A Private Business

by Barbara Nadel

  XXX

  Shazia lay on the living room sofa with all the curtains pulled and the lights off. Some news program on the TV showed pictures of policemen and -women stomping around the streets of London, Birmingham and Manchester looking hard. The rioters, so far, didn’t seem to be as thick on the ground as they had been the previous night. But she didn’t care. She just wanted Amma to come home so that she could tell her about Mr. Gold.

  He’d made her watch him masturbate and it had made her feel sick. But what could she have done but go along with it? He didn’t touch her or make her touch him and even though it was gross she hadn’t been hurt. Conversely, if she’d lost her nerve and told him to bugger off or something, Mr. Gold might have become suspicious. As far as he was concerned, Amma still knew nothing about her dope smoking and so he still had a hold over her. But what he’d made her watch had been gross. All sex was gross. Shazia never wanted to have it. Not again.

  The riots had prevented the planned arrest from progressing. Shazia had yet to suffer the humiliation of having Ady and Hilary in the house, pretending to smoke dope for Mr. Gold. She hadn’t seen or spoken to either of them since the police had gone to their houses and talked to their parents. Hilary had sent her a nasty text telling her she was “sick” and “a user.” That was good coming from her! But nothing from Ady. They’d been such good friends. Shazia, very softly, cried. Oh, where was Amma? She’d said she was going to a meeting and surely that had to be over now?

  Shazia called Mumtaz’s mobile number for the third time and for the third time it was switched off. She was generally very strict about phones being off during meetings at work, and even when they were just talking about something important together at home. She thought that having phones on all the time was rude and intrusive. Shazia didn’t think so and neither had her father. In that respect, if nothing else, Shazia had been in agreement with him. What a pity that tiny similarity had been the only positive thing they had shared.

  Shazia looked at her watch and decided that she wouldn’t try and ring again for at least another half an hour. But then she did it just one more time and found that Mumtaz’s phone was, as before, still off.

  “Own goal!”

  Lee looked from the squawking mynah bird to his brother and found that he tended to agree. Chronus was sounding the mynah bird alarm with very good reason. Roy was utterly assholed.

  “Where have you been?” he growled. “And where’d you find the money to get tanked up?”

  Roy hadn’t even made it to Paddy Power. The Duke of Edinburgh on Green Street was a pub he knew Lee never went to and so he’d gone straight for it. Some of the windows had been smashed by rioters the previous night and so it had been dingy and comforting in there. He’d had a few pints and then the barmaid had let him sit out the back by the barrels so he could smoke in peace.

  “Leave me alone,” Roy said as he made his way from front door, to sofa, to steadying himself on the dining table. He wanted to get to bed, go unconscious and stop the room spinning.

  “If you chuck up in this flat I’ll heave you out into the garden!” Lee said.

  “Oh, fuck off!”

  “I mean it! Useless tosser. Why did I let you back into my life, eh?”

  Roy didn’t reply. Intent upon getting to the bed Lee had given him he veered to the left when he really wanted to go right and almost crashed into the kitchen.

  “For fuck’s sake!”

  Chronus, in full agreement, moved his head up and down wildly and yelled, “Own goal! Own goal!”

  The cacophony of sound together with the stench of booze on Roy was all too much for Lee. “Wind it in, will you, Chronus!” he said to the bird. Then running over to Roy he grabbed him just before he was about to barrel into a glass cabinet. With a roughness even he hadn’t intended, Lee grabbed his brother by the shoulders and then hurled him into the spare bedroom. To his credit, he did manage to get Roy onto the bed but only just. Half his body hung off the side, an empty packet of fags, Lee’s front door key and an old envelope fell out of his pocket and onto the floor.

  Lee, more in the spirit of fanatical home tidiness than care for his brother, picked them up and put his key in his own pocket. It was then that he saw that the envelope was actually addressed to him.

  No one appeared to be at home. All the lights were off and all the windows were closed. But Maria’s car was in the drive and when she’d rung the bell, Mumtaz had thought that she’d seen a distant smudge of a figure cross the darkened hall. But if Maria wouldn’t open up, what could she do? And why was she there anyway? It wasn’t as if her conversation with Mark about Maria had come to any sort of firm conclusion. Even if she was in, she wouldn’t want to talk to anyone about the church she clearly loved, at least not in any sort of negative fashion. What, if anything, did Mumtaz hope to achieve?

  She didn’t know. Mark would have called her a loony if he’d seen her ringing the bell and trying to see over the side gate into the back garden, but then the little meeting in the pie and mash shop had proved to her just how far apart they had become. All tan and trickery and funky, flip secularity. He was still a very attractive guy, and nice—underneath it all—just not for her. Mumtaz walked over to the side gate and tried the handle. Predictably it was locked. There was no gate on the other side of the building, just a small, metal garage that Maria never seemed to use and anyway both its doors were locked. Then she remembered that Maria also had an Edwardian coach house at the bottom of her garden. In the old days carriages would have swept down beside the house, where the gate was now, and the horses and the vehicles would have been accommodated in the coach house.

  Clearly that was no longer happening, but maybe there was some sort of access to the coach house behind Maria’s garden? Although frequently taken over by land-hungry householders, there were still a few back alleyways down which coal and other supplies would have been delivered to the properties years ago. One still ran along the back of Mumtaz’s house. She walked to the end of the road but she saw nothing that even vaguely resembled the opening to a back alley. Continuing into the street behind Maria’s, she walked past a heavily bearded Muslim man who looked at her with what she felt was a judgmental expression on his face. What was she doing roaming about on her own without a man? What indeed. The man’s disapproval made her think about Shazia and she wondered whether she should call her. But she was only minutes from home, she’d call her when she knew whether Maria was in or not.

  All the properties, like Maria’s, like her own, were detached, double-fronted and huge. Some had lush, flowerchoked gardens, while others were paved over to make hard standing for multiple cars. Looking down the sides of these properties wasn’t always easy and one place, which was actually a small madrasah, was even protected by large, electric gates. When she did eventually find an old access alley, it was down beside the only empty house in the street. Semi-derelict and quite forbidding, the old house hadn’t been touched for years. Making sure that no one actually watched her go onto the property, Mumtaz ran lightly to the entrance to the alleyway and immediately had to hop over a bag full of reeking disposable nappies.

  Bindweed and endless stinging nettles were things that Mumtaz had expected. Fortunately she was wearing thirty-denier tights and so her legs were reasonably well protected. What she hadn’t been expecting were the three old fridges, half a washing machine and at least eight bags containing empty beer cans. It was a depressing and messy journey but it did, eventually, get her to a piece of rotten fence between Maria’s garden and that of one of her neighbors. As she threw a leg over, a strut thrust a splinter up into her thigh and so she had to stop for a moment to roll down her tights and take it out. Where the skin had broken, it bled but she ignored it. She was sure she’d had a tetanus jab at some point.

  As she made her way out from behind the coach house and into Maria’s garden she saw that the French windows were open. So she was in. Maria would probably go berserk if she just walked straight in, and with g
ood cause. So when she reached the open doors she just stood beyond the step up into the house and said, “Hello?”

  Maria swallowed the pills in her mouth and then leaned back in her chair, pushing the paper bag that had been on her lap behind her.

  “You’re trespassing, get out,” she said to the shady, head-scarfed figure framed in the doorway out into the garden.

  “I’m not here on behalf of the agency,” Mumtaz said. She stepped over the threshold. “I’m here because I’m worried about you.”

  Maria said nothing.

  “Whenever I’ve seen you, you look ill and thin. I don’t know what’s happening in this house but I see your friends in and out all the time and I don’t understand.”

  “What don’t you understand?” Maria said.

  “How they can bear to see you looking so ill while doing nothing,” Mumtaz said. “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “I see my doctor.”

  “Then maybe you should see another one. He isn’t taking care of you. You take a lot of medication, Maria …”

  “What?” She stood, shakily at first.

  “I’ve lived here, I’ve seen your medicine cabinet.”

  “You had no right to pry.”

  “Maybe not, but I did it. You’re not well, Maria. You need help.”

  “You mean, I’m nuts!”

  “No, I mean—”

  “God will punish or God will heal. You’re a Muslim, you must understand that!”

  “And as a Jewish friend of mine always says, ‘God helps them who help themselves,’” Mumtaz replied. “I can’t just walk by and not do anything, Maria, you’re a nice woman …”

  She laughed. “What do you know? Nice? Mumtaz, if you really knew me you’d beg me to let myself rot!”

  Mumtaz shook her head. “Why do you think that you should be left to rot?”

  Maria said nothing.

  Mumtaz toyed with the notion of asking her whether her new friends at the church thought she should rot—it was the kind of thing stupid jihadi boys said to people they thought “immoral”—but she decided against it. If Grint and his people were effectively in control of Maria’s mind now she would not take kindly to questions about them.

  “I want you to leave,” Maria said.

  Mumtaz didn’t know what to say, or do. Even peering intently through the gloom she could only just about see Maria’s face. Details of the room she was in were sketchy. A whooping noise from what sounded like a youngster mucking around or maybe even looting over in Manor Park caused her to flinch. But then the silence came back again and the sun disappeared into the west and that which had been gray turned toward black.

  “You must go now.”

  “I can’t.”

  Mumtaz wanted light. She couldn’t remember where the switch was on the wall for the overhead chandelier. Maria liked to use lamps. She moved forward into the deeper gloom and it was then that she heard a crunching noise and then a gasp. There was, she knew, a standard lamp somewhere near the fireplace. For a moment she just flailed her arms around trying to find it by touch. Then she heard a whimper.

  She stopped. “Maria?”

  No reply came. Mumtaz put her hand on the mantelpiece and from there she found the standard lamp. She switched it on. Maria lay slumped and apparently unconscious on the sofa. On the floor at her feet were dozens of pill boxes and bottles.

  * * *

  “Where’s my fucking money?” Lee yelled. “God Almighty, the fucking bird was trying to warn me about you, wasn’t he? Not the girl, you, you waste of skin!”

  But Roy, in spite of being manhandled out of his bed, was completely dead to the world. Lee let go of his brother’s throat so that he fell backward and banged his head on the floor.

  Lee put a hand up to his own head, which was pounding with fury. “But why am I asking?” he said to himself. “Why?” Then he looked down at Roy who very briefly grunted and then drooled. “You’ve drunk it. You’ve drunk all of it because you’re a fucking selfish twat!”

  Although he’d never had very high hopes of getting any money back from Bob the Builder, he’d known that it was at least possible. And a hundred quid would have come in very handy. Lee briefly rifled through Roy’s pockets to see if there was any cash left over, but there wasn’t. If nothing else it would have paid one of the outstanding utility bills on the office. But now it had gone. Disappeared down the neck of a useless drunk who just happened to be his brother. Lee didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know whether he wanted to walk away from Roy, close the door behind him and try to forget about it or continue to kick the shit out of the bastard.

  He went back into the living room where Chronus, agitated by all the shouting, was cawing and squawking. Lee walked over to him and tried to get close enough to stroke his head. But the bird was having none of it. “Own goal!” he croaked as he pulled resentfully away from Lee’s hand. “Own goal!”

  “Yes, yes I know I should never have let him in but he’s my brother, what could I do?”

  Chronus eyed him with distinct suspicion. Lee shrugged. “What?”

  The bird put his head underneath his wing as he did whenever he wanted to just cut off from anything he didn’t like. Lee, trying not to feel rejected by Chronus sat down and put the television on. Flicking onto the BBC news channel, he saw that the riots, such as they were, seemed to be small and sporadic, so far. He was glad of that for all sorts of reasons, not least of which was that he knew that Vi was on duty. Although whether he was more afraid for Vi or because of what Vi might do, he didn’t know. She was not, and had never been, a woman to shy away from a scrap.

  He’d just managed to get into some strangely compelling cookery program when a shambling figure, reeking of piss, staggered into the living room. “I don’t half need a glass of water,” Roy said.

  Maybe if he’d then shuffled off to get the water himself, Lee might have let it pass. In spite of the piss. But Roy just stood as if waiting for Lee to go and get it for him. Chronus, who’d woken up now, gave a warning squawk, but Lee ignored him. The red mist of fury descended and he launched himself at Roy.

  “You fucking cunt!” He took hold of Roy’s filthy, greasy hair and pulled him by it across the room.

  “Fucking hell, Lee!” Roy’s face was red and scrunched up into a ball of unshaved fear. He stumbled and fell to the floor.

  Lee took hold of his brother by his neck and pulled him along the carpet toward the front door. Chronus, beside himself now, cawed at the top of his voice.

  “Shut up!” Lee looked down at his brother’s scarecrow-like body and opened the front door with his one free hand. “You can kip outside,” he growled at him. “Like the piece of junk you are!”

  Roy was too drunk and too sodden with urine to resist. Lee heaved him over the threshold and then kicked him into the front garden. He would have spat on him too had the couple from the flat upstairs not been looking out of the window. From inside he could hear Chronus still yelling like a maniac and jumping up and down on his perch.

  “Shut up, bird, for Christ’s sake!” Lee shouted. Then he went back inside and closed the front door behind him. Roy groaned once, and then became unconscious again.

  “Maria?”

  Mumtaz went over to the sofa and took one of the woman’s wrists between her fingers. While she established that Maria had a pulse, Mumtaz looked at all the half empty boxes and bottles of tablets on the floor. Just at a glance she could see antidepressants, painkillers and tranquilizers. She moved one box with her foot and found an empty strip of sleeping tablets.

  “Maria!” Mumtaz tapped the side of her face and Maria Peters groaned. “Maria, have you taken all these pills? Which ones have you taken?” She didn’t answer and so this time Mumtaz slapped her. “Maria! Tell me which tablets you’ve taken.”

  Although Maria Peters’ eyes were opening sometimes, she was clearly going in and out of consciousness and Mumtaz was afraid. She’d never dealt with anyone who had tried to take their own
life before. She felt in her pocket for her phone and then realized that it was in her handbag which was on the floor by the French windows. She shook Maria’s shoulders and said, “You’ve got to try and stay awake. I’m going to call an ambulance.” She shook her again. “Stay awake!”

  She was about to leave Maria and go and get her bag when suddenly the comedian’s eyes flew open and she lurched forward, her face red and swollen.

  “What is it? Allah!” Mumtaz helped her to sit up. “Maria?”

  Maria Peters looked at her with what Mumtaz interpreted as horror in her eyes. Then under pressure from what was in her throat her mouth opened and a vast deluge of pills, liquid and undigested food hit Mumtaz in her face and spattered across her chest. Instinctively she pulled back, taking a step away from the sofa but into the back of the coffee table. Her leg jarred and then twisted and she pitched backward over the table and onto the floor. As she fell, her back caught against the side of the table and she screamed. But when her head hit the floor with an audible crack, Mumtaz went silent.

  For several seconds, Maria Peters just stared at the awful wet vomit that was all over herself, her sofa and her coffee table. But then when she felt able to stand she looked across the upturned table at the woman who was lying on her living room floor. The pale gray headscarf that Mumtaz had been wearing was stained with blood. It was a stain that was growing. Maria put a hand up to her vomit-covered mouth, her eyes widening in terror.

  XXXI

  Vi heard the news over her radio. Some old half-dead detective from Shoreditch nick had gone to a house in Fashion Street, just off Brick Lane, and arrested a man on suspicion of being the Olympic Flasher. The old tec had to be half dead because anyone else with a pulse who could even claim to be a quarter of a copper was out on the streets. Riots were no fun in anyone’s books, except the rioters, but they did provide some very tasty overtime. As she walked down an unusually quiet Atlantic Road, Vi kept her eyes and ears open but she also allowed herself to think a little bit about how she might now be able to pay for at least a weekend break somewhere hot. So far the streets, if not quiet, were much calmer than they had been the previous night. Maybe the fury over the Tottenham man’s death that had provoked incidents all over the country since the weekend had finally blown itself out. That, or, Vi thought uncharitably, all the scumbags have nicked all the tech stuff they could ever want from Currys.