‘I understand, but there is always more that can be done.’
‘I assure you that people are working very hard to find Kamal,’ Thorne said. ‘Going the extra mile in many cases.’
Azim nodded and screwed up his eyes for a few seconds. ‘Have you any idea what my family is going through?’
Thorne said ‘No,’ because he really didn’t. Now that their son was gone, how were they with one another, behind closed doors? If the man in front of him had been the only member of the family involved in Kamal’s death, how did he behave towards his grief-stricken wife and their surviving daughters? Thorne wondered if there had been any communication between the Azims and the Shahs since the murders. They claimed not to have known one another, yet Tanner still believed that the families had planned the killings together.
Thorne was starting to believe it himself.
Had they met somewhere to talk about how it would be done? Over coffee or dinner, maybe? Somewhere they could get authentic Bangladeshi food and discuss the best way to dispose of their troublesome children?
‘It’s a living nightmare,’ Azim said. ‘So, we would be grateful if you could do everything in your power to bring that to an end.’
A week earlier Thorne had wondered how Faruk Shah had behaved identifying his daughter’s body, but this was surely a performance that topped it.
Oscar-worthy.
‘Like I said, Mr Azim —’ Thorne’s phone pinged to indicate a text message. He took it out and saw that the message was a response from Phil Hendricks. ‘I’m sorry, I really need to deal with this,’ he said. ‘It’s about the search for your son.’
‘Is there news?’
‘Not news, I’m afraid, but it’s from another officer working on the investigation, so…’
coming 2 ur place later. double stabbing in edgware. beer after?
Thorne typed a reply. He looked up and said, ‘I won’t keep you.’
Oak at 5?
He stared at the screen, waiting for Hendricks to reply. He glanced up at Azim once or twice to see if there was any change in the expression.
Nothing.
c u there!
Thorne apologised as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. ‘Now, apparently you said something about a way you might help?’
‘Yes.’ Azim stepped smartly forward and opened the cardboard box. Thorne leaned over to look inside and saw a pile of neatly folded white T-shirts. Azim pulled one out and held it up.
‘We did these,’ he said. ‘We printed them in the shop.’
The same picture of Kamal that had been used in the TV appeal. Above it the word MISSING and below the phone number of the incident room. Azim stepped back and unzipped his windbreaker to show that he was wearing one. ‘We have done five hundred of them and we’ve handed them out to everyone in the area.’
‘You think Kamal is still in the area?’ Actually, Thorne thought there was every chance he might be. He didn’t believe that the men responsible for his disappearance would have travelled far to dispose of the body.
‘I have no idea where my son is. We thought it would be good if perhaps you could help distribute them. Then we might find out.’
‘Us? You mean the police?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I’m afraid we simply don’t have the manpower for that,’ Thorne said. ‘Every available officer is already working all the hours God sends.’ He tried to look sincere, knowing full well that each one of those officers would be doing a lot more good hosting a bring-and-buy sale for local widows and orphans.
‘Perhaps if I leave them then. You could just give them to everyone here. Everyone who comes in.’
‘OK,’ Thorne said, getting to his feet.
Azim dropped the T-shirt back into the box. ‘We don’t know what else to do,’ he said.
On the way out, Azim stopped and said, ‘What do you think has happened to my son?’
It was a convincing display of helplessness. Of despair. But to Thorne, the man’s question sounded rather more like a taunt, or a simple attempt to gauge the degree to which he and his family were in the clear.
The distance between the truth and the story.
Thorne said, ‘I know as much as you do, sir.’
FORTY-TWO
Sarah Webster answered the door wearing sweatpants and what looked like a man’s cardigan over a faded T-shirt. She peered out, cradling a mug close to her face, the door open no more than a few inches.
She said, ‘Oh.’
‘I tried to call,’ Tanner said. ‘But it went straight to voicemail.’
‘Phone’s turned off.’ The girl opened the door and stepped back, inviting Tanner inside. ‘I should probably listen to the messages.’
Tanner followed Sarah into a living room and watched her sit down in a chrome and leather armchair. The girl pointed as she drew her knees up.
‘Just move all the shit.’
Tanner gathered up the newspapers and bits of clothing that were spread across the sofa and moved them aside so that she could sit down.
‘Keep thinking I should tidy up,’ Sarah said. ‘But then I just forget.’
‘It’s fine,’ Tanner said.
There were several beer cans on the glass coffee table and Tanner guessed they were all as empty as the wine bottle on the floor near her feet. An ashtray full of butts sat in a pool of liquid in the corner of the table and a sodden magazine flopped over the edge.
‘Where’s your mum and dad?’
‘He’s not my dad.’
‘Sorry,’ Tanner said.
Sarah glanced at the ceiling. ‘Still in bed.’ The look on Tanner’s face prompted a thin smile. ‘Yeah, I know. He usually drags himself downstairs in time for Tipping Point. You know, that stupid quiz that’s like the game at the fair. The one with coins?’
Tanner shook her head.
‘He’ll sit and watch The Chase after that, then switch over for Pointless. Even if they’ve had a heavy session, and he’s not down in time, he’s got them all on Sky, so he can sit there and watch quizzes right through to dinner time.’ She sipped her drink. ‘He’s pretty clever, actually. Not that you’d think it.’
‘What about your mum?’
‘Don’t know.’ The girl shrugged. ‘Shopping or something?’
There was a low hum coming from somewhere. A fridge, maybe, or the central heating. Voices bled through from a television next door, a smattering of applause for one of them.
Tanner leaned forward and stood a fallen beer can back up.
‘You heard anything?’ Sarah asked.
‘I talked to the team leader this morning.’
‘Only I’ve heard nothing, you know? They were really on it after it happened, doing all the tests or whatever.’
‘The rape kit.’
‘Yeah, the kit.’ Sarah nodded. ‘Then one of the female coppers rang yesterday, see how I was… but I still don’t really know what’s happening.’
‘It’s difficult without DNA,’ Tanner said. ‘There was nothing under your fingernails.’
‘One of them was holding my arms.’
‘I know.’
Sarah rolled up the sleeve of the cardigan to reveal a cluster of purpled bruises. ‘Kneeling on them.’
‘And nothing internally, because…’
‘They were wearing condoms. I know, I was there.’
‘Sorry.’
Sarah shook her head, as if it didn’t matter. ‘A woman came to see me in the hospital straight afterwards. She told me I might feel angry.’ Her shoulders tensed and the smile was momentary. ‘Angry or frightened, she said. She gave me a booklet and said I might get headaches or feel sick, or get too scared to leave the house.’
Tanner waited.
The girl moved the tip of her finger slowly up and down the side of her ear; touched each stud once on the way up and again on the way down. ‘She never said I might get all of them.’
‘Sorry.’
Sarah stared into her
mug. ‘You don’t have to keep apologising.’
‘It was Amaya’s brother,’ Tanner said. The hum sounded louder for the second or two before she spoke again; said what she’d come to say. ‘He did this.’
Sarah looked up.
‘Not himself, and it probably wasn’t any of his close mates, because they’ve all got alibis. They might just be giving one another alibis of course, but all the same… I know Haroon Shah organised it.’
Sarah looked stunned. ‘Because I lied about where Amaya was?’
‘No —’
‘I was raped because I said she was at my house that night?’
‘They did it because I told him you’d spoken to us.’ Tanner shuffled forward. ‘I didn’t mention a name, I would never have done that, but I did tell him I’d talked to one of his sister’s friends. He guessed it was you.’
Sarah’s hand fluttered to the side of her head again, then the fingers crept across her scalp and she began to tug at the blonde spikes.
Tanner could see that the dark roots were coming through.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sarah said, finally. ‘Doesn’t matter why in the end, does it?’
‘You’ve got every right to be angry though. Angrier.’
‘Will they get him for it? Him and the lads who did it?’
‘I’m going to get him.’ The other thing Tanner had come to say. ‘And then I’ll get all of them.’
They sat in silence for half a minute, the leather on the sofa sticky beneath Tanner’s hands. She heard what sounded like someone turning over in bed upstairs. She said, ‘My ex-partner used to drink.’ A nod towards the coffee table. ‘I had to deal with the empties, same as you. Try and find the full ones, where she’d hidden them.’
Sarah nodded. ‘Ex because you got rid of her? The drinking.’
‘She died,’ Tanner said.
‘Oh. Sorry.’
Tanner smiled. ‘Don’t you start.’
‘Cancer, was it?’ The girl shrugged. ‘I mean, it usually is.’
‘No, it wasn’t cancer,’ Tanner said. That was enough. It was the girl’s tragedy and not her own that she had come to talk about.
Though arguably she had ultimately been responsible for both.
Sarah put her empty mug down on the coffee table and stared at it. ‘I never even offered you a drink or anything.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yeah, it does. The kettle’s just boiled anyway.’
Tanner was already getting to her feet and talking quickly. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it.’ She pointed. ‘Kitchen through there, is it?’
‘Yeah.’ Sarah stood up and they looked at each other. ‘I just need to nip to the toilet. Milk’s in the fridge.’ She laughed. ‘Mind you, you’d be a rubbish detective if you couldn’t work that out.’
Tanner could not hear Sarah come into the kitchen a few minutes later and it wasn’t until a hand was laid softly on her shoulder that she even knew the girl was there.
‘It’s good to do that,’ Sarah said. She tore off several sheets of kitchen towel from a plastic dispenser and handed it over. ‘That’s one of the things it said in that booklet they gave me. Letting your feelings out or whatever. Not bottling it all up.’
Tanner spluttered a ‘Thank you’.
She pressed the towel to her face with one hand while she used the other to steady herself against the sink. Her legs were trembling.
This was not the first time she had cried since Susan’s death. But it was the first time she’d made any noise.
FORTY-THREE
‘You’ll have to stand on a chair,’ Riaz said.
‘You’re kidding. Isn’t there a stepladder?’
‘I’ve looked.’
‘I’m not standing on a chair.’
‘How else are you going to do it?’
‘Why don’t you stand on a bloody chair?’
‘I don’t have a problem with it, but I’m still not sure I would reach. You are what… six feet?’
‘Six two.’
‘Right.’ Riaz smiled at Muldoon. ‘Shall I look for one?’
‘I’ll do it,’ Muldoon said. ‘I want to make sure it’s good and solid. I’m not breaking my neck for this load of old nonsense.’
Riaz watched his partner lumber off towards the kitchen, then reappear a few seconds later with a chair that certainly looked sturdy enough. ‘That will do.’
‘You’re not the idiot who’s going to be standing on it.’ Muldoon put the chair down. He looked up at the ceiling and adjusted the chair’s position.
Riaz stepped away to give him room.
‘You want to talk me through this again?’
‘Really?’
‘I know what we’re doing, I just don’t get it. Why does it have to be so…?’
‘I told you why —’
‘… elaborate?’
‘This one is different, so it needs to be handled differently, that’s all.’ Riaz leaned back against a wall. ‘And actually, I think you’re wrong. I think the job we did with that couple was actually more elaborate. The various stages of it. Even though it was rather more hands-on.’
Muldoon thought about it, cocked his head as though conceding that Riaz might be right. He said, ‘Still think it’s bollocks, though,’ and grunted as he climbed up on to the chair.
‘Careful,’ Riaz said. ‘Don’t want you doing any damage.’
Muldoon blew him a kiss.
‘I meant to the chair,’ Riaz said. ‘Or to anything else. In and out like we were never here, that’s the whole point.’
Muldoon reached, then stopped and looked down. ‘How did you get into this?’
‘What?’
‘This game. Not like it’s something you dream about doing as a kid, is it?’
‘Is now really the best time for a chat?’
‘While we’re doing it. Don’t see why not.’
Riaz looked down at his shoes. The silence made it clear that Muldoon was waiting for an answer. ‘My sister.’
‘Your sister what?’
‘Look —’
‘Oh… you mean she was your first one? No way.’
Riaz looked at him, unblinking.
‘So, what did she do?’ Muldoon sniffed. ‘Naughty girl, was she?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Riaz bent to pick a worm of dried mud from the carpet. ‘Word got around, I suppose, and a few months later I was asked to help another family.’
‘Help?’ Muldoon’s laugh was a dry rasp. ‘You make it sound like you gave them a hand putting up a shed or something.’
Riaz thought how easy it would be to kick the chair away, enjoyed the image of the Irishman flailing then crashing to the floor. ‘What about you?’
Muldoon reached up again and went about the job. ‘Well… I’d been involved in a bit of stuff with the boys back home, you know? Not like this, just punishment, that kind of thing.’ He glanced down and saw the look on Riaz’s face. ‘What?’
‘What you’re talking about is political and it surprises me, that’s all. Doing things because of what you believe in.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought it was all about money for you.’
The dry rasp again. ‘Oh, even working with that lot there was plenty of money to be made, don’t make any mistake about that. Protection, drugs, you name it.’ He cursed under his breath, said, ‘This is proper fiddly.’
‘Take your time.’
‘So, anyway… eventually I came over here to see if I could make a bit more. Made a lot more, as it turned out. I ended up helping this bloke out in Birmingham and that’s where I ran into you.’
‘Yes.’ Riaz tried to sound as though he recalled the memory a little more fondly than he now did.
‘Looking for a big stupid mick who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty, so you were.’
‘It was not a job I could do alone, that was all.’
‘And now look where we are. Ten years on.’
Riaz checked his watch.
�
��Well, I’m standing on a chair like a bell-end and… done it.’
Riaz flinched as Muldoon jumped down, losing his balance and stretching out a hand to steady himself on the banister. ‘Right. Kitchen.’
Muldoon looked along the corridor. ‘Oh, now you’re taking the mickey. I could have done that while I was in there.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
Muldoon stared at him for a second or two, knuckles whitening as he grabbed the back of the chair again. ‘I thought I’d wait for you to tell me.’ He picked up the chair and carried it back towards the kitchen. ‘I know how happy it makes you, thinking you’re the one in charge.’
Riaz followed him, bending to collect a few more crumbs of dirt from the carpet. He said, ‘Check the bottom of your shoes. You’ve walked mud in.’
FORTY-FOUR
There was a scrum of officers – uniform and plain-clothes – gathered around the bar in the Royal Oak. Most had just come off shift at Colindale or the Peel Centre, eager for the drink they had probably been thinking about since lunchtime. Something to take the edge off. Or, for those who had paid the price that the Job often demanded, something with which to steel themselves for the journey home to empty flats or houses to rattle around in.
A quick drink before going home for a few more.
Thorne reached between two men who appeared welded to the bar and took his change. ‘The smiley face was a nice touch,’ he said.
‘I couldn’t find a slab or a bone-saw,’ Hendricks said. ‘Whoever designs those emoticons is missing a trick.’
They carried pints of Guinness back to a table near the Gents. They sat and touched their glasses together.
‘How you getting on with Tanner the Planner?’
‘Well, that might be what she’s like most of the time, but she’s definitely winging it on this one.’ Thorne brought him up to speed with events since they had last spoken: Tanner’s visit to the AHCA; their trip to the Palm Court.
‘She says she’s going back to the mosque.’
‘Maybe she’s converting,’ Hendricks said.
‘And she’s not nearly as bothered as she should be about the two hitmen still being around.’
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