Babel (35 page)
‘Did you discuss it with anyone? Dr Darr, for instance?’
‘No, no one.’
‘So you considered him as a possible culprit?’
Haygill opened his mouth as if to deny it, then changed his mind. He shrugged.
‘You had no theories? No specific suspicions? Who were the principal hotheads in the previous troubles?’
‘The two Iraqi chaps, probably, Sabri and Durak. Yes, I thought if anyone had smuggled a gun into the country it would probably have been them.’
‘Not Abu Khadra?’
‘To tell the truth, I never even considered him. He was the least militant, the least aggressive of them all. I was astounded when they said he’d been arrested.’
‘And even then you didn’t come forward and tell us where the gun was.’
‘What good would it have done? And anyway, Abu was never tried, never found guilty, was he? There hasn’t been an inquest yet, has there?’
‘Perhaps it might have cleared him, Professor, did you think of that? If that gun ever had the killer’s prints on it, your actions effectively removed them.’
Haygill looked stunned. ‘No . . . I didn’t think . . .’
‘And then, of course there’s the possibility that Abu didn’t act alone. Did you consider that?’
He hesitated, then nodded. ‘I considered it. But nothing anyone said after Abu was arrested gave me any indication that they had helped or encouraged him, nothing at all. I mean, who do you suspect?’
Brock stared at him balefully. ‘The obvious candidate is yourself, Professor Haygill. You’re the one who stood to benefit from Springer being silenced. You’re the one who attempted to dispose of the weapon, which, as you said yourself just now, is exactly what the killer would have done. And you’re the one who lied about it until you had no choice but to tell us the truth. Or a version of it, anyway.’ Brock looked at his watch. ‘I have to tell you that we have obtained warrants to search your home, your car and your offices. Is there anything else you want to tell me before I conclude this interview?’
Haygill, looking defeated, shook his head. Then Brock added, ‘There is one other thing. I asked you before for your documentation on the BRCA4 protocol, and you refused. Now I must insist.’
‘There is a copy in the drawer of my desk in my office at the university. It’s locked, but my secretary has a key. I would ask,’ Haygill shrugged hopelessly, ‘can it please be treated as a confidential document. As I told you, it is commercially sensitive. I would hate to think of it floating around your offices, being photocopied . . .’
‘I propose to give it to an expert, to give us an independent professional assessment.’
‘Who did you have in mind?’
‘Dr R.T. Grice, Home Office.’
‘I know him.’ Haygill considered this, then reluctantly nodded. ‘Very well.’
After they had gone, Brock turned to Bren. ‘Well?’
‘It’s him,’ Bren said flatly. ‘I reckon he picked Abu as the most pliable and dependable of the bunch. Maybe the most disposable, too.’
‘Maybe.’ Brock rubbed his knee, sounding unhappy. ‘But he could make that story stick.’
‘Finding the gun on his bookshelf? Come on, chief, that was the most improbable thing I’ve ever heard. Why would Abu leave the gun there? How did he even get into Haygill’s office?’
‘Mm. All the same, we need another angle, Bren. The money, we’ve got to tie that firmly to him.’
‘Yeah. No luck so far, but now we’ve got access to his records we may come up with something. Interesting to think, isn’t it boss,’ Bren added innocently as they made for the door, ‘if Leon hadn’t pulled that stunt the other night, we wouldn’t know anything of this.’ He hurried out before Brock could reply.
T
hey found a parking space in the housing estate behind Shadwell Road and made their way through the rear lanes towards the cries of hawkers, the smell of roasting meat and the sound of amplified music throbbing on the crisp morning air. Market stalls had been erected down the centre of Shadwell Road, and the street was packed with visitors savouring the mixture of the exotic and the banal. A stall selling hijab headscarves stood next to one specialising in cowboy hats; the aromas of cumin and fennel from a spice stall competed with those of a hot dog barrow, saffron and purple silks with heavy metal T-shirts, sitar and koto with electric guitar.
Distracted by an illustrated wallchart of selected positions from the Kama Sutra, Kathy was saved from being run down by a burly child on a scooter by a tug on her arm from Leon Desai. She stumbled against him and laughed and they moved on, flushed by a sense of intimacy in the mass of the crowd.
‘Did you ever see Chandler’s Yard?’ she asked, and when he shook his head she said, ‘I’ll buy you a cup of coffee at the Horria Café.’
‘Just so long as we don’t bump into Dr Darr and his mates,’ he muttered, sounding genuinely worried, and she laughed again, feeling unexpectedly light and happy this morning, with the sun overhead at last, the buzz of the crowd, and him at her side. She caught a glimpse of Sanjeev Manzoor in the distance, standing in the doorway of his shop, surveying the passing throng with a scowl of disapproval on his face, and she almost felt inclined to say hello to him and offer to shake hands, but wisely thought better of it and they turned instead out of the crowd, past the door to The Three Crowns and into the sudden quiet of the lane.
The activity in the street hadn’t reached the Horria. There was one family of very pale-skinned visitors, looking slightly bemused by the menu at a table decorated with two small crossed and faded flags of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and the Yemeni Arab Republic, and there were two of the old men playing cards on a table at the back, but that was all and Kathy wondered how Qasim Ali made a living from the place. He was on his knees in front of the jukebox, fiddling with the switches. He gave a snort of disgust and struggled to his feet, giving the machine a hefty thump. Immediately a high-pitched female voice broke into an Arabic pop-song at full volume, to the consternation of the English family.
Qasim welcomed Kathy as a great friend, and on her behalf accepted Leon. He seated them at a table at the front where they were only half deafened by the music and could look out onto the cobbled square, to a small printing works opposite on the right, and a tiny second-hand furniture store on the left.
‘Abu lived here?’ Leon murmured. ‘No wonder he was driven to murder.’
‘Oh, it’s not so bad,’ Kathy grinned. ‘Qasim turns the music down when people are praying in the mosque upstairs. We could have a look later if you like. Brock told me that your family were Muslim once. You never told me.’
‘It didn’t seem important.’ He looked at her. ‘We had other things on our minds.’
She met his eyes, dark and intent, and she felt a familiar response stirring in her. No, she thought, I’m not falling for that look again. Leon’s adventure had brought them together again, but as friends, they had tacitly agreed. She was determined this time to move at her own pace, to try to keep control of the direction of her life. She looked out of the window and said, ‘Perhaps that’s why Brock agreed with you meeting Darr the first time.’
Leon winced. ‘Don’t talk about that.’
‘Oh, but it was a success. From that everything fell into place.’
‘You mean Haygill’s world fell to pieces. And it was all a mistake. Mrs Haygill thinks her husband was spying on him when he wasn’t. I don’t feel very proud about that.’
‘She wouldn’t have told us about the gun otherwise. And anyway, their marriage was obviously on its last legs.’
‘We don’t know that. We don’t even know he’s guilty. How’s the money trail going?’
‘Nothing yet. They haven’t found any obvious withdrawals from Haygill’s accounts to correspond to the thirty thousand, and they’ve had no luck so far tracing the notes themselves back to his bank.’
‘Hm.’ Leon was silent for a moment, then said abruptly, ‘How’s Wayne?’
‘Wayne O’Brien? Didn’t you know? He doesn’t exist any more. They’ve changed his name, address and phone number, and he’s become somebody else. He’s working on another job.’ Brock had told her two days before, and at first she hadn’t believed it, thinking it was some kind of practical joke. But it was true. This happened in Special Branch, Brock had said, they come and they go. All the same, she would have liked to have said goodbye. She had felt an unexpected sadness, as if she’d just learned that Wayne had died rather than merely moved on.
‘Really?’ Leon’s shoulders straightened a little, and Kathy thought it looked almost as if a weight had been removed. ‘Hell, what a life.’
‘I liked him, Leon.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘He was what I needed at that moment. Nothing too serious.’
‘And I was too serious?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sorry.’ He looked disconsolate.
‘Well, now, ladies and gents,’ Qasim boomed and put their coffees down in front of them. ‘Mind if I join you?’ He offered them his cigarettes and when they refused, lit up himself. ‘How’s the detecting going? I see you caught another one.’ He puffed and reached across to a newspaper lying on the next table and showed them the report— ‘
BOFFIN QUIZZED IN MURDER HUNT
’.
‘We’re not sure yet, Qasim,’ Kathy said.
‘He was Abu’s boss, right? Makes sense to me. Abu’d never ’ave done it on his own. Fact I still can’t hardly believe he did it at all. This guy must be a Svengali, right? Made ’im do it?’
Kathy remembered Springer using that word too; Svengali the sinister manipulator, the evil hypnotist. Was Haygill really such a character?
‘The thing that blows me away is that those two actually met, here in this very place, before any of this happened.’
‘Which two?’
‘Abu and this bloke.’
‘Haygill, his boss? He came here?’
‘No, no, not him. Him.’ Qasim pointed a fat finger further down the page at a picture of the victim, Springer.
‘Abu met Springer here?’ Kathy stared at Qasim in disbelief. ‘Surely not.’
‘Yeah, it’s true. Briony brought that old geezer here one day. He was interested in the history of our family. We had quite a chat. Then Briony said she’d take him upstairs to see the mosque, and on their way up they met Abu coming down. Right there . . .’ he pointed to the stairs at the back of the café, ‘. . . halfway up, they met, and Briony introduced them and they shook hands. Spooky, init, yeah?’
‘You never saw them meet again?’
‘No. He didn’t come here again.’
They had met twice, Kathy thought, both times on stairs, one going up, one down. The first time they had shaken hands, the second time one had shot the other dead. Very spooky.
‘How is Nargis coping now?’
‘Seems OK, on the surface at any rate. She’s a well calm girl, yeah? She’s moved back upstairs, and George and Fran are keeping an eye on her. Every day she gets a little bit bigger.’
‘Her father hasn’t tried to make trouble?’
‘Nah. He wouldn’t dare. And they’re getting counselling now, the pair of them, from the imam and the social worker. It seems old Manzoor is very taken with the idea of a grandchild. Anyway, he’d be too scared you’d come after him again wiv your swizzle stick if he tried anything. You got it on you?’
Kathy patted her pocket. ‘Of course, Qasim. I always carry it when I come to visit you.’
His appreciative roar turned into a coughing fit, and he had to take a deep draw on his cigarette to recover himself. ‘Tell me though,’ he said through the smoke, his voice become squeaky, ‘that money Abu left her. Is she going to get it back?’
‘Depends. We’d be a lot happier about a lot of things if we knew where it came from.’
Qasim studied his fingernails. ‘She won’t tell you?’
‘She says she doesn’t know. Do you?’
‘Abu wouldn’t have told me. He’d have known I’d start charging them rent.’ He gave a wheezing chuckle, his jowls and belly wobbling. Then he added, ‘The only one he might have told, apart from Nargis, would be Fran. They got on well, Abu and Fran, and Fran is good with money. She used to be a merchant banker, did you know that? Well, not exactly—she worked for one, in the City, while she was a student, before she converted to Islam. She’s got her head screwed on, and if I was in Abu’s shoes, and had come into a bit of cash, I might ask Fran where to invest it. Understand that I’m only telling you this because I want Nargis to keep the money. If it’s legit, Fran may be able to set your minds at rest. Nargis is on her own now. She and the baby are really going to need that cash.’
Kathy nodded, thinking that of course that only strengthened Abu’s motive in taking the money to kill Springer. ‘Do you think Fran would tell us?’
‘I could have a word in her ear, if you like. She’s getting a few things down the supermarket right now, but she should be back soon. Why don’t you finish your coffees, do a bit more shopping in the street market, and come back in an hour, eh? You might like to have lunch here. Lamb kebabs is our special today, specially for market day.’
‘Fine. Do we need to book?’
Qasim Ali thought that was very funny.
The sky was darker when they left the café, and as they strolled through the market again big drops of rain began to fall. They sheltered under the awning of a second-hand bookstall and studied the titles. They had been talking about Fran, and her abandonment of her previous life to take up the Muslim way, and Leon suddenly said, ‘Ah!’ and reached for one of the books. He checked it, then handed it to Kathy. ‘Here’s something appropriate. Used to be one of my favourites.’
Kathy read the print on the front,
Lawrence of Arabia,
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
. She turned the pages, maps of the Middle East to begin with, then an introductory poem, the first verse of which she read out loud.
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house,
that your eyes might be shining for me
When we came.
‘That’s what Max Springer seemed to want to do,’ she pondered. ‘To earn us freedom, even at the expense of truth.’
‘That’s absurd.’ Leon sounded shocked. ‘You can’t have one without the other, surely.’