It made a mockery of the bravado he and his colleagues enacted day after day as they waited in the comfort of hotels for stories that they could safely record, journalists and photographers alike always looking for the most sellable angle. They had employers, after all. They were there for money.
Ed goes downstairs and finds the notes he took. He takes his time reading through all of Noah’s wishes. When he’s done, he folds the paper up carefully and places it back in his desk drawer. He hopes with all his heart that the police will discover what happened by the canal. He wants Abdi to be at the funeral with a clear conscience, to be able to say goodbye to his friend properly. Noah would want that, too.
Ed goes upstairs again and sits on the end of their bed. “Fi,” he whispers. He lies on top of the bed beside her and fits his body around hers. Her pillow is damp. He buries his head into her hair.
She doesn’t move, and that angers him a little, because he wants to beg her, just for once, not to own this, not to make her sorrow greater than his.
After a few minutes he feels that she’s trying to ease him away.
“Too hot,” she says, but the skin on her neck is clammy cold.
Ed gets up.
He gets his travel bag out of the wardrobe and unzips it. He packs the usual gear. Not much, just the essentials.
“What are you doing?” Fi’s up on her elbows, watching him.
“I need to get away.”
“Now?”
He can only stare at her in reply.
“What about the funeral?”
“I’ll be home as soon as the autopsy is done. We can’t organize anything until then.”
“You can’t leave now. Is it work?”
He shakes his head. She gets it, finally. That he’s dreadfully lonely and has been for years. That both of them are now Noah is gone.
“Oh, Ed.”
“I can’t be here.”
“Where are you going to go?”
He’s not really sure, but there’s a place on the coast in Ireland where they went once, before Noah was born. No electricity, just a beautiful view and total seclusion. He wants to be somewhere like that.
“I’ll let you know.”
“Please don’t go.”
“I think I have to.”
So they continue in the cycle they’ve always been in, where Ed leaves and Fiona can’t make him stay because she’s not a hundred percent sure she wants him to. Both of them wonder if they ever had a true connection, or if it was parenting that bound them.
When he arrives at the airport, he sees a text from her: “I talked to the journalist, too. You never even asked how I found out you gave her the photograph.”
Woodley and I play the 999 recording to Fraser and tell her about the security guard and his dogs. We’ve taken a statement from him. In our conversation with him at his home, he eventually admitted to being at the scrapyard, but claimed to have arrived as Janet made the emergency call.
“He’s lying,” I say. “And I’d bet my badge that Janet Pritchard is, too. I think we should bring them both in for formal interviews.”
I’m not the only one with news.
One of the admin staff knocks on the window of the meeting room and points at me, making the sign for a phone call.
Ed Sadler’s on the end of the line. “Detective Inspector Clemo,” he says. “I’m going away for a couple of days. Fiona will know how to reach me. I wanted to let you know personally.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“You might not appreciate what I’m going to say next.”
“Go ahead.” The skin on the back of my neck prickles. He sounds more formal than usual. Tense.
“Fiona’s given an interview to a journalist. I’m afraid it may be somewhat—how shall I say this?—somewhat imbalanced and possibly accusatory. Detective?”
“Yes. I’m here.”
“Please don’t blame her too much. Under the circumstances, she’s not herself.”
I’m smart enough not to be destructive in front of my colleagues these days, so when the call’s over, I resist the urge to punch the wall beside Fraser’s office and take the stairs down and out of the building instead.
At the far end of the car park, where the noise of the overpass traffic will ensure my conversation is private, I phone Emma. She doesn’t pick up, and at first I don’t leave her a message, because I know I’m going to shout. I hang up and compose myself. It occurs to me that telling her to back off might be much more effective if I do it face-to-face. I redial.
“Emma,” I say, “I was wondering if you’d like to meet for a drink tonight? I’m off in half an hour. It would be nice to see you.”
Back upstairs the meeting is over and Woodley’s in conference with another person from the tech department. The bad news is that they haven’t managed to crack Abdi’s personal email account yet, but there’s good news, too.
“Our boy’s just used his social media account,” he says.
On a laptop they show me a string of messages sent between Abdi and his sister, Sofia. They’re totally mundane until the very last two.
“She sends him the photograph of the men watching a football game with the message ‘What does this mean?’ He replies, twelve minutes ago.”
Abdi’s reply says: “It means nothing. It’s best if you forget me. I’m not coming home. Sorry.”
“Fuck.”
“I know,” Woodley says.
I read Sofia’s reply: “Please come home, Abdi, or tell us where you are! We love you XXXXX.” A string of heart emojis follows.
“He’s read that last message she sent, but not reacted to it,” Woodley says.
“Where did he log on?”
“We’re working on it.”
“How long until you know?”
“Hours.”
“How many?”
“Depends on the service provider.”
“We need to get to him. Let’s not waste this.”
My phone pings: a text from Emma.
“Could meet now? At Berkeley Lounge Bar. Tied up later.”
Putting her story to bed, no doubt. I text back, “See you there.”
“Contact me the instant you hear anything,” I tell Woodley.
The venue Emma suggested takes a bit of finding. I park on Berkeley Square near the Triangle in the city center. A short walk away, past kebab shops, an American-style diner, and an Indian restaurant, I find an alleyway where the tarmac’s pocked with puddles and seems to lead nowhere. A cat sits in a lit second-floor window and stares down at me. Otherwise, there are no signs of life. I wonder if Emma’s sent me to a dead end to make a point and I’m about to leave when two customers, looking well-dressed and well-watered, emerge from an unmarked black door. I knock at it.
Inside, I find Emma sitting at the bar. It’s a classy place but dark. Tasseled table lamps keep faces in shadow. Bottles of spirits are stacked up behind the bar in staggered rows like stadium seats, glinting dimly where they can catch some light. Emma’s nursing a tall drink. A young barman in a white shirt and waistcoat’s polishing glasses. He’s wearing silver shirt-sleeve holders.
This is a posh venue masquerading as a speakeasy, and it’s an ironic place for a detective and a crime reporter to meet, as if we’re characters who’ve been cast, not real people. I’m sure that’s not lost on Emma, and I wonder what she’s trying to say about us.
I get a sparkling water. She doesn’t look at me until I take a seat beside her and then the eye contact is electrifying and terrifying all at once, just like it used to be.
I have to look away, to focus on a pair of gloves she’s put neatly on the bar, and not her slender forearm that rests on the bar, fingertips on the rim of her glass, nails painted and glossy.
“Hello, Jim,” she says.
“You spoke to Fiona Sadler?”
“Not here for a personal chat, then?”
“Sorry.” The way I say it makes it plain it’s not an apology.
<
br /> “Don’t be.” She puts her chin up defiantly, but I notice that she swallows, too. Nerves. So it’s not just me. There’s no sign of them in her voice, though. “Yes, I’ve spoken to Fiona Sadler. At her invitation.”
“Are you going to publish her story?”
She stirs her drink. It looks like a cocktail and I’m sure it’s for show. Unless she’s changed a lot since we were together, Emma’s far too focused to drink on the job, even if she’s chosen a career where that’s the cliché.
“We are,” she says.
“Don’t.”
She shakes her head, lets out a small snort of laughter. I reach for her hand. The movement takes her by surprise. She lets me hold it for a moment, just long enough for us both to feel the warmth of the other, then pulls it away and rests it in her lap, among the folds of her skirt.
“You don’t want to do this. It’s not who you are. Think of the other boy and his family.”
“Don’t tell me what I do and don’t want to do. I’m publishing because I believe there’s a story that needs to be told. I think Fraser and you and the CID department are trying to bury this because you’re afraid of backlash after the almighty cock-up managing the White Nation March. How many injuries were there? How many arrested? Can you remind me? How much was the cost to the city in damages?”
“You’re bitter.”
“I wonder why.”
“Is this some kind of revenge? You weren’t the only casualty on that case.”
“From where I’m sitting, only one of us is still wearing a CID badge.”
The barman glances at us and she lowers her voice. “You’re unbelievable, Jim. Unbelievable.”
“The Somali boy doesn’t deserve this. He’s innocent.”
“Really? Can I quote you on that?”
I shake my head.
“Can you point me to some evidence of his innocence?”
“Not without compromising the investigation.”
“Then I publish.”
“I thought you were better than this.”
“You thought nothing of the sort. You’re the one who destroyed my career.”
“You did that all on your own.”
I stand. I’m ready to leave. I’m flogging a dead horse and it’s time to stop.
She puts her hand on my arm as I turn to go. “Look at me, Jim.”
How do you hide feelings that are so strong they threaten to destroy your rationality and make a mockery of your loyalties? When I look at her, I can’t help seeing the future that we could have had. It’s painful and tempting, and I wonder how you can hate somebody and desire them so very much.
She stares back at me. Her nostrils flare minutely as she breathes. Something hard sets behind her eyes.
“Never mind,” she says, letting go. She drinks, draining her glass, and scoops up her belongings in a fluid movement that I’d forgotten was her habit. I watch as she walks away from me. She’s dressed to the nines. I wonder if that was for my benefit.
When I make my way out a few minutes later I stand in the dismal alleyway and call Janie Green.
“CID Press Office,” she answers.
“How are you for problems today?”
“I have more than enough, thank you.”
“Room for one more?”
It was worth a try, seeing Emma. I thought I’d get the upper hand, but I guess she’s more in need of a victory than I thought, after the way things ended between us. I’m not done with her yet, though. I can be patient. I can regroup. If there’s one thing Dr. Manelli taught me, it’s that.
Sofia wakes up to find her father at her bedroom door, holding her phone. It’s confusing. She doesn’t know why he’s got it.
“Abdi is contacting you!” he says.
Her mother and father gather around Sofia’s phone with her, deeply dismayed by Abdi’s message. They watch as she types her reply and sends it.
“He’s read it!” Sofia says as the tiny icon beside her message displays Abdi’s profile picture, and collectively they hold their breath as the sign that Abdi is typing appears, but all of a sudden it disappears and doesn’t reappear.
“No!” Sofia shouts. “Come on!”
In an Internet café in the St. Paul’s area Abdi Mahad logs out of Facebook.
He wanted to reply to his sister, but he just didn’t know what to say. He thinks it’s better if they’re not in contact anymore.
He’s also been staring at the photograph of the man who he believes is his father. He knows that this man no longer has a broken lip and crazy teeth, but a surgically repaired mouth, and he knows that this photograph is fifteen years old, but he still stares. He’s looking for a trace of himself in the other man’s face.
The trail he has followed to learn that this man is his real father started last week.
He was working in the kitchen at the Welcome Center when he saw his mother staring at a man who was lining up for food. She had an expression on her face that he’d never seen before. She couldn’t take her eyes off the man, and her eyes were filled with fear. A second later, she fainted. If it hadn’t been for Chef Sami catching her, she would have hit her head.
In the chaos that followed, the man melted away into the crowded dining room, but Abdi had seen him, noticed the scar on his upper lip. Maryam told everybody that she just felt unwell, but Abdi knew that wasn’t true. He tried to find the man and ask him what he said or did to Maryam to frighten her, because Abdi was sure there must have been something, and he would defend his mother to the end.
A friend gave him and Maryam a lift home shortly afterward and Maryam made him swear he wouldn’t mention to Sofia that she fainted. Sofia had important schoolwork to concentrate on, and Maryam didn’t want her to worry.
“You promise to tell Dad, though,” he said. “Or I will.”
It was very late that same night that Abdi was woken. At first he thought it was the sound of his father creeping in from a night shift, but then he heard sounds that chilled him. His mother was crying out, almost screaming. She was in terrible distress. He got out of bed, ready to rush to her. As he was about to open his bedroom door, he heard Nur’s voice.
“Maryam, Maryam.” The voice was lilting, calm, hushed, bringing her back from a terrible place. Abdi was transfixed.
What he overheard next told him that Maryam had that evening found herself face-to-face with a man who had raped her in the months before their family left Hartisheik Camp.
What followed felt strangely logical and fated, because Abdi has always felt as if his parents treated him differently from Sofia.
It was the way they always seemed so afraid if he strayed even a tiny bit from the path of being the perfect son. They didn’t put that pressure on Sofia, not to the same extent. And unlike some other families they know, they don’t have lower expectations of Sofia because she’s a girl.
If Sofia messed up, they encouraged her to try again, to get past her mistake. If Abdi messed up, they seemed fearful, and now he understands why. It was because they didn’t know who he would grow up to be.
Abdi didn’t dare talk to his parents about what he overheard, but he thought a lot about the man with the scar on his lip, and how he was the child of a rapist.
He might have found the right time and the courage to talk to his parents or Sofia about this if it hadn’t been for Ed Sadler’s exhibition opening.
Abdi knew immediately that he was looking at the same man when he saw the photograph. More evidence stacked up when Ed Sadler told him about the man’s violent reputation. When he researched the football match the men in the photograph were watching, he discovered it took place nine months before his birthday. That’s when he understood that the man with the cleft palate and the hard eyes was almost certainly his father. It explained so much.
Now Abdi Mahad intends to confront this man, because he knows where he is.
How exactly he’s going to confront him, he isn’t sure. One minute he wants to kill him for what he did to Mar
yam. The next minute he wants to say, “I am your son,” to see how the man will react. Then again, he thinks, perhaps I’ll just take a look at him and then disappear, because if this man is half of me, I want to see with my own eyes what I might become.
He’s desperately afraid for Noah, too. Abdi knew the fall into the canal was bad. He stood helplessly by as Noah fell, and then he froze, because he couldn’t swim. He’d assumed that Noah was getting better in the hospital, though, so to see the photograph of him in the newspaper was shocking.
He’d like to find out how Noah is, but he can’t think of a way. He knows he won’t be able to sneak into the hospital without being noticed. He should have sent him a Facebook message, he thinks, but it’s too late now. His Wi-Fi time is up.
Abdi gets up and leaves the café. With his hoodie up and his head down, he heads into a Subway. He has only twenty pounds left and nowhere to stay, so he knows he should probably spend his money more wisely, but his growing body is craving food.
He eats the sandwich on the street, walking. He knows he mustn’t stay still too long because somebody might spot him. To avoid being seen, he ducks into the side streets as soon as he’s able to.
It takes him fifteen minutes to walk to the place where he’s been sleeping.
In the cover of a large shrub, its evergreen leaves shiny and thick, he’s made a sort of nest. He chose that place because it looks out on the row of terraced cottages that Ed Sadler told him about.
“Really crazy coincidence,” Ed Sadler said in his study on the night of the exhibition, after Abdi stopped recording. “I swear I saw that man with the harelip the other day when I went with a mate to the climbing center in St. Werburgh’s. I could have sworn it was him. Looks good now, his face all fixed up, teeth all in place—on the NHS, no doubt—but it made me do a double take because of course I’d just been selecting photographs for the show, so his face was fresh in my mind. He was just coming out of one of the cottages opposite. He had the scar on his upper lip.”
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