Babel bak-6 Page 19

  CIB3.

  ‘Let’s not get carried away,’ Brock said. ‘Manzoor’s putting up smoke, covering up his hurt pride. But maybe he’s got more than that to hide.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘If he came to the funeral in the hope of catching his daughter, then he must have known that Abu Khadra was her boyfriend, right? So when and how did he make this discovery? If someone at Chandler’s Yard tipped him off that she was there, why didn’t he just tell the police and get them to execute the warrant? Why wait till the funeral?’

  ‘I don’t know…’ Then something kicked in Kathy’s memory. ‘When was it…?’ she said slowly, thinking. ‘On the day after Abu was killed, yes, the Wednesday afternoon, I went back to Shadwell Road, just to sniff around.’

  ‘What? You were supposed to be on leave, Kathy. Russell had taken over the case.’

  ‘I know, but Bren had been going on about how quickly everything had happened, and I was curious. That’s when I met Manzoor-that’s how he recognised me this afternoon. The barman at The Three Crowns had mentioned that he’d seen Manzoor talking to one of the skinheads, so I went into his shop and asked him. He said he’d just tried to persuade the man not to make trouble. Then, when I was leaving, he asked me kind of casually if I knew where Abu had lived. Was it in Chandler’s Yard, or was it the university?’

  ‘You’re thinking that he must have known then that Abu was the boyfriend? And if he knew on the Wednesday, why not earlier, before Abu was killed? But how?’ Brock thought about that. ‘It’d be a terrible irony if I told him, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, suppose he knew the boyfriend’s name, but nothing else. Then Bren and I turn up at the mosque looking for someone of that name and with a picture as well, and one of the other men there says they think that man goes to the mosque in Chandler’s Yard… What would Manzoor do?’

  ‘Tell the skinheads?’ Kathy asked softly. ‘Deliberately get Abu killed? Is that possible?’

  ‘It felt as if we were set up,’ Brock furrowed his brow, thinking back. ‘As soon as we stepped out of the alleyway. The crowd waiting for us, the skinheads in the pub doorway falling into step behind, the flying wedge from the front, the sneak attack from the back. Yes, it did feel like we’d been set up, but I put that down to my paranoia at having failed to bring Abu in alive.’

  He reached for the phone again, flicking through the pages of his notebook until he found a number that he dialled. ‘Superintendent Russell, please,’ he said. ‘This is DCI Brock, in connection with the Springer/Khadra inquiry.’

  He waited, both of them tense. Kathy began pacing the couple of yards from one side of the kitchen to the other, chewing her lip.

  ‘Cyril!’ Brock said at last, crouching forward over the instrument as if he could focus himself down the line.

  ‘Evening, Brock. Saw you at the service this morning.’

  ‘Yes. I went to the Khadra interment this afternoon, too.’

  ‘So I understand. I gave clearance. You must have been about the only one there, weren’t you? We kept it very quiet. Unfortunately our crew was called away on another matter just beforehand. Everything go off all right?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Cyril. Some outsiders followed the mourners to the cemetery and caused a bit of bother.’

  Russell swore softly, then listened as Brock told him what had happened. Despite the silence from the other end of the line, Brock could imagine quite clearly what was going through the other man’s head. He was within a year of retirement, Brock knew, after a highly distinguished career. The Springer/Khadra case was a potential minefield and his rapid closure treatment of it may have been precipitate, wishful thinking. They had gone to pains to keep the arrangements for Abu’s burial confined to the few people involved, but the absence of a police escort had been, in retrospect, a serious lapse, and uncharacteristic of Russell, normally a punctilious manager.

  ‘I hope I don’t presume too much, Cyril,’ Brock said, having painted the bleak picture, ‘when I say that I regarded ourselves as being your representatives, even though technically both DS Kolla and I were on leave at the time. We felt our earlier involvement made it appropriate for us to play such a role, in the absence of other police presence.’

  Silence, then, ‘I see.’

  Brock knew that Russell was perfectly well aware that if he was being offered, not a life raft perhaps, but at least a life jacket, then there was a price tag attached.

  ‘We’ve been going over a few ideas about Manzoor and his role in all this, Cyril, and we’ve got some thoughts we’d like to share with you, which might even impact on your report. If you thought that would be proper.’

  Russell cleared his throat, then said, ‘I think it would be essential, Brock, if they have a bearing on my inquiry. What sort of thoughts?’

  ‘I wonder if you could tell me if any of your skinhead suspects mentioned anything about being helped, or even encouraged, by the Asians.’

  ‘One of them, a little thug by the name of Wilson, said he talked to some of the Asians in the crowd and they told him about Abu and what he was being arrested for. He said he passed this on to his friends in the pub, but of course denies having anything to do with what followed.’

  ‘Nothing more specific than that? About a particular Asian, perhaps, egging them on?’

  ‘I don’t recall anything specific, but I can check the transcripts of his interviews. You think Manzoor played a more active role?’

  ‘It’s a possibility. However, I’m constrained by the fact that we had to call for back-up from the local force, with whom Manzoor has now laid this complaint against my DS, and being myself a witness to what happened, I can’t be seen to be hounding the man.’

  ‘Ah.’ Russell was beginning to get the picture. ‘Well, let me say, Brock, that although I can’t interfere in any way with what CIB may do, I will certainly lend every support to my people on the ground, including, on this occasion, you and your sergeant. And if either of you have further information…’

  ‘Not information, Cyril. What I’m suggesting is that it may be necessary for me to participate with you in having a closer look at Manzoor’s involvement in all this. Not Sergeant Kolla, of course. She can’t possibly be involved while there’s an outstanding complaint against her.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Well, if you’re fit for duty, Brock, I can’t see any obstacle to that proposal. None at all. Sounds very reasonable.’

  Brock replaced the phone as tenderly as if it were made of fragile porcelain. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good. Now let’s get these people off our hands and get down to work.’

  ‘Brock,’ Kathy said cautiously. ‘Suzanne was expecting me to get you back to Battle in time for dinner tonight. Do you think you should phone her?’

  ‘Oh, Lord. Yes, yes, of course. What the hell do I say?’

  ‘Why don’t you tell her I beat up a suspect and now you’ve got to save me from the CIB.’

  Brock winced and turned back to the phone. Kathy tactfully left him alone and returned to the living room to check on the women. They seemed remarkably comfortable, even Nargis, who was sipping at a weak whisky and water, presumably prescribed by Briony. Both she and Fran had pulled their scarves back, letting their hair fall free, and in the glow of the fire the three of them looked like students comparing notes on boys or movies rather than women grieving the dead.

  From time to time Kathy went to the door and picked up phrases from Brock’s conversation, ‘Knocked him flying with her baton… Not a scratch… Now that’s unfair, Suzanne, Bren and I were surrounded by dozens… She may well be fitter than me, but… Anyway, I’ve got to get her out of this mess… But you know I can’t drive with this leg…’

  Kathy returned to her armchair before Brock appeared at the door, looking more drained than after his conversation with Superintendent Russell. ‘Well, now, ladies,’ he said wearily. ‘Let’s get you sorted, shall we?’

  After they dropped Nargis and
Briony at the refuge, Kathy drove on towards Shadwell Road with Fran who was anxious to get back to her husband George. She directed them to approach the area through the neighbouring back streets, parking the car at the end of a short lane that connected with the far end of Chandler’s Yard. By this way they were able to arrive at the illuminated front of the Horria Cafe without going into Shadwell Road itself. As Kathy kept pace with Brock’s limping steps, Fran ran ahead into the cafe. From the darkness of the yard they watched her joyful reunion with her husband inside. There was a crowd this evening in the Horria, and they saw Qasim enthroned in the centre, a bandage round his head like a turbaned potentate.

  Brock pulled the door open, was hit by warm smells of cooking and a hubbub of noise, and hobbled in. Immediately the noise died away and he found himself standing there facing a wall of implacable faces. For a moment he felt like the clown who opened the wrong door and found himself inside the cage of man-eating tigers. Then someone shouted something and pointed, and the faces immediately lit up and a great roar of approval echoed round the cafe walls. Only they weren’t looking at him. He turned and saw Kathy at his shoulder, grinning at them, and then they were clapping, the claps falling into a chanting rhythm, and Qasim hoisted himself off his seat and lumbered forward and grabbed her hand and led her into their midst.

  Ignored, Brock stood by the door watching as George and Qasim demonstrated with flashing arm gestures the way in which Kathy had felled Manzoor. They urged her to produce her weapon and demonstrate it before them all, but she modestly declined, and murmured a few words to Qasim who reluctantly waved Brock over and seated them both at what was apparently the table of greatest status in the Horria. Here was already seated an old man whose leathery features were embellished with a magnificent large moustache and an embroidered skullcap.

  ‘This is my grandfather, also called Qasim Ali,’ Qasim explained. Grandpa Qasim was the patriarch, the doyen of merchants and wisest of men. He gracefully welcomed his guests while Qasim junior explained that, when he was a boy, before the Pakis had become so numerous, his grandfather had owned several shops and warehouses on Shadwell Road and had been the principal businessman in the neighbourhood. He had also been the king of the trade in qat, a narcotic leaf chewed by Yemenis, which Grandpa Qasim flew in twice a week to London from Ethiopia and Kenya, and stored in fridges that used to fill the rear store- room of the Horria, freshness being of the utmost importance to the connoisseur of qat.

  ‘Those days are gone,’ Qasim junior said sadly. ‘In those days any man foolish enough to interrupt a family burial would have ended up in a grave himself. But look at us today, shamed by those Paki cowboys. Only Kathy came out of it well.’

  ‘I know what you mean, Qasim,’ Brock nodded, rubbing his knee.

  ‘Oh, but yours was a great battle, two against hundreds. You couldn’t help what happened to Abu.’

  ‘How do you think Manzoor knew that Abu and his daughter were close?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I can tell you that nobody here, in Chandler’s Yard, told him. If they had, he’d have known that she was here…’ he pointed up at the ceiling, ‘all the time.’

  ‘Her room is up there?’

  ‘Top floor, in the attic above the mosque, across the landing from George and Fran.’

  ‘And Abu spent a lot of time with her there?’

  Qasim shrugged. ‘It’s not something the imam would approve, perhaps, but they’d both experienced suffering, and who were we to say they weren’t good for each other?’

  ‘I know about Nargis’ story, but what suffering had Abu experienced?’

  ‘I don’t know all the details, but he came from a poor family in Lebanon, and they went through some very bad times and he got into some kind of trouble. But he was lucky, he said. He might have become a kid of the streets or maybe a terrorist, but instead he got a sponsor who helped him get an education. He went to university in Saudi or the Gulf, and when he was qualified he got a job from this professor who brought him over here. He said he owed this man everything. He said he was like a father to him.’

  ‘Professor Haygill?’

  ‘I don’t know his name. He just said this English professor had saved his life.’

  They were interrupted by several women from Qasim’s kitchen who began to bring dishes to the table, containing stews and loaves of flat bread. ‘A feast for the heroes!’ Qasim announced, and then, in an undertone to Brock, added, ‘This is yer classic Yemeni asid. But I can do you steak and chips if you’d rather, eh?’ Brock said he’d stick with the stew, and everyone began to eat.

  After they’d wiped their plates clean, and Qasim relaxed with a contented grunt and lit up, Brock said, ‘The room that Nargis lives in upstairs, who owns it?’

  ‘Grandpa Qasim owns the whole building.’

  ‘And did Nargis pay rent?’

  ‘No. She hadn’t a bean. She came with nothing.’

  ‘That was good of you.’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I want to have a look in the room, with Sergeant Kolla. You can come along too, if you want.’

  ‘You want to search Nargis’ room?’

  ‘Yes. I’m entitled to do that if I believe that Abu occupied the room too, and may have left something there. I’d like your cooperation. Would you ask Grandpa Qasim for me?’

  Qasim tilted his weight back dangerously in his chair and drew on his cigarette, pondering. ‘You still ’aven’t got the gun, ’ave you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I don’t like the idea of you poking around in their room.’

  ‘No, neither do I, but I’m afraid it’s necessary. Fran could be a witness too if you like.’

  ‘Blimey.’ Qasim blew a puff at the ceiling fan. ‘It’s not that big a room.’ He leaned forward and spoke to Grandpa Qasim for a moment, then turned and nodded to Brock and got up to lead the way.

  They climbed the stairs at the back of the cafe which led up to the lobby of the little mosque where Brock had found Abu’s shoes and coat, then continued up another, narrower dog-leg flight to the attic floor. There was no lock on the door of Nargis’ room, and Fran and Qasim looked on with disapproval as Brock and Kathy put on latex gloves and went inside.

  It was a small space, once perhaps a maid’s room, largely filled by an old iron-framed bed, and the belongings it contained were pathetically few. As they studied it, their backs to the others at the door, Kathy murmured to Brock, ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’

  He gave her a sidelong look, then nodded. ‘You’re right. Go back outside with the others. I’ll take care of it.’

  She hesitated, then shook her head. ‘Come on. Let’s do it quickly.’

  The clothes that Nargis had brought or been donated were hung behind a curtain in an alcove in one corner, and Kathy started there. Brock turned to a backpack in another corner, which held some of Abu’s things, his motorbike helmet, some socks and underwear and sweaters, a folder of documents.

  They both finished at the same moment and turned together to the bed, approaching it from opposite sides, and began feeling swiftly under pillows, blankets, mattress as the witnesses watched them dolefully from the doorway. Beneath the pillow they found a folder of documents that appeared to belong to Nargis, her passport, birth certificate and medical papers, as well as a number of documents in foreign script that they assumed related to her period in Kashmir. They put these back and continued working down towards the foot of the bed where they raised the tail of the mattress and found a plastic bag.

  Brock lifted it up, immediately disappointed that it didn’t seem heavy or hard enough. More documents, he guessed, and confirmed it by pulling out Abu’s passport and a number of documents in Arabic. Wrapped inside them was a plastic pouch, sealed with a strip of tape. He carefully pulled it away and looked inside, and as he did so his face lost all expression. He handed the pouch across to Kathy, who felt inside and slid something out of one of its pockets. They all recognised immediatel
y what it was, a wad of money.

  Kathy examined it and said softly, ‘Hundred pound notes. A pack of fifty.’ She laid it on the bed and slid five more identical wads out of the pouch.

  ‘Thirty thousand quid,’ Qasim breathed.

  Brock took the pouch back from Kathy and held it up to the light of the lampshade hanging from the centre of the ceiling. ‘BCCD,’ he read. ‘What’s that?’ Then he squinted more closely at some small print. ‘Bank of Credit and Commerce Dubai.’

  He replaced the money in the pouch and the pouch in the plastic bag and they continued with their search, under the carpet, behind the mirror, beneath the little table and chair, until they were satisfied that there was nothing more.

  Sanjeev Manzoor bustled in looking belligerent and aggrieved. He was dressed in a smart dark suit as usual, against which the white triangle of the sling supporting his right arm looked particularly conspicuous, like a banner signifying ‘victim’. His solicitor was an older Asian with greying hair and a look of permanent scepticism on his face, as if he’d seen everything and heard every possible explanation for it. He carried a bulging, battered leather briefcase that seemed to require all his strength to hoist onto the table. They waved aside the offer of tea or coffee, and nodded curtly as Superintendent Russell introduced himself and Brock. They were in the scruffy setting of the interview room of the Shadwell Road police station, where Brock had found a fax awaiting him when he finally arrived after leaving Chandler’s Yard. The fax had comprised a cover sheet from Russell together with a copy of a single page from an interview with the skinhead Wilson.

  A

  (NO AUDIBLE REPLY)

  Q 37

  Well, why would they want to help you?

  A

  … be surprised, wouldn’t you?

  Q 38

  No but-

  A

  Like there was this one, a little Paki in a flash suit, what was fucking wetting himself. He said the Arab the coppers had gone to fetch had topped a white man. He said there was only two coppers.