Dishonour

by Helen Black

  ‘Could you pass the wheatgrass?’ he asked his young assistant, who chuckled into her latex gloves.

  ‘Will you ever stop?’ Jack asked.

  Cheney pushed his national health glasses up his nose. They were held together with a rough ball of Sellotape, which must have been uncomfortable. But then, this was a man with more metal in his ears, nose and lips than a scrap-metal yard. Each time they met, Cheney was sporting a new piercing. It was a fair assumption that comfort was not an item at the top of his list.

  ‘Not while there’s a hole in my arse,’ Cheney laughed.

  Jack knew when he was beaten. ‘What have you got?’

  Cheney pointed down the hall, the black, tribal tattoo encircling his wrist visible through the rubber of his glove.

  ‘There are traces of Ryan’s blood on the wall by the front door so I’d say he struggled with his assailants not to let them in.’

  Jack nodded. Mrs Sanders said she heard shouting from her room but she was so frightened she stayed where she was.

  ‘Somehow he ended up here with Aasha.’ Cheney pointed to the cupboards at the far end of the kitchen.

  Jack pictured the kids together, terrified and cornered.

  ‘Ryan was attacked here, exactly where you found him.’ Cheney kneeled at the edge of the pool of dark blood. ‘The doc at the hospital told me there were very few defensive wounds to his arms, so I’d say he went down pretty quickly.’

  Jack crouched next to his friend and touched the blood with his gloved finger. It hadn’t yet dried but it was thick, viscous.

  ‘They carried on hitting him when he was unconscious?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d say yes.’

  Jack coughed back his anger. He needed to focus. ‘Weapon?’

  ‘Again the doc said he found traces of wood in Ryan’s scalp, so I’m guessing a bat,’ said Cheney. ‘Whatever it was, they took it with them.’

  Having no weapon was always a blow, but Jack had expected as much.

  ‘What about Aasha?’ Jack asked. ‘Can we tell if she was hurt?’

  Cheney shook his head and Jack heard the tinkle of his earrings inside the hood.

  ‘I’m collecting blood samples but I can’t say who any of it belongs to yet.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jack, and stood to leave.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Cheney.

  ‘I don’t know about you but I fancy a seaweed smoothie.’

  He ducked outside, Cheney’s laughter following him.

  In truth, Jack needed some fresh air. He’d been at crime scenes before, seen plenty of bodies in his time. He wasn’t some rookie that needed to throw up in private. But he had to admit that this one felt different. It could have all been avoided if only Jack had been doing his job properly.

  He moved along the walkway, trying to process how he was going to find Aasha, how he was going to put away the men that had hurt Ryan.

  The name Lilly had given to him was a good start, but Mrs Sanders wouldn’t be able to identify him because she hadn’t left her room. Jack tried not to dwell on what sort of person would hide under their duvet while their child was taking a beating. He reminded himself that she wasn’t well, wasn’t responsible for her actions.

  He could, of course, just pull Malik off the street and demand some answers. But what was to stop him saying he had never even heard of Aasha or Ryan? Jack needed something to link them, something to link Malik to the scene.

  When he got to the stairwell a rat scurried past, one of yesterday’s discarded chips in its sharp teeth. Did no one ever clean up round here?

  Suddenly it hit Jack hard, like a jab in the chest. Of course no one ever cleaned up. Not food, not dog shit. Not blood.

  When he climbed the stairs yesterday he’d seen a fresh trail of blood. He’d assumed kids had been fighting. He remembered what Lilly had said about Malik’s face. What if during the attack Ryan had got in a punch and broken the bastard’s nose? What if the blood in the stairwell was Malik’s?

  He ran back up to the flat and sprinted through the hall.

  ‘All this jogging is impressing nobody,’ said Cheney.

  ‘Could you take a sample of some blood outside for me?’

  Cheney nodded, reached for his bag and followed Jack.

  He kneeled among the turds and ketchup and did his thing.

  ‘This isn’t going to be easy,’ he said.

  ‘Lucky for me you’re the best.’

  Cheney took out a cotton bud and began scraping. ‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’

  Jack laughed, not because it was empty flattery, but because Cheney was, despite the dog-on-a-string appearance, the very best. If anyone could nail Malik, he could. A glimmer of anticipation began to stir in Jack’s stomach as they closed in on Ryan’s attacker.

  ‘I’m afraid there seems to be a problem.’

  Lilly looked up at the prison officer. His shiny bald head was offset by a bushy black moustache.

  ‘Problem?’ Lilly asked.

  ‘The prisoner hasn’t been brought over.’

  The hair on his lip squirmed like a small rodent. Under different circumstances it might have made Lilly smile but she had been waiting for Raffy in the hall of legal visits for nearly an hour. Her back was killing her and it wouldn’t be long before she needed the loo.

  ‘Can you get on the phone to his wing and tell them I need a conference with Raffy now?’

  ‘They’re fully aware of the situation.’

  Lilly gave the man a hard stare. On closer inspection his moustache was full of crumbs and the ends were matted. Like a dead rodent, Lilly thought.

  ‘My client is on remand and visits are therefore not limited.’

  The guard smiled, the ratty rug tickling his teeth. ‘They know that.’

  Lilly counted to ten, telling this man that he was an idiot might make her feel better but it wouldn’t help.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ she said. ‘Both you and I know my client is entitled to see me.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘And the staff on his wing know he’s entitled to see me.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  Lilly opened her palms. ‘So why won’t they bring him over?’

  ‘Because he’s not there.’

  Lilly closed her eyes. It wasn’t unheard of for inmates to be transferred around the prison without proper records being kept. The idea that the boys’ movements were strictly monitored was a pipe dream. Lilly had once been caught in a lock-down during which each cell was frantically searched for a young lad who’d been released the week before.

  ‘What are the chances of them finding him in the next hour?’ Lilly asked.

  The guard rubbed the edges of his moustache into two dirty dreadlocks.

  ‘Oh, we know where he is.’

  ‘Mary Mother of God,’ Lilly stole one of Jack’s favourite expressions, ‘are you people incapable of basic communication? Why can’t his wing liaise with wherever Raffy is and get him over here?’

  A frown slid down the guard’s face. ‘You make it sound simple.’

  Lilly threw up her hands in frustration. ‘It is simple. A guard just tells him I’m here and they put one foot in front of the other.’ She walked the first two fingers of her right hand across the table.

  ‘That’s just it,’ said the guard, ‘he can’t.’

  ‘Can’t what?’

  ‘Walk.’

  Lilly sat back in her chair, nonplussed. ‘Can’t walk?’

  The guard shook his head.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Lilly.

  ‘There’s been an incident,’ said the guard, ‘and your client is in the hospital.’

  Lilly had seen the inside of more prisons than the Krays. Men’s prisons, women’s prisons, high-security psychiatric units. She visited YOIs and secure units on an almost weekly basis. But she had never seen a hospital wing.

  She was led through the bowels of Arlington, past the cell areas and outside to the exe
rcise yard. Around twenty boys were playing football on a square of patchy grass, the goal area worn bare and muddy. They looked at her curiously but with only an hour’s recreation every day they weren’t going to waste it asking questions.

  On the far side was another block. The same shape, style and brickwork as the main prison building, but a tenth of the size. A baby brother.

  Lilly read the sign on the door.

  ‘Welcome to Eagle Wing—Medical Centre.’

  The guard punched in a security code and the door was released.

  A nurse at the reception desk greeted them with a smile. She reminded Lilly of the sister she’d met earlier, all firm shoulders and a dependable face.

  ‘What can I do for you, Lenny?’ she asked.

  ‘Depends what you’ve got in mind,’ said the guard.

  The nurse tittered. Clearly she didn’t find the bald head and the moustache full of breakfast as repulsive as Lilly did.

  ‘Seriously,’ he said, as if they’d been joking around for hours, ‘Miss Valentine wants to see Khan.’

  ‘I’ll see if that’s possible,’ said the nurse, and unlocked another door on the far side of the reception.

  There was no way Lilly was going to be put off again. She’d already wasted the entire afternoon and she wasn’t leaving without speaking to Raffy.

  ‘This isn’t an optional thing,’ she said. ‘My client has the right to a visit.’

  The nurse pursed her lips. ‘I know all about inmates’ rights but I was thinking of you.’

  Lilly raised her eyebrows.

  ‘It’s not always the right environment for a woman in your condition,’ said the nurse.

  ‘A few germs won’t kill me,’ said Lilly.

  ‘It wasn’t the germs I was thinking of.’

  Jack knocked on Malik’s door. The man lived in a rundown terrace in the heart of Bury Park. The front yard was empty except for a stinking dustbin and a few weeds that peeped through the cracks in the paving slabs.

  Jack reminded himself not to get excited. This man might have nothing to do with any of this. An innocent man, whose name had come up in the wrong place. Jack had come to ask him some questions, nothing more. Thinking about arrests and generally getting ahead of himself would only cloud his thinking.

  Cases like this were never solved easily. Today was unlikely to be an exception.

  Still, his heart beat just that little harder when the door opened.

  ‘Yeah?’

  The man in the doorway was immense. His shoulders so square they almost touched the sides of the frame. ‘A brick shit-house’ was how he’d be described back home.

  Jack flashed his badge. ‘Can I have a word?’

  Malik looked him up and down. If recently Jack had been feeling muscular, he didn’t now. He felt like a stick man next to a giant.

  ‘Come in,’ said Malik.

  He led Jack to the sitting room where Al Jazeera was playing on a forty-two-inch plasma flat screen. Surround sound pumped out the news from all corners of the room.

  Malik snapped off the television with a remote. ‘Is there a problem?’

  Dried blood coated the strips of tape across his nose and a violent purple bruise underlined each eye.

  ‘That looks sore,’ said Jack.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Malik.

  Jack nodded as if massive facial injuries might be a part of everyday life.

  ‘Do you know a girl called Aasha Hassan?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘What about her brothers, Imran and Ismail?’

  ‘I seen them around.’ Malik shrugged. ‘They ain’t part of my crew.’

  ‘What about Ryan Sanders?’ asked Jack. ‘He part of your crew?’

  Malik snorted. ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘He lives on the Clayhill.’

  ‘Shithole,’ Malik ran his finger through his beard. ‘Never go there.’

  Jack couldn’t take his eyes off the man’s arms. The biceps strained against his T-shirt. His hands were huge, like joints of beef. He imagined what it would be like if this man were to wield a bat. He imagined what it would be like to be on the wrong end of that bat.

  ‘Where were you yesterday?’ he asked.

  ‘Work.’

  ‘All day?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘What about the morning?’ asked Jack. ‘Before ten.’

  Malik narrowed his eyes as if he were thinking. ‘Here.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘With my boys.’

  ‘They’ll vouch for that, will they?’ asked Jack.

  ‘You know it.’

  Jack did know it. A man like this would have friends who would swear he was on the moon if he told them to.

  ‘Right then.’ Jack turned to the door. ‘If you could just give me the names of your friends I’ll be off.’

  Malik scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to Jack.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Remind me how you said you hurt your nose.’

  ‘I didn’t say.’

  Jack pocketed the names. ‘Humour me.’

  ‘Me and one of the boys were sparring.’

  ‘Must have been a decent punch,’ said Jack.

  ‘He got lucky.’

  ‘And that happened here?’ Jack asked.

  Malik folded his arms. ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t have happened at work and you said you spent the morning here.’

  ‘Right,’ said Malik. ‘We were in the kitchen.’

  ‘Got it,’ said Jack. ‘So not at the Clayhill?’

  Malik frowned. ‘What you talking about?’

  ‘The accident,’ Jack gestured to his own nose, ‘it couldn’t have happened at the Clayhill?’

  Malik bared his teeth. ‘I already told you, I don’t go to that shithole.’

  Jack paused for breath. The man was lying. Definitely lying. But until the blood samples came back there was nothing even to place this man at the scene, never mind prove he had committed a crime. Jack could just imagine the chief’s reaction if he was making a mistake.

  Fuck it, he had to go with his gut.

  ‘Abdul Malik, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the attempted murder of Ryan Sanders.’

  ‘You’re kidding me, man.’

  ‘Nah,’ said Jack. ‘You’re nicked.’

  ‘Cunt scum, cunt scum.’

  The boy’s eyes were wild and wide. Saliva frothed at the corners of his lips.

  ‘Cunt scum, cunt scum,’ he screamed.

  The nurse cupped his chin in her hand and looked deep into his eyes.

  ‘You’re all right, Robert. No one’s going to hurt you.’

  ‘Cunt scum, cunt scum,’ his voice dropped.

  ‘There now,’ The nurse patted his cheek.

  ‘Cunt scum, cunt scum,’ he whispered.

  Of the fifteen boys in the hospital wing it was obvious to Lilly that most of them had psychiatric problems. It was appalling. Like an asylum for children.

  The nurse led Robert back to his bed where he knotted the sheet around his wrist and whimpered.

  ‘Why isn’t he in a proper mental hospital?’ Lilly asked.

  ‘The transfer would take longer than he’s got to serve,’ said the nurse.

  Lilly watched the boy curl himself into a ball. ‘But he’s not well.’

  ‘We do our best,’ the nurse smiled.

  It was a well-known fact among lawyers that at least half the adult prison population were damaged goods, drug- or drink-addicted, abused and depressed, but only the truly, frighteningly, insane ended up in Broadmoor. The rest muddled through and served their time in fear and disorientation.

  That the same would be true for kids in custody shouldn’t shock Lilly, but seeing them like this had back-footed her.

  ‘I told you it wasn’t nice in here.’ The nurse glanced at Lilly’s bump.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ She forced a smile.

  ‘We put Raffique at the bottom,’ the n
urse pointed to the last bed. ‘So he’d get a bit of peace.’

  It was a small gesture, but it struck Lilly as inordinately kind in this difficult place. Like laughing at the jokes of a man with a silly moustache.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Lilly put her hand on the nurse’s arm. ‘I was rude to you before and I shouldn’t have been.’

  The nurse gave a businesslike nod. ‘We’re both just doing our jobs.’

  Yes, thought Lilly, but yours is a lot tougher than mine.

  When she got to the foot of Raffy’s bed he gave a tight smile.

  ‘All right.’

  Lilly bit her lip. For a boy of fifteen he seemed impossibly weary, the spark, the energy, the swagger, all gone. His body seemed slighter than the previous day, though he couldn’t have lost mass overnight. There were scratches and bruises down both arms and his feet were swathed in thick bandages.

  She perched on the end. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Skinheads,’ he mumbled.

  Shit. She’d told him to be careful, that bigging himself up with his ‘brothers’ would lead only to trouble.

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘Pinned me down and slashed my feet.’

  Lilly held her breath. Raffy’s tone may have been matter-of-fact but it belied the horror of being held on the floor, with his arms over his head, while someone cut his feet with a makeshift shank.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Not your fault.’ Raffy shrugged. ‘And they’ll get theirs, don’t you worry.’

  Lilly covered Raffy’s hand with her own. ‘I know you’re tough, that you think can get through this.’

  ‘I can.’

  She squeezed his fingers. ‘This is a terrible place, Raffy. It sucks the life out of everyone that comes here.’ She nodded down the ward to Robert, still muttering on his bed. ‘Look what this sort of life does to people.’

  ‘I’m not some mental case,’ he said.

  ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But you have got to let me help you, OK? You have got to let me try to get you out of here.’

  He grunted.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ she smiled. ‘So tell me if the name Abdul Malik means anything to you.’