An Act of Kindness: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 2) (8 page)

At the end of Patrick Road, where it met Tunmarsh Lane, Mumtaz saw a big BMW with blacked-out windows. It was the sort of car that gangsters often drove. People like the Sheikh family. Naz Sheikh, that good looking, lethal psychopath, was in charge of collecting ‘her’ debt for his equally ruthless father and brothers. If any of them were in that car now she hoped they would have an accident.

‘Ayesha,’ she said, ‘I have to ask, did you tell your sister that you’d had her followed?’

Ayesha shook her head. ‘No.’

‘So what did you tell her?’

‘Just that I knew what she was up to with her landlord. She didn’t deny it. She just pushed me out the flat. I offered her and the kids to come and live with Wazim and me, I said all I wanted to do was help her.’

She was genuinely baffled. Clearly Ayesha had lived a much more sheltered life than her sister – and had listened to nothing Mumtaz had told her on Sunday.

‘But it isn’t as simple as that,’ Mumtaz said. She was heading for Prince Regent Lane and then on down to Silvertown and the little cafe in the Thames Barrier Park. She liked it down there, it was quiet and anonymous. ‘Your sister owes her landlord, Sean
Rogers. Even if you do take her and her children out of that house, he will come after her.’

‘But if he’s putting her on the streets …’

‘She’d have to make a complaint to the police herself,’ Mumtaz said. ‘According to the law, at the moment she is in the wrong because she owes him money.’

‘How much?’

‘I don’t know. But these people charge unbelievable rates of interest.’

‘How can they do that?’

Mumtaz shrugged. ‘It’s legal,’ she said. ‘The only way forward for Wendy would be for her to go to the police and report the abuse. But I can tell from seeing how she was just now, she won’t do that. My boss, Mr Arnold, has never known anyone press charges against the Rogers brothers or any of their associates. That’s the thing with gangsters, Ayesha, nobody ever tells. That’s where their power comes from: other people’s silence.’

Just talking about it, about herself, made Mumtaz want to cry. Ahmet had gambled, literally, with the Sheikh family and he’d lost. Now she was selling everything she had to pay the interest on that debt and keep a roof over her own and Shazia’s heads. And just like Wendy Dixon who kept her mouth shut about the Rogers brothers, she wasn’t saying a word.

*

Lee could find nothing about any skeleton or bones in the local paper. He’d gone to the newsagents in Green Street and bought the
Newham Recorder
but there was no mention of bones being found in the Plashet Graveyard. There was just a sad little story about a man called John Sawyer, who’d been found stabbed in the back on Saturday night. He’d served in Afghanistan apparently.
He was only twenty-seven, had been homeless and mentally ill and no-one had given a damn. A few of Lee’s old mates from Iraq had ended up like that. He hadn’t. He’d joined the police, lost his marriage and become addicted to booze and painkillers. Serving one’s country was an honour that came at a price, Lee thought as he watched a cold rain lash down on Green Street.

*

There was no picture of John Sawyer in the newspaper, but Nasreen knew that it was him. His age seemed about right, he’d been a soldier in Afghanistan and he’d been homeless. It had to be John. Abdullah came in from the garden, soaked through.

‘The guttering needs doing,’ he said.

Water had suddenly poured through the open bathroom window.

‘Oh.’ She put the newspaper down.

‘Anything in the
Recorder
?’ he asked.

‘Not much,’ she said. She should have said
the homeless man who used to live in our garden is dead,
but she couldn’t. If Abdullah found out she’d known about a man living in their garden he’d subject her to protracted interrogation. If he knew she’d fed John, his questioning would be furious and, she feared, without end. His jealousy of other men, in her experience, knew no limits.

Soon after they’d married, one of her cousins, Rafiq, had come to stay. Rafiq’s father had spent a lot of time working away from home. His mother was dead, and Rafiq had often stayed at Nasreen’s house when they were children. He was like a brother to her. As soon as he arrived they’d reverted to how they’d always been with each other – mucking around, joking, laughing loudly. Then Rafiq had tickled her, just for a laugh.

There was nothing in it, but Abdullah hadn’t taken it that way.
He’d pulled them apart and then he’d hit Rafiq, hard. Neither Nasreen nor her parents had known what to do. None of them had seen Rafiq since.

As Abdullah walked past her into the living room, he briefly touched her shoulder. It was an affectionate touch and she wanted to turn to him, kiss him. But she daren’t because by this time she was crying. John was dead and no-one knew why – but she feared her own terrible thoughts. Surely, even if Abdullah had found John in the garden, whatever had happened she as his wife would have been the first to know? Nasreen’s next feeling was one of shame. Whatever else he was, Abdullah was her husband and she owed him trust and loyalty.

‘Where’d you hear about a skeleton, Arnold?’ Vi Collins asked Lee as they sat out in the cold in the garden of the Golden Fleece. Lee had had the morning off to take Chronus to the vet – he’d been off his food for a few days. He’d met Vi as he was going out to his car after depositing the mynah bird back in the flat. She’d offered him a drink and the Golden Fleece was the nearest boozer. He’d taken her up on her offer and then he’d asked her, naming no names, about the weird little bit of intel Cheryl the alkie had given him outside the Boleyn, about a skeleton found with the body of John Sawyer in the Plashet Jewish Cemetery.

‘I just heard,’ Lee said.

‘Well, you must’ve heard from some sort of nutter,’ Vi said.

‘So there isn’t any skeleton?’

‘I chose my words very carefully, Arnold,’ Vi said. ‘I talked about “a” skeleton, not “the” skeleton.’

‘So you’re saying that the whole skeleton thing—’

‘“A” skeleton,’ Vi repeated. ‘“A” as in “a”.’

Even though Cheryl the alkie was a notoriously unreliable source of information, Lee could read Vi Collins and so her inability to
actually
answer his question by talking about ‘the’ skeleton was telling. Somewhere a skeleton existed which Vi knew about; however, whether it was directly related to the Plashet
Cemetery was not something she wanted to discuss. Lee knew that he couldn’t pursue it and she was on her guard now. He’d just salt that little bit of information away in his head in case he needed it sometime in the future.

‘So what you up to this afternoon?’ Vi asked. She was drinking diet Pepsi like he was, so she must be officially on duty.

‘Going back to work.’

‘Mmm. So how’s your parrot? Is he sick or just moody?’

Chronus had been a gift from Vi, who knew full well he was a mynah bird. But she always called him a parrot and Lee had stopped correcting her years ago.

‘Moody,’ he said. The vet had been unable to find anything wrong with the bird and had concluded that he was just simply showing off in order to get more treats or different food. Lee spoiled him, but then Chronus had become what Vi had intended him to be – Lee’s surrogate child. When she’d brought the bird into his life, Lee had been mourning the loss of his wife who had divorced him and his daughter who had left with her, and he was battling addiction to booze and pain killers. He’d still been in the police then and Vi had wanted to help. She’d also fancied the pants off him. They’d slept together a few times over the years and Lee knew that by taking him for a drink she could either be angling to go back to his place, less than a minute down the road, for some afternoon delight or she was having a bit of fun watching his discomfort. Either way he wasn’t in the mood, and anyway Mumtaz was on her own in the office.

He looked at Vi and she smiled. ‘How about we …’ she began.

‘I can’t,’ Lee said. ‘I’ve gotta get back to Green Street.’

She shrugged. ‘Fair enough.’

‘And you’ve got to get back to your Plashet corpse – and that skeleton,’ Lee said.

‘I’ve told you it’s not “the”—’

‘Oh, methinks the lady doth protest too much,’ Lee said, as he rose to his feet. He began to walk away but then he stopped.
Ah what the hell?
Then he turned, winked at her and said, ‘You coming or what?’

‘With you?’

‘Who else you got on the go, Vi?’

She gave him a killer glare and stood up. ‘I’m on duty, Arnold, sorry.’ Then she put a fag in her mouth, lit it and began to walk towards her car. ‘Shoulda said yes the first time, honey,’ she said to him over her shoulder. ‘No second chances here.’

Lee Arnold laughed. She was such a fucking tease.

*

Nasreen had heard of a lady, a Muslim, who helped women with problems. Her mum had mentioned her, and she’d heard her name spoken in a local shop: Mrs Hakim. She was a private detective and it was said she could sniff out a bad husband or an errant daughter-in-law the way other people sniffed out dry rot in old houses. She worked with an Englishman who was very good looking. Mrs Hakim was a widow but she was young, and some thought beautiful. Nasreen felt anxious about going to see such a person. She couldn’t talk about Abdullah – she didn’t have the courage. Not yet. What if the woman contacted him and told him what she’d done?

No, she’d have to find some other reason to go to the office on Green Street. She needed time to work out whether or not she could trust this Mrs Hakim. Maybe her reason for going to see her could be something to do with the house? She remembered the metal capsule that looked a bit like a lipstick she’d taken off the doorpost and the picture that she’d found underneath it.
Nasreen rooted through her handbag to make sure that the photograph and the object were still there. They were. She left her parents’ house and made her way up the road to Green Street. She’d already decided not to breathe a word about John.

*

Naz Sheikh liked four things in life: women, flash clothes, cars and his job. The latter consisted of working for his father, Zahid, and his older brother Rizwan. They had a property development company as well as a sideline in lending money. The money had to be secured on something of course, like a house or a car – or a wife.

He dialled the number on his iPhone and put it up to his ear. As he listened to it ring, he looked up at the window of the office above George the Barbers, and he saw her pick her up mobile. Lee Arnold was still out and so he expected her to be forthright.

‘I’ve paid you,’ Mumtaz Hakim said tersely. ‘What do you want?’

‘Just reminding you about the date for next month’s payment,’ he said. ‘It’s the sixteenth.’

‘I know that,’ she snapped. ‘Leave me alone.’

He could just see her features fall into a scowl.

‘Making sure there’s no mistakes,’ Naz said. ‘I’d hate to—’

‘Spare me your insincerities,’ she said, and cut the connection. He watched her throw her mobile down on her desk and then she disappeared from view. Shame. Although older than he was, she was a tasty-looking woman. That said, if given the choice between her and her stepdaughter Naz would be a bit stumped. The kid was cute.

*

Nasreen put the strange metal object on Mumtaz Hakim’s desk and placed the small photograph alongside it.

‘You found this on one of the back doorposts?’ Mumtaz asked.

‘Yes.’ Nasreen was surprised at quite how young Mrs Hakim was. She’d imagined her to be pretty but a bit motherly too. But, like they said, she was beautiful. ‘I’d like to find out who she is, if that’s possible.’

‘Mmm.’ She looked up. ‘Do you own your house, Mrs Khan?’

‘My husband does, yes.’

‘Because previous owners will be listed in the deeds and then there is the Land Registry.’

‘Yes, I know.’ She could have asked Abdullah to look it up, but she wouldn’t. ‘My husband is very busy,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to bother him with this.’

‘OK.’ She gave Nasreen a look as if she didn’t quite believe her.

‘I’m three months pregnant,’ Nasreen said. She knew this didn’t explain anything, but she felt compelled to say it anyway. ‘I’d like
you
to look into it.’

‘Very well.’ She smiled. She wore the most beautiful rose-coloured headscarf that was tied in such a stylish way it almost made Nasreen want to wear one herself.

‘I’ve money.’

‘Of course.’ Mumtaz smiled again. ‘Now can you tell me if you know anything at all about your house. Anecdotal stuff is fine.’

Abdullah had bought the house effectively on his own at auction. ‘It was empty for a long time,’ Nasreen said. ‘Years.’

‘Do you know who your husband bought it from?’

‘A firm of solicitors held the deeds, I believe.’

‘Do you know which one?’

Nasreen didn’t and it made her feel stupid. ‘No,’ she said. They’d been married when Abdullah had bought the house and
yet she’d let him get on with it like some sort of helpless village woman. Her mum wasn’t like that. Although in public her mum always covered her head, like this Mrs Hakim, she was very much the mistress of her own destiny. Sometimes, Nasreen felt, her father was the junior partner in their relationship. Had she taken a step back into the past when she married Abdullah? Or was she simply reflecting a trend for increasingly traditional relationships that seemed to be growing in some sections of the Muslim community?

‘May I keep the photograph?’ Mumtaz Hakim asked. ‘And the …’ She picked up the metal capsule.

‘I don’t know what to call it, either,’ Nasreen said. ‘Yes, you may.’ And then something occurred to her, something her mother had said when Abdullah had bought the house. ‘One thing I’ve heard is that a man lived in our house alone for many years.’

Mrs Hakim began to write this down. ‘Do you know his name?’

‘No, but my mum said he was white.’ She bit her bottom lip. Her mother had advised her against buying that particular house. ‘She said that whenever she saw him, he looked very sad.’

*

It wasn’t easy for Mumtaz to distract herself from thinking about her own problems. A visit or a phone call from any one of the Sheikh family, especially Naz, always shook her up. Her feelings about him had always been ambiguous because, although he threatened and hassled her for money, Naz had also been the author of her freedom. As he’d plunged that knife into Ahmet’s chest back when she’d never even heard the name Sheikh, she had, in gratitude she told herself, wanted to give herself to him. In reality she had simply experienced a moment of pure, selfish
lust. She began to sweat and, to take her mind off him, she looked at the photograph that Nasreen Khan had given her.