Best Friend, Worst Enemy

by Menon, David

  ‘Sir, Hussein was a member of the Crumpsall mosque and had been a member there since his return from Guantanamo. He wasn’t exactly hiding under a bush and the security services haven’t even said if he was a member of a terrorist organisation. So are they saying he was acting alone? Any journalist worth their salt would be mad not to pursue it’.

  ‘I know’ agreed Hargreaves.

  ‘And what about the mosque, sir?’

  ‘Well, I understand that the atmosphere and the rhetoric there had become so poisonous and reactionary that the former Imam, a moderate, was forced out and replaced’.

  ‘Where is he now, sir?’

  ‘He’s now at the Salford mosque’ said Hargreaves.

  ‘Did he know Faisal Hussein?’

  ‘Oh yes’ said Hargreaves. ‘By all accounts he tried to get him to move on with his life, especially after Hussein’s court case against the government failed. But he says that Hussein was lost by then’.

  ‘Lost?’

  ‘To the hardliners who forced the Imam out’ said Hargreaves.

  ‘You haven’t spoken to the Imam personally?’

  ‘No’ said Hargreaves. ‘I’m only going on what I’ve been told by MI5. As for Hussein, MI5 have got a file on him detailing his association with members of cells that have already been eliminated. But they say he just disappeared off the radar for two periods in the last year, once for four weeks and another time for seven’.

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘They say they don’t know’.

  ‘And we’re expected to believe that?’

  ‘He apparently slipped under the radar on both occasions’ said Hargreaves, ignoring Sara’s obvious cynicism. ‘They’re still working on the principle that he left the country on a false passport but they don’t have any proof yet. It’s pretty certain that he did though. And where he went could prove to be interesting considering who else from the Crumpsall mosque disappeared at the same time’.

  ‘Who was that, sir?’

  ‘Iqbal Zia Mustafa who, like Hussein, was British born of Pakistani parents and who was shot dead by Kenyan police whilst trying to blow up a food market in the centre of Nairobi last February, right in the middle of the second period when Hussein took his leave of absence from our shores’.

  ‘It’s hardly conclusive, sir’.

  ‘It’s as close as it gets, DCI Hoyland, pending the inquiry’.

  ‘Who do they think shot Faisal Hussein?’

  ‘They believe that he was murdered by other members of his cell before he was able to talk’.

  ‘Well have they found any evidence to support that, sir? Any cartridges or weapons? Articles of clothing that may have been discarded?’

  ‘It’s being dealt with, DCI Hoyland’.

  There was the tone of voice again, thought Sara.

  ‘I was there, sir’ said Sara. ‘I heard the shots and I watched Hussein die. I looked in the direction of where the shots had come from but there was nobody in sight. But I’m still the closest they’ve got to a witness’.

  ‘Then I’m sure they’ll contact you if they need to’ said Hargreaves, regarding her shrewdly and knowing that one of her strengths was her disobedience of authority if it was blocking her from getting what she regarded as the correct result. ‘You still chased after him even though it must’ve crossed your mind that he may be strapped with more explosives?’

  ‘I wanted to stop him detonating any further explosives if that was the case, sir’.

  ‘That was brave, Sara’ said Hargreaves. ‘Nobody would’ve criticised you if you hadn’t have chased after him’.

  ‘That wasn’t an option, sir’ said Sara. ‘My sister-in-law had just been murdered and in her memory I intend to find out how Faisal Hussein could’ve done what they’re accusing him of when he was under surveillance, and how they came so swiftly to a conclusion of his guilt, especially when he’s not here to defend himself’.

  ‘Alright’ said Hargreaves, looking at her shrewdly. He’d been warned on this one and his only worry was his best DCI. ‘And we still have a missing journalist to find who’s wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Melanie Sanders, not to mention an attempt of the life of Professor Abrahams to investigate in which a student and then two security guards lost their lives. Don’t take your eye off the main ball, Sara. I can’t always get you out of it when you do’.

  *

  It had only been a week since Craig had received the threatening letter at his constituency office but after a risk assessment had been carried out, involving the police and Labour party management, and after Craig had talked to Dean, Ruby, and Holly, who all thought it was important to keep the channel open to the public, he decided to re-open the office to the public on the same terms as before, except that a police officer would now be present at the opening times.

  Between ten and twelve every morning, it was open for anyone to come in and ask about whatever their problem was. This was in addition to the surgeries he held every Friday evening or Saturday morning where constituents could make an appointment for a private meeting with Craig himself. Ruby usually went down to see people because she was the caseworker who would be the one who made all the enquiries on their behalf. They buzzed at the front door before being let in after either Dean or Ruby checked on the video screen in the office upstairs. At the bottom of the stairs was a counter that created a natural space, small but usually adequate, for people to stand in and open their hearts and souls whilst Ruby made notes. There were all kinds of leaflets on the walls to do with domestic violence through to HIV, but they were rarely taken. Usually people were so worked up about what they’d come in for that no diversion about any other subject would distract them.

  Yitzhak and Hettie Goldstein waited in front of the counter but as soon as Ruby made her way down the stairs they started. The police constable on security duty looked poised to intervene if necessary.

  ‘We must insist!’ said Hettie. ‘That Craig Sutherland starts paying attention to our community, the Jewish community, the one that’s law abiding and honest’ She gestured dismissively behind her to the police constable. ‘Six of our front doors daubed with paint depicting swastikas and the words ‘Death to all Jews!’ in capital letters. We want something done! And we want something done now!’

  Ruby took a deep breath to keep calm. Mr Goldstein stood proud in his big wide-rimmed black hat and entirely black attire apart from a white shirt. Mrs Goldstein was wearing a very unflattering wig with a bland anorak style coat, knee length skirt and flat shoes. They were clearly scared and deserved some help if they’d let her help them.

  ‘What I’ll do, Mr. And Mrs. Goldstein is ... ‘

  ‘ ... yes well you’ve got to do something because you’ve got to treat us equally, young lady, do you understand that?’

  ‘Hettie, let the young lady speak and finish what she’s saying’ said Yitzhak. His wife hunched her shoulders and looked daggers at her husband.

  ‘ ... well’ Ruby went on. ‘I’ll talk to the police and see what’s happening with your case and then I will get back to you and if you’re not satisfied with the response I’ll ask Craig to make representations on your behalf’.

  ‘Do something!’ Hettie urged, her voice almost in a scream. ‘We want you to do something! We don’t want phone calls and letters, we want action! We want people being charged with hate crimes because that’s what they are. It is the job of the authorities to protect us and we will make sure they do!’

  ‘Mrs. Goldstein, I can assure you that ... ‘

  ‘ ... oh you can assure us?’ Hettie repeated sarcastically. ‘Well I can assure you that I’ll never vote Labour again unless Craig Sutherland recognises that our community is under threat as well as others and given our history he should be paying attention to that!’

  And with that she stormed out.

  ‘I’m sorry, young lady’ said Yitzhak in his wife’s wake. ‘My wife is very upset’.

  ‘Well I can und
erstand that, Mr. Goldstein, and I can assure you we will do our best for you both’.

  ‘Yes, I know, I know, but it’s hard when your front doors have been daubed in black paint and of course, I know that Mr. Craig Sutherland is sympathetic to the Palestinians and is no friend of Israel’.

  ‘Actually, Mr. Goldstein, I’m afraid I do have to correct you there. Craig supports wholeheartedly the state of Israel but within its 1967 borders and he believes that justice in the shape of a viable home state is long overdue for the Palestinians. Now that’s very different from what you implied’.

  ‘I will bid you good-day, young lady’.

  ‘My name is Ruby, sir’.

  ‘Well, Ruby, just you tell Mr. Sutherland that we Jews won’t forgive and forget come election day’.

  *

  Tim Norris received a call to say that a body answering the description of Robert Jackson had been found in the Mersey just off Birkenhead. It was being brought back to Manchester and the pathology lab of Dr June Hawkins.

  ‘Well I can confirm the identification’ said June. ‘It is Robert Jackson. They must’ve dumped him so far up stream in the hope that he’d go out into the Irish Sea and be lost forever. Luckily for us it didn’t quite work out that way’.

  Tim always felt rather uneasy going into June Hawkins path lab. If you went into somebody’s office it smelt of furnishings, office cleaning materials, plants and flowers, the combined odour of everyone’s cologne and after shave. You could sometimes smell a pot of coffee brewing. But in June Hawkins office, all the smells were reminiscent of death. Of course she had a side office, but it was tiny and she did most of her work in the lab where she played Bon Jovi whenever she was working on a body. She said it helped her to concentrate her mind but Tim couldn’t stand Bon Jovi. He thought they were nothing more than a poor man’s Bruce Springsteen but June was a big enough fan to have seen them live more than once and Tim knew better than to question her taste.

  The lab was large with two long, stainless steel tables and laid across one of them was Robert Jackson.

  ‘I felt so sorry for his parents’ said June. ‘They’re coming in to formally identify him soon. It isn’t right for a parent to bury a child. It’s the wrong way round and however long I stay in this job it’ll always get to me’.

  ‘What’s the story, June?’ asked Tim as he watched June go about her business in her usual attire of white protective coat and trousers, her hair pinned up and back. Bon Jovi’s ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ was playing loudly on the mini speakers in one corner of the room.

  ‘Well I warn you, he may have been pretty when he was alive but he sure as Hell isn’t now. It’ll take very careful placing of the sheet to protect his parents from seeing the worst’.

  June pulled back the sheet and Tim exclaimed. ‘Christ! What happened to the poor bastard?’

  ‘He’s been tortured and quite brutally’ June answered.

  ‘You’re not kidding’.

  ‘Those black marks you can see all over his body? They’re electric burns. It looks like they even wrapped some kind of electric current round his genitals’.

  ‘Ouch’ said Tim, rubbing his chin. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before’.

  ‘It was a professional job’ said June. ‘Just like the shooting of Melanie Sanders and no doubt by the same gang. Our friend here was strung up by his hands which were cuffed together so tight they broke his skin as you can see from the cuts to his wrist. He must’ve been up there for a long time because his shoulders have both dislocated’.

  ‘Jesus’.

  ‘And you can tell from the bruises on his face that he took a pretty bad beating too’.

  ‘ So what did he know that was so important to them?’

  ‘Important enough to shoot a young girl and torture him to death’

  ‘If only the dead could talk’.

  ‘Well if they could they wouldn’t be dead and I’d be out of a bloody job’.

  NINE

  Sara had spent the evening with Jacob. He’d cooked them dinner at her flat whilst she’d watched and drank wine that he’d kept on topping up. They’d talked, they’d laughed, and they’d eaten. Then they’d gone to bed and made love into the twilight hours before sunrise when Jacob had gone on his way back to Liverpool. She felt so lucky to have met Jacob at this time in her life and what he was doing for her was light years ahead of what all the counselling sessions had tried to impose on her. The counsellor in question, a stupid fat bitch by the name of Helen, had advised her to plan a visit to the cinema so that she’d have something ‘nice’ to look forward to whilst she came to terms with her grief over her sister-in-laws death. As if that would empty her mind of having watched poor Rachel being blown up with the rest of the victims of the Piccadilly station bombing. What utter toilet. And Helen looked like a counsellor as far as Sara was concerned, with her hair up in a bun type of arrangement that looked as if it would collapse at any minute and a bosom heaving under a low cut v-necked sweater. Big dangly earrings and no make- up completed the assault on other people’s senses. She probably couldn’t get a shag or a boyfriend so she’d decided to fill the gap by helping people. Like the fucking God squad but in a brighter, shinier building.

  She was on her way with Adrian Bradshaw to the Goldstein’s house and as Adrian drove them up Bury New Road with the city centre of Manchester disappearing behind them, Sara thought about what Tim Norris had told her just minutes ago before they’d left. He’d said that the whole station knew all about her burgeoning relationship with Jacob, including Superintendent Hargreaves who hadn’t mentioned it to her. Does that mean he approves? She didn’t give a fuck if he did or not. What did make her angry was that they’d found out through the surveillance of Jacob following the attempt on his life. So they could find out that a victim of an attempted murder that was still under investigation was going out with a police officer but they hadn’t been able to tell that Faisal Hussein had been planning a devastating terrorist attack when he’d meant to have been under surveillance? Who were they bloody kidding? Something was going on that Sara was determined to get to the bottom of.

  ‘So why didn’t they send a proper police officer?’ Hettie Goldstein wanted to know.

  ‘Mrs. Goldstein’ Sara began in measured tones. ‘I am a proper police officer’.

  ‘How can you be a proper police officer?’ Hettie scoffed. ‘You’re nothing more than a slip of a girl. You should be at home baking or something’.

  ‘Can I remind you that we are in the twenty-first century, Mrs. Goldstein’ said Sara, sharply. She really wasn’t in the mood for this. ‘And this is DS Adrian Bradshaw’.

  ‘Yes well at least a proper male officer is with you. And twenty-first century or not I’m still witnessing anti-Semitism here’.

  ‘How do you make that out?’ Sara asked, trying to keep her voice level but not giving a shit whether or not she succeeded. Hettie Goldstein was so fucking rude and offensive.

  ‘Because instead of a real officer they’ve sent an apprentice and one who was probably rushed through without all the proper checks because of some politically correct quota on how many women officers they should have’.

  ‘Officer, I’m very sorry’ said Yitzhak.

  ‘Why are you apologising?’ Hettie demanded. ‘Don’t apologise for me’.

  ‘Yes, I need to because you’re being rude, Hettie!’

  ‘Oh is that right? Well forgive me but my community is under attack and once again everybody else gets the top notch police attention but not us because we’re Jewish. Do you know the history of our people, Yitzhak? Or have you forgotten for reasons best known to yourself?’

  ‘That was not only absurd it was insulting’.

  ‘Alright, Yitzhak, but I’m scared’.

  ‘Which is why these police officers are here’ said Yitzhak.

  ‘They’re here because we went to see the MP, Craig Sutherland and kicked up a fuss’. She fixed Sara with a piercing stare. ‘Am I not ri
ght, young lady?’

  ‘It’s Detective Chief Inspector Hoyland to you and yes, Craig Sutherland’s office have been on to us but ... ‘

  ‘ ... there, I told you’.

  ‘But this is an ongoing investigation, Mrs. Goldstein and that’s why we’re here’ said Sara, firmly.

  ‘And’ said Yitzhak. ‘No amount of you shouting the odds is going to make their job any easier, Hettie’.

  ‘Okay, okay’ said Hettie. ‘I just want to go out onto the streets without fear again. But we’re old, Yitzhak, you and me. It may not come to pass unless something is done’. She then turned to Sara. ‘Everywhere we go we face this. The world says we stole the West Bank but how can we steal something that was ours in the first place? God gave it to us three thousand years ago. The Palestinians are the ones who stole it from us. We just took back what was ours but the world won’t see that. They won’t see that we are the real victims. Our two sons are both living with their families in the settlements and they’re not going to move. Swap land for peace? I’ve never heard such unjust nonsense. The Palestinians just have to go’.

  Sara wouldn’t consider herself an expert on the whole Israel/Palestine conflict, despite the influence of her new boyfriend Jacob who was steadily educating her on the subject, but she did know enough to ask Hettie where the Palestinians were expected to go.

  ‘I don’t care’ said Hettie with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘They’re all terrorists anyway just like all the Muslims are here’.

  ‘That’s a pretty broad statement to say the least, Mrs. Goldstein’ said Sara who wondered about the intelligence of the old bag. She certainly wasn’t doing anything to endear herself and that wasn’t useful when you needed the help of the police.

  ‘And can you deny that it’s true? Can you deny it with any degree of certainty?’

  ‘So you’re convinced it was members of the Muslim community who are attacking yours?’

  ‘Of course’ said Hettie. ‘They hate us. It’s a hate crime. They attacked us like they attacked the whole of the city with that dreadful bombing’