Ismail followed him into the kitchen.
‘Where is she?’ he hissed.
Imran reached for a box of Shreddies, tossed one in the air and caught it in his mouth.
Ismail’s stomach growled. He hadn’t been able to touch anything for breakfast.
At last he voiced his main concern. ‘Do you think they’ve hurt her?’
Imran patted his six-pack and popped another Shreddie in his mouth.
‘Relax,’ he said. ‘They’ve done exactly what we asked.’
‘You’ve spoken to them?’
‘Course I have.’
Ismail raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘How was I to know you’d been working yourself up into a frenzy?’ Imran shrugged.
‘So what did they say?’ Ismail asked. ‘Where the hell is she?’
For a split second something flashed across Imran’s face. The studied cool returned almost instantaneously. Too late. Ismail had seen the expression. Uncertainty.
‘Things went a bit pear-shaped with the boy,’ said Imran
‘Ryan.’
‘You friends now?’
Ismail ignored the dig. ‘What about Aasha?’
‘She’s fine, bro,’ said Imran. ‘She just needs to lie low while things blow over.’
‘I think they should bring her back now,’ said Ismail. ‘She’s probably terrified.’
Imran slammed down the cereal box and squared up to Ismail.
‘Remember why we did this in the first place.’ He stabbed a finger inches from Ismail’s face. ‘That stupid bitch needs to learn a lesson.’
Ismail sighed. His brother was right. This whole mess was Aasha’s fault. If she hadn’t gone running off with some chavvy English boy none of this would have happened.
‘What about Mum?’ he asked. ‘Can we at least tell her Aasha is safe?’
‘These people aren’t to be messed with,’ said Imran.
‘I know that,’ said Ismail. ‘I just want Mum to stop worrying.’
‘We don’t tell anybody anything.’ Imran narrowed his eyes. ‘You understand me?’
Ismail remembered the size of Abdul Malik’s fists.
‘Yes.’
The smell of disinfectant was hot at the back of Lilly’s throat.
She loathed everything about hospitals: the harsh overhead lighting, the scratchy orange blankets and, of course, the smell.
Her mother had worked in a sewing factory for twenty
years, the fibres clogging up her lungs. When she could no longer breathe without an oxygen mask she went to St James’s to die.
Each morning, before she took the bus into Leeds to sit on the edge of her mother’s bed, Lilly sprayed the back of her hand with perfume. When the lifts doors opened and the nurses greeted her with cheery enquiries as to how she was getting on with her exams, Lilly pushed her nose into the skin of her hand and breathed in lavender and lemon.
Today she had nothing to stave off the stench and, worse still, her sense of smell was heightened by pregnancy.
A sister with happy eyes and a solid frame approached her. ‘Are you looking for Maternity, love?’
Lilly was puzzled. Then she saw herself with her bulging lump and swollen ankles.
‘No,’ she laughed. ‘Not due yet.’
The sister placed a firm palm at the point where Lilly’s stomach met her pelvis. The gesture, though intimate, was not remotely intrusive. God, Lilly hoped she would get someone like this at the birth.
‘The baby’s head’s down,’ said the sister. ‘He’s just waiting for the right moment.’
Lilly put her hand over the sister’s. ‘Could you tell him that now is most definitely not the right moment.’
‘I can tell him,’ she laughed, ‘but I can’t promise he’s listening.’
‘I’ve already got one just like that,’ said Lilly. ‘I don’t need another.’
The sister let out a low chuckle. ‘So what can I do for you?’
‘I’ve come to see the policeman visiting Ryan Sanders,’ said Lilly.
The sister pursed her lips, all humour gone. ‘That poor boy,’ she said.
She led Lilly down the corridor to a private room at the end.
‘Make sure you catch the animals that did this,’ she said.
Lilly was about to explain that she wasn’t a copper but thought better of it. After all, she certainly did want to see Ryan’s attackers arrested.
She peeped through the window to see if she could attract Jack’s attention. What she saw took her breath away.
The boy lay completely still on the bed, his face like smashed fruit. Tubes snaked up his nose and into his mouth. Jack sat on a chair beside the bed, his hand on the blanket, beside but not touching Ryan’s. The room was entirely still and silent apart from the soft sigh of the ventilator.
Lilly watched them both, like characters in a tableau, until she felt the warmth of someone behind her. A thin woman with skin almost as colourless as Ryan’s was also watching through the window. She could have been a corpse but for her hand, which fluttered across her bloodless lips.
Lilly guessed she was the boy’s mother. ‘Mrs Sanders?’
The woman looked startled, as if she hadn’t noticed all twelve stone of Lilly and her shock of red curls.
‘He’s not going to die, is he?’ she asked.
Lilly had seen enough head injuries to know it was entirely possible.
‘Of course not,’ she said.
The woman raised both hands to the window but she didn’t let them touch the glass. Instead they hovered and shook in mid-air, each finger bloody and raw.
The movement made Jack look up and he nodded to Lilly. He murmured something to Ryan and made his way out of the room.
‘Why don’t you sit with him a while?’ he asked Mrs Sanders.
Her fingers scraped wildly against her teeth but she didn’t refuse, and let Jack lead her gently to her son’s bedside. Lilly watched as he pressed her into the chair and crouched at her feet to speak to her. It reminded her of why she had fallen in love with this man and she was filled with regret and sadness about what she had discovered.
No one’s perfect, no one’s perfect, she told herself over and over.
He left mother and son together.
‘Hi.’ His eyes were tired but there was an energy to him that hadn’t been there the previous night.
‘How is he?’ Lilly asked.
Jack shrugged. ‘No change.’
‘I’ve been thinking about all this,’ said Lilly, ‘and how the family all had alibis.’
‘Bloody convenient,’ said Jack.
‘What if they didn’t do it themselves?’ she asked. ‘What if they got a group to do it for them?’
Jack arched his eyebrows. ‘What group?’
‘When we were digging around to see if anyone else could have killed Yasmeen Khan we came across a local gang of men calling themselves the PTF.’
‘Never heard of them,’ said Jack.
‘Nor had I,’ Lilly agreed, ‘but it seems they’ve taken it upon themselves to keep the Muslim girls in the area on the straight and narrow.’
‘Girls like Aasha.’
Lilly smiled. ‘Exactly.’
‘So how do I find this PTF?’ asked Jack.
‘That’s been the hard part,’ said Lilly. ‘People haven’t been falling over themselves to finger them.’
‘Isn’t that always the way?’
‘Naturally,’ Lilly paused. ‘But I have a name.’
A smile spread across Jack’s face like sunrise.
‘Abdul Malik. He delivers halal meat,’ said Lilly.
‘You,’ Jack shook her shoulders, ‘are the bloody best.’
‘Maybe if I described him to Mrs Sanders she might remember him,’ said Lilly.
Jack turned to the window. Ryan’s mother sat rocking in the chair.
‘I don’t think she remembers anything much.’
Lilly nodded. Ordinarily she would have agreed that Mrs Sanders would not have made the best witness but this was no ordinary situation.
‘He’s very well built, huge really,’ she said.
Jack smiled but she could tell he didn’t think these details would be enough to have made an impact on someone like Mrs Sanders.
‘More importantly,’ she added,‘he’s sporting a broken nose and two black eyes. Even Ryan’s mum couldn’t have missed that.’
Jack pulled on a white paper suit and tucked his hair into the elasticated hood. He had never understood
how SOCO could work in this uncomfortable get-up.
He dipped under the yellow police tape stuck across the Sanders’ door, and headed into the kitchen, rustling with each step.
‘Well, if isn’t Madonna.’ The head of the forensic team carefully lifted shards of smashed glass with tweezers and placed them in a transparent evidence bag.
Nathan Cheney was an old mate. He and Jack had cemented their friendship on an all-night bender and it had survived the years on a diet of greasy curries and taking the piss. Jack’s current healthy living regime was the source of much amusement.
‘Could you pass the wheatgrass?’ he asked his young assistant, who chuckled into her latex gloves.
‘Will you ever stop?’ Jack asked.
Cheney pushed his national health glasses up his nose. They were held together with a rough ball of Sellotape, which must have been uncomfortable. But then, this was a man with more metal in his ears, nose and lips than a scrap-metal yard. Each time they met, Cheney was sporting a new piercing. It was a fair assumption that comfort was not an item at the top of his list.
‘Not while there’s a hole in my arse,’ Cheney laughed.
Jack knew when he was beaten. ‘What have you got?’
Cheney pointed down the hall, the black, tribal tattoo encircling his wrist visible through the rubber of his glove.
‘There are traces of Ryan’s blood on the wall by the front door so I’d say he struggled with his assailants not to let them in.’
Jack nodded. Mrs Sanders said she heard shouting from her room but she was so frightened she stayed where she was.
‘Somehow he ended up here with Aasha.’ Cheney pointed to the cupboards at the far end of the kitchen.
Jack pictured the kids together, terrified and cornered.
‘Ryan was attacked here, exactly where you found him.’ Cheney kneeled at the edge of the pool of dark blood. ‘The doc at the hospital told me there were very few defensive wounds to his arms, so I’d say he went down pretty quickly.’
Jack crouched next to his friend and touched the blood with his gloved finger. It hadn’t yet dried but it was thick, viscous.
‘They carried on hitting him when he was unconscious?’ he asked.
‘I’d say yes.’
Jack coughed back his anger. He needed to focus. ‘Weapon?’
‘Again the doc said he found traces of wood in Ryan’s scalp, so I’m guessing a bat,’ said Cheney. ‘Whatever it was, they took it with them.’
Having no weapon was always a blow, but Jack had expected as much.
‘What about Aasha?’ Jack asked. ‘Can we tell if she was hurt?’
Cheney shook his head and Jack heard the tinkle of his earrings inside the hood.
‘I’m collecting blood samples but I can’t say who any of it belongs to yet.’
‘Thanks,’ said Jack, and stood to leave.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Cheney.
‘I don’t know about you but I fancy a seaweed smoothie.’
He ducked outside, Cheney’s laughter following him.
In truth, Jack needed some fresh air. He’d been at crime scenes before, seen plenty of bodies in his time. He wasn’t some rookie that needed to throw up in private. But he had to admit that this one felt different. It could have all been avoided if only Jack had been doing his job properly.
He moved along the walkway, trying to process how he was going to find Aasha, how he was going to put away the men that had hurt Ryan.
The name Lilly had given to him was a good start, but Mrs Sanders wouldn’t be able to identify him because she hadn’t left her room. Jack tried not to dwell on what sort of person would hide under their duvet while their child was taking a beating. He reminded himself that she wasn’t well, wasn’t responsible for her actions.
He could, of course, just pull Malik off the street and demand some answers. But what was to stop him saying he had never even heard of Aasha or Ryan? Jack needed something to link them, something to link Malik to the scene.
When he got to the stairwell a rat scurried past, one of yesterday’s discarded chips in its sharp teeth. Did no one ever clean up round here?
Suddenly it hit Jack hard, like a jab in the chest. Of course no one ever cleaned up. Not food, not dog shit. Not blood.
When he climbed the stairs yesterday he’d seen a fresh
trail of blood. He’d assumed kids had been fighting. He remembered what Lilly had said about Malik’s face. What if during the attack Ryan had got in a punch and broken the bastard’s nose? What if the blood in the stairwell was Malik’s?
He ran back up to the flat and sprinted through the hall.
‘All this jogging is impressing nobody,’ said Cheney.
‘Could you take a sample of some blood outside for me?’
Cheney nodded, reached for his bag and followed Jack.
He kneeled among the turds and ketchup and did his thing.
‘This isn’t going to be easy,’ he said.
‘Lucky for me you’re the best.’
Cheney took out a cotton bud and began scraping. ‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’
Jack laughed, not because it was empty flattery, but because Cheney was, despite the dog-on-a-string appearance, the very best. If anyone could nail Malik, he could. A glimmer of anticipation began to stir in Jack’s stomach as they closed in on Ryan’s attacker.
‘I’m afraid there seems to be a problem.’
Lilly looked up at the prison officer. His shiny bald head was offset by a bushy black moustache.
‘Problem?’ Lilly asked.
‘The prisoner hasn’t been brought over.’
The hair on his lip squirmed like a small rodent. Under different circumstances it might have made Lilly
smile but she had been waiting for Raffy in the hall of legal visits for nearly an hour. Her back was killing her and it wouldn’t be long before she needed the loo.
‘Can you get on the phone to his wing and tell them I need a conference with Raffy now?’
‘They’re fully aware of the situation.’
Lilly gave the man a hard stare. On closer inspection his moustache was full of crumbs and the ends were matted. Like a dead rodent, Lilly thought.
‘My client is on remand and visits are therefore not limited.’
The guard smiled, the ratty rug tickling his teeth. ‘They know that.’