The Heights

by Parker Bilal

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Also by Parker Bilal

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Parker Bilal

  Crane and Drake series

  THE DIVINITIES

  Makana Investigations series

  THE GOLDEN SCALES

  DOGSTAR RISING

  THE GHOST RUNNER

  THE BURNING GATES

  CITY OF JACKALS

  DARK WATER

  Writing as Jamal Mahjoub

  NAVIGATION OF A RAINMAKER

  WINGS OF DUST

  IN THE HOUR OF SIGNS

  THE CARRIER

  TRAVELLING WITH DJINNS

  THE DRIFT LATITUDES

  NUBIAN INDIGO

  (non-fiction)

  A LINE IN THE RIVER: KHARTOUM, CITY OF MEMORY

  THE HEIGHTS

  Parker Bilal

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2019

  in Great Britain and 2020 in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2020 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2019 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2019 by Jamal Mahjoub.

  The right of Jamal Mahjoub to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-9028-3 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0370-0 (e-book) (US only)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described

  for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are

  fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  A barrier will divide them,

  And on the Heights there will be men who recognise each one by his look.

  To those in Paradise they shall say: ‘Peace be upon you.’

  But they shall not enter.

  And when they turn their eyes towards the inmates of the Fire they will cry:

  ‘Lord do not cast us among those wicked people!’

  – Al Quran, 7:46: The Heights

  Apart from Heaven’s Eternity,

  And yet so far from Hell!

  – Edgar Allan Poe, ‘Al Aaraaf’ (‘The Heights’)

  1

  Like an unsettled thought, the train rattled through the tunnels beneath the city. Ruby Brown was praying to get home. That was her only concern. The baby was finally asleep, thank God, cradled against her chest in the harness, but her legs ached and her breasts were leaking. The journey was pure Hell. Ruby just wanted to be off this train. She hated the Tube. She hated the noise, the smells, the screeching wheels and the endless delays. Why couldn’t it just be over?

  Most of all she hated the crowds. So many people. They shuffled into the carriage, pressing up to her. Closer and closer. Why couldn’t they just back off? She wanted to yell and scream at them to give her space. They didn’t. Instead, they pressed in around her, digging their briefcases into her back, shoving their stupid rucksacks into her face.

  It was like this every day now, thanks to Marvellous Marvin, who had chosen this moment in time to lose his job. They’d lost the place they had and now he was living with his brother while Ruby was staying with her mother again. This would have been bad enough in itself, but it also meant commuting every day from Morden, back and forth to deliver her son to school in Finsbury Park and then pick him up again. Not that she minded not having Marvin around. There hadn’t been anything marvellous about him for longer than she could remember.

  ‘I’m not fucking telling you again, Tyler! Stop it!’

  Ruby ignored the frowns of disapproval from the people around her. Fuck them. She was tired. The boy was driving her insane. She couldn’t take any more. He just went on and on, kicking and kicking. His foot went back and forth, knocking against the knee of the old man standing over him. Ruby ignored the man’s glare. It was bad enough having to deal with the boy, let alone apologise for him. What did people expect? Tyler’s foot began to move in circles, ramming out right, straight into her knee, over and over. What did he want? She’d given up trying to find an answer to that one. He wanted whatever he couldn’t have. That’s what it felt like. Her mother said he needed help. But her mother’s head was stuck back in 1984 or whatever. She thought you could still get that kind of help on the NHS for free. Nothing was free nowadays. His smart arse teacher, Mr Perfect, said he was suffering from ADHD, that he needed to be enrolled in one of those special needs schools. Marvin, being Marvin, insisted all the boy needed was a little discipline. Not that he was ever around enough to take care of that himself. And besides, when he was around Marvin tended to let the boy do whatever the hell he liked until he lost his temper and started yelling, which made all the little ones cry.

  ‘I said, stop it!’

  Ruby leaned over and jerked his arm hard.

  ‘Aouw!’ Tyler cried, making a meal of it. More looks. As if any of them would be better at parenting than her. The boy sat still for all
of ten seconds.

  Her legs were aching. She had thought that letting Tyler have the only seat might calm him down. Fat chance. To add insult to injury the train had come to a halt. They were just outside Clapham Common station. This was the worst. She felt trapped. The ticking over of the engine felt like a bomb way down inside her.

  What was it that made him think he could just sit there and kick her? Some kind of male instinct. And the little bastard wasn’t even nine years old yet. No prizes for guessing where he got that from. She closed her eyes and wished herself far away from all of it.

  They were close to the doors. She was holding onto the handrail. Behind her was another mother with a pushchair the size of a fucking SUV. She kept shifting it from side to side so the wheel dug into Ruby’s ankle. Her child sat staring up at Ruby, a blonde princess on a fucking throne. The mother and her friend, a couple of snooty bitches, were giving Ruby the cold stare, but she ignored them. Why did the Tube always smell so badly? She reached out to slap Tyler’s arm.

  ‘I won’t tell you again.’

  Tyler sulked the same way his father did. The same sorry grudge against the world. What can you do? You can’t fight nature. Of all the bad choices she had made in life, Marvin was up there at the top of the list.

  Miraculously Tyler had stopped kicking. Her knees would be covered in bruises. Not that anyone was going to notice that these days. Marvin had lost interest in her that way with the arrival of the baby. He had other women now. She didn’t care.

  ‘Leave that alone!’

  Tyler had turned his attention to something tucked into the corner of the baggage area to his right. She was standing over it, but she hadn’t noticed it when they’d got on. One of those blue nylon bags with yellow writing on the side. She had one for the laundry. He was twisting his foot round, kicking at it, nagging. She ignored him. All he wanted was more attention. The toe of his shoe eventually found the strap and pulled it. Again and again.

  ‘I said, leave it, Tyler!’

  A woman in a suit was watching her from further down the carriage. All dolled up with make-up and lipstick. The kind of woman who looked like she never had any problems. Ruby threw her a cold stare until the bitch dropped her eyes back to her phone.

  The baby began to cry. Ruby felt exhaustion wash over her. Tyler took her silence as a reason to carry on. Let him, she thought. What difference does it make? Maybe it will stop him kicking my legs.

  ‘When are we there, Mummy?’ Tyler asked. ‘When, Mummy, when?’

  ‘Soon.’

  Tyler had managed to hook his foot through the tape handle. He jerked the bag forward with a kick. Ignore him and he’ll lose interest. Ruby jogged the baby up and down, willing it to stop crying. The train crawled along a few hundred metres and then stopped again. It was humming to itself. The baby was getting louder. No way was she going to try feeding her in here. She avoided looking in the direction of the perfect mum with the little princess who was staring at her as if she was something you might find in a zoo. Please God, just let us get into the station. Tyler was hunched forward, kicking lightly, eyes still fixed on the bag. Ruby closed her eyes again.

  Kick. Kick. Kick.

  Tyler’s foot thumped back and forth. His foot looped round each time, trying to catch the strap. It caught again and dragged. The bag shifted. There was something heavy inside. He kicked again. Ruby began to notice the smell. Something rotten, which she had thought at first was coming from her son. Now she was sure it was from the bag.

  ‘Leave that alone!’

  Miraculously, the train began to move. Tyler was caught off balance. His legs weren’t touching the floor. When he lurched forwards, he put his foot down to stop himself falling, which pulled open one side of the bag.

  That’s when it rolled out, under their feet, causing people to yell and jump aside. It rolled one way and then, as the train lurched again, back down the middle of the aisle. Instinctively, people stepped aside or knocked it away from them. It was wrapped in dirty cloth and what looked like newspaper. The stench coming off it was disgusting. It filled the carriage. The train swerved and it rolled to one side. Someone nudged it back towards the centre of the aisle. The bitch looked up from her phone and swore as the object touched her fancy boot. Ruby barely registered what was happening. The baby was starting up again. The woman was suddenly on her feet, eyes wide, screaming at the top of her lungs. People all around were surging away, leaping aside, as a space cleared around the object that now came to a halt back at Ruby’s feet. She wasn’t sure what she was looking at. It looked like somebody’s head, lying on the floor, staring up at her. She didn’t understand how that could be. Then she too began to scream.

  2

  Drake put Marco Foulkes at just north of fifty. His taste in clothes was definitely older. A rust-coloured corduroy jacket that displayed just the right combination of wear and exclusivity to make the owner appear both down on his luck but also unmistakeably wealthy. The kind of look Drake wouldn’t be caught dead in any time soon. The ash-blond hair was cut boyishly, hanging down a little too long in the neck. It all added up to the impression of a man who was having trouble shaking off the fact that his youth was behind him.

  Foulkes was seated on one of the chic black leather armchairs that Crane had inherited along with the office. They were designed by an architect whose name she had told Drake but which he had subsequently forgotten. Van something or other. Dutch? German?

  His mind was wandering. Truth be told he was still undecided about this private lark. There was the change of pace, but there was also the fact that clients were paramount. You needed them. He was having trouble disguising the fact that he had instinctively taken an immediate dislike to Foulkes. Maybe it was because he was a writer (and what did someone like that have to write about?), or maybe it was just the paisley silk scarf slung artistically around his neck. Something about the smug way he waltzed in here expecting them to swallow his story.

  The dislike was clearly mutual.

  ‘Ever since your father moved back, my mother has been taking care of him. She’s concerned, says the place is like a menagerie.’

  Foulkes was addressing Crane and could barely bring himself to throw a wary glance at Drake as he went on. ‘I gather you haven’t seen Sir Edmund for a while. He’s the one who suggested I look you up.’

  Crane cleared her throat impatiently. She was behind her desk, taking notes in a big ledger with one of her fancy pens. She liked doing that, writing things out slowly in longhand. It gave her time to think, and also, in this case, to hide her annoyance. Drake guessed that this had something to do with Foulkes’ overfamiliarity. One thing Drake understood: there were some areas where Crane liked to keep a certain distance. The subject of her family being one of them. That much he knew about her and Foulkes walking in here playing the old family friend was clearly rubbing her up the wrong way.

  ‘So, Marco,’ Drake smiled, taking the initiative. ‘Remind me again, how did you meet this woman?’

  ‘How did I meet her?’ Foulkes carried himself like a man who did not like being taken lightly. ‘I already explained that.’

  ‘Cal is a former Detective Inspector with the Met,’ Crane explained. ‘It’s an interview technique, to get people to repeat their stories, in order to sift out the holes.’

  ‘I’m not a suspect,’ Foulkes pointed out. ‘I’m a client. Potential client,’ he added for Drake’s benefit.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Foulkes,’ Drake said, trying to make amends. ‘Old habits die hard, but perhaps you could humour me and go back over it one more time?’

  With a sigh, Foulkes began his tale over again.

  ‘Her name is Howeida Almanara. She’s from Kuwait. She’s doing a postgrad at LSE. That’s how we met. I was doing a reading there one evening and a few of us went for a drink afterwards.’

  ‘Is that something that happens often?’

  ‘Well, it depends. If there is a good vibe with an audience, and I have no other pressing enga
gements, then I’m happy to socialise. The personal touch can really help to gain the loyalty of readers.’

  ‘Right.’ Drake managed, just, not to roll his eyes. ‘And I’m assuming that the fact that she is an attractive young woman didn’t hurt.’

  ‘Well, no, of course not.’ The smile on Foulkes’ face faded.

  ‘And this was five months ago,’ said Crane, following up with a glance back over at her notes.

  ‘Six months. It was just before my birthday, which is in September.’

  ‘Exactly. Five months, then.’

  Drake could see the irritation on his face. Was that because she was a woman, or did he just not like being corrected by anyone? His manner suggested he felt a certain propriety over the girlfriend.

  ‘Is it possible that she hasn’t disappeared?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Foulkes turned back to Drake.

  ‘I mean, is it possible she just doesn’t want to see you again?’

  The half-smile wavering on Foulkes’ face seemed to suggest that he wasn’t sure if Cal was trying to be funny.

  ‘I’m just stating the obvious,’ Drake continued. ‘You claim she’s disappeared. Before we can take on this case, we need to know that you’re not mistaken. You can understand that, right?’