Dead Reckoning

by Patricia Hall

  “You should still be out there on the bloody doorstep, not back here whinging,” he exclaimed. “When I was your age I once doorstepped some dodgy trader for a day and a night without a break in pouring rain — and Annie Freeman — you won’t remember her but she was a famous singer in her day - I was outside her fancy pad in Mayfair for three days looking for a quote when her boyfriend topped himself. You don’t know what getting a story’s all about, you youngsters.”

  “Well, if you give me a nice waterproof tent I’ll go and camp out on the Earnshaws’ front lawn,” Laura said. “But I don’t think it’ll do you any good. They’ve closed up as tight as clams, and with all this violence going on with the union, I’m not surprised. Letting on they’re definitely planning to close the place down will be like pouring petrol on the flames.”

  “Aye, well, we’ll have to run with what we’ve got. Call it discussions instead of a plan, summat of that sort, if they won’t confirm or deny. We’ve got more than enough evidence for that. We’ll lead with it on Monday. It’s not the sort of thing we want to be bothering with on a Saturday with the big match on for United. We’ll leave the sports lads the front page tomorrow.”

  “You’re the editor,” Laura said.

  “Aye, and don’t you forget it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  DC Mohammed Sharif, dressed in white shalwar kameez under his navy anorak, and with a lace cap clinging slightly precariously to his short cropped hair, stood outside the Aysgarth Lane mosque after Friday prayers watching the small groups of men wriggling their feet into their shoes and following him out. The Punjabi conversation was animated, and amongst more than one group, obviously angry. Sharif still regarded himself as very much part of this community and yet he was acutely aware that his job as well as his flat on the other side of town placed him apart. Some of the anger swirling around Aysgarth Lane — with its network of tightly packed Asian streets, and Pakistani butchers and groceries which served as meeting points for the many men who wanted to keep abreast of events — would be shared with a detective, but much of it would not. He watched a group of young bearded men gesticulating wildly a little further down the street. He could almost guess what they were saying, but if he went any closer he knew that the conversation would stop and wary glances would flicker in his direction from under hooded eyes. Two white men had been attacked on the Heights estate the previous night and Sharif guessed that there were youths here who knew who had wielded those baseball bats, even if they had not done so themselves. But an almost Sicilian omerta ruled. He would never be told. And if he would not, then the chances of any white police officer infiltrating the gangs, criminal or religious, which had sprung up within the community recently, were minimal.

  What he was hoping to glean from his unaccustomed observances at the mosque that morning was the latest gossip about the murderous attack on the union official, Mohammed Iqbal, who was still lying in a coma in the Infirmary. Nothing so far had linked the assault to Ricky Pickles and his racist friends in the British Patriotic Party, even though Sharif had now established, to his mind much too late in the day, that the motorbike frequently parked at the back of the BPP offices belonged to Pickles himself. But no hint of a recognisable registration number had emerged from witnesses to the attack on Iqbal by the heavily leathered bike-riders, and Pickles had provided what looked like a solid alibi at the relevant time, not with an auntie in Harrogate but at a garage on the other side of town, just as DCI Thackeray had predicted he would. Sharif’s schedule for the day included an unauthorised and surreptitious snoop around that garage too.

  But before he could insinuate himself casually into the group of men he knew were union associates of Iqbal’s, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “We don’t often see you here for prayers,” Sayeed Khan said softly. “Perhaps you’re like me? Living away but felt a bit of solidarity was called for?”

  “I’m still trying to get a lead on the pigs who almost killed Mohammed Iqbal,” Sharif told the solicitor with a shrug.

  “No progress there then?”

  Sharif shook his head.

  “Nor with the kids who attacked the Malik girl,” he said. “If this goes on we’re going to have to persuade people to be more watchful up here. You’d think someone would have got a number from one of the bikes.”

  “Most of the time people feel safe enough,” Khan said. “That’s why they live here and are so reluctant to move out. I know what it’s like. We were the first Muslim family to move into suburban Eckersley. People didn’t like it. You feel exposed if you’re on your own, in the street, at school — praying instead of drinking, being different in ways which irritate people, making them feel it’s a reflection on their morals and way of life.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Sharif who knew all about exposure in a largely white organisation, but Khan shook his head angrily.

  “But it won’t do, will it, in the long run? We have to get closer. We can’t go on living parallel lives. And there’s no sense in clinging onto the security blanket of Muslim areas if people aren’t even aware enough to notice when they’re being attacked. Rather defeats the object, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t live up here any more either,” Sharif said. “But to be fair, the bikers and the muggers seem to have been well covered up. They’re not stupid, whoever they are.”

  “Oh no, they’re not stupid,” Khan agreed. “And what worries me is how well-funded they seem to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ricky Pickles doesn’t get onto the council in the next elections. He’s making a big thing about his publicity, getting quoted in the Gazette, sounding reasonable though I shouldn’t think for a moment he’s changed his spots.”

  “We’ll have to make sure we lock him up first,” Sharif said, only half joking.

  Khan glanced around at the lingering worshippers and drew Sharif away slightly so that they could not be overheard.

  “There’s one thing you can do for me,” he said. “We’ve still heard nothing from Saira. Have you made any progress in tracing her?”

  Sharif shrugged.

  “You know I can’t tell you about on-going investigations …”

  “This is my sister we’re talking about,” Sayeed Khan whispered angrily. “There is talk in the community. My family is frantic with worry. My father’s threatening to use informal channels to try to find her and you know what that means. I don’t want that. It’s very dangerous for Saira. I really need to know what’s going on.”

  “DCI Thackeray …”

  “ …will tell me nothing,” Khan interrupted again sharply. “But you could. You owe the community that at least.”

  “From what I hear there’ll be no love lost between Saira and the rest of the community now,” Sharif objected. “The further away from Aysgarth she’s gone the safer she’ll be, I reckon.”

  “And you think that’s right? A young unmarried woman?”

  “You know the law, Mr. Khan. She’s a free agent. She can do what she chooses to do, and nothing you or I might think about her morals has any bearing on anything.”

  Khan’s face darkened in anger but Sharif stood his ground, aware of other eyes watching the exchange between him and the solicitor. Suddenly Khan seemed to come to some conclusion.

  “It might be different, if I could tell you something of interest in return, perhaps?”

  “Like what?” Sharif asked cautiously.

  “Like give you a lead to Iqbal’s attackers.”

  “And how could you do that?” Sharif asked. “And why wouldn’t you come forward with that information anyway. As a lawyer?”

  “Because I heard it in confidence, as a lawyer,” Khan said so quietly that Sharif could hardly hear him. “I was duty solicitor the other night, and picked up a client who really didn’t want a ‘Paki’ brief but he had to put up with it or do without. He let something slip that might be relevant to your inquiries — and earn you some credit with Mr. Thackeray.”

  “OK,” Sh
arif said. “It’s a deal. Not that I can tell you much about Saira, because there’s not much to tell that you don’t know already. But we’ve confirmed that she was having a relationship with Simon Earnshaw.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Her fingerprints are all over the flat. Her voice is on the answerphone. Her friends identified it. There’s no doubt.”

  Khan groaned slightly at that.

  “So where is she now?” he asked.

  “We have no idea,” Sharif said. “She’s not been seen since his body was found. And according to our latest information we suspect she might have gone abroad.”

  “Abroad?” Sayeed Khan was evidently stunned by that. “Does that mean you think she killed this Earnshaw fellow? Is she a suspect? Are you going to Interpol and all that stuff to find her?”

  “Let’s just say that DCI Thackeray is very anxious to have her help us with our inquiries,” Sharif said quite formally, aware that if he said much more he would almost certainly unleash a fury in the Muslim community that might be difficult to contain. The Khan family might be liberal in the way that they had educated their daughters but he could see from Sayeed’s expression that there might well be limits to their tolerance.

  “Don’t let your father do anything stupid about Saira,” he said.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Khan said.

  “You’re a lawyer. Leave it to the law,” Sharif came back sharply. “You do know what I mean.”

  “I love my sister,” Khan muttered. “But this …?” He was obviously stunned by what Sharif had told him.

  “So what can you tell me about this client of yours?” Sharif changed the subject quickly. “What makes you think he might be involved in the attacks on the textile workers’ union?”

  “Talk to him yourselves,” Khan said, his voice thick with emotion. “You took him in after a fight outside the Grenadier pub last evening. You know there was some trouble on the Heights last night. Not content with his fists, he’d hit someone with an iron bar. But what seemed to be bothering him more than anything when I spoke to him was that his motorbike had been damaged in the mayhem, and no one seemed to know what had happened to it. It was a large powerful Kawasaki. A coincidence maybe, but one you might like to investigate, Detective Constable. It wouldn’t do your reputation any harm, would it, either up here with your brothers or down there with your boss?”

  Sharif shivered and pulled his jacket tighter around himself. The line he walked had never seemed fainter and more difficult to follow. Khan turned away dismissively to join another group and Sharif glanced around for the Earnshaws workers he had been seeking but they seemed to have drifted away. Yet the gesticulating bearded youths were still there, and he noticed that one of them had a heavily bandaged hand. He walked over to them slowly and, as he expected, the conversation petered out and he was faced with a sullen silence and half-a-dozen pairs of deeply suspicious dark eyes. He greeted them in Punjabi.

  “I hear some of our people went up to the Heights last night,” he said conversationally. “It’s not my job to track down people looking for a fight, though my uniformed friends might be trying to find out who they were. What I’m concentrating on is much more important and that’s the people who come up here looking for much worse. People throwing acid at our children, people on motorbikes thrashing our brothers almost to death. You know the sort of people.”

  The silence continued though one of the young men spat in the gutter and Sharif thought the unfriendly eyes became just marginally less unfriendly. He was, he guessed, pressing the right buttons though not hard enough yet.

  “One of the thugs who uses the Grenadier is complaining that his motorbike has been stolen,” he said. “Pity that, because it just might be one of the bikes that came up here when Mohammed Iqbal was attacked. It might give us some forensic evidence …” He wondered if he imagined the faintest flicker of interest in one pair of eyes but still the young men said nothing.

  “Iqbal is still in a coma,” he said. “The doctors aren’t hopeful he’ll recover.” He said no more, hoping his words would ease open a crack in the young men’s hostility, but still no one spoke and the silence lengthened. Eventually he shrugged.

  “We need something on the bikes. We need something on the men riding them. We need forensic evidence,” he said. “This may turn into a murder inquiry and if it does I won’t be asking for information nicely; my bosses will be up here demanding it. And so will everyone who lives up here and works at Earnshaws and is furious at what’s happened to Iqbal. You may think you can deal with this yourselves, but you’re wrong. So get in touch, why don’t you, when you’ve anything to tell me. You know where to find me.”

  Sharif turned on his heel and walked quickly back to his car. When he glanced back as he unlocked the driver’s door the group of young men had disappeared into the side streets leading up the hill to the mill.

  “Stupid idiots,” he said to himself in English. “Stupid, stupid idiots.”

  Kevin Mower was surprised at how curtly DCI Thackeray greeted the two men who were already sitting in the largest of the police headquarters’ interview rooms that afternoon. He was very aware that Thackeray knew both of them well enough to offer more than the nod he gave Jack Ackroyd and his solicitor, who turned out to be Victor Mendelson, the doyen of legal practice in Bradfield and the father of one of Thackeray’s closest friends. Both men were formally dressed in dark suits and silk ties, both responded only minimally to the DCI’s greeting.

  “Thank you for coming,” Thackeray said as he let Mower and DC Val Ridley settle themselves on the other side of the table. “I think you probably know why I asked you to come in and the sort of questions I need answered to assist my inquiries into the murder of Simon Earnshaw. But I won’t be staying myself while you talk.”

  Jack Ackroyd raised an eyebrow.

  “Too close to home, lad?”

  “Victor would have every reason to object,” Thackeray said, and Mendelson nodded imperceptibly in agreement.

  “There is such a thing as commercial confidentiality, you know,” Ackroyd offered, aiming the remark at no one in particular but evidently very angry beneath the apparently urbane facade.

  “I’m sure there is,” Thackeray said. “But there’s no confidentiality at all when a young man’s lying dead and no one is willing to discuss what the motive behind his killing might be. That comes close to obstructing the police, Jack, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be involved in anything like that.” And with that he turned and left the four of them, closing the door very carefully behind him.

  Sergeant Mower glanced down at the file he had opened on the table in front of him which contained little more than the list of questions which he and Thackeray had decided needed answering the night before. He drummed his fingers briefly on the papers before meeting Ackroyd’s deeply suspicious blue eyes and offering him what he hoped was a disarming smile.

  “Tell me about your relationship with Frank Earnshaw, sir,” he said. “I’m told you and he go way back.”

  Ackroyd shrugged.

  “Nothing secret about that, but there’s not much to tell. In the early seventies when I was setting up in business on my own I rented accommodation at the mill from the Earnshaws. They were running at less than full capacity even then. There was a bit of a recession on and of course it got worse with the three day week and all that crap. Nearly finished me off before I’d barely got started, Ted Heath did. Any road, Frank and I got on well enough. Had the odd meal together, played a bit of golf, that sort of thing. Then when my business took off I moved into bigger premises and I saw less of Frank after that. We were both busy — him trying to survive, me expanding as fast as I could, both with young families — you know how it is? I was onto a winner in plastics at the time, he was in a dying industry even then. No contest. I suppose he resented it. Who wouldn’t?”

  “So the friendship lapsed?”

  “You could say that, aye. It lapsed.”


  “And when exactly did your interest in Earnshaws’ fortunes revive?”

  “Six months ago. Summat like that. I’ve still got investments in this country and contacts in Bradfield. I got a call from a friend in the City who said he’d heard that Firoz Kamal, who’s got connections in Yorkshire like I have, was looking to get hold of the Earnshaws site for redevelopment and might find my local knowledge useful. To cut a long story short, we cut a deal, the three of us, and we’ve been working on the Earnshaw family ever since. We need — or needed, until Simon was killed — agreement with three of them for a buy-out.”

  “And did you get it?” Mower asked sharply.

  “We thought we had up till a week or so ago. And then Simon began to get a bit iffy. Tried to push the price up. I was surprised, to be honest. My impression was that it was the other brother who might stick and try to up the ante. By all accounts he’s up the creek financially, but he seemed to be going for the quick sale at any price last time I spoke to him. Seemed a bit desperate. Simon was the one who’d decided to play hard to get. Bloody annoying. I had to go running down to London to see our backers and tell them we weren’t likely to get an agreement this week as I’d anticipated.”

  “But you still thought you could close the deal?”

  “Oh, aye,” Ackroyd said expansively. “I think we could have gone high enough to satisfy young Simon. But you don’t want to give that impression too soon, do you, when you’re having a bit of a haggle? Make them think they might not get owt at all, and then they generally come running back to settle, in my experience.”