stepbrother Imtiaz had remained in the family’s four-storey terraced house, on Upper Rushton Road.
Inside The Delius, the bass beat bounced against the walls drowning out the singer and the rest of the band. Thursday night was fifteen-and-overs night, yet still an assortment of manufactured mood lifters circulated the dance floor. The scent of less than subtly shared spliffs drifting in through the open fire-door, added to the edgy, adrenaline-fuelled atmosphere
In the mosh pit skanky girls in too few clothes shrieked, making odd little darts into the pit only to turn and run back to their friends, giggling like the teenagers they were. Only a few of the less flighty girls braved the centre. Boys wearing tight jeans that skittered down their arses pronouncing their trendiness alongside their support of Calvin Klein jerked and jolted their pointy limbs at right angles in an effort to inflict maximum damage on their best mates: ‘What happens in the mosh stays in the mosh.’
Tonight it looked like the bouncers’ job would be easy. Doors were shut and none of the troublemakers or gang factions had made an appearance. Keeping an eye on the mosh pit involved nothing more than Imtiaz sending a cursory glance at regular intervals and keeping a full ice bucket and first aid kit on the ready for the odd few daft enough to risk endless slagging for being a ‘soft dick’.
Imtiaz Khan worked the bar and still managed to oversee the rest of the club through carefully positioned mirrors that revealed activities in even the darkest corners. His best skill, though, was an uncanny ability to detect trouble from the unlikeliest sources. The hench Eastern European, talking to the young woman at the end of the bar looked more of a ‘trouble certainty’ than any of the mosh pit lads. Although he recognised the woman, Imti was sure he’d not seen the bloke before – he’d definitely have remembered him with his closely cropped hair and the distinctive snake tattoo slithering down his neck, as well as the prison tattoos; one on his eyelid, the other just under his eye. Imti’s mate Petrov had warned him to look out for those tatts; said they were a symbol of a notorious Polish gang known as the Grypsers. Petrov was shit-scared of anyone who wore them and said they were toxic. Imti made a mental note to double check with the bouncers later. Find out if they’d seen the man before.
The girl had been propping up the bar with an orange juice since around 7pm. The bouncers had clearly allowed the bloke in early. That would have been fine, except Imti had seen the way the girl had tensed when he’d slid on to the bar stool next to her and the sudden flash of fear that had flickered across her face. A quick glance at the clock told him that it was nearly time to usher the younger kids out. He raised both arms, fingers splayed to signify ten more minutes to the DJ. The DJ’s distorted voice broke over the thrashing bass, ‘Ten minutes mosh time left, kids.’
The kids groaned, making Imti smile. He loved these Thursday nights and insisted on providing this ‘youth club facility’ despite Shahid’s moans that they never made any profit. Imti knew that it would pay off in the long run. When they turned eighteen, they’d be back, spending real money.
As he poured a Diet Pepsi at the other end of the bar, he flicked the switch to focus the CCTV on the Eastern European. This would alert his brother Shahid, who was in the upstairs office with a bank of TVs in front of him. Imti edged his way up to that end of the bar and, using the unobtrusive panel behind the till, buzzed the bouncers who edged their way from their various stations to the bar.
Despite the pounding beat, Imti could hear the couple arguing in Polish. Their voices were loud, with the man making the majority of the noise. The man jumped off the bar stool, his aggressive posture putting Imti on alert as he towered over the woman. She’d begun to climb down from her bar stool when Imti saw the man’s fist hammering into her cheek, knocking her into a sideways sprawl. One leg tangled in the stool and her head bounced off the floor. On Imti’s nod, four of the bouncers grabbed the man. His head flung back and his mouth stretched into a snarl of dental decay. Imti watched as the man’s skull swung, with force, towards his biggest bouncer, Jai. Jai twisted round, taking a glancing blow to the shoulder which he followed through with an upward thrust that caught the hulk under the chin.
The kids from the mosh pit swarmed over. Imti could see from their eyes that they were feral with adrenalin and the promise of blood. Their phones, held high, were set to record. Jeers of ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ took on momentum as the crowd jostled forward. Imti signalled to the DJ to cut the music and raised his voice. ‘Right you lot, time to head off. Phones off or I’ll confiscate them. Go on, off you go.’
He turned back and saw Jai still struggling. Two more bouncers joined the fray. Snake tattoo man’s thick muscled arms strained against the bouncers’ hold as they dragged him through the back door, chucking him into the empty alley.
Action over, the teenagers, grumbling in low voices, lowered their phones and, with good-natured high fives, left the premises through the front doors where their dad taxis awaited.
Flicking the CCTV control to focus on the back alley, Imti watched as the man, both arms stretched out to either side, palms upward in a ‘what the fuck?’ gesture, kicked the door. Baring his teeth, he dropped into a boxer’s stance and punched the door in a series of jabs, before hoiking up a glob of phlegm and ejecting it onto the paintwork. He looked directly into the camera and raised his middle finger before swaggering off into the dark.