‘But then Hana met this man, Samir, and he started staying over. Within a few weeks it seems he is always there. It is only a two-bedroom flat and I already share, so they sleep on the couch. Before long my flatmate has moved out, and I am left with all the bills to pay because Samir never seems to have any money, either. Hana and I argue all the time and my study is not so good. Then Jo-Ji suggested I move in with him, and I did. We have see each other for over a year and we know we want to be together.’
‘So what happened to your sister?’
‘We have very big row when I tell her. Three weeks after I move out, the landlady throws Hana and Samir out. I think they don’t pay the rent at all. My sister was keep phoning me, wanting me to lend her some money but I didn’t have any. I say I will help her if she leaves Samir but she say I am being unfair, she loves him and is going to have his baby. I tell her he should look after her, then. She hung up on me. Then, after I get my degree, Jo-Ji is offered a placement in Bristol and we move down here. Since then, I hear nothing from her …’ Tamiko paused, the memory obviously painful. Then she looked at Daniel. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this …’
‘Because I asked,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I’m just naturally nosey – goes with the territory.’
‘Being a policeman, you mean?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But you’re not a policeman now,’ she said, getting to her feet and gathering their empty plates.
‘No.’ The word sounded abrupt in the silence that followed. The premature end of his career wasn’t a time he cared to revisit but, perversely, when Tamiko didn’t pursue it, he felt he owed her some explanation at least, after her frank confidences.
‘Would you like cup of tea?’ she asked in her slightly stilted way. ‘Or coffee? We have a machine. I can do cappuccino but I only have soya milk.’
‘Coffee would be great.’
‘It’s OK you don’t want to talk about it,’ Tamiko said as she busied herself. ‘What happened, I mean. Jo-Ji tell me you make some powerful enemies and they force you to leave police. You must have been sad. You enjoyed your job, no?’
‘I loved it,’ Daniel said with a depth of feeling that surprised even himself. ‘But I couldn’t ignore what was going on. And afterwards, I became a pariah – an outcast. It started to affect my work because no one wanted to work with me. When a girl got hurt because of me, I knew my career was over. It wouldn’t have been so bad if my whistle-blowing had achieved something worthwhile, but it didn’t. The main players got off Scot-free.’
For a few moments the noise of the coffee machine doing its stuff ruled out any chance of conversation, but when Tamiko returned to the table carrying two brimming mugs of frothy coffee, she said, ‘I still think you were right to do what you did. In my country I think it would have been ignored totally. Most people don’t like to step out of the line. They do as they’re told and don’t ask questions. I think you were very brave and I know so does Jo-Ji.’
‘Brave or stupid. And look where it got me.’
‘You have your honour,’ she stated simply.
Daniel nodded. ‘True,’ he said. Tamiko had a way of cutting things back to the bare bones that was refreshing.
‘Anyway,’ Tamiko said with a mischievous smile. ‘Jo-Ji says what’s bad for you is good for him, because if you were still in police, he wouldn’t have Bella.’
Daniel was just formulating a suitable reply when he saw Taz, who was lying under the archway, become suddenly alert.
‘What have you heard, fella?’ he asked, and the dog got swiftly to his feet and ran to the front of the sitting room, where he stood listening with his head tilted, before uttering a series of short, sharp barks.
Daniel looked at Tamiko who widened her eyes and shook her head.
‘It’s too early for Jo-Ji,’ she said.
Daniel got to his feet and followed Taz, giving the command for silence, but had to repeat it more sternly after a long, shrill ring on the doorbell sent the dog into a frenzy of barking.
‘Do you want me to answer it?’ Daniel offered.
Tamiko, standing in the archway, shook her head and came forward.
‘I will, but you come too?’
The bell rang again, the note sustained for even longer, and with an anxious glance at Daniel, Tamiko unlocked and opened the door.
With a hand in Taz’s collar, Daniel stepped up to Tamiko’s shoulder in order to observe the visitor.
On the doorstep stood another young woman of oriental origin holding the hand of a small boy. She had black hair cut in a spiky crop and was somewhat taller, but even though her expression was deeply troubled, the woman bore a strong enough resemblance to Tamiko to leave Daniel in little doubt as to her identity, and Tamiko’s breathless exclamation confirmed it.
‘Hana!’ she said.
TWO
‘Tami.’ As the newcomer stood looking at her sister, her eyes filled with tears and her lower lip began to quiver. ‘I had nowhere else to go,’ she said and began to sob. The little boy looked up at her with worried eyes, then turned to cling to her leg and started to cry in sympathy.
Tamiko seemed rooted to the spot. She made no move to go to her sister who, after weeping for a moment or two, sniffed hard, swallowed and said in a small voice, ‘Please, Tami. Can we come in?’
Beyond the visitors, Daniel could see the dark outline of a car standing in the lane with its engine running. Its lights illuminated the front hedges of the neighbouring cottages and a sign on its roof labelled it a taxi.
‘Can we come in?’ Hana repeated, her eyes beseeching. ‘Jahan is so tired.’
Tamiko glanced over her sister’s shoulder at the waiting car. ‘Samir?’
She shook her head. ‘No. He’s not here. I’ve left him. You were right – I’m so sorry.’
The driver of the car was clearly becoming impatient. He opened the door and stepped out, looking up at the cottage.
‘Oi, lady! Sometime tonight would be good. I’ve got other fares to pick up.’
Hana looked at Tamiko with a measure of desperation.
‘I’m sorry. I told him you’d pay. I haven’t got any money.’
‘I’ll get it.’ Daniel spoke up, and with Taz at his heels, went past the girls and strode down the path, fishing his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. The fare made his eyebrows rise.
‘Where did you pick her up?’ he queried.
‘North of Cheltenham,’ the driver said. ‘Out of my range, this, but she said she was desperate.’
Resignedly, Daniel settled with the man and returned to the house, where he found Tamiko and the two visitors in the kitchen. Hana had picked the child up and he was nestling into her shoulder, his eyes closed. The atmosphere had not noticeably thawed, although Tamiko was refilling the kettle from a filter jug in the fridge. Their own unfinished coffees stood on the table.
‘Sit down,’ he told Hana. ‘You look fit to drop. When did you last eat?’
‘Yesterday,’ she said, gratefully making use of the chair he had pulled out and repositioning the boy so that he sat on her lap, eyes half open and sucking his thumb. ‘Jahan had a sandwich at lunchtime but I had no more money.’ Suddenly her face crumpled and she began to cry again. ‘I’ve been so scared, Tami, and all I could think about was getting to you.’
Finally, at the sight of her genuine distress, the familiar role of older sister kicked in like muscle memory and Tamiko left the tea-making, put her arm round Hana’s shoulders and bent to kiss the cropped black hair.
‘Hana-chan, daijobu dakara, mou nakanai de,’ she said, slipping back into her mother tongue as she hugged her. ‘It’s all right, you’re here now. We’ll sort something out. Shush, don’t cry.’
With their heads close together the family resemblance was striking, although if he hadn’t known better, Daniel would have guessed at Hana being the older; her features were drawn and her skin lacked the smooth freshness of Tamiko’s. The hairstyle was youthful and she wore
a small crystal nose stud but dark circles under her eyes added to the ageing effect, a legacy, perhaps, of the stress she was quite clearly under. Even had his name not pointed to it, the boy’s darker skin and more aquiline features told of a mixed-race ancestry.
‘Your lovely hair,’ Tami said softly, after a moment or two. ‘It’s so short now.’
Hana sat up a little and her sister passed her a handkerchief. ‘Samir cut it,’ she said, after mopping her eyes and blowing her nose.
‘Samir did?’
She nodded. ‘A friend of his came to the flat when he was out and he came back and caught us talking. That’s all it was, Tami, I promise you, but Samir thinks I am flirting. That’s when he cut my hair.’
‘That’s awful!’ Tami was clearly shocked.
‘It’s because he loves me very much that he is sometimes jealous,’ Hana explained.
Tami snorted. ‘That sounds like his words. You don’t do that to someone you love!’
‘I was upset at first,’ Hana admitted. ‘It was very short. But Samir gives me some money to get it cut properly and now I like it. Tami, can I stay? I have nowhere else to go.’
‘For tonight, at least,’ Tamiko told her. ‘I’ll make up a bed on the sofa. We’ll talk more tomorrow.’
‘She can have my room,’ Daniel suggested, from where he had taken over the tea making. ‘Be better for the boy.’
‘Thank you,’ Hana said. ‘You are kind. Are you sure? I’m sorry if I make trouble …’ She looked across at Daniel, as if seeing him properly for the first time, and then back at Tamiko, questioning. ‘Where is Jo-Ji? You haven’t …?’
‘Jo-Ji’s at work. He’ll be home soon. This is Daniel, he’s a friend of Jo-Ji. He stays for a while.’ Tamiko left her sister and went to the cupboard, where she took out two plates and divided the remainder of the curry and rice between them. The little boy brightened visibly at the sight and smell of the hot food.
‘This was for Jo-Ji, no?’ Hana asked, hesitating. At her side Jahan tucked in hungrily, not troubled by any such scruples.
‘It’s OK. He’ll understand.’
Jo-Ji, when he arrived home a couple of hours later, took the news that his supper was no more in surprisingly good part, although Daniel thought that he looked less than overjoyed to learn who had eaten it. By this time, Hana and Jahan had retired to the room upstairs and the bed that had been intended for Daniel, so his demands to know what Tamiko’s sister wanted and how long she was likely to stay could be made without her hearing.
‘I don’t think she has made any plans,’ Tamiko replied handing him a mug of tea. ‘She had to get away from Samir, and she didn’t know where else to go. It was natural that she should come here.’
‘So what made her finally see sense?’
‘She doesn’t say, and I don’t want to ask in front of the boy, but it’s obvious he has been abusive. I tell her we’ll talk about it more in the morning, when she has rested. Now I find you something else to eat.’
‘Thanks,’ Jo-Ji dropped a kiss on Tamiko’s hair and moved to join Daniel at the table. ‘So, Daniel. How are you? Quite a welcome for you – I’m sorry.’ A scant five feet eight and slim, he was nevertheless whipcord strong and, as some of those who had crossed his path could testify, a martial artist of considerable skill. Although Japanese on his father’s side, Jo-Ji had lived in England for much of his life, attended a top school and spoke English with only a trace of an accent. Good-looking, with a fringe that flopped into his eyes, he had engaging manners and an open, friendly face that could, when trouble flared, become basilisk cold.
‘I’m good, thanks,’ Daniel replied. ‘Did you have a busy day?’
‘No. Pretty quiet, actually, but yesterday Bella and I were working the airport. That was great fun. She made several finds. One guy had half a kilo of cannabis stashed inside a guitar – she was onto that in a flash. She’s a good girl, my Bella.’
‘That’s it – rub it in,’ Daniel complained. ‘Anyway, where is she now?’
‘Out in her kennel, having her tea. Dexter, my young Lab is out there too. I’ll bring them in later, if Taz is cool with it.’
‘Taz’ll be fine. Interesting to see whether he remembers her.’
It turned out that he did, and while he wasn’t overly demonstrative, a waving tail showed his pleasure.
Bella had burst into the house, a tornado of black, working cocker spaniel, wriggling in ecstasy to find, not only visitors, but visitors she knew. On Daniel she lavished a huge welcome, plainly showing that even though she now worked with Jo-Ji, she hadn’t forgotten the one who had trained her. The young, black Labrador who followed her in was scarcely less effusive in his welcome, even though he had never met Daniel before, but that’s the nature of the breed.
‘Dexter is a firearms dog,’ his handler said. ‘Only a rookie, but showing good promise.’
‘He’s a nice dog.’
‘Do you miss it?’ Jo-Ji asked.
‘I miss the work and the lads – and ladesses; I don’t miss the politics.’
‘Ropey sends his love.’
‘Yeah, right! I bet those weren’t his words.’ Ropey was the nickname of the senior trainer at Dog Central or the headquarters of the police dog unit, where all the dogs and handlers were trained, spent much of their down time, and where they returned at regular intervals for refresher courses and assessments. Daniel had indeed been on good terms with the huge bear of a man that oversaw the kennels, but his terminology had always been inclined more toward that of a squaddie than a poet.
‘Well, no,’ Jo-Ji admitted with a smile. ‘Not his exact words. But I won’t repeat what he actually said in front of Tami. Anyway, he’s always banging on about you. Holds you and Taz up as examples.’
‘Good or bad?’ Daniel asked quizzically, but he was pleased, nevertheless. As rookies in the dog unit, he and the others on his intake had looked up to Ropey with great respect; a respect which hadn’t diminished with the passing of time.
‘Oh, you could do no wrong! Bloody angels, the pair of you!’ His eyes twinkled to rob the words of their bite but then he became more serious. ‘You’ve still got friends, you know, and Ropey is one of them. He said to tell you, if you ever need anything … Well, you know.’
‘He’s a good bloke. If he hadn’t been on holiday when it all kicked off, things might have been a whole lot different.’
‘The benefit of hindsight,’ Jo-Ji said. ‘It may not have seemed like it at the time but I know a few of the lads were on your side – it just wasn’t seen to be a good idea to shout about it. It’s old hat, now. You were talk of the locker room for a while and there were some worried faces amongst the middle ranks but you know how it is, life goes on and new dramas come and go. That whole business has been neatly filed away and I’d say there are one or two who are very happy about that.’
‘I can imagine,’ Daniel said with feeling. When he had decided to come forward with the allegations of corruption that had eventually ended his career, he had inadvertently taken his suspicions to a senior officer who was a party to the whole set-up. Having thus made an enemy of a fairly high-ranking officer, he found the tables turned against him. His own integrity had been called into question and his position within the force had quickly become untenable. Pulled from dog unit and put back on basic duties, Daniel had found no one prepared to endanger their own prospects by backing him up.
Another controversial incident on duty left an innocent girl dead and Daniel assigned to what was not much more than a desk job, and with his career prospects bleak to non-existent, he had resigned. Shortly after that, his marriage fell apart under the strain, with his young son suffering the inevitable consequences. The only silver lining to the stormy cloud that hung over him at the time was the continued partnership of Taz, who had been forced into retirement through injury, shortly before – as Fred Bowden would have termed it – the manure hit the cooling device.
Daniel awoke early after a somewhat restless nig
ht on the sofa to find Tamiko tiptoeing past him to the kitchen. Taz was awake and watchful.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I hope I not wake you,’ she said, seeing Daniel sit up.
‘Not really.’
‘Did you sleep OK?’
‘Yeah, not too bad at all,’ he said brightly.
‘I think you’re lying,’ she told him. ‘I have sleep once on sofa when friends are here. It was very bad.’
Daniel laughed. ‘OK. It wasn’t great, but I’ve had worse. You’re up early.’
‘I have to see to the horses before my clients come. Can I make you a cup of tea?’
‘If you’re having one.’
‘Yes. I take with me,’ she said, pointing in the direction of the stables.
‘I’ll come and help,’ he offered.
She shook her head with that wide-eyed look he was coming to know.
‘No. You don’t have to, really.’
‘Might as well make myself useful.’
By the time the horses had been fed, turned out in the paddock and their stables mucked out, they found Jo-Ji in the kitchen making breakfast. Of their visitors there was as yet no sign and it was agreed that they should be allowed to sleep for as long as they wished.
Shortly after nine, Karen, the beautician arrived and hot on her heels, Tamiko’s first client. The little cottage felt full to bursting and with Tamiko safely chaperoned, Daniel took the opportunity of taking Taz out for a run.
When he returned, Hana and Jahan were sat at the kitchen table with Jo-Ji drinking tea. Tamiko’s sister looked tense and unhappy, but Daniel could detect no hostility in Jo-Ji’s manner.
As if Daniel’s appearance gave her a chance to escape, Hana muttered something about Jahan needing the bathroom and took the child upstairs.
‘Sorry, Joey. Did I interrupt something?’ Daniel helped himself to tea from the still-warm pot, but wrinkled his nose slightly when it came out green.
‘No, I don’t think there was much more to be said,’ Jo-Ji said with a sigh. ‘She says she left Jafari over a month ago and has been staying with a friend until earlier this week. Then, apparently, the friend had family coming to stay and she had to move out.’
Nothing But Lies Page 3