Poisoned Ground: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 3) (30 page)

Mumtaz Hakim had been and gone and now they were on to the tough stuff. A body matching Dr el Masri’s description had been found in the Royal Albert Dock at first light, wedged against the side of the airport runway. Now Tony Bracci had to find out how it had got there. Mumtaz Hakim said Mr Reginald Cotton had pushed him in. According to the hospital, Dr Golding was still too sick to question. He’d gone into what they called a ‘fugue state’ which meant that he couldn’t talk. Or wouldn’t. Mr Reginald Cotton, consultant psychiatrist, on the other hand, was as cool and collected as his expensive solicitor and had already discharged himself from hospital. This interrogation was going to be a challenge. Tony knew that Vi would have loved it.

He sat down next to DC Rock, acknowledged the brief, who he didn’t know, and then looked at Cotton. Tall and thin, he was the kind of middle-aged man some people described as ‘distinguished’. For a moment Cotton didn’t acknowledge him. He stared at Rock instead. If Tony hadn’t spoken would he ever have looked at him? Tony asked him his name, his age and his profession. Cotton answered in a clear, confident voice.

‘What is your relationship to Dr Ragab el Masri?’ Tony asked.

‘He’s a colleague.’

Tony hadn’t told Cotton that el Masri’s body had been found.
It was interesting that he was talking about the Egyptian in the present tense.

‘He’s been at Ilford for ten years now,’ Cotton continued.

‘And how do you find him? As a colleague?’

‘He’s good at his job. Patients like him. He’s rather too fond of the ladies …’

‘What do you mean?’

Cotton smiled. ‘I mean he appreciates a pretty woman,’ he said. ‘What I’m not saying is that Dr el Masri has behaved inappropriately towards women, to my knowledge.’

‘What about a girl called Sara Ibrahim? She committed suicide back in March last year. She was one of Dr el Masri’s patients, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what kind of relationship did el Masri have with her?’

‘Professional, I imagine. What’s that got to do with what happened last night?’

‘Last night? I don’t know,’ Tony said. ‘But then what did happen last night, Mr Cotton?’

Cotton turned to his brief. They had a short whispered conversation and then Cotton said, ‘No comment.’

Once again Cotton was being predictable. Cool and controlled. But then what was he supposed to say? He’d been found in what had been very unusual circumstances with a colleague, a man drugged out of his mind on psychiatric medication and a woman who was making some serious accusations against him. Then there was el Masri’s body – and something else, too.

‘We found something interesting in the Albert Dock this morning,’ Tony said.

He watched as Cotton’s face reddened. Inside Tony smiled. Just like Vi always said, keep ’em scared for as long as you can.

Cotton and his lawyer had a short, whispered conversation.

The brief said, ‘My client would like to know what this “something” you have found is.’

‘Sara Ibrahim was pregnant when she died,’ Tony said. ‘Know that, did you, Mr Cotton?’

Cotton’s lawyer looked at him but the psychiatrist turned away.

‘You must’ve known,’ Tony said. ‘Being the chief consultant psychiatrist.’

‘How do you know about this allegation?’

Cotton sounded more lawyer-like than most briefs Tony knew.

‘I don’t think it’s just an allegation,’ Tony said.

‘Did that woman, that advocate—’

‘Mrs Hakim.’

Cotton frowned.

‘Mumtaz Huq to you,’ Tony said. ‘Yes, she mentioned it, but if you think it’s just her word against yours then you’re wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve got a team searching el Masri’s office right now. Know what we’re looking for?’ Tony said.

Cotton did not respond.

‘Well, it’s not a drug called Largactil, cos we got a lot of that from the old Gallions Hotel. Oh, and some methadone, too,’ Tony said. ‘No, what we’re looking for in el Masri’s office is a test result.’

‘What test result?’

‘DNA,’ Tony said. ‘A DNA test was done on Sara Ibrahim’s unborn child after her death.’

‘Is that what the advocate woman, whoever she is, said?’

‘Yup,’ Tony said. ‘But I’m not just taking her word against
yours, Mr Cotton. You know, bit of advice, when you throw a woman’s handbag into a body of water you really want to weight it down.’

The psychiatrist’s face drained.

*

A woman in a long brown coat and flat shoes walked up to the front door holding a plastic folder. She rang the bell. Rashida felt sick. She and Zizi were going to have to go with this woman. She heard MJ’s mum let her in and offer her a cup of tea. But the woman declined.

She said, ‘I’d like to see Rashida and Zizi.’

She sounded business-like. She sounded as if she’d have no problem with putting them into a care home.

Rashida’s phone rang. It was her mother.

‘Bring your sister home now and we will talk no more about this,’ she said.

‘Will you still take us to Cairo?’ Rashida said.

‘I have booked flights.’

‘I can’t marry Cousin Anwar and I can’t let you do that terrible thing to Zizi,’ Rashida said. ‘I don’t care if it’s the right thing. I nearly died. How can Allah want that? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘If you don’t come back you will die!’ Salwa hissed.

Rashida felt her heart jolt.

‘You’ve dishonoured your family,’ her mother said. ‘You know what that means.’

She’d heard the stories all her life. Of girls in Port Said, Alexandria, Luxor – killed for smiling at a boy. Sometimes they weren’t even guilty. Sometimes there was just a rumour put about by
jealous old women or men whom the girls had spurned. But the girls had still died. Rashida’s family were going to get her.

Then, although it made her voice shake as she spoke, she told her mother, ‘Leave us alone or I’ll tell the police what I found in Baba’s lock-up.’

For a moment there was nothing but silence. Rashida said, ‘You know what that was, don’t you, Omy? And you know what people do with that? They make bombs. They make bombs exactly like the bomb they found in Baba’s locker at the hospital. The one he made.’

‘What bomb?’

Rashida looked up. The woman in the long brown coat was standing next to MJ’s mum, looking concerned.

‘What bomb, Rashida?’ the woman reiterated.

And then Rashida had to make a choice.

*

Not even Lee’s mother was allowed to be with him. His ex-wife had been told that she shouldn’t bring their daughter up to London to see her dad. Lee needed to be calm and the monitoring regime he was under was full-on.

‘They check him every fifteen minutes,’ the constable who’d been stationed outside ITU said. ‘It’s the first two days what are crucial, so they tell me.’

Mumtaz hadn’t been able to get close to a doctor or a nurse to ask how Lee was doing. Only Constable Wallace would speak to her.

‘He’s had this psychiatric drug overdose …’

‘Largactil.’

‘Killed a boy who had the same thing,’ Wallace said. ‘Died last night.’

Mumtaz couldn’t think of the lad’s real name. Amy had called him ‘Puffy’ – Antoni Brzezinski’s friend. She knew he’d taken drugs but she hadn’t known it had been Largactil. He must have got it from el Masri’s flat. Unless more than one person was doling out psychiatric drugs from a flat in Gallions Reach. She wondered whether the police had got Antoni to identify Butrus el Masri as the one who had taken them all there. DS Bracci had told her he was dead now too. How had that happened?

‘I wanted to show Lee this picture,’ Mumtaz said. She took Phil Rivers’ photograph out of her bag.

‘Who’s he?’

‘A missing person we were engaged to find,’ she said. ‘I saw him at Gallions Reach last night. He was in the crowd of locals who came to see what was going on.’

‘I don’t know him,’ Wallace said. ‘And you can’t give this to Mr Arnold now. If the guy’s a misper, you could hand it over down the station.’

‘The client Mr Arnold was working for didn’t want the police involved.’

‘And what if Mr Arnold dies?’

Mumtaz put the photograph back in her bag. She didn’t like the old grey handbag she’d had to dig out but she’d had no choice. Her real bag was with the police who’d be holding on to it for some time to come.

‘Yes, but Lee won’t die, will he?’ she said. Unless Allah willed he would, and there was always peace in acceptance. Except that didn’t apply now.

‘No,’ Wallace said. ‘DI Collins is back to work tomorrow and Mr Arnold’s a mate of her’s, isn’t he? She doesn’t allow dying when she likes someone.’

*

Tony saw Vi through the window in her office door when he left the interview room to go for a break. He went straight in. ‘What you doing here?’ he said without preamble.

‘Nice to see you too, Tone,’ Vi rasped.

Tony sat down. ‘Sorry, guv. Thought you weren’t back until tomorrow. How are you?’

‘I’ve had me throat cut, how do you think?’

Tony looked at the floor.

Vi laughed. ‘Oh, I’m OK,’ she said. ‘Just pulling your chain. Why I’m here is because of your fun and games down at Gallions Reach last night. What’s all this about drugs?’

‘Guv, you do know that you’re not insured to be here until tomorrow, don’t you?’

‘Fuck off and answer my question,’ she said.

‘Well if I’m gonna do that, I’ll need a fag,’ Tony said. ‘I’m in the middle of interviewing some up-his-own-arse psychiatrist and I’m on a break. Can we go outside?’

Vi got her coat and they both went out into the freezing car park. They both lit up.

‘You supposed to be smoking, guv?’ Tony knew the answer and when she just looked at him he shut up.

‘So what’s the story?’ she said.

‘A kid got taken to hospital with a drug overdose,’ he said. ‘Word was the narcs, psychiatric stuff, come out of a flat down Gallions. So I got an obbo approved. That was yesterday night. So we get in position and then suddenly there’s Mumtaz Hakim’s girl, Shazia, wandering about all on her own. First off I wondered if she was there buying gear herself. But then I saw Arnold’s motor. I got the kid in the van and it turns out Arnold’s in the old Gallions Hotel looking for Mumtaz.’

‘Why did he think she was in there?’

‘Long story short, Mumtaz had been working undercover at Ilford nut-house for the wife of that Egyptian nurse who was supposed to have planted a bomb in his locker. The wife said the real bomber was a doctor called el Masri, another Egyptian, who was also sexually abusing his patients. This el Masri also owned the flat I was watching. So anyway, me, Rock, Rose and a couple of plods ended up in the old Gallions Hotel where we found Arnold holding onto a consultant psychiatrist and Mumtaz screaming about another doctor having just done one away on his toes. This was all down by the Albert Dock. Do you know, guv, the tunnel what used to let passengers get from the hotel to their ships in the old days was still there so …’

‘Tone, this ain’t
Time Team
.’

‘Sorry, guv.’ He took a drag from his cigarette and then took a breath. ‘Mumtaz’s story is that the psychiatrist and this other doctor, Golding, kidnapped her and were gonna kill her because she’d found the body of that Dr el Masri in his office.’

‘These doctors had killed him?’

‘Cotton, the chief consultant, says it wasn’t him. Says he don’t know how el Masri died. Golding, the other one, is still in hospital, won’t speak. He’s due to be assessed by a psych himself this afternoon.’

Vi, smoking, frowned. ‘This ain’t really going in my head. Was it Golding who buggered off?’

‘Yeah. While we was off looking for him, Golding come back to get Cotton and it was him, we think, who injected Lee Arnold with something called Largactil, a psychiatric …’

‘Yeah, yeah. So how did you catch him?’

‘We didn’t,’ Tony said. ‘Mumtaz did. She kicked Golding’s head so hard she knocked him out.’

Vi leant against the station wall. ‘Fuck me.’

‘I know.’ He shrugged. ‘We found Largactil in Gallions Hotel and methadone, all done up in fertilizer sacks. We also found more at el Masri’s flat. And the dead body of el Masri’s nephew.’

‘Fuck. And I heard a stiff was took out of the Albert Dock this morning?’ Vi said.

‘We think that’s el Masri,’ Tony said. ‘He’d had his throat cut. Just like you.’

‘Fuck,’ she said again. ‘So which of the doctors did that and why?’

‘Not sure. Could’ve been Cotton or Golding,’ Tony said. ‘Why? Drugs. At the moment we’ve got drugs, we’ve got doctors, we’ve got a bomber who’s in prison and we’ve also got intel on a dead girl who may or may not have been made pregnant by someone at the hospital. That’s what Mumtaz Hakim says she’d found out when she went to Dr el Masri’s office and found his corpse in a cupboard.’

‘Which was when Cotton and the other bloke kidnapped her?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So I repeat, Tone, what’s it all about? At bottom?’ Vi said. ‘Drugs? Pregnant girls? A bomb?’

‘All of the above,’ Tony said.

‘And what about Lee Arnold?’ Vi asked. ‘He’d had some of this drug or …’

‘He’s in the General, guv,’ Tony said. ‘He’s holding his own. But the kid who originally took the drug died last night. It’s evil stuff. In overdose it can knacker your heart, your breathing, everything.’

‘Have you been able to visit him?’

‘No. He’s in ITU,’ Tony said. ‘If he makes it past tomorrow he’ll be on the home straight but until then he has to be left alone.’

‘OK.’ She looked grave for a moment. She put her fag out, then lit another.

‘Mumtaz Hakim gave a statement this morning,’ Tony said. ‘She claims Cotton threw her handbag, containing the medical records she’d got about the dead pregnant patient up at Ilford, into the docks. Whoever threw it, we got it back. It was floating on the water.’

‘Benefits of a good handbag. You looked at these records?’

‘They’d been tampered with.’

‘How?’

‘The name of the person who’d ordered observations on the kid had been altered. She was on suicide watch. She was pregnant when she killed herself and someone ordered a post-mortem DNA test on the foetus.’