Babel (26 page)

‘No!’ Manzoor snapped.

‘Oh, I think you did. You believed him to be her lover, didn’t you?’

Versi had no idea where the policeman’s questions were leading, but it was clear to him that his client should say nothing until they did know, and he interrupted to say as much. But Russell could see that Manzoor was boiling with fury and frustration, so he merely nodded and said, ‘Yes, yes. I can imagine how difficult it must be for you, Mr Manzoor, with a runaway daughter and all that. I dare say you thought you were doing the right thing . . .’

‘The right thing!’ Manzoor exploded, banging a fist on the table. ‘Don’t you patronise me, sir! Don’t you talk about my daughter to me! You’re just trying to protect your own kind! I am attacked and humiliated in front of my brothers and my daughter by a racist policewoman and you do nothing but try to spin webs to protect her.’

Russell snapped back hard, ‘But suppose you were wrong about Khadra, Mr Manzoor? Suppose he was nothing but a good friend to your daughter, and you got yourself worked up over nothing?’

Manzoor’s eyes bulged with outrage at this sidestep. ‘No! He was her seducer! He corrupted and debauched her, my daughter, my beautiful Nargis.’

‘You’ve got no proof of that,’ Russell said dismissively.

For a moment it seemed that Manzoor was tearing at his clothes, pulling off his jacket prior to a fight, but then he jerked a leather wallet out of an inside pocket and plucked out of it a colour photograph which he waved at the two policemen. ‘Proof?’ he yelled. ‘I have proof!’

It was taken in a public swimming pool, Brock guessed, the background all black heads bobbing against blue water. In the foreground, leaning on the tiled edge, were Nargis and Abu, both dripping wet and grinning widely at the camera. She was wearing a bikini, and he had his brown arm round her shoulders, holding her close. They both looked very young and very happy.

Russell and Brock examined it carefully while Versi argued in an agitated whisper with his client, trying to get on top of all this.

‘When was it taken?’ Russell asked.

‘I don’t know. Before . . .’

‘Before she was sent to Kashmir,’ Brock nodded, recognising the differences between the girl in the picture, softer, plumper, and the one who had drunk tea in his living room that afternoon.

‘Is that why you sent her away?’

‘No, no. I didn’t know then about this man.’

‘So how did you get this picture?’

The rage had gone from Sanjeev Manzoor. He lowered his head and began to weep bitterly. ‘It came in the post.’

‘When was this?’

He pulled a crisp white cotton handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes and nose. ‘The day he came to the mosque.’

‘You are indicating DCI Brock? So that would be Tuesday, the twenty-fifth of January. Do you know who sent it?’

‘No. There was nothing else, no letter, nothing.’ He shook his head in despair. ‘It was the first sign I had had of Nargis in three months. It broke my heart.’

‘And you felt very angry towards the man in the photograph, Abu Khadra?’

‘I didn’t know his name, only that picture. Of course I was angry. I wanted to kill him.’

‘And that evening, after DCI Brock came to the mosque and showed you a picture of the same man and told you his name, you had the opportunity to do that, by telling the skinheads what to do. You stage-managed it didn’t you, Mr Manzoor? You directed the murder of the man you thought had corrupted your daughter.’

16

K
athy felt a new energy as she drove back to the women’s refuge that night, as if the discovery of the money under Nargis’ mattress had awakened some instinct for the hunt that had been missing until then. Perhaps it was the amount of the cash,
thirty
thousand as in thirty pieces of silver, that seemed so telling, but for the first time she felt a sense of reality about the crime and their dead suspect, as strong as if they had found the gun rather than money in the pouch. In fact more so, because the gun would have simply sealed Abu’s guilt and finished the story, whereas the money opened new questions and trails. About Nargis, for example, the beautiful, innocent Juliet mourning her killer Romeo. Even if she hadn’t pried into Abu’s belongings when he was alive, he had been dead now for ten days and it seemed inconceivable she hadn’t known that she was sleeping on all that cash. Kathy just hoped she could find out before the CIB caught up with her.

Nargis and Briony were washing up some plates in the kitchen when Kathy arrived. She told them that she had to ask Nargis a few additional questions, and explained that she would have to do it in the formal setting of the local police station, where a proper record of their interview could be made. Briony began to object that her friend had gone through enough that day, but Nargis said it was OK. She seemed quite calm and answered Kathy’s questions about the refuge in her soft little voice as they drove.

Since Nargis was still a juvenile, Kathy had arranged for a social worker to be present for the interview, and when the three of them were seated in the small interview room, Kathy cautioned the girl and explained her rights, then began to ask her about her relationship with Abu.

‘You first met him how long ago, Nargis?’

‘A year ago, this time last year.’

‘And you became close friends?’

‘We went out together.’

‘You were his girlfriend?’

‘Yes.’

‘And then, six months ago, your father sent you overseas to be married, and when you returned last October you ran away from your home and went to live in a room in the house of Mr Qasim Ali in Chandler’s Yard?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you have any money then?’

A crease appeared between Nargis’ dark eyebrows at this question. ‘No. Mr Ali’s family took pity on me. They helped me.’

‘And you began to see Abu Khadra again? When was that?’

‘Yes, soon after I arrived there.’

‘You became lovers?’

Nargis looked startled, glanced at the social worker, then down at her lap and didn’t answer. You’re right, Kathy thought, tell me to mind my own business.

‘What I mean is, Nargis, that you couldn’t go outside for fear of your family, and so Abu came and spent time with you. A lot of time.’

She gave a meek little shrug.

‘In fact, he pretty well lived with you in Mr Ali’s house, didn’t he?’

Again she said nothing, and Kathy went on, ‘So you were very close. Did he tell you about what he had to do? To kill Professor Springer?’

‘No!’ The girl shook her head firmly. ‘Never. I don’t believe he did that.’ Yet the words lacked force.

‘But he did, Nargis. There’s very strong scientific evidence. And since Abu died, you must have thought about that a lot, haven’t you? About what signs he gave? For instance, do you know where he was that afternoon that Springer was killed? Just over two weeks ago, the Thursday. You must have thought back to that day.’

Nargis’ eyes slipped away. ‘I don’t know,’ she said softly at last. ‘He came home that evening . . .’

‘To Chandler’s Yard?’

‘Yes, at about eight. He said he’d been working, at the university.’

‘Didn’t he seem agitated, worked up about something?’

She didn’t reply, head bowed to her hands clutched over her tummy, and Kathy was again struck how self-possessed she was, as if she had determined to let nothing further intrude on her private meditation with her unborn child.

‘You see, I’m wondering if someone forced Abu to do this terrible thing, Nargis.’

‘How could they?’ she said simply.

‘Perhaps he needed money for something?’

Again Nargis seemed to focus at mention of the word. ‘Money? No, he had a good job.’

‘He didn’t seem anxious at around that time? Under stress? Did he talk about other people? People at his work, perhaps? Or new people he’d met?’

But Nargis only shrugged and said nothing. Kathy began to feel that she was wasting her time against this implacable artlessness.

‘Where did he keep his gun?’

‘I never saw a gun.’

‘What about the money?’

‘The money?’ Nargis’ head came up and she stared at Kathy, fully engaged.

‘Yes, Nargis. The money under the mattress in your room.’

‘You’ve been in my room?’ She seemed more astonished than upset.

‘Yes.’

‘That money belongs to my baby and me. Abu gave it to us.’

‘When did he do that?’

She hesitated, then said, ‘About . . . about two weeks ago.’

‘When exactly?’

‘I don’t know. He just showed it to me one evening and said that it was for me and the baby, if anything should happen to him.’

‘“If anything should happen to him”? You must have thought that was very strange, didn’t you? Didn’t you ask him what he meant?’

‘No.’

‘Where did he get it from?’

‘I don’t know. It was his.’

‘It’s a lot of cash.’

‘Thirty thousand pounds.’ Then she added fiercely, ‘You’d better not have taken any. He said it was for the baby and me.’

Kathy eventually left her in the care of the social worker who wanted to talk to her about her benefit entitlements, and returned home. There were two messages on her answering machine. One was from Tina the travel agent, sounding bright and cheerful; the other, guarded and ominous, was from an inspector of the Metropolitan Police Complaints Investigation Bureau, CIB2. Both asked her to return their call. Despite having anticipated it for the past several hours, Kathy still found her hand trembling when she pressed the button to replay the second message. Together, the two calls seemed to sum up her choices, the fork in the road. She had a bath, went to bed, and didn’t sleep.

When she reported to Queen Anne’s Gate the next morning she discovered that the CIB inspector had left a message there too. She found an empty room, and without putting on the light, sat at the unfamiliar desk and stared at the phone. Then she realised that she was behaving as if she were guilty, hiding herself away as if deserving to be separated from the others. So she got up and returned to the office she shared with Bren and another detective, and picked up her phone.

The inspector informed her curtly that a serious complaint had been made against her by a member of the public, a Mr Sanjeev Manzoor; that she was not under any circumstances to approach Mr Manzoor or any member of his family or acquaintances; and that she should consider herself suspended from duty until a preliminary interview had been held some time in the following week, to which she would be entitled to bring one adviser.

She cleared her throat and said, ‘Superintendent Russell has asked me to make a report on a related matter at a case conference he’s holding this morning, sir. May I attend that?’

The inspector considered this, asked her a couple of questions, then agreed.

Again that trembling hand when she replaced the receiver. She swore softly under her breath and took some deep breaths. She became aware that Bren and the other man, a DC on secondment from SO8, were looking questioningly at her.

‘CIB,’ she said.

‘Shit!’ Bren breathed.

‘Shit!’ the DC echoed.

‘They didn’t take long. What’d they say?’ Bren asked.

Kathy explained and both men swore again. It seemed to be the only adequate word. Kathy found their anxious sympathy even more scary than the CIB inspector’s curtness.

‘This happened to one of our blokes last year,’ the DC said. ‘He’s still on suspension, eight months later.’

‘We had a DI suspended eighteen months,’ Bren said gloomily.

Kathy was wishing she’d made the call from the empty office. Then Brock put his head round the door to check they were all available for the conference, and Bren, nodding at Kathy as at someone who’d just been diagnosed with something terminal, said, ‘CIB, chief.’

‘Oh, they’ve been in touch already have they, Kathy? That was quick. What’s the story?’

She repeated it and he nodded, point by point.

‘Just the usual, then.’ He didn’t seem particularly dismayed.

‘We were saying, boss,’ the DC chipped in, ‘how long the process takes. What do you reckon?’

‘Opening a book on it, are we?’ Brock asked. ‘Put me down for a fiver. Let’s see . . .’ He rubbed his beard contemplatively, then took out his wallet and pulled out a note. ‘Forty-eight hours. No, make it twenty-four. Five quid says they’ll have dropped it within twenty-four hours.’ He winked at Kathy and limped out of the room.

The DC shook his head sadly. ‘Got to hand it to him, though, haven’t you, Bren? He knows how to do the right thing. For morale and that. That’s leadership, that is.’

Kathy left them to work out their own doom-ridden forecasts and went back to the empty room to nurse her morale and make her second phone call in private. Tina had exciting news, she said. She’d heard of a group that had just lost an assistant tour guide, and were looking for a replacement at short notice. If Kathy had a current passport and could get leave, she could have two weeks in the tropics seeing how the system worked, all expenses paid.

Kathy cupped her forehead in her hand, trying to come to terms with this. She thanked Tina but explained that she was caught up in something where she’d have to be available over the next few weeks.