Poisoned Ground: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 3) (10 page)

She’d told him before but she’d started to repeat herself in recent years. And Lee knew his brother Roy would be ‘out’. He was always out, usually in some pub or other.

‘It’s all right, Mum,’ he said. He wished she’d go too. He was trying to think about whether he’d left his iPhone in the car when he got out or whether it had been in his pocket. Whoever had beaten him up had taken his remaining cash, which hadn’t even amounted to twenty quid. But the phone was another matter – it had his diary and contacts on and he wanted it back.

His mother finished her coffee, said, ‘Ugh,’ and then took out her knitting. She knew as well as he did that when Roy got back to her house he’d be arse’oled. He could see why she’d rather stay in the General with him than go home to his brother.

‘Lee?’

He recognized her voice immediately and looked up. ‘Mumtaz.’

‘Oh my goodness,’ she said. ‘Your poor face.’

She put a hand out to touch it but then she saw his mother and withdrew it.

‘Hello, Mrs Arnold.’

‘Hello, love.’ She carried on knitting.

Mumtaz sat down on his bed. Lee wished she’d touched his face. He had a mad notion she might have healed him.

‘Mumtaz, you didn’t need to come.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I wanted to see you. What were you doing in Dagenham?’

He told her. She shook her head. ‘You should’ve told me about the appointment,’ she said. ‘Then you wouldn’t have lain in a churchyard for hours on end. You could’ve died of hypothermia this time of year.’

Rose Arnold looked up from her knitting and said, ‘He’s always been a bit of a div.’

‘Mum!’

She went back to her knitting.

‘You tell me where you are all the time and I’ll tell you,’ Lee said to Mumtaz, knowing that she wasn’t always as straight with him about her appointments as he would have liked.

She looked a little ashamed and said, ‘Point taken.’

He hadn’t wanted to upset her, but he’d managed it. He changed the subject. ‘What’s going on?’

She told him about some potential new business and what she’d got up to at Ilford Hospital. ‘I’m in tomorrow for the day,’ she said. ‘So the office will be empty again.’

‘Don’t matter,’ Lee said. ‘I’ll be out of here tomorrow.’

Rose looked up again. ‘Tomorrow? In that state?’

‘Tomorrow night, Mum.’

‘Don’t care when it is tomorrow, they can’t let you home yet, not after what you’ve been through.’ And then she stood up. ‘I’ll go and see that doctor of yours, have a word …’

‘No, Mum.’

But she waved his objection away. ‘Shut up, Lee.’

Rose walked down the ward towards the nurses’ station. ‘Here, you …’

Mumtaz smiled. ‘My mum would do exactly the same,’ she said. ‘Only difference is she’d have all my aunties in tow.’

He was so glad to see her. Mumtaz, in spite of her own considerable troubles, nearly always brought a calmness into his life that no one else seemed to be able to do. Maybe faith in Islam gave her some sort of inner peace that she could draw on when needed? Lee didn’t know. But whatever it was she had, he was grateful for it.

She leant towards him. ‘Now, look, I can get some of the freelancers in. I know Amy’s free. I want you to promise me you’ll only leave hospital when your doctor tells you that you can. OK?’

Like all the other women who’d come to see him, she was chiding him.

‘I’ll go when they tell me I can,’ he said.

‘Don’t hassle them, Lee.’

He thought
too late
but he suspected she knew that anyway.

‘I won’t.’

Mumtaz smiled. ‘You know, for a private detective you’re not a very good liar,’ she said.

Her mother had a visiting order from the prison. This meant Salwa could visit her husband. Before she went, her mother took the kids to school and then got the old Pakistani imam’s wife over to make sure Rashida didn’t somehow burrow out of her room. The old woman didn’t speak any English and very little Arabic, so communication between them was impossible. But Rashida didn’t care. She was still on hunger strike, even though she had scraped off the rice that had dropped on the floor and eaten it and she still had a large stash of chocolate under the bed. She had to keep her strength up if she suddenly had to make a dash for freedom. Where she’d go was quite another matter. Most of her friends at school were Asian girls who came from traditional families like hers. She couldn’t go to any of their houses. But then there was Kerry, who was white and crazy and MJ, who came from a funky and unconventional Hindu family. MJ’s mum was really cool and wore tight fake leopardskin and mad high heels. Rashida frowned. She couldn’t put nice people like that in a difficult position. Mrs Joshi, MJ’s mum, had always been really good to her even when her dad went to prison and the family were all over the newspapers.

If she left, Rashida knew the only place she could go would be to Social Services. One of the girls at school had an older sister
who had run away to Social Services when her parents had tried to take her to Bangladesh to get married. She’d been put into care and the family had declared her dead to them. Rashida couldn’t bear that.

Downstairs, she heard the television. It was loud and she could easily make out that the old woman had it tuned to
Homes Under the Hammer
. If she wanted to, Rashida knew that now was a time when she could try to get her bedroom door unlocked and leave. The old woman was half deaf, and with the TV blaring away she could try to kick her door down and make a run for it. Alternatively, if she could attract the woman’s attention she could try to make her understand that she wanted to go to the toilet, and then when the door was unlocked she could dash down the stairs and out of the house. What was some frail old Pakistani going to do about it? Rashida was ready to act.

But what about her dad? If she left, what would he have to say about it? She couldn’t believe what her mother had said about him. He wouldn’t approve of Cousin Anwar, not in a million years! Her father hated football thugs. Didn’t he?

Rashida sat down on her bed. She’d thought that her father hated violence until he’d given her that key. It had been just before the police had come to arrest him. He’d given it to her and said, ‘Keep this safe, Rashida. Don’t give it to anyone.’ She’d asked him what it was a key to, knowing full well what it opened because she had followed him to the lock-up one Saturday afternoon. He’d just said, ‘You don’t need to know.’

She’d looked inside once and, although the light had been dim, she’d worked out what was in there. If all else failed and she was given a ticket to Cairo could she make good on the threat she’d made to her mother? Her father or herself, who would she choose? Really? Rashida began to cry. When she’d finished she
miserably ate a bar of white chocolate and then lay down on her bed. She wasn’t even at school any more. Nothing in her life made any sense.

*

‘Last time we had a staff conference it was summer and Dr el Masri tried to look down all the women’s tops at the buffet,’ Mandy said. She was about forty but looked a lot younger, even though she smoked. With her short punky blonde hair and tiny frame it was hard to believe that Mandy had three teenage children.

‘He’s a dirty old sod,’ her companion said. This was Roy. About the same age as Mandy, but very obviously on heavy medication, which meant that his speech was slurred, his attention sometimes wandered and, on occasion, he drooled. Like Mandy he had spiky hair and some face piercings. He wore a Marilyn Manson T-shirt and both of his forearms were heavily scarred.

She’d first met the other two advocates in the project office with Shirley. But Shirley had taken a call from the forensic ward and had to go over there so Mumtaz had been left to get to know the others on her own. Talk had quickly turned to who was and wasn’t to be trusted in the hospital. Mumtaz hadn’t even had to drop any hints.

‘And you wanna be careful of Timothy Pool,’ Mandy said. ‘He’s ward manager on the Forensic. He’s a vicious bastard, hiding behind all his Christianity.’

‘I fucking hate him,’ Roy said.

‘Norman on Chronic is mental.’

Roy nodded his head. ‘Much more mental than the patients.’

‘Reckons that aliens come into the grounds at night. He sees all sorts of lights and orbs and what not,’ Mandy said. ‘Been on there too long, see. Gone bonkers.’

Mumtaz said, ‘So have you – the Advocacy – done anything about these people?’

‘No.’

‘But isn’t that the purpose …?’

‘Supposed to be,’ Mandy said. ‘Shirley’ll tell you it is. But she won’t do nothing when staff’re involved.’

‘So why do you stay?’ Mumtaz asked.

‘Because we’ve got mates here.’

‘Service users,’ Roy clarified.

‘Things happen in places like this, Mumtaz,’ Mandy said. ‘When people are vulnerable. Everybody’ll tell you that you shouldn’t take anything that mad people say seriously. If Shirley could hear me and Roy now she’d make sure she got you on your own later and then tell you not to take any notice of what we’d said.’

‘She’s done it to all the other advocates.’

Mumtaz looked at Roy, who was rolling a cigarette with one hand.

‘All the other advocates have left,’ Mumtaz said.

‘Because Shirley won’t let ’em do anything.’

‘She’s subtle about it,’ Mandy said. ‘Just takes over anything that might cause bother. Then nothing happens.’

‘Nothing,’ Roy agreed.

‘You could say we’re taking a risk talking to you now,’ Mandy said. ‘You might go straight off and tell Shirley we’ve been dissing her.’

‘I won’t.’

Mandy smiled. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask me how.’

‘Mand’s a bit psychic,’ Roy put in.

‘Me mum says I am. We can trust you, Mumtaz, can’t we?’

‘Yes, of course. I want to help.’ What Mandy and Roy had told
her only mirrored what she’d heard Shirley say about being wary of issues involving staff and passing anything ‘difficult’ on to her. Maybe the story that Hatem el Shamy had told his wife was true? Maybe the Advocacy, in the shape of Shirley Mayfield, was in league with the hospital management?

‘I’ll tell you a story,’ Mandy said. ‘A bloke I know on the chronic ward, really schizophrenic, you know, well he kept on saying he was related to this famous old-school film star. On and on he went about how if the hospital phoned this man in Hollywood he’d come over and see him. Nobody believed him. But then one day this bloke came onto the chronic ward to see him and he was that film star. You can’t write people off just because they’re mad. Not everything they do or say is delusional.’

‘Same bloke also says they inject him against his will every night, the staff do,’ Roy said.

‘So that could be as true as the film star relative,’ Mumtaz said.

‘It could,’ Mandy said. ‘But nobody’s going to investigate it.’

‘Because he’s …’

‘A nutter, yes.’

‘We stick around so service users know that someone still cares,’ Roy said. ‘They know Shirley don’t. Well, she might do, but she cares about paying her mortgage more. Nutters might be mad but they ain’t stupid.’

‘No.’ Their candour and apparently absolute trust in her made Mumtaz bold. ‘Do you remember anything about that girl who died? The one who threw herself out of a window?’

‘What, the Asian girl?’ Mandy looked at her with what Mumtaz interpreted as some slight suspicion.

‘I’m not any sort of relative or friend,’ she said. ‘I just remember the story.’

There was a silence. Mumtaz wondered whether she’d gone too far too fast. And then Roy said, ‘She was very pretty. I saw him looking at her.’

‘Dr el Masri?’

‘Yeah. How’d you know?’

‘Because you told me he ogled young girls.’

‘He ogled her.’

‘And …’

‘Just that,’ Roy said. ‘He looked at her.’

‘Do you know why she killed herself?’

Mandy shrugged. ‘No. But she was on fifteen-minute obs, so the staff must’ve been worried about suicide.’

‘Oh my goodness, what have you all been talking about, looking so glum?’

They all looked up as Shirley came into the room.

‘Sorry about that, folks,’ she said. ‘Client on the forensic ward.’

‘What happened?’ Mandy asked.

Shirley sat down at her desk. ‘Oh, someone kicked off the other day and then blamed a member of staff.’

‘Timothy Pool,’ Roy said as a statement of fact rather than a question.

‘Yes,’ Shirley said. ‘But it was groundless. Timothy’s a very good nurse and there was no evidence to support what his accuser had said.’ She smiled. ‘So, how have you three been getting along?’

*

As soon as Tony Bracci opened the front door, the bird went mad.

‘Geoff Hurst! Bobby Moore! Bobby Moore! Bobby Moore! Bobby Moore!’

Lee Arnold, following on behind, shouted, ‘Chronus! Pack it in, for Christ’s sake!’

Tony helped Lee into the living room and sat him down in his chair, which was next to the mynah bird’s perch. Lee looked at the bird and the bird, quiet now his master was at home, looked back at him with rapt attention.

‘You daft bleeder,’ Lee said and then stroked Chronus’s head. If the bird had been a cat he would have purred.

It was only midday and although Lee’s mother had been assured he wouldn’t be leaving the General until that evening, he’d hassled and hassled until his doctor had discharged him. His jaw hadn’t been too badly broken and they’d needed the bed. Tony Bracci had told him to phone whenever he was ready to go home and he’d taken him at his word.

‘I’ll make you a cuppa if you like but then I’ll have to get back to the nick,’ Tony said.

‘Oh, don’t bother with that, Tone, you head off,’ Lee said. ‘Just leave me a couple of fags.’

‘You out?’

‘Susan had me put one of those patches on before I left Southend. It must’ve fallen off when I got me face decorated. Anyway, sod it, I need a fag.’

Tony gave Lee a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. ‘Sure you don’t want a cuppa?’

‘Sure.’

Tony put a hand on Lee’s shoulder. ‘I’ll be back later, mate.’

‘All right. Thanks for everything, Tone.’ He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his iPhone. ‘Specially this.’

A particularly awake plod had found it under the front passenger seat of Lee’s car and had sent it over to Forest Gate nick, care of DS Bracci.

‘Pleasure.’

And then he left.

Lee had a fag, felt a bit sick, put it out, had another one and felt much better. Chronus made small appreciative noises and then crapped on the newspaper below his perch. In spite of an automatic urge to clear it up, Lee found himself drifting off to sleep.

When he woke up his mouth was dry and he had drool on his chin. Desperate for a drink, he began to make his way towards the kitchen. But when he passed the spare bedroom, he stopped. The duvet was creased and the pillows were awry. There was a mug on the floor and it was dirty. Lee bent down to pick it up, felt a bit dizzy and stood up again. He could smell that it’d had coffee in it once. Tony Bracci always drank coffee. Lee shook his head. It wasn’t that he minded that Tony had slept in his flat without asking him, he knew he was unhappy at home, but why hadn’t he mentioned it? Did he think that Lee would mind? Lee felt a little hurt; he’d hoped that Tony had known him better.

Once he’d made himself a cup of tea, Lee went back to the living room and gave Chronus some banana. The bird growled appreciatively. Lee looked at his miraculously undamaged phone and then selected Barry Barber’s number from his directory. At first he thought it would just ring out but then a familiar voice said, ‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Barry. It’s Lee Arnold.’

There was a pause. ‘Oh.’ Then there was another pause. ‘I’ve had the coppers round,’ he said.

‘About me getting my head kicked in. Yes, I imagine you have.’

‘I don’t know nothing about that. I told them. You never turned up, as far as I was concerned. I waited in the car park and when no one came I went home.’

‘You didn’t notice there was a car still in the car park when you left?’

‘Why would I? People leave their cars there all the time. It’s Dagenham.’

He had a point. Once the home of the Ford car plant, Dagenham was one of the most car-dense boroughs in London and people parked where they could.

‘Well, anyway,’ Lee said. ‘You told me you had something to pass on about Phil Rivers.’

‘Yeah. I’m back at the pub next Sunday so if you—’

‘Barry, I’m not being funny but to say I’m not in a hurry to go back to Dagenham is a bit of an understatement. Know what I mean?’

‘Oh.’ Barry Barber did another one of his silences.

‘Tell me what you know about Phil now,’ Lee said.

Still nothing.

‘Barry?’

Lee heard him sigh and then he said, ‘Just a minute.’

The sound of a door closing. Barry lowered his voice. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘Phil was, is, whatever, an iron.’

‘He’s homosexual?’

‘Unless you can think of anything else that rhymes with iron hoof.’

A lot of gay men were into body-building. Still, Lee needed to press the point. ‘He was married. To a woman.’

‘So was Elton John. Get real,’ Barry said.

‘Does his wife know?’

‘Course not!’

‘So how do you know?’

‘How’d’ya think?’

It all became clear. The meeting in the middle of the night at Barry’s place of work, the reluctance to talk on the phone.

‘You’re …?’

‘We had a thing for about six months, years ago,’ Barry said. ‘I’ve got Janice and the kids now. For me it was just …’

‘An experiment?’

The silence again and then he said, ‘More’n that, but … Long time ago. I don’t feel that way no more. It was just Phil, see. No other men.’

‘And Phil?’