The Road to Bedlam: Courts of the Feyre, Book 2 (18 page)

    I could hear the city noises before I unbolted the door. Beyond, there was a small set of stone steps leading up to daylight. I closed the door behind me and climbed into the sound of traffic and seagulls. I had arrived.

    A newsagent was the first call, for a street map. After that it was easy enough to make my way through the streets down towards the river and find the college. It took me longer than I'd thought and I began to wonder if I should have used the Way to travel further in towards the centre. Then I had to find the bit of the college where I needed to wait for Zaina. Looking around, it all seemed very modern. There were few old buildings and much new development.

    At ten past four I arrived at the main college entrance. I waited by the glass doors, leaning against the wall, watching the young people leaving, clothed in every style. Greg had said that Zaina would know where Karen would be, but if she had left early and I had missed her then I would have to go to the café named on the slip of paper Greg had given me. The trouble was that I had no idea what Zaina looked like. The name sounded Middle Eastern, maybe? Lebanese would fit with the name of the place – the Cedars Café.

    Two Asian girls turned my way.

    "Excuse me, I'm looking for Zaina. Do you know if she's left yet?"

    "Zaina who?" they asked in unison.

    I shrugged. "I don't have a second name."

    They shook their heads as they wandered away.

    I tried again with a girl who might have been Middle Eastern. "Do you know where I can find Zaina?" She shook her head and continued walking.

    The crowds were starting to thin and I was asking everyone as they left. No one knew Zaina, and there was no sign of Karen. I asked a tall guy with long shaggy hair in a leather jacket. He didn't recognise the name or the café. "Sorry, mate."

    I was getting nowhere at the college. I wasn't even sure I had the right door or the right building. The flow of people had thinned considerably and I was running out of people to ask. I switched instead to asking for directions to the café, and after a couple of blank looks I got a set of directions. It was about a mile away and I had already walked a fair distance, but maybe I could get a drink and a sit-down when I got there.

    When I reached it, the café was on a side street not far from the main road and had a sign over the door with a stylised black and green cedar tree. It didn't look like much from the outside but when you got close you could tell it went back quite a way. The window advertised Lebanese delicacies like kibbeh and falafels in pitta. My mouth watered at the thought of food. The bacon sandwich had been a while ago.

    Inside, the café smelled of spices and coffee. We were long past lunchtime but the lingering aroma had my stomach rumbling. There were tables all down one side and a counter at the back. I had not come here to eat, though. A tall man with dark eyes and residual stubble watched me as he busied himself behind the counter.

    "Hi. I'm looking for Zaina. Is she around?"

    He glanced up at me but continued cleaning out the remains of lunchtime sandwich fillings. "You a friend of hers?"

    "Not really. I'm trying to find someone, a friend of a friend, you might say. I thought she might be able to help."

    "She's not here." The lie was clear and plain in his voice.

    "OK," I said. "She's not here for me, or she's just not here?"

    He wiped his hands on the cloth he'd been using. "Who are you? What do you want with Zaina?"

    "I'm only looking to talk with her for a few moments. It won't take long."

    The man spoke in a rapid guttural tongue to two men at a nearby table. They stood up, pushing their chairs back noisily. One of the other men further down the café stood up as well. Suddenly the space seemed narrow and claustrophobic.

    "I'm not looking for any trouble," I said, shifting my grip on the umbrella. "I just want to speak to her."

    "Why can't you people leave her alone?" said the man.

    He dropped the cloth and moved around the counter. I retreated, placing my back to the wall and trying to watch both sides at once. The umbrella stayed an umbrella. None of them were armed. There were four of them and one of me. It would be better if we could avoid conflict, but if there was a fight, the big guy from behind the counter would be the one who would start it.

    "I don't want anyone to get hurt," I said, trying to calm everyone.

    One of the two young men spoke. "You're the only one who's gonna get hurt. If I were you, I would leave while you still can."

    "What is this? What's going on? Ahmed, who is that man?" The voice came from the doorway to the kitchen at the back of the café. It should have been Arabic-sounding, but the accent was pure Ravensby. I peeked past the big guy to see who spoke. The headscarf and the long dress did not look out of place, but the face was too pale for the Lebanon. Besides, I recognised her from the photo.

    "Hello, Karen," I said.

EIGHT

Karen Hopkins bustled forward. "What are you doing? Ahmed? Who is this man?"

    "He's just leaving," said Ahmed, meeting my eyes and nodding towards the door.

    "How do you know my name?" she asked.

    "I saw your mother this morning," I told her. "I was looking for Zaina, but now I've found you."

    "Well, as you can see, I'm not lost. What do you want?"

    "Look," I said, "I don't want any trouble. I just want to talk to you for a few minutes."

    The young man looked angrily at me. He shook his head. "He was asking about you, poking his nose in."

    "And so you threatened him." She walked up to him and straightened his clothes, her distaste for violence plain.

    "I didn't threaten anyone. I just wanted him to leave us alone."

    "Us"? This was an interesting development.

    She turned to the men standing in the narrow aisle. "Please, sit. You're not helping."

    They looked at Ahmed and he nodded. They slowly sat down again, watching me all the while as if I might suddenly sprout horns. I tried to look as relaxed and unthreatening as possible.

    "I won't keep you long," I said. "I just wanted to ask you a few questions."

    "Did my mother put you up to this?"

    "No, but I did talk to her. She wants you to call her."

    "She said that? Really?"

    "She said you'd only have to pick up the phone. You could even reverse the charge."

    "Right. That sounds more like her."

    "Don't you want to talk with her? You could just let her know you're OK. She's bound to be worried about you."

    "She said that as well, did she?" She watched my expression. "I thought not."

    I was missing something here. I looked at her again. The headscarf and the long skirt were almost ethnic dress, not so much a fashion statement as a cultural statement.

    "I'm sorry, I was only asking about Zaina and your boyfriend here got heavy with me."

    "He's not my boyfriend."

    Her voice was like her mother's but she had picked up some of his accent. "Whatever you say."

    "He's my husband."

    It suddenly came into focus. "Of course, you're Zaina. Greg Makepeace told me, 'If you find Zaina, you'll find Karen.'" I mentally kicked myself for being so dim.

    "Mum's vicar?" she said. "He came to the café one day. We talked for a while. He brought me some things from home, personal things. What's he got to do with this?"

    "So your mother knows you're here too?" I said.

    "Who
are
you?" Ahmed said. "Why is this any of your business?"

    "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm called Neal Dawson. I'm looking into the disappearance of a number of young women from Ravensby. I thought Karen was one of them."

    "Do I look like I'm missing?" she asked.

    "No, I guess not."

    "Then you can cross me off your list." She guided her husband gently towards the counter, turning her back to me.

    "Does your father know where you are?"

    "I do not discuss my personal affairs in public like a soap opera." She moved towards the door into the back of the café.

    "Your sister?"

    She stopped and turned back.

    "Why can't you let it alone?" she said.

    "I have my reasons."

    She looked up at her husband and he looked back at me. Then she came forward again and pointed at the table next to the window, away from the other customers. "Sit there." She instructed.

    I moved slowly past the men who had stood to help Ahmed. They watched me with cold disapproval. Karen spoke with Ahmed behind the counter in low tones until he turned away and picked up his cloth, sulkily continuing to clean out the counter. Then she disappeared into the back for a moment, reappearing with a white cotton apron tied around her waist to serve the men who sat near the counter with hot tea and sweet sticky pastries. When she had spoken to them for a moment she came and placed a glass cup with steaming liquid with a spoon in it on my table.

    "Mint tea," she said. "It makes you look more like a customer and less like a bouncer."

    I thanked her and she turned back to the older gentleman. She addressed him in a mixture of English and what must have been Arabic. After talking with him for a moment she went back behind the counter, removed the apron and brought her own mint tea to sit opposite me.

    "It's normally busier than this," she said, sliding into the seat.

    "That must be good for business," I replied.

    "We get by." She glanced towards her husband.

    "Was that Arabic you were speaking?"

    "I'm not very fluent," she said modestly, "but our customers appreciate the attempt."

    "It must be hard for someone with your background."

    "I need to learn it anyway, in order to study the Qur'an."

    "Is that what you're studying at college?"

    "No. I converted. It's part of the faith to understand the words of the prophet."

    "To Islam?"

    "No, Buddhist. Of course to Islam. I converted so that we could get married."

    I looked over at the man behind the counter. He was trying to talk to one of the young men and watch us at the same time.

    "Jealous type, is he?"

    "Jealous? Ahmed? Don't be daft." The way she said Ahmed was soft, like a sigh.

    "He hasn't taken his eyes off you since you sat down."

    "He thinks you're going to steal me away, take me back to my family." She looked up. "Are you?"

    Her eyes were grey, at odds with the Muslim dress and Arab café, but they held my gaze, waiting for an answer.

    "No. I'm not here to take you back."

    "Did Mum hire you?"

    "Hire me?"

    "You're a private detective, aren't you? That's what people like you do, isn't it? Dig around in other people's business."

    It was my turn to laugh. "A detective, me?"

    "What then? You're not church and you're not a copper either. They've been and gone. The police won't interfere now that I'm eighteen and the vicar only came to check up on me for Mum. You're not a fisherman and you move like a fighter. Ex-military? Private security?" It was her turn to watch me.

    "I have done some security work," I admitted. I liked this girl. She had spirit and intelligence. She knew what she wanted and it sounded as if she was working hard to get it. The contrast between her and the soft resignation of her mother was stark.

    "I saw your mother this morning."

    "What did she say?"

    "Very little. I asked her whether she'd given up hope and she told me she hadn't."

    Karen looked back towards the counter.

    "She said if you wanted to come back then all you had to do was pick up the phone."

    She stirred the mint tea slowly. "Was my sister there?"

    "Shelley? Yes."

    "She should be at school. What was she doing at home?"

    "She said she was ill."

    Karen looked up from her tea.

    "She didn't look ill," I said. "She looked like she'd blagged a day off."

    "She should be at school," she repeated. "But maybe my parents think education is not such a good thing anymore, when you can have ideas, friends of your own, people from outside." She looked again at Ahmed. "What did my dad say?"

    "Your dad wasn't there."

    "Did he call Ahmed a wog again?"

    "He wasn't there, Karen. I only met your mother."

    "Pity."

    "I didn't come to persuade you to come back either. Only to find out what happened to you."

    "Did Mum ask you to do this?"

    "No. Your mum said that if you meant to come home then you'd find a way."

    "Then who?"

    "I came on my own. Greg Makepeace told me where I might find you."

    "The vicar? What for? What does he get out of this?"

    "He wants me to leave it alone, to stop looking for missing girls. I think you were meant to persuade me to let sleeping dogs lie."

    "That still doesn't give me a reason."

    "Sorry?"

    "You still haven't told me why you came looking for me. If it wasn't for anyone else then why?"

    "I'm writing a story, if I can find enough material. It might sell to the Sundays, or a magazine."

    "A journalist?"

    "Perhaps – when I'm not doing private security."

    She looked again at Ahmed. "It's not much of a story. I met my husband at college. Everyone else wanted to get in my knickers but Ahmed saw me as a person. We talked and spent time together, we got to know each other. We were friends long before anything else. Last year his father died, suddenly. An aneurysm, they said, leaving him and his mum to run the café. I started helping out and we got to know each other better."