by A. A. Dhand
About the Book
The sky over Bradford is heavy with foreboding. It always is.
But this morning it has reason to be. This morning a body has been found. And it’s not just any body.
Detective Harry Virdee should be at home with his wife. Impending fatherhood should be all he can think about, but he’s been suspended from work just as the biggest case of the year lands on what would have been his desk. He can’t keep himself away.
Determined to restore his reputation, Harry is obliged to take to the shadows in search of notorious ex-convict and prime suspect Lucas Dwight. But as the motivations of the murder threaten to tip an already unstable city into riotous anarchy, Harry finds his preconceptions turned on their head as he discovers what it’s like to be on the other side of the law . . .
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
STREETS OF DARKNESS
A. A. Dhand
For my family
ONE
BLOOD.
Arterial spray haemorrhaged across Harry’s face.
He wondered if his karma was tainted.
When you accept a new life into the world, it will be without consequence as long as your karma is clean.
Perhaps it was because Saima was overdue. Or perhaps being suspended from duty meant he had more time to relive a past which refused to stay buried.
It was something the damn peer-saab had said to Saima the day before which was needling Harry. She had invited the holy man, an Islamic preacher who claimed he could predict the future, to their house to make sure her pregnancy was without issue.
Saima loved that shit.
Harry looked at his hands. He could still see the blood. You got away with murder, he thought, remembering the last scream of his victim.
The air was heavy with moisture, a result of three days of torrential downpours. The sun wouldn’t cast its rays across Bradford – not unusual for October – but even in summer, it shied away, ensuring the bleakness that had strangled the city for over a decade remained firmly in place.
He ran harder through Lister Park, keeping off the grass which glistened with overnight dew. It was only five thirty but Harry hadn’t been able to sleep.
How could you be so reckless?
When he couldn’t sleep, he ran, trying to tire his body into relenting. Harry preferred running in darkness: the park trapping shadows between the branches of hundreds of ageing oak trees. Saima thought it was dangerous. But Harry was six-three, ninety kilos of mostly muscle and spent his Sundays bulldozing rugby players as a second-row forward.
Harry slowed in front of the castellated gatehouse at the northeast corner of the park and arrived at the Norman Arch exit. It had a medieval-looking gate. He placed his hands on it and rested his head against the iron. From the other side it might have appeared he was in jail. The image was fitting. Detective Inspector Harry Virdee suspended from work – IPCC investigation.
What a fucking joke.
His temperament was the problem. Always had been. Harry was tired of playing nice.
Especially in this city.
Especially with the choices he’d made.
Remember the blood, Harry? It’s always about the blood.
He turned around and faced the hill which led up to the boating lake. He took a moment, glanced at the statue of Sir Titus Salt on his left and wondered what Bradford’s most famous son would have made of the city now. In the 1800s, Titus had built the largest wool empire in Europe and made Bradford one of the richest cities in the world. Salt had created the entire suburb of Saltaire and built a village for his employees, complete with one of the most advanced wool mills ever seen.
Those times were gone. Bradford was a relic, its glory days past, suffocated by mass unemployment caused by the collapse of the textile industries. Salt’s only legacy was a few books in the library and the dirty-white statue Harry was staring at. It had been moved from the entrance of the Town Hall to this corner of the park.
A forgotten legacy for a forgotten city.
Harry hit the incline hard, sprinting past Salt’s statue. Grimacing against the pain, he blew out hot, stale air and tried not to close his eyes. He focused on the one memory which sat most uncomfortably in his mind. He recalled the wide-eyed horror of his victim and the flash of steel as Harry had hammered a pair of scissors into the man’s neck.
The final image of his victim’s eyes rolling lifelessly away before his body folded to the floor got Harry across the finish line.
Tonight Lister Park would be the setting for the start of the largest Asian Mela in England. The three-day event was returning after an absence of several years. Last year it had been in City Park in the town centre as a celebration of the new Centenary Square. There had been a live, televised stage show of Bollywood Carmen. It had been one of the largest-scale events to be held in the city.
This year Bradford Council had decided to return the event to Lister Park. They had good reason; today was also the Islamic festival of Eid and the turnout was going to be a record-breaker. Five thousand at least.
Harry was bringing Saima in the evening for some low-quality Asian food and to enjoy the bazaar-like atmosphere. She loved everything Asian.
Like Harry, Saima was trapped in a nightmarish world where she had crossed a religious divide by marrying outside of her faith. But whereas Harry had never been religious, Saima clung desperately to her Muslim identity. They had both been cast out by their families, an experience which was still raw. Harry was from an orthodox Sikh family and Saima from a strict Muslim household.
What had started as a taboo affair had evolved ultimately into a choice: their families or each other? Most days Harry reminded Saima that history was full of couples who had persevered, even when those close by disintegrated. She said she blamed him, his persistence in asking her out after a stint in A & E. Harry had split his head open during a scuffle with an assailant. Saima had stitc
hed the wound and eventually agreed to dinner.
A few soft dates had turned into endless nights in bed, and finally an obsessive relationship had resulted in a marriage which cost them their families. Sikhs and Muslims were not supposed to mix. Harry routinely teased Saima that her bedside manner, whilst she had stitched his wound, was to blame. The pause which had held his eyes, the alluring scent of her skin, and the way she’d whispered seductively in his ear.
Harry trailed his feet against the gravel as he approached the exit, feeling the burn in his thighs subsiding. Saima didn’t know Harry had been suspended. She was a week overdue with their first child and he didn’t want to burden her. She would be tormented by worry about the consequences of Harry losing his job – money, stability and, moreover, what it meant for their future. It was on his mind too; Harry’s head was bursting with questions he didn’t have answers to. He realized how his file would read.
And this time?
This time, the IPCC would burn him.
He was a civilian, Harry. You nearly killed a civilian.
‘Fuck,’ he whispered.
A goddamn civilian.
Bastard deserved it. Sometimes the law didn’t cut it. Son of a bitch is lucky I didn’t . . .
The blood.
There it was again: surfacing in his mind like a clandestine tumour.
Harry clenched his fist and pressed it against his temple. His knuckle was sharp against the skin.
There’s nothing you can do.
It wasn’t true. There was one man who could have helped: Harry’s father.
I’m not asking him. I’ll die before I return there.
The Norman Arch took him out of the park on to Keighley Road, opposite Bradford Grammar, the most prestigious school in the city. It was a place Harry hoped his child might go to one day. But it would be impossible if he didn’t have a job. Saima was an A & E sister and, even if she went back to work full-time, they wouldn’t be able to afford an extravagance like private education. It was something Harry had experienced, and something he wanted to offer his own child.
He unlocked his ageing BMW – the black paint was smeared in dirt so thick, it almost looked grey – but he didn’t get in. The sight of a skulk of foxes running across the road into the grounds of the grammar school caught his attention. It wasn’t especially uncommon at this early hour. The sun was yet to break and the roads were deserted. Commuter rush hour was at least two hours away. But there was something in the frenzied way they were moving – like a hunt.
Harry locked his car. He hadn’t much else to do except make another bullshit excuse to Saima about why he wasn’t at work. He crossed the road and climbed the shallow wall, into the enormous school grounds. Straight ahead was the main building.
The grass was treacherous to walk on. It hadn’t been cut recently and was ankle high. His feet felt as though they were skating. It wasn’t long before icy saturation worked through his trainers, soaked his socks and assaulted his toes.
Harry had tracked the foxes to a wide, triple-fronted sandstone building when the security lights came on. For a moment he stopped breathing.
The foxes were on their back legs, scrabbling up a wall, straining to get their teeth into a dangling pair of feet.
Harry let out his breath slowly. He clapped his hands together loudly and the animals ran, without turning to look at him.
Harry took tentative steps to his left so he was in front of the body. He focused on the wall.
The naked corpse of an older male was suspended, crudely crucified, three feet above the ground. There were rods through his outstretched wrists and his feet were not positioned traditionally but spread wide like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.
Harry moved closer, mindful not to disturb the scene. He glanced behind and then to all four corners and was satisfied he was alone.
He crouched down and stared up at the face of the man. There wasn’t enough light, so he took out his iPhone and turned on the torch. He held it high and, for a moment, couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
There were words scrawled in blood on the wall next to the body: Christ died for our sins; he died for his.
But that wasn’t the real cause of Harry’s panic. The man’s identity was unmistakable. The most powerful Asian man in the city was staring lifelessly at him. There was a swastika brutally carved in the middle of his chest, blood still glistening.
Harry got to his feet and hurriedly dialled the third number in his recent call history.
Bradford, so often on the precipice, was suddenly primed to fall.
TWO
NINETY MINUTES SINCE Harry had discovered the body and Bradford Grammar was heaving with members of HMET, the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team. On any other day he’d be with them. Not today though: today he was an outcast. A witness at best.
His close colleagues were courteous, some engaging in banter. But others, the more senior members? They knew. They knew he was done. He wouldn’t be returning to work.
He had been a boss they all looked up to, but a boss who, this time, had bent the rules so far they had boomeranged and returned to hit him on the arse.
It was half past seven when his own boss, Detective Superintendent George Simpson, arrived at the melee. He made his way past the SOCOs, detectives, forensics and uniforms to the hastily erected tent in front of the body. Harry hung back, away from the drama, spinning his mobile phone incessantly in his hands. It was excruciating not to be involved, not to be the senior investigating officer and organizing the scene. He was on the other side now and it felt like hostile territory. Awkward smiles, a few nods his way and plenty of questions from those who didn’t know why he had been suspended. As they were discreetly updated, their mouths dropped open and they glanced clumsily his way.
Harry Virdee: story of the week.
But most of HMET were focused on the crime scene, because this was no ordinary murder.
Simpson spent half an hour checking details and liaising with officers before slowly making his way over to Harry, gait more laboured than usual, the cold stoking his arthritis.
George Simpson: five days from retirement with the mother of all crises on his hands. He looked forlorn and tired – more tired than Harry had ever witnessed. Simpson didn’t just want retirement, he needed it. Bradford would do that to you.
He was cautious with his approach; the grass had already put three SOCOs on their backsides. Simpson’s gold Rolex glimmered in the morning gloom as he drew nearer. ‘Harry.’
‘Sir.’
‘Can’t keep you out of mischief, can we?’
Harry shrugged.
‘What are you doing out here at six thirty?’
It wasn’t an accusation. Just interest.
‘Running,’ replied Harry. ‘Couldn’t sleep. Not much else to do.’
Simpson nodded. It was awkward. The last conversation they’d shared had been heated, the suspension a foregone conclusion, the barrage of abuse he’d thrown at Harry warranted.
‘You want to reinstate me? Help you clear this mess up?’
Simpson patted him on the shoulder. ‘Let’s walk a little, Harry. Away from here.’
They moved from the overloaded crime scene, back towards Lister Park. The sun had started its laboured ascent but the park was still sombre. The exterior of the Norman Arch had an obscenely yellow banner advertising the Mela, starting at eight o’clock that evening with a concert featuring ‘Techno-Singh’. Pretty tacky and not really to Harry’s taste, but the Mela would end on Sunday with a superb headline act: Feroz Khan, the world-renowned ghazal singer. He was a favourite of Harry’s father, who would most certainly be attending. For that reason, much as he would have enjoyed it, Harry would be giving it a miss.
Their last meeting had drawn blood and Harry didn’t want a repeat.
‘There,’ said Simpson, pointing past the statue of Sir Titus Salt. ‘Up there.’
They headed up the hill where Harry had finished his run. Now they were hidden from
Bradford Grammar, Harry gently took hold of Simpson’s arm and supported him up the steep incline. His boss was in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease and Harry was one of only three senior officers who knew. Simpson didn’t protest and they walked in an eerie silence past the boating lake towards Cartwright Hall into the Mughal Gardens.
‘Like a different world, isn’t it?’ said Simpson, pointing at the flowers.
The garden had been designed to reflect the Asian cultural heritage of Bradford. Mughal architecture was a synergy between Islamic and Hindu designs and reflected the diverse ethnic mix of the city. A million pounds had been granted by the Heritage Lottery fund and the result was breathtaking.
There were beds of pink, red and yellow geraniums with a border of ferns protecting them. The flowers were guarded by a bronze statue of the Greek goddess of hunting, Diana. There was a natural tranquillity to the Mughal Gardens, usually complemented by the soft trickle of water from an adjacent fountain, which today had iced over.
‘Agreed,’ replied Harry. ‘I’m always amazed this place hasn’t been vandalized.’
‘Always the cynic,’ replied Simpson.
They were standing in the archway of Cartwright Hall, in front of the flowers. Harry pointed back towards Bradford Grammar. ‘Try telling that to Shakeel Ahmed.’
Simpson fell silent. Harry knew he was plagued by the violence in the city. Bradford was in the grip of an endemic drug problem which the police couldn’t contain. It was now one of the most drug-fuelled cities in England with homicides on the rise.
‘I’m not seeing things. Right? It was him?’
Simpson nodded. He scanned the entrance of the listed building and motioned for Harry to move away from the CCTV cameras, into the gardens, towards the water.
They walked past the statue of Diana and followed the path descending to a paved area. The fountain was dormant and the pond frozen.
‘You want to tell me what this is about?’ asked Harry.
Simpson pointed to a bench. An hour before, Harry had been sweating in the park but now the bitter chill was slicing through his clothing. They took a seat and Simpson turned towards Harry, his face tired and weary. ‘Gotham City’s on edge, Harry.’