by Simon Mason
“That’s it, yeah. Told you before, right. Coming in here jamming up my shop, not buying nothing, talking. Out!”
“I was just about to buy a pack of Rizlas,” Garvie said. “Maybe two packs. That’s five whole pence to you, man.”
“Out before I call the coppers. And you!” Sajid flinched when his brother shouted at him. “You got ten minutes, then I want you in the back room doing your school shit. I don’t know why this is going on. Don’t know what I got to do, right? Got to ban everyone from my shop, is that it?”
Putting his hands above his head in surrender, Garvie went out onto the street, and as he let the battered door swing shut behind him he heard Khalid already talking on his phone again.
The back room at Jamal’s was part living room, part storeroom, cardboard boxes stacked along the walls and under the table and next to the chairs. It was dim and stale as if the curtains had been drawn shut for many years, and there was a crusty old smell of stepped-in curry and cat, and Garvie sat on a broken-down easy chair in the corner, squinting in the gloom, trying not to breathe the furred air and wondering if he had time for a cigarette.
Sajid came in and switched on the light and stood there with his mouth open.
“Come in, Sajid. Shut the door. Close your mouth. Let’s have a chat.”
“How did you get in here?”
“Back door. Your old dad was having trouble humping all those boxes in and I gave him a hand so he could have a lie-down. That leg of his is still acting up.” Garvie put out his hand. “Here, have one of these. Gimpel’s favorites.”
Sajid gave a lopsided smile when he saw the yellow-and-green wrapper. “Pete hated them.”
“Course he did. They’re horrible. I bet he was the only punter in Five Mile went for them.”
“Apart from Khalid, and he only carries them round to try to make people think they’re nice.”
“There you go. But Pyotor bought a load every time he came here, didn’t he, to keep Khalid off his back?”
Sajid said nothing.
“Course,” Garvie said, “he didn’t come for the sweets, did he? Why don’t you sit down and we’ll have a chat? I’m sure Khalid won’t mind. I won’t even ask you anything about those bruises round your neck, so no one will ever need know about them.”
At last Sajid shut the door to the shop behind him, sidled in, and sat down gingerly on the edge of a chair at the table, all the time watching Garvie with big, unblinking eyes.
“Hey, no need to go all worried on me. This is just a little chat. Don’t you trust me? What do you think, I’m going to interrogate you like some big old detective inspector?”
Location: back room, Jamal’s corner shop, Bulwarks Lane; dark, fusty, proximity of unseen cats.
Interviewer: DI Garvie Smith: tall, casual.
Interviewee: Sajid Baloch: small, big-eyed, nervy.
DI GARVIE SMITH: Khalid didn’t like Gimpel hanging round here so much, did he?
SAJID BALOCH: [shakes head]
DI GARVIE SMITH: He was here a lot, wasn’t he? Playing World of Warcraft with you.
[Silence]
DI GARVIE SMITH: Come on, Sajid. I know Pyotor was a WoW freak; I’ve seen the boxes on his bedroom shelf. And I’ve seen you fooling around with it on your own in that sad, half-assed way, like you don’t know what to do anymore. You played arenas together, didn’t you? Ring of Valor and stuff.
SAJID BALOCH: [nods]
DI GARVIE SMITH: Nearly every evening after school?
SAJID BALOCH [nods]: Not Tuesdays.
DI GARVIE SMITH: No. He had orchestra practice Tuesdays. Still, that’s a lot of time you were hanging out together. What happened in the end? Khalid banned him, right?
SAJID BALOCH: [nods]
DI GARVIE SMITH: We’ll come back to that. Tell me about WoW.
SAJID BALOCH: It started in January. I was out in the shop playing a battleground game with this bunch of losers and every time we grabbed their flag we got killed. And he must have been watching me, ’cause suddenly he started telling me what to do. He was like, “Buff him now” and stuff, and next thing is, we’d got the flag and it was all done. So then we got talking about WoW.
DI GARVIE SMITH: Gimpel talked?
SAJID BALOCH: That’s the thing. When he talked about playing he was, like, someone different. He said he’d been playing for a while, which I could tell, obviously. But when he showed me his account—man, he was “Paladinski”!
DI GARVIE SMITH: “Paladinski”?
SAJID BALOCH: Like, famous. In the Icecrown Citadel Raid. Got all the armor, tons of epic stuff.
DI GARVIE SMITH: Okay. So he wasn’t bad at it?
SAJID BALOCH [smiling for the first time]: He was the best! I never saw anything like it. And it was so weird, that he would play with me. I mean, I don’t hang out with anyone from your year, and I don’t know any kid his age would spend time with me. But Pete was … there was something about him. When he played, he wasn’t weird anymore. It was like, this was his world. And he was just really good to be with. He made a toon and we teamed up and started playing the arenas, two versus two. And no one could beat us. I mean, we didn’t lose, in six months, not ever. We were the team, man.
DI GARVIE SMITH: I get it. So you spent all your time playing WoW.
SAJID BALOCH: Mostly.
DI GARVIE SMITH: Where? Not out in the shop.
SAJID BALOCH: No, in here, where no one would bother us. Khalid’s on my case a lot of the time, so … You won’t tell him I said that, will you?
DI GARVIE SMITH: I won’t tell him.
SAJID BALOCH: So he’s always going on about, finish your schoolwork first, you can’t play till you done your math or whatever. So some of the time Pete helped me with that, you know, to get it done. The rest of the time, yeah, we were just taking on those losers, beating everyone we played.
DI GARVIE SMITH: I get it. Tell me this, Sajid, though. Why didn’t Khalid like him? I mean, Gimpel helped you with your schoolwork, right? Your grades were going up. What was Khalid’s problem?
SAJID BALOCH [long pause]: Don’t know.
DI GARVIE SMITH: I think you do. What did Khalid say when he banned Pyotor? I heard something about that.
SAJID BALOCH: Yeah, but that was all a mistake.
DI GARVIE SMITH: Remind me.
SAJID BALOCH: He said Pete’d been nicking stuff. [Pausing] I didn’t think anyone knew about that.
DI GARVIE SMITH: I didn’t. But I do now. What stuff?
SAJID BALOCH: His phone. It was a mistake, though. Pete was always tidying stuff, putting it in some sort of weird order, like everything had to be in this pattern he had in his head. He didn’t mean nothing, taking his phone. He just used to do it without thinking. Anyway, the phone turned up later.
DI GARVIE SMITH: Was it just his phone Khalid accused him of stealing?
SAJID BALOCH [long pause]: Yeah.
DI GARVIE SMITH: Sure?
SAJID BALOCH: Yeah, I think.
DI GARVIE SMITH: You sure? Are you sure Khalid didn’t accuse him of stealing something else too?
SAJID BALOCH: I don’t know. I heard Khalid having a go at him a couple of times. Pete didn’t like it. It made him weirder. His eyes used to get sort of puffy.
DI GARVIE SMITH: What did Khalid have a go at him about?
SAJID BALOCH [shrugs]: I don’t know.
DI GARVIE SMITH: Yeah, you do.
SAJID BALOCH: I don’t!
DI GARVIE SMITH: Was it about the phone, or something else? Come on, Sajid, trust me. What were they arguing about? What did you hear them say?
SAJID BALOCH: I don’t know!
DI GARVIE SMITH: Hey, don’t get all upset on me, Sajid.
SAJID BALOCH: I don’t like these questions anymore. Something about going to the police. I don’t remember.
DI GARVIE SMITH: Who was going to go to the police?
SAJID BALOCH: I can’t remember.
DI GARVIE SMITH: Was it Khalid? Did Khalid t
hreaten to go to the police? I can always ask him if you won’t tell me. Was it Khalid, Sajid?
SAJID BALOCH: No!
DI GARVIE SMITH: So it was Gimpel. Gimpel threatened to go to the police. I wonder why. About something Khalid had done? Something Khalid was into?
SAJID BALOCH: I don’t know! I’m telling you, I don’t know!
DI GARVIE SMITH: Okay, Sajid. I believe you.
SAJID BALOCH [snuffling, eventually quiet]: He’s going to be really mad with me now.
DI GARVIE SMITH: No, he isn’t. Definitely not. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell him. Come on now. Here, dry your face. I’ve only got one question left.
SAJID BALOCH: I don’t like your questions.
DI GARVIE SMITH: You won’t mind this one. Did Pyotor bring his violin here?
SAJID BALOCH: He didn’t go anywhere without that fiddle. It’s funny, you know, ’cause—
There was a slam of a door somewhere from the back of the building and rapid footsteps and a power-drill hammering of claws on floor. Then the door to the back room banged open, and Khalid lurched in behind an enormous mastiff panting and straining forward on a thick metal chain.
Sajid fled behind the sofa.
Khalid said nothing, and Garvie said nothing, just quietly and slowly got to his feet and stood there very still, and for a moment the only sound in the small room was dog-pant thrapping madly like the noise of an overloaded generator.
Garvie went white.
“Told you, yeah,” Khalid said in a hiss. “This is Genghis, right.”
Garvie nodded slowly. “Hi, Genghis,” he said. His voice was quiet and careful.
Khalid paid out the chain slightly, and Genghis strained a couple of feet closer to Garvie. As the dog reared up, he could smell its breath, foul as boiled body parts, coming out of its mouth in waves, and feel spittle flecking his cheeks when Genghis gnashed his teeth. Garvie did not look at Khalid. He made himself look at those teeth, concentrating on standing upright and making sure his voice worked.
“Well,” he said lightly, “I’d love to stay and pet your new puppy. But I really have to go now.”
“Thing about you, yeah,” Khalid said, “you think you know what you’re doing. Thing is, you got no idea. So I’m telling you. Drop all this, yeah? ’Cause you getting into stuff you don’t understand.”
“Well, I’ll certainly bear all that in mind,” Garvie said as he went carefully around the edge of the room to the door, keeping about a foot between him and the straining mastiff, who turned with him, jaws snapping in regular wet chomps.
Khalid said, “You should be thinking about yourself, not bothering other people. You’re a waster, man. Everybody knows it. You got a lot of sorting out of your head to do.”
Finally Garvie reached the door. There was just one more thing. He turned back and pointed a finger at Sajid. “Next time I ask you questions I want you to give me answers.” Before Khalid could react he went through the door and closed it behind him. For a moment he couldn’t move. Then he was staggering outside in a rush and vomiting at the side of the alley. He made it to the bench on the street and sat there gulping air, wiping his face with his sleeve. A white-haired old lady stopped and looked at him, and he made reassuring gestures with his hands.
“I’m okay. I just really don’t like dogs.”
She nodded sympathetically. “I have a Peke,” she said. “The little shit.”
At last his legs felt normal again, and he got up and began to walk home.
He didn’t mean nothing, taking his phone? That was interesting. But was it just Khalid’s phone he took?
He walked on a bit farther, thinking.
Something about going to the police? Why? What had Gimpel seen Khalid do?
He crossed the road and went on.
Waster? Sorting out your head? He stopped with a look of disgust on his face, and at that moment a text came through on his phone from his mother. It said Where r u?!
He looked at his watch. He was a couple of hours late home, give or take. Sighing, he pointed himself toward Eastwick Gardens, and after a few reluctant paces he got another message, from Alex.
Call me.
He called him. “Alex, mate.”
“We need to meet.”
“I’m a bit pushed now. I just got a—”
“Got to see you, Garv, and it’s got to be now.”
Garvie frowned. “Okay, then.”
“Usual place in twenty.”
“All right, all right. At least tell me what it’s about.”
There was a long pause. “Think you know,” Alex said.
“Course I don’t know. Tell me. What you want to talk about?”
“Zuza.”
Garvie hesitated. “What about her?”
Alex said, “You remember the question you asked me? Can I trust her?”
“Yeah, but—”
“That’s what it’s about, then.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be … ”
Alex had hung up. Garvie reluctantly turned around and went back along Bulwarks Lane, past Jamal’s, toward Old Ditch Road and the kiddies’ playground.
The kiddies’ playground was almost unrecognizable in daylight, small and cluttered and unexpectedly childish. There was even a child on the swings, looking so out of place Garvie had the urge to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing there. He went instead across the grass, carefully avoiding a dog walker, to the other side of the playground, and sat on the little merry-go-round.
He thought about Alex. He regretted now asking him whether he trusted Zuzana. Trust was a pretty basic formula to most people, to Garvie in particular, but to Alex it was a whole complicated drama of emotion. Alex was paranoid: The slightest wrinkle in a relationship flipped him sideways. Garvie asked himself cautiously what might have made Alex flip now. Something Zuzana had done? Something Alex had imagined she’d done? And why would Alex want to talk to him about it? Reluctantly Garvie gave this some thought. He’d hardly seen Zuzana himself, very few times anyway, and never secretly, and it was only because Alex hadn’t been around that Garvie hadn’t mentioned any of it to him. This line of thinking only produced a sharp but confused feeling, very physical, located somewhere between Garvie’s chest and his throat. He couldn’t help remembering what Zuzana had said to him the last time they had met—“Together we will find out what happened”—and the words—particularly the word together—rang awkwardly in his mind.
He started when he heard his name called out and, looking up to find Zuzana standing in front of him, stared at her dumbfounded. She was wearing gray leggings and a T-shirt, very tight. He thought for a second she was a weird hallucination.
Then she laughed. “I could not believe it when they told me this is where I will find you.”
He hastily looked all around the field, and at his watch, and around the field again, and when he’d done all this Zuzana was still standing in front of him, and Alex, nowhere to be seen, was still just about to arrive and find them there together. His brain seemed to slow down almost to a standstill. “What are you doing here?” he said at last. He did not say “Where’s Alex?” He did not trust himself to mention Alex.
She regarded him with that mocking, amused look again, and he felt himself flush. “Do you want me to give you a push?” she said.
In distraction he looked beyond her to the edges of the field. “Actually, I haven’t got much time.”
“I was not being serious.”
“I knew that,” he said after a moment. He got off the merry-go-round.
“I have something to tell you about Pyotor.”
“Okay, but it has to be quick. I still don’t understand why you’re here,” he added.
“I met Mrs. Gimpel and she told me they have had a break-in.”
“I knew that already.”
Zuzana raised an eyebrow. “She is very upset.”
“Course. Look, if that’s all, I’ll catch you in a bit, ’cause I’m—”
“I have arranged for you to meet them.”
That got his attention. “All right. When?”
“In a few days. They will tell me. Also I know now they have the personal effects. The police have returned them. No violin. I asked. But you will want to see the other things. And”—she looked at him—“I think you will want to see where Pyotor lived.”
His brain began to work again. “Yeah, that’s right. In fact I want to see where he did his homework.”
“His homework?”
“He didn’t do it in his room. No schoolbooks there.”
She looked at him curiously. “How do you know that?”
He ignored her.
She said, “There is something like a desk against the wall in the living room. Big. Old-fashioned. I think they must have brought it over from Poland. It has a sort of cover. Perhaps that is where he did it.”
He nodded. “That’s where we need to look.”
“That is going to tell us where he was four evenings a week?”
He shook his head. “No, I already know that.” He said it before thinking and looked up, startled, when she grabbed his arm.
“You know where he was?”
“Yeah.” He hesitated but only for a second. “Jamal’s.”
“Jamal’s!” Her grip tightened on his arm.
“Yeah. You think that’s weird?”
“No, of course not.” She removed her hand. “But it is right where I live. What was he doing there?”
He explained.
“It was all about the game, see,” he said. “WoW—World of Warcraft.”
There was a long pause while she looked at him. Her eyes went soft and she began to nibble her bottom lip. He could almost see her thinking, though her thoughts were hidden, and he felt, once again, how unreadable she was.
“Was it really?” she said at last.
“Yeah. It was, actually.”
“Or was it about Sajid?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It sounds to me as if Pyotor had made a friend.”
It was obvious, of course. He remembered Mr. Merryweather telling them how well Pyotor was playing his solo—as if he was truly feeling the music for the first time; and Sajid saying Pyotor helped him with his homework; and Pyotor lying to his grandparents about where he went, knowing they didn’t like Pakistanis.