by Liz Mistry
‘Don’t you have your phone on? Been trying to ring you.’
Shit! He’d put it on silent because he was fed up of the sound of The Bitch is Back every five minutes. Gabriella was nothing if not persistent. Persistent and annoying!
‘Need to have a word before you head home.’
That sounds ominous. Gus nodded and followed her back to the lift and up to her office. Bye bye whisky and a chance to think things through in peace.
They’d barely sat down when Nancy launched into it, her annoyance obvious by the way she tapped her fingernails on the table. ‘Had Her Nibs on the phone. Seems she got a call from some high up head honcho. Seems they gave her classified information. Seems she can only share some of it with me. Seems it’s on a need-to-know basis and I,’ she prodded herself in the chest, ‘quite clearly don’t need to chuffing know, unlike her High and Bloody Mighty.’
Gus frowned. What did this shit have to do with him? ‘The Chief Super?’
Nancy snorted, ‘What other Her Nibs do you know?’
Gus though it wise to keep quiet. Clearly Nancy was as enamoured by Chief Super Bashir as Hardeep.
‘Seems to think she can tell me how to do my job. How to organise my staff. Cheeky cow.’ She glared across her desk at him.
Taking a deep breath to stop himself from hurrying her along, Gus waited. Nancy would continue when she was good and ready and not a moment before.
‘Thinks she’s better than the rest of us. One of those women who get to the top against all odds and promptly shits on the rest of her sex.’ Nancy slammed her palm on the table top and made a low growling sound in the back of her throat.
Hiding his smile, Gus tilted his head, in what he hoped was a mildly-interested fashion. ‘And?’
‘And?’ Nancy raged, ‘And? Don’t you get it? Seems like I can barely be trusted with ‘classified…’ she made the universal air quotes motion with agitated fingers. ‘information’. What does she think I’m going to do? Stand on the chuffing roof with a loud hailer and announce it to Bradford or something? Take an ad out in the T&A or the Chronicle? Tattoo it on my forehead? AWWW! Makes my stool ferment in a Demi John.’
Yeuch! Just the image he needed floating around in his head right now.
Gus got ‘it’. In fact, he’d be surprised if the entire Fort, including the Chief Super herself, hadn’t heard. But none of that solved the puzzle of why he was here, with a woman whose shit was turning to alcohol in a translucent container, as they spoke. Hell, he’d heard the term ‘he’d drink whisky through a shitty cloot’ – but this took home brewing to a whole new level.
‘It’s not funny, Gus.’
Gus, realising he’d allowed his amusement to make it to his mouth, wiped the smile off his face and replaced it with a serious expression. ‘Look, I can see you’re upset, Nance, but what’s all this classified shit got to do with me? I’m up to my ears in this Izzie Dimou thing and we’ve yet to locate Daniel Farrier.’
Nancy exhaled, ‘That’s just it. The classified stuff is about your damn brother-in-law.’ She folded her arms under her breasts, leaned back in her chair and grinned. ‘Things for you, Gus, just got a whole lot more complicated.’
17
22:00 North Park Road, Manningham
Mo stood in the dark and stared out the conservatory window. The steadily falling snow was mesmerising, yet Mo barely noticed it. His thoughts were elsewhere, in a different time and place. Sixteen years ago to be precise, in a time that he’d rather forget. Who am I kidding? I’ll never forget that. How can I? It was a time that he wished with all his heart he could rewrite. A time before he and Naila had married.
Zarqa had been playing up again and it was only a matter of time before he and Naila would have to do something. It wasn’t just the tattoo – it was other things. Her cheek, her sulkiness. The way she looked at them. The way she avoided them by hiding out in her room and when she did come out, she looked like she’d eaten rancid ghee. But the snide comments were the worst. The barely concealed implications that he and her mum were bad Muslims. That they had no morals.
Perhaps they would have been wiser to move away all those years ago. Perhaps, it would have been better for them to have left everything they knew behind. Maybe then he wouldn’t be in this position now. He’d fought hard to hold his head high in the community. He and Naila, together, had fought hard. Some people had long memories, yet he’d hoped that the ones who’d mattered had relegated the past to the past. Seems like someone had leaked something, because how else would Zarqa know to start asking these awkward questions.
He glanced back as Naila approached and wrapped both her arms around him, enveloping him. He swivelled round and pulled her to his chest and, squeezing tight, dropped a kiss on her hair. The familiar smell of her shampoo soothed him.
‘We’ll have to tell her the truth, Mo. You do know that, don’t you?’
Mo nodded. ‘I know. I know. But not yet. Please, not yet. I can’t bear to bring that into our home. Can’t bear the thought of her knowing. Let’s leave it till after the summer. Leave it till she’s moved schools and is settled in sixth form.’
Naila sighed. ‘We can’t keep putting it off. She knows there’s a secret and that’s why she’s acting out. You don’t want her to hear it from someone else. She needs to feel she can trust us, Mo. Keeping secrets isn’t the answer. You know that. Deep down you know that.’
‘Please, Nail. Give me a few more months to get used to it. Come to terms with it.’ He rested his forehead on to her hair, aware that his tears would soak through to her scalp, yet unable to prevent them from falling. This was his worst nightmare. ‘Promise me Naila, give me till after the summer. I swear we’ll tell her then.’
Naila bit her lip. He hated that he was making her feel this way. Hated that he was forcing her, yet he couldn’t see another way out of this. She was right. There had been too many truths left unspoken, left to fester. He held her at arm’s length, his hands gentle on her shoulders. ‘I need the time, Naila. I need to get my head in the right place. I’ll work at it, I promise. I’ll go to a counsellor. I’ll work through all of it. We’ll go together, but I need you to promise. I need you to help me be ready.’
Naila held his gaze for a long time and raised her hand to his cheek, ‘I love you, Mo. So much.’ Then, in a whisper, ‘I promise. But only till after the summer, okay? – after her exams.’
Mo’s shoulders felt lighter. He had a reprise. Now all he had to do was get himself sorted before September.
18
21:45 Saddleworth Moor
Daniel came round slowly. He opened his eyes only to close them again, the corners of his eyeballs fighting against the pain that shot across from one temple to the other. He swallowed. His mouth was dry and chalky. Groaning, he tried to move his limbs, but they were numb with cold and his fingers protested when he moved them. He flexed them once or twice before stretching out his hand and clumsily patting the area around where he lay. Fabric – cold, damp, soft fabric. There were soft ridges in lines on the material and his mind went back to the cover he remembered that used to stretch over his grandma’s bed. What was it she called it? – a candlewick? He’d not come across one since his gran had died. His head rested on a pillow that smelled of something old and stale. It was lumpy. He pulled the far end of the cover and flipped it over his body. It released a damp, musty smell, so he held his breath. When he finally breathed again, he could detect a faint lavender scent, moth balls and vile all-encompassing damp.
Where was this shit hole? As awareness of the environment around him penetrated his fuzzy head, he opened his eyes again – this time ignoring the pain. Dusky fluid shapes trembled before him, formless and indistinguishable. Where was he? Ignoring the pain behind his eyes, he kept them open and peered through darkness, looking for something to ground him. Something solid that would tell him where he was, because, right now, he wasn’t entirely sure. A fleeting thought crossed his mind. Had Gus done this to him? A stag d
o prank? But no sooner had the thought come, that he dismissed it. His stag do wasn’t ‘till tomorrow.
Certain that his head was about to explode, Daniel closed his eyes once more and tried to collect his thoughts. Okay, it wasn’t his stag do, so what was this all about? If his mind wasn’t so fuzzy, he’d be able to concentrate. He was sure that there was something on the periphery of his memory that he should be focussing on, but right now he could barely keep his eyes open, never mind formulate any thoughts. He cast his mind back, trying to do that thing Izzie told him to do, every time he lost his car keys; start with his last memory and work backwards. The thing was, after some thought, Daniel’s last memory appeared to be of being in Manchester, waiting for Izzie. He’d been in that Costa near Victoria Station. Shit! How the hell could that be his last memory? That had been in the morning, the snow had barely started to fall… and now it was pitch black. What had happened to him since then? He swallowed the panic that rose in his chest and forced himself to concentrate.
He’d ordered a Chai Latte and sat with The Guardian in the corner, allowing the chatter from the other customers to flow over him. The coffee had tasted good. He’d taken a long draft and read an article about Donald Trump separating kids from their parents – idiot! He’d gone to the toilet and when he came back, he’d flicked through the rest of the newspaper, sipping his drink. It was after that things got hazy, no clear memories, just moving images, being helped out, a male voice ‘He’s taken a bit of a funny turn.’ Low voices, stumbling along, a car ride… then nothing. Who the hell had taken him? A surge of anger made him forget his pain. He sat up, pulling the blanket around him and slid his bum up to the top of the bed. Quickly, he patted his hands over his pockets. His phone? Wallet? Nothing!
Pulling his legs up, he dislodged the part of the quilt that was underneath and pulled it over his legs. Sitting on the clumpy pillow, he leaned against a wooden headboard and tried to think. He’d been drugged, that much was clear. More than likely someone put something in his drink when he went to the toilet. In a café? A pub was in the realms of possibility – getting drugged in a café seemed unlikely, unless of course he was targeted – followed and targeted. Again, the question who? raised its ugly head. Someone from Cyprus, from the university or from the UK or someone else?
So, what did that mean? He thought about it. Izzie! Someone, somewhere knew what she was doing in Manchester. That was the only explanation. Who though? They’d been careful. They’d not told anyone. He’d convinced her not to. Unless, of course she hadn’t listened. Who could she have told? He supposed she could have given Jordan Beaumont the heads up before they left Cyprus. None of this was in his plans. He needed to be out there keeping an eye on things. Was whoever had taken him planning to use him as leverage? Is that what this was all about? The more he thought about it the more convinced he was that that was the case.
He wondered if Izzie had spoken to her contact. If she had, it was just a matter of waiting out whoever had brought him here. If, on the other hand, she’d been intercepted before she’d shared her information then things had become a lot sinister. He needed to act now. He needed to assume the worst and get out of here. Wherever here was.
He flicked his hand over, looked at the time on his wristwatch. Fuck! It was Saturday. He’d been out of it for more than twenty-four hours, and God only knew what was happening to Izzie. He swung his legs out from under the blanket. It hadn’t given him much warmth anyway and using the light facility on his watch he stood up and began to explore his surroundings.
As he moved, the shapes he’d noticed earlier became more solid. An old fashioned heavy wooden wardrobe in one corner to his left and a four-drawer chest of drawers against the same wall but in the other corner. Directly opposite the ancient double bed that he’d been lying on, was an empty fireplace with a grate and soot-blackened fire tools inside. To the right stood a heavy mahogany dressing table with a mirror attached to the top, similar to the one his parents had once owned. In between the wardrobe and the chest of drawers was the door. Daniel walked over the threadbare Axminster carpet and, suspecting he’d be unlucky, tried the door. It was locked. He kicked it and rattled the handle, but it was solid. He strode to the opposite wall where the curtained window was. The curtains were heavy and touched the floor. He pulled the cord, that hung from one side, and with a grinding noise they swished open. The window was covered in a mosaic of ice.
Daniel remembered his mother telling him that during the winter she sometimes woke up to panes covered in ice on the inside. He’d never expected to witness that for himself. His mum had told him and Gabriella how she’d breathed onto the pane to clear a space each morning to look out of. He put his face right up to the window, feeling the chill hit his cheeks and, his breath steaming before him, he directed it onto the pane until an imperfect circle of lighter ice appeared. Using the sleeve of his jumper he wiped it away, until he could see outside.
He groaned. When he’d been in the cafe there had been a sparse spattering of snow and although he’d been aware of the Beast from the East forecasts, he hadn’t in his wildest dreams expected this. He could see little beyond the driving snow that swirled before the window. But what worried him most were the things he couldn’t see. No street lights, or glow from neighbouring properties, no sound, except the blizzard. His torchlight illuminated the inches of snow that had drifted up the window, almost obliterating the bottom pane. He yanked the single glazed window, but it was sealed shut with what looked to be years’ worth of paint. Anyway, even if he could open it, he had nowhere to go.
Shivering, he moved back to the bed and conscious that his bladder needed emptying, wrapped himself in the foul-smelling candlewick quilt. Despite the god-awful smell, he covered his head and ears and nose. The building he was in was old and unused, he was sure of that. Maybe an old farmhouse or something. Looking out the window had given him no clues to his actual whereabouts and he didn’t even know if he was alone or not. He couldn’t hear anything, but the walls of these old buildings were so thick that it didn’t mean anything.
The only thing he could do for now was wait. In the morning light he’d be able to assess his external environment and perhaps by then, if anyone was here, they’d make themselves known to him. On the other hand, if he was alone, there was no chance of anyone getting here anytime soon. This both worried and pleased him. If no-one could get to him, how could he get out? And how long could he last without food? On the other hand, if he was on his own, he had time to work out a plan of action.
19
22:00 Mariner’s Drive
Gus had ignored Gabriella’s ever more frequent calls. All evening he’d allowed them to go to voicemail, but even he had to admit thirty texts and twelve voicemails were too many to disregard, especially in the circumstances. Curled up on the couch with Patti, Bingo snoring lightly beside them and a glass of malt in his hand, Gus was finally beginning to thaw after hiking home. The walk from The Fort had been strange. Oak Lane was deserted and yet the traffic lights kept changing colour, gleaming eerily through the sheets of snow. The streetlights gave the flakes a luminescent glow and it seemed that Bradford was coated in a curtain of silence. He would have liked to have jogged, but that was impossible. He could barely trudge through the drifts and he felt like a pioneer as he took the first step onto the virgin blanket that covered Lister Park.
The Bitch is Back trilled from his phone, and with a sigh, Gus mouthed ‘sorry’ to Patti and picked it up from the coffee table. ‘Hi Gabriella.’
Her voice shrieked across the room, drowning out the quiet background music Patti had put on. Flinching, Gus held the phone away from his ear and allowed Gabriella’s rant to run its course.
‘Look, I know you’ve been trying to catch me, but I’ve been running a damn murder inquiry. You have to let me get on with it.’
‘All I wanted to know was if you’ve found Daniel’
Gabriella’s voice sounded thick, as if she’d been crying and Gus felt l
ike a dick. He should have made the effort to at least text her. She’d lost her sister-in-law-to-be and her brother had disappeared, of course she was worried. What made it worse, no doubt, was that she was stuck in Dublin till the weather cleared, unable to do anything, and reliant on him for information. He made an effort to soften his tone, ‘Look Gabriella. The weather here is crap, so we’re limited till it clears. We’ve been to Daniel’s house, but he’s not there. Can you think of anywhere else he could be?’ He’d have to ask her about the information Nancy had given him earlier, but he decided to lead up to that.
The sound of sniffling was abruptly replaced by his sister’s voice ‘Gus, she’s in bits. Doesn’t know what to do with herself. You need to keep her in the loop. She’s going crazy here. We both are. You can’t let personal stuff get in the way of you doing the right thing.’
Gus bristled. That was a low dig. How dare Katie infer that he hadn’t contacted Gabriella because of personal history? Who the hell did she think she was, taking the moral high ground? She was the one in a relationship with his ex-wife. She was the one who had stabbed him in the back and now she was accusing him of not contacting Gabriella because of that. He glanced at Patti, who – clearly able to interpret the tone of the conversation – had moved closer placing a placating hand on his thigh. Taking a deep breath, but unable to keep the ice from his tone, he said, ‘The weather conditions here are arctic, yet I’ve pushed myself and my team as hard as I can to find Daniel whilst trying to find out as much as I can about Izzie. Forgive me if updating Gabriella every two minutes isn’t top of my list of priorities. Besides which, being the ex-wife, or my sister’s partner, for that matter, does not give her special privileges.’
Katie started to speak, but he raised his voice and spoke over her. ‘That said, Katie, I will do my best to keep her informed from now on. Now, if she’s up to it, I’d like to ask her a few questions. Can she cope with that? She’s the only one with any real knowledge about Daniel and Izzie.’