Dead on Arrival

by Patricia Hall

  “They’re not there, Miss Ackroyd, I can assure you of that. The service has hunted for bodies in far worse places than a rubbish tip and if officers say there are no bodies there, there are no bodies there.”

  “I saw a body, Mr. Roberts,” Laura said. “I’m not a fool and the boy I was with came up with hard evidence which I expect DCI THackeray has given you by now.”

  For a second Roberts looked non-plussed and Laura bit back her next remark as she realised that perhaps Thackeray had not done any such thing. But Roberts did not seem to notice her chagrin.

  “The boy you were with,” he said. “That would be Ahmed Barre, who I believe is wanted by the police in London for questioning and is certainly wanted by me because he’s in the country illegally. Where is Ahmed Barre, Miss Ackroyd? I think that’s the first thing I want to know.”

  Laura sighed.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I wish I did.”

  “Come on,” Raymond said sharply. “You may be able to fool the police, taking them to one location and then finding that after all the lad’s not there. Surprise, surprise? But you can’t fool me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Laura said. “He’s gone off on his own and I haven’t the remotest idea where to.”

  “A so-called refugee, in a town he’s never been to in his life before, no English, no money, nowhere to stay… I wasn’t born yesterday, Miss Ackroyd. If he’s gone, you helped him to go and in all liklihood you know exactly where he’s holed up now.”

  Laura looked at Roberts, whose colour had risen and whose moustache positively bristled with the force of what he evidently believed was incontrovertible logic.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “He has money, he speaks very good English and he ran because he guessed – rightly as it turned out – that I wouldn’t be able to keep him safe. You’ve no idea how sorry I am about that.”

  “You bleeding heart liberals make me furious, do you know that,” Roberts said, his face suffused with colour now. “Where do you think we’re going to put all these so-called refugees who keep pouring in?”

  “This boy is genuine,” Laura said. “He’s been persecuted in his own country, his brother has been murdered by racist thugs – and don’t forget I saw that with my own eyes – and now he believes he has to run again. It makes me ashamed of this country, Mr. Roberts, if you really want to know.”

  “You know helping him is a criminal offence,” Roberts said.

  “So arrest me,” Laura came back quickly. “Take me to court. It’d give me great pleasure to get all my friends from the London papers up to hear exactly what’s been going on with the Barre family over the last ten days. A great deal of pleasure. I don’t think even the Globe would feel that we’d acquitted ourselves very well. And I guess if we really started a media hunt for the poor devils who came over in that container lorry with Ahmed someone would follow the stink to its source within days and you would end up looking very incompetent indeed.” Roberts got to his feet angrily.

  “I’ll report what you’ve said to my superiors and I should expect to hear from us again very soon, Miss Ackroyd,” he said. Laura uncurled herself from her chair and stood up, eyes blazing.

  “Good,” she said. “This is turning out to be the story every reporter dreams about. And you look like having a starring part, Mr. Roberts. But don’t imagine you’ll get the Kevin Costner role. You’re stuck with the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

  Thackeray’s equally fierce but more contained anger drove him through the rest of the afternoon and early evening. He had interviewed Majeed Haque and told his distraught parents that the boy would have to remain at police headquarters overnight. He had pressed them both relentlessly until they had confirmed the boy’s version of his sister’s disappearance. He had set in train the forensic inquiries which would be necessary to make a murder conviction stick: fingerprints, and an examination of the clothing that had been removed from Majeed’s bedroom.

  And he had begun a search to locate Azul Sharif, who, if the boy’s story was accurate, had witnessed a murder, perhaps even participated in one, and not been seen since. Thackeray had not found Majeed’s explanation, relayed by Rita and then repeated at police headquarters, of how Imran Hussain had been struck down and why his body had been found a hundred yards from his abandoned car, very convincing.

  And with his detectives fully stretched, he had pressed uniformed branch to intensify their search for the girl whose disappearance no longer offered any possibility of an innocuous explanation. If Safi Haque had been kidnapped to ensure her family’s silence and now that silence had been comprehensively broken, Thackeray knew he had to be profoundly afraid for her safety.

  At the end of the day he sank into a chair in Jack Longley’s office and faced the superintendent warily. He had been aware of Longley as a silent, brooding presence behind his shoulder more than once that afternoon and felt irritated enough to try to flush out whatever was bothering him.

  Longley scowled at him and threw a black and white photograph across the desk.

  “Good job it’s just a fixed penalty,” he said.

  Thackeray looked at the rear of his own car in the grainy speed camera picture and at its date and time-code and thought back to a careless drive out to Arnedale on empty early Sunday morning roads.

  “I had a lot on my mind,” he said. “Stupid, though. Who sent you this, anyway? I’ve heard nothing about it.”

  “Someone who doesn’t like you much, obviously,” Longley said, taking the photograph back and pitching it into his waste-paper basket. “I sometimes wonder if you don’t make enemies too easily, Michael. This is a small town.”

  “So you keep telling me,” Thackeray said, trying hard to keep the irritation out of his voice and not quite succeeding. Longley flushed.

  “I’ve got immigration on my back, an’all. What’s all this about evidence that you haven’t handed over to Ray Roberts. Something Laura Ackroyd gave you.”

  Thackeray knew that his expression had betrayed him. He felt in his pocket and pulled out the small ring of twisted gold and Ahmed Barre’s crumpled papers which Laura handed him the previous day.

  “Damnation, I completely forgot about these,” he said, knowing Longley was unlikely to beleive him.

  “Aye, well, it’s just as well there’s no bodies been found and so no evidential value in them anyway,” Longley said.

  “So why is Ray Roberts making a fuss about them?” Thackeray asked defensively. “He reckons Laura was taken for a ride – literally.” But as he looked at the ring in the palm of his hand he could not help wondering whether a nineteen year old stranger to the country needed to invent such an elaborate tale just for Laura’s benefit. Even he would have realised quite quickly that there were much simpler ways to persuade Laura to help him.

  “I’ll hang on to them, then, until I see Ray again,” he said. “I don’t suppose he’ll be very interested until he’s found the Somali boy.” Longley shrugged, evidently not much interested in the problems of the immigration service himself.

  “So, have you charged this lad, what’s-his-name? Haque?” he demanded, changing the suject. Thackeray shook his head.

  “Not yet,” he said. “But if his fingerprints are in the car, I will.”

  “He’s not told you what he’s done with the gun?”

  “He denies ever having had a gun,” Thackeray said. “Which is odd, as he’s virtually admitting the murder. But the person I’d really like to get my hands on is this man Sharif. I dare say immigration would too if what Haque says about him fixing illegal journeys is right. If we can find him.”

  “If he exists,” Longley said. “You’ve only this lad’s word for it that he was in that car with Imran Hussain. He could be a figment of his imagination to cover up what was a much more premeditated attack than he’s prepared to let on.”

  “On the other hand, Hussain himself may have been in on the immigration racket that was supposed to be bringing people like the Haques’ other so
n to Bradfield. The computer unit are still working their way through the information we’ve taken off Hussain’s machines. My guess is that the travel agency is a useful front for illegal journeys, when the need arises.”

  “Aye, well, if I’d known you were getting a warrant for a trawl like that I’d have wanted some input,” Longley said irritably. “These are respectable businessmen you’re pushing, Michael, until you’ve got cast-iron evidence to the contrary. And the family of a murder victim…”

  “There was a time when you could reckon the Asian community was as law-abiding as any, and more than most,” Thackeray said evenly. “But you know as well as I do those days are long gone. It may make our life more difficult, but it’s a fact. Pakistan’s up to its neck in the drugs trade. Imran Hussain was a wealthy man. That’s fine by me, if his business was legitimate. But Hussain was a worried before he died and we need to find out why.”

  “Concentrate on finding the gun,” Longley said shortly. “Get a cast-iron case on the murder. If we can prove that young Haque killed him, I’d not waste time on cock-and-bull stories about why he did it. Leave that to the defence.” Thackeray looked at Longley for a long moment and wondered, not for the first time, just how close the relationship between him and Imran Hussain had become.

  “Sir,” he said eventually, getting to his feet wearily. “I’ll talk to young Haque again before I pack it in for tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll have to charge him or let him go anyway. So I’ll see what more I can get out of him that can be checked out.”

  Thackery collected sergeant Kevin Mower from the CID office, where he was deep in conversation with Rita Desai. He had deliberately kept Rita away from any further contact with Majeed Haque. He wanted to hear what the boy had to say for himself uncontaminated by Rita’s preconceptions or her obvious sympathy for his family. He had been relieved to discover that the solicitor Mohammed Haque had summoned to advise his son had not been able to persuade Majeed to withdraw the admissions he had already made.

  Majeed had repeated his story, formally and on tape, that he had waylaid Haque’s car and subsequently caused his head injury. But of the gun which had killed him he was still denying all knowledge. Mower glanced at Thackeray as they approached the interview room where Majeed and his lawyer were waiting for them.

  “The super not satisfied with what we’ve got, guv?” he hazarded, knowing from Thackeray’s clenched jaw that he had not returned from the discussion upstairs a happy man.

  “I’m not satisfied with what we’ve got,” Thackeray said. “I’d like to know where that gun came from. It’s not something you would expect a kid of that age to be able to get hold of.”

  They went into the interview room to find Majeed slumped across the table with his head on his arms, apparently asleep and his solicitor, an slim young Asian who looked almost as bemused at first sight as his client, leaning against the wall biting his finger-nails. He straightened up as the police officers came in and put a protective hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “My client needs rest,” he said. “He is a juvenile, after all. Can I suggest you postpone any further questions until the morning?” Thackeray gave the solicitor a thin smile.

  “Nice try,” he said. “When the charge is likely to be murder, his age doesn’t come into it.”

  “If you really think you have enough evidence to charge Majeed with murder I suggest you get on with it, and we’ll see what a magistrate makes of it,” the lawyer said more sharply than Thackeray anticipated. “On the basis of what he’s admitted, your case looks extremely weak.” The sound of voices had roused Majeed himself by this time and he was watching the three men with dark, frightened eyes.

  “I only hit him once,” he said.

  “For the tape,” Thackeray said sharply, glancing at Mower who quickly slipped new tapes into the recorder and went through the formalities of opening a fresh interview.

  “Majeed, Imran Hussain was shot,” Thackeray said. “Did you know that before you came to the police station today?”

  “Yes,” the boy said.

  “How did you know?”

  “I read it – in a newspaper. My father brought the Gazette home and I read about it in that. Everyone was talking about the murder.”

  “But you told us earlier that you had killed Imran Hussain.”

  “I thought the newspaper had got it wrong. I couldn’t understand it. I knew I didn’t shoot him. I never had a gun. I thought maybe it was a trick to get me to talk to the police. I don’t know. I didn’t understand it.” The boy turned to his lawyer, looking anxious.

  “Chief inspector, we’ve been over this ground before,” the solicitor said but Thackeray ignored him.

  “If you wanted to get hold of a gun, would you know where to find one, Majeed?” he asked.

  “I advise you not to answer that question, Majeed,” the lawyer said. The boy glanced from him back to Thackeray.

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said.

  “Would you know where to get hold of drugs if you wanted them?” Thackeray persisted.

  “I don’t use drugs,” the boy said angrily.

  “But most young people of your age know where to get hold of them, whether they use them or not,” Thackeray said. “It’s common knowledge who the dealers are. If you had a friend who wanted heroin, say, where would he go for his supply?”

  “I don’t know,” Majeed said. “I don’t know anything about drugs.”

  “Do you have any friends who are involved in shooting? As a hobby, I mean? Pistol shooting when it was still legal, for instance?” Majeed shook his head again.

  “For the tape, please?”

  “No,” Majeed mumbled. “I don’t know anyone who shoots.”

  “So where did you get the gun, Majeed?” Thackeray snapped.

  “I keep telling you, I didn’t have a gun.”

  “So did Sharif have a gun? Did he shoot Imran Hussain after you’d injured him? Did you see Sharif with a gun?”

  “I never saw a gun,” Majeed said.

  “Did Imran Hussain himself have a gun?”

  “I never saw a gun?” Majeed repeated, looking increasingly desperate.

  “I think my client has answered that question quite categorically,” the solicitor said angrily. “You can’t get blood out of a stone, chief inspector.” Thackeray sighed in exasperation.

  “If you’re afraid of Sharif, we can protect you,” he said quietly.

  “Like you protected my sister?” the boy came back so quickly that he silenced Thackeray for a few seconds.

  “One last thing,” the chief inspector said eventually. “Then we’ll let you get some sleep. Have you ever heard any suggestion that Imran Hussain or Azul Sharif were involved in selling drugs?”

  “Never, never,” Majeed said, trying hard to beat back the tears which threatened to overwhelm him.

  “But Azul Sharif was the man for an illegal trip from Pakistan?”

  “Yes,” Majeed said burying his head in his arms again. He glanced up at Thackeray, his dark eyes full of misery.

  “Please,” he said. “Can you please find my sister?”

  Kevin Mower sat in a secluded booth of peacock blue velvet at the back of Ahmet’s curry restaurant on the Manchester road feeling uncharacteristically nervous. It had been a day of highs and lows. When the fingerprint match arrived which placed Majeed Haque in Imran Hussain’s car, and a grim faced Michael Thackeray had charged the boy with murder and taken it upon himself to tell his distraught parents, Mower’s own momentary euphoria at a case successfully concluded had been dashed when he had passed the news on to Rita Desai.

  “I don’t believe it,” she had said. “Has he told you where the gun is?” Mower had shaken his head.

  “Even if he didn’t shoot him, he was there. He was involved,” he said. “He admits as much. Though I don’t think the boss intends to close the investigation. We still want this man Sharif, if we can find him. With a bit of luck they won’t send you back to Leed
s just yet.”

  “I hope not. There’s Safi still to find,” Rita said bitterly. “You all dismissed her as just another no-account Asian run-away, not worth troubling about.”

  “You know that’s not right,” Mower had objected, although he was not totally sure there was not an element of truth in what she said. “Come on Rita. You’re the star of this investigation. Lie back and enjoy it, for God’s sake.”

  But she had not been mollified and had agreed only reluctantly to have a late dinner with him at Ahmet’s, and then only when she had been home to change. He suspected that it was the reputation of the restaurant which had tempted her rather than the prospect of his company. Ahmet’s was the subject of rave reviews from metropolitan critics when they came on safari, with much self-congratulation for their daring, to the industrial north of England every year or two.

  He did not recognise Rita for a moment when she eventually followed a waiter across the dimly lit restaurant towards him.She was wearing a sari of deep gold silk, with an intricate border of red and green. She had put up her hair, darkened her eyes with kohl, applied a red caste mark, and was decked with gold at neck and ears and fingers. As she crossed the room he felt suddenly stifled, gasping slightly for breath and barely able to greet her with a smile let alone put words to the sense of a deeply satisfying home-coming which her appearance had generated.

  “What did I do to deserve this?” he asked, unable to take his eyes off her as she sat down and arranged her sari demurely over her shoulders.

  “I don’t want there to be any mistake,” Rita said. “What you see is what you get. Just because I don’t talk with a Peter Sellers accent doesn’t mean I’m not what I am.” What he doesn’t realise, she thought, is that I’m about to jump off a tight-rope I’ve been carefully balancing on for years.

  Mower raised a hand in acquiecsence, fighting back an urge to reach out and touch her.

  “You look very beautiful,” he said cautiously.

  “Have you had an Indian girl-friend before?”

  “Not Indian,” he said, his face regaining something of its usual slightly mocking confidence. “Black, once or twice. So tell me about it? Do you go to bed with the Kama Sutra under your pillow?” Rita gave him a smile which he thought offered more promise than anything he had seen for a very long time.