by Liz Mistry
He flung the paper down, marched over to his own desk and flung himself onto his chair. A heavy nervousness hung over the room as Gus flicked rapidly through some notes on his desk. Pausing at one, he ripped it from the pile, thrust it in his pocket and stalked back to the front of the room. Everyone kept their heads down, supposedly reading the papers he’d thrown at them. His entire body tense, Gus prowled back and forth across the front of the room, waiting till they’d finished reading. When the last person had placed their newspaper down in front of him, and all eyes were directed at him, he scowled round at them.
‘Right, anyone got anything they need to tell me? Any burning confessions? Any admissions of indiscretion?’ He slammed a fist on the table. ‘If there is… now is the time to speak, for if I discover later that somebody on this team held back on me, then they’re out on their arse. Clear?’
There was a moment’s silence as Gus’ words sunk in, followed by an exchange of surreptitious glances. A crippling viscosity hung in the air and then Alice scraped back her chair and stood up. This was horrible, nevertheless there was no way she was going to let a cloud hang over the entire team. She hadn’t leaked one thing to Jez, yet she knew she had to let Gus know she could be implicated. She knew all too well how efficiently the gossip mills at The Fort turned.
Gus glared at her in silence.
Swallowing hard, Alice cleared her throat and with her fingers resting lightly on her desk she looked directly at her boss, ignoring everyone else in the room. ‘I think you should know from me, before someone else tells you, that I went for lunch with Jez Hopkins yesterday.’
Waves of heat flushed her face. She bit her lips and then continued, ‘I promise you, Gus, that we never spoke about the case. He didn’t ask and even if he did, I wouldn’t have given him anything. I’m not stupid. Whoever the leak is, I swear it’s not me.’
She fell, more than sat, back onto her chair.
Gus glared at her, his face betraying nothing and Alice knew there was worse to come. She was right.
From his pocket Gus took out the piece of paper he’d crumpled and put in there earlier. ‘Well, would anyone like to explain this, then?’ He waved the paper in the air and glanced round. Nobody responded. Gus placed it on the desk and ran the side of his hand over it to flatten it before lifting it up again. ‘Let me read it to you. “For your information, and in light of today’s headlines, DS Alice Cooper was seen yesterday afternoon sharing an intimate lunch with Jez Hopkins in the Ling Bob, Wilsden.’’’
Gus’ eyes, sparking, glared round at them. Alice, her face scarlet now, avoided eye contact.
‘Well, which of you felt the need to stoop to tittle-tattling to me via an anonymous note?’
Gus sighed and sat on the table, his feet resting on a chair. He ran his fingers through his hair, making each lock project at a different angle. ‘First of all, I don’t expect to have to warn my team off of sharing delicate information with the press. Whoever told them about “REDEEMED” being written above the body has A: caused untold upset to Sue’s family; and B: given away valuable info that we could have used to nail the killer; and C: probably encouraged every religious nutter in the district to phone in to confess.’
He glared round at them, and then focussed his gaze on Alice who bravely tried to meet it. ‘Secondly, this anonymous note is shite. It’s unworthy of any detective on my team so, I sincerely hope none of you wrote it.
‘Thirdly, Alice, you did right to fess up about having lunch with Jez and I do believe you. I don’t think for a minute you gave those details to him. We are detectives, but we’re also human. I don’t expect to police your relationships outside the office. Just make sure those relationships don’t bring disrepute on us.’
The tension in the room abated as everyone shuffled back to their work stations. Gus held Alice’s gaze until she looked away. She hated to be on the wrong side of him. Much as he gave them a lot of leeway, he would not be happy that she’d met with Jez Hopkins. Shit, pissing Gus off was the last thing she wanted.
Gus shook his head. ‘I’m not going to waste any more energy on this. What’s done is done. I know we get a fair amount of passing traffic through here, so from now on, we leave nothing sensitive around. Compo, can you get somebody to put one of those code locks on the door? Let’s get on with the briefing.’
Compo looked distracted. ‘Eh, Gus…’
Gus sighed: sometimes he wished people would just spit it damn well out. No time for preliminaries. ‘Yep?’
Compo hit a button on his PC and the large white screen at the front of the room was filled with an image of Simon Proctor on the narrow cot flailing his arms, limbs tangled in his sleeping bag. The time and date flashing at the bottom of the screen said 03:25. Proctor had been alive and traumatised only an hour ago. He looked at Compo, but the other man’s head shake told him that they were no closer to working out where Proctor was being kept or who was uploading the video footage.
43
09:30 Oak Lane
The insistent rapping on the closed door had Mo hurrying to answer. Popping his head out and seeing his friend standing there, he opened the door wide.
‘It’s a bit early in the day for samosas, even for you, Gus.’
Gus followed him into the shop and plonked himself down on one of the tall bar stools that stood along a marble top. ‘Not too early for sweet spicy chai, though, is it?’
Mo shook his head and walked to the back of the shop which lead into a large kitchen. He called for tea, got no response and then called again, this time in Punjabi, and much louder to make himself heard above the babble of women’s voices.
Mo came back and sat next to Gus. ‘Those bloody women do my head in, you know?’
He screwed his face into what he clearly believed to be an old woman expression, raised one hand and rapidly pressed his fingers and thumb together. ‘Nyah, nyah, nyah, all day long.’ In a typical Pakistani gesture of impatience, he wafted the fingers of one hand near his head and expelled a short puff of air. ‘What do they find to talk about, huh? They see each other every bloody day.’ Two mugs of chai appeared at the hatch between the counter and kitchen and Mo brought them over.
One look at Gus’ expression had Mo laughing aloud. Gus was right: he was behaving like an old grouch and the sooner he knocked that on the head the better. Grouchiness wasn’t his style. He knew it was because of the stress Zarqa was causing at home. He and Naila just couldn’t seem to agree on a strategy. This hurt Mo. He and Naila were normally on the same page, but perhaps on this one he was too emotional. Far too emotional. He’d have to rein it in and spend time working something out with his wife before it got too bad.
Forcing a smile to his lips he walked back over to the counter. ‘Right, what brought you here this early? It wasn’t chai, and it wasn’t to laugh at my expense, so what was it?’
‘You know that girl from The Young Jihadists, Shamila?’
‘Yeah, what about her? She’s a good girl.’
‘It’s not her I’m asking about, it’s her brother, Adnan. What’s he like?’
Mo moved to the sink and washed his hands, before sitting down behind the counter where he filled his samosas. ‘It’s quite a sad family, really. Dad’s a bastard. In prison for gun running and pimping. He throttled one of his prostitutes, apparently. The mother has only got her aunt and uncle, who are her husband’s parents – cousin-to-cousin marriage. He used to beat her about a bit, too, and now the poor woman rarely comes out of the house. Shamila seems to be the decision-maker and I think it was her that got them out of the grandparents’ house and into their own little back-to-back. What’s the lad done?’
Gus played with his empty cup as he spoke. ‘Well, you know Shamila’s friend, Tariq?’
Mo grinned. ‘Tariq, who has a crush on Shamila and looks set to follow her to Bradford University rather than spread his wings a bit, because she won’t leave her family? That Tariq?’
Gus grinned. ‘Young love, huh? Yes, tha
t’s the one, right enough. He grudgingly, very grudgingly in fact, told me that the dead girl, Sue Downs, was seeing Shamila’s brother.’
Mo grimaced. ‘Ooh, not good.’
‘Exactly, and this bit is between us only, Mo, okay?’
Mo nodded as he stuffed minced lamb into a samosa triangle.
‘She’d had sex just before she died and although they used a condom, we may have DNA from a semen stained tissue at the scene.’
Mo raised his eyebrows, ‘Shit, I hope the boy wasn’t involved.’
‘After what you’ve told me, so do I, but so far that’s the only lead we’ve got.’
‘Well, you have to follow it, mate, you have to follow it.’
Gus headed to the door and then turned. ‘Is the kid overly religious do you think?’
Mo laughed. ‘Everybody’s “overly religious” to you, Gus.’
Gus scowled. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘No, I don’t think so. I’m fairly sure he doesn’t even pray the requisite five times a day, and I bet he’s missed a few fasts at Ramadan. A lot of the young ones do. He’s not a zealot, Gus. He wouldn’t be going around shagging underage girls if he was, would he?’
44
10:15 Unknown Location
Had that dream again. The one with the detectives breaking down the door and my parents reaching out to me. This time though their faces were all shrivelled and aged, like years had passed. What if it takes them years to find me? Can I hang on that long?
They won’t be angry with me. Not about the party, anyway. No, in the midst of everything else, the party will have faded into nothingness. Wonder what they’re doing. Mum’ll be beside herself and Dad’ll be trying to keep her calm. That’s what they’re like. A united front against the world. Solid in their togetherness, with me just a fucking afterthought. What’s that stupid old saying? ‘Two’s company, three’s a crowd.’
Sometimes they make me feel like that… like I’m in the way, second best. Always fucking second best. Missed my fucking football match twice in Year Ten and got bumped from the team. All because he had a stupid works trip and we’d all got to go. Could’ve stayed with Matty… ‘Oh, no, don’t want you spending time in Manningham.’ Snobby bastards! Should see some of the places I lived in before. In comparison, Matty’s house is a fucking palace! Maybe now they’ll regret that. Now that I’m missing… now that it’s too fucking late!
Need to calm down. Time to focus on my safe place. Need to get through this. The enforced inactivity’s getting on my tits. Need to pull myself together. If I fall apart I’ll never survive. Need to get a grip. Can’t focus. My leg muscles keep twitching and I stink. Really stink now. Wish I could shower. Nice long shower…
‘Da da da fucking shower, shower, shower la la la…’
Feels like hours since I’d been wakened by the girl on the floor, whimpering and writhing against the ropes. Her struggles had been futile. Ropes were so tight, I’d had trouble undoing them. Stupid cow kept squirming, making it worse. By the time I’d got her ankle ties off, the ropes were saturated in blood and my frigging nails were mashed. Her wrist ties came off much easier, thank God! She just laid there like a sack of potatoes, sobbing. How was I supposed to think with that fucking racket going on?
Now, I’m on my own again. She’s gone… The girl has left the building! And I’m stuck here without Elvis in the damn jail! Her snivelling whimpers don’t seem so bad after all. At least it had been company… while it lasted anyway. Wonder where she is. Dead? In a hospital? Lying in the gutter?
Camera light’s on again. Feel like flashing to my audience. Won’t though – too many pervs out there who’d get off on that sort of shit. I’ll just lie here, try to keep warm and ignore it. I feel itchy. Can’t stop itching, driving me mad. Fucking fleas! That’s all I need. Can’t even scratch my arms properly. Not with my scraggy nails.
45
10:30 Manningham
The littered alley leading to Adnan Mustafar’s house was filled with pre-school children standing about, wellies covered in filth from the potholes, sucking mucky thumbs and staring wide-eyed at Gus. As he passed them, he was aware of them stepping into line behind him, following him down the ginnel. He turned and scowled at them in his best ‘sod off and leave me alone’ look. ‘You shouldn’t follow strangers, you know. They might be bad men.’
They stared blinking up at him like he was a petting animal at a farm, until he turned away. Still they continued to follow him. ‘Paedophile’s wet fucking dream,’ he murmured, opening the gate, slipping through and closing it quickly behind him, so they couldn’t follow him through. Just call me the Pied-effing-Piper!
Blue paint curled and bubbled off the door, although the uneven slabs in the garden were weed-free. An old, hard-bristled brush leaned beside the door and, judging by the absence of debris on the floor, it was used often. A miniscule shed stood in one corner. It was secured by a heavy-duty padlock and its small window was boarded up with damp plywood.
The heavy net curtains in the window at the front of the house twitched, so Gus rapped with his knuckles on the peeling door. From behind, he heard the unmistakeable sounds of a safety chain being applied before the door was opened and a small woman, her hair covered by a head scarf, peeped out.
Gus showed his ID. She shut the door, unhooked the chain and then reopened it fully. With a small hand movement, she invited Gus to sit down on one of the two sofas in the room, which were covered by bright geometric patterned sheets. He glanced round, throat clagging with the almost overpowering scent of incense which lingered in the air. A framed picture of Mecca, the only wall decoration in the room, hung above a small gas fire. The carpet was worn and every surface shone. A cramped cellar head kitchen was squeezed into one corner of the living area. A single pan bubbled on the gas stove and Gus recognised the aroma of spicy chai cutting through the incense. Opposite the other sofa was a door that led upstairs.
The woman stood near the kitchen area wringing her hands, her gaze intent on Gus. She still hadn’t uttered a word, so Gus didn’t know if she spoke English. As her face was expressionless, he couldn’t judge what she thought about a police officer appearing on her doorstep. He smiled. ‘Is Adnan here? It’s him I’ve come to see.’
Her eyes studied him for almost a minute before she answered in almost accent-free English. ‘Is he in trouble of some sort?’
Gus stretched his lips wider, his cheeks straining and hoped it didn’t look too much like a grimace. He hated having to comply with the social niceties. However, he saw no need to upset anyone. The woman before him was clearly Adnan and Shamila’s mother and, from what Mo had told him, she’d had plenty of interactions with the police in the past. He had no desire to distress her any more than was necessary. ‘I really need to talk to him, Mrs Mustafar.’
She side-stepped into the kitchen, flicked off the gas and moved the pan, just as the boiling spicy milk rolled to the top. ‘That means he is. I knew something was up. He’s not been himself the past few days. Can’t you tell me what’s happened?’
‘I’m really sorry Mrs Mustafar, I really need–’
The door at the bottom of the stairs opened and a skinny boy looked through. He glanced at his mother and then at Gus. Gus saw the fear in his eyes and the way his grip tightened on the door handle when he realised who it was.
Gus stood up and walked towards him, hand outstretched. As he introduced himself the boy flinched. Mrs Mustafar inserted herself between the two men and addressed her son. ‘Adnan, this policeman wants to speak with you. Are you in trouble?’
Adnan refused to meet his mother’s eye. ‘I’ve done nowt wrong, Mum, honest.’
She shrugged and sighed. ‘Then you should go with the policeman and get it sorted out. I’ll wait here by the phone in case you need anything, okay?’
Adnan turned then and looked at his mum. He hesitated briefly and then went over and hugged her. ‘I’ve not done nowt wrong,’ he repeated and without another word he
walked past Gus and out into the garden.
Feeling like a cad, Gus followed Adnan from the house. ‘You’ve not even asked what this is about and I would have been happy to talk with you in your home in the first instance, Adnan.’
Walking beside Gus, hands shoved deep in his pockets and jeans hanging off his skinny arse, Adnan sniffed. ‘I know what it’s about and if I hadn’t been such a fucking coward I’d have come to see you yesterday. Besides, my mum doesn’t deserve any more grief. It’s best I come to the station.’
When they reached the unmarked car, Gus opened the passenger door for Adnan to get in.
Clicking his seat belt in place, Adnan waved at the children who’d grouped round the car. ‘Thought there’d be two of you, and maybe even handcuffs and definitely a police car… not this.’
Gus got in the other side and switched on the engine. ‘Yeah well, I looked at your police record–’
Adnan swung his head towards him. ‘I don’t have a record.’
‘My point precisely. You’re seventeen, with no police record, working in an apprenticeship and the school had only good things to say about you. Didn’t think I’d need the heavies.’
Adnan nodded and slumped down in the car seat.
‘Mind you, doesn’t mean I’m a pushover or that I think you’re innocent. I’ll reserve my opinion till I’ve interviewed you.’
A silent nod was the only communication between them for the rest of the journey.