by Abi Silver
‘She always told us they were valuable,’ Tracy continued, ‘but I’m not sure they were. I just thought it might be important, you know, for the investigation.’
Dawson scratched at his stubble. He hadn’t shaved this morning and now it was bothering him.
‘Is there anything else missing?’
‘I can’t say. I’ve no idea what she packed. Her handbag seemed to have the usual things; money, credit card. Mum only had one.’
‘OK. I appreciate you calling, Mrs Jones. Can you give me a full description of each ring again?’
16
Constance walked haltingly along Braham Terrace. She had no idea how her visit would be received, especially given Ahmad’s indifference to her efforts last time they had met. And Acton, where he lived, was not a familiar part of London.
Ahmad’s house was towards the end of the street. A barrier made it effectively a dead end. And, although the kerb was set out in a circular shape, to allow unsuspecting motorists to turn around without too much angst, it had become, instead, the dumping ground for unwanted items of furniture, left in sprawling piles on either side of the street.
Constance stopped abruptly. She had seen the downstairs curtain twitch at no 33, Ahmad’s house, she was certain, but there was no one visible at the window now. She approached and knocked at the door, all the time keeping one eye out for further signs of movement from inside. She waited and tried a second time.
After another minute of silence, she pondered shouting through the letterbox, but her own sense of decorum prevented it. She stepped back into the street and gazed at the upstairs windows. Then she approached the bay window, grasped the peeling ledge with both hands and pressed her face up close to the glass. The room was in darkness, but she made out some chairs and a TV in the far corner. She knocked at the door one more time, before taking out another business card, writing Ahmad. Please call me urgently, Constance on the back, posting it through the letterbox and heading off up the street.
Two houses down, the door opened and a lady beckoned Constance over.
‘You looking for Mrs Qabbani?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What’s she done?’
‘Nothing.’
‘So why’re you looking for her then?’
‘I need to speak to Mr Qabbani.’
‘He works at the hospital; Hampstead it is. Sometimes, he’s there days, sometimes nights. You should try there.’
‘Yes, thank you. But I thought Mrs Qabbani might have been at home?’
‘Oh, she’s at home all right.’
‘Oh?’
‘She’s always at home. Never goes anywhere, that one.’
‘Is she ill?’
The woman tapped her fingers lightly to the side of her head.
‘Only in there, I reckon. And she won’t let you in, not if she don’t know who you are. Come back later when the husband’s home. He’s very nice, polite, and the little girl’s sweet. Over there at number thirty-two – Suzy Douglas – she keeps the girl till he gets home, most days.’
‘Thank you. Maybe I’ll talk to Mrs Douglas then.’
‘You can try but she’ll be at work herself now. Back around four o’clock. Come back then.’
Constance was disappointed and now she was unsure what to do next. She didn’t really want to wait around but Dawson’s call of two hours ago had made her anxious. ‘Had the forensic report back on Mrs Hennessy. Might put your man, Qabbani, in the frame. I’ll send it through. Have you heard from him at all?’ he’d asked cryptically.
She had said something anodyne in response, something stupid like ‘It’s good of you to call me.’ Dawson had waited for her to say more and then, when she hadn’t – in truth, only because she was struggling with a response that would make her sound experienced – he added, ‘You might want to speak to him again, just to make sure he’s told you everything.’
‘You’re certain Mrs Hennessy was killed then? She didn’t jump?’ was all she could muster. And Dawson had countered with a snappy ‘looks that way’ before hanging up. Then Constance had read the forensic report, three times. That was why she had come today. Trouble was heading Ahmad’s way and she wanted to ward it off as best she could.
‘Is there somewhere I can get a cup of tea?’ she enquired gently of Ahmad’s neighbour. ‘A café, I mean,’ just to make sure the woman didn’t think she was expecting hospitality.
‘End of the street, back the way you came. Turn right. It’s called Sultan’s. If you get any nonsense, tell them Cath sent you.’
* * *
Constance settled herself down with a mug of tea in the café and waited. It was already 3:30. She would have preferred to talk to Mrs Qabbani first without Ahmad, just to see what titbits she could pick up, even down to the very obvious, what time he had come home last Thursday night; now that was not going to be possible.
It was close to 5:45 when she saw Ahmad emerge. He was striding out of the station with a bag over his shoulder. She stood up and stretched out her stiff back. Once he was at least a hundred metres ahead, she exited the café and followed him, keeping a safe distance behind.
He stopped a few doors short of his own house on the opposite side of the street and a young girl with long black hair came running out to meet him. He crouched down and she wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a kiss firmly on his cheek, before the two of them continued down the street, hand in hand.
Constance hesitated. The sight of the little girl made her more anxious. It was one thing to offer Ahmad advice when he was seated in a police station, but quite another to arrive uninvited at his house and invade his personal space. What was she going to say to him? That she was worried he may be implicated in Barbara Hennessy’s murder, that he might be called back for questioning?
Why was she so interested in Ahmad anyway? He had hardly been engaging when they had met; quite the opposite. But something about his manner had captured her interest: the contrast of his large bulk and intense stare with his slender hands and judicious choice of words; his veneer of deference, when faced with Dawson, which reminded her of her mother’s own manner, adopted when coping with formal events in a country far away from her birth. That might explain things: yet another opportunity for Constance to try to put the world to rights, but with a more worthy victim than usual.
She knocked gingerly this time, and heard voices before the little girl opened the door.
‘Hello. Can you tell your daddy I’m here please?’ Constance asked.
The girl stood in silence for a moment, unblinking. Then she sped off into the house, leaving the door open. Constance stepped inside, searching around on the floor for the business card she had posted through earlier, but it was nowhere in sight.
‘Baba. There’s a lady here to see you.’ She heard the girl speaking and the noise of a chair being scraped along the floor.
Then Ahmad was striding towards her purposefully. He closed the front door behind her, frowning all the time.
‘You’re the lawyer. From the police. What do you want?’ His manner was hardly welcoming.
‘Mr Qabbani. You don’t have to talk to me, but I need to advise you of some developments in the case of Mrs Hennessy. Can you spare me a few minutes, please?’
Ahmad’s frown deepened but he nodded once and then led the way into the dingy lounge. He shouted a few guttural words out into the echoing space of the hallway, to whomever might have been listening. The smell of food wafted in from the kitchen and Constance guessed she had interrupted a family meal.
She sat down on the threadbare sofa, but immediately found herself in the firing line of the draught streaming in through the cracked, wooden window frame. She shifted to her left and drew her coat tightly around her.
‘I have been sent a copy of a report into Mrs Hennessy’s death. I wanted to talk to you
about it.’
‘Why talk to me?’
‘There are some things in the report which could link you to Mrs Hennessy’s death.’
‘What things?’
‘Your fingerprints were on the door of the staff room; the one leading out on to the balcony.’
‘I use that room, so does everyone else. We were allowed back in today, just like before.’
‘Yours were near the top of all the prints, suggesting you had recently opened or closed the door.’
Ahmad shook his head.
‘I went out there, maybe that evening before I went home.’
‘Some of your hair was found on Mrs Hennessy’s clothing, wound around one of the buttons of her nightgown. Can you explain why your hair was on her nightgown?’
Ahmad gazed out into the distance.
‘Ahmad?’
‘Why would I want to hurt Mrs Hennessy?’ He folded his arms defiantly, but it was not lost on Constance that his hands were shaking.
A noise at the door startled them both. The little girl was standing there, peering around the frame. Her face seemed very narrow and drawn, her eyes wide and bottomless, a carbon copy of her father’s. Neither of them could be sure how long she had been watching or listening. Ahmad straightened up and smiled reassuringly at her. He spoke to her softly in a language Constance didn’t understand and she withdrew. Constance heard her feet padding up the stairs and then a door close.
‘Miss Lamb, I need this job, at the hospital. It took me one year to find work after we came here. One year living off charity. I wanted to work…but no one would have me. Do you understand how important this job is for me, for us? So you need to sort this out for me. To tell them I know nothing about how Mrs Hennessy is dead.’
‘I will, of course. But you won’t help yourself by keeping quiet about things you know. You and all the other staff who were in the hospital that night are under suspicion. Did you see anything strange that night? Anything at all? Was there someone around who was new, a technician, a new nurse, a new delivery man?’
‘There are always new nurses – they are all agency. But I don’t think so. I will try to remember. It was just a normal night. I did my shift and went home.’
His face lit up for a moment. ‘I use Oyster. That will tell you when I went home. You can check?’
Constance attempted to appear encouraged. It would be helpful, of course, if Ahmad’s Oyster card corroborated his story that he headed home at the end of his shift, but not conclusive.
The doorbell rang again. Ahmad jumped up. He was unused to any visitors, and twice in ten minutes was fraying his nerves. He called out an acknowledgement and, this time, answered the front door himself. Constance checked her phone messages and emailed her office to say she would not be back that evening. Ahmad was talking loudly but haltingly in the hallway.
‘Excuse me please, sir, one moment. My lawyer is here. I will speak to her,’ she heard him say.
‘His lawyer, do you hear that?’ The man outside the door had a deep, resounding voice and a Cockney accent.
Constance slipped her phone back in her bag and joined Ahmad by the front door, where she was surprised to find a burly police officer filling the door frame. The grin on the police officer’s face was replaced by an expression of bemusement.
‘Blimey. I’m PC Brown.’ He flashed his police ID. ‘Mr Qabbani was telling the truth. You’re the lawyer, are you? Is that a guilty conscience then? Can I come in, love, save all this stuff on the doorstep, just a spectacle for the neighbours?’ PC Brown shouldered his way past them both and stepped inside, closely followed by a young woman colleague.
‘Mr Qabbani. As I was saying, I have a warrant here to search your property. This is on account of a suspicion that certain items belonging to a Mrs Hennessy, now deceased, may be in your property. Me and Richards here, we’ll do our best to do this without messing things up too much, but we do have to search in drawers and cupboards and things. Do you understand what we’re saying?’
Ahmad half turned his head towards the kitchen and did not reply.
‘Can I see the warrant, please?’ Constance asked, her pulse suddenly racing. Dawson had mentioned the DNA evidence to her but this must be something new.
‘You can have your own personal copy. Here you go.’ PC Brown handed it over. She read it through quickly and handed it on to Ahmad.
‘Can you tell us specifically what the items are?’ she asked, knowing as she spoke that it would make little difference now to know the answer. ‘It only says jewellery.’
‘It’s set out clearly in the warrant. We’ll start upstairs I think. Anyone up there?’
PC Brown placed his size twelves on the bottom step but Ahmad flung himself forward to bar the policeman’s way, his eyes aflame. PC Brown raised his eyebrows as Constance rushed to Ahmad’s side, tapping his arm gently, her gaze never leaving the policeman, willing him not to take any precipitative action. At Constance’s touch, Ahmad gathered himself.
‘My daughter is upstairs, please. One moment. Please not to scare her,’ he said.
Ahmad bounded up the stairs and knocked on the nearest bedroom door. The same little girl who had opened the front door and eavesdropped on their conversation peered out, then descended the stairs with a Barbie doll clutched tightly in one hand. Ahmad propelled her into the kitchen and, scowling, closed the door behind them.
‘Tell your client to watch himself,’ PC Brown cautioned Constance. ‘He’s lucky you were here,’ he continued, as the two officers trudged upstairs, leaving Constance alone in the hallway.
She stood for some moments, surveying the dreary space. The wallpaper was yellow and peeling by the front door, the skirting was cracked and chipped. There were marks from a long-gone coat hook and the carpet was worn from the tread of many feet. Restless and ill at ease, she wandered into the living room. Should she call Dawson and ask him what this jewellery was? What would she say? Did she have the right to ask for more information?
Upstairs she could hear loud footsteps and talking, the occasional interruption of PC Brown speaking abruptly into his radio and the low responses of his colleague. There was no noise from the kitchen. Constance crept up close to the door and knocked before entering.
Ahmad, his wife and daughter were seated around the table, a plastic square with an embroidered cloth draped over it. The little girl was writing with a focused expression in an exercise book, Ahmad and his wife sat opposite each other, quiet and still. Ahmad half rose and offered Constance his seat.
‘This is my wife, Aisha, and my daughter, Shaza.’ He introduced them to Constance as if this were a social occasion, and then suddenly he asked Constance, ‘What do they want?’
‘It says jewellery on the warrant. I could call the Inspector but…’
Constance’s voice tailed off. Although she had done nothing wrong by coming to Ahmad’s house, she didn’t particularly want to admit to Dawson that she had. If Ahmad ended up in trouble, she wanted to be able to maintain that there was nothing worrying in the forensic report but her very presence in his house gave it credence. She was cross Dawson hadn’t mentioned the warrant though; it must have already been in hand when they spoke. Then she thought back to the interview at the police station. Perhaps Dawson had been right, and Ahmad had asked for a lawyer in the first place because he knew he had something to worry about.
She took the place at the table Ahmad had offered her. He went to the sink, poured himself a glass of water and downed it in one. Shaza glanced up at him and then returned to her maths.
‘Have you lived here long?’ Constance turned to Aisha.
‘My wife doesn’t speak,’ Ahmad replied, filling his glass a second time. Shaza frowned, opened her mouth then closed it.
Aisha Qabbani sat perfectly still, hands folded on the table, watching her daughter at work. She exuded tranquillity. Her c
omposed expression was in contrast to her husband, who was agitation personified. Aisha turned her head away, but not before Constance had seen how unusual her sad eyes were; petrol blue flecked with gold, around the blackest pupil, her headscarf grey, setting them off to perfection. They reminded her of sunflowers set against a thunderous sky.
But gradually, observing his wife and daughter, Ahmad, too, calmed himself. He stopped half way through his second glass of water, placing it down on the table top.
‘She understands you perfectly,’ he added.
‘When did…’
‘Since we came here,’ Ahmad’s eyes flitted to the tiny back window overlooking the squalid yard. There was a plastic play kitchen outside, leaning against the wall for support, adorned with plates and cups, one of them tipped on its side, half filled with water, the colour washed out by endless days of rain.
Constance wondered how she would explain this to Mike in the evening over dinner. He wouldn’t understand it, why she was ‘getting so involved,’ what had drawn her to spend her afternoon sitting in the damp, dingy end-of-terrace, with a murder suspect and his mute wife, while the police rampaged around upstairs.
The banging and scraping and furniture-shifting continued, interspersed with low chatter and PC Brown’s honeyed tones permeating the ceiling. At one point, Shaza ceased her work and stared hard at Constance till Constance looked away, and at one particularly loud bang, Mrs Qabbani placed her hand over her face but then recovered and smiled encouragingly at her daughter.
Suddenly, the noise overhead changed. The thudding of furniture being heaved around morphed into that of enthusiastic voices, and PC Brown could be heard talking into his radio again. Constance strained to hear what he was saying.
‘What is happening?’ Ahmad asked, and Constance seized the moment to go and see.
The two officers were in Shaza’s bedroom. Constance gasped to see the chaos they had generated. The bedding was heaped in a pile on the floor and all the clothes had been removed from the wardrobe. Games in boxes had been opened and their contents, too, were spilling out randomly. PC Brown noticed Constance but continued his conversation without breaking breath.