by Linda Regan
While she waited for Melek to answer, she stood in her hallway and looked out the window to watch. Thirteen flights and no lift – she reckoned she had ten minutes.
Melek picked up.
‘How’s you?’ Alysha said coolly.
‘Who’s this?’
‘Queen AC. Just checking you out. Was worried for you. How’s the bastard that calls himself your man?’
‘You’ve got a nerve. You murdered Burak.’
‘Hey. This is a social call. No need for them accusations, girl. I just give him what he deserved, a thrashing. If he’s dead, then it’s cos he died, or someone else killed him.’
‘You shanked him, and he died.’
‘Listen, I rang you cos that girl got burnt up today, in between SLRs and my territory. Didn’t want no harm coming to you. I’m looking out for you, see. Cos I know you’ll come over to us, when you see the light. Do you know something about the burnt girl?’
Melek raised her voice in anger. ‘You’re a murdering whore. Zana Ghaziani was a sweet Muslim girl, nothing to do with SLR. Word is you killed her. I seen wiv my own eyes you torturing someone, so it’s like your work. So fuck off phoning me, you hear? I ain’t wiv you. Your days are numbered. SLR are gonna kill you all for what you done.
Alysha noticed Georgia Johnson and the fat fed walking along towards her flat. She hung up her phone, and smiled slyly. She had something. Melek had told her the burnt girl’s name. She hadn’t known that. Zana Ghaziani, she repeated to herself, a Muslim girl called Zana Ghaziani. Now she had something to sell to the feds.
She smiled again as the doorbell rang. Was Melek thinking she could scare her? That girl was a serious case of stupidity. How many of Harisha Celik’s pussy-arsed Turks thought they could take her on? Not only was she a better fighter, she was also much smarter. She had killed before, and she would do it again, if it meant protecting what she believed in. Melek, sounding so nervous, had to mean she knew the Alley Cats were a force to be scared of. That made Alysha smile again, and she was still smiling when she opened the door to Georgia and the fat one. She had something to tell them, and she’d make sure she got corn for it.
‘Got to be brief,’ she said checking around for prying eyes outside, before bringing Georgia and Stephanie inside and stopping in the hallway. ‘The burnt girl was Zana Ghaziani. Rumour is SLRs are responsible.’
‘Why? Why burn her?’ Georgia questioned.
Alysha shrugged, her brain turning fast. Why couldn’t they just give her money and slow the questions down? ‘Not hundred per cent sure of that, but for sure she had connections. My thoughts are that she was a girlfriend of one of them, and disobeyed gang rules. Harisha Celik is dangerous, cross him and he kills you.’ She opened her hand, ‘Which is why this is high-cost stuff. I’m in real danger here telling you all this stuff.’
‘You’ve got my number,’ Georgia said. ‘You can ring me any time.’
Alysha kept her hand held out.
Stephanie looked at Georgia and then back to Alysha. ‘Burak Kaya?’ Stephanie offered. ‘Was she perhaps his girl?’
Alysha nodded, not having a clue if the girl even knew Burak Kaya. ‘Could be that’s what got him killed, too. You know what Muslims are like over their daughters.’
‘You mean it could be the girl’s family, and not the SLR,’ Georgia questioned.
Alysha nodded. ‘S’pose, but SLRs are involved, that’s what I heard,’ she lied. ‘Maybe the family paid SLRs to kill them both. Harisha would do anything for corn.’ She rubbed her forefinger and thumb together, indicating it was time to get some paper payment herself.
Georgia handed her a twenty.
‘Got to be worth more?’ she said, snatching the note.
‘We already have her handbag with her name and address on it, so we knew who she was.’
‘You weren’t sure though, or else you wouldn’t have asked,’ Alysha said with a knowing smile. ‘And now you are.’
‘And now we are,’ Georgia mimicked. She looked around, obviously waiting to be asked into the lounge, but Alysha stayed leaning against the wall in the hall, not offering the usual cup of tea.
‘I need more on her,’ Georgia said to her. ‘If you want more money, ask around for me. Find out everything about her. Who she knew, who she hung out with, who she was definitely sleeping with. We’ll be back.’
‘I told you, I heard it was SLR responsibility,’ Alysha reminded her.
‘I need to know more,’ Georgia pushed. ‘I need to know who she was currently sleeping with, and hanging out with, and who she fell out with.’ Georgia handed her the twenty pounds, and as she turned towards the door, she said, ‘We’ll be back.’
‘I’m risking my arse for this,’ Alysha said as the two feds headed out her door.
‘You’ve got my number,’ Georgia said turning back and pinning her eyes on her. ‘Keep in touch.’
Stephanie waited until they reached the stairs to speak. ‘I’ve had a text from PC Bevan, family liaison officer at the Ghazianis’. The parents have identified the shoe, and the remnants of material stuck to the body, as well as the hijab in the bag. That’s three confirmations. Can’t get surer than that. The corpse was Zana Ghaziani.’
‘And we now know that she hung around with the SLR gang,’ Georgia said with a nod.
‘And, likely, Burak Kaya,’ Stephanie nodded. ‘Who was also murdered.’
‘I think we can be sure that this is connected to our case,’ Georgia agreed.
‘And Alison Grainger’s,’ Stephanie added.
‘And I think you’re right, she isn’t quite ready to work on a burns murder yet,’ Georgia said with a raise of her well-groomed eyebrows.
‘Shame,’ Stephanie said. ‘I’ll phone the info to the DCI. Shall we grab a takeaway?’
Georgia nodded. ‘Good idea. First we’ll pay a visit to Mr and Mrs Ghaziani.’
The Ghaziani family lived in an affluent part of Camberwell. The houses in the street were mainly Victorian, tall and elegant, and most were set back from the road behind well-tended front gardens. Georgia noticed the panda car parked outside the house as she and Stephanie reversed into a space a few yards down the road.
‘At least we don’t have to break the news,’ Georgia said, speaking half to herself.
‘Sympathy isn’t a necessary qualification for being a good detective,’ Stephanie told her. She was stabbing numbers into her mobile. She had a brief conversation and then clicked off.
‘PC Bevan is in there,’ she told Georgia. ‘She says both the parents are there. ’
‘Good,’ Georgia nodded.
As they made their way around the two cars in the driveway, Georgia put her hand on the bonnet of each to test for warmth. One was a black Volkswagen Golf, and the other a green Ford van. She shook her head. ‘Neither has been driven too recently,’ she said to Stephanie, who made a note.
Georgia then took in the house and large front garden. ‘Doesn’t look like finances are a problem here,’ she said. ‘Do we know what they do?’
‘Bevan said they own the dry cleaners in the row of shops at the bottom of the hill.’ As she rang the doorbell she said quietly, ‘There’s a brother, but no other daughters.’
Georgia had the sleeves on her black leather coat pulled up her arm and was rubbing disinfectant hand gel over her hands and in between her fingers. She slipped the tube back in her pocket just as the front door opened.
The mother was timid, but on her guard. Her greying dark hair was mostly hidden under a clay-coloured scarf edged with flowers. A coffee-coloured sarong adorned her body and hung loosely down to her sandaled feet. Georgia put her age down as mid-thirties, young to have two children that old, but she knew Muslim women sometimes married very young. The slight hunch in this woman’s back implied she was older, but her hands and perfect skin told another story. The father stood behind his wife. He towered over her, had an angry face and a beak-like nose. Georgia was immediately reminded of a crow.
Sh
e and Stephanie held up their ID cards.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ Stephanie said sincerely, ‘but I’m afraid we need to ask you some questions.’
PC Bevan stood in the hall as they stepped into the house. Georgia caught her eye, and tilted her head to the side. Bevan immediately showed them into a room, excused herself, and left.
The room was large but cluttered. Cardboard boxes of clothes filled up one side of the room, and too many chair throws in various brightly coloured patterns were scattered across the furniture. Much to her relief the woman didn’t offer them tea or coffee.
‘Where was your daughter going today?’ she asked the mother.
The father answered. ‘To visit the library was what she told us. She was studying for exams. She was taking her A-levels. She had ideas on going to university.’
Stephanie took out her notebook and started taking notes.
‘We knew she was seeing someone,’ the father then added with a shake of his head. Before Georgia had the chance to ask how, he said, ‘She didn’t tell us, but we knew.’
‘She was forbidden to have boyfriends,’ the mother said. ‘When the time came we would choose for her.’ She looked at her husband, and then shook her head, ‘She disobeyed our wishes and now she has been punished for it.’
The father put his hand up to hush his wife. She became silent.
‘Do you have any idea who she was seeing?’ Stephanie asked her.
The mother shook her head.
‘But you know she was seeing someone. And that he wasn’t Muslim?’ Stephanie pushed.
The woman turned to her husband.
‘Mrs Ghaziani, we need your help to find your daughter’s killer,’ Georgia interrupted. She raised her voice and her tone hardened. ‘We need to know who she was seeing.’
‘We don’t know,’ the father raised his voice back. ‘But we do know she was disobedient, she brought shame to her family, and has been punished.’
Stephanie ignored his tone. ‘What about at school? Other kids in her class? Do you know who she hung around with? She must have been influenced by them.’
‘Oh, she was,’ the father said, at exactly the same time that the mother said, ‘She has brought shame on this family. I am not sorry for her.’
‘She was burnt alive,’ Stephanie reminded her.
The mother shifted uncomfortably, but neither answered.
‘Did you know her friends from school?’ Georgia asked.
The father shook his head, then lowered his gaze, then his bird-like head.
‘Well, outside school then?’ Stephanie pushed. ‘Who did she hang out with?’
‘Her brother, Wajdi,’ the mother said quickly. ‘He is a year older. He looked after her. He would know more, but he isn’t in, so I’m afraid …’
‘Where is he?’ Georgia cut in.
‘He has gone to pray.’
When will he be back?’
‘I’ve no idea, but he will be back.’ The mother was looking at her husband again. She looked back at Georgia and then, very cautiously, she said, ‘There is a Turkish girl who she had been friendly with. They were at school together, but then this Melek left. We had forbidden Zana to see her.’ She shook her head. ‘She is a bad girl. She would have led Zana astray.’
‘Melek? Do you know her last name?’ Stephanie asked scribbling in her notebook.
The woman looked to her husband, who had turned his head away. She looked back to Georgia. ‘Melek Yismaz. Detective, we must have our daughter’s body back. We need to bury her. Enough disgrace has been brought to us, now we must bury her, and move on.’
Georgia stared at her. Even with her own incapacity to feel sympathy, this woman amazed her. This was a mother, a mother whose daughter had just suffered an agonising and terrible death, and the woman was only interested in guarding the family reputation.
‘We will let you know when we can release the remains of your daughter,’ she said studying the mother closely as she spoke. ‘There has to be a post-mortem first, and a lot of tests.’
‘Still …’
‘This is a murder case,’ Georgia raised her voice and cut her off, ‘When the pathologist is satisfied he has finished his tests, we will release Zana for you, but I’m afraid until then, it won’t be possible.’
The parents exchanged glances. ‘When will that be?’ the father asked.
Georgia turned from the fearful eyes of the mother to the hard, cold, piercing dark eyes of the father, ‘As yet, I have no idea. When we know, then you will know.’
They both stared at her.
‘I’m sure you will want us to find the person responsible for this,’ Stephanie said to them. ‘And we are relying on your full cooperation to help us.’
‘She brought the family into disrepute,’ the father said. ‘She did it to herself, out of shame.’
‘You think she set fire to herself?’ Stephanie said.
‘Yes.’
‘How was she when you last saw her?’ Georgia asked.
‘Ashamed,’ the mother answered. ‘Her brother caught her without her hijab. She was wearing lipstick and high heels, standing on a corner talking to that whore Melek Yismaz.’
‘Go on,’ Georgia pushed.
‘Wajdi was furious. He told her to wipe her mouth and to put her hijab back on and show respect. She said she was sorry, and was going to the library to work.’
‘And he believed her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dressed in high heels and lipstick?’
‘She didn’t leave home like that.’ The father’s tone was becoming angry again.
‘We’re going to wait here for your son to come back,’ Georgia told them ‘Meanwhile, I would like to take a look at Zana’s laptop.’
The parents exchanged a look.
‘I’m sure, as a student, she had a laptop,’ Georgia pushed. ‘I would like to see it, please.’
The anxiety etched across the mother’s face didn’t go unnoticed by either Georgia or Stephanie.
Alison Grainger was trying, unsuccessfully, to unscrew the top from a bottle of sparkling mineral water. She was sitting opposite DCI Banham, in his office.
Banham was watching her. He was considering how best to go about handling her. He knew not to offer to help with the bottle. She was a fiercely independent woman with a fiery temper, which he had too often been on the wrong end of. All the warning signs were there now. Her nose had started twitching as she tried and failed to loosen the top. She reminded him of a cross squirrel. When he had once told her that, only in fun, she had really gone off on one, told him he didn’t have the first idea how to romance a girl. He had never said it again. Right now he could see that squirrel. Like she was trying, and failing, to get through the wire of a bird feeder, to get to the nuts.
Paul Banham had been in love with Alison Grainger for years, since they had worked closely together on so many jobs when he was a DI and she a sergeant. She had kept him at a distance; although they’d had a short fling, she had immediately regretted it, told him it was a mistake and to pretend it never happened. For him it had meant everything, but he accepted the rejection, and carried on as if it hadn’t happened. Then, when a close colleague had been trapped in a fire and died, the affair had restarted. He felt she had turned to him for comfort, but he was happy to accept that. Then the affair intensified, and had now been going on for a couple of years. He wanted nothing more than to be with her at every given moment. After his young wife and their eleven-month-old baby had been murdered, fourteen years ago, Banham had believed that he could never be happy again. Being with Alison had changed all that, although he wouldn’t dare tell her. She constantly told him to take things one day at a time, and he had learned from experience that one riled DI Alison Grainger at your own peril.
Right this minute, looking at her sitting opposite him, fighting with the bottle of water, he knew well enough that it was herself she was angry with, for fainting at the burned cadaver earlier.
As well as being her lover, he was also her superior officer, and it was his job to make reports on her progress to the powers that be, and, if necessary to recommend if she needed more time off, but he also knew doing that would be walking on eggshells.
He waited till she had won the battle with the lid of the water bottle.
‘How do you feel?’ he asked tenderly.
‘A little better.’ She swigged from the open bottle and put it down on the desk.
His concerned blue eyes pierced into her. ‘You aren’t the first officer to faint at a murder scene,’ he told her gently. ‘Fireman still do it, all the time, and I still throw up at post-mortems. People tease me about it behind my back, but I’ve got broad shoulders. My real concern is, how are you really feeling?’
‘I told you, I’m fine, now.’
He didn’t agree. He thought she looked pale and tired, but he didn’t dare tell her that. ‘You know I love you.’
‘Is this about me fainting, or are you going to propose to me again? You know I’m not the marrying type.’
He shook his head. ‘No, I won’t propose again, but I care about you. That’s allowed, isn’t it?’
Tears suddenly filled her eyes and ran down her face like out-of-control mice. She covered her face with her hands.
He immediately leaned across the desk and held her hands. ‘It’s all right,’ he whispered. ‘Did it all come flooding back this morning, with the fire?’
She shook her head, sniffed, and then lifted her face to look at him. ‘No,’ she said shaking her head. ‘It’s my hormones, they are all over the place. I’m pregnant.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t ask me to repeat it.’ She stared back at him. ‘I didn’t mean it to happen.’
He looked at her. ‘It is mine, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, of course it’s yours!’
‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘Because I’ve only just found out. I did a test, last week, and I was waiting for the right time.’
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Slowly, it was sinking in. He was going to have a chance to be a father again. A lump was forming in his throat. He really hoped she wasn’t going to say that she couldn’t cope with it.