Death in a Far Country

by Patricia Hall

  ‘You don’t realise quite how macho this set-up is until you see them all assembled like this,’ Laura said quietly. ‘You can almost smell the testosterone.’

  ‘Some of this lot are from Chelsea,’ Jenna said. ‘I should be chatting them up really, but they’re so bloody smug that I can’t bear it. They could buy this club and not even notice a blip on their balance-sheet. I just hope our boy Okigbo can get one past their goalie and take the condescending smiles off their faces. I’d really enjoy that.’ She gave her guest a wicked smile and Laura realised that United was just as close to Jenna’s heart as it had apparently been to her father’s, which explained a lot.

  Laura glanced at her watch. ‘Nearly time to go and cheer them on, isn’t it? What a baptism for a football novice.’

  ‘You’ll enjoy it,’ Jenna said. ‘It’s a tribal thing, and you’re obviously one of the Bradfield tribe.’

  The girl woke with a start and sat up. She had been dozing again on the damp, lumpy mattress, as she did most of the time now. She was bitterly cold – her thin cardigan little or no protection from the wind that whistled through the broken windows of the flats and the damp that permeated everything – and she had begun to cough, and knew that she was becoming sick. But she did not think that was what had disturbed her shallow sleep. She had been conscious of a noise, and noise meant a threat, though whether human or merely animal she could not be sure. She struggled upright and crept silently across the littered floor of the small room that had become her refuge to the window, standing away from the cracked glass and looking obliquely down to the ground below. The builders were not working today and she guessed it must be a weekend or a holiday. She had only the vaguest idea what day, or even what month it was. She seemed to have spent so long in darkness, most of it in pain and disgust or utter despair, that time seemed to have lost its meaning. She had no watch, but she knew from the failing light outside that this was dusk and it would soon be night.

  Below she could see the main entrance to the flats, which led to the disused lifts and the foot of the stinking staircase. She could just glimpse three or four boys or young men standing close to the doors, wearing jackets with hoods that were pulled up to conceal their heads. They seemed to be talking and making animated gestures and then, to her horror, they glanced around cautiously before pushing the doors open and disappearing from sight into the hallway below her.

  She caught her breath and thought that her heart would stop. She had thought before that other people were using the building but had never had definite proof. Now she knew she was not alone, and that she would have to move. But she could barely control the shivering that had overtaken her and her mind, once agile, had become so sluggish that she could barely think at all. She stood close to the window, hugging herself for a long time to try to overcome the cold, before moving very slowly towards the door. Cautiously she made her way to the front door of the flat, hanging askew on smashed hinges, and glanced out onto the walkway that gave access to a dozen flats on this level with a staircase at each end. She knew that if the men were coming up the main stairs she might still escape them by using the ancillary stairs, which gave access to each of the walkways below her and eventually to what must have been an emergency exit on the ground floor.

  But what her near paralysed brain was telling her to do was to go the other way, to the main stairwell, where another door gave access to the short flight of narrow steps that led to the roof. There, she knew that the parapet was low enough for her to climb, even in her weakened state, and the long drop to the ground would end the months of torment she had suffered once and for all. But as she leant wearily against the wall just inside the flat she knew that she did not have the courage to risk going that way in case she met the men who had come into the block. Men, she thought, any men, were the greatest threat of all. She could not, would not, suffer like that again. But here, on the walkway outside, a high parapet and a wire grille that must have been erected to prevent just what she had in mind, made it impossible for her to achieve her end. She would have to work her way downwards, she thought, and wondered if her weary body could even attempt her task, much less make an escape into the town outside in the twilight without being seen and reported to the authorities.

  Eventually she gathered all her dwindling strength and, ducking low below the parapet, ran to the stairs furthest from the flat that had been her refuge. At each landing she stood listening carefully before inching down the next flight, but the raucous laughter she heard was a long way away and eventually she had dropped down all eight flights and stood behind the emergency door, which was hanging on weakened hinges like most of the rest of the doors in the block. She inched it open and glanced outside anxiously. But she found that this end of the block was almost completely shielded from view by the protective fence that the builders had erected in their vain effort to keep intruders out.

  She glanced down at herself before she dared move, and knew that she could not go far, partly because she had not the strength and partly because her appearance would arouse instant suspicion. Her short skirt and thin cardigan were filthy, her bare legs were stained with dirt and several smears of blood, and as she ran a hand across her dark hair she realised that it was filthy and matted. She guessed, too, that the time she had spent in the flats without access to running water had left her smelly. She would need to find another refuge and quickly, she thought, as above her she heard shouts and more laughter, closer this time, filling her with dread.

  It was darker now, and she could see that above the fence the first street lights were beginning to come on. Very cautiously she worked her way around the fence to the first gap she could find, where she could see, beyond the rubble of the building site, a deserted road and a row of small, low houses, with tiny gardens in front and narrow pathways leading to the back. Some of the houses had lights on behind drawn curtains but as she scuttled across the road, looking fearfully behind her to make sure that she had not been spotted, she headed for one that was in darkness, opened the gate, and still glancing over her shoulder nervously, made her way down the path to the back of the building. In the dim light she could just make out the back door to the house, a dustbin beside it, and a small outhouse with its door ajar. There was not much room inside, but by this time she was gasping for breath and her heart was thumping painfully and she slumped to the floor inside, pulling the door closed behind her. The darkness was almost total but she hardly noticed as her mind went blank and an even greater darkness overwhelmed her.

  Thackeray was already home when Laura got back from the match, her face flushed and eyes sparkling in a way that set his heart beating faster in spite of the nagging pain in his back.

  ‘Did you hear the result?’ Laura said, peeling off her coat and flinging it on a chair. ‘A one-one draw. The new boy Okigbo got the equaliser right at the end. The crowd went completely mad. I’ve never seen anything like it. Grown men were hugging each other and dancing around. And the singing. You could have heard it in Leeds.’

  ‘You had a good time, then?’ Thackeray said drily. Laura glanced at him and grinned.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘It’s quite an achievement. Everyone thought Chelsea would win eight- or nine-nil. But the Bradfield lads played their socks off. The goalie made six or seven brilliant saves. I don’t know anything about the game, really, but I have to admit it was exciting. The whole town’s going to go bananas until the replay.’

  ‘And when’s that likely to be?’

  ‘Week after next,’ Laura said. ‘Not that I expect an invitation to go to London, but I expect we can watch on the box.’

  ‘I expect we can,’ Thackeray said, and as Laura calmed down she could see that her enthusiasm was washing over him without any discernible impact.

  ‘OK, I can see United aren’t going to touch your rugby soul, but I enjoyed it,’ she said, more calmly. ‘Even Tony Holloway gave me a hug on the way out, though he’s furious that Jenna Heywood invited me into her precio
us directors’ box. I know he thinks it should have been him.’

  She dropped onto the sofa beside him and put a hand tentatively on his.

  ‘How was your day?’ she said. ‘Did you make any progress?’

  ‘Not really,’ Thackeray said. ‘We had a couple of lines of inquiry to follow up, but most of the people we wanted to talk to seemed to be at the match. The African player seems to have built up quite a following in the black community.’

  ‘Well, I suppose he would do,’ Laura said. ‘He’s very good. Jenna’s sure he won’t stay in Bradfield. Some team like Chelsea will snap him up.’

  ‘What nationality is he?’

  ‘Nigerian,’ Laura said.

  ‘Someone suggested the dead girl might be Nigerian, but we’ve no evidence on where she came from yet. But that explains why when Kevin Mower went to the African social club today there was no one there.’

  ‘Well you can meet OK Okigbo tomorrow if you like. Jenna’s invited us to the United celebration party at West Royd, if you feel like going. I think you deserve a bit of time off for good behaviour, don’t you?’

  Thackeray sighed. ‘I need to go into the office again,’ he said.

  ‘The party’s at six. You can do both,’ Laura said. ‘Come on, Michael. You’re not going to get through this inquiry business if you don’t relax occasionally. Go in to work, do what you have to do, and then come to West Royd with me. Please?’

  Thackeray shrugged slightly. ‘All right. If it’ll make you happy.’

  ‘Good,’ Laura said. ‘Now, I’m going to call my father and tell him about the game. And then I’ll cook us something good for supper. OK.’

  Before she could move, Thackeray pulled her towards him with unexpected force and kissed her hungrily, and just for a second it seemed to Laura that all the old magic of their affair was about to be rekindled. But just as suddenly he pulled away again.

  ‘An early night?’ Laura whispered.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, flinging himself back against the cushions, looking drained. ‘I’m shattered.’ Trying to hide her disappointment, she went into the kitchen with the portable phone and dialled her parents’ number in Portugal. It was answered almost immediately by her father’s typically peremptory tone.

  ‘Ackroyd.’

  ‘Dad, it’s me, did you hear the result? I was actually there.’

  ‘I caught it on BBC World,’ Jack Ackroyd said. ‘Something of a turn-up, that. And what were you doing at a United match, young lady? I’ve never known you to show any interest in football.’

  Laura laughed, and described how she had come by her invitation to the match.

  ‘I met someone who was asking after you,’ she said. ‘Les Hardcastle? You must remember him.’

  ‘Aye, I remember Les,’ Jack said. ‘A canny lad, Les. He’s still a director then, is he?’

  ‘He’s leading the opposition to Jenna Heywood taking over as chairman,’ Laura said.

  ‘Aye, he’d not want to see a lass in that job. Especially if she’s that keen to turn the club around.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Laura said, puzzled. ‘Surely all the directors want to turn the club around.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t bank on that, love,’ Jack said loftily. ‘That’s a bit too simplistic. I don’t know what’s going on there now. I don’t keep my finger on that particular pulse. But I do know from my broker that someone’s trying to buy up any stray shares in Bradfield United they can get their hands on, like the few I’ve got myself.’

  ‘Have you sold them?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Jack said. ‘I just told my lad to wait to see how high the offer price went.’

  ‘Could it be Jenna Heywood, trying to consolidate her position?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Jack said. ‘More likely someone trying to take over and boot her out.’

  ‘Oh, dear. Just when they’ve had this fantastic Cup run and built up their following again,’ Laura said softly.

  ‘Aye well, I doubt this has got much to do with football,’ Jack said. ‘But don’t quote me on that, love, will you? I’m staying well out of this one. Well out.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sergeant Kevin Mower had no doubt that the African Social Club, based in a church hall on the busy main road out of town towards the M62 motorway, was open and jumping when, just before lunchtime on Sunday morning, he opened the door and stepped into a decibel level he could not even begin to estimate. The conversation inside was loud enough to make it almost impossible to hear the music, although as his ears became attuned to the clamour, he recognised the rap artist JJC’s inimitable mixture of English and Yoruba lyrics, music he had heard and liked when he watched Dirty Pretty Things, a film about an illegal Nigerian immigrant in London a few years back. He glanced around the entirely black crowd inside the hall and wondered how many of them might not like their papers to be inspected too closely.

  DCI Thackeray was a couple of steps behind him, having decided at the last moment that some hands-on investigation was preferable to sitting in his office on a Sunday morning reviewing the slow progress of a murder inquiry that already threatened to run into the sand. Mower had driven him across the town centre, where Sunday shoppers thronged the pavements, in almost total silence, and up the hill past many of the surviving relics of Bradfield’s industrial past: several churches and chapels converted to new uses, one or two still derelict mills and some council housing that had replaced the old stone terraces in the Sixties and was already looking seriously dilapidated.

  Thackeray, never the most outgoing of men, Mower thought, seemed to have retreated almost totally into himself since he had come back from sick leave, only an occasional wince of pain giving the lie to his assurances that he was completely recovered from his injury. Mower had never believed that, and believed it less and less as the days went by, though he was at a complete loss to know what, if anything, he should do about it. Now, as they stood in the doorway of the church hall, Thackeray seemed to hesitate, as if intimidated, before stepping into the heaving throng inside.

  Mower allowed himself a grim smile as he surveyed the room, alive with men, women and children of all ages, and waited until the presence of their white faces attracted attention. It came eventually in the form of a buxom black woman in a fiercely patterned long skirt and tunic, who threaded her way through the animated crowd and looked both men up and down with dark eyes and a serene smile.

  ‘How can I help you?’ she asked. Thackeray nodded for Mower to continue, evidently reluctant to get involved himself. Mower showed the woman his warrant card and her expression became more solemn as she studied it.

  ‘I am Hope Kuti and I am the secretary of the club here for my sins. The rest of the time I am at the university, studying for a PhD. Are you here about the young black girl who was found dead? I read about that in the local paper. Most of us did, I think. It’s a terrible thing.’

  ‘Exactly that,’ Mower said, realising that he was being offered more information by Hope Kuti than he really needed, and how defensive that made her seem. ‘Could we talk somewhere a bit quieter?’

  Hope smiled again and led the two men back outside and into the small graveyard between the hall and the soot-blackened Victorian church next door and then to a wooden seat where she sat down, apparently oblivious to the chilly wind that whistled through the narrow space between the two buildings. Mower glanced dubiously at the stained wooden seat for a second before sitting down beside her, while Thackeray remained standing, clearly determined to maintain only a watching brief.

  ‘Sunday lunchtime is a favourite time for a faji – a party,’ Hope said. ‘It’s the only time most people are free. The church lets us open the hall after the morning service is finished next door at midday. They don’t mind us being here but they don’t want the faji to drown out the hymns, you know? There’s few enough people in there to sing them these days. Anyway, a lot of people here go to other churches first. I do myself. And then we come on here.’
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br />   Mower pulled out a copy of the drawing of the unknown girl and passed it to Hope.

  ‘It’s been suggested she might be African,’ he said. ‘Although personally I think Caribbean’s more likely. You don’t know her, by any chance, do you? We’ve had almost no response to the appeal in the Gazette.’

  That was not strictly true. The only bright spot in a Saturday of dead ends had been a phone call from a young woman who had been near the canal the night the girl was found and reckoned she had not only seen her, but had seen her in the company of another girl, small, white and mini-skirted, hurrying in the general direction of the towpath. But their informant was away for the weekend in Scarborough and would not be available to make a statement until Monday.

  Hope Kuti shook her head sadly as she gazed for a long time at the artist’s sketch of the dead girl.

  ‘No, I don’t recognise her,’ she said. ‘But you’re right. She would look quite at home on the streets of Lagos. That’s where I’m from, incidentally. Though I haven’t been home for about five years. I’m hoping when I get my doctorate I may get a university job back home, but nothing’s certain. Back there, who you know counts as much as what qualifications you’ve got. It’s improving a bit, but not that much, I think.’

  ‘Best known here for prising cash out of gullible Internet users,’ Mower said.

  ‘Ah, the 419 scam?’

  ‘419?’

  ‘It’s the number of the legislation that is supposed to be stopping it,’ Hope said, with a shrug. ‘It wasn’t doing the country’s reputation much good. The rapper the kids are all dancing to in there calls his group the 419 Squad. Joke.’

  ‘Right,’ Mower said, slightly bemused by the torrents of information Hope offered. ‘So how do you suggest I circulate this picture to your friends in there? Are many of them West Africans?’