Enough Rope: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery)

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘What was he wearing?’.

  ‘Shorts, trainers, a T-shirt. He took his blue rucksack, which I thought at the time was a bit big just for his swimming things and a towel. But then afterwards I discovered that he must’ve taken his Apple.’

  ‘Apple computer?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry, a MacBook.’

  ‘Does Harry watch porn? I have to ask. In some abduction cases youngsters have been tempted out to places they wouldn’t normally go by the promise of sex.’

  ‘I’ve caught him once,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t what I’d call extreme stuff. Some bondage. What boy of his age hasn’t looked at images like that these days?’

  She had a point, but Lee knew not to trust what Tina Wilton thought she knew. What kids could access online, often with very few mouse clicks, was terrifying. He’d seen it and wished he hadn’t. What had Harry Venus and his friends seen?

  ‘Do you know how long it takes Harry to cycle to George’s house?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not long. It’s only five miles. Dr Grogan called me just after midday, expressing his concern. He said that George had called Harry’s mobile, but it had gone to voicemail.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I tried to call, but I just got voicemail. Then they phoned.’

  ‘The kidnappers.’

  ‘A voice, electronic.’ She shuddered. ‘Like Stephen Hawking. Obviously disguised. Said they had Harry and that they’d be telling us how we could get him back soon. They knew Paul. They were very specific. No using his police contacts to try and free our son, or they’d kill him. No telling anyone what was happening. I called my husband immediately.’

  ‘You didn’t think it was a prank?’

  ‘Why would I? You can see for yourself that we have money. I’m a D-list “celebrity”’ – she raised her fingers to represent speech marks. ‘Paul’s a prominent police superintendent. We are the sort of people who get targeted by lunatics and criminals wanting to make money out of us. Years ago, back in the eighties, I was stalked. We kept it quiet. The poor man was mentally ill, but these people who have Harry want a hundred thousand pounds.’

  Which was not, Lee thought, a lot in the scheme of things. Venus’s Islington flat was probably worth five times that amount.

  ‘Paul came straight here,’ she continued. ‘He followed Harry’s route. Looked in every lane and driveway from here to Twyford, went to the railway station searching for signs of Harry. But there weren’t any. Not his bike, his rucksack, nothing.’

  ‘What did you tell George and his parents?’ Lee asked.

  ‘We had to make something up.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Paul came up with the story. Harry had gone to see a girl and then he’d come home before going to stay with my mother in Malta. She really does live in Malta, but the girl was complete fiction. Harry’s never been out with a girl. I don’t know whether George believed that. I suspect that he didn’t, but it satisfied his parents.’

  ‘Have you spoken to George, Miss Wilton?’

  ‘How can I?’ She put one cigarette out and lit another. ‘We can’t tell anyone. And what’s the point? Harry didn’t arrive at George’s house, so what would he know?’

  Lee knew that George could potentially know a lot. Harry was bright, privileged, and he had to have some feelings about the way his parents lived and how that had affected him over the years, feelings he might have shared with his friends. The story Venus and Wilton told was based on the notion of a boy, his bike and a large rucksack disappearing into thin air. That wasn’t possible. Maybe it was easier for a boy to ‘disappear’ in sedate, posh Henley than it was in Newham, where everyone lived crammed up against everyone else. But it wasn’t likely. If Harry had been abducted, especially if that had happened on the main road from Henley to Twyford, then someone must have seen something. It had been the middle of the day. But Lee couldn’t talk to anyone . . .

  ‘Anyway, George has gone away for the holidays now,’ Tina Wilton said.

  All he could do was look again at the route Harry had taken, or probably taken, towards Twyford and stare at George’s house from a distance. It wasn’t much and, apart from having spoken to Tina Wilton, Lee felt that he was spending Venus’s money poorly. Until the drop on Monday there was little he could do.

  ‘If anything happens to Harry I won’t be able to carry on,’ Tina Wilton said. She stared out at the sunlit river again. ‘I won’t want to.’

  Lee had glanced at the faded scars on her wrists and arms when they’d shaken hands. Now he looked away in case he fixated on them again.

  After a pause she said, ‘There is one person you can talk to: Harry’s housemaster, Mr McCullough.’

  ‘Does he know?’

  ‘No. Although I imagine he suspects that something’s wrong,’ she said. ‘I told him that Paul has put surveillance on Harry and would he mind talking to the investigator assigned to the job. He didn’t ask any questions, but he’s no fool. I’ll speak to him and then let you have his details.’

  *

  ‘Hello Chronus, how are you?’

  Mumtaz put a handful of seed in the mynah bird’s food hopper and then gave him a piece of carrot and a piece of pineapple. He looked up at her with annoyance in his eyes rather than gratitude. She wasn’t Lee and so he was pissed off. Thoroughly spoilt, Chronus was, she always felt, the son that Lee had never had. Constantly vocal on the subject of West Ham, he was probably better company for Lee than his daughter. Mumtaz had only ever met Jody Arnold once, but she struck her as a bit of a madam. A year younger than Shazia, Jody lived with Lee’s ex-wife in Hastings where, it seemed to Mumtaz, she busied herself almost exclusively with shopping and fake tans. Obviously Lee loved her, there were photos of Jody all over the flat, but whenever they spent time together he seemed stressed. Maybe it was being dragged around high-end shops?

  Mumtaz’s phone rang. She looked at the screen and then turned it off. Naz Sheikh.

  ‘I know what he wants,’ she said to Chronus. The bird looked at her with a little more sympathy than before.

  She sat down in one of Lee’s immaculately polished leather chairs. As well as money, the Sheikhs now wanted information. They knew how close she was to DI Violet Collins and how well known she was up at Forest Gate nick. Everyone knew Mumtaz. Tongues might loosen around her and it was always useful to the Sheikhs to know what the coppers were doing.

  Mumtaz had no intention of telling them anything. A strategy that would work until the police inevitably raided one of the family’s slum lets or brothels. Then they’d probably give her the kicking of her life. Or harm Shazia. That was always a threat that was held over her head and it was, she knew, her one Achilles heel. Once the girl was off to university, Mumtaz knew she’d finally be safe. Until then she had to play the game. But not today.

  She looked at the blank-faced phone and put it in her pocket.

  *

  The public bar of the Flowerpot had a different atmosphere in the evening. Still largely patronised by locals, it was dark and conversation was generally muted. Drinking was serious and laughter, though rare, was loud and genuine. In spite of the entirely on-trend taxidermy, it was mercifully free of braying incomers clad in designer suits, tweed or ‘quirky’ casual wear.

  During his travels around the area, Lee had come across a very firm divide between older locals with Oxfordshire/Berkshire accents and younger people who spoke more like incomers from London, and people who had moved there. The older locals, and many of the youngsters, while living in cottages that were probably worth more than they would ever earn in their lives, struggled to make ends meet. The newcomers, who had chosen to live in the area, were very comfortable, thank you. Their place was the big modern saloon bar where they gathered straight from golf courses or for post-river cruise drinkies.

  An old bloke in a stained boiler suit had asked Lee where he was from when he’d first arrived. Lee had said, ‘London,’ and then added, ‘Don’t worry I’m n
ot moving in. I’m skint.’ That had caused a ripple of laughter. Then they’d ignored him, but they also talked freely in his presence.

  ‘The house next door sold,’ the old bloke said.

  ‘Ah.’

  The others, three of them, were elderly working men, probably gardeners, given the smell of grass that came off their clothes.

  He carried on. ‘Gone to that tit up the road’s boy.’

  ‘What, old Ferrari?’

  ‘That’s it. Kid’s only just left university. The missus . . .’

  ‘With the Land Rover Evoque?’

  ‘Yup. She tells me he got a job up the City in some finance firm.’ He paused for a moment, then he said, ‘He’ll move on in time, I expect. He’s young, he’ll be wanting some flat in Kensington or somewhere.’

  One of the other blokes nodded. ‘Then some other tosser’ll move in,’ he said, and they all laughed.

  Harry Venus and his mate George were well-heeled ‘tossers’ of that kind. Tina Wilton had given Lee the names and addresses of Harry’s two other local friends. Not Reeds boys, but they lived in houses called ‘Riverbank’ and ‘The Boater’. There was his housemaster at school too, Mr McCullough, but he lived in a house with a number, which made Lee think that he must be more downmarket.

  In the morning he’d cruise around and look at these places, then he had an interview with McCullough at ten.

  Lee’s phoned beeped. A text from Mumtaz telling him that Chronus had been fed. He smiled.

  3

  He opened the door to the safe as his front door closed. The girl had given him some relief, but Paul Venus was still nervous. He took the briefcase out of the safe and counted the money again. It was all still there. Why wouldn’t it be?

  His behaviour was paranoid, but was it surprising? Some greedy, evil bastards had his son and until he got him back he was going to be on edge. Tina hadn’t helped. How could she taunt him with how good-looking she thought Lee Arnold had been at a time like this?

  She’d said, ‘He was very thorough, your Mr Arnold. Rather easy on the eye too, I thought.’

  What did she care about Lee Arnold? Bitch. If it hadn’t been for Harry, Paul would have divorced her ten years ago. Maybe longer. They hadn’t touched each other for years and yet she still felt the need to hurt him. It was more than he felt for her. If she hadn’t denied him his share of what they had both built up over the years, he wouldn’t have had to resort to things that made him squirm when he thought about them.

  His landline rang. Paul Venus closed his eyes for a moment before he answered. ‘Yes?’

  ‘So, how was little Sasha?’

  The voice was foreign and familiar.

  ‘She couldn’t speak English,’ Venus said.

  ‘’Did she need to speak?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what’s your problem?’

  ‘I’m going to pay you for her,’ Venus said. ‘Tell me how much.’

  ‘For a whole night? You are talking serious money there, my friend,’ the voice said. ‘But I told you, she’s a gift. You’ve got trouble now, you need a gift. You are my friend and friends help each other. It’s my pleasure.’

  Paul Venus bit down on his need to scream. He said, ‘That’s kind. But I . . .’ He wanted to say that he didn’t want to be in the other man’s debt, but he knew that he couldn’t. And he didn’t. ‘That’s awfully kind.’

  Why couldn’t he have sex like an ordinary person? Pick up a woman and just have sex with her? Because this was easier. It was professional, he always felt good about himself afterwards, and he had become addicted to it.

  ‘Welcome. And of course, anything I can do to help you with the boy . . .’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Anything I can do, Paul,’ the voice said. ‘You just have to ask.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He put the phone down, then he looked at the money again. It still hadn’t gone anywhere. It wouldn’t until the next morning when it would buy Harry back.

  *

  Clarence Road, Henley, was a small street that led up to the local community hospital. Comprising identical red-brick Edwardian cottages, the street was a place where, once upon a time, Lee imagined, poor people had lived. Now, with its parking restrictions, bamboo blinds and tiny frontyard herb gardens, its demographic make-up had changed. The sight of a young woman wearing Birkenstock sandals and carrying her baby in a vast alpaca wool sling confirmed it. The middle classes had colonised the area.

  But there was one house that wasn’t as neat as the others. Lee knocked at the door and a grey-haired battered-looking man of about sixty answered.

  ‘Mr McCullough?’

  ‘Malcolm.’ The man smiled. His eyes were tired but humorous, and he smelt strongly of bacon and cigarettes. ‘Come in, Mr Arnold,’ he said.

  ‘Lee.’

  ‘Lee.’ He smiled again.

  The front door led straight into a small living room that looked like something out of a fifties John Mills film. The heavy, faded brocade covered furniture that gave the impression it hadn’t been moved for decades, the gas fire in the large blackened hearth was probably illegal. There was even an oil painting of a stag on one wall. Books, both loose and in cases, were everywhere.

  Malcolm McCullough walked through into another room, which was much plainer though no less antiquated. But it was brighter. There was a TV set – albeit one that was probably thirty years old – and a pair of Ercol-style chairs that were almost comfortable.

  ‘Would you like coffee?’ McCullough asked. ‘Bacon sandwich?’

  ‘A coffee’d be nice,’ Lee said.

  The kitchen, which was a continuation of the second living room, reeked of pork fat, which did make Lee’s mouth water. But he’d had his breakfast back at the Flowerpot.

  ‘Sugar?’

  ‘Two.’

  As McCullough tinkered around in the kitchen, Lee wondered what his neighbours thought about him. Without so much as a window box or sea-grass mat in sight, he was the odd chap with the dirty net curtains who, it was probably rumoured, smoked with the windows shut. When he returned he carried two chipped mugs in one hand and a plate with a white bread sandwich in the other.

  ‘There you go.’

  Lee relieved him of a mug with a coat of arms on one side and watched as McCullough sat down, sighed and then looked, with great love, at his sandwich.

  ‘One of the few consolations in life, a bacon sandwich,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t imagine many of your neighbours indulge.’

  ‘No. Alfalfa and organic tofu with just a touch of sea-salt.’ He laughed. ‘When I first bought this house, most of the people round here were ordinary. Had an electrician one side, teacher at the local comp on the other. I rather liked that. Now on the right we have a banker, his wife and a child called Pisa – I kid you not – and on the left a systems analyst and a woman who shops for a living. They all drink organic wine.’

  Lee smiled. ‘The smell of bacon and fags was a relief to me,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, then maybe you should tell Pisa’s mummy and daddy that I’m not the devil after all. That child wears a crash helmet to play on a scooter. Believe that? There is no hope.’ He stuck half a sandwich into a mouth of yellowing teeth. Once he’d downed the first bite he said, ‘So what’s this about Harry Venus? What’s he been up to?’

  Lee stuck to the story Tina Wilton had told him. ‘Harry’s a bit old to be chaperoned by his mum, but she and his father are worried about him,’ Lee said. ‘When he goes off, they’re not always sure he is where he’s saying he is. That’s where I come in.’

  ‘What’s the worry?’ Malcolm McCullough took another great bite and swallowed. ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Drugs, girls, booze, you name it. They have concerns.’

  ‘Helicopter parents.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Helicopter parents, hovering over their young like droves of middle-class Sikorskys,’ McCullough said. ‘Dump ’em on us all term and d
on’t give ’em a second thought. Then the holidays come and they realise they’ve got kids again. You’re not from round here, are you?’

  ‘I’m from London.’

  Malcolm McCullough frowned. ‘I heard that Harry was away in Malta,’ he said.

  That was the story that had been given to George and his family.

  ‘Not at the moment,’ Lee told him.

  George Grogan was definitely away for the holidays and so he wouldn’t be able to contradict him. If McCullough had, in fact, been in contact with the Grogans. Maybe Tina Wilton had told the boy’s master herself and then forgotten? Or perhaps Henley was just a small place.

  McCullough shrugged. As Tina Wilton had predicted, he knew there was something wrong. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Harry’s parents tell me he’s happy at Reeds. I want to know if that’s true.’

  McCullough put what remained of his sandwich down on the floor beside him and drank some coffee. ‘What do you mean?’

  Now he was slightly guarded.

  ‘I mean, is he properly happy?’ Lee said. ‘I’m not talking about academically, I’m talking friends or the lack thereof. I’m asking you if Harry’s being bullied or whether he does the bullying. I want to know if he’s a likeable boy or a little shit.’

  ‘Do you.’ He nodded his head and then put a hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He lit up.

  Lee didn’t ask whether it was all right to join him. The mood in the room had darkened and he didn’t want to tip its equilibrium. Not until he knew what it meant. ‘Yes. I’m a PI, Malcolm, and although I work for Harry’s parents, what you say to me now is between us and only us.’

  McCullough breathed in. ‘Harry Venus is a problem,’ he said. ‘Not that I can tell you that officially. Headmaster is clear on the issue. Harry’s an excellent chap, grade A student, no trouble at all.’

  ‘That’s what his parents are told?’

  ‘Yep.’ He flicked ash onto his sandwich. Lee hoped he’d had enough.