A Private Business

by Barbara Nadel

  “Why? I can do everything that porn stars do!” she said. Her massively high wedge-heel shoes made it difficult for her to move very quickly and so Lee just picked her up and carried her. “Ooh! Ow!”

  He opened the front door and put her outside. “I know you can do all those things and very well too,” he said. “But, darling, let’s face it, that’s all you can do, isn’t it?”

  Foxy looked genuinely shocked. “What else is there?” she said.

  “If you have to ask the question, darling …” Lee shut the door literally in her face. Then he muttered underneath his breath, “The bird didn’t like you.” But when she pretended to cry he didn’t know who to feel more sorry for, her or himself. Then her tears turned to anger and she stood outside calling him a cunt for a while and then she left. Clingy people. Who needed them?

  Lee checked the flat just to make sure that Roy was actually out and then sat down on the sofa next to Chronus’s perch. Gently he rubbed the bird’s head and said, “She’s gone now, mate. All back to normal again.”

  But then he remembered that the first time Foxy had been to the flat, Chronus hadn’t said Own goal at all. He looked at him frowning. “You change your mind about her, did you? Know something about her that I don’t?”

  The bird didn’t speak.

  Then suddenly, from nowhere, Lee said, “I wonder what you’d make of Mumtaz Hakim.”

  He actually felt his face heat up and so, even though it was only himself and Chronus in the room, he looked away quickly and pretended that he was fixated on the radio in the corner of the room.

  XXIX

  Mark had one plate of jellied eels and then he had another one, all smothered in vinegar. His love of eels had been one of the things that Mumtaz had never been able to understand about him. They were cold and slimy and they looked as if they possessed the consistency of rubber. Drinking tea and limiting her own food intake to bread and butter (she’d eat with Shazia later), Mumtaz had already told Mark about some unnamed church where hypnotic ceremonies took place. So far, so straightforward.

  “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is how one particular congregant, a woman, comes to be attracted to such an organization.”

  “Why not?” Mark shrugged. “You’re religious yourself.”

  “I worry she’s being manipulated by them,” Mumtaz said. “She’s got a lot of money. And she has strange experiences—objects appear as if by sorcery in her home. She claims to see things, people.”

  Mark’s smile dropped. “Why are we talking about your work? I thought we were going to catch up for an hour. Mark and Mumtaz, remember?”

  She looked down, suddenly ashamed of what she now saw was her own little bit of manipulation. “I’m sorry.”

  He smiled again. “So tell me about your stepdaughter.”

  Now Mumtaz smiled. They spoke about Shazia—but not about Ahmed—about Mumtaz’s parents, mutual friends, about all the places he traveled to with his show. His favorite city was Prague. It was somewhere he knew she’d like too.

  “The Czechs seem to almost instinctively love magic,” he said. “It’s going on all over the city.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to talk about work,” she said.

  He looked out into the street, at people rushing home from the daily grind. People who had someone to rush home for. He didn’t. He sighed.

  “So tell me about this woman,” he said. “This rich woman involved with this … cult?”

  Although only in profile, she could see that his face was sad. He’d wanted her to rush to him when they’d met outside the station, her hair streaming out behind her like a black sheet. Like it used to be. But that was impossible.

  “They didn’t seek her out,” Mumtaz said. “She picked up a booklet about the church and then went along of her own accord. She was recently bereaved, and I suppose looking for some answers. At the church she met an old schoolfriend. They hadn’t seen each other for decades.”

  “So that’s when all the weird shit started happening to her?”

  “Yes.”

  Why had she launched in about Maria so quickly? They’d just sat down and she’d started immediately. Now she was on again, splurging it all out at him. He probably felt used and hurt and she didn’t blame him, but in the instant that she’d seen him fooling around with those boys outside Upton Park Station she’d realized that she no longer loved him. It hadn’t hit her either suddenly or hard because she’d really known it inside for some considerable time. But it was still a loss.

  “The preacher, or whatever he is, at this church was convicted of fraud years ago,” she said.

  “To commit fraud you have to lie.” He looked at her. “And you know what I always say about that, don’t you, Mumtaz?”

  Mark’s magic was constructed from a range of elements that included hypnosis, suggestion, sleight of hand, misdirection, charm, criminal intent and lying. In his opinion the magical act, which was truly a most mysterious product of all the other elements, popped out like some sort of miraculous child provided the trick, illusion or effect was properly executed.

  “This man clearly understands, if only in a rudimentary way, the power of hypnotic suggestion …”

  “Oh, I don’t think it’s rudimentary, Mark,” she said. “I saw him put this woman under.” She described the technique she’d seen Grint use in detail. “And there are pictures all over the walls, underlining his message.”

  “And what is his message?”

  “It’s about Jesus Christ. It’s also about giving.”

  “Christianity, as far as I can tell, is about giving, isn’t it? What else?”

  She thought.

  “It sounds to me as if this woman is suffering from some sort of delusory state. That’s the most obvious answer,” Mark said. “So she’s involved with a church that’s run by a man who’s a bit dodgy, who pulls the old ‘hallelujah, brothers,’ getting everyone hyped up and a few hypnotic tricks? That’s religion. So she …”

  Mumtaz lowered her head and her voice and she said, “But Mark, I saw him put her under. He’s a pro and she looks ill. She’s with them all the time now and she looks really sick. She didn’t look ill before, what are they doing to her?” She didn’t care what Lee’s brother had said about some sort of “job” Grint was planning—as long as it didn’t involve Maria. That feeling she got from her of someone so locked up inside she was like her own prisoner was horribly familiar.

  “If she’s rich they could be trying to get money out of her,” Mark said. “It wouldn’t be the first time some religious nuts have tried to get money out of a rich person. History’s littered with instances of it. In fact—”

  “But she went to them!” She had to cut him off before he really started on a protracted rant about religion. Mark actively hated it; he called it a “cancer.”

  “And they took advantage of her. What do people expect from organizations of mass delusion, like the church?” He drank from the huge mug of tea the woman who served in the pie shop had made him and then turned to wink at her. “Lovely cuppa!”

  She was all of sixty-five, but she blushed. It wasn’t every day she had a famous man in her gaff. It wasn’t often she had anyone.

  “So she went to them and they took advantage of her. Caveat emptor,” Mark continued.

  “Her husband had died …”

  “You said she was vulnerable. Classic.” He drank some more tea. “You should know about that.”

  She ignored his last comment. “As I said before, it turned out she knew one of the congregants.”

  “Even better.”

  “But Mark, she hadn’t seen her for years. The way this woman tells it, she just one day decided to seek out God.”

  “From a leaflet or a booklet or something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  “I’ve seen a leaflet but not any sort of booklet.”

  “And so this other woman was sort of her gateway into this church? I
n terms of introducing her to people.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think there’s something concerning about that? You, who belong to a faith that also evangelizes?”

  “I do.”

  In spite of all the trouble with Shazia, her work, her lack of money as well as the specter of Mr. Choudhury’s son, an idea had been growing in Mumtaz’s head about Maria Peters that she had told to no one in its entirety. It was the sort of idea she could only really put to Mark.

  “I wonder if her entry into the church was engineered,” she said. Then she looked away as if she was ashamed. “I wonder if her continued involvement is being engineered too.”

  She heard Mark breathe in sharply. “It’s possible, but it would take a bit of doing outside of a controlled environment.”

  “I know.” She looked back at him.

  “Tazzie, Wedding List was a TV program. It was entertainment and it took one hell of a lot of planning.”

  Back in 2008, Mark had created a one-off TV show called Wedding List where he had successfully filled a warehouse with goods as listed on a secret wedding list belonging to a couple who were due to marry the following year. It had been a sensation and it had catapulted Mark into the foremost rank of stage and TV magicians alongside the likes of Derren Brown.

  Mark lowered his voice. “I had to get extensive intel on those people and the work that went into organizing the suggestions leading up to the writing and sealing of the list were time-consuming and costly.”

  “And it’s something people write books about now.”

  “My methods? No.”

  “About suggestion, about influence, about advertising,” she said.

  “Yeah, but not everyone can do what I do, or make what advertisers produce,” he said. “And anyway, why this woman? Is she that rich?”

  “She’s rich but I don’t really know how rich.” She whispered. “The church is not all that it seems, that is known. There’s evidence of strange financial dealings, of lies told to worshippers, and they do need money. They owe money.”

  “So you think that they found themselves a pliable cash cow.”

  “I fear it.”

  He nodded his head and for the first time, Mark actually looked grave.

  “She has no children, no husband,” Mumtaz said. “There is no one to look out for her.”

  “Except you.”

  She smiled. “I have a boss, a good man, Lee …”

  “Except you and Lee.” Then he sighed. “That’s nice.” He wasn’t being facetious. “But Tazzie, you know that whatever we may have learned about cults and hypnosis and psychological programming at uni, out in the field it’s always more complicated. People who appear on my shows want to comply. You’re talking about a character or group of characters who you think want to part this woman from her money. And that’s not always easy.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because most people don’t want to give their money away to anyone,” he said. “Not you, not me, not the dogs’ home, not some cowboy builder, not even poor children in Africa. They might give a bit, but not much and especially not in this kind of financial climate. Look at these riots. People want to grab what they can, not give it away!”

  “Yes, but she’s rich.”

  “Yes, and they’re the worst!” he said. “People are duped every day, Tazzie, but in the scheme of things it is rare. If, as you think, these people are after this woman’s money, I believe they have to have a much bigger lever than just Christian charity.”

  Mumtaz frowned. “What kind of lever?”

  “The kind where they’ve got something on her,” he said. “The kind that makes pulling her into their web and then milking her worth their while.”

  Mumtaz was about to say But she’s such a nice lady but then she stopped. There was that thing inside Maria that seemed to agitate and unsettle. A thing unresolved, a thing that maybe both fueled and jeopardized her once-famous comedy act. Was it something she was? Something she’d done? Something she hadn’t done?

  “But she likes these people. How can you like people who are effectively blackmailing you?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know she’s being blackmailed,” Mark said. “Or rather, maybe she doesn’t know yet.”

  “His family lived next door to my family for years,” Sita said. Leaning on the toughened glass that protected the police station’s front desk and its officers, she wanted to speak to someone in charge. “Can’t I speak to a detective or someone?”

  The officer was only young and so Sita actually felt a bit sorry for him. He probably wanted to hit the streets and have a go at the rioters. “We’re a bit short-handed,” he said. “There’s some trouble …”

  “Kids looting the Carphone Warehouse, yes I know,” Sita said. “But I have to get to work, you know?”

  She knew she should have reported the incident on the Olympic site as soon as it had happened. But she’d been knackered. Her feet had hurt and when she’d finally got in she’d just fallen asleep. Now she had to be at the Pussy Palace in just over an hour and time was short.

  The young copper went away and spoke to someone else for a bit and when he got back, he let Sita in beyond the front desk and took her to an interview room.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to take a statement from you tonight,” he said.

  “No detective?” She looked miserable. Then she said, “Oh, well, you’ll have to do.”

  She gave him her details, her real name, her profession, her age. He was quite shocked she was as old as she was.

  “If I were twenty I wouldn’t be here,” she explained. “I would be too frightened that my parents would come and take me back. But they’re dead and my brother went back to Pakistan in the nineties.”

  “Tell me about this man you alleged flashed at you, madam.”

  “Back in the nineteen eighties I was living at home with my parents in Ilford. Cowley Road, near Valentines Park,” she said. “I was a teenager then, a girl from a very traditional Pakistani family.”

  The young copper was white and he smiled in a rather embarrassed-looking fashion. Actually, Sita was paler than he was but she knew that trying-to-be-racially-sensitive smile when she saw it. The boy began writing.

  “My mum and dad wanted me to marry a shopkeeper from Barking, a great lump of a man with a limp.” She pulled a face. “I ran away and discovered I could make money out of dancing, but that’s another story. While I was still at my parents’ house, we had these neighbors. There was a father, a mother, some old granny, four daughters and one son. Last night, up on the Olympic site, the son showed his penis to me.”

  “You recognized him.”

  Sita pulled a face. “He was always getting himself out in front of me when I was a child. I hated him,” she said. “Dirty bugger! A typical buttoned-up hypocrite. All religion and all that. If you ask me, he’s your Olympic Flasher.”

  “Do you know if he, this man, still lives in Cowley Road, Ilford?”

  “I haven’t got a clue,” Sita said. “I haven’t been back there since 1989.”

  The young officer continued writing and then said, “So what’s his name, this man?”

  “His name,” Sita said, “is Aziz Choudhury and when I knew him back in the eighties he was training to be an accountant.”

  The house was silent now and dark. Everyone had gone and she was alone with her thoughts, her feelings and the knowledge of what she had already done and what she now had to do.

  Pastor Grint had just sat like a stone when she’d told him. Betty had gone white. That wasn’t surprising. She’d finally told them everything, testified, confessed. She’d expected them to walk out, maybe even resort to violence. And who could have blamed them? But they’d just let her finish, no doubt having to listen hard as she burbled her confession through tears.

  Because she’d been a Catholic she’d expected some sort of penance, even though she knew it wouldn’t be in the form of so many Hail Marys because Pastor Grint thou
ght that was nonsense. That was like treating God like a simpleton. But she had imagined that Pastor Grint would take her to the police station. She’d begged him to. But then he’d said, Maria, what you did was a terrible thing. But man cannot hand out punishment, that has to be for God. And he’d meant it.

  But how was she meant to atone if there was to be no punishment? At last she’d managed to find enough courage and strength to confess and so open the way to finally be right with Jesus, only to find that her sin was not going to be punished. The slate was clean, she was saved and it was unbearable.

  Betty hadn’t helped. Clearly appalled, she’d nevertheless said that maybe Maria had already been punished. What about Len’s death? What about the depression she suffered from? But it wasn’t enough and Maria had become angry. What about an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?

  That, Pastor Grint had said, comes from the Old Testament. Jesus is love, Jesus doesn’t require eyes or teeth, just souls. He wants your soul, Maria, that’s all. And now you’ve given it to him.

  Again and again she’d asked what else she could give in order to atone and time and again he had told her there was no need. Then he’d blessed her, hugged both her and Betty and he’d gone. Then she’d been left alone with Betty. They’d talked.

  Decisions had already been taken and telling Betty had been a risk. But she’d done it. Maybe she would tell Pastor Grint or even the police, but ultimately that wouldn’t change anything. Documents had been signed in the presence of a solicitor and what was bequeathed would get to its ultimate destination whether that was this week, next week or next year. However, here in the darkness and the silence she feared that someone might knock at the front door and then break it in. But many hours had passed already and they still hadn’t. Maybe Betty was being true to her word? Betty knew that what she was going to do was right and as time ticked on, Maria realized that she would not, if she so desired, be seeing her again.