George knew all about the Sheikhs and their involvement with Aftab’s family. He said, ‘You want me to walk Shazia home tonight?’
‘Yeah. That’d be good,’ Aftab said.
‘No worries.’
In his youth, George had been a boxer and so in spite of his advanced age, Aftab knew that Shazia would be in safe hands.
‘Who was that on the phone?’
Mumtaz had ignored it. She’d not even looked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, look!’ he said. ‘And then show me.’
It was Aftab. Probably something about Shazia. She held her phone up to the computer screen.
‘Aftab? Who is he?’
‘He’s my cousin,’ she said.
‘Not your boyfriend?’
‘You are my boyfriend.’ She lowered her eyes.
‘Are you sure? Because I’m not,’ he said. ‘I ask you to do one small thing for me and you disobey.’
‘I’ve looked at flights to Paris and Amsterdam,’ she said. ‘They are really cheap. If someone could meet me there …’
‘Who? Who would meet you there, Mishal?’
His face was red now.
‘I-I don’t … If Dad sees that Mum has spent more than a hundred pounds he will question it,’ she said. ‘I—’
‘So, take a friend’s card!’ he said. ‘I don’t care how you get here, just get here! All the better if you have a friend who is a kaffir. You know it’s permissible to take from them, don’t you? Mishal, I am so anxious to be your husband. I am also’ – here he lowered his voice – ‘I am so hot for you.’
Mumtaz was stunned, and appalled.
‘I-I’ll do what I can,’ she stuttered.
She was shaking. His sudden foray into sexualised language had made her feel cold with dread. She had to end this conversation – now.
‘Oh, I can hear my mum,’ she said.
‘Mishal—’
She cut the connection.
For a moment she buried her head in her hands and then she looked up. Lee’s face was white.
She said, ‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘You’re not doing this any more,’ he said.
‘Lee—’
‘It’s like listening to a paedophile grooming!’
‘We can’t stop now!’
‘I don’t care what Abbas says, Fayyad isn’t trying to leave! The bastard wants a child-bride!’
‘Then why send the tooth to his parents?’ Mumtaz said.
‘I don’t know!’
He took his cigarette packet out of his pocket.
‘Go out and have a fag,’ she said.
Lee was going through the door when she got the message via Facebook. It said:
I’m sorry I was angry. I just want to be with you so much!!!!! If you can get to Amsterdam we have people there who can help us. If my duties allow, I will come myself to Amsterdam and escort you to our new home. I love you.
The lights were on and the door was open.
Baharat Huq wasn’t happy about going in to the Leather Bungalow on his own but he felt he had to. If someone was inside who shouldn’t be he couldn’t just walk past without doing anything. He put his head round the door.
‘Hello?’ he said.
For a moment there was nothing and then a female voice said, ‘Who’s there?’
‘Susi? Is that you?’
She walked out of what had been Rajiv’s office. She had a small laptop computer in her hands.
‘Oh, Baharat-ji,’ she said. ‘Hello. Is anything the matter?’
‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘I just saw the door open. And knowing the situation …’
‘Oh, how kind,’ she said. ‘Come in.’
It was strange to see the shop without Rajiv. It looked lifeless – and that wasn’t just because all the coloured lights he used to have around the doors and windows had been taken down. Rajiv had always imbued his shop with an energy that no one else could ever replicate.
Baharat walked inside. The rails were empty too. Piles of coats, trousers and skirts lay on big sheets on the floor.
‘I’m trying to make sense of my brother’s accounts,’ Susi said. ‘He wasn’t all that meticulous, you know.’
It was sad that the poor woman was having to do this on her own. As far as Baharat knew, Rajiv was still to be cremated. Where was her husband? Surely he should be helping her at this time?
‘So much to do,’ he said.
‘Tell me about it!’
He had to say something. ‘Do you need help?’
‘That’s kind, but no,’ Susi said. ‘My brother’s lawyer has everything in hand. I am simply seeing what is here. What I will have to deal with.’
‘You?’
‘I am Rajiv’s sole beneficiary,’ she said. ‘I think that some members of my family thought that they would be named too, but it seems that isn’t to be. I must manage alone.’
Had her marriage ended? Overcome with curiosity, Baharat said, ‘Your husband—’
‘Oh, Dilip is far too busy to get involved,’ she said.
‘Oh.’
‘I can’t bother him with this.’
Maybe Susi’s husband had disapproved of her brother? It was difficult to know. Susi had left the Lane so long ago. But then surely her husband had to be interested in the money that would eventually come to his wife from the sale of the building – if she sold it. The shop with the flat above had to be worth at least two million pounds. But Baharat also knew that Rajiv had not liked his brother-in-law. He’d always sneered when he’d talked about him, calling him ‘Mr Dr Surgeon-ji’.
‘I was just checking that all was well,’ Baharat said.
‘Everything is fine,’ she said.
She was oddly upbeat. But then that happened sometimes with grief. There was a period of elation when plans had been made and official business taken care of. But in light of how Rajiv had died this did seem odd.
‘I will sell the property,’ Susi said.
Baharat had wanted to ask but had felt that might be rude. ‘You grew up here,’ he blurted.
‘I know.’ For a moment she looked sad. ‘But one must move with the times, Baharat-ji,’ she said. ‘The past is another country in which we are not welcome.’
But he wondered. Susi Banergee had left the Lane long ago and had rarely visited. Was this now her final goodbye?
‘Hi Lee.’
‘Oh, hello princess.’
It was almost midnight. What was Lee doing at their flat? Shazia said goodnight to George who Cousin Aftab had insisted walk her home, and went inside.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked Lee.
‘Your mum and me had some work to finish up,’ he said.
Mumtaz came out of the kitchen. ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘How did it go?’
‘Oh, usual,’ Shazia said. ‘Lots of boys trying to buy booze, some Eastern European man trying to find some sort of food we’d never heard of.’
Working in the convenience store in the evenings was often tiring but it was rarely boring. Sometimes when groups of underage boys were refused alcohol it was positively vibrant.
‘Well, I’m off,’ Lee said.
‘See you in the morning,’ Mumtaz replied.
When he’d gone, Shazia said, ‘It’s not like you to work at home, Amma.’
‘We’ve a lot on.’
‘Oh.’
Was her amma blushing or was it Shazia’s imagination? She knew that Lee had gone through a period when he’d had feelings for Amma, which she suspected her stepmother shared. She had always hoped that she did. Like her, Amma had suffered under the ‘regime’ that had been imposed upon them both by her father. If anyone deserved a little happiness it was Amma. She decided to carry on keeping old Wahid Sheikh’s appearance in her life to herself. Now was not the time to bother Amma with that.
FOURTEEN
The little shits were clamming up tighter than a gnat’s arse.
‘Tell ’em if they do
n’t tell us where they were, we’ll have to arrest them,’ Bob said.
The Arabic interpreter relayed this information to Qasim Malouf and Nabil Abdella even though Bob and Ricky Montalban knew they had to speak English to some extent. By his own admission, Ali Huq’s Arabic was basic at best and so they’d had to communicate somehow. They certainly knew the word ‘faggot’, which they’d shouted at Rajiv Banergee whenever they felt like it.
The interpreter said, ‘They told you they went to a meeting in south London. It was an Islamic prayer meeting.’
‘Yeah, but only when they realised Mr Huq had dobbed them in. Where exactly did it take place, this meeting, and who was there?’ Bob said. ‘They don’t have an alibi from their landlord, so they must give us one from someone else. Can anyone at this meeting vouch for them?’
The translator did his stuff. Then he said, ‘Yes.’
‘Who?’
But they wouldn’t say. That was, the boys said, their own business.
Bob saw Montalban look at the boys’ brief.
‘I’m gonna have to arrest them,’ he said.
The interpreter rattled something in Arabic.
For a moment both boys were silent and then the oldest of the pair, Nabil, made a speech that went on and on. Bob just wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep. He’d been up all night, first finding the boys, then bringing them in, then organising an interpreter, then organising the interview along with Montalban.
The interpreter nodded as Nabil spoke, then he asked a question, which the other boy, Qasim, answered.
Montalban, who was just as tired as Bob said, ‘Mr Saqqai, what is going on?’
The interpreter asked the boys one more question and then he said, ‘Nabil and Qasim say that Mr Huq is lying. They say they were lying too because they are ashamed.’
‘Ashamed? Why?’
‘Because,’ the interpreter said, ‘they say that Mr Huq forced them into doing sex with him.’
Bob felt his skin prickle. Could this be true? Ali Huq had been very clearly wrestling with his conscience when he told the police about his affair with Rajiv Banergee. He’d also said that he had been celibate ever since. But had that been a lie?
Montalban said, ‘Tell Nabil and Qasim that they were seen at the top of Brick Lane the night that Rajiv Banergee died by independent witnesses.’
The distinctly dodgy Zayn Chaudhuri and Sultan Ibrahim.
Another Arabic confab happened. This time it was heated.
‘Mr Saqqai …’
‘They say that is a lie,’ the interpreter said.
‘Well, with respect, they would,’ Montalban said. He looked at Bob. ‘Bring in Aziz Shah, the tailor. According to Huq, he brought these two into the country.’
Mumtaz spent the morning answering the questions and bowing to the demands of her ‘betrothed’. She’d told him she wasn’t free to speak but he could send her private messages, which he did. Fitting him in around what should have been a morning of writing up reports for clients wasn’t easy. Lee was out trying to serve divorce papers for a second time to a man in Wanstead and so she was effectively alone with Abu Imad.
Get a pay-as-you-go mobile just before you leave and give me the number. Throw it away when you arrive at Schiphol.
The office phone rang.
‘Arnold Agency.’
‘Mumtaz, it’s Aftab. I tried to call you last night but you never picked up. Everything alright?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Sorry. I was working and didn’t hear it. What did you want?’
It was about Wahid Sheikh. He was going into the convenience store, looking at Shazia. She wasn’t surprised, but she was alarmed. She was also very tired. Mumtaz said, ‘Thanks for letting me know, Aftab. I’ll sort it out.’
‘If you want any help …’
‘Thanks, but no,’ she said. She put the phone down. Did the old man know that his hold over her had weakened? The Sheikhs were all over East London so surely Wahid Sheikh had to know that Ali Huq’s house had been searched by the police. If he didn’t, then she needed to tell him.
I want to give you a list of things I need. Is that OK?
Resisting the urge to quote his own contention that they had ‘everything’ in the caliphate back at him, she asked him what he wanted. A besotted teenager, even if she had detected inconsistencies in her beloved’s argument, would be too timid to actually say so.
I need nice cologne. It’s very hot here and I want to smell good for you. I also need new sunglasses and some cool T-shirts. There may be other things. Have you booked flights? Remember to get a return, it’s less suspicious.
Mumtaz looked at flights to Amsterdam from Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick. The last thing he’d written to her the previous night was that she should come soon. But he hadn’t said when.
Mumtaz wrote, Give me a date when you’ll be there. I really, really, really, REALLY want you to meet me in Holland.
There was a long pause before he answered. She began to wonder whether he was going to answer. But then:
Next week. Inshallah I will be in Amsterdam on Tuesday. Come quickly. I do not want to be in the kaffir lands longer than I have to. I will send you a detailed shopping list.
It was Friday. She had three days. Mumtaz sat down and breathed.
They were questioning the boys again and, rumour had it, Aziz the tailor was ‘helping’ the police as well. Ali Huq had always assumed Aziz Shah acted in good faith. But had he been fooling himself? Of course he had. Aziz had only one interest and that was money. Everyone knew that. He and his associates preyed upon anxious parents who paid to have their kids brought to a safe place. Poor Syrians who didn’t know that their sons had already been well on the way to becoming radicalised before they even left Damascus. But they prayed and they fasted and so what was Ali to do? He had to atone for his sins somehow and if that meant supporting the caliphate then that was how it had to be. Anything rather than burn in hell, anything.
Only his father knew about his sin. He’d said that provided Ali never again went with a man it would be alright. If he didn’t do that and if the police investigation ended, there would never be any need for his mother or anyone else to know. But Qasim and Nabil were being questioned again and Aziz the tailor …
Ali had occasionally wondered why Aziz had chosen him to host asylum seekers from Syria. He was so unlike the other hosts he knew. They were all, like Aziz, elderly men who had been brought up on stories of early Islamist movements, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Much as he’d wanted to, Ali had not been able to delight in the resurgence of that movement during the Arab Spring of 2011. He’d wanted to approve. As a Muslim he should have been delighted at the prospect of Sharia Law being established in Egypt. But his upbringing screamed against it. As well as drumming the virtues of religion into all his children, Baharat Huq had also taught them that to be successful, countries had to be ruled by national laws. Deep down, in spite of his outward appearance, Ali Huq still believed this.
At the beginning, Aziz had said that he valued Ali because he knew he came from a ‘kaffir’ background and he admired him because he had turned away from all that. But was that the truth? Had Aziz picked him because he knew about Rajiv? Had he thought that if he had that information he could blackmail Ali if he didn’t want to do something or stepped out of line? The Lane was a village. Everyone knew everyone.
Aziz was bringing kids in for money and for something else too. They went to ‘meetings’, which agitated them, they did things that people found offensive, they were becoming less themselves every day. They were being prepared. By whom and for what …
Oh, he had a good idea. But as long as he wasn’t sinning with men, that was alright. That had to be alright and it had to be enough. But it wasn’t.
Much as he’d tried to concentrate on his accounts, he couldn’t. Old Adnan-ji from the Rajput restaurant had been in the shop for over an hour, poking about amongst the shalwar khameez, waiting to pick up some gossip. Every
one knew that Ali’s house had been searched by the police.
The front door opened. Another pair of flapping ears? Ali looked up – and his heart raced. It was DC Khan.
‘Mr Huq,’ he began, ‘I’d like you to come …’
What had the boys said? What had Aziz?
Ali stood up, pushed his chair over and he ran.
‘Leonard?’ Mumtaz said. In spite of the gravity of the situation, she stifled a laugh.
Lee dropped his passport down on her desk.
‘Why do you think I call meself Lee?’ he said. ‘Leonard’s an old geezer in a greasy mac who drinks pale ale.’
‘Is it a family name?’ Mumtaz asked.
‘No. But as I’ve told you before, my old man was a bastard,’ Lee said. ‘He never liked me or me brother or even Mum very much.’
Mumtaz knew that Lee’s father had been an alcoholic with a bad temper. What she hadn’t known until Lee had shown her his passport was that his father, back in the so-called ‘swinging’ 60s, had given his son an old man’s name.
‘But the name’s useful when I travel,’ Lee said. ‘That’s why I’ve never changed it. Should Fayyad find his way to a passenger list for that flight, he won’t find Lee Arnold.’
‘Leonard Reginald Arnold,’ Mumtaz read.
‘Yes, it gets worse,’ Lee said. He picked up his passport. ‘I think my old man wanted me to be a member of the British National Party. It’s that sort of name. He was a twat.’ He sighed. ‘I need a fag.’
He left the office and went outside. His smoking place was on the metal stairs that led down to the street. As usual he took his phone when he left and closed the door behind him.
Mumtaz looked at the list of luxury goods Abu Imad had sent her. He’d even costed them.
RayBan Wayfarer Sunglasses – £161
Bentley Infinite Rush male fragrance – £60
Alexander McQueen Ribcage T-shirt x 3 – £195 each
Mishal had asked him how he thought she could pay for such expensive items and he’d told her to use her mother’s credit card. The couple had an argument. He’d written:
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