Poisoned Ground: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 3) (33 page)

‘What’s he got to do with this?’

‘Butrus knows – knew – how to build a bomb. He’d learnt when he was in the army,’ Golding said. ‘And el Masri and Mr Cotton wanted one of those.’

‘To put in Hatem el Shamy’s locker?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Mr Cotton is a very clever man. He knew he couldn’t sack el Shamy because if he was going back to Egypt then why not tell the authorities here what Cotton and el Masri had been up to before he went? He could say they’d forced him to store the drugs for them. El Shamy had to be destroyed and the only way to do that was to implicate him in a terrorist offence.’

‘So Cotton and the rest of you risked blowing up the hospital …’

‘Not me,’ Golding said. ‘I wasn’t involved then. And if you’re wondering why el Shamy didn’t just shop everyone to the police when he was arrested, then just consider that, as well as being a bomber, he also had all the drugs in his lock-up. Who would believe anything he said? If he implicated Cotton and el Masri he implicated himself. And he knew that el Masri would also make sure people back home in Egypt knew about his sexual history.
He didn’t just abuse Sara Ibrahim, not according to el Masri. There were others. Radical Muslims hate that stuff.’

‘I’m not keen on sexual abuse meself,’ Tony said. ‘So you had to leave the drugs in el Shamy’s lock-up.’

‘No one could touch them,’ Golding said. ‘And, anyway, a better place was found.’

‘Gallions.’

‘Yes.’

‘Better in what way?’

‘Nobody wants the old hotel. We rented it. El Masri lived in one of the flats overlooking it and it was he who discovered that you could get in and out of the building via an open tunnel from the Albert Dock. Two nights ago was the first time I’d been there, with Mr Cotton.’

‘Did he have a key?’

‘El Masri had keys made.’

‘So why was el Masri killed?’ Tony asked.

‘Because he killed his own nephew, Butrus,’ Golding said. ‘It was an accident, but it threatened everything. El Masri was consumed by fear for the future, just as I was when I put my hands over Mr Arnold’s mouth and nose.’

*

When she saw her husband for the first time in over a year, Sandra Rivers cried. Almost solidified from the cold, Sandra had sat in her car for hours, waiting for a glimpse of Phil. And now, with the sunrise, there he was. The same jaunty, fit young man she’d fallen in love with, he carried a suitcase and, after a few moments, he was joined by someone else. They kissed.

Sandra was so glad to see that Phil was alive that she hardly noticed the other person. But then they stood by the road.
Looking back towards the Gallions roundabout, they were waiting for a taxi.

Between Sandra and Phil and his companion was a large old building on a sort of an island in the middle of the blocks of flats. It looked as if it might have been an old pub or hotel at one time. Sandra didn’t know the Royal Docks very well, all this was new to her. As was Phil.

He kissed the other man again, whose back was towards her, and Sandra couldn’t stand it.

Weeping, she got out of her car and ran towards them. Vast in her Russian mink coat and hat, she saw the look of shock on Phil’s face as she barrelled towards him.

In spite of what he’d done to her, and in spite of the man at his side, she flung her arms around her husband’s neck and said, ‘Oh, I thought you were dead!’

Squeezing him and kissing him, Sandra was barely aware that Phil was almost no longer breathing. Then she saw the face of the man standing beside him and Sandra suddenly disengaged from Phil.

All she said as she looked at him was, ‘You.’

*

‘Butrus el Masri stayed,’ Dr Golding said. ‘He liked London and his uncle promised the kid’s father he’d get him a job. He didn’t, but he did buy him a car and generally spoiled him. Ragab had no children of his own. He cut the boy in.’

‘On the drugs.’

‘Yes.’

‘You lot were about the worst drug dealers going,’ Tony said. ‘Nobody ever tell you, you use a small core group and keep schtum when it comes to mum, dad, nephew, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.’

‘Well, we’re doctors …’

‘So you shouldn’t’ve decided you wanted to be drug dealers.’

Golding shook his head.

‘Carry on,’ Tony said. He looked at Rock and raised his eyebrows.

‘El Masri couldn’t have his nephew hanging about the hospital and so Butrus spent most of his time around the Royal Docks. He was meant to guard the drugs. But there’s not much to do there for a young man and he got bored. He took to meeting up with some other young men outside some off-licence.’

‘On the dole, were they?’

Golding shrugged. ‘I don’t know. They drank all day, I suppose so. That’s what Ragab finally told Mr Cotton when the whole thing about Butrus finally blew up. Anyway, one day Butrus took these boys back to his uncle’s flat where he thought he’d curry even more favour with them by letting them try out these drugs el Masri was selling.’

‘The boy that took those drugs died.’

‘Oh God.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I knew he was sick …’

‘He died,’ Tony said. ‘Largactil overdose. Just like my mate Lee Arnold. You know? The bloke you tried to smother last night when you were so “afraid”. The bloke you gave an amp to, down by the Albert.’

Golding looked up. ‘That wasn’t me! I just hit him. Cotton injected him. You have to believe me!’

‘Do I? I don’t think so,’ Tony said.

‘I’ve never killed anyone! Anyone! El Masri killed his nephew because he lost his temper with him. He told Cotton that Butrus had said that he was scared and that he was going to tell the police what really happened to that boy. He knew that the bomb he’d planted at the hospital wouldn’t be allowed to go off. But
that boy getting sick, that was too much. From what I can gather about him, Butrus was a swaggering, spoilt young man, but not bad. He felt genuinely distraught about that boy. Butrus tried to leave the flat, but el Masri stood in his way. He knew that when the boy said he’d go to the police, he meant it. They fought and Butrus took a blow to the head that killed him. It was an accident. El Masri was distraught about it. He kept on saying he wished he’d killed himself instead.’ He looked up. ‘But Mr Cotton wasn’t impressed.’

‘What did Cotton do?’

‘When we first found out, Mr Cotton went to see him in his office,’ he said. ‘Words were exchanged. After work the following day he went to see el Masri in his office again. He asked him what he planned to do with his nephew’s body. I was walking to my office when I heard noises.’

‘What noises?’

He shook his head. ‘To me it sounded like strangulation. I went into el Masri’s office. I saw Mr Cotton standing behind him. El Masri was sitting down. Mr Cotton was cutting his throat.’

‘He had a knife with him?’

‘No. It was el Masri’s letter knife. It must’ve hurt.’ He cried.

‘Why’d he do that, Dr Golding? Why’d he kill him? Surely that was just making the situation worse for all of you?’

Golding struggled to get his sobbing under control. When he did, he said, ‘Mr Cotton was furious about Butrus. He thought that el Masri should have just paid the boy and then sent him home after he set the bomb. Now the boy was dead and his body was a problem for all of us. El Masri kept crying and saying he wished he was dead. He didn’t even try to think about how the mess he had created might be contained. Mr Cotton lost control. He said if he wanted to die, he’d fucking kill him.’

‘Then what? What did you do when you saw Cotton killing el Masri?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing? You didn’t try to stop him?’

‘I couldn’t move.’ His body began to shake. ‘I watched him die. It was as if I wasn’t there. And then … And then neither of us said a word except Cotton told me I had to help him move el Masri’s body out of the way, into a cupboard.’

‘Which you did?’

‘Yes. We went to Mr Cotton’s office after that and he gave me a drink.’

‘What sort of drink?’

‘Whisky.’

‘Did you talk about what had just happened?’

‘He did.’

‘What did he say?’

Golding swallowed. ‘He said that el Masri had threatened to give himself up to the police.’

‘Seems to me the English branch of el Masri’s family were keen to speak to us,’ Tony said.

‘El Masri was serious, according to Cotton. He said in the end he was cornered by el Masri and so he had no choice but to kill him.’

‘What do you think, Dr Golding?’

‘About Mr Cotton’s choice? I think it was wrong,’ he said. ‘Even if it meant we all went to prison.’

‘And yet, according to the advocate, Mrs Mumtaz Hakim, you helped Cotton dispose of el Masri’s body. You were well aware of his plan to kill her and you were with Cotton when he, or you, spiked Mr Lee Arnold. Don’t try to kid me you’re a whiter shade
of pale, Dr Golding. You may or may not have killed anyone but you’re either weak or wicked or both.’

Golding began to weep. ‘I’m not wicked. I’m not.’

‘Then weak,’ Tony said. ‘Who was it who said that thing about evil things happening because good men do nothing?’

DC Rock shrugged.

‘So when’d you find Mrs Mumtaz Hakim and how?’ Tony asked.

Through sobs, Golding said, ‘When we went back into el Masri’s office. She had that cupboard door open. Mr Cotton hit her.’

‘Mr Cotton did a lot of violent stuff for a dying man,’ Tony said.

‘He has cancer but he’s not dying, he’s in remission.’

‘Not according to the doctors at Newham General,’ Tony said. ‘According to them he could kark it at any minute. So, Dr Golding, you’d better tell us the truth because you know, us coppers, being a bit simple-minded as we are, we do tend to believe deathbed confessions and the like. So if Mr Cotton points the finger at you on his last breath …’

‘Then he’ll be lying,’ Golding said.

‘I thought people didn’t lie on their deathbeds?’

‘Oh yes they do,’ Golding said. ‘Trust me, I’m a doctor, I know.’

Tony Bracci shook his head. ‘Fucking hell,’ he said to Rock, ‘can you believe he just said that?’

Shazia was still angry with Mumtaz. She’d blatantly lied to her about Naz Sheikh and they both knew it. The night before, over dinner, Shazia had said, ‘Your own cousin, Aftab, told me who he was. And I’ve seen you talking to him!’

‘You’re mistaken, Shazia,’ Mumtaz had said. ‘You must have seen me talking to another young man.’

‘Did I say he was a young man? No,’ Shazia said. ‘How did you know that if you don’t know this gangster boy, Amma?’

‘I assumed …’

‘And how many young men do you talk to in the street? You cover yourself—’

‘Shazia!’ It had been then that Mumtaz had got up from the table. ‘Leave it,’ she’d said. ‘Just leave it.’

But Shazia hadn’t been able to do that. ‘Why?’ she’d said. ‘Is he your boyfriend or …’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Shazia!’

‘So who is he?’ Shazia had screamed. ‘Is he someone else my father owed money to?’

And then she’d seen her amma’s face go white. So it was true. Why hadn’t she told her? And now they hadn’t spoken since, except when they’d had to find change for the hospital car park.

But for the moment Shazia had to forget about that. Lee was
on an ordinary hospital ward now and when she saw him she flung her arms around his neck.

‘Oh blimey, this is a bit of a welcome back to the land of the living,’ he said.

She kissed his cheek.

‘I think I’ll get a mad doctor to inject me with something deadly again.’

‘Don’t you dare!’ she said. She sat down on the chair beside the bed and let her amma shake hands with him.

‘Lee, I am so glad and so relieved,’ Mumtaz said.

Lee patted the bed and said, ‘Sit down, Mumtaz, you’re making the place look untidy.’

She looked a little awkward. Shazia had friends who, like Amma, covered and in her opinion they all needed to get over themselves when it came to men.

But Amma sat, admittedly with her handbag primly on her knees. ‘How are you?’ Mumtaz asked.

‘Rough. But I’ll live,’ he said. ‘They’ve got to do all these heart tests to make sure the ticker’s all right before I leave, and me liver’s a bit damaged. But at least I don’t have to give up drinking, do I?’

‘No.’

‘Got that covered already.’

They all laughed. Then Lee said, ‘So, work …’

‘Work I’ll tell you all about when you’re out of here,’ Mumtaz said. ‘DI Collins will be in to interview you about what happened at Gallions Reach.’

‘Right.’

‘I imagine that you know that the doctors are in custody.’

‘I should hope the one who tried to kill me would be.’

‘A doctor tried to kill you?’ Shazia said. ‘What? In here?’

‘Not one of the hospital doctors! One of those …’ Lee looked at Mumtaz. ‘Have you told her?’

‘Some of it.’

‘One of the doctors at the hospital your mum was working in,’ Lee said.

‘Oh.’

‘Everything is in hand,’ her amma said.

Shazia saw Lee look into her eyes and smile.

‘Mum come in first thing,’ Lee told them.

‘That’s good.’ Mumtaz smiled. ‘Susan sends her regards,’ she said.

Shazia had never met Susan.

‘Oh, good,’ he said. And then he changed the subject. ‘You know, Mumtaz, for some reason I keep on thinking about that Phil Rivers case …’

‘Ah,’ her amma said. ‘I might have some news about that for you …’

*

‘Your mum and your brothers were picked up by the police at Heathrow,’ Mrs Sidney told Rashida. ‘I’m afraid the police are going to want to talk to you again.’

‘What about?’

‘Your father,’ she said.

The father Rashida had betrayed. Separated from Zizi, Rashida was in a young people’s unit full of boys and girls who’d been in care for years. Some of them were OK, but most of them scared her. Some of the girls went with men for sex when they left the building.

‘Is my mum back home again?’ Rashida asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you know when I can go back to my friend MJ’s house?’

She’d been there briefly but she’d liked it so much. And MJ had wanted her to stay. When she’d left they’d all cried, even MJ’s mum.

‘Your friend’s home wasn’t appropriate,’ Mrs Sidney said. ‘Not at the moment.’

‘Why not?’

‘Her mother isn’t a foster carer and she’s not related to you. Also they practice a different religion.’

‘I don’t care,’ Rashida said. ‘I’m a Muslim, they’re Hindus, it doesn’t matter. I know my religion, they won’t stop me. Why would they?’

‘It’s not appropriate,’ Mrs Sidney said.

‘But I hate it here.’

‘You’re safe here.’ She smiled.

Rashida said, ‘No, I’m not. These kids frighten me. And why can’t I go back to my old school?’

The unit was in Hackney, which meant Rashida couldn’t commute back in to Newham to go to school. There was sense in that from the point of view of making a new life in a new place, away from her family. But it made her unhappy. It made her wonder whether what she’d done to free herself and her sister had been worth it. So she wasn’t married? She was driven mad every night by the girls in the next room whispering the word ‘freak’ through the wall.

‘I’d like to see my family,’ Rashida said.

‘I’m sure we can arrange for you to visit your little sister.’

‘I want to see my mum and my brothers too.’

‘And you can visit your brothers.’

But what about her mother? She wasn’t mentioned – except in the context of having been stopped at the airport because the police wanted to speak to her.

‘What’s going to happen to me?’

MJ had always talked about how, when she grew up, they’d go travelling together. They’d visit Peru and see Machu Picchu, go to Cambodia and climb Angkor Wat and they’d roam the Gobi Desert on yaks and sleep in big tents called yurts. There had been nothing they wanted to do that they hadn’t planned in detail.

Mrs Sidney didn’t put her arm around Rashida but she could see that she wanted to. ‘Look, why don’t you write to MJ?’ she said. ‘She has been asking about you. A lot.’

‘Has she?’

‘Yes. If I get you some paper and stamps would you like to do that?’

‘Yes!’

‘Maybe if the Joshis are in agreement we can arrange for a supervised visit,’ Mrs Sidney said. ‘Maybe …’

*

Vi smelt death as soon as she entered the room. It was an old acquaintance. The skinny, yellowing man on the bed was leaving this world. He was also stopping her from visiting Lee Arnold.

‘What do you want, Mr Cotton?’ she said sharply.

The nurse checking Cotton’s chart looked at her as if she’d like to stab her.

Vi didn’t take any notice and sat down. The nurse left.

‘It’s about that deathbed confession.’

When he spoke she could hear the death rattle at the back of his throat. His lungs were flooding. It was a miracle he was even conscious.

‘One of your officers kicked me,’ he said. ‘When I was arrested beside the Albert Dock.’

Vi flinched. ‘I’m sure he had a good reason. That it?’ she said.

‘No. Come closer and I’ll give you something you won’t ignore,’ he said. ‘We’re all corrupt in our own ways, aren’t we, DI Collins? You with your thuggish officers, me, well … Come close. Closer.’

Vi had to make an effort not to shiver. According to Tony Bracci, Dr Golding had come across like a spoilt, thwarted child. Weak and malleable. Mr Cotton was another story.

Working against all her instincts, Vi leant across the dying man’s bed and put her face close to his. His breath smelt of faeces. She felt herself gag.

‘Disgusting, eh?’

She ignored him.

‘You’ve a terrible scar on your neck, DI Collins,’ he said. ‘Someone try to kill you?’

‘Yes, a goitre,’ she said. ‘Now …’

He laughed. It sounded like popping candy in water.

‘Here is my confession,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what Golding has told you, if anything, but let the boy go, he’s a nothing.’

‘He aided and abetted you.’

Cotton breathed and then he said, ‘But he killed nobody. I killed Dr el Masri. That was all me.’

Vi said. ‘He assisted in the abduction of Mrs Hakim.’

‘She’d been poking around all day. She wanted information about Sara Ibrahim.’

‘That was no reason to abduct her.’

‘Maybe not. But I did it. And I injected the private eye with Largactil,’ he said.

Golding hadn’t confessed to that. Was Cotton telling the truth? Why would he lie?

‘You confess to that act?’

But if that was the case then why had Golding tried to kill Lee Arnold on ITU?

‘I do,’ he said.

‘I’m gonna need to get a colleague in here to back this up,’ Vi said. ‘If I don’t I could be accused of making up stories.’

She was about to leave but then a hand that was as thin as it was strong caught her by the throat and pulled her down onto a chest that was caved in with sickness. Suddenly she was afraid.

‘No. There’s no time,’ he said.

Given the strength in his hand she would have begged to differ but she couldn’t speak.

‘Hear what I say because time is very short.’

Again she tried to pull away and again he snatched her back.

He breathed. ‘I know that you’re wondering why I did all those terrible things just to make money to squander. But you see, I didn’t do it just for that reason.’

His fingers around her throat held Vi’s windpipe almost closed. It hurt where she’d been cut. She looked around to see if she could locate an emergency button. She couldn’t.

‘I did what I did because I knew I was dying and I wanted to know what being something I wasn’t was like.’ He breathed again and she heard some organ in his chest squeak. ‘Wicked. I have a ward manager who is wicked, he’s called Mr Pool. Many years ago I tried to stop him tormenting and manipulating his patients, but he always outwitted me. For a quiet life I stopped fighting him and then, one day, I became him. And do you know, DI Collins, for the first time in my life I felt like a man. Successful, feared and never, not for a second, afraid any more. Not even of my illness. When the worst has happened to you then what is there to lose? Bad boys always win in the end.’

He gripped her harder than ever and Vi was convinced that she was going to black out. But then, in a second, all of the strength left him and his hand flopped down onto the bed beside her. After she’d caught her breath and the weird little flashing lights she’d started to get in her eyes when her oxygen had been cut off had receded, she looked at Cotton and knew that he had been right. He had been just about to die and now he had.

But about bad boys, he was wrong. She had to think that way.

*

Mumtaz watched Shazia cross the road and go into college. The girl was still mad at her, but what could she do? And being angry with Cousin Aftab didn’t help. He’d told Shazia who Naz Sheikh was because he’d seen him about and knew him to be a wrong ’un. She was pretty sure he didn’t know about Ahmet’s dealings with that family. What was worrying her was that Shazia was threatening to tell Lee about Naz when he got out of hospital. She looked up at Newham General and then began to walk back to her car.

‘So, moving tomorrow?’

That voice she knew so well. She turned to face him and, as usual, Naz was smiling.

‘Thought we should have a chat before the big day,’ he said. ‘Get our new arrangement crystal clear in our heads.’

‘I thought you were going to do that after I’d moved,’ Mumtaz said. ‘I have to go to Forest Gate police station now.’

‘Ah well, that’s a coincidence then, isn’t it?’

Just looking at him, all jolly and cocky, made her want to do him harm.

‘Why? Are you going there?’

She took her keys out of her handbag.

‘No, but I think we should have a chat about Forest Gate nick,’ he said.

‘What? That you should be in it?’

She walked over to her car and unlocked the driver’s door.

‘No, that you should be in it,’ Naz said. And then he strode over to her and stood so close she could smell him. Hot breath filled with cardamom and cigarette smoke, expensive liberally applied aftershave. ‘I need a pair of eyes and ears amongst the good coppers of Forest Gate and so I thought I’d use yours.’

This was the way she was going to have to pay off some of her debt.

‘I need a spy,’ Naz said. ‘I need ears to listen for info about me and my family and eyes to see when we might be due a little visit from the plods. We like to know what they’re up to but lately we seem to be finding that a bit tricky. You get me?’

She got him.

‘You want me to give you warning if any of your properties are going to be raided,’ she said. ‘I won’t be able to do that. I’m not in the police. I’m not always around them.’

‘No, but your boss is.’

‘No, he isn’t.’ She got into the car.

Naz bent down to stop her closing the door.

‘He is when he’s shagging DI Collins,’ he said.

‘What?’ Many years ago, so it was said, Lee and DI Collins had had an affair but that was over. Wasn’t it? Mumtaz felt odd. And angry. She fired up the engine. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

But she couldn’t close the door because he was still in the way. ‘I’m not being stupid, I’m being practical,’ he said. ‘On your behalf, Mumtaz. Do this and I’ll give you payment holidays. Don’t forget—’

‘Or what? You’ll burn my house down?’

As soon as she’d said it, Mumtaz regretted those words.

He let go of her car door and she saw his face harden. Then she heard him say, ‘Oh no, Mrs Hakim, I won’t do that. But I will hold your little daughter down and rape her.’