Poisoned Ground: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 3) (31 page)

‘So who tampered with the records and what were the results of the DNA test?’

‘Where suicide watch observations had been ordered, someone, presumably el Masri himself, had scrubbed out Nurse el Shamy’s name and replaced it with his own. But the DNA test results are missing,’ Tony said. ‘I’ve got a team up at Ilford going through el Masri’s office looking for them.’

‘You think he was the daddy?’

‘Can’t think why he might have ordered and then hidden DNA results if he wasn’t. But then why put his name on the girl’s records like that? I’d’ve thought that if he had sex with her he’d want to distance himself from her. Especially seeing as she topped herself.’

Vi shook her head. ‘There ain’t half a lot you don’t know, Tone.’

He looked down at the ground. She was always light on compliments.

Then Vi pushed herself off the wall and smiled. ‘Well, a lot for me to do tomorrow,’ she said. ‘In the morning, I want to know how far you’ve got with this Cotton and whether Dr Golding has spoken. If he hasn’t I’ll have to go and have a word. Oh, and Tone, I’ll want to see Mumtaz too. What did she think she was doing working for the wife of a terrorist?’

‘It was a job.’

‘Will I be able to talk to Lee Arnold tomorrow?’

‘Don’t know, guv. Doubt it.’

Then Tony’s mobile went off. He answered it and frowned.

*

Rashida got her key out. As the door to the lock-up opened, two police officers moved forward.

‘It’s bags of fertilizer,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if he’s got what you need to make it into a bomb. My dad’s not a bad person.’ Tears built up in her eyes.

A team of people in white hooded suits, their feet covered in plastic shoe protectors, went in and put the light on. Rashida moved closer to Mrs Sidney, the social worker. She’d turned out to be a nice woman and she said, ‘You know you did the right thing, Rashida.’

But Rashida couldn’t answer. She hadn’t. She’d betrayed her own father and now he would be in prison for ever.

A police constable and one of the white-suited figures walked towards her carrying a bag of fertilizer. ‘Is this what you saw?’ he asked her.

‘Yes.’

The policeman said to Mrs Sidney. ‘You can take her away now. That’s all we needed.’

He turned to go.

‘What’ll happen to my dad?’ Rashida asked.

The policeman looked back. ‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘This is your dad’s lock-up. If it’s his stuff …’ He shrugged. ‘We’re gonna have to ask your mum, aren’t we?’

Rashida cried.

*

‘You used to employ a man called Hatem el Shamy as a nurse,’ Tony said.

‘Yes,’ Cotton replied.

‘An Egyptian, he had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. A homemade bomb was found in his locker at Ilford Hospital.’

‘That’s right.’

Tony looked down at his notes. ‘You reported the device to the police station at Ilford High Road.’ He looked up. ‘Who told you about it?’

‘Someone heard ticking in the locker room. I narrowed it down to el Shamy’s locker.’

‘Who heard ticking?’ Tony said.

‘I don’t remember now,’ Cotton said. ‘Probably another nurse.’

‘When you gave your statement to Ilford police you said that you noticed the ticking yourself. You didn’t mention no third party.’

‘Then maybe I forgot.’

‘Or you were protecting someone?’

‘Protecting who? And why?’ Cotton said. ‘God Almighty, something was ticking in a nurse’s locker, I was a little preoccupied at the time. I can’t remember chapter and verse. And anyway, what has this got to do with why I’m still here?’

Tony smiled. ‘Bear with me,’ he said. ‘Just to get things straight,
someone told you that there was a ticking sound coming from a locker in the locker room.’

‘Yes.’

‘You went and you tracked the sound to Hatem el Shamy’s locker.’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you know it was his locker?’

‘I recognized the number,’ Cotton said.

‘How? You’ve got to have at least fifty nurses, care assistants and cleaners up at your place. How’d you know it was his locker?’

Cotton sighed. ‘Because, as you said yourself, Detective Sergeant, Hatem was a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. He could be vocal about it at times and I knew that he approved of the notion of
jihad
, dying for God. I made it my business to know as much as I could about him.’

‘So why’d you employ him?’

‘I didn’t,’ Cotton said. ‘That was my predecessor, Mr Singh.’

‘So you distrusted Hatem el Shamy’s politics. Why didn’t you bring him to the attention of the police?’

‘For what? Saying he approved of the Muslim Brotherhood? Don’t we allow free speech any more?’

‘You know what I mean,’ Tony said. ‘Then he set a bomb, didn’t he?’

‘Yes.’

‘Except that he says he never done it. He’s always said he was fitted up. And because of their differences of politics he has pointed the finger at Ragab el Masri.’

‘El Masri is a Coptic Christian and el Shamy is a Muslim,’ Cotton said. ‘It is well known they didn’t get on.’

‘Yeah, but why would Dr el Masri fit el Shamy up?’ Tony asked.
‘That seems like a lot of effort to go to just to get rid of someone you could sack.’

Cotton didn’t say anything.

Tony put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. ‘Unless it wasn’t about politics or religion,’ he said. He put the plastic bag on the table. It contained a small packet and a bottle of liquid. ‘Largactil tablets and methadone,’ he said. ‘Just like we found in Gallions.’

‘Where’d you get that?’ Cotton asked.

‘From a lock-up in Manor Park,’ Tony said.

Again, Cotton said nothing.

‘Rented out to Nurse Hatem el Shamy. His daughter took our officers there,’ Tony said. ‘Packed out with bags of fertilizer, wood chips, plant food, it was. The el Shamys’ garden’s about the size of a postage stamp and looks like shit. So did Hatem have a little business on the side involving horticulture? You and I know he didn’t. And do you know what? What el Shamy also didn’t have was anything else you need to make a fertilizer bomb, like diesel and detonators. What was in the bags was drugs, not fertilizer. Just like the drugs we found in other bags down at Gallions Reach last night, in the old pub rented out by Dr el Masri. Hatem el Shamy was selling psychiatric drugs, wasn’t he, Mr Cotton?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Of course you know,’ Tony said. ‘And if you don’t then you’re a shit director of your hospital. You, el Masri, Nurse el Shamy and possibly Dr Golding were selling drugs – psych drugs – weren’t you?’

Cotton looked down at the floor.

‘Mr Cotton,’ Tony said, ‘we are going to go through your
hospital and its accounts like a dose of the clap. And, by the way, you can stop all this pretending-Dr-el-Masri’s-still-alive pony, because we found his body in the Albert Dock this morning when we found Mrs Hakim’s handbag. He’d had his throat cut.’

‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘So why were you at the Albert last night and why did Mrs Hakim tell us that you tried to kill her?’

‘She has a bee in her bonnet about the Ibrahim girl,’ Cotton said.

‘Does she? Odd that, because I know for a fact that Mumtaz Hakim is actually a private detective …’

‘What! That—’

‘Covered woman? Yeah,’ Tony said. ‘Check your prejudice, Mr Cotton. She’s worked with us once or twice too. And believe me, you don’t want to give her any sort of mystery to solve because she don’t have a stop lever, if you know what I mean. Mrs Hakim was employed by Hatem el Shamy’s wife to try and find out if Dr el Masri fitted her old man up. Story Mrs el Shamy tells has Ragab el Masri abusing his patients. Hatem found out, so Salwa el Shamy says, and Dr el Masri set the bomb in the locker to shut the nurse up.’

‘That’s preposterous!’

‘Yes, I think so too,’ Tony said. ‘But I think it might have a bit of truth in it. This is only a little about sex and a lot about drugs. As you yourself told Mrs Hakim, what you and your mates have been up to is all about business.’

*

DC Leela Rose discovered the document in an envelope in a desk drawer in Ragab el Masri’s study at his home. A DNA profile of a foetus, it wasn’t alone. With it was another profile of a male
Egyptian, aged fifty, who may or may not have been el Masri. She called DC Rock over.

‘Look at this,’ she said.

‘What am I looking at?’ Rock asked.

‘DNA profiles. They look different to you?’

Rock shrugged. ‘This what we’ve been looking for?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then it’s a result, well done,’ he said.

She called over one of the scenes of crime officers and gave the evidence to him.

It was a new day and Lee Arnold had made it through the night. Vi even waved to him as she passed by the door to the ITU. Oxygen mask still on, he waved back.

Vi followed Tony to the side room where a bored-looking plod tried to snap to attention as she passed.

‘Golding’s physically all right and the psych who saw him yesterday reckons he’s faking all this “fugue” pony,’ Tony said.

‘So I just need to frighten the bejesus out of him,’ Vi said.

She pushed the door open and saw a good-looking, dark-haired young man lying on a hospital bed. As she walked over and sat down beside him, his eyes rolled.

‘Fucking hell,’ Vi said. ‘I would’ve thought that as a psychiatrist you’d be able to fake being mad a bit better than that. But maybe you’re a bad actor.’

He said and did nothing.

‘So I suppose I’ll just have to talk to you and hope you’re listening. At least I’ll’ve done my duty,’ Vi said. ‘Now, your old colleague Dr el Masri is dead. Someone cut his throat and your boss, Mr Cotton, says he don’t know who that might be. But know what I reckon? The three of you had a falling out over the drugs you’d been ripping off from Ilford Hospital. There was some sort of altercation, which left you and Cotton with the job of disposing
of el Masri’s body in the Albert Dock. Sadly for you, an advocate at Ilford saw you and so you took her to the Albert Dock too, with the intention of killing her as well. But she had a friend who tracked her down. You or Cotton managed to put her friend, Mr Arnold, in ITU here at the General, but you didn’t kill him and so it’s all gone a bit tits-up for you, hasn’t it, David? I mean, when I do get to speak to Mr Arnold I wonder what he’ll say? Someone gave him a big dose of psych drugs. But only you, Mr Cotton and Mr Arnold were there when that happened. And Cotton ain’t talking.’

‘That’s the shortened version,’ Vi continued. ‘If I told you we don’t now believe Nurse Hatem el Shamy planted a bomb in his own locker, we’d be here all day. Suffice to say, old son, you’re in a bit of bother and your boss ain’t gonna be in your corner when push comes to shove. Know what I mean?’ She stood up. ‘I’m gonna sod off now and give you a bit of time to think about that and then I’ll be back and maybe you’ll’ve stopped pretending you’re a RADA drop-out. Come on, Tone.’

They left. David Golding rolled his eyes and lolled out his tongue.

*

Lee’s mother, as his next of kin, knew about her son’s condition. But Mumtaz wasn’t so sure whether his girlfriend, Susan, knew. She hadn’t phoned the office and she didn’t know whether she’d tried to ring Lee’s mobile. Shazia had told her to forget about it. But she couldn’t.

Susan had just got up. ‘Hello?’ she said wearily.

‘Hello, Susan, it’s Mumtaz Hakim, Lee’s business partner,’ Mumtaz said.

‘Oh.’

‘I’m afraid I have to tell you that Lee is in hospital again,’ she said. ‘I can’t give you any more details than that but he is making a recovery, and hopefully you will be able to visit him in the next couple of days.’

There was a pause and then Susan said, ‘I’m sorry to hear he’s not well. But Lee won’t want me visiting him.’

‘I’m sure he will,’ Mumtaz said. ‘When the doctor says he can have visitors. Not even his mother has seen him yet.’

‘Have you seen him?’

‘Me? Only through a window,’ Mumtaz said. ‘He’s in ITU. But when he gets out we’ll all be able to see him. I’ll let you know as soon as they tell me.’

Again there was another pause. Susan said, ‘Better not.’

‘Better not?’

‘Me and Lee are over,’ Susan said.

‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t know.’

‘Too unimportant to tell you.’ Susan barked a bitter little laugh.

‘I’m sure that’s not so,’ Mumtaz said.

‘I’m sure it is. But anyway, thanks for letting me know. Oh, and tell Lee that Kenny Rivers has been taken into a hostel so he’s not wandering the streets any more.’

‘I will.’

‘Thanks. Oh, and Mumtaz, look after Lee, won’t you?’ Susan said.

The way she said it made Mumtaz feel awkward.

‘Because he really rates you,’ Susan said. ‘I wish he’d rated me half as much. But he was never going to.’

And then she ended the call. Mumtaz felt uncomfortable. What had Susan meant? They got on well together and she knew that Lee cared about her. But ‘rating’ seemed to imply something
else, something she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with. She distracted herself looking at Phil Rivers’ photograph again and wondering when Lee would be strong enough to hear her story about him. In the meantime, she was going to go back to Gallions and see if she could spot him again. But that was after her appointment at Forest Gate police station. Vi Collins was back and she wanted to see her.

*

The email was as clear as glass.

‘Hatem el Shamy was the father of Sara Ibrahim’s foetus,’ Tony Bracci told Vi Collins. ‘I thought it was gonna be Dr el Masri. But the DNA results were run through the National DNA Database and up came el Shamy.’

Vi shook her head. ‘The wife’ll take it hard,’ she said.

‘Did she know that her old man had drugs in his lock-up?’

‘She knew he had a lock-up and she suspected he was storing fertilizer but that was OK with her apparently,’ Vi said. ‘Go fucking figure? On the one hand, she’s hiding her old man’s John Innes number four, and on the other she’s employing Lee Arnold’s firm to prove his innocence.’

‘Fanatics, guv.’

‘Also human beings,’ Vi said. ‘Her husband’s inside, of course she’s gonna try and prove his innocence. But I’ve got less sympathy over what she wanted to do to her kids.’

Tony grimaced. Both el Shamy girls were temporarily in care. Their mother had wanted to take them both to Egypt, marry one off and circumcise the other.

‘Why would Dr el Masri plant a bomb in el Shamy’s locker?’ Tony said. ‘Still doesn’t make sense. If el Shamy was the father of that girl’s baby he could’ve just sacked him.’

‘He could,’ Vi said. ‘Unless el Shamy knew something about the doctor he didn’t want broadcast. Like his drug-dealing. El Masri did change Sara Ibrahim’s medical records to show that he and not Hatem el Shamy had put the girl on fifteen-minute obs at the end of her life. That would seem to suggest that el Masri was trying to distance el Shamy from Sara. I wonder if el Shamy blackmailed el Masri into doing that. If el Shamy threatened to tell all about el Masri’s drug dealing?’

‘But el Shamy was dealing drugs too.’

‘We don’t know that,’ Vi said. ‘He had drugs in his lock-up, but maybe he was just the warehouse man. If we could get him to talk that would help, but he won’t. Just like Golding.’

‘That copper Lee Arnold had dealings with down in Southend said they had intel that more psych meds than ever were coming into their manor. Some of the big gangs out there are into them. That stuff’s getting popular.’

‘Methadone’s always been top ten,’ Vi said. ‘But Largactil’s relatively new on the scene. Cheap-ish, and it’s usually safer than the so-called legal highs.’

‘Unless you’re a kid called Puffy.’

‘And you can’t get done for being in possession of prescribed meds, especially if they’ve got your name on on the box.’

‘So we just have to prove that the doctors and their mates were shifting the stuff.’

‘Yeah, but we’ve yet to get any evidence from the hospital,’ Vi said. ‘Cotton was probably over-ordering medication to supply, but we don’t know that for sure yet.’

They were interrupted by Mumtaz Hakim entering their office.

Vi got them all the best tea the machine in the corridor could make (if you gave it a kicking) and asked Mumtaz what the hell
she thought she’d been doing working for Salwa el Shamy. Tony wanted to hide under his desk.

‘She had a compelling story about Dr el Masri sexually abusing his patients. According to Salwa, el Masri wanted Hatem to join in but he wouldn’t. Hatem el Shamy was a good nurse and so el Masri had to frame him to get him out of the hospital,’ Mumtaz said.

‘So why didn’t Hatem just grass up el Masri when he was arrested?’

‘Because, according to Salwa, he was shamed by what el Masri had done and didn’t want his name associated with it. Some very pious people can seem to go against logic when it comes to things like this,’ she said. ‘To be fair, when I started working at Ilford I did hear stories about Dr el Masri drooling over young women.’

‘But not sexually abusing them?’

‘Not as such but …’

‘Hatem el Shamy was the father of Sara Ibrahim’s foetus,’ Vi said.

For a moment Mumtaz didn’t look as if she understood.

‘I’ve got an email,’ Tony said. ‘From the DNA Database. It’s kosher.’

‘But then why did el Masri change those observation details on Sara’s records?’ Mumtaz said. ‘Why did he try and protect Hatem?’

‘Maybe they were friends after all,’ Vi said.

‘But then who set the bomb?’

Vi leant back in her chair. ‘Who indeed? Mumtaz, this isn’t about friends or sex it’s about drugs. Cotton, el Masri, Hatem el Shamy and Golding were all into making money from psychiatric drugs. We found drugs in Gallions Hotel, we found them at
el Masri’s flat and in Hatem el Shamy’s lock-up. I don’t know who set that bomb at the hospital but I do know it wasn’t anything to do with terrorism. Mr Cotton’s been a hard nut to crack so far and Dr Golding, well, he won’t speak.’

Tony said, ‘He just lays on his bed like a corpse.’

‘I’ve a feeling he’ll crack soon,’ Vi said.

Tony frowned. ‘Any evidence except your gut for that, guv?’ he said.

‘No,’ Vi said. ‘I just think it’ll be soon.’ Her phone rang. The voice at the other end sounded hysterical.

Vi said, ‘All right. I’ll be down. Don’t leave him.’

Then she ended the call.

‘What’s up, guv?’

Vi stood up. ‘Mr Cotton has collapsed,’ she said.

*

Her amma’s cousin, Aftab, was a nice man. Amma’s family were the sort of people who respected hard work and sacrifice. Aftab Huq was the epitome of that. He ran a shop, had put two of his three daughters through university and looked after his disabled wife. He also smoked like a bonfire and sounded as if he was from a 1960s British film about chirpy Cockneys.

He drove Shazia back to the house in Forest Gate and had a look at the amount of stuff he’d have to shift at the weekend. He shook his head. ‘This’ll take some doing,’ he said. ‘What’s in these boxes?’

Shazia shrugged. ‘Stuff.’

‘What?’

‘Books, kitchen things, clothes. All sorts.’

Aftab tried to lift one box and then gave up. ‘You sure you ain’t got car parts or nothing in these crates?’

‘No.’

Shazia hadn’t been back since the night before last and she could see that there was still some packing to be done. Amma was with the police for the moment and so she was on her own with it.

‘I’ll have to get Uncle Baharat to give us a hand,’ Aftab said. ‘I’ve got George, me cleaner, signed up. You know George Ferguson, Shazia?’

‘No.’ She’d started looking out of the window, where she saw a familiar car.

‘Had a trial for West Ham back in the fifties,’ Aftab said. ‘In goal. Got six fingers on each hand, see, which is a bit tasty when it comes to being in goal.’

‘Cousin Aftab …’

‘Yes, babe.’ He walked over to her.

The familiar car had now disgorged its driver, who was also familiar.

‘What you looking at?’

‘That man,’ Shazia said. ‘I’ve seen him before. He sometimes sits outside the house in that car.’

Aftab wiped his glasses on his trousers and put them on. He squinted. ‘I think that’s Naz Sheikh,’ he said.

‘You know him?’

‘I know of him,’ Aftab said. ‘Thanks be to Allah that I don’t know him.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the Sheikhs are gangsters,’ Aftab said. ‘The father’s a psycho, then there’s two brothers, Naz and whatever the other one’s called. They’ll pull your fingernails out for the price of a packet of cigs. Do you know why Naz Sheikh’s been hanging about here?’

‘No,’ she said. She felt cold. She kind of did know. Amma had been talking to him. But what about?

‘Keep away from Naz Sheikh,’ Aftab said. ‘Him and his lot are bad news. Especially if you’re Bengali. They prey on their own, that lot. Bastards, if you’ll excuse my French.’

*

Cotton was unconscious and Vi was beside herself.

‘You know if we don’t stop sending these sods up to the General, they’ll stop taking them.’

She knew that Tony Bracci was ignoring her, but she carried on. ‘I wonder what’s wrong with him? Cotton? Out like a fucking light …’

Her phone rang.

‘If Cotton’s brief’s had an aneurism in the car park, I’m handing in me cards.’ Then she laughed. ‘Cotton, brief, get it?’ She picked up the phone. ‘DI Collins.’

Ten minutes later, Tony Bracci had gone out to Ilford Hospital and Vi had Salwa el Shamy in her office. Vi told her about her husband and Sara Ibrahim.

‘No, it wasn’t Hatem who raped that girl!’ Salwa said. ‘It was el Masri!’

Vi knew it would be hard for her, but she hadn’t reckoned on the screaming. Coppers outside the glass walls of her office stared.

Vi kept calm. ‘Dr el Masri may have had sex with that girl, and others too, for all I know,’ she said. ‘But the genetic tests on Sara Ibrahim’s baby show that your husband was its father.’

‘But it can’t be! Hatem is a good man, a pious man!’

‘Mrs el Shamy, you’re gonna have to accept that your husband might have lied to you,’ Vi said.

‘He didn’t.’

There was no point contradicting her. Vi said, ‘Your husband and Dr el Masri didn’t get on. Your husband is a Muslim, el Masri was a Christian who supported the regime of President Mubarak, who suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood. I don’t yet know if Dr el Masri did sexually abuse any of his patients. But what I do know is that your husband, el Masri and some other doctors at Ilford have been selling psychiatric drugs outside the hospital.’

Tony had been called over to Ilford because there was now some information on their drug-ordering procedures. Mr Cotton had been over-ordering and there was evidence that a whole group of fictitious patients were registered. Mumtaz Hakim had said in her statement she’d noticed some of the patients on the chronic ward didn’t seem very well medicated. So Cotton and Co. had been skimming off the top of their prescriptions, too.