By Death Divided

by Patricia Hall

  ‘No, of course not,’ Julie snapped back, but then calmed down enough to check.

  ‘I had my bag with me when I went shopping,’ she said more calmly. ‘There’s nothing missing as far as I can see.’

  ‘So she obviously knows she can’t go far. She’s a bright girl. If she waited until you left her on her own, she must have planned this quite carefully. Would she know which bus to get to get to your family home?’

  ‘She might do,’ Julie conceded, feeling sick. ‘If she could find the right bus stop in town. I don’t know, do I? I simply don’t know.’

  ‘Calm, calm,’ Carrie said. ‘Has she got a mobile?’

  ‘No,’ Julie said. ‘She was badgering us to get her one, but I thought she was too young. She didn’t need one yet. She’s only eight.’

  ‘Has your husband got a mobile?’ Carrie persisted.

  ‘No. He hates them. Won’t carry one.’

  ‘So come down to the office and we’ll call him from there. Is he likely to be at home?’

  ‘Yes, no, I don’t know,’ Julie muttered but she followed Carrie downstairs and dictated the number to her, but it was obvious after they had both listened to the ring tone for several minutes that there was not going to be a reply.

  ‘Is there anyone else Anna might have decided to visit?’ Carrie asked. ‘A schoolfriend, maybe? Any other relations?’

  Julie ran her hands through her hair, close to desperation now.

  ‘Her grandmother, maybe.’

  ‘Then let’s give her a call, shall we?’

  Julie pulled out her own mobile and called her mother-in-law, and this time the phone was answered quickly.

  ‘Vanessa? Is Anna with you by any chance?’

  There was an unexpectedly long silence at the other end before Vanessa Holden spoke.

  ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘But Bruce called me. He says Anna has turned up there saying she wants to stay at home. He said you’re not to worry. She’s fine. She’s with her daddy now.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Julie said, tears coursing down her cheeks now. ‘Please, no.’ Vanessa began to say something else but Julie broke the connection abruptly.

  ‘I’ve got to get her back,’ she sobbed. ‘She’s not safe with that man. No one is.’

  ‘It may not be so easy.’ Carrie’s arm was around Julie’s shoulder now. ‘You can’t report her missing if she’s with her father and seems to have gone to him of her own free will. Has he ever hurt her?’

  ‘What?’ Julie looked aghast.

  ‘Has he ever hurt her? Physically, I mean. Has he ever hit her?’

  ‘No,’ Julie said. ‘I swear I’d have killed him if he’d tried.’ Carrie drew a sharp breath.

  ‘Not a good idea to let anyone hear you say that if you’re going to get into a custody battle with your husband.’

  ‘Custody battle?’ Julie said, appalled. ‘The man’s mad. Mad and violent. Anna’s not safe with him for a moment.’

  ‘That’s something you may have to substantiate before you can get Anna back,’ Carrie said. ‘Believe me. I’ve seen it all before. This may not be easy.’

  ‘Oh, Anna, Anna. What have you done, you silly, silly girl?’

  ‘I think you need a solicitor,’ Carrie said. But Julie just stared at her, still in shock, each coherent thought a massive effort.

  ‘I’ll go up there,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll talk to Anna. She’ll come back with me if I explain to her why she can’t stay with Bruce.’

  Carrie glanced at her watch.

  ‘I’d come with you but I’ve got a meeting of the trustees shortly. This place is going to have to close if we can’t raise some more money soon. I daren’t skip the meeting. But honestly, Julie, it’s not a good idea rushing about banging on doors and having a public row with your husband. It will only make the situation worse and damage your chances of keeping Anna with you. Believe me. I’ve seen so many of these cases. They don’t always work out well for mothers and kids.’

  ‘I’ll keep calm,’ Julie said, her face obstinate. ‘I’ll see if I can get a friend to go with me. We’ll have a rational discussion.’

  ‘With an irrational husband? I don’t think so.’ Carrie’s patience was obviously wearing thin. ‘Look, I really have to go. Why don’t you stay here until I get back and then I’ll find time to drive you up to – where is it? – Southfield? Keep on trying to contact them by phone by all means, but don’t go steaming up there in a fury, please. It won’t do you or Anna, or your chances of getting her back, any good at all. Believe me.’

  Julie nodded dully and turned to go back up to her room. She sat on her bed for a while until she heard the heavy front door close and she guessed that Carrie had left the building. She tried her home number again but when it rang unanswered she tried Laura Ackroyd’s number instead and explained what had happened.

  ‘Do you have time to come up to Southfield with me?’ she asked. ‘I need to go. I need to see Anna. But I think Carrie’s right. I need a witness and I can’t think of anyone better than you.’

  Michael Thackeray sent for DC Sharif halfway through the morning. With a dry mouth and thumping heart which he feared might be heard as he opened the DCI’s door, the young detective was not surprised to find a man he had never seen before closeted with the DCI.

  ‘This is Doug McKinnon from the new anti-terrorism unit in Manchester,’ Thackeray said by way of introduction. ‘He’d like you to go through what you’ve already told me about your cousin and her husband, and your trip to Milford.’

  Somewhat hesitantly, Sharif did as he was told, hoping that his lack of enthusiasm was not obvious. This interest from MI5, because although that had not been spelt out, he was sure that McKinnon was one of the ‘spooks’ given the unenviable task of working with specialist police officers and trying to anticipate terrorism, was not unexpected. But Sharif still hated exposing what might still be merely a family problem to this level of official scrutiny. Once a name was on MI5’s radar, he was quite sure that it would never be eradicated and he still felt he had little real reason to suspect his cousin’s husband or the intense young imam in Milford of anything criminal at all. Even worse, if their names went into the intelligence files, he had no confidence that some sort of question mark might not be inserted into his own record too. Guilt by association, he thought bitterly, was what this was all about, if your skin was the wrong colour and your religion, however nominal, suspect.

  McKinnon listened sympathetically enough to Sharif’s tale, making a few notes as he went along. When he had finished he glanced at Thackeray, an impassive presence on the edge of the conversation.

  ‘There’s no record of your cousin or her husband leaving the country in recent weeks, for Pakistan or anywhere else,’ he said, turning back to the detective constable. ‘For what that’s worth.’

  Sharif nodded, not knowing quite whether this was good news or bad and unsurprised that passenger lists were being closely monitored. During a relatively sleepless night after he had dropped Louise back at her own flat, he had considered taking some holiday and booking a trip to Pakistan himself to visit family members there, but that idea seemed pretty pointless now. And the last thing he wanted to do was turn up on the anti-terrorist radar himself. He had absolutely no faith that being a copper would protect him from suspicion now attention had been drawn to members of his family.

  McKinnon was looking at him speculatively.

  ‘I understand you don’t live with your parents any more,’ he said. ‘That’s pretty unusual, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m thirty-two,’ Sharif said. ‘Would you live with your parents at thirty-two?’

  ‘But in your community…?’ McKinnon said blandly.

  ‘I have my own flat and my own life,’ Sharif said. ‘That’s my choice.’

  ‘Did the family approve of your choice of career?’ McKinnon persisted. Sharif flashed a look at Thackeray, a covert appeal for support, but he was gazing studiously out of the window and did not meet his
eye.

  ‘I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything we’re discussing,’ Sharif protested.

  ‘It has if we’re to make use of your contacts in the Muslim community,’ McKinnon said. Sharif froze.

  ‘Are you suggesting that I spy on my own family?’

  ‘Not your own family specifically,’ McKinnon said. ‘But you’ve already reported your concerns about the mosque in Milford. You could be very useful to us if you kept your eyes open, got involved a bit more in community life…’

  ‘My cousin is missing, Mr McKinnon,’ Sharif said quietly. ‘That’s what concerns me.’

  ‘And if that turned into a more serious inquiry I would certainly not expect DC Sharif to be involved in the investigation,’ Thackeray broke in sharply at last. ‘He’s much too close to it to be objective.’ Sharif made to protest but then thought better of it, turning back to McKinnon, who was still watching him with chilly eyes.

  ‘I am not known as a religious man, Mr McKinnon,’ he said. ‘I’m not an observant Muslim. If I suddenly started attending prayers and asking questions I would arouse suspicion immediately. I’m sorry. Of course, if information reaches me from my family or anyone else, I’ll pass it on. That’s my duty as a citizen and a police officer. But I won’t be your spy. I’m sorry.’

  ‘So you’ll do no more than the minimum?’ McKinnon said, not concealing his anger.

  ‘That’s not what DC Sharif said,’ Thackeray broke in.

  ‘It’s as good as,’ McKinnon snapped back.

  ‘Thank you, Mohammed,’ Thackeray said firmly. ‘I’m sure you’ve plenty of work to be getting on with.’ Sharif nodded and left the office, closing the door gently behind him, and leaving Michael Thackeray shaking his head at McKinnon.

  ‘I told you he wouldn’t buy that,’ he said. ‘He’s an excellent officer with a serious future ahead of him. But in present circumstances, Muslim officers walk a tightrope. You were trying to push him off.’

  ‘We need intelligence,’ McKinnon said.

  ‘We all need intelligence,’ Thackeray said. ‘And Sharif will provide it. But not by pretending to be what he’s not. That would destroy his credibility in the community and I won’t have that. And anyway, as he rightly says, it couldn’t possibly be effective. He would fool no one.’

  ‘He’s ambivalent, like a lot of them.’

  ‘No,’ Thackeray said flatly. ‘He’s not. He’s as appalled as anyone by terrorism, as are most of the Muslims in this town. I won’t have him tainted by these fanatics who were so secretive that their own families didn’t know what they were planning. If you want intelligence from the mosques you’ll have to find another source. Sharif’s not the man you need.’

  ‘If you say so,’ McKinnon conceded, still not looking convinced. ‘But I’ll make a note of it.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ Thackeray said grimly.

  Laura Ackroyd reluctantly drove Julie Holden up the long hill to Southfield when she finished work at four that afternoon. The trip was against her better judgment, but Julie had insisted that she would tackle her husband alone if she had to and eventually Laura had caved in to her frantic entreaties. She had picked Julie up from outside the women’s refuge, where she had been standing on the pavement, a forlorn figure in jeans and a bedraggled red fleece, trying to shelter from the drizzling rain that had been gusting across the town from the Pennines all afternoon.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ Laura had said as she pushed open the passenger door to let Julie in. ‘I couldn’t get away quite as soon as I hoped.’

  Julie nodded as she fastened her seatbelt.

  ‘I’m glad you could help. I thought of Vicky but she can’t leave Naomi easily, and anyway, I reckoned a reporter might give Bruce pause for thought.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Laura said non-committally, uncomfortable with the idea that her profession might be used as a bargaining chip in this marital war. ‘But there’s one thing I have to say. I’m not going to get involved in snatching Anna by force. If she’s gone to see her father and wants to stay you’ll have to use legal means to get her back.’

  ‘I don’t know that she went there voluntarily, do I?’ Julie said, her expression mutinous.

  ‘From what you say about her packing her favourite things it looks pretty obvious to me,’ Laura said bluntly. ‘She wasn’t happy at the refuge, was she?’

  Julie shook her head, looking so desolate that Laura felt for a moment that she was being unnecessarily unfeeling. But then she hardened her heart again, knowing from her research how easy it was for family disputes like this to tip over into appalling violence against spouses and children alike. She had seen Michael Thackeray devastated by scenes of family violence too recently to want to risk that – for him or anyone else – again.

  She drove soberly through the thickening traffic, to the modest detached house on the edge of Southfield, that she had last visited with Vicky. They sat for a moment gazing at Julie’s home, where blank widows showed no sign of life.

  ‘Perhaps they’re not there,’ Laura said, almost hoping she was right. The nearer she got to this proposed confrontation, the more unhappy she felt about it.

  ‘Where else would they be?’ Julie snapped. ‘Anna wouldn’t have gone anywhere else.’

  ‘Bruce could have taken her somewhere else,’ Laura said. ‘To keep her out of your way. Which is his car?’ There was no car on the short drive leading to the Holden’s garage and only a few parked on the quiet suburban street outside.

  Julie shook her head.

  ‘It must be in the garage,’ Julie said. ‘He won’t have gone anywhere. One of our problems was that he wouldn’t make decisions. He says he needs thinking time, but in fact he just broods on things and works himself into a fury if he doesn’t like the answers he comes up with. Then I get the blame.’

  And the bruises, Laura thought, wondering again why Julie had not left her husband years ago.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘We’ll only find out where they are if we knock on the door.’ Julie nodded, looking wan and uncertain now the moment had come, but she followed Laura to the front door and waited as the bell sounded inside the house. For a long time there was no response to Laura’s repeated rings, but finally they heard sounds inside, a child’s voice and then a man’s, and then a looming presence visible through the frosted-glass panel in the door.

  Eventually it opened a crack and a face appeared, no longer boyish but haggard and unshaven, with disheveled hair and bleary eyes. Bruce Holden looked as if he had just got out of bed, and Laura wondered if he had been drinking.

  ‘Is Anna here?’ Julie asked, her voice shrill with suppressed tension. ‘Have you got Anna?’

  ‘She came to see her dad,’ Holden said. ‘What’s wrong with that?’ his gaze fixed on Laura.

  ‘Who’s this? Your sodding friend again? Can’t you do anything without someone to hold your hand?’

  Irritated, Laura gave Bruce her full name this time, but that was not enough for Julie.

  ‘She’s a reporter from the Gazette,’ she said. ‘She’s writing about domestic violence.’

  ‘Well, she can sod off, then,’ Bruce said, his scowl darkening. ‘There’s nothing for her here. I wouldn’t have let her in with Vicky bloody Mendelson if I’d known.’

  ‘Where’s Anna?’ Julie cried, putting her foot in the door as Bruce made an attempt to close it. ‘I want to see her.’

  ‘Well, you can’t, you bloody can’t,’ Bruce shouted, not concealing a fury that Laura guessed would have ended in physical violence if she had not been there. ‘So now you know what it feels like.’ And he pulled the door back a foot and then slammed it, making Julie pull her foot away sharply to avoid serious injury. She staggered backwards, grabbing Laura for support, her face ashen and her eyes filling with tears again.

  ‘You can’t deal with this on your own,’ Laura said. ‘I did warn you. You have to get help.’

  ‘Who from?’ Julie almost screamed.

 
‘The police, social services, a solicitor – all three if you like,’ Laura said, urging her back down the short drive to the pavement. But as they moved towards the car she glanced back at the house and looked up to a bedroom window where a slight movement had caught her eye. There she saw a small pale face staring at them. Anna, Laura thought, did not seem to want to attract her mother’s attention, either to welcome or reject her. Whatever she was thinking, she certainly was not waving for help or crying out to be rescued, but there was little doubt that she was scared. Julie was leaning against the car with her back to her daughter and Laura quickly helped her into the passenger seat, without mentioning the child above.

  ‘Where now?’ Laura asked, knowing that she could not leave Julie on her own in her distraught state. The other woman shrugged and glanced at her watch.

  ‘I’ll have to get a solicitor, I suppose, though it’s a bit late now for that.’

  ‘If you were prepared to complain to the police about your husband’s violent behaviour you might have a better chance of getting Anna back in the short-term,’ Laura said as she pulled away from the kerb and began to weave her way back from the tree-lined streets to the bustling centre of Bradfield. Julie said nothing until, as they approached the town centre through the thickening rush-hour traffic, she grabbed Laura’s arm convulsively, almost causing her to swerve into the kerb.

  ‘Take me to the police station, then,’ she said. ‘You’re right. I’ve got to stop him. I can’t leave Anna with that maniac, even for a single night. I’ll get him arrested for assault.’

  DS Janet Richardson had reluctantly allowed Laura Ackroyd to remain with Julie Holden while she interviewed her.

  ‘You’re here strictly as a friend, not a reporter,’ Janet had said to Laura when Julie begged to keep Laura at her side. Laura knew she was being used by Julie as a life-line and agreed to Janet’s terms readily enough. What she heard in the police station would not add greatly to what Julie had already told her outside and she wanted to see the case against Bruce Holden progress just as much as Julie herself evidently did now a crisis had been provoked over Anna’s safety. Whatever Anna had decided to do for herself, Laura knew that the wan face she had seen at the bedroom window was the face of a desperately unhappy child.