Dead on Arrival

by Patricia Hall

  “Mrs. Barre?” Sally said. “I’ve come from Osman’s school to see if there is anything we can do to help.”

  “I get my mother,” a child’s voice said and the door was closed again firmly in their faces.

  “This is worse than Wuthering,” Laura said, glancing at the row of boarded up windows and alternately gaping or barricaded doors along the landing. “You’ve obviously forgotten Bradfield’s star estate,” she added by way of explanation when Sally looked blank. “You remember those tower blocks on the hill opposite the university? The Heights - therefore Wuthering. A literary sense of humour they’ve got up north. The Brontes are big in Yorkshire, but they do have their downside,” she said recalling a recent attempt to involve her very personally in a part in a film version of Jane Eyre she would rather not have played.

  “This is what the council call short-let accommodation,” Sally said disgustedly. “They’re upgrading a lot of the estates but they put refugees in here while they’re waiting for the builders to move in. Half the flats are empty so they get taken over by squatters and druggies, you name it. Then the yobs think the whole place is fair game. Notice they’ve none of them got a letterbox.”

  Laura glanced down the row of doors. Those which were not hanging off their hinges had without exception had the letter box sealed up. She glanced at Sally, knowing the answer to her question before it could be put into words.

  “Too many unpleasant things get stuffed through,” Sally said. “Dog shit if you’re black. Petrol bombs if you get across the wrong members of the criminal fraternity. We had a family at school burned out of their home last term.”

  “Charming,” Laura said. Behind them a train chuntered along the overhead railway and they did not hear the door being opened again until another voice asked them their business.

  Sally repeated her name and that of the school and very slowly the door swung back to reveal a tall black woman dressed in a long skirt and a shirt of thin white cotton, with a scarf covering her hair and shoulders. She unlocked the metal grille.

  “Come in quickly”, she said and as soon as they had entered the narrow hallway she slammed the heavy doors closed behind them, re-attaching the chains and drawing bolts at the top and bottom. It was like entering a very small, dark prison, Laura thought, horrified.

  They followed Mrs. Barre into a living room which had been furnished with the bare necessities of life: a formica topped table and four chairs, a dilapidated sofa of indeterminate colour on which a young girl about seven years old was curled up, hugging her knees and gazing at a small flickering television set which stood on top of two suitcases in a corner of the room. A doorway without a door gave onto what appeared to be a kitchen, but because the window onto the walkway outside was boarded, it was difficult to see in the dim light just what was inside apart from a stack of cardboard boxes. The living room itself was gloomy even in the bright morning light, the uncurtained windows streaked with grime and what looked like green mould on the outside of the glass. Sally put an arm around the Somali woman’s shoulders and squeezed her hard.

  “Mrs. Barre, this is my friend Laura Ackroyd who is the person who called the police when she saw Osman and his friend being attacked. She wanted to come with me to say how very sorry she is about what happened.”

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Barre said. Even in the faint light from the windows it was obvious that her skin was grey and there were great pouches beneath her eyes. She appeared to be totally devastated by what had happened and her hands were shaking as she took Laura’s and held it for a long moment.

  “You speak good English?” Laura said tentatively.

  “At home I was a teacher of English,” Mrs. Barre said with quiet dignity. “We were brought up to speak the language. Part of my country was a British colony. Did you not know that?”

  Laura shook her head, unable to conceal her surprise and very aware that her ignorance of east Africa was profound.

  “My husband taught at the university,” Mrs. Barre went on. “But we belonged to the wrong clan in the end. We were being hunted down like animals. I had to leave. I got the last seats on a plane out with Osman and my daughter.” She nodded towards the girl on the sofa who was rocking to and fro in some agitation now.

  “My husband did not get out,” Mrs. Barre went on calmly. “He was killed before we left. And I don’t know where my older boy, Ahmed, is now.”

  “I’m so sorry about Osman,” Laura said, feeling that nothing she could say could address the pain of someone who had been through so much only to have to face more anguish when she must have hoped she had reached some sort of sanctuary. “I’ve done everything I can to help the police. I got a good look at one of the boys who attacked him…”

  “There is nothing you can do to bring him back,” Mrs. Barre said quietly. “But it is good of you to come.” She waved them to seats at the tiny table.

  “I will make tea,” she said.

  They heard her clattering in the darkened kitchen while the girl on the sofa continued to rock silently. Laura glanced up at the electric light fittings and could see that they had no bulbs in them.

  “I must tell her that I want to write about Osman’s death,” she whispered to Sally.

  “Right,” she said, and when Mrs. Barre returned with three mugs of dark black tea and a bag of sugar she broached the subject tentatively. To their surprise the news that Laura was a journalist was greeted with enthusiasm.

  “You can write everything, all you like,” she said, her eyes showing the first sign of animation they had seen. “I am trapped like a prisoner here because I am seeking asylum. I am not supposed to work and we are not safe outside the flat after dark. I am not entitled to any money. All they bring me is boxes of groceries. You see I have no lights?” She gestured at the ceiling. “This flat is wet and the lights fail all the time. In fact I have been working a little in a canteen in Hackney, peeling vegetables, but the money is poor because they know I am illegally working, and I get home too late for the shopping. Osman has been collecting Djamilla from her school and bringing her home safely every afternoon because I am not here, but now I do not know what I shall be able to do. It is not safe for her to come alone.” Sally jumped to her feet angrily.

  “Give me a list of what you need,” she said. “I’ll get it for you. Light bulbs, whatever?”

  “I have the money,” Mrs. Barre said with dignity. “You understand, I do not need your charity, Miss Neill. I have earned the money, whatever they say I must not do.”

  “Of course,” Sally said more gently. “But let me get the shopping anyway. You can pay me when I come back.” When Sally had left and the doors had been carefully locked again Mrs. Barre sat down at the table opposite Laura and for the first time since they had met her allowed her shoulders to sag and her face to crumple in near despair.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It is difficult.” She glanced at her daughter who was still rocking, her eyes fixed on the television but so glazed that Laura doubted that she could see the screen or anything much at all.

  “Maybe Djamilla should see a doctor,” she said tentatively. Mrs. Barre shrugged dispiritedly.

  “There is no cure for grief,” she said. “And the police cannot tell me when Osman’s body will be free for burial. It is Muslim custom to bury the dead as quickly as possible.” In the poor light her thin, high-cheek-boned face took on the stoical look of a sphinx.

  “Do you really want me to write about Osman’s death,” Laura asked. Mrs. Barre turned to her fiercely.

  “When I was learning English at school, we read about England in our text-books,” she said. “We read about an English family with two children and a house with a garden with flowers and green trees, playing on the swings in the park, going on holidays to the seaside, taking the children to school. It all looked so civilized, so safe and friendly. That is what I thought I was coming to here. But what do I find?” She waved a hand around the bleak little room with its bare floor and grimed win
dows and sticks of furniture.

  “It is not safe, it is not friendly and it is certainly not civilized,” she said. “My son was beaten to death in the street by young men who hated him because of the colour of his skin. That is not civilised. If you think anyone will listen you must write about this. It may prevent it happening to someone else.”

  “The police say that they need to talk to the boy Osman was with,” Laura said. “Do you know who he was?”

  “I do not know who he was with. I have told the police inspector that already.”

  “They were chattering together in a language that wasn’t English,” Laura said. “I overheard them on the train. I thought they must be the same nationality….”

  “I do not know who he was with,” Mrs. Barre repeated.

  “Then I’m not sure my evidence will stand up in court,” Laura said. “They say that they will need more than one witness.”

  “Some-one else must have seen those wicked men,” Mrs. Barre said. Laura did not think that this was the moment to tell her that even if someone had seen the youths running away they would not necessarily be willing to come forward to say so.

  They were interrupted by a knock on the door and Mrs. Barre opened it to let Sally back in. She was followed by a young man in an open-necked shirt and jeans whom Sally introduced as Dave Swinburn, a worker from the local immigrants’ advice centre. Mrs. Barre’s face lit up when she saw him and she took his hands in hers while Sally unpacked the shopping, plugged a light bulb into the overhead socket and switched it on, throwing a harsh light over the room and sharpening its total desolation.

  “I was on my way over to see if there was anything I could do to help,” Swinburn explained to Laura when the introductions were made. He was a slight, thin-faced young man with a mop of curly brown hair and blue eyes which shone with almost missionary zeal. “We have access to legal advice if it’s needed, and people who’ll offer practical help. I’ve been advising Mrs. Barre since she arrived.” Swinburn seemed to fill the room with nervous intensity.

  “You must have seen the police. What are they saying about all this?” he asked Laura.

  “They want to trace the boy Osman was with,” Laura said. “But I don’t think my description is much help and Mrs. Barre doesn’t seem to know who he was.”

  “A school-friend perhaps?” Swinburn glanced at Sally. “Has anyone else gone missing since the murder.”

  “Not as far as I know,” Sally said, looking at her watch. “Which reminds me, I have to get back. My free period is almost up.”

  “I must go too,” Laura said. “I have an appointment.” She had taken the opportunity to visit Mrs. Barre with Sally on her way to her lunch date with Nick Bentall and she could see Swinburn casting a quizzical eye over her short lime-green skirt and jacket, not missing matching lime green finger nails which she had tried out in a fit of exuberance that morning, or her long legs in their chestnut coloured tights. “I came to London to discuss work at Canary Wharf,” she said, wondering why she felt the explanation was needed.

  “Don’t worry,” Swinburn said. “I can stay for a bit, sort out anything Mrs. Barre needs to know about the police inquiry..”

  “I can come and see you again?” Laura asked.

  “Of course, “ Mrs. Barre said, going with the two women to the door and unlocking it for them. “I told you. I want you to write everything about Osman. Everything.”

  The Riverside Restaurant was on the ground floor of a luxury block of apartments a mile or so up-river from Princess Wharf. It was a clattering plate glass and chrome palace opening onto a terrace packed with tables which overlooking the slightly rank mud and the turgid brown ribbon of water which was all that was left of the mid-summer Thames at low tide. Desultory river traffic flowed past, pleasure steamers, barges and flotsam heading down-stream on their way to Greenwich, the Millenium Dome and the sea, a police launch battering its way upstream in a spume of spray.

  “They couldn’t manage a table outside. Sorry,” Nick Bentall said regretfully as they followed a waiter past the windows to a corner alcove where the tiny perspex-topped table was set for two. He had been waiting for her in the foyer bar when she had stepped out of her taxi, feeling confident that she looked good. The instant gleam of appreciation in his eyes told her she was right.

  Bentall was looking more formal than he had in the office in an Yves St. Laurent shirt and tie with the designer jeans, and he repeated the quick routine of kisses with perhaps a little more warmth, she thought, than on their first meeting. They did not rush over the grilled goats’ cheese salad and the herb encrusted cod on a puree of spinach which she had allowed him to select. He drew a sharp breath when she waved a hand for the salt.

  “Customers have been asked to leave for less,” he hissed. “Justin doesn’t like any interference with his seasoning.”

  Laura smiled at him delightedly, and when the plates were cleared he poured her another glass of the Californian Grgich Hills chardonnay, which he rolled around his mouth appreciatively, although she found its oaky taste not quite to hers. She could not help thinking that he looked more pleased with himself than perhaps the rundown on her writing plans she had given him warranted. Perhaps it was the wine, she thought, of which he had drunk the lion’s share. Or perhaps it was more than that.

  “You’re happy with the idea then?” she asked quizzically, leaning back in her chair to catch a better glimpse of the river view which was almost as famous as the restaurant’s cuisine. Across the sluggishly turning tide the Rotherhythe shore glowered dully across at them, grey and Dickensian with the sun behind it.

  “I’m very happy with all your ideas, Laura,” Bentall said. He leaned forward across the table. “In fact I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  Oh, God, here it comes, Laura groaned inwardly, taking another swig of wine to avoid meeting the editor’s eyes. One decent meal and they think you’re theirs, she thought.

  “In fact, what I’d like you to think about is joining the staff,” Bentall said, disregarding the suspicion which she was sure she had not managed to keep out of her eyes. “Things have been going pretty well for The Extra over the last few months and the management have come up with funds for a modest expansion. I could offer you a one year contract, if you’re interested. And of course if it went well it would be extended. What do you think?”

  Laura swallowed hard, dismissing the suspicions she had harboured only seconds before and trying to contain the excitement which threatened to betray her. It was a career move which her friends on the Gazette would sell their metaphorical grandmothers for, she thought, and over which her enemies would weep into their Tetleys for months. If only it did not involve abandoning her own very real grandmother and much more besides. She smiled at Nick Bentall with what she hoped looked like gratitude.

  “That would be great,” she said, meaning it. “But I need a bit of time to think about it. There are a few complicating factors.”

  “You’re wasted in Bradfield,” Bentall said, putting a hand briefly over hers. “Come on, Laura. It’s time for the big move.”

  “Give me the weekend to think about it,” she said. Bentall shrugged easily and signalled to the hovering waiter to bring the bill. The bar was full of late lunchers eager to take their table.

  “OK,” he said dismissively. “Get to work on the murder story, and let me know about the other.” He did not need to spell out that if Laura turned him down there would not be a second chance.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The first edition of Saturday morning’s Bradfield Gazette carried a large colour picture of the missing Safi Haque on the front-page alongside a deeply pessimistic estimate of Bradfield United’s prospects for the new football season which would open in a few week’s time. By the time the paper hit the streets mid-morning, uniformed and plain clothes police officers had been knocking on doors and searching waste ground for hours on the north side of the town where Safi lived and went to school.

  On Aysga
rth Lane the newspaper was seized eagerly as it arrived at the newsagents by the men amongst the swirling crowds of shoppers who preferred the crammed, spice-smelling local grocers to the bland supermarkets further afield which they feared might not know their papads from their puri. The language here was almost exclusively Punjabi, the dress traditional, the gossip up-to-the-minute, glue for a close-knit if fractious community which looked after its own.

  Except that this morning, Rita Desai thought, as she mingled unobtrusively with the crowds outside a shop selling wedding clothes glittering with gold thread and beading, the mood was decidedly uneasy. Punjabi was not her ancestral tongue, but she spoke it well enough to pick up the fact that many of the men who gathered to discuss affairs on the street corners were deeply unhappy about Safi’s disappearance.

  She had already visited Safi’s father in his small shop and found him still adamant that Safi had set off for school on Monday and Tuesday and had come home at the usual time. As far as the family was concerned, Safi had failed to come home on Wednesday evening. When Rita told him that Safi had not been at school for those two days, he looked bewildered and neither he nor his wife, who emerged silently from the further reaches of the shop, could offer any suggestion as to where she might have been or why. Rita had no doubt that their anxiety was genuine. She was much less sure that they were telling her the whole truth.

  But if proof were needed that this was not a case of a teenager flouncing out after a family row, it was all around her in Little Asia, she thought. As she drifted in and out of casual conversations with the women - it would expose her as an interloper if she were to approach a man - she became more and more convinced that Safi’s absence was being regarded as a potential tragedy by her friends and neighbours.

  “Little Asia” was the title the indigenous Bradfielders had bestowed on the area around Aysgarth Lane where immigrants from Pakistan had settled as Italians, Poles and other East European refugees had moved out. It was a mixture of solid Victorian stone terraced houses and more modern maisonnettes in low rise blocks which had replaced Yorkshire’s uniquely unhealthy contribution to housing, the back-to-back terraces with a single wall open to light and air which had been torn down in the 1960s.