Authors: Patricia Hall
‘I know, I know,’ Laura said. ‘But it’s difficult when Ted Grant seems to imagine that we spend every night going over your cases in fine detail before we go to sleep.’
‘Just tell him we’ve got much better things to do before we go to sleep,’ Thackeray said, pulling her towards him and kissing her in a way that drove any thoughts of incompatibility out of both their heads.
‘The risotto will burn,’ she murmured, making a not very
convincing attempt to struggle free from his embrace.
‘Sod the risotto,’ he said. ‘We can always get a pizza – if we’re hungry.’
Mohammed Sharif was at a loose end. He had attempted to stay in bed late, as going to work now seemed a prospect that was receding into the distant future, but his whirling mind soon put paid to that idea and he gave up the unequal battle with his tangled sheets and rolled out of bed. To his annoyance, Louise had refused to stay the night, pleading an early start the next day, though he had been left with the distinct impression that she was worried, and not necessarily totally sympathetic, about his new workless state.
He padded around his flat in his underwear for a while, picking at toast and fuelling his anguish with coffee, before flinging on his clothes and going out to his car. He sat for a moment drumming his fingers on the steering wheel before starting up and taking the valley road out of town towards Milford. It did not take a brilliant detective to work out that it was in the small mill town, now little more than a minor shopping centre and home to the massive concrete headquarters of one of Yorkshire’s many building societies, that the key to his cousin’s death lay. And he knew with
absolute certainty that his colleagues’ raid on Imran Aziz’s house the previous day, which he had read about avidly in the
Gazette
, would have sparked some sort of reaction, for good or ill – and he suspected ill – in the local Asian community. People were hyper-sensitive about police bashing down front doors these days, deeply sceptical that the authorities had any more idea than the average man on the street where to target their attentions with any real justification. Sharif had slightly more faith in the intelligence that the security services worked on than that, but he had serious doubts about the conclusions that seemed to have been reached in this case, and a deep sense of frustration that he had been shut out of the loop so comprehensively.
Thinking back to the limited contact he had had with his cousin’s husband, he recalled a quiet man, evidently unsure of his place in his new family and his new country, moderate enough in his views, as far as Sharif had had time to explore them, and regular but not over-enthusiastic in his observance of his religious duties. Sharif had found little difficulty in explaining to Imran, a man who had spent most of his adult life in the bustling city of Lahore, his own decision to lead a secular and essentially westernised life. Sharif had not felt uncomfortable with Imran Aziz, and he seriously doubted that he was a fanatic of any sort, although to his eyes this was exactly what the
Gazette
was suggesting in its not very subtle way.
He drove the short distance to Milford and parked discreetly close to his cousin’s home and then walked cautiously down the modest street, only to find her house still cordoned off with blue and white police tape and forensic officers in their white plastic coveralls still visible at the windows. He walked
past on the other side of the road but could glean nothing from his sidelong glances in their direction. He knew that he should not have come, that if anyone recognised him, DCI Thackeray would be justifiably furious. But he was driven by grief and rage at what had happened to Faria and felt that justification enough. He soon became aware of being watched, not by his colleagues but by several of Faria’s neighbours in houses further along the street. And, as he passed a group of youths halfway back towards the main road, he picked up muttered abuse as he passed by. He gritted his teeth, not daring to respond in case he sparked a violent incident that would instantly get back to the DCI in Bradfield. There was no doubt that Milford was uneasy with the notoriety its ‘terrorism raid’ had brought, and it might take only the smallest spark to provoke trouble on the streets.
At the end of the road, he turned again towards the mosque. It was Friday and a crowd of men was emerging from the arched doorway of the old chapel. Most of them were in traditional dress and were joined by a handful of women, who had their faces fully veiled. It was, Sharif thought, a much more traditional looking crowd than he was used to in Bradfield, where most of the men, at least, wore western clothes, and the women a simple long scarf round hair and shoulders. He mingled with the crowd, attracting a few curious glances, seeking out the imam. Failing to spot him, he took off his shoes and entered the mosque, where he located his quarry deep in conversation with a young man whose beard was almost as luxuriant as the imam’s own. Becoming aware of his presence the two men broke off their conversation and the younger man turned away and left the building while Abdel Abdullah himself waited for Sharif to approach.
‘I am glad you came back,’ he said in Punjabi. ‘I was going to telephone you. I heard about your cousin’s body being discovered. I was very sorry to hear how your search for her had ended. Please convey my condolences to your family.’
‘Thank you,’ Sharif said, aware that the imam was looking at him with unusual intensity.
‘You didn’t tell me that you were connected with the police yourself,’ he said. ‘A detective, I understand.’ Sharif suddenly found the atmosphere in the old building inexplicably chilly and shivered.
‘There was no need,’ he said. ‘My inquiries were personal. Who told you I was a police officer?’
‘Your colleagues were here asking questions this morning about Imran Aziz. One of them told me the dead woman was related to a police detective in Bradfield. I realised then that I had already met this cousin.’
‘I was making a personal inquiry,’ Sharif repeated. ‘Now it’s become official, now we know she’s dead. But I’m not part of the inquiry into her death, anyway. My superiors say I’m too close to it to be involved.’
‘And they will not want an Asian on their inquiry, will they? We are all suspects now,’ Abdullah suggested, his voice hardening.
‘I have no reason to suspect that Imran Aziz was involved in anything to do with terrorism,’ Sharif said carefully. ‘Have you?’
‘None at all, but as far as I can see it isn’t necessary for there to be any evidence to be marked down as suspect in this country. To be Muslim is enough.’
Sharif hesitated, knowing that to agree with this assessment threw his whole career into doubt but tempted even so to nod.
‘I don’t think that’s entirely true,’ he prevaricated. ‘You can understand why the authorities feel justified in what they do. There is a real threat from a minority. I know that as well as anyone and I hope you do too, in your position. It’s hard to feel that you have to prove your innocence all the time, every day, with no end in sight. But until these young idiots stop their plotting, there will be no end to it. Nothing that goes on abroad can justify bombing innocent people going about their daily lives. There is nothing in the holy Qu’ran to justify that.’
‘I was surprised when I came here to discover how angry the young men are,’ Abdullah said. ‘Much more angry, I think, some of them, than most young men at home. But I never heard Imran Aziz discuss politics. He came to pray only rarely in my time here and did not stay to talk afterwards. He seemed to me to be a quiet man, not much given to anger or disputation.’
‘That was my own impression of him,’ Sharif said. ‘The only question that seems to have been raised by his conduct is the fact that he divorced his first wife and married my cousin quite suddenly, possibly as a way to gain access to this country.’
‘Like many, he wanted to share in the wealth of the west,’ the imam said dryly. ‘But he did not seem to be doing well here. He wasn’t able to get a job that suited his qualifications, I was told.’
‘That’s true,’ Sharif said. ‘He had been a successful businessman in Lahore. Here he was working in a factory. It doesn’t seem to have been a successful move. Which is no doubt why there is suspicion that he had an ulterior motive for his divorce and remarriage.’
‘Perhaps it had more to do with the fact that his wife in
Lahore had given him no children,’ Abdullah said. ‘I was told that also. If you look only for the worst interpretation you may be led astray.’
‘Perhaps,’ Sharif said. ‘But now he’s vanished and his new wife is dead. There is more than one possible interpretation and they must all be explored. God willing, it’s not the worst one that turns out to be true. Will you contact me if you hear anything of interest?’
To Sharif’s surprise, the imam nodded his assent.
‘I will,’ he said. ‘It is best for all of us if Imran Aziz is found quickly. God willing, he will be found innocent of any crime.’
‘God willing,’ Sharif said automatically, without any hope that the imam’s prayer would bear fruit. Faria’s ghost told him otherwise.
As he walked back to his car he became aware of a presence behind him and, half turning, he found himself face to face with the bearded young man who had been talking to the imam when he had gone into the mosque.
‘I hear you are a policeman, brother,’ the man said.
‘That’s right,’ Sharif said. ‘But not on duty.’
‘When is a policeman not on duty?’ his companion asked, falling into step beside him. Sharif shrugged, knowing how difficult that question was to answer in the current climate. He knew that all officers were used to the sudden discomfort of almost everyone when they admitted to their profession and knew that for him it was worse, straddling, as he did, two communities whose mutual suspicion seemed to grow worse by the day.
‘My cousin, Faria Aziz, is dead, possibly murdered,’ he said. ‘This is a family matter, not for me a police matter. If it is any of your concern.’
‘The welfare of all Muslims is our concern at the mosque,’ the young man said.
‘So you will be concerned to discover whether or not Imran Aziz has harmed his wife,’ Sharif said angrily.
‘It does not seem that is the first priority of those who have knocked down his front door and are searching his house. They have other suspicions clearly.’
‘And are they justified?’ Sharif snapped back.
The young man shrugged and Sharif turned on him angrily.
‘Do you mean you don’t know or you don’t care?’ he asked. ‘Is it justified to look for a man who may have harmed his wife but not for one who may be planning mass murder? Just what are you complaining of here?’
‘Abdel Abdullah, our imam, was not happy that you failed to tell him you were a policeman. He felt you were sent to spy on him.’
Sharif groaned quietly.
‘He knows why I came,’ he said. ‘My cousin is dead.’
‘You are in an impossible position here, brother,’ the young man said. ‘You can only be seen as a spy. You are no longer one of our community. You have become one of them.’
They had reached Sharif’s car and he flicked open the doors.
‘Do you think your community would be safe without the police?’ he said bitterly. ‘Do you think the BNP and the rest would not be harassing you day and night if it wasn’t for us? Do you think you and your wives and children could go about their lives safely without us? Think about it. Think about what some of our so-called brothers did in London, and Madrid and New York, and then ask yourself how peacefully you are able to live your life and thank Allah for the police
who make it possible. Stop talking like a fool, brother, and thank Allah that I exist.’
And Sharif got into his car and drove away quickly, his heart thumping at the unfairness of it all.
Laura Ackroyd picked up her phone and felt slightly guilty as she recognised Julie Holden’s voice. She had been distracted from Julie’s plight by the
Gazette
’s intense interest in Faria Aziz’s death and her husband’s disappearance, and she had as yet done nothing to follow up her inquiries after their visit to Blackpool, except give Thackeray a brief account of what they had uncovered.
‘Why don’t we meet at lunchtime and I’ll see what I can find out for you,’ she said.
‘I’ve already talked to the hospital in Blackpool,’ Julie said. ‘I managed to get through to the psychiatric consultant who treated him. They didn’t want to put me through but in the end when I said I was his wife and shouted and screamed and said I was afraid for my life, they connected me. He didn’t want to talk to me either, but in the end he confirmed more or less what Richard told us. He’d been an in-patient there for several months before I met him, but his condition had been brought under control with drugs and as far as they were concerned he should have been fine so long as he continued to take his medication.’
‘Which obviously he hasn’t been doing,’ Laura said.
‘I never knew he was on medication, so I’ve no idea when he stopped.’ Julie’s voice teetered on the edge of hysteria and there was a long silence before she seemed to calm down enough to continue. ‘The doctor said that if he was experiencing these violent outbursts he must have stopped
taking it. I spoke to his former boss in Blackpool as well. And he said that after his spell in hospital Bruce seemed OK, and they were all very pleased that he settled down again and eventually got married. There was no particular reason on their side why he should have left the company. He wasn’t sacked or anything. The job in Bradfield, as they understood it, was a promotion. But that was a discrepancy, because Bruce persuaded me to move to Bradfield by telling me that he wanted to be nearer his mother once she was on her own. He was very insistent on that and I didn’t mind too much. My parents were fine where they were. And my sister was in Blackpool so they didn’t need me to be close by. It seemed to make perfect sense at the time.’
‘But he’s probably not had any treatment since you moved?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Julie said. ‘Even his mother seemed to know nothing about this illness. He was obviously very good at hiding his tracks. We had no idea. Nor apparently had our doctor in Bradfield. I couldn’t even remember the last time Bruce consulted him, and of course he went on about patient confidentiality and all that as well, but when I asked him straight if he’d treated Bruce for any mental illness, he just said no. So unless he’s been to some other doctor privately, he’s been off his pills for a long time. And getting more erratic for a long time, I realise now. It all makes sense. And to think I was blaming myself for the marriage going wrong.’
‘Let’s meet at lunchtime anyway and try to work out a way to track him down,’ Laura said. ‘Maybe you need a private detective in Blackpool, if that’s where he’s holed up. There must be some way of tracing him.’ She suggested a time and a place and when she had finished her morning’s work she made her way across town to a wine bar in the bowels of
the old gothic wool exchange, where she found Julie Holden already waiting for her at a table in a shadowy corner, a
half-finished
glass of wine in front of her. She glanced up at Laura with an expression of fear in her eyes. She looked pale and haggard and her hand trembled slightly as she toyed with her glass.