Girl Zero

by A. A. Dhand

He opened his eyes and smiled as Aaron broke into a wide grin, showing off two teeth.

  What would he do if he lost Aaron?

  This is the beginning. There’s more pain to come.

  Harry thought about the implications of Tara’s murder. He imagined Bradford burning, Ronnie cutting loose and wreaking terrible vengeance on a city which had betrayed him.

  Who are you going to save, Harry? Your city or your brother?

  Harry lifted Aaron from the bath and put his lips to his son’s head. ‘I’ll make it right,’ he whispered. ‘I swear I’ll make it all right.’

  Saima and Harry were back in their living room. It had taken longer than usual to settle Aaron; their little boy seemed to think sleep was optional.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Saima. ‘It’s been a while since you looked like you do tonight.’

  ‘Wish it were longer,’ he replied, his voice barely a whisper.

  ‘You’re scaring me.’

  Harry stayed silent, standing by the bay window, his back to Saima, arms folded across his chest. His head was bowed, admiring the gift she had brought him, which was resting on the window ledge, gleaming silver in the candlelight.

  ‘When that journalist wrote his article about Bradford being Gotham, it irritated me because I thought we were winning the war. I thought … I thought Bradford was starting to breathe again.’

  ‘Harry, please, you’re really frightening me. What is it?’

  He closed his eyes and paused, leaving them in an eerie silence. Harry had already shattered one household with the truth tonight and loathed repeating the words.

  ‘Harry?’ whispered Saima, and he felt her hand on his arm.

  Without opening his eyes, Harry told her everything: finding Tara, meeting his family, not being able to see Ronnie’s twins, and finally the guilt of not having been there to protect Tara or to share in his family’s grieving.

  ‘Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un,’ whispered Saima.

  Harry turned to face her, arms still folded.

  ‘Verily we belong to God and to God we return,’ she said, her face wet with tears.

  He turned away and Saima repeated the phrase.

  ‘God?’ whispered Harry mockingly.

  ‘I believe enough for the both of us.’

  Harry shook his head. ‘Bradford’s taken a bad step today, Saima. A really bad step.’

  She moved to his side and slipped her arm around his waist. ‘Forget Bradford,’ she whispered. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Nothing. Just … leave me to grieve.’

  ‘I can’t. I won’t leave you to be in pain.’

  ‘I’m always in pain,’ he said, regretting it as soon as he’d said it.

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘I should be there.’

  ‘Please don’t do this to yourself—’

  Harry turned to face her, eyes narrow, jaw clenched. ‘I’ll put this right. In my eyes. In theirs.’

  Saima looked out at the crescent-shaped moon and didn’t say anything.

  ‘What?’ said Harry.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I married you knowing what you do. Last year – when … everything happened, you made me a promise; a kasam? Remember?’

  Harry didn’t reply.

  ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. We’re parents now. We brought a little man into this world. Which means there are limits to what you can do out there. Do your job. Find out what happened, but don’t … do anything else.’

  ‘You and Aaron are my priorities. Always will be, Saima.’

  ‘I want to believe you. I know you want that to be true. But I can see it in your face. If you find the person who did this. If you get justice—’

  ‘When.’

  ‘When you get justice,’ said Saima. ‘It might mean the door to your family opens. It might mean it doesn’t.’

  ‘I know. This isn’t about them. This is about a defenceless young girl.’

  Harry thought about Ronnie and what he was capable of.

  In just one year, Aaron had changed Harry’s life. He knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do for his son.

  After two decades of fatherhood, he could only imagine what Ronnie must be feeling.

  Bradford, for now, was sleeping peacefully under the watchful gaze of a new moon.

  But in two houses at opposite ends of the city, peace was the last thing on the Virdee brothers’ minds.

  SEVEN

  ALI HATED SUPERMARKETS. The bright, hostile lights made him feel like everyone was looking. Two hoodies, face concealed; he looked like a thief. He could almost hear the CCTV cameras focusing their high-powered lenses, zooming in for a better look.

  Tonight, he had no choice.

  Ali loitered in the aisle by the pharmacy counter, waiting for the queue to die down. He could only clear his agitated mind by picking items from the shelves in front of him. A toothbrush, a hairbrush, nail varnish. All pink.

  He handed the young blonde pharmacy assistant a slip. When she couldn’t find a matching prescription, she returned.

  When had he left it?

  What was it for?

  Under his hoods, Ali’s face began to flush.

  He mumbled, ‘It’s all on there, I was told it’d be ready today.’

  As Ali spoke, the pharmacist emerged from a back room and tapped the girl on her shoulder.

  ‘It’s in the specials drawer, a carrier bag.’

  Special? Is that how they referred to him?

  Fucking special?

  Sweat broke out across his brow. Ali’s hands tightened around the handle of the trolley. They were mocking him.

  The assistant returned with two carrier bags, the plastic handles stretching under the weight, and placed them on the counter.

  ‘Do you want to pay for your shopping at this till?’ she asked.

  Ali hesitated. Was she pitying him now?

  ‘Save you some time upstairs, and you’re our last customer,’ she continued. Her name badge said Deb, happy to help.

  Ali’s gloved hands started to remove the items from his trolley and place them on the counter for Deb to scan.

  ‘Wow, someone’s going to be a lucky girl,’ she said.

  Ali smiled to himself in agreement.

  Back at home, Ali unpacked methodically.

  He began in the cellar.

  Pink towels by the sink.

  Clothes hung carefully in the wardrobe.

  Toys positioned neatly around the room, like Santa’s grotto.

  In the bed, Gori remained quiet, facing the wall.

  ‘Just because these are not for you,’ said Ali, ignoring her silence, ‘does not mean I don’t treat you well.’

  Nothing.

  Ali closed the door behind him, then carried the two heaviest bags upstairs to his bedroom and unpacked them.

  Sitting at his desk, he pulled his hood back and glanced uneasily at a fragment of mirror. Ali rubbed at his face with his new cream, grimacing as his skin colour changed from a smooth heavy tan to a patchwork mess.

  Why did you curse my house? Large sections of unpigmented skin appeared white, sometimes pink, and by contrast his smooth brown Asian skin seemed darker.

  It looked like an infection, like the unpigmented patches were spreading, consuming everything in their path.

  Vitiligo; it was seen as a curse in the Asian community.

  Who will marry you, looking like that?

  Ali glanced down at his torso. Many years of bleaching had lightened the skin colour, bringing it more in line with the unpigmented patches on his face. It was all he desired.

  Ali leaned forward and stared closely into the mirror.

  The bleach was working.

  He smiled and rubbed the brown patches of skin on his face.

  He sniggered; an uneasy, nightmarish sound.

  It was working.

  Ali stripped off the rest of his clothes and hurr
ied into the bathroom.

  So close.

  As he immersed himself in the yellowish liquid, his mind was on only one thing.

  Forty-eight hours.

  Forty-eight hours until she was his.

  EIGHT

  HARRY WAS ALONE in bed at one a.m. when his phone vibrated and woke him from a troubled sleep.

  He picked it up from the bedside table and forced his eyes to focus on the illuminated screen.

  Get moving. Black hole, 30 min.

  Ronnie.

  Much as Harry wanted to believe Ronnie was reaching out to him, the choice of location suggested otherwise.

  He got out of bed. He hadn’t drawn the curtains, hoping the hint of a new moon might assist his sleep – which it had, albeit only for a couple of hours. He had a vague recollection of strange dreams, images of Tara’s face and a crescent moon covered in blood.

  After dressing quickly he crept into Aaron’s room. The orange glow-egg said twenty degrees and displayed a smiley face. Saima was lying in the bed next to the cot with Aaron asleep by her side. He must have woken in the night and cried until she had put him in bed next to her.

  Harry crept towards them.

  Aaron was almost nose-to-nose with Saima, breathing gently. Saima had told Harry it was the purest sensation – inhaling her baby’s breath worked like a sedative, calming and peaceful.

  He knelt by the bed and rested his hand on Aaron’s body, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest. A few tranquil moments passed, each one steeling him for the difficult meeting ahead.

  Harry drove through the city, cutting down Thornton Road, where hookers patrolled against the backdrop of abandoned textile mills towering on both sides of the road; looming demons providing shelter for a host of nefarious deeds.

  Fifteen minutes later, Harry pulled into a lay-by in Queensbury and killed the engine. He stayed a moment, reluctant to leave. He hated this place.

  Queensbury Tunnel was another abandoned part of the city. Passenger trains had long since ceased to pass through. The tunnel had decayed until the Highways Agency had announced plans to fill it with concrete, repairs being financially unviable. At the last minute, a private investor had stepped in to purchase it at a knockdown price.

  Ronnie Virdee.

  His bid had promised regeneration, but Ronnie had other plans.

  Harry had brought a pair of boots and now slipped them on, together with his raincoat, in preparation for the tunnel’s perpetually leaking roof. He armed himself with a powerful torch, and was about to close the boot when he remembered the key under the spare wheel, where he had hidden it last time.

  He vaulted the steel barricade by the side of the road, sliding expertly down a steep embankment. At the bottom, he jumped the final few feet into a shadowy ravine. On his left was the vast cylindrical mouth of the tunnel, metal fencing blockading the entrance like bared teeth.

  The padlock sealing the barricades accepted Harry’s key without resistance. He slipped into the darkness and locked himself inside a portal connecting the world he knew with one he wished he didn’t. Damp and decay hit him full in the face.

  Ten men had died during the construction of the tunnel in the nineteenth century. Since Ronnie had acquired it, Harry couldn’t be certain more hadn’t joined them. Not on his watch.

  He directed his torch beam to either side; a slick of green algae covered the walls like slime. The uneven ground stretched for a mile before it became unpassable due to flooding. On previous visits, Harry had been forced to dodge javelin-sized icicles hanging from the sixty-foot ceiling as they swayed precariously in a ferocious gale. Tonight, the only thing blocking Harry’s path was the graffiti. He always stopped at the same line.

  ‘Don’t look behind you, ha, ha, ha … the dead are coming.’

  After a while, he had to proceed with caution, picking his way through fallen bricks from the ceiling, pieces of twisted, broken track and razor-sharp rocks.

  Beyond a ventilation shaft that leaked a constant stream of water, the railway track was intact and rusted a brilliant orange; deceptively colourful in the gloom.

  ‘Have you seen the dead yet?’

  The graffiti continued, right into the very depths of the tunnel.

  Harry moved towards the far wall, where the ground was even. As the noise of the water fell away, he heard the sound he had been dreading.

  A distant echo of screaming.

  He closed his eyes, trying to remain calm.

  ‘Have you seen the dead yet?’

  Darkness was usually a comfort to Harry. But here, in a place where some of Bradford’s worst secrets were buried, he wished the sun’s rays would burn them away.

  Harry’s legs were heavy as he crossed the final hundred metres, arriving underneath a second ventilation shaft to see three shadows climbing up the curved walls from the harsh glow of a powerful light. The first was Ronnie’s right-hand man, Enzo, who was blocking Harry’s path.

  Behind him, Ronnie was standing alongside a man holding what looked like a baseball bat, looping swings cracking bone every time they impacted.

  Enzo put a firm hand on Harry’s shoulder.

  ‘We’ve spoken about this before, Elmo,’ said Harry. ‘Just because my brother has his hand so far up your ass it’s affecting your brain, doesn’t mean you can put your hands on me.’

  Enzo cocked his head, eyes narrowing, and glared at him. Back in the day, he’d been an SAS operative. He hated Harry – not that Harry cared.

  Pointedly directing his gaze at the hand on his shoulder, Harry said, ‘If I wanted someone to touch me, I’d pick a better location with a better-looking whore.’

  Enzo opened his mouth.

  ‘Don’t talk. You’ll hurt yourself. Step aside.’

  ‘If he wasn’t your brother—’

  ‘But he is.’

  Harry swatted Enzo’s hand away and pushed past, their shoulders colliding.

  Ronnie had his back to Harry, and he was panting heavily.

  ‘Ron.’

  His brother hesitated, then raised the bat higher.

  ‘You’ve got a 198 IQ and what you’re doing is stupid. You know we don’t do that,’ said Harry.

  The third man, now on his knees, was Nash, another senior member of Ronnie’s organization. His nose was broken; there was blood everywhere.

  Harry reached out and put his hand over his brother’s. His skin was warm and sticky where it had been spattered with Nash’s blood. Ronnie lowered the weapon but didn’t let go, shrugging Harry’s hand away.

  Harry’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘What happened?’

  Nash was swaying precariously. He shook his head once.

  ‘Silence? Really? I might be the only shot you’ve got,’ said Harry.

  ‘He won’t do it now you’re here,’ spat Nash. ‘Your rules? He knows what happens if he breaks them.’

  Harry felt Ronnie tense beside him.

  ‘Usually, that’s true,’ said Harry, stepping past Ronnie and snatching the bat from him. He crouched in front of Nash. ‘But tonight isn’t a usual type of night,’ he said, tapping the bat on the ground. ‘Shit that seemed important before? Not so much any more. You want to tell me? Or you want to see if Ron’s going to break the rules on your skull?’

  Nash looked away and spat blood on the ground. ‘Do what the fuck you have to.’

  Harry got to his feet and threw the bat on the floor.

  ‘So?’ he said.

  ‘You want to save his life?’ whispered Ronnie.

  ‘Rule number one hasn’t changed.’

  ‘If I told you he was responsible for Tara?’

  Harry turned his head halfway back towards Nash.

  He waited.

  An uncomfortable silence.

  ‘I babysat her, like he asked,’ spat Nash. ‘If you wanted twenty-four-seven surveillance, you should’ve chipped her like a dog.’

  Harry went to stop Ronnie, who had stepped forward ready to add another body to the tunnel�
��s history. Enzo was already there.

  ‘Outside,’ said Harry to Ronnie, putting his hand firmly on his brother’s shoulder, pulling him away from Enzo. ‘Three’s a crowd.’

  NINE

  THE BROTHERS WERE in Ronnie’s Range Rover in the lay-by above Queensbury Tunnel with a biblical rain hammering on the roof.

  ‘Clean the blood from your hands, at least,’ said Harry.

  He grabbed a cloth from the floor, wound his window down and held it outside until it was saturated. ‘Here,’ he said.

  When Ronnie didn’t respond, Harry dropped it in his lap.

  ‘I find out tonight from you that Tara had moved out. Why didn’t you tell me?’ Harry said.

  Ronnie lifted the cloth and cleaned his hands, methodically wiping the blood away.

  ‘Complicated.’

  ‘No, Ronnie. This is complicated,’ he gestured towards the entrance to the tunnel, ‘teenage rebellion is not.’

  ‘She wasn’t a teenager any more. And it wasn’t rebellion,’ said Ronnie, and he looked at Harry in a way that pre-empted his next sentence. ‘She knew.’

  Harry’s eyes widened. ‘How much?’

  ‘Enough.’

  ‘About me?’

  Ronnie ignored the question. ‘Tara moved out because she was disgusted by what we do.’

  There it was.

  We.

  ‘What you do,’ Harry said quietly.

  ‘It was all the same to her.’

  ‘Does Mundeep know?’

  Ronnie shook his head.

  ‘Shit, Ronnie. How did Tara even find out?’ spat Harry.

  ‘Minor detail. Point is: she did. And she was pissed. But,’ he smiled to himself, ‘she wasn’t stupid.’

  Harry sighed. ‘Blackmail?’

  ‘Compensation, as she put it.’

  ‘Christ, Ronnie, you were buying off your own daughter?’

  ‘I was keeping her close the only way I knew how. She was a kid. An idealistic rebel – just like her goddamn uncle,’ said Ronnie, throwing the bloodstained cloth on the floor.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  The heat from the brother’s voices had caused the windows to steam over.

  ‘Exactly what I said,’ replied Ronnie.

  ‘I’m forced to let you flood this city with drugs because of our past, but because I don’t let you kill everyone you disagree with – I’m an idealist?’ Harry spat the word.