Ibrahim & Reenie (33 page)

When the time came for him to be questioned, he gave only the most recent of facts. His father was in hospital. He was unable to make the journey by car, bus or train. He began walking. On the road he met Reenie Glickman, and they walked together, for a while, before parting. They were reunited on the outskirts of Bristol, and they took to the motorway.

‘You
walked
on the motorway?' said DI Donovan, scratching at his russet beard with his index finger.

Ibrahim nodded.

‘You
do
know that's illegal?' said DCI Garfield.

From the station he tried calling his sister, but the call was diverted to her voicemail. He gave the detectives her details. She could verify his story, he told them.

Back in the cell, he found he was unable to focus on any one thought with undivided attention, as if every concern was a brick, and those bricks had built up into an impenetrable wall. He was in a police station and his father was in a hospital. Reenie was… well, Reenie could be anywhere, as could his sister. The police could do anything with him, anything they liked. They had the power now, didn't they? And what sympathy would there be for him? What sympathy was there for anyone arrested like this, when a name like his was as good as proof of guilt? The details were all there, the circumstantial details that would give the papers what they wanted. He was arrested between Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. There's no smoke without fire. And with him, the fire was there, if only they could find it, and they might.

26

She'd weathered many things in the last few weeks – washing and going to the toilet outdoors, surviving on scraps – but this took the cake. For the uniformed officers who arrived, shortly before they took Ibrahim away, she played dumb. No, worse than that – she played
senile
. Not
incompetently
senile. That would have had them calling social services, the arrival of concerned people with clipboards, and a swift referral to a hospital or care home. No, instead she played
mildly
senile – doddering and bemused, the harmless old bag lady – and it helped that she certainly looked the part, but she hated every second of it. She hated their patronising tenderness, the soft tone of voice they adopted, the way they spoke about Ibrahim. She insisted he'd done nothing wrong, that they'd been together since Cardiff, but here her playact senility backfired on her, and they humoured her, telling her no harm would come to the young man, that they just needed to ask him a few questions. She knew what that meant, understood perfectly the veiled threat those words contained, but there was nothing she could do.

Once they'd left her, one of the officers having pushed her trolley back as far as The Mall, Reenie made her way into Mayfair. Here, she saw the difference between small town folk and Londoners. In the small towns and villages people had stared at her openly; here in London they made a point of
not
staring at her, of looking everywhere but at her.

The address on the letter was a place she'd heard of but never visited; a narrow, cobbled street of Georgian townhouses. Reenie ambled along the pavement, checking each house number in turn, and received a condescending sideways glance from a woman in a fur coat who clipped and clopped past her in stilettos. She got a similar look from a man in a tweed suit who passed by walking an Afghan hound. When she found the house she was looking for, Reenie parked her trolley next to a bollard, rang the doorbell, and waited.

From within the house she heard muffled voices, footsteps on a staircase, and then the sound of perhaps half-a-dozen locks being turned before the door was opened by a young man, no older than thirty; short blond hair and pale blue eyes, dressed in a bright red jumper and blue jeans. He looked almost Swedish or perhaps Norwegian, and Reenie wondered if she had the wrong house. It was hard enough for her to imagine any relative of hers living in a place like this, let alone looking quite so
goyish
. The young man looked at her askance and said, ‘Hello? Can I help you?'

‘Lauren Bartlett?' said Reenie, hesitantly. ‘I'm here to see Lauren Bartlett.'

‘That's my wife. Could I ask who you are?'

‘My name's Reenie. I mean Irene. Irene Glickman.'

He took a step back, dazed and blinking as if the morning sun was suddenly blinding, and stuttered half-formed words until calling back into the house: ‘Lauren. Could you come here a moment?'

In the darkened hallway, Reenie saw movement, a silhouette making its way from the back of the house toward them, which in turn became a young woman with long dark hair. There were traces in her looks familiar to Reenie; the wide expressive eyes and strong, high cheekbones of Albert, perhaps even a trace of Reenie at that age. The woman stood beside her husband and looked at Reenie with a cautious half-smile.

‘Hello?' she said. ‘I'm sorry, do I…'

‘This is Irene Glickman,' said the young man.

She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, and her eyes began to glass over with tears.

‘You're Irene?' She said, the words catching in her throat.

Reenie nodded.

‘Then you'd better… I mean… come in. Please.'

Their house was beautiful. Fresh flowers in vases, fine rugs on polished floors. In the sitting room, arabesque cushions scattered on plump sofas. A real, working fireplace; empty, but waiting for winter. A mantelpiece crowded with family photographs. A homeliness and cosiness Reenie remembered, but that felt distant and foreign to her now.

With her husband still pondering the trolley parked on the street outside Lauren took Reenie through to the kitchen, which backed onto a small, artfully unkempt terrace. Feeling scruffy, and dirty, and smelly, and about as out-of-place as she'd ever felt, Reenie sat at the large, oak kitchen table, while Lauren went about making tea.

‘We could have come to Cardiff,' said Lauren, her back to Reenie as the kettle boiled. ‘I said in the letter. It wouldn't have been a problem.'

‘I wanted to come here,' said Reenie. ‘I thought it for the best.'

‘Right. And how did you get here? I mean… the trolley. Is it yours?'

‘Yeah. We walked. Well, part of the way.'

‘You
walked
?' Lauren turned, frowning and blinking in disbelief.

‘Yeah. Only
part
of the way. A Frenchman drove us most of the M4.'

‘A French… who's “we”?'

‘A friend I met when I was walking.'

‘Do you take sugar?'

‘No thanks, love. Just milk.'

‘And this friend…?'

‘He's been picked up by the police. We camped out on St James's Park last night and they picked us up this morning.'

‘You camped out on… I'm sorry. Did you say he's been picked up?'

‘Yes. He's Paki
stan
i, see? I think they thought he was up to no good. And the thing is, he wasn't. He's a good lad. Bit shy, but he's a good lad. I don't even know where they took him.'

‘Okay,' said Lauren. ‘Well, listen. My husband. Paul. He works with the Home Office. Perhaps we could, I mean… he must have contacts. I… I mean, it's Sunday, so, you know… but still…'

‘Oh, if there's anything you could do that would be lovely,' said Reenie. ‘Poor boy wouldn't say boo to a goose, so he must be worrying himself sick if they've got him in the cells.'

Lauren nodded distractedly, holding a cup of tea in both hands. She leaned back against the granite work surface, considering her next words, her mouth opening and closing silently with each abortive attempt.

‘You
walked
here?' she said at last, though Reenie was fairly certain she had already answered that question.

‘Yeah, like I said, but we hitchhiked most of it.'

‘Right.'

The door opened slowly with a creak and Lauren's husband appeared in the doorway.

‘Uh… I've chained your trolley to the bollard with one of my bike locks,' he said. ‘It should be… you know… it should be fine. It's quite a nice, uh… neighbourhood. Not much… you know…'

‘This is my husband, Paul,' said Lauren.

With a still-distracted expression, Paul waved at Reenie from the doorway.

‘Listen,' said Lauren. ‘Paul. Um. Irene has a friend. She was walking with him. Apparently he's been picked up by the police.'

‘The
police
? What? Arrested?'

‘Yes,' said Lauren. ‘And, well, I was just wondering if you could maybe, I don't know, find out where he is, where they've taken him. It all sounds like a misunderstanding, isn't that right?'

Reenie nodded.

‘Right,' said Paul. ‘And where was this? Where was he arrested?'

‘The Mall,' said Reenie.

‘Okay,' said Paul. ‘Well, they'll probably have taken him to Charing Cross. But, you know, it's the
police
. I work for the Home Office…'

‘
Paul
,' said Lauren, opening her eyes wide and leaning forward, as if nudging him into action.

‘But… I suppose I
could
make a few calls…'

‘Thank you,' said Reenie. ‘That's very kind of you.'

Nodding, but still dazed, Paul stepped back into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

‘I'm sorry,' said Lauren. ‘We weren't… I mean… this is all such a surprise. We didn't think you'd actually… I don't know. The children… they're with Paul's parents in Ham for the weekend, otherwise they'd be… and… It's just. It's a surprise, that's all.'

‘Did you have plans? 'Cause I can come back later if you're going out somewhere, or…'

‘No, not at all. No. It's fine. Really. It's just a surprise.'

Lauren looked away, having run out of things to say, and Reenie placed down her mug.

‘So,' she said. ‘How did you find me? You never said. In your letter, I mean.'

‘Well,' said Lauren, sitting at the far end of the table. ‘It wasn't easy. Granddad, I mean
your
dad, Albert… he spent years looking, asking around, but, well… this was a
long
time ago. I think he thought you'd stayed in London, maybe gone south of the river or something. London's certainly big enough to just lose someone, I guess.'

Reenie nodded. After leaving Upton Park she'd stayed in London another three years, and hadn't once seen anyone who knew her from before.

‘And when did my dad pass away?' she asked.

‘That was in '82,' said Lauren. ‘I was only little at the time, so I don't really remember much about him. My brother remembers him better. He's three years older than me. Lives in Hong Kong.'

‘And Vera? I mean your Grandma?'

‘Oh, she died last year,' said Lauren. ‘She was ninety-two. A right old battleaxe.'

‘And your mum?'

‘Mum passed away three years ago. She'd been diagnosed, first diagnosed back when Dominic, my brother, and I were kids. She beat it that time, went into remission, but it came back.'

Reenie looked down. The letter had explained some of it. Lauren's mother was born Dorothy Lieberman, three years after Reenie ran away. She was the only child of Albert and Vera, and in time married and had two children of her own. Dorothy Lieberman was Reenie's sister, nineteen years younger than her, and they had never met.

‘After Granddad died, Grandma, I mean Vera, carried on looking for you,' said Lauren.

‘Really?'

‘Yes. There were things she wanted to give you, things Granddad had kept. I think Grandma blamed herself for, well, for what you did. She even hired a private detective at one point.'

Reenie laughed bitterly.

‘Seriously,' said Lauren. ‘About twenty years ago. She hired a private detective. Bit of a con, if you ask me. He wasn't very good. Found nothing. Charged her a
lot
. Kind of put her off trying another, I think.'

‘Okay,' said Reenie. ‘So how did
you
find me?'

Lauren smiled. ‘Well, as I said, Paul works with the Home Office.' She closed her eyes and shook her head bashfully. ‘Obviously, don't go telling anyone I said that. Paul would get in a
lot
of trouble. I mean, it's not like we broke the law, not really. It was just electoral roll information. And one or two other bits and pieces. We found something from the early '60s saying that an Irene Lieberman had married a Jonathan… that's his name, right?'

‘It was,' said Reenie.

‘Oh, I'm sorry.'

‘It's fine, love.'