by Francis King
Mehmet appeared, still in only his Y-fonts. His lips were pulled back oddly from his teeth, so that his upper gums were visible. ‘You wish me?’
‘Yes, Mr’ – again the man in plain clothes looked down at the file – ‘Mr Ahmeti. I am from the Home Office. Immigration. We have received information that leads us to believe that you are resident in this country illegally. I am afraid that I must ask you to accompany us to Hornsea Police Station for further questioning.’
Meg felt a momentary relief for herself – so they were not here about the pot after all. Then she was overwhelmed with dread for Mehmet.
After his previous agitation, he became suddenly calm. ‘I get dressed first? You allow?’ Meg thought it an odd question: they would hardly take him away in his Y-fronts.
‘Of course, sir.’
The policeman followed him.
Meg turned to the policewoman. She had not in the least taken to the Home Office official, but the policewoman looked kind in a motherly sort of way.
‘What’s going to happen to him?’
The policewoman looked over to the man, clearly feeling that it was not for her to attempt an answer.
‘We have to establish all the facts.’ The man peered down at the file half open in his hand, as though to refresh his memory.
‘And then he can come home?’
‘That all depends.’ Again the man peered at the file, stroking his beard with the hand not holding it.
Meg suddenly felt a bile-like anger rise up in her throat and explode in her mouth. ‘I do think it most inconsiderate to arrive at this hour on a Sunday of all days.’
The man smiled, still stroking his beard. ‘There is a reason for that. On a weekday morning, unless it’s very early, so many people are at work.’
Mehmet at last appeared with the boy policeman behind him. Meg noticed that he was wearing the suit that he had bought only a few weeks ago, and with it a formal shirt and tie. The poor dear was going to get awfully hot in all those clothes, but she supposed that he wanted to make a good impression.
‘Mamma, I wish you do something for me. OK?’ After his early terror, he now seemed to be totally in control both of himself and of the situation.
‘Yes, of course, love. What is it?’
‘Please telephone this lady.’ He handed her a piece of paper. ‘She friend of mine, good friend. Important lady. Doctor. She have many important friends. Tell her what happen. Tell her everything. OK?’
Meg nodded, panicky and bewildered. Who was this important lady? He had never before mentioned her.
Mehmet went on: ‘Tell her Mehmet needs lawyer, best lawyer. Now. Tell her send lawyer, quick, quick, to Hornsea Police Station. Understand. Hornsea Police Station. Urgent. OK?’
Again Meg nodded. Then she followed the four of them out from the flat and to the front door. The policewoman walked first, followed by Mehmet, and the two men brought up the rear. Mehmet’s head was lowered and there was a raw-looking flush on the nape of his neck. Thank God all those inquisitive faces had gone. Suddenly a snatch of song, heard repeatedly on the telly, came into Meg’s mind – Neighbours, everybody needs neighbours … Well, she certainly didn’t need neighbours like those.
Meg so much dreaded speaking to the unknown woman – if only Sylvia were on hand to do it for her – that she first went over to the sitting-room cupboard and took out the vodka bottle. Without bothering with a glass, she tipped up the bottle and gulped at it, and then gulped again. She sighed. That was better.
She listened as the telephone rang on and on. Since it was a Sunday and still not seven o’clock, this did not surprise her. Patiently she waited. Then at last someone answered. ‘Yes. Hello.’ It was a woman’s voice and it suggested that she had just woken up.
‘Is that Dr Carter, please?’
‘No, I’m afraid it isn’t. If you’re a patient, I’ll give you the emergency number.’
‘Well, it is an emergency. But not that kind. I mean, I’m not a patient.’
‘I really don’t know if at this hour … It’s not yet eight, you know.’
‘I must speak to her. I really must.’
‘Well, hang on then and I’ll see.’
Meg hung on, until the standing made her feel so unsteady that she carried the telephone over to a chair.
‘Yes?’
This must be the important lady. Meg gripped the receiver tightly as she prepared to deal with her. ‘Is that Dr Carter?’
‘Yes. That’s right.’
‘Oh, Dr Carter, something terrible’s happened! But first I’d better explain who I am. I’m the landlady, I mean Mehmet’s landlady. You know who I mean?’
‘His landlady? What’s happened to him? What is it?’ Anxiety made the voice sound harsh, even hectoring.
‘The – the police took him off this morning. They arrived and just took him off.’
‘But was he with you? I thought he was … He told me he had to spend the weekend with some cousin over here on a visit.’
‘I don’t know anything about that, I’m afraid. He comes and goes and I never ask any questions. But he was certainly here – in my flat – this morning. I don’t know what time he got home, though – seeing that I decided to have an early bed.’
‘Oh. How odd! He told me he couldn’t see me because he had to be with this cousin of his over the whole weekend.’ There was a brief silence. ‘Anyway – why on earth did the police take him off?’
Meg proceeded to tell her. Nerves made her muddled and even, from time to time, incoherent, so that, increasingly impatient, Marilyn kept interrupting her. The interruptions made Meg even more muddled.
‘So he wants me to find him a lawyer?’ Marilyn said at the end.
‘That’s right. A first-rate lawyer, he said.’
‘It’ll not be easy to find any sort of lawyer before breakfast on a Sunday morning. My family solicitors are in Colchester. I really don’t know who to approach. I suppose I’d better look in the Yellow Pages. An immigration lawyer, that’s what we need.’ Marilyn was thinking aloud to herself, rather than conversing with Meg.
‘Will you be going there?’
‘Going where?’
‘To the police station.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose I must. Yes, yes, I will. But first I’ll have to get hold of a lawyer. I’d better ring off now. Anyway, thank you so much for getting in touch with me.’
The telephone went dead. Meg felt suddenly excluded from the drama in which Mehmet was starring, and that filled her with a sense of abandonment and dread. Should she herself go down to the police station? She hesitated, tapping with her fingers on the telephone receiver. Then she decided that she must. She began looking in the drawer below the telephone table for the card of a minicab firm that had recently been pushed through the door. When she had decided to keep it, she had thought: One never knows when that might not come in handy. It had come in handy more quickly than she had expected.
Chapter Twenty
The Yellow Pages open before her and her mobile phone in her hand, Marilyn sat sideways on her bed and began to ring number after number. She had hurried up to her bedroom to do the ringing, because she did not want Audrey to hear her. Sometimes no one answered, as some telephone in Borough High Street, the Strand or Tottenham Court Road trilled on and on, making her envisage an empty office awaiting the contract cleaners who would soon arrive to get it into order for Monday. Sometimes a recorded voice would instruct her to ring another, emergency number. When she did that, it was only to be told that the duty lawyer wished that he or she could help her but unfortunately that was out of the question, there were already far too many cases on hand that day. Finally, by then in a state of panicky desperation, she got a man, old she guessed from his voice, who said that he would get along to the police station as soon as he could.
Having foregone her usual morning bath and instead merely splashed cold water on to her face, she hurriedly dressed and then raced down the stairs to the kitchen to s
natch some breakfast. She had just taken her first sip of scalding coffee, when Audrey appeared. She, too, was already dressed, but she had clearly not had time to brush or even comb her hair, which stuck up in a grotesque, iron-grey quiff.
‘What was all that about?’
Marilyn felt a reluctance to respond. She sipped again at the coffee and then said: ‘I have to dash out. Something’s come up.’ She hoped that Audrey would assume that what had come up was an emergency over a patient.
Audrey pulled back the chair opposite Marilyn’s and asked: ‘What’s the problem?’
‘The chief problem in this house is that there’s no privacy.’
Audrey stared at her, pained, eyes blinking. Then she said: ‘Would you like me to drive you – to wherever you have to go?’
‘No, thank you. There’s no need for you to turn out.’ The last thing, Marilyn thought unfairly, was to have Audrey gloating over the disaster that had overtaken Mehmet.
‘I’d be happy to help.’
Marilyn shook her head. ‘I can get a taxi. At this hour, it won’t be difficult.’ She now felt guilty for her initial response.
‘Don’t forget it’s a Sunday. Shall I ring for you, while you finish your breakfast?’
‘Well, if you would do that … Please.’
The whole of London seemed to be spookily empty as the taxi sped northwards. ‘Another scorcher,’ the driver turned round to say. ‘ Yes, another scorcher,’ Marilyn responded. She was still feeling guilty about the way in which she had spoken to Audrey.
At the police station, everyone seemed to be in a process of either coming on duty or going off it, so that Marilyn had a dizzying, dislocating sense of hurry and confusion all around her. She was asked to wait in a room with some other people, and then taken to another room and told to wait there alone. An officer came in, asked her two or three questions, and said ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to refer you to a colleague.’ The colleague came in and said ‘I’ll be with you in a moment, Dr Carter,’ and vanished never to return. Eventually she wandered out of the room and, having found herself back at the reception desk, asked if the lawyer had arrived. The young girl on duty told her, obviously irritated but in a controlled voice, that just as soon as Mr Hargreaves arrived of course she would be informed, and meanwhile would she please return to the waiting-room?
With an exasperated sigh, Marilyn did as she was told. Soon after, the girl receptionist ushered in a large, middle-aged woman, whose ample body was supported by two sticks. She was snorting with the effort of propelling herself forward, and her nose and forehead were glistening with sweat. She must once have been extremely pretty, Marilyn thought.
‘Would you like to sit here?’ Marilyn jumped up from her chair by the door.
‘Oh, that’s all right, love. Thank you. I can sit down over there.’ With more snorting the woman staggered across the room. Then, with a sigh that was almost a groan, she lowered herself on to a long, padded bench under the window. ‘It’s going to be a real scorcher,’ she said.
The two women sat in silence, studiously avoiding each other’s gaze. Marilyn wondered what the woman was doing at the police station at such an early hour.
Then the woman spoke, in a blurred, breathy voice: ‘You wouldn’t happen to be Dr Carter, would you?’
‘Yes. Yes, I am.’
‘Well, I’m Mrs Towling. Mehmet’s landlady’
‘Oh, I’d no idea!’
‘I’m afraid the poor soul’s in real trouble.’ She put up an arm and wiped her damp forehead with the back of it. ‘I was wondering if it was you. I couldn’t be sure. Did you manage to get him a lawyer?’
‘Yes. I hope so. But he hasn’t turned up yet.’
At that moment the receptionist put her head round the door to ask Meg if she would like some tea or coffee. Meg said that some tea would be lovely. As an apparent afterthought, the girl then turned to Marilyn: ‘How about you, Dr Carter?’ Marilyn also asked for tea – no milk, no sugar.
Eventually, the lawyer arrived. He was a tiny man, carrying a bulging briefcase, and he seemed to know all the people at the station by their Christian names. One might have expected him to be lethargic and irritable so early in the morning, but he bustled everywhere, smiling, joking, laughing. He constantly addressed Meg and Marilyn collectively as ‘ladies’ and more than once assured them ‘We’ll get all this sorted out in a jiffy.’ After a while he disappeared and the jiffy prolonged itself. A heavy, dark-skinned, ill-shaven man and a woman in a sari were shown into the room, and then an elderly, well-dressed woman in a beret, whose heavy mascara had run from what Marilyn assumed to have been crying.
At last the lawyer reappeared. ‘I must just get some particulars from you, Mrs Towling. About dates and so forth.’
‘I’m no good at dates,’ Meg said forlornly. ‘But if I can be of any help …’
After he had jotted down what Meg had told him of Mehmet’s tenancy, she asked: ‘Can’t we see him?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. Not until his interview is over.’
‘And when will that be?’ Marilyn asked.
‘Who can say? Soon, I hope.’
At that he got up, said ‘I’ll be back with you in a jiffy, ladies,’ and again vanished.
The interrogation at last over, they sat round one of the three tables in a nearby café. The other two tables, still covered with used crockery and cutlery, were unoccupied. In addition to their cups of cappuccino, there was an opened packet of petit beurre biscuits in front of Meg. She had explained ‘I never had time for a bite, I was in such a rush to get to the station. Trouble of any kind always gives me an appetite.’ One of her legs was stuck out ahead of her, so that the lawyer was obliged to sit sideways. But, still in the jolliest of moods, he clearly did not mind.
Everything at the immigration department was in a total state of confusion, he informed them with glee. A move to other premises was in process of taking place, a new computer system had been installed and was still not functioning, and there was a rumour – could you believe it? – that rats had been devouring files. One of his clients had been waiting in limbo for a decision for more than five years. Then he looked at his watch, jumped up, grabbed his briefcase and said that he must dash back to the station to deal with another case.
Marilyn followed him to the door and said in a low voice; ‘You’ll let me know what I owe you in due course, won’t you? You’ve got my address?’
‘Oh, we’ll see about all that later. With luck, he should be eligible for legal aid.’
Back at the table, Meg was telling Mehmet in a crooning, consolatory voice, like a mother to a child: ‘Poor love! You’ve really had a terrible experience. I don’t envy you. Now you must just try to relax. Relax!’
Marilyn sat down. ‘Well, at least you’re free.’
Mehmet nodded. Then he demanded: ‘ Marilyn, why you get such lawyer?’
Marilyn was taken aback. ‘ What’s wrong with him?’
‘He seemed a nice chap to me,’ Meg put in.
‘You no understand?’ He spoke angrily, as though, out of stupidity or carelessness, Marilyn had mishandled everything. ‘ He friendly with everyone there. He friend of police. No good.’
Hungry and exhausted, Marilyn lost her temper: ‘ I’m pretty sure it’s because he’s on such good terms with the police that they didn’t lock you up. Can’t you see that?’
But she realized from his sulky expression and the way in which, having glared at her for a few moments, he then swung his body away from her to gaze out through the door, left open because of the heat, that she had failed to convince him.
‘Tell us exactly what happened, Mehmet,’ Meg urged.
He shook his head. ‘Many questions. Many stupid questions.’ Then, with sudden viciousness, he demanded: ‘Who tell them about me? Who say I am illegal? How they know address?’
Meg recoiled. ‘Oh, love, you don’t think I’d –’
He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘Not you! N
ot you!’
Marilyn wondered whether he meant her. How could he imagine such a thing?
Then he said darkly: ‘I think I know.’ He frowned, brooding. Then he nodded, as though to tell himself, Yes, you’re right. ‘ Bastard.’ He nodded again. ‘ I kill that bastard.’
‘Who are you talking about, love?’
‘Never mind. Bastard!’ He spat out the last word. ‘ I kill him!’
When they left, Marilyn insisted on giving Meg and Mehmet a lift back to the flat in the taxi that would eventually take her home. Clearly distracted, Mehmet made no attempt to help Meg, so that it was Marilyn who supported her along the uneven pavement to the car and eventually half-lifted her into it. This was not, she suddenly realized with amazement, the professional consideration, devoid of any true feeling, that she showed to patients in similar circumstances. Already she felt mysteriously and reluctantly drawn to this woman, met for the first time, with her flushed, sweaty face, her clumsy hands, dragging feet and air of indomitable sweetness and cheerfulness.
When Marilyn had helped her out of the taxi at the block of flats, Meg said: ‘Would you like to come in for something – a cup of Nes or something stronger if you like?’
Marilyn refused out of an uncharacteristic mixture of shyness and awkwardness and later regretted having done so. She would liked to have seen where Mehmet had been living during all the months that she had known him. She was also eager to discover why he had never invited her there and had dismissed all her suggestions of a visit. ‘ Shall I help you up the steps?’
‘Oh, no, dear. You’re in a hurry, I’m sure. Mehmet will help me. He’s always very good about helping me. Don’t worry.’
As her taxi drove off, Marilyn looked back and saw Mehmet laboriously supporting Meg, one arm around her, as she heaved herself up from step to step. There was a devastating pathos about it, and for a moment she had the disconcerting illusion that the deep canyon of the street was darkening as her mood darkened. Then the taxi moved out into the glare beyond. The taxi, driver turned.