Possible but not probable. Amina’s house as a knocking-shop? Possible but not probable. Until I bring the other unlikely association into the equation. Until I remind myself of the two firm clues I have already collected, linking the fate of Hassan Malik with the movements of one person I know to be steeped in the sex trade cesspool. My bullet-headed friend Emmanuel.
Judging by the activity at its main entrance, where there’s a couple of ambulances with their double doors open and people moving up and down the steps, the Western General Hospital gets a good deal busier around eleven on a Friday night than when I was here earlier in the week. It might have been more sensible for me to turn up at normal visiting time, but as I had no idea when Norman Tait would be starting his shift and since it’s him I’ve come to see I thought I’d leave it until an hour when I was pretty sure the night porter would be on duty. Norman told me he always listens to my show, so I’m guessing he’ll be here by now.
He’s nowhere to be seen around his cubby-hole. There’s a younger porter helping paramedics transfer a patient onto a trolley, so maybe I’ve been unlucky and come in on Norman’s night off. I’m not inclined to ask this guy if Norman’s working tonight as I don’t want to draw attention to myself, so I sit down in the waiting area and basically skulk for a while. This is easier than I expected - nobody takes a blind bit of notice of me. The time is punctuated by flurries of activity around the main entrance and noises off of people and equipment moving about in corridors and bays, followed by periods of silence.
I’ve waited and watched for over twenty minutes with no sign of Norman, and have just resolved to leave at the half-hour mark when I hear someone whistling as if he owns the place, enjoying the echo as it bounces off the long bare walls. I stand to investigate and there is Norman, pushing an empty wheelchair along the corridor in my direction. He recognises me from thirty yards away and calls out cheerfully, “Aye-aye, back again? Not looking for a job, are you?” He pulls up alongside. “I see they haven’t given you your old one back yet.”
“Not yet, no.”
“’Bout time they did, yon other lad’s crap.”
“There’s some complications.”
“You sound like one of our doctors. See, I was right about that being a hoax call. One of the family, wannit?”
“Apparently.”
“Well, they’ve got no reason to keep you off your programme now. Do you want me to start a petition?”
“No, thanks for the offer. Actually, I’m on a sort of secondment. I’m doing a TV documentary. Investigative programme. That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about.” I’ve rehearsed this opener in my head and it must sound fairly convincing the way Norman reacts.
“It’s not hospital hygiene, is it? There’s things I’ve seen, I could tell you, but no names, no pack-drill, hear what I’m saying?”
“No, it’s not that. Nothing to do with the health service. It’s about… Listen, is there somewhere more private? Your office?”
Norman laughs. “My office, I like that. Howay, I’m due a break anyway. I’ll make you a brew.”
Despite Norman’s self-deprecation, his hideout is quite comfortable in a posh broom-cupboard kind of way, fitted out with surplus hospital furniture. He sits me down at a square table that has an ancient cribbage board set up between the two facing chairs. There’s a couple of lockers along the wall and one of those wooden bedside cabinets where Norman keeps his tea-making stuff and his portable radio. He fills the kettle from a low sink that has cleaning buckets stacked next to it while I fiddle with the game, randomly sticking pegs in holes, trying to recall the rules my grandad taught me. I wait until Norman has finished his domestic duties, and brought two steaming mugs across, before I continue with the tale I’ve concocted to explain why I’m pumping him for information instead of taking my suspicions to the police.
“Thing is, Norman, I’m working as an undercover reporter on a story that could fly or not, depending on how it stacks up.”
“Fly?”
“I mean, we’re at the research stage. We think there’s something there, some very dodgy business going on, but we can’t be certain yet. And I have to tell you this is potentially dangerous ground. Which is why it’s so hush-hush. Can I trust you to keep the lid on? I mean, treat everything we talk about as completely confidential?”
“Son, you’re looking at an ex-TA man here.” Norman straightens his back for a moment, somehow seems to spruce up his senses as if he’s readying himself for guard duty, then leans over his mug, fixing me with a firm stare. “I’m the sort of feller you can trust with your life, hear what I’m saying?”
“That’s more than enough for me, Norman, thanks. I want to ask you about those two guys you saw me with the other night.”
“The blokes in the BMW? I knew it would be them,” he says, congratulating himself like he did about the hoax caller. “I knew there was something off. It’s had me puzzled what you were doing with that pair.”
“Gaining their confidence. Working on the inside, sort of thing.”
“Miked up, were you?”
“No. As I said, we’re still at the research stage. There might be nothing in it. But I was intrigued by you saying you’d seen them before. And in connection with Amina Begum Khan.”
“Amina…?”
“The widow of the dead driver. Didn’t you say you’d seen them with her?”
“Well, no, not with her. But they came in as well, looking for Mr Malik, or rather the baldy black one did, I never saw the other feller. He was first, as it happens. Baldy, I mean. She came after, with the police, time I saw her.” Norman takes a sip of his tea.
“Could you give me as much detail as you can remember? This is really useful.”
“Not much to tell, really,” says Norman. “First I heard about the accident was when the ambulance came in with a DOA, sometime after two in the morning.“
“DOA, Dead on Arrival?”
“Sorry, yeah. That was Mr Malik. According to the ambulance guys, there’d been no way of saving him. The fire must have caught hold once the car hit the bridge. It was well alight before somebody come across it and called 999. They thought it had been torched by twockers, that’s what they call the thieving little bastards, innit? Happens all the time. In fact it wasn’t till the fire engine got there they even realised anybody was left inside. Whether he’d had a seat belt on or what I don’t know. They found him slumped under the dashboard.”
“How much later did Amina… did his wife turn up?”
“Oh, a good bit later. Must have been getting on for six cos it wasn’t that long before I went off shift. Her and this bloke came in the back of a police car.”
“The guy with her… That wasn’t our man, the bald-headed one?”
“No, no. This was an Asian type. Indian, Pakistani, same difference. Like I say, your man was earlier. I found him, well, what I thought was snooping around. Tell you the truth, I thought he was sniffing about looking for drugs to nick. We do get them. I followed him down the corridor and he’s poking his head round half the doors, so I challenged him.”
“What did he have to say?”
“He was quite apologetic, actually. Nearly too much, know what I mean? He said he was looking for his friend. Heard he’d been in a bad car crash and he was desperate to find out if he was going to be OK. Well, it figured, what he was saying, but I told him he couldn’t just go wandering about like that. He asked me straight out if the guy was dead, said he needed to know before he contacted the family. I told him it wasn’t my place to say. See, Marc, I could have told him, but I didn’t. Not professional. I showed him the way to Admissions.”
Norman stops to consider something, eyes in his brain, and I wait, hoping that he’s dredging more from his memory bank. He looks up at me and clicks his fingers. “I bet it’s drugs, innit? He’s heard some talk on the way in, that’s how he’s got his story to trot out if he’s copped snooping about. It will have been drugs he was after, am I right
?”
“We think there’s a drug link, yes.” I feel a bit guilty, allowing Norm to jump to the wrong conclusion, but I’m still hacking my way to the truth myself and I feel I can’t divulge the direction I’m moving in until I’m on surer ground. And definitely not until I can somehow get Edona safely away from all this. There are too many risks involved, and the more I’m learning about Emmanuel and his cronies the more evident the risks are becoming.
“He’s a drug pusher, got it written all over him,” Norman continues, quite animated now. “I hate those bastards. It’s our lot has to pick up the pieces, hear what I’m saying? Overdoses, collapses. You wouldn’t believe how young some of them are what gets rushed in here. You don’t know whether to pity them or smack their faces. The dealers, though, they’re just despicable. If I can help get some of them put away, well, count me in, son.”
“I can’t tell you how helpful you’ve been, Norman,” I say, reaching across the table with a gesture that ends up being a cross between a handshake and a high five. And I mean it too. He rescued me last time I was here. Now, without his being aware of it, Norman Tait has provided me with a genuine Eureka moment.
X
The second time a mini-cab drops me at the corner of Warkworth Street I stand a minute or more gazing at the row of houses in the darkness, trying to work out what has changed here, wondering even whether the cab-driver has made a mistake and brought me to the wrong address. It takes that long to realise the difference is in me. For one thing I’m sober to my nerve ends, not having touched a drop over the two days I’ve researched and prepared for this. The other more significant shift started when I came here before and heard Edona’s story. What hasn’t changed is my trepidation as I walk up to the gate. Except that it’s magnified tenfold, knowing what I have to try and do.
My first concern is over my Slavic acquaintance at the door. Perhaps he’ll throw me out, if he remembers the trouble I put him to last time, or at least demand cash up front since I’ve shown myself to be an unreliable customer. But I pass the camera scrutiny and intercom challenge without the fuss I anticipated, and as Boris opens the door he greets me with a nod of familiarity that implies he already has me down as a regular client. He motions towards the reception lounge, where I can hear voices, but I touch his arm and incline my head to draw him to the space at the foot of the stairs. I’m privately thrilled when he responds to the gesture and follows quietly - the only way my plan can work is if I am the one in control.
“I’m here only for Edona,” I tell him in an undertone. “She’s the one I must have.”
“Of course, sir, no problem,” he says, matching his voice to mine. He glances up the stairs. “At this moment she is occupied. Come, have one drink, then you can go to her.”
So much for control. As soon as he mentions that Edona is occupied I can feel prickles behind my eyes and a flush spreading from my neck. To cover up I massage my temples between thumb and ring finger saying, “Sorry, bloody migraine.”
“Is there anything I can get for you, sir?” It’s some posh household’s loss that this guy didn’t take a regular career path. Take away the ferret features and the ill-fitting suit, he could have made a serviceable butler in the new European style.
“No, I’m… Well, just a glass of water.” Wondering how much they’ll stick on the bill for that. “Do you have a Gents around here?”
The ever-helpful Boris points along the hallway. “On the left, please,” he says, and withdraws discreetly to the lounge, synchronising his movements with mine so that we open the doors simultaneously and I half-expect to meet up with him on the other side of the wall.
Instead I find myself in a conventional downstairs lavatory, so domestic I might have been at a dinner party in a relative’s home, except that the towels would have been fluffier, and not many of my lot would be likely to hang above their cistern that print of a naked woman with her finger on her clit. I check my face in the mirror to see if the word impostor is printed clearly on my forehead the way I feel it is. I’m relieved to see a fairly normal-looking reflection staring back at me, albeit a degree too intently. I wash my mouth out under the tap and blow into my cupped palm, testing for bad breath. I’m hoping Edona will be moved to give me one chaste kiss when she sees me again.
Once I step back into the hallway, to find that the doorman hasn’t returned to his place, I have to deal with the temptation of exercising a spontaneous Plan B – simply dashing up the stairs, grabbing Edona and running like hell. The fact that I even contemplate this (how do I deal with the john, probably seven feet tall, who’s with her right now? what are the chances of the hallway still being empty after I’ve run up and down two flights of stairs? what do we do if we make it to the roadside, hijack a passing car?), the fact that I consider it betrays my level of confidence in Plan A, now that I’m here to execute it in the timid flesh, not running the heroic reel in my mind for the thousandth time. But I’m going to have to stick with the original idea, fragile as it is, or leave without Edona. I need to keep the odds on my side (or less stacked against) by behaving like a normal punter at this stage. Lurking in the hallway is suspicious behaviour. I turn the handle on the lounge door.
Frankly, it’s hard to appear unfazed by the scene I walk into. The furniture arrangement is slightly different from last time. A smoked-glass coffee table occupies part of the centre space. Two men with their backs to me have their seats tucked up to the table and they’re bending over it as if they’re trying to get closer to the female who is kneeling on the floor at the other side. She’s the black girl from last week’s line-up, and she’s topless.
As I move to what’s apparently my seat at the far wall, where Boris has set down a crystal tumbler of water, I see that the reason the men are bending over the table is they are each snorting up a line of white powder with a rolled-up banknote. The topless girl has a credit card in her hand. Not, I’m surmising, for financial reasons, but because her job has been to cut the lines of coke. Almost simultaneously, the two men lean back and wipe a knuckle over their nose. One of them – young, trendily dressed – unfolds the twenty he’s been using to sniff up the coke, and presents it to the girl, laughing. His friend follows his example. The black girl smiles and tucks both notes into the elastic of her knickers, being the only item she has on. I play nonchalant, sipping at my water, regretting I didn’t ask for a scotch at least. I couldn’t look more out of place if I was wearing a dog collar. A vicar’s one, that is – the other sort would have raised no eyebrows here, just someone up for a little bondage and ritual humiliation.
What these guys seem to be up for is a little three-in-a-bed action. Soon enough they go out together with the black tart, one holding her wrist, the other slipping a hand in to massage her bum-cheek before they’re even out of the room. Some roasting in store, I imagine. What makes her a tart in my mind, and not Edona? Because she looks like she’s enjoying it? Maybe she’s just a better actor, learning to survive here.
I’m left on my own for a while, trying to distract myself by guessing which country might be to blame for the faux-exotic instrumental wafting out of the speakers over my head, when Boris appears at the open door. His face reminds me of one of those kids’ games where you mix up the features of different characters – his hospitality smile doesn’t go with his assassin’s eyes.
“Your favourite is waiting for you, sir. Please to go up.”
As I pass through to the hall he makes to relieve me of my coat, like last time, but I’m ready for that.
“No.” I give him what I hope is a knowing look. “I like to do it with it on.” Boris plays his part with a wink in return, but he can’t quite conceal the sneer or the venom welling in his throat as he watches me climb the stairs.
The way to Edona’s room is imprinted as if I’ve been up to it a thousand times, which I have in my mind. I hesitate at the closed door, gripped by doubt. When that voice in my head is saying this could turn out so badly I hope it’s addressing an an
xiety for Edona, not just the cowardice in me. I rest my forehead on the door. She might be better off if I walk away now, let her find her own way of coping, like the black girl. I look down at the bolt fixed crudely onto the wood panel. That’s what settles it for me.
I turn the handle and find Edona sitting at the head of the bed, facing the door, naked under the sheet clutched to her breast. If anything, she seems even frailer than last time – otherwise everything is as it was when I left her, just as if I’d returned moments later to collect something I’d left behind. Which I have.
“You come back to see me,” says Edona with a smile, tired but genuine.
“I came back to get you. I mean, to take you away.”
She curls her legs, making way for me on the bed, and looks seriously into my eyes as I sit down. “Are you buying me from the men, Marc? Am I for being your shok shtrati?”
“No. I wouldn’t do that.”
“I’m not minding.”
She’s caught me off guard. I hadn’t even remotely considered that possibility. How much easier it could be, just hand over a sack of cash and take her away. I’d have to raise a loan – how much would they want? I haven’t a clue – but, man, no hassle. No risk of being shot, thrown off some bridge… Just play them at their own game. Their rules. I reach out and Edona lets me take her hand. So trusting.
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