Night Angels

by Danuta Reah

  Farnham didn’t turn to the interpreter. He pushed the photograph across the table to her. She didn’t look at it. She was watching him. ‘Good men,’ Farnham said. ‘It’s easy to be good, to stand on your principles…’ He looked at the interpreter and waited as she talked to Rafiq in rapid syllables. Then he went on, ‘To stand on your principles when there’s nothing you have to lose.’ Farnham absently pushed the photograph around on the table. ‘Do you have children, Mrs Rafiq?’

  The abrupt change of subject threw her. She looked at him, at Lynne who kept her face neutral, back at Farnham. She looked uncertain. ‘One. Boy.’

  ‘How old is your boy?’ Farnham’s voice was detached.

  Rafiq looked at him, and then at Lynne. Her calm now seemed the calm of resignation. ‘Six year,’ she said.

  He nodded, to show her he already knew that. ‘It’s important to your son, isn’t it, Mrs Rafiq, that you stay here? You and your family?’ She looked at him in silence. ‘Isn’t it?’ His question was sudden and sharp, and she flinched.

  ‘Yes. Is very important.’ Her voice was shaking slightly.

  He pushed the photograph towards her. She watched him with an intense concentration. ‘Mrs Rafiq,’ he said, ‘I’m going to ask you this question just once, so think very carefully about your answer.’ His tone was matter-of-fact, devoid of sympathy. ‘Do you know this woman?’ Rafiq looked at him, looked at Lynne. She looked down at the photograph. She closed her eyes. Swallowed. She began to shake her head. ‘Mrs Rafiq,’ Farnham said.

  Her eyes met his. ‘I know her,’ she said.

  Nasim Rafiq came from the north-west of Pakistan. She had started doing voluntary work for the reason she said: to help her with her English, which she needed to work on if she planned to teach. Asian people in Hull were at a disadvantage, she explained. There was no real community like there was in comparable cities where people could support each other. Asians in Hull were mostly people like her – isolated individuals who were recent arrivals, here for work or family reasons.

  The refugee dispersal programme had plans to send some Afghan refugees to Hull, so her arrival as a speaker of Pushtu was very welcome. The advice centre was in the process of being set up – no referrals were expected or intended until some basic work had been done on the building, and she had been surprised to find that a few people were already coming through its doors. Matthew Pearse, who seemed to have been running the storage depot there, had explained that, in need, people came and he didn’t want to turn them away. She set to work translating the local welfare advice leaflets into Pushtu and, under Matthew’s unobtrusive guidance, had paid little attention to the other comings and goings at the centre. She had enjoyed what she was doing and was looking forward to the centre beginning its proper work. She had been lonely sitting at home while her husband was at work and her son was at school, and she was a conspicuous oddity when she stepped outside her front door.

  But then…she became aware of another, hidden stream, a trickle of desperate people. After dark, after the centre closed, after the hours when she should have left and Matthew was there alone, that was when they came. She had seen people escaping from hunger and disease and violence, people in deep and terrible debt. She had seen families who had been torn apart, parents from their children, brothers from their sisters, wives from their husbands. She knew what the law said, but she listened when Matthew said, ‘If you don’t ask, then you don’t know. Just go home and let me handle it. Don’t worry.’ These were the ones that seemed to come in the night – hollow-eyed young men, haunted young women. There would be a silent presence in the building for a day or two, and then they would be gone and Matthew would smile gently if she asked him a question.

  Then the woman had arrived. Rafiq had looked at Lynne at this point. ‘The woman you say…die,’ she said. Katya. She had arrived one evening, injured and bewildered. Nasim had wanted to get the police, a doctor. Matthew had said no: ‘You don’t know what you’re doing!’ He’d been angry for the first and only time. He’d taken the woman to the hospital, then he’d talked hard and long to Nasim. ‘They all need our help. We can’t let the police come to her here. It’ll be all right. I won’t involve you again.’ He’d promised, but then Anna Krleza had arrived, alone and terrified.

  ‘Very young…’ Rafiq said, her voice flat and sad as she told them about Krleza’s short stay at the centre, her sudden departure. Pearse had phoned her late on Saturday to tell her that Anna had gone. ‘He say he go find,’ Rafiq said. She hadn’t been back to the centre since.

  ‘What now?’ Lynne said to Farnham as they returned to his office.

  ‘It’s in the hands of Immigration as far as she’s concerned,’ he said. He picked up the phone and began to key in a number.

  Lynne stopped him. ‘She trusted me,’ she said. ‘She told me about her son.’

  His face was serious. ‘I didn’t make any deals,’ he said. He picked up the phone again. ‘She may have been an unwitting observer at the beginning, Lynne, but she let it go on. She withheld information. I can’t ignore that.’

  ‘I let her think a deal was a possibility,’ Lynne said. ‘I was with you. She must have thought it was on the table.’

  He looked at her. ‘Why did you think I wanted you there?’ he said.

  18

  Sheffield, Sunday afternoon

  Roz had tried the number she had for Inspector Jordan without success. She looked at Luke who was pacing the computer room, fuelling his tension with black coffee. ‘She isn’t there,’ Roz said.

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Roz,’ he said irritably, ‘what difference does it make? So we’ve found what Gemma was looking for – one of her pet languages. So?’

  ‘So, nothing. We don’t know. The police might.’ The handset started emitting a two-tone hum and she put it back on the base. ‘There has to be something. Why else did Holbrook try and stop me finding it?’

  ‘You think that’s what he did, Roz. You don’t know.’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Look, he gave you some bum information when you interrupted his break. Do you know how often I do that when some student comes over and starts yada, yada, yada?’

  ‘Since when do students ask you about murder inquiries?’

  ‘Come on, Roz, he gave Gemma access to the fucking thing when she asked. And he gave it to you. That’s not hiding it.’ They had fallen into the familiar pattern of work, the pattern they used when a problem was proving intractable. Luke, the voice of impatient scepticism, Roz the voice of reason, setting the arguments out into logical strands until they could see their way through.

  ‘He didn’t,’ she said. ‘He didn’t give it to me. It was his assistant. His student, Sean.’

  ‘OK, so why does this Sean give you Holbrook’s archive when his boss has spent all his time trying to stop you getting to it? That really makes sense.’

  ‘He tried to chat me up,’ Roz said. ‘He knew I was interested in the archive. I don’t think he knew Hol-brook had been stonewalling. I think he brought it over as an excuse to have another go, that’s all.’

  Luke gave her a long look. ‘OK,’ he said after a bit. ‘So you’ve got the archive and Holbrook doesn’t know…’

  ‘He does,’ Roz said. ‘I told him. And he set up a late meeting, here.’

  ‘And you thought you saw an intruder and phoned security, and Holbrook never showed…’ He was still now, looking down at the floor, thoughtful. ‘Roz, if Gemma found something, it’s got to be more than this language, this “Ket”.’

  ‘So I need to get this through to them.’

  He nodded a reluctant assent. ‘There wasn’t any Inspector Jordan. There was a guy called Farnham. He was the one they were kow-towing to. But listen, Roz. I still don’t see where this gets us.’

  She shook her head. She didn’t know either. ‘I’ve been dealing with DI Jordan. I’ll contact her,’ she said. ‘If I don’t get her this time, I’ll leave a message.’

  Hull, Sunday evening
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  Lynne sat down at her desk and rubbed her eyes. She felt weary beyond belief. She should have left two hours ago, but the backlog of work caused by the arrest of Nasim Rafiq had kept her pinned to her desk. And she didn’t want to go home leaving the unfinished threads of her investigation unravelling in her hands.

  She finished typing her report on her interview the day before with Rafiq. She read through it, dissatisfied. There was nothing there that would cover Rafiq’s back. It made it clear that she had been concealing something, that she had made no attempt to assist Lynne. It gave the facts, but not the context, and the report system allowed little scope for context, not anything that could be weighed on the loaded scales operated by the immigration department.

  She ran her hands through her hair and sighed. She’d done what she could. Rafiq had taken risks – she would have to take the consequences. But Lynne could leave the report for now. Farnham wanted it, but he wouldn’t look at it tonight. He had all the information that Lynne could give him. She could leave it until the morning. She grimaced. Postponing the inevitable.

  It was her day off tomorrow. That would give her a bit of time to think. If there was anything she could do to help Rafiq, she would find it. She saved the report, but didn’t print it out. She was tired, and she couldn’t make decisions when she was tired. That was when you made mistakes. She noticed, as she stood up, that the message light on her phone was blinking. She went to pick up the handset, then stopped. Whatever it was, it would have to wait. She needed to get home.

  Hull, Sunday

  The room smelt of damp, a sour, mildewy smell. For a moment Anna lay there in confusion, the patterns of her recent days and nights swirling round in her head as she tried to locate herself. Then she remembered the storm lantern, and reached her hand out to switch it on. She found the carrier bag that Matthew had left and ate some chocolate. Her head was aching and her throat felt dry and scratchy. She kept feeling hot, and then she was shivering with cold. It was hard not to cough. She needed to get more of the flat, tepid water. Matthew hadn’t been certain when he would be able to come back. ‘As soon as I can,’ he’d said. ‘As soon as I can.’

  She’d drifted in and out of sleep as the day drew on. Once, she woke up drenched with sweat from some dream that left her gasping with terror but was gone from her memory before she was properly awake. There was just the lingering sense of horror. Her throat was so painful now it was hard to swallow. She made herself drink some more water and her throat eased a bit. Her arms and legs were aching, and she stretched to try and ease them. She rolled off the mattress and stood up. Maybe if she walked around a bit the aching would ease.

  She pushed open the door at the end of the corridor, and moved into the larger room she’d sensed rather than seen the night before. The flagstones felt cold and gritty under her feet. The soles of her shoes made a whispering sound against the stone that echoed in the silence. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom now. There was a sense of space, as though the room was higher and vaster than she had first thought. The room opened up in the dim light, a stone floor stretching away into dark corners, walls of uneven, crumbling brick, the flagstones of the floor disappearing into the shadows, the low ceiling supported by pillars of brick. There were windows along the upper edges of the walls, narrow horizontal slits that were barred on the outside, and encrusted with dirt. Under the windows where the light shone faintly through, the wall gleamed as though water was seeping down.

  Her imagination was creating sound and movement around her. She thought she could hear something in the further reaches of the cellar, the sound of breathing in the cold blackness. There was a shape in the darkness, at the far end of the aisle created by the pillars. She moved closer, wary of obstacles hidden in the shadows.

  It was a stone table of the kind used to provide a cold surface for storing perishable goods. She could remember such tables from the outhouses at home. Above the table, in the ceiling, was a wooden frame, the kind of frame her mother used to hang the cured hams from. It was strange, seeing these familiar objects in this cold silence. Behind the table, there was a door that stood out slightly from the wall, a narrow door, heavy metal that was pitted and peeling. It looked like an old cold store, a walk-in refrigerator. This cellar must have been used for food storage at some time. She tried the handle, and the door sighed open, moving with a silent smoothness that took her unawares, and she staggered slightly. Then the smell of decay hit her nostrils. Something had gone rotten in the sealed atmosphere. She caught a glimpse of the inside as she slammed the door shut, the heavily lined interior leaving no more than a coffin-like space encrusted with filth. She wondered what could have been stored in there. The stench lingered.

  Something moved across the windows above her head, sending darker shadows across the aisle. She froze as the shadows paused, but then they moved on again. She watched intently but there was no further sign of movement. Even if there was someone, who would know she was here? As long as she kept quiet, she was safe. Just a few more hours, just until Matthew came back. Her throat felt dry and sore again, and the ache in her arms and legs was getting worse. She went back to the small room and lay down, letting the slow hours drift past her. He would be back soon. He had said so.

  He had promised.

  Sheffield, Sunday night

  It was after sunset and the streetlights were lit, shining on the wet roads, the pavements glistening with past rain when Luke and Roz went back to Pitsmoor. The rain had kept people indoors, and the streets around her house were mostly empty. A few teenagers were hanging around the small park, a woman was pushing a pram, a neighbour was working under the bonnet of his battered car. Luke parked his bike by the side of the house. She looked up at the windows of the derelict house next door as she felt in her bag for her key. They were black and empty in the darkness.

  The house felt strange as she opened the front door, as though she’d been away for longer than the day and a half she had. The chaos of her hurried departure was still there to clear up: the bag with its contents dumped on the stairs where she’d tried to find her spare keys, the Yellow Pages lying open by the phone, the Saturday post scattered on the kitchen table next to her breakfast plate – the sense of life suspended.

  Luke headed for the kitchen to make coffee as she scooped up the clutter from the stairs. She was aware of him straightening up the post and dumping the dishes into the sink, as he waited for the kettle to boil. ‘That’s a bit more civilized,’ he said. He was quiet for a moment, then he looked at her. ‘Do you want me to stay?’ he said.

  She was surprised that he’d asked. She’d just assumed that he would be staying. She wondered if he wanted to go back to his place. They’d spent the previous night and all of the day together. He’d become irritable and short-tempered as the afternoon drew on. He needed some space. She was surprised that she didn’t feel that need herself. She was so used to being alone that she found the company of other people became intrusive after a while. ‘Do you want to stay?’ she said.

  ‘Christ, Bishop, let’s not get into “After you.” “No, after you.” Sling me out if you don’t want me, and I’ll come back tomorrow.’

  ‘I want you to stay. But not if you don’t want to.’

  ‘Of course I fucking want to!’ They glared at each other and then he started laughing. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay.’ He ran his eyes over her. ‘You’re a mess, Bishop. You look as if you spent last night on the tiles.’

  ‘I did,’ she said. But he was right. Her clothes had dried out over the cylinder at Luke’s, but they were crumpled and mud-splashed and she wanted to get out of them. ‘I’ll go and change, have a shower.’

  ‘I’d join you,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some plans…But I’ll make us something to eat, OK?’

  She nodded. ‘I need an early night,’ she said. ‘I…’

  He gave her a half smile. ‘You’re ahead of me. That comes into the plans.’

  She felt herself smiling back. She
couldn’t stop it. Everything was wrong, everything was chaos, but she felt happy. ‘I’ve got to get up early and get the car fixed. I’m going across to Manchester tomorrow, remember.’

  He frowned. ‘You never told me. Can’t you tell Grey to stuff it?’

  ‘No, it’s important. I don’t have to be there until twelve, so there’s plenty of time. It’s just the car.’

  ‘I’ll get the tyre fixed for you in the morning,’ he said. He looked as though he was thinking something over. ‘How long are you going to be over there?’

  ‘It’s just a meeting. I’ll be back by about seven.’

  He was still looking a bit thoughtful. Then he pulled himself back to the present. ‘I’ll get us some food. Go and get yourself out of that lot. Half an hour, OK?’

  When she came down again, he’d made a risotto and was just putting it out on to plates. He’d opened a bottle of wine and had dug out some salad from the bottom of the fridge. ‘Short on food, plenty of wine – my kind of kitchen,’ he said. She’d forgotten that Luke was a good cook when he took the trouble. It was one of the things he used to do, before events had pushed them apart: cook for the two of them before they did whatever they had planned for an evening. It was after nine when they’d finished eating, and Luke picked up the half-full wine bottle and their glasses. ‘We’ll finish this in bed,’ he said.

  Despite Roz’s intentions to catch up on her sleep and be prepared for the meeting the next day, she was still awake at one o’clock. Luke had fallen asleep, his head heavy against her shoulder, his arms round her waist. Music was playing quietly on the radio. She couldn’t be bothered to switch it off. She lay there for a while, watching the dark window of the derelict house, watching the moonlight fade and brighten as the wind chased the clouds across and away, watching the patterns of dark and light on his face.