by A. A. Dhand
He was purposefully avoiding her questions. Whether his doctor reassured him or not, the pills dulled his mind. ‘I’m going to be home late, Mavis.’
She stepped closer, so her body was touching his. ‘I know.’
‘I need to be there tonight,’ he said. ‘At the Mela. They need to see me. I’ll be on stage for the opening, with all the bigwigs.’
In light of that morning’s revelations, Mavis Simpson desperately wanted her husband not to attend. She was under no illusions what might happen. How quickly racial anarchy could erupt in the city.
Simpson desperately wanted to stand down. He didn’t have the strength for such pickled politics. He had been mentally winding down for the past month. Delegating more and more to Detective Inspector Harry Virdee, a man who, prior to the previous week, had a chance to one day become the first Asian detective superintendent in Bradford.
Not because he was the best candidate. Far from it. He was reckless and unable to follow protocol. But because his face fit. Because, whilst Harry thought his marriage to his Muslim wife might be the breaking of him, powers higher up than Simpson saw it as an opportunity to showcase diversity. Install a man near the top who embraced both sides of Bradford.
Now, that was in ruins. Virdee was history. Unless he delivered Lucas Dwight. But that in itself was just about as likely as Virdee surviving the following week’s hearing.
‘George?’
‘Hmm,’ he said, turning to face her at last.
‘Where did you go off to?’ Mavis was five years younger than Simpson. Her eyes were creased with wrinkles but they held a natural wisdom which Simpson loved.
‘Just . . . thinking,’ he said.
Another concerned stare.
‘Hey,’ he reassured her, ‘your husband has weathered far worse storms.’
She nodded and kept her hand on his arm. ‘They’re waiting for you. In the media room. Are you sure you’re up to this?’
‘I have to be,’ he said and moved away from her, towards the desk. ‘Mavis . . . give me five minutes, please.’
She nodded and squeezed his arm once more before easing out of the room.
His wife worked as a clerical assistant within the department. Not because they needed the money but because if she didn’t, she might never see her husband. He had a work ethic that meant you didn’t come home when the shift finished but when the work was done, which in this job made for an erratic home life. They had no children, which was a good thing. Simpson wouldn’t have wanted them to suffer the same way his wife did.
George Simpson didn’t have an unparalleled work ethic because he was driven.
He had another reason. One which he would take to the grave.
Simpson sat at his desk and opened the bottom drawer. He checked his door was closed and then removed a bible. He turned to a much-thumbed page, Psalm 32, and read a highlighted passage.
‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.’
He repeated the passage several times. Although he had it memorized, reading it from the page felt more meaningful.
He knew it was a false promise.
Simpson put away the bible and made his way over to a mirror at the far side of the office. He checked his appearance and took several deep breaths.
It was time.
He was about to leave when his mobile rang. It was an unknown number.
‘George Simpson,’ he said, answering on the fifth ring.
‘Alone?’ the male voice asked.
Simpson’s heart sank.
Why now?
‘It’s not a good day.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Colin Reed replied. ‘It’s a perfect day. In fact, it’s exactly the day I’ve been waiting for.’
SIXTEEN
HARRY AND LUCAS left the gym, keeping their heads down, away from the hailstones which had started again. The wintry darkness refused to release its grip on the city.
‘No, get in the back,’ Harry said when they reached the car. ‘I can’t risk anyone seeing you.’
The hoodie was pulled low on Lucas’s face. He opened the rear door and got in.
Harry started the engine and turned on the heaters. He asked Lucas for his mobile phone.
‘Do I look like I own one?’
Harry shrugged. ‘That’s a no?’
‘I’ve got one damn quid left in my pocket. Don’t need a phone. No one to call.’
‘You’ll appreciate our relationship is low on trust?’
‘Tonight, when I’m proven right,’ said Lucas, ‘we’ll correct that.’
‘I don’t trust anything but facts. You better hope for your sake this dealer is complicit.’ Harry turned off the heaters. They were too slow. He leaned forward and smeared his hands across the windscreen, wiping the condensation clear.
‘When we establish I was supplied with poison you’ll know I’m being set up. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘There’s just one problem you have to help me with.’
‘Go on.’ Harry grunted at his inability to clear the windscreen, which was starting to mist over again.
‘I have a methadone script at Rimmingtons Pharmacy. Don’t suppose I can get there without being apprehended. I can do without my HIV meds for a few days but not my methadone.’
‘You’re HIV positive?’ said Harry.
‘Yes. Change anything?’ There was a defensive edge to Lucas’s voice.
‘No. The pharmacy is out. Obvious place to stake out.’
‘Unless you call them off?’
‘Not going to happen.’ Harry knew he couldn’t even if he wanted to.
‘In that case I need to score.’ Lucas wiped perspiration from his brow. ‘I’m already struggling. In about two hours I’ll be willing to sell my grandmother for a hit.’
‘Jesus.’ Harry shook his head.
‘Hey!’ Lucas glared at Harry with jaundiced eyes. ‘I’m being upfront with you. Leave your judgemental shit out of this. I’m an addict. I need a hit. It’s out of my control.’
‘I’m not helping you score heroin.’
‘Heroin won’t help either of us. What I need is methadone.’
Harry looked at Lucas in the rear-view mirror. ‘And how exactly do we do that?’
‘I know where I’ll be able to get some, but I need some money . . .’
Harry sighed. ‘How much?’
‘Fifty mils.’
‘No – I meant how much money?’
‘A fiver. Eight quid tops.’
Harry pulled out his iPhone and selected his news app. He checked the headlines and was dismayed to see Lucas’s name.
‘Crap,’ he whispered. ‘It’s out,’ he said to Lucas. ‘You’re the most wanted man in Bradford right now.’ Harry handed his phone across his shoulder. ‘See?’
Lucas took it and scanned the article. Harry searched his face for any signs of weakness. Lucas returned the phone. ‘Makes scoring a little harder. You’ll have to do it.’
Harry tucked away the phone. He put the car in gear and pulled out of the side street and away from Upper Piccadilly. ‘I had a feeling you were going to say that, but you can score your own shit. With that hoodie no one’s going to see you.’
Lucas instructed Harry to head towards Lumb Lane, another of the city’s red-light areas.
It was adjacent to the Jamiyat Tabligh mosque, one of the grandest in the city. It had been constructed with a sizeable donation from Shakeel Ahmed amid ferocious objections from local residents.
Bradford didn’t need another mosque.
There were already eighty-five within the city, mostly concentrated at the centre. Ahmed’s wealth had ensured the council passed the plans.
Lumb Lane was in stark contrast to the grandeur of the mosque, which towered regally over it, its grey dome blending with the colour of the skies.
Factories which had thrived only d
ecades before now stood fallow and humiliated, with broken windows and yellow stonework soiled in black soot.
‘Over there.’ Lucas pointed towards an enormous abandoned factory.
‘There’s no one there,’ Harry said, taking the right turn.
‘I know how to score in my own city.’
‘You’ve been locked up for fourteen years. Things have changed.’
‘Look around. Does it look like change to you? Nothing has moved on. You think a fancy new shopping centre makes any difference? This city couldn’t win the lottery if it had all the tickets.’ Lucas turned away and looked out of the window.
‘OK, where now?’ Harry asked. They were in a deserted cobbled street. The terraced houses on his right looked as forsaken as the factory on his left. A seedy red bed-sheet spread across one of the windows caught his eye. Might as well have stuck a sign on it saying ‘Knocking Shop’.
‘Go to the end. Turn the car around and then stop outside the factory. So the door’s facing the driver’s side.’
Harry followed Lucas’s instructions.
‘You got the money? Need it exact – you’re not getting any change.’
Harry handed Lucas five pounds.
‘I might need—’
‘Negotiate.’
‘They see you like that, they’re going to smell a cop a mile away.’
‘Relax,’ Harry said, ‘I could be a dealer. Brown skin. BMW. In this city, you’re halfway there.’
‘Your words not mine. But that’s not the issue. Your teeth are.’
‘What?’ said Harry.
‘If I was spotting you, it’s the first thing I would clock. Dealer or user, your teeth give you away. If you use, you expect to have a fucked-up mouth,’ said Lucas bluntly. ‘Not a set of pearly whites.’
Harry glanced in the rear-view mirror. Lucas gave him a grin that would have frightened the devil.
‘Keep your window wound up and face the other way – like you’re ignoring whoever approaches.’
Harry did so.
‘Good.’ Lucas wound down his window. A crisp iciness filtered into the car.
‘We just wait?’ Harry asked.
‘They’re watching,’ Lucas said. ‘Don’t worry about that.’
After several minutes, Harry turned on the floor heaters. The temperature in the car was plummeting rapidly. Harry kept his focus on Lucas, who was keenly searching the shadows inside the open doorway for signs of a score. He was chewing his lip nervously. Harry didn’t have to look to his right to know someone was approaching. He saw the reaction in Lucas’s face, the smile of anticipation.
‘Help you, baby?’ came the voice. Harry turned his head slightly from Lucas to the driver’s side mirror. He saw a mini-skirt that struggled to contain cellulite and red stilettos which were badly scuffed. Blond hair was masking dark roots and the smell of stale smoke wafted into the car.
‘Go back in there and get me some methadone,’ said Lucas arrogantly.
‘I give you more than that, baby.’
‘Fifty mils. You can blow me later.’
‘Later? Ain’t no such fing as later, baby.’
‘I haven’t got all day,’ Lucas snapped. ‘You want paying or shall I go down Thornton Road?’
She whistled, turned around and disappeared, telling him she would be back.
‘Smooth,’ Harry said. ‘Real James Bond.’
Lucas didn’t reply. His gaze was back on the doorway, drawn magnetically to where she had disappeared.
She returned with a small plastic medicine bottle concealed in her left hand. ‘Fifteen quid,’ she said, and slipped her open palm through the window.
‘Bitch, do I look fresh to you?’ Lucas waved the five-pound note at her. ‘Take it or leave it. Thornton’s got plenty more.’
‘You want that puke-shit, you piss off to Thornton. This is legit. Ten or leave it.’
Lucas beckoned towards Harry. ‘Start the car. Bitch is deluded.’
Harry started the car and put it in gear.
‘Fucker!’ she spat. ‘Gimme the money.’
Lucas handed her the note and she gave him the methadone before storming off, cursing under her breath. Lucas opened the brown plastic bottle and drank its contents in one go.
Immediately, he lunged for the door, attacking the handle. It startled Harry who quickly undid his seatbelt.
‘Open it! Open it now!’ Lucas screamed.
‘What the hell—’
‘She did me! Open the damn door!’
Lucas leaned back and kicked the door. His need for a hit seemed to have suddenly overwhelmed him. Harry released the child lock and Lucas sprinted out of the car.
‘Fuck sake,’ said Harry, turning off the engine and getting out of the car in pursuit.
Inside the factory, Lucas was ten metres ahead of Harry. The whore was standing next to three scrawny-looking men, one of whom had a pathetic little knife and was brandishing it wildly at Lucas.
‘Hey, hey – put it away,’ Harry said to the guy with the knife.
‘You ripped me off, bitch,’ Lucas spat. ‘I’m going to skull-fuck you unless you make it right. You hear me, Blondie?’
‘Come on,’ said the man with the blade. He had an accent. Eastern European. Probably Polish. The city was flooded with them. Harry put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. ‘Calm the fuck down,’ he whispered, ‘we can’t get into shit like this.’
‘Bitch robbed me.’ Lucas pointed at her. ‘I want my methadone or I’m putting all you fuckers down.’
The man with the blade continued striking air with it, clumsily waving it around. He was far from intimidating. The other two were quiet, making up the numbers. They were liable to disappear if anything kicked off.
Lucas suddenly snapped out a lightning left jab and struck the guy with the blade in the nose. There was a crack of bone and the man stumbled backwards, tripping over his feet and falling comically to the floor. The others weren’t as cowardly as Harry had envisaged. They leapt on Lucas. The first one threw himself to the floor and grabbed Lucas’s legs. The other pounced on his chest and knocked him down. They looked like three tramps having a tussle.
Harry folded his arms and observed bemusedly as the three of them rolled on the floor. The hooker didn’t know whether to run or stay.
‘You move,’ Harry said, pointing at her. ‘I’ll put you off the street for a week.’
Harry grabbed the man who was on top of Lucas and lifted him off the ground, throwing him nonchalantly across the floor. Lucas had the other contained in a choke-hold.
‘Let him go,’ Harry said. ‘Jesus, you want to kill the bum for a fiver?’
Lucas struggled for a few more seconds and then pushed him away. He got to his feet and clicked his fingers at the girl. ‘Meth,’ he said. ‘Now.’
At the gym, Lucas had been almost too controlled. He had dealt with Harry coolly, with a resolve Harry didn’t think he had. But now, the need for a hit showed who he really was. A desperate drug addict. Lucas’s cheeks were flushed and sweat was pouring down his face.
The hooker didn’t move and shook her head.
‘Really?’ Lucas asked. ‘You’re going to make me come and get it?’ He reached out and grabbed her by the throat. ‘Where is it?’ he hissed.
Harry shuffled towards them, ready to pull Lucas away if he took it any further.
‘In my pussy!’ she spat.
‘Don’t think I won’t go there.’
‘You be my fucking guest.’
Lucas shoved his hand down her skirt. Her expression never changed as Lucas invaded her privacy and took out a small plastic bottle. He shoved her away and she fell to the ground. Lucas removed the top of the medicine bottle and poured a little on to his finger. He tasted it and then drank the contents, throwing the empty container at her.
Harry grimaced. ‘We good?’
‘Yes.’ Lucas spat on the floor towards the hooker.
Outside Harry was dismayed to see both driver and pass
enger doors open. ‘Argh, shit.’
Lucas remained stone-faced.
‘We just fell for the oldest trick in the book,’ Harry said. ‘Ran after the small loot while they ransacked us.’
‘Anything in there?’
Harry nodded. ‘My wallet,’ he said, pointing at the open glovebox.
‘Much in it?’
‘Maybe forty quid. Cards. Licence. Usual stuff.’
‘Let’s go back in and get it.’
Harry shook his head. ‘Look around this street. Curtains twitching on every house. We’re in addict central. Eyes everywhere. Put the hoodie back over your head and get in the car. We need to leave.’
‘What’s the plan?’ asked Lucas when they were back on the road.
‘What time can we get to this dealer?’
‘The little runt opens his business at sixish.’
‘Business?’
‘He’ll be at Undercliffe Cemetery when it gets dark. That’s his spot.’
‘To deal?’
‘Deal. Sleep. Both. Some guys keep to a routine. That way when you want to score, you know where to go looking.’
‘That’s a lottery expecting him to be there. I don’t like the odds.’
‘He’ll be there.’
‘Why are you so sure?’ Harry glanced at the rear-view mirror and saw Lucas taking in how the landscape had changed over the fourteen years he’d been inside.
‘He told me he’d be there in case I needed to score again.’
Harry was mulling over his options. ‘There’s only one place I can really keep you safe. Every pair of eyes in Bradford will be looking for you.’
Lucas was perceptive for a junkie. ‘Your place?’
Harry nodded. ‘But my wife is about to give birth and I can’t be worrying her.’
‘She know who I am?’
‘Yes. But taking you there is asking a lot.’
‘Because I’m HIV positive?’
‘Because you’re the most wanted criminal in Bradford.’
‘Ex-criminal.’ Lucas leaned forward so his breath was warm on Harry’s ear. ‘Why don’t you just drop me back at the gym?’
‘If I found you there, others can.’
‘I can keep myself hidden on these streets. I ran them for long enough. I got friends.’