Slow Burn (2010)

by Conrad Jones

  Alec pulled up his vehicle next to the driver`s window of a Vauxhall. He didn’t know what model it was as they all looked the same to him. They spoke to the Commander on the way to Lana Pindar`s home, and the Commander was happy to authorise an arrest warrant if she failed to cooperate. The situation was becoming desperate, and desperate measures were required to deal with it. Lana Pindar wasn’t a suspect in any investigation, but she was withholding information, of that Alec was certain.

  “Has there been any more comings or goings?” Alec asked the detective that was assigned to watch the Pindar residence. The Vauxhall was his home for the foreseeable future. He was new to the team and looked surprised to see the Superintendent at his stakeout. He consulted his notebook before he replied.

  “No, Guv.”

  “Take a break for a few hours; get some breakfast and a few hours’ kip.”

  “Thanks, Guv.”

  Alec steered the Shogun across the road, and he parked on the driveway in front the Pindar residence. The curtains were closed in the windows.

  “The answer lies with Malik Shah, and Ashwan Pindar, Will. They know what is going on, and so does Lana Pindar,” Alec switched off the engine and opened the door. Will Naylor did likewise. “I am not leaving here until we have answers.”

  “Are we going to tag team them?” Will referred to a technique of interrogation were two people were questioned at the same time. It caused confusion and led to mistakes being made. It wasn’t something that they could employ in a formal interview with legal representation present. They had to make the most of this opportunity.

  “Yes, whatever it takes,” Alec replied. He reached the front door and rang the doorbell. He stared at his shiny brogues while he waited long seconds for a reply, but none came. His fist rapped four times loudly on the door. He waited only five seconds or so and then banged on the door again. They heard the bolts being drawn and the door opened an inch.

  “What do you want?” Lana asked. “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

  “We need to speak to you, Lana, it`s urgent,” Alec pushed the door open with his right hand. “We can do it here, or we can do it at the station and get social services to look after Mamood while we talk, it`s up to you.”

  She opened the door in silence, and looked at them suspiciously, as they entered. Alec spotted Mamood sat on a leather settee in the living room area. Lana walked toward the kitchen away from the living room, tying to steer them away from her son.

  “We`ll talk in here if that`s ok. We need to speak to Mamood too.”

  Lana tried to protest but Will gently took her arm and guided her toward where her son was sitting. Mamood looked like a frightened rabbit. He had dark circles under his eyes and his face looked gaunt and drawn.

  “Hello, Mamood,” Alec said. “Sit down, Lana.” He pointed to an empty armchair. “Did you have a late night, Mamood?”

  Mamood looked at his mother for help. She twitched her head slightly, almost imperceptibly. She told him to be quiet without saying a word to him.

  “Leave him alone.”

  “I can`t do that, Lana,” Alec sat on the arm of the settee. “You see someone is killing your husband`s business partners, and I need to know why that is.”

  “I don`t know anything about his business. I don`t know anything about him anymore.” A tear ran down her face, and Mamood got up and crossed over to her. He sat on the arm of the chair and put his arm around his frightened mother. She looked worn down and tired.

  “Do you know where he is?” Will asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you know where your father is, Mamood,” Alec asked. Mamood kissed his mother`s head and ignored the police detective. “Where were you last night, Mamood?” He looked up, but stayed silent.

  “You came home wrapped in a blanket. Where were you, Mamood?” Will asked.

  “Leave him alone,” Lana demanded. He doesn’t know anything, neither of us do. “Ask his father or Malik Shah.”

  “I would if we could find him, Lana,” Alec teased. He could tell from her reaction that she was concerned. She pretended that she wasn’t, but she was.

  “What do you mean?” Lana wiped her eyes.

  “We found his car abandoned in a car park,” Will said.

  “There was another bomb, Lana,” Alec added. Her eyes widened in shock. There had been so much to take in over the last few days. It was a lot to absorb.

  “Is he?” She asked.

  “We don’t know, he`s missing.”

  “I thought you said there was a bomb?” Mamood spoke for the first time.

  “There was, near where we found your dad`s car,” Will explained. “We found the body of Dipak Pindar at the scene.”

  “Oh!” Lana put her hand over her mouth and looked stunned by the news. “He`s Ash`s cousin, Mamood called him Uncle.”

  “Tell them, Mum.” Mamood stroked her hair and looked into her eyes. “All dad`s friends from school are dead, and now Uncle Dipak too. You have to tell them.”

  “Tell us what, Mamood?” Alec looked into the boy`s eyes. He looked terrified. “We can`t protect your dad unless you tell us what`s going on.”

  “I was kidnapped.”

  “Is this true, Lana?” Will asked incredulous.

  “Is it?” Alec added pressure.

  “Yes, yes!” She broke down in tears. “They said we couldn’t tell the police or they would kill Mamood.”

  “Who was it?” Will asked. “Who kidnapped you, Mamood?”

  “I don’t know who he was,” he said. “I only saw one, but I heard more of them.”

  “When did they let you go?” Alec played with the cleft on his chin while he pieced things together in his mind.

  “Last night,” Mamood said. “They chucked me into a van. The floor was metal. I was blindfolded. Then they untied me, gave me a blanket and dumped me on the pavement about half a mile away from home.”

  “Where did they take you from?”

  “The reservoir near my school,” Mamood blushed. “They sent me a letter from a girl at school. I went to meet her.”

  “What can you tell me about the man that took you?”

  “He was big. He shot me with a stun gun thing.” Mamood lifted up his sweatshirt and showed them the burn marks on his chest.

  “Did he say anything to you?” Alec asked. The boy`s voice was quivering as he remembered the ordeal.

  “He asked how my dad was, and he said he was a wanker. Then he shot me.”

  “Wait a minute, did he ask you how your dad was, or did he use his name?”

  “He said, `how is Ash, is he still a wanker?`, and then he shot me.”

  Alec looked at Will. The kidnapper knew his father`s name, and used a shortened version of it. It indicated that they had a level of previous contact, and they were someone that knew him, even vaguely.

  “What else did he say about your father,” Will asked. “It doesn’t matter how insignificant it is to you, it could be vital if we are to find out who did this to you.”

  “He said lots of bad things; he spent hours taunting me with newspaper cuttings and stories about him and uncle Malik.”

  “Tell me some of them, whatever you can remember.”

  “He said my father was a gangster, a drug dealer,” Mamood stopped, his voice broken. He coughed and carried on. “He said my dad was a rapist, and that all his friends were rapists too.”

  “Did he say why or how he knew that?”

  “No, not that I can remember, but he kept on saying that he had always been a bad man.”

  “What newspaper cuttings did he show you?”

  “All kinds of stuff, mostly about drug addicts and dealers being killed.”

  “We need to get Mamood to the station, Lana. I want to have him checked over by our doctor, and he needs to be interviewed by our youth trauma team,” Alec said. Lana nodded her agreement. She had no more fight left in her. “If Ashwan contacts you, then you must call me straight away. Do you understand?”

/>   “Yes,” she started to cry again. Alec made the call and within minutes, a marked police car was driving away with Lana and Mamood Pindar on board.

  Alec and Will climbed into the Shogun. They hadn’t said much while Lana and Mamood were still there, but they both had a different view of things now.

  “I think we`ve been focusing on the wrong man,” Alec began as he started the engine.

  “You mean Pindar is the key?”

  “Maybe not the key, but he`s the weak link. We need to refocus the search onto Ashwan Pindar, dig back as far as the records go. We`re still missing something, Will.”

  “I agree, Guv.” Will frowned and shook his head. “What did he mean rapist?”

  “I know that stuck in my mind too,” Alec put his mobile onto hands free.

  “I`ve been through Shah`s record with a fine toothcomb, and there`s no mention of any rape allegations, Guv. I wouldn’t have missed that.”

  “He said that all his friends were rapists too.”

  “There was nothing in the records, Guv.”

  “You said the records went back to Shah`s late teens, right?”

  “Yes, Guv, eighteen I think.”

  “We need their juvenile records, Will. I think something happened before their adult records began,” Alec`s mind was racing. He speed dialled the MIT room.

  “DC Wright, MIT,” the voice answered the call.

  “Jayne, it`s Alec.”

  “Hello, Guv, what`s up?” Jayne Wright was constantly perky. She was an officer that it was a pleasure to be around.

  “I need the juvenile records pulling for Malik Shah, Ashwan Pindar and the rest of his corporate directors, and start with Pindar.”

  “Okay, Guv, I`m all over it, what am I looking for?”

  “Look for allegations of rape, or anything that links them all.”

  “Okay, Guv, anything else?”

  “Yes, pass a description of Ashwan Pindar to uniform. I want him brought back in for questioning.” Alec wasn’t sure where this new information would take them, but his senses told him that it was worthwhile following the lead. The kidnap could explain many things, the torture of Bruce Mann, and Kenny Richards for a start. Someone wanted answers to questions, and now he felt that he knew what they were asking. Who had kidnapped Mamood Pindar, and why?

  CHAPTER 49

  DAVID BERNSTEIN

  David Bernstein sat and waited. He was good at waiting. His time in the Israeli military taught him that waiting and watching was one of their best weapons against the insurgents. People are creatures of habit, and if you waited long enough you could learn their patterns of behaviour. Once you know how they behave, then it`s easy to predict when and where they will be at their most vulnerable. Malik Shah was no different to the many targets he had tracked and killed in the Middle East. They were all much the same. He watched and learned their movements, identified their weaknesses and then neutralised them when they least expected it. Malik Shah had a weakness. Women. He had been abusing Malinda Singh since she was fourteen years old; David knew this after watching him closely. Malinda was his Achilles Heel. He had a thing for meeting women in hotels, and it was the only time he was separated from his goons.

  Malinda Singh was sixteen now. For the last two years, she met Malik Shah at a Travel Inn every Thursday at two o`clock. Her father owed Malik money for a drug deal that went bad, and when he couldn’t pay the money back Malik told him that his daughter could halt the interest on the debt. He refused at first but when two heavies beat him to a pulp in front of his wife and children, they realised that there wasn’t really any other option. Malinda was beautiful. Her hair was jet and her eyes were brown. She was slim at the waist and curvy where she should be. At fourteen she looked like an Asian Barbie doll. Malik was an animal, and he ravaged her innocent body for all it was worth every week. Malinda cried every time he took her but it had little effect on Malik, if anything it turned him on. Malinda told him that she was going to kill herself if he didn’t free her from her father`s debt, but Malik told her that the debt would pass to her younger sister, and that thought was the only thing that kept her alive. Her life was a hell on earth and if she could have ended it all then she would rather than let that evil man touch her ever again. That was before she met David Bernstein.

  David was tanned and handsome, and his body was wiry muscle, lean and defined. He watched her at the hotel, and followed Malinda home one day, waited a while and then knocked on her door. It was clear that this pretty, young girl wasn’t meeting Malik Shah because of his magnetic personality. He had a hold over her family. She wept openly every time she left the Inn, and David could only guess what obscenities Shah enforced on her week in and week out. David introduced himself to her family, and bluntly offered them a way out of their nightmare. They were cautious at first but David was articulate and persuasive. He told them what Shah had done to his younger sister, and her suicide convinced Malinda that there was no way that she would be free of him. He was a monster. There was no other way out for them, and he pointed out that it was only a matter of time before Malik turned his attention to their younger daughter too. She was blossoming and he would take her as well. The debt would never be paid no matter what atrocities they endured as a family.

  Malik Shah pulled into the Travel Inn car park in his BMW. He had a scowl on his face and he looked angry. The tyres screeched as he slammed the vehicle into a parking space. He got out of the car and reached inside for a bottle of red wine, and then he slammed the door closed and headed into the Travel Inn. Malinda shivered visibly in the passenger seat as she watched him go in.

  “He looks so angry,” she said quietly. He hurt her when he was in a good mood, but it always hurt much more when he was mad, and he was mad a lot. “I`m frightened.”

  “You don`t have to be frightened. I`m right here and I`m not going anywhere, okay,” David soothed her nerves. “You know what to do, right?”

  Malinda nodded her head. She took the small vial that he had given her earlier, and she gripped it tightly in her hand. All she had do was put a few drops into his wine, and it would be lights out, and then her ordeal would be over forever. David Bernstein promised her, and she believed him.

  “What if he pours his own wine?” she was desperately trying to be brave, but she was terrified.

  “Does he ever do that?” David shook his head. He had the same pattern every time he met Malinda. They had been through it a dozen times. “He never does that, does he?”

  “No, he makes me undress, and then I have to pour his wine. He drinks it while I,” she looked embarrassed and ashamed. “Well, you know what I have to do.”

  “I know, and you don`t have to do it ever again,” David touched her hand to reassure her. She recoiled from his touch. It wasn’t that she didn’t like David, she did, but she couldn’t bear to be touched by anyone anymore. Malik Shah had ruined her. She looked at him and gave him a nervous smile, and then opened the door and got out. David Bernstein watched her as she walked across the car park and into the reception.

  CHAPTER 50

  MIT

  “Shah is not at home, Guv, uniform have left an officer there in case he comes back,” Will Naylor explained. A knock on the door interrupted them. “There`s still no sign of Pindar.”

  “We`re just about done going through this, Guv,” Jayne Wright popped her head around the door. “I think we`re ready to review.”

  “Okay we`ll be there in a minute, Jayne,” Alec stood up from the desk. Will unbuttoned his shirtsleeves and rolled them up as they walked. “I hope this isn’t a waste of time.”

  The team were getting used to disappointment on this case, and the department was being flogged to death by the press. They were still following the line that Malik Shah and his business partners were being targeted by a right wing extremist group because they were Asian Muslims. For now, MI5 and the police department were happy to keep a lid on things by letting them speculate. Making a statement that they didn’t have
a clue what was going on would not instil the general public with confidence.

  “Okay Jayne, what have we got?” Alec pulled a chair out and sat opposite her desk. Will leaned against the edge of the desk and folded his arms. He`d already seen the information that they`d gathered in snippets. Hearing how it all slotted together, if it did at all, would be interesting.

  “You were right, there was an allegation of rape, Guv, made by a Sarah Bernstein, when they were still at school,” she looked up from her computer screen. “That`s why we didn’t spot anything in their records.”

  “Who did she allege raped her?” Alec was thinking that it must be Ashwan Pindar, because of what the kidnapper had said to Mamood.

  “All of them, Guv,” Jayne raised her eyebrows. “She claimed that she was drugged and gang raped by them all at a party.”