by Cari Hunter
Dressed in a well-fitting but inexpensive suit, Bashir was doing his utmost to appear humble and attentive. Keeping his hands open on the table, he confirmed his details and maintained eye contact as the detectives explained the interview’s objectives. The lead detective eased him into the questions, discussing the areas he covered in his taxi and the hours he worked.
“Weekends are the very worst,” Bashir said. “All of the drunk young people. I charge extra if they vomit, which is only fair if I’m the one to clean it up.”
“Absolutely.” The detective smiled, but nothing reached his eyes. “Could you tell us why you were at fifty-eight Cheviot Road, Levenshulme, yesterday evening?”
Bashir answered without missing a beat. “I had a fare to pick up, booked for five thirty, but the traffic is always terrible on the A6 so I set off early.”
“Why did you go inside?” the detective asked. “Don’t you chaps usually stay on the street and hoot the horn?” He looked at his colleague, who nodded her agreement.
“I needed the toilet,” Bashir said. “I knocked, and someone kindly let me in.”
Eleanor put out a hand and stilled the pen Russ was tapping on the table.
“Sorry,” he said. Irritation had brought vivid blotches to his cheeks. “I testified against him at his last trial, the one that went to shit. He had one of my witnesses battered so severely that her own dad couldn’t ID her in the ITU.”
“He’s fucked this time,” she said. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“I’ve been here before, El. Had him on the hook, and the bastard managed to wriggle off it.” He fiddled with the contrast on the monitor, more for want of something to do than because there was a problem.
“Can you explain why you were in the main office at the time of your arrest?” the detective asked Bashir.
Bashir threw up his hands at his own incompetence. “I got lost. I think the man said ‘third on the left,’ and I must have counted badly.” He turned to his solicitor, who passed him a slip of paper. “This is the receipt for the taxi booking. The receptionist at my company will be able to confirm it as well. Honestly, sir, this is just a misunderstanding.”
The detective nodded. “Are you saying that you had no idea as to the nature of business taking place at fifty-eight Cheviot Road?”
“Of course not.” Bashir sounded appalled. “Even now I only know a little. I do not think that I wish to know the details.”
The detective set a photograph of Rafiq Sadek in front of Bashir and invited him to take a closer look.
“Do you recognise this man?”
Bashir shook his head. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“What about her?” the detective asked, exchanging the photograph of Sadek for one of the dead girl from the moors. Her image hadn’t been found in any of the evidence examined from the raid so far.
Despite the poor quality footage, Eleanor caught the disquiet threatening to undermine Bashir’s carefully choreographed performance. He recovered quickly, though, to spin his reaction to his advantage. “That’s a terrible thing to show me.” He loosened his collar as if it chafed. “You should have warned me about that.”
“Nicely done,” Russ muttered.
“Just to recap, Mr. Bashir,” as the detective spoke, he returned the photos to his file, “You had never set foot in fifty-eight Cheviot Road prior to yesterday evening.”
“That is correct.”
“And you had no idea that a large-scale forced prostitution ring was operating from the premises.”
“No, none at all. I am happily married, sir.”
“I’m not suggesting you were a client, Mr. Bashir.”
Bashir bristled. “No, you think I am involved in the business. That I somehow organise it, despite having no ties to any of it, and despite the legitimate company that I do run. Tell me, where exactly would I find the time for such an enterprise? There are hardly enough hours in the day as it is.” He directed his appeal to the detective’s colleague, as if there was a chance she would rally to his cause. Instead, she handed her partner a sealed plastic bag containing a photograph. Eleanor recognised it immediately; she had booked it out of Evidence that morning and brought it with her to Manchester.
“We’ll take a break in a minute,” the lead detective said. “First, though, I’d like you to clear something up, if at all possible.”
“Of course,” Bashir said, his eyes straying to the bag.
“I’m going to show you another photograph, and I have to warn you that it is sexually explicit.” The detective paused for Bashir to nod his consent and then turned the bag around.
Bashir squinted at the image, taking his time like a well-behaved, cooperative witness. “Am I supposed to know this girl as well?” he asked.
“I’m not entirely sure.” The detective tucked the bag away again. “One of our colleagues in East Derbyshire removed that photograph from a brochure gathered as evidence in the raid last night. Now, there are two things that I’d really like to know. The first is why you happened to arrive at fifty-eight Cheviot, not for five thirty p.m. as you claim, but at eleven minutes past three.” He slapped a surveillance shot in front of Bashir but continued without pause. “The second is why your fingerprints were found on the photograph of this girl.”
He did pause then, sipping his water, an eyebrow raised. Bashir threw a wild glance at his solicitor, who shook her head.
“No comment,” Bashir said.
Eleanor muted the video feed as the solicitor demanded time to consult with her client.
“Got you, you little fucker,” she said.
*
Kneeling by her locker, Sanne arranged an extra sweater on top of everything else she’d packed in her bag, wedging it in like the last beach towel layered over holiday clothes.
“Crikey, how long are you planning on going for?” Nelson asked, the holiday analogy clearly on his mind as well.
“Eight hours, at the last count.” Her tongue poked out as she fastened the zip on an outside pocket. “But I might get cold or too hot, and we’ll definitely get hungry, so I’ve tried to cover all our bases.”
Nelson lifted his far smaller bag. “By packing for a week.”
“Naw.” She hefted the rucksack on one shoulder, almost tipped over, and quickly shoved her arm in the other strap. “I’ve left my pyjamas and my pillow at home.”
He laughed, setting off for the lift at a slow walk to allow for her heavier load. Fred saluted as they passed him, his desk buried under a pile of Cheviot Road paperwork. Sanne managed to exit without breaking into a trot, but she stabbed the lift button repeatedly, dreading a last-minute summons to waylay them or change their assignment, and she only began to relax once the doors glided shut and the EDSOP corridor disappeared.
“Thank goodness for that,” Nelson murmured, unconsciously echoing her sentiments. The shadows beneath his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept well, and he’d been subdued through the morning as they’d continued to process their allocation of evidence from the raid. Compared to that, eight hours of surveillance in an unheated Ford Transit with no toilet sounded like a plum gig.
Bright sunshine and a pool car that didn’t smell of stale farts or fags put further ticks in the bonus book. Not only had the car’s last occupants been hygienic, they’d even left toffees behind. With the bag of sweets primed on her lap, Sanne set her feet on the dash and turned the radio up, howling along to a song whose lyrics she half-improvised as Nelson shook his head in despair and accelerated toward the bypass.
“You’ll make it rain,” he said, undermining his warning by fishing for his sunglasses. She opened them for him and held them out.
“Not today,” she said, craning her neck to examine the sky. “It’s going to freeze hard tonight, and more snow’s forecast for tomorrow afternoon.”
“Great. Don’t suppose you’ve got blankets and hot water bottles in your luggage.”
“Nope,” she said, ignoring his dig. “You’ll
have to do star jumps if you get chilly.”
“A fourteen-stone black man bouncing around in the back of a Tranny van. I’m sure that wouldn’t attract anyone’s attention!”
She contorted herself into the footwell as she dropped her map. “Hey, if the van’s rockin’…”
“Exactly.” He slowed the car a touch. “You okay down there?”
“Yep, never better.” She wriggled back into the seat, the map fortuitously falling open to the right page. “Okay, Scotty said he’ll reverse into this side street for the changeover. We can leave our car there and nudge the van forward a tad until it’s back in position. I thought the damn thing might stick out like a sore thumb, but apparently there are so many crappy vans parked up around there that no one’s batted an eyelid so far.”
“But no one’s done anything remotely useful in terms of the case, either,” Nelson said.
She unwrapped him a sweet in an attempt to forestall any negativity. “We’ve only been watching the shop for—what? Twenty-four hours or so? Sadek seemed pretty savvy to me. If he is involved, he’s probably decided to lie low for a while.”
“I suppose that begs the question: why bother with the surveillance?”
“Well, he’s also a cocky little shit, which means there’s a chance he might slip up.” She chewed her toffee, enjoying it even more when it turned out to be banana flavoured. “And it lets us get away from our desks and spend this beautiful afternoon in the charming suburb of Sharcliffe.”
Nelson slammed on the brakes as the concept of a roundabout suddenly outwitted the driver in front. “If we ever get there,” he said through gritted teeth.
“If we ever get there.” She gave him another toffee, carefully selecting his favourite. “I think this might be treacle.”
“I knew there was a reason you were my best ever partner,” he said, his cheek bulging like a hamster’s.
“You won’t be saying that by eleven o’clock tonight. You’ll be turfing me out on the street and making me walk home.” Spotting the surveillance van on the corner, she began to scan the road for a parking space. The van had originally been impounded for lack of insurance, its rear doors proudly advertising “House Clearences. Any Job’s Big or Small.”
“Oh, the shame.” Nelson winced, the dodgy grammar distracting him from his parallel parking and forcing him to try again. “It’s a good thing we’re incognito.”
“Adds to the authenticity,” Sanne said, nodding at Scotty and Jay as they left the van and went to retrieve their car. From beneath the brim of the cap she’d just put on, she watched a lady walk by, her tartan shopping trolley fraying at the seams to reveal its load of bread and vegetables. The woman passed the van without giving it a second glance, clearing the way for Sanne and Nelson to make a move.
“Right-o,” Nelson said. “How do I look?”
Sanne tweaked the collar of his navy blue overall. Her outfit was identical, except that she’d had to turn up its legs and sleeves. “Like a man ready to collect a load of shite from someone’s house.”
“Splendid.”
Scotty had left the keys in the van’s ignition, half a packet of chocolate digestives and a puzzle book on the passenger seat, and a small kettle that could be plugged into the lighter.
“Very civilised,” Sanne said, overlooking the half-eaten Pot Noodle and trying to become accustomed to the tang of sweaty feet lingering in the back. “Jay’s had his bloody shoes off, hasn’t he?”
“Yep.” Nelson started the van and manoeuvred onto the street until the frontage of Sadek Foods could be observed via the side window.
“You’re fine there,” she called, preoccupied by her efforts to figure out the camera. She snapped a candid of Nelson and checked it in the viewer. “Not sure I got your best side.” She displayed a shot mostly featuring crotch and midriff.
“Annie Liebovitz must be quaking in her boots.” He held out his fist in the traditional rock-paper-scissors fashion. “Loser gets first watch,” he said, and cracked his knuckles.
*
“Noisy, confused situation.” Nelson chewed his pen, concentration creased into his brow. “Eight letters, starts with a B.”
“Boist—oh wait, no, that’s too many letters.” Keeping the shop in sight, Sanne stood and stretched her arms above her head. Her left leg tingled, the pins and needles in its foot making her stamp it. Six and a half hours into their stakeout, Sadek Foods was still busy, its customers unperturbed by the frost forming now that the sun had set. As the feeling returned to her foot, she aimed the camera through the tiny gap in the window covering and photographed a random male to recheck her settings. Despite the camera’s shoddy appearance, it worked well, compensating for the lack of daylight to produce a clear image. She blew on her fingers to warm them and put her gloves on.
“Third letter’s an L,” Nelson said, reminding her of her crossword duties.
“Bul…Bel…Bal…” She poured bottled water into the kettle, inspiration striking as she fixed its lid into place. “Ballyhoo? Bloody hell, that’s an arse of a clue.”
He whooped. “It fits, though, so I’m having it.”
The tea and coffee made, she passed him his mug and resumed her seat at the bench.
“‘Expected successor,’ four letters, ends with an R.” His breath clouded as he spoke, mingling with the steam from his brew to veil him in a pea-soup fog.
“Hmm,” she said, but her attention was focused on the window, not the clue. “They’re a little out of place around here. We’ll have them for posterity on the way out.”
“Who are we having?” he asked, wafting away the mist.
“Two white blokes. The only white blokes I’ve seen so far.”
He set his pen on his puzzle book. “There’s a Polish enclave a few streets out, isn’t there?”
“Yes, but they don’t tend to mix with the Pakistanis.”
“Maybe they’ve acquired a taste for the local cuisine.” He sipped his coffee, his eyes back on his crossword.
“Yeah, maybe.” From her job-related forays into Sharcliffe and from the local news coverage, Sanne knew that the recent Polish immigrants had opened their own speciality stores and church, and that their gradual encroachment into the Asian-dominated area was a source of growing tension. “It’s probably summat and nothing,” she conceded, though she readied the camera regardless.
Her brew went cold as she waited, an unpleasant layer of grease settling on its surface. “For fuck’s sake, what’s taking so long?” she muttered, and then swore again when the men reappeared, each carrying a laden shopping bag.
“Can’t win ’em all, San,” Nelson said, offering her a digestive.
“Bollocks.” She took their photo for the hell of it and lowered the camera as a woman in a niqab chivvied three young children across the street. She watched the woman sling a large box of nappies on top of her pram and slap the eldest child’s hand to stop him biting on an apple. He began to howl, his face distorted with indignation, and the woman pulled him inside the shop by one arm in the manner of put-upon mums everywhere.
Sanne nibbled her digestive, amazed to think how ignorant she’d been when she’d started her career as a response officer. Her first calls to ethnic minorities had left her so out of her depth that she’d put in hours of research to try to glean an understanding of the different religions and customs she might encounter on the job. She had barely scratched the surface, but at least she’d stopped offering Muslim witnesses refreshments during Ramadan.
“Y’know, Nelson, you’re the only black friend I’ve ever had,” she said, embarrassed enough to brush the crumbs from her knees so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “The council tried to move a Pakistani family onto Halshaw once, in the late eighties, and my dad thought it was the end of the world. He ranted on about it every bloody teatime and banned any of us from going down their street. He could’ve saved his air. They were moved straight off again when someone firebombed their house.”
“No
black kids at your school, then?”
“Nope, not a one. There were a few at my sixth-form college, but within the first fortnight someone kicked off a rumour that Meg and I were lesbians and told everyone we were from Halshaw, so most people left us alone. Which was fine, I suppose. Not having social lives meant we managed to get plenty of work done.” She raised her head and met Nelson’s eyes, remembering how crushed she’d felt when her hopes of turning a new leaf at college—away from the estate and the gang of girls who’d plagued her through school—had been obliterated. Nelson took a biscuit for himself and slid the packet in front of her.
“A boy at my school put a banana on my desk every Monday for a month,” he said. “He called it ‘Monkey Monday.’ The teacher knew, but she didn’t do a damn thing to stop it.”
“Fucking hell.”
Nelson shrugged, quite sanguine about his revelation. “Good thing I liked bananas, eh? I’d take them home, and my mum would put them with custard for me.”
Sanne broke the last digestive in two and gave him the bigger piece. “I think your mum would have got on well with mine.”
“Two very fine ladies,” he said. “Now, ‘Expected successor,’ four letters, ends with an R.”
“Heir.” She aimed the camera toward the window, framing a middle-aged Asian man in the viewer. “That bloke’s been in twice in the last hour. Think it means anything?”
“Probably means he forgot to get sugar,” Nelson said, refusing to engage with her conspiracy theory. “Or that he left his phone on the counter.”
“Aye, probably.” She checked the man’s photo against the mug shots Parry had provided, and then added it to her growing folder of people they would never be able to identify. With the novelty of the stakeout long faded and her back stiffening up again, she held the camera out to Nelson. “Come and take over here for me,” she said. “I’m going to do some sit-ups before I lose the feeling in my arse.”