by Tony Parsons
‘Makes it harder for us,’ Whitestone said. ‘Now we can’t run forensics on the kill site.’
‘Yes, but it makes it more dangerous for them. Why risk someone seeing them dump the body? Why not leave him where they’d strung him up?’
Whitestone thought about it.
‘Because they wanted us to find him,’ she said.
We watched the Specialist Search Team inching their way across Hyde Park on their hands and knees. In the distance, a German Shepherd from the Dog Support Unit began to bark.
‘What I could really use is the rope they did it with,’ Whitestone said, more to herself than me. ‘Ropes can speak volumes. The kind of rope. The kind of knot.’
Fierce white arc lights clicked on and lit up the scene like a film set. The body of Mahmud Irani looked horribly broken in the glare, the agony of his death imprinted on his lifeless face. The crocodile on his shirt stared off in the wrong direction, as if averting its gaze from the large stain on his jeans.
The Area Forensic Manager and his CSIs were already sweating inside their Tyvek suits, blue gloves and forensic face masks. A van with blacked-out windows came trundling across the parched grass. The mortuary van. And behind it I saw the great white marble arch that marks the junction of Oxford Street, Edgware Road and Park Lane. And something whispered through the trees, like the sigh of the uneasy dead.
‘This was Tyburn,’ I said. ‘Maybe that’s why they took the chance of dumping him here. The dump site could be part of a ritual killing. Maybe the most important part. Because this was Tyburn.’
‘Tyburn?’ Whitestone said. ‘The public gallows?’
I nodded. ‘The Tyburn tree – the three-legged gallows pole – was at Marble Arch. This spot was where London had its public execution site for almost a thousand years.’ The great triumphal arch glowed with the lights of the night. ‘Fifty thousand people were hanged right where we’re standing,’ I said. ‘And they weren’t just killing him, were they?’ I looked down at the body of Mahmud Irani and the lopsided wound on his neck. ‘They were punishing him.’
4
Just before three o’clock on a sun-soaked Monday afternoon, Stan and I waited for Scout outside the school gates, both of us struggling to contain our emotions.
Our small red Cavalier King Charles Spaniel was always excited at the school gates – all those kids, all that attention, all those compliments – but for me today was special because it was the last day of the school year.
And we had made it.
The children began to appear and the waiting crowd of parents surged forward.
I saw the long blonde hair of Miss Davies – my daughter Scout’s beloved teacher – and then there were little girls whose faces I recognised and finally Scout herself, carting a huge folder and wearing a school dress that was the smallest they had in stock but still came down well below her knees.
Miss Davies saw me and smiled, waved, and gave me a big thumb’s up.
I wanted to thank her – for everything – but too many parents were milling around her, giving her gifts, wanting a word before the long summer break, so Stan and I stood and waited at the school gates, his tail wagging wildly and his round black eyes bulging with excitement.
‘We watched a film because it was the last day,’ Scout said, by way of greeting. ‘It was about a Japanese fish called Ponyo.’ She spotted the face of a friend who she hadn’t seen for at least five minutes.
‘MIA! MIA! MIA-MIA-MIA-MIA-MIA!’
‘Bye, Scout!’
‘Bye, Mia!’
Scout gave me her folder stuffed full of the year’s work. Her name and class printed neatly on the front.
Scout Wolfe, 1D.
On top was one of her early works, a picture called ‘My Family’ that I remembered from last September. In the picture Scout’s family was just a little stick-figure man who didn’t even have a briefcase to call his own and a little girl with brown hair and a red dog. That picture had torn at my heart last year because the man and the girl and the dog had seemed lost among all that white space. But now it made me smile.
We made it!
We drifted away from the school gates, and all around us there were best wishes for the holidays, and plans being made to stay in touch, and I felt a sense of relief that was almost overwhelming.
All parents want the same things for their children. But the single parent wants something extra. The single parent wants to survive.
If Scout and I could get through the first year of school, then I knew we could get through anything.
She took Stan’s lead, wrapped it twice around her thin wrist, but the dog was still skittish, as if the thrills of the school gates had yet to wear off. He was sniffing a lamppost, wild-eyed and lost in his own world, that world of scent that dogs live in, when he suddenly looked up and spotted a well-groomed poodle on the far side of the road. Without warning, he tried to dive into the traffic and Scout had to hold him back with both hands.
I took the lead from her and we both stared at Stan, who only had eyes for the poodle on the far side of the road.
‘He’s reached sexual maturity,’ Scout said. ‘You’re going to have to face it, Daddy.’
The homeless man sat on the pavement in the shade of the great arched entrance to Smithfield meat market.
He wore an old green T-shirt, the sleeves far too long, threadbare camouflage trousers and combat boots with no laces. There was a baseball cap in front of him containing a few coins. Everything about him said ex-serviceman.
Without looking up, he spoke to us as we walked past.
‘Spare fifty grand?’
The line made me smile. It was a good line. Unexpected.
And then my smile froze because I knew that voice from years ago. Not the voice of this man but the boy he had once been. A time when I knew that voice as well as I knew my own.
I slowly turned and walked back to him, Scout and Stan following me. And he looked up – a light-skinned black man who had not shaved for a while, who had not slept in a bed last night, and who had not eaten properly for a long time.
But it was still him.
‘Jackson Rose,’ I said, and it wasn’t a question, because there was no doubt in my mind, and I saw the shock of recognition dawn on that familiar face.
‘Max?’
How long had it been? Thirteen years. Another last day of term in what was for us the last school year of them all. But for the five years before that, we had been closer than brothers.
One of those childhood friendships that you never find again.
I held out my hand and helped him to his feet and he grinned and I saw the gap-toothed smile I remembered, although one of his front teeth was chipped now, and we hugged, both laughing at the improbability of it all. Then we stood apart, shaking our heads. Time overwhelmed us.
I looked at his filthy army fatigues.
He looked at my daughter. And our dog.
And then we laughed again.
‘You’re a father?’ he said.
I nodded. ‘Yes.’
That gap-toothed grin. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thanks.’
He held out his hand to Scout and she solemnly shook it.
‘Jackson Rose,’ he said.
‘Scout Wolfe,’ she said, and she watched him as he crouched down to make a fuss of Stan. ‘Are you my daddy’s friend?’
‘That’s right, Scout. And do you know what they say?’
Scout shook her head.
‘I don’t know what they say,’ she confessed.
‘You can make new friends,’ Jackson Rose said, looking at me. ‘But you can’t make old friends.’ He gave me that gap-toothed grin. ‘Isn’t that right, Max?’
‘You’re coming home with us,’ I said.
Something passed across his face.
‘I can’t come home with you and Scout,’ he said, looking away, and I saw that he was ashamed.
‘Why not?’
He hesitated for a mo
ment then gave a short, embarrassed laugh.
‘Because I really need a shower,’ he said.
‘We’ve got a shower,’ I said.
Then I looked at Scout, wondering if she would be worried by the presence of a stranger under our roof. But she reached out and took Jackson’s hand.
‘My friend’s called Mia,’ she told him.
We took him home.
My plan was to order a Thai takeaway, or pizza, or whatever he wanted, but as soon as I mentioned food he was at the fridge door, looking at what we had.
‘I was a cook in the army,’ he said. ‘You like curry, Scout? Everybody likes curry, right?’
Scout looked doubtful. She had never tried curry.
‘This is a special curry,’ Jackson said, pulling out onions, carrots, chicken. Mrs Murphy, our housekeeper, kept stuff in there. I was more of a scrambled omelette man. ‘A Japanese curry,’ Jackson said, and I saw the boy he had been, and how nothing could stop him once he had decided on a course of action. ‘Not too spicy,’ he said, with a reassuring wink to Scout. ‘Don’t worry about a thing.’
And it was delicious. The three of us ate Jackson’s Japanese curry with the heat of the day wearing off outside, and Stan sleeping in his basket. When Scout had finished her first curry and gone off to her room, Jackson and I smiled at each other.
‘You’re sleeping rough, Jackson?’
He laughed.
‘Purely temporary. And what about you? Anybody else coming home?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s just us,’ I said. ‘Me and Scout. This is it.’
His big wide smile. Then it slowly faded. ‘What happened, Max?’
I wasn’t sure if I could explain it to him, or even to myself.
‘I met a girl, and we fell in love, and then we had a baby, and it was the most beautiful baby in the world. And then things were harder than we ever thought they would be. No money. Her career stalled. My job was all hours and maybe sometimes I was too wrapped up in it. And this girl, Jackson – she was a beauty.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Anne,’ I said, and I wondered if I would ever be able to say that one little name without a stab of pain. ‘And she met someone else. A good-looking guy with plenty of money.’
‘Nothing like you then?’
‘Nothing like me. She fell in love.’ I paused. This next bit was tough to talk about. ‘And got pregnant with his kid. Walked out on us. Now she’s got a new life, got a new family – and me and Scout, we had to get on with it, too. And we did.’
‘This Anne – she still see the kid?’
‘On and off. It’s patchy, to be honest. She’s busy with this new life. Happens all the time.’
‘Yes, it does. But it’s still hard.’
‘It’s actually not that hard because Scout is the best thing that ever happened to me, Jackson. And because it feels like everybody we know is rooting for us.’ I thought of Mrs Murphy. I thought of Miss Davies. And I thought of Edie Wren, who could talk to Scout more naturally than anyone in the world.
‘Lot of support,’ Jackson said.
‘We’re doing all right,’ I said.
The cardboard folder that Scout had brought home was on the dinner table. Jackson leafed through it.
‘What about you?’ I said. ‘Wife? Kids?’ I remembered how much girls had liked him. For his looks, and for his wildness, and for his lack of fear.
He shook his head.
‘Not me,’ he smiled, as if the thought had never even crossed his mind, and when he rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn, I saw how exhausted he was. ‘I’ve been too busy feeding the British Army.’
‘You’re worn out,’ I said. ‘Come on.’
I showed him the little spare room at the far end of the loft and he said that he might have a nap for a bit and I told him that was a good idea.
‘I’m glad to see you, Max,’ he said, and I knew that I would never have a friend like him again.
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘Do you need anything?’
He smiled shyly and I cursed my stupidity.
Jackson needed everything.
When I came back with clean clothes, towels and toothbrush, he was standing by the window, staring down at the meat market. He had pulled off his boots, socks and T-shirt, and I saw that his entire torso – his back, his chest, and his shoulders – was one mass of scar tissue. The skin looked as though it had been torn off and then carelessly pulled back together. It was livid, corrugated, discoloured, and it made my throat constrict with shock.
‘What happened?’ I said, echoing his question to me.
‘I served my country,’ smiled Jackson Rose.
5
‘So that’s the plan?’ said Edie Wren early the next morning. ‘We work our way through the list of everyone who hated Mahmud Irani because of his conviction for grooming? That’s our MLOE?’
Major Line of Enquiry.
I nodded. She whistled.
‘Long list,’ she said.
‘Then we better get started,’ I said.
I had parked the BMW X5 in a courtyard of a low-rise block of flats on the hill that slowly rises from King’s Cross all the way to the Angel. We were in Islington, but this was not the Islington of cool cafés and million-pound studio flats. This was the other Islington, where the council houses stretched as far as the eye could see. Even this early in the day, the heat was building.
‘We run the TIE process on everyone who had good cause to hate the victim,’ I said.
Trace, Interview and Eliminate.
‘We’re doing this in the absence of the kill site,’ I said. ‘And in the absence of any other suspects, clues or leads.’ I looked up at the bleak block of flats. ‘Sofi Wilder was eleven years old when she met Mahmud Irani.’
‘Jesus,’ Edie murmured.
‘Now she’s eighteen. Sofi was one of the gang’s first victims, and has had a lot of physical and mental problems. Apparently she doesn’t leave her home.’
‘Why are we looking at this poor kid? Max, this is a total waste of time.’
‘Not Sofi,’ I said. ‘We’re looking at her father – Barry Wilder. Threats were made in the courtroom on the day of sentencing.’ I read from my notes: ‘I’m going to kill you. I’m going to hunt you down and fucking kill you. And there’s something else. The dad – this Barry Wilder – he’s been away.’
‘What for?’
‘Assault. Football violence. Twenty years ago.’
Edie looked doubtful.
‘Lynching a man is a bit different from giving the away supporters a good hiding,’ she said.
I shrugged.
‘Look what they did to his daughter,’ I said. ‘Come on.’
We got out of the car and found the flat.
Barry Wilder opened the door. He had a shaved head and a short-sleeved Ben Sherman shirt with fading tattoos on arms that had been built up by manual work rather than a gym. THE JAM, said one tattoo. MADNESS said another. He was a forty-something skinhead but he looked as though life had kicked all the aggression out of him. He glanced at our warrant cards but seemed too shy to make eye contact.
‘Mr Wilder? I’m DC Wolfe and this is DC Wren. We would like to ask you some questions about Mahmud Irani.’
He nodded. ‘All right. You don’t need to talk to our Sofi, do you?’
‘It’s you we’re interested in,’ Edie said, and he seemed relieved.
He let us into the flat.
A large, heavy-set blonde was sitting by the window, furiously smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke out into the warm summer day. Unfiltered Camels. Her mouth flexed with loathing at the sight of us.
Jean Wilder. Sofi’s mother.
‘Ma’am,’ I said, and my greeting was ignored, and she continued to smoke her cigarette as though she hated it.
Edie and I sat on the sofa, Barry Wilder in the armchair opposite us. I got a closer look at the body art on those thick arms. There were some ancient football tat
toos, as faded as Egyptian runes. You couldn’t even tell if he was Tottenham or Arsenal.
‘You’re aware that Mahmud Irani has been murdered?’ I said.
I heard a door open, glimpsed the face of a young woman, frightened and pale, and watched the door silently close.
Sofi.
‘Mr Wilder, I hope you understand that we have to talk to you because of the relationship between Mahmud Irani and your daughter.’
The woman at the window exhaled.
‘They didn’t have a relationship,’ Mrs Wilder said quietly. She took a deep drag on her cigarette. ‘What do you think? They were boyfriend and girlfriend? Relationship! Why don’t you ever do your job? It’s not much to expect, is it?’
‘Ma’am,’ Edie said. ‘Please.’
‘You’re in my home,’ Mrs Wilder said, totally calm. ‘And you’re talking about my daughter.’
Edie looked at me and let it go.
‘I need to ask you about threats that you made on Mahmud Irani’s life,’ I said to the father.
Mrs Wilder stubbed out her cigarette with something like fury. But the big man in front of us nodded mildly, his hands rubbing together as if he was washing them.
I tried to make my voice as neutral as possible.
‘This is what you were heard to say in court, OK?’
‘OK.’
I read from my notes. ‘I’m going to kill you. I’m going to hunt you down and fucking kill you.’ I looked at the man. ‘Did you make those threats?’
‘Yes.’
Mrs Wilder came across the room. She had tried to cover the smell of cigarettes with smells that I knew – Jimmy Choo and Juicy Fruit chewing gum.
‘Do you have children?’ she asked me.
‘This is not about me, ma’am.’
‘Why are you scared to tell me the truth?’
‘I have a daughter,’ I said.
‘How old?’
‘She’s five.’
‘She’ll grow up,’ Jean Wilder said. ‘They always do. You can’t imagine it now but she’ll grow up so fast that it will make your head spin. And you should get down on your knees and pray to God that she – your daughter, who I am sure you love like you love nothing else in this world – never has a man like Mahmud Irani and his friends catch her scent. Because what we have been through in this family is worse than hell and it is worse than death and it could happen to anyone with a daughter in this country today. And the people who are meant to protect children? The policemen and the social workers and all the professional do-gooders? They look the other way when children are tortured and raped.’ A breath escaped her mouth, and she shook her head in wonder. ‘They look the other way.’