“Today’s my first time,” I admitted.
He pulled an exaggerated eyebrow raised expression and raised both thumbs to me. “Nice one,” he commented, and then walked on. After that I felt better.
At work next day my limbs felt like spaghetti. It seemed like a delayed adrenaline aftermath. After a couple of hours I couldn’t keep quiet about it and knowing the men would just love this Stock car racing if they were introduced to it, fessed up to Steve Bolton about what I’d been doing at the weekend. Paul had taken a couple of short clips of film on my phone for me, so I waved them under his nose while he squinted indulgently at them. Soon Dewhurst was getting in on the act, and finally Trev used the excuse of peering at my phone to lean heavily on my shoulder and get his face close to mine.
“Fifth, huh? That’s pretty good. How about a drink tonight to celebrate?”
“I’ve explained already that I’m really busy, and now you’ve seen this, you know why. We’ve got to get the cars tuned up and check them for damage.”
I could feel Trev’s eyes on my back as I walked off and saw Steve turning away to hide a laugh.
At lunch time I suddenly remembered Rajesh. I rang him.
“Sorry Rajesh, I’ve been too busy to sort out kidnapping Sahmir, so we won’t be going ahead with it tonight.”
“Thank God for that!” He said with feeling.
“But I’ll get back to you soon,” I promised and rang off quickly as I saw Entwistle coming out of his office. We weren’t meant to make personal calls at work.
Pete was looking much better. “They’ll be letting me out within the next week if all goes well. The infection’s cleared up and the bone is setting straight.”
He studied the footage of the races, grinning at seeing me come over the finishing line so near the front on the second one, and wrinkling his nose as he saw the final shoves that had spun me round in the third. “Yes, I can see what you did wrong there-”
I lapped up all his words of wisdom, then left at the less than subtle hinting of the nurses.
On my way home from the hospital I called by Oz’s. He looked surprised to see me, then suspicious. “What do you want, Eve?” He pulled the front door to behind him so his parents couldn’t hear anything.
“I wondered if your dad allowed anyone other than you to drive the van?”
He shook his head, “Only Danny’s dad. He’s been doing quite a bit of the driving for us recently. Seems to like reliving his youth or something. Why?” He added suspiciously.
“Jamie was needing some stuff moving around tomorrow after school and he wondered if we could use the van for it. I’m sure Danny’s dad would do it for us. Like you say, he seems to like feeling involved.”
Oz hesitated, then said, “I’ll ask Dad if he’s using the van tomorrow. What time?”
“Half three?”
To my intense gratification, his dad agreed.
A call round to Danny’s found similar success. So that just left my own Dad.
“Could you do me a favour Dad?” I thought being half way honest with him might be the best bet.
“What?” He half glanced up from the TV.
“I want to talk to Sahmir about something after school without Jamie there, but they’re joined at the hip at the moment and I need to get them apart. Would you go and pick Jamie up from school tomorrow and take him for tea somewhere on the pretext you want to talk to him or something? But without mentioning I asked you to?”
“Don’t you go causing more trouble with that Nasim,” he warned me. But again, he was surprisingly compliant. “To tell you the truth, I’m pretty sick of him avoiding me. Sally’s parents have been ringing me and I’m sure as hell not intending to make all this easy for him. So yes, I’ll pick him up and trap him in a corner table in Pizzaland or something on the other side of town and then he won’t be able to storm out on me or misbehave. Sounds like a good plan.”
So last of all I rang Rajesh, who writhed around in all sorts of horrified protestations.
“Listen Rajesh,” I said severely. “Sahmir’s not going to be very scared of me, but you can be sure that back home you’ve been portrayed as Voldemort crossed with the Prince of Darkness, and he’ll know you’ll be wanting vengeance for him dobbing you both in with the parents, so he’ll be shitting himself straight away he sees you.”
Finally it was the fact that Danny’s dad was going to be there that made him agree to it. I guess he figured that I couldn’t get up to too much mischief with one of the parents there. But then, Rajesh doesn’t know me very well.
All went very much to plan. I got off work early and went to Danny’s. Danny’s dad drove me in his car to Oz’s where we picked up the van and left the Danny’s dad’s car parked up in the street. Then we went to pick up Rajesh who looked about as enthusiastic as a man about to have all his teeth pulled out one by one, or a dog that knows it’s being taken to the vet. I made him get in the back out of sight.
“He mustn’t see you or he’ll know it’s a set up.”
I sat up front with Danny’s dad until just before the school. “I want you to lean out and call to Sahmir that Jamie’s in the back and for him to hop in, and then once he’s got in you drive away immediately and keep on driving around town until we give you the next instruction.”
“What’s this?” He quipped. “Am I being used as a get-away driver?”
I slapped him on the thigh. “No, we’re just kidnapping the lad, that’s all!” And we both roared with laughter.
He stopped for me to nip into the back with Rajesh then did as I’d asked.
“Oy lad! Jamie wants you to hop in the back!”
I was banking on Sahmir knowing the band’s van, and even maybe knowing Danny’s dad as Sahmir had probably accompanied Jamie to the occasional gig. I held my breath. Bingo! The van doors were opening. But even as he looked around and first saw me, I pounced, leaping on him with all my strength and signalling to Rajesh to slam the doors shut. Danny’s dad took the hint and took off like he was in a bank robbery movie throwing all three of us over. Sahmir’s eyes widened as he realised that the third person was the dreaded Rajesh and he began to yell and beat on the side of the van.
I grabbed his arms and yanked them behind him and tied his wrists tightly with a strip of material I’d brought with me for the purpose, then slapped another one around his mouth as a gag. His eyes rolled in horror between myself and Rajesh and Rajesh’s eyes rolled in horror at me.
“Right you horrible little weasel,” I threatened. “We’ve got some questions to ask you, and we won’t be letting you go until you squeal!”
At which point I saw Rajesh suddenly getting the giggles behind Sahmir, and I nearly had to turn away to stop myself bursting out laughing myself. To give him his due, Rajesh suddenly got into the spirit of the thing. He leant his face close to Sahmir’s and hissed, “And don’t think you can lie to us because we can see right through you, you nasty little toad!” Sahmir looked completely terrified. I smiled at him in a slow, sinister and self satisfied way. I was pretty sure that he’d have heard all sorts of awful things about me and would be scared as hell.
“So Sahmir…” I made even drawling out his name sound threatening. “What drugs are you dealing, and where are you and Jamie getting them from?”
He looked a bit gobsmacked. He’d been certain this would be about Nasim. He shook his head and made incoherent noises.
“What was that Sahmir? Was that you telling us that you are happy to spill the beans, or was that you asking us to take you somewhere really remote and pull out your fingernails one by one?”
Rajesh pulled a face at me signalling that that was just too corny. But I knew boys of Sahmir’s age, and the sort of guff they watched, and I knew that it would be right on target. Sahmir emitted a sort of long groan. I ripped the gag off. “So go on, you little rat, tell us what substance you’re dealing and where you’re getting it from…”
“Weed,” he muttered sulkily.
&n
bsp; I sat back on my haunches. Well that wasn’t too bad then. Although being found with any more than personal use amounts on you would be bad news.
“And where you’re getting it from?” I queried more mildly.
He compressed his lips and narrowed his eyes and showed he was determined not to say another word however much we tortured him.
I looked at Rajesh. “Looks like we’re going to have to take him to the workshop,” I said with an evil smile. “Do you have those vices ready?”
“Those really big ones?” Rajesh said coolly. “Yes they’re all screwed onto the bench, and I got the chains out as well.”
“And the red hot pokers?” I ascertained. “With the fire well stoked up?”
“Hot as hell,” Rajesh agreed.
I looked back to Sahmir. “I’m glad you’re refusing to speak. Because I’ve never used thumbscrews before, and now I’m gonna get the chance!”
Within ten minutes Sahmir was a gibbering wreck and Rajesh was nearly enjoying himself.
“Ok, Ok! I’ll tell you!” Sahmir yelled at last. He looked really worried. “But you mustn’t tell Tariq, promise?”
“I’ve no intentions of going to Tariq with this,” I said truthfully.
“Release my hands then, I’ll need my phone.”
In case it was a ploy, I indicated to Rajesh to stay between Sahmir and the door. But Sahmir just got his phone out went online and pulled up a Google map. “There,” he said. “Go there. But make sure you pull up well short of it or we’ll be seen.”
I took the phone and banged the pre-arranged signal on the dividing wall between us and the front of the van. I heard the indicator start up and the van began to pull over.
“Ok Sahmir, Rajesh here has been sharpening his canines and if you make the slightest move he’s gonna bite you real bad.” Then I hopped out.
Afterwards Rajesh told me with a snort of laughter, that all he’d had to do was to stare fixedly at Sahmir the whole of the rest of the journey and Sahmir had sat there frozen like he’d been left in the back of the van with a dangerous tiger that would pounce on him if he moved the slightest muscle.
In the front, Danny’s dad and I were putting the post code pulled up on Sahmir’s phone into the sat nav. Then we set off. I became more and more puzzled as the directions took us out of town and along the outskirts to some winding old back lanes that reminded me of the way I used to take Jamie when he needed a lift to his job at the farm. Finally the sat nav was showing us that we were at the last turning before our destination. I thought it best to pull up.
I got out and opened the doors to the back of the van. “I think we’re here, Sahmir. But it seems a bit strange. Are you sure you gave us the right co-ordinates?”
Still eyeing Rajesh nervously, Sahmir clambered out and looked around. “Sure. This is right.”
“So what’s this got to do with anything?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” Sahmir said mysteriously.
I was pretty certain this would turn out to be a big trick that Sahmir was playing on us, but still, there was nothing else for Rajesh and myself to do but to follow him down the turn off. The lane was filthy with mud, high hedged on either side, and led to large set of isolated old farm buildings.
“Sssh,” he whispered. “Keep your heads down. I need to go ahead to check no-one’s around.”
Again I suspected a trick, but apparently not. He now seemed quite excited to show us whatever it was. He waved us through a small person sized door in the much larger barn door that was built to take big machinery and we stepped inside the big dark dirty building. There was nothing there.
“Sahmir, are you sure this isn’t just a wild goose chase?” I demanded.
“Sssh!” He hissed urgently.
Rajesh and I exchanged glances.
Sahmir went unerringly towards another small door at the far end of the barn. He fiddled with the lock, then pushed the door open, peered cautiously inside, then waved us over.
We stood open-mouthed. Inside was a blaze of light and a blaze of heat and a sea of green and an earthy, damp, leafy smell.
“Oh my God,” I murmured.
“Shit!” Rajesh exclaimed.
“Yeah, lots of it,” I agreed ironically.
Sahmir was looking proudly back at us. “Do you like it? It took ages to set up! It’s ready to harvest now. Look at it!” He began to walk down the rows trailing his fingers through the big palmate leaves, “Fantastic isn’t it?” The smell was pungent as he tore a small piece off and crushed it between his fingers. Rajesh sneezed.
“You surely can’t mean that you and Jamie set up and run all this yourselves?” I said incredulously.
“Course not!” Sahmir looked at me as though I was mad. Only not for the same reasons as he had twenty minutes ago. “Tariq sorted out most of it, with Lol who’s nearly finished his electrician’s NVQ. And Jamie found us the location. That was a stroke of genius! This used to be an old milking parlour, but it isn’t used anymore and Jamie said the farmer told him that he was just going to leave it to rot because he couldn’t afford to pull it down. But we found it still had an electricity and water supply we could connect back into. And then Scott, who’s doing horticulture set up the planting side of it – and lots of others do bits and pieces for it…”
“But surely it’s against your religion?” I pointed out to Sahmir, still reeling from his casual report.
“Oh me and Tariq and Bijan don’t actually use the stuff of course,” he said piously.
“Just grow it and sell it and profit from it?” I said sarcastically.
He suddenly looked a bit anxious at my tone of voice. “Tariq’s going to give five percent of his profit to the mosque,” he said defensively.
“Oh well that’s all right then!” I agreed drily.
Rajesh was looking increasingly worried. “I think we should get out of here, Eve.”
“Do you have CCTV?” I suddenly demanded of Sahmir. “Will your brother and his mates know we’ve been here?”
“Not unless I tell him,” Sahmir said self-importantly.
“Which would mean you would have to admit to leading us here,” I reminded him with a hard stare. He said nothing. We started to retreat towards the door and Sahmir carefully closed it behind him and locked it. The rest of the barn now seemed pitch black in comparison. I squeezed my eyes closed for a few moments to see if I could help them adjust. I realised they’d fixed up the other end of the barn so that all the gaps were filled up and not a single tiny line of light could sneak out.
“Jamie and I usually bring a torch with us,” Sahmir remarked as we stumbled and felt our way to the outlined rectangle in the distance.
“So do you and Jamie come here often?” I inquired conversationally.
There was a short pause as we filed thankfully out into the late afternoon sunshine. Sahmir looked worried. “Please, please don’t tell Tariq!”
“Don’t tell Tariq what?”
Sahmir was leading us hurriedly away. “Me and Jamie cycle over when we’re certain no-one is going to be around, and we’ve been harvesting it from the back. Just a plant here and there. As long as you don’t tell anyone, they’ll never notice.”
I stopped him. “So let’s be clear about this. Tariq and co don’t even know that you’re dealing the stuff?”
Sahmir bit his lip and shook his head. He looked around anxiously. “Please come away quickly. They often come along in the evening to do the watering…”
That was all Rajesh and I needed to hear to make us get back to the van in a hurry. Danny’s dad was having a kip.
“Can you drive us away pronto,” I asked him, leaning in through the window.
He tapped the side of his nose. “See, I told you I was the get-away driver!”
My smile was a bit more strained this time.
The three of us got swiftly into the back. None of us wanted to risk being seen in the front of the van by the waterers as we were driving away.
; We dropped Sahmir close to his house. As he got out he looked pleadingly at us.
“Sahmir, the last thing I want to do is go anywhere near your brother,” I told him truthfully. “And I don’t want you ringing Jamie tonight to tell him about this. He’s with Dad all evening and he won’t thank you for it.”
I didn’t want him running to Jamie before I’d decided what to do about all this. He went off with a long face, seemingly beginning to realise what a fix he might be in.
Rajesh and I exchanged glances, but felt we had to get in the front with the long suffering father of Danny and have a bit of a joke about with him to put him off the scent. Back at Oz’s, we transferred back into Danny’s dad’s car, and then back at Danny’s I told Rajesh to hop up on the back of my bike and the pair of us retired to a pub.
Rajesh bought the drinks and we sat back limply in the red leather coated booth. Neither of us said a word till we’d knocked back at least a third of the glass.
“I didn’t expect that,” Rajesh said at last.
“Nope, neither did I. Never crossed my mind.” I agreed.
We took another thoughtful sip each.
“Now what do we do?” I asked.
“Go to the police?” Rajesh suggested uncertainly. I think both of us were running the potential unpleasant consequences of this course of action though our heads.
“This is a bit of a mess isn’t it?” I admitted. “I thought we’d give Sahmir a bit of a fright, make him see the error of his ways, and from then on you could bask in Nasir’s eternal gratefulness.”
“And instead of that we’ve just found out her older brother is running some sort of major crime syndicate, and if we dob him in, I’ll be seen as single handedly responsible for putting both her precious brothers away – hardly the recipe for a happy re-establishment of relations!” He groaned.
“And if Tariq has any suspicion who has been to the police-”
“I’ll get knee-capped-”
“And he’ll make damn sure Jamie gets implicated up to his neck in it, just to punish me,” I finished gloomily. “Damn, my idiot brother! I can’t believe he was helping this lot set up a cannabis farm, just as I was rushing around in the fond belief that I was saving him from a sordid career of dealing in E’s with B.S.E!”
Paradise Postponed (Not Quite Eden Book 2) Page 19