Poisoned Ground: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 3) (5 page)

*

Susan would have loved Sandra Rivers’ house. Old and beautifully restored on the outside, it was completely new, shiny and minimalist inside. The lounge, in common with Susan’s much smaller version, contained a TV, sofas and a coffee table. There was not a book or a newspaper in sight. That was the bit that Lee didn’t like. The antiseptic cleanliness was delightful, the rest of it gave him the heebie-jeebies. But he’d been spooked even before he’d got inside.

Sandra Rivers had opened her electronic gates remotely and had met Lee in person at the front door. She hadn’t been the petite blonde in high heels and hot pants he had imagined. At first he’d wondered whether the stout middle-aged woman in a yellow sack dress was in fact the ‘help’. But she shook his hand. ‘Sandra Rivers,’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

Coffee was offered, which he accepted, and cake, which he declined. When she returned from making the drinks she was smiling.

‘You were with Phil for almost fifteen years, Mrs Rivers,’ Lee said.

‘Sandra.’ She put his coffee down on the table in front of him. ‘Call me Sandra. Yes, I’d just sold me old ladies fashion shop on Brick Lane and I’d been online with budget vintage fakes dot com for about six months.’

He could smell sugar on her breath. She’d sneaked something to eat when she’d made the coffee. ‘How was the site doing?’

‘Oh, brilliant,’ she said. ‘It took off right from the get-go.’

Lee had looked up Sandra Rivers online. When she’d eventually sold her budget vintage clothes website back in 2010 it had netted her twenty million pounds. But then what was not to like about a company that sold fake vintage clothes made in China for pocket money prices? Women who liked that sort of thing could look funky and different without spending a fortune.

‘Derek Salmon told me you met Phil through one of your dad’s friends.’

Sandra smiled, her big cheeks rising to make her eyes look small. ‘Ah, yes, dear old Brian,’ she said. ‘Del told me you used to be a copper in Newham so you must’ve known Brian Barber.’

‘A bit.’

‘Oh, he and my dad were best mates from, like, years ago, back in the thirties, you know,’ she said. ‘My dad’s family was originally from Italy, see, and so they had a hard time of it when the war started. The Barbers, Brian’s family, were friends and neighbours of theirs in Shoreditch and didn’t care about the Italian business. After the war, when Brian’s lot moved to Canning Town, they stayed in touch.’ She smiled again. ‘My dad was a cobbler by trade but when he was young he was a bit of a tearaway and I’ve no doubt he went out on the rob with Brian back then. But not later on, and especially not when Brian started to get hard men in to protect his business.’

‘Like your husband.’

She shook her head. She had a lot of beautiful thick brown hair. ‘Phil wasn’t really a tough guy,’ she said. ‘He just did a lot of bodybuilding and looked as if he could handle himself. Brian took him on as a favour to Phil’s Uncle Bob who’d been inside with Brian back in the eighties.’

‘And was it love at first sight?’

‘I thought so.’ Her smile disappeared immediately. The lack of it made her look her age and Lee noticed that her hands began to fidget. ‘I know what you’re thinking about the age difference, Mr Arnold.’

‘Lee.’

‘Lee.’ She smiled again briefly then she said, ‘But Phil was in love with me. I was married and divorced before Phil and so I know when a man is or isn’t in love. Phil was.’

‘And so why did he ask you for a divorce at the beginning of last year?’

She thought, shook her head and then she said, ‘I can’t tell you and that’s the truth. We were happy in the house in Wanstead. Phil was doing lots of gym work, which was what he liked to do. Driving about – he had a Jag. He loved to bomb down the A127 to Southend to see his mum and dad.’

‘You didn’t go with him?’

‘No.’

‘What did you do once you’d sold your business, Sandra?’

Her hands began to work nervously again. ‘Not a lot,’ she said. She shook her head. ‘Oh, what am I doing? I can’t keep things from you if you’re going to find Phil for me, can I? The truth is that when I gave up the business I had a breakdown. When you’ve worked all your life and suddenly there’s nothing to do, however much money you have just doesn’t make up for that.’

‘How did this breakdown …’

‘Look, I’ve never been exactly thin in me life, but I’m now a size twenty-four, know what I mean? Eating and crying and eating … I couldn’t sleep half the time and whenever Phil was out I had panic attacks. Eventually I got help.’

‘Treatment.’

‘I didn’t go to hospital,’ she said. ‘But, you know, pills and
therapy and that. Luckily I could pay for the best. Slowly I started to feel better. When Phil said he wanted a divorce the worst of it was over.’

‘He supported you through it.’

‘Yeah. Then he said he wanted to be on his own.’

‘Derek Salmon told me your divorce was based on irreconcilable differences.’

‘That was what Phil wanted, not me,’ she said. ‘I asked him if there was anybody else and he said no. I had no evidence to make me believe there was another woman … we had a normal sex life right up until he asked for the divorce.’

Lee finally got round to his coffee, which was fresh and very good. ‘Why did you let Phil stay in the Wanstead house after your divorce?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘He wanted to,’ she said. ‘And I’d already bought this. As soon as Phil said we were over I looked for another place. I couldn’t’ve stayed in the Wanstead house after that, not with all those memories in there.’

‘So you moved out?’

‘Yes. I went to my place in St Tropez for a couple of weeks first then I came back and found this. I expect Del’s told you that the arrangement that we came to, all legal, was that Phil could live in the house rent-free for as long as he wanted. But if he moved out, it had to be sold and we would split the profits between us. I never thought for a second he’d scam me. If he scammed me …’ She looked for a moment as if she might cry. Then she said, ‘Imagine what a fool I felt when I realized that he’d advertised our house online! Me, an Internet retailer! Talk about being slapped in the face.’

And it had been a huge slap.

‘Has he used his credit or debit cards since he disappeared?’ Lee asked.

Tracking the use of credit or debit cards would have been the first thing that the police would have done.

‘No,’ she said.

So either he had transferred the money into another account or someone was looking after him. But if he had transferred the money, how had he done it and where had it gone?

Lee said, ‘Do you know if Phil had any debts? Did he gamble?’

‘No and no. He had an allowance for his car and general expenses, and he never went over it or asked for any more.’

‘What about friends and relatives? Any of those in trouble as far as you know?’

‘No. His old man liked the odd little flutter on the gee-gees but what bloke his age don’t? Phil never said it was a problem.’ She sighed. Then she riffled in the pockets of her sack dress and took out a chocolate bar. ‘God help me. I’m sorry, I have to eat something now.’

Lee smiled. ‘It’s OK.’

‘Put me right back, all this,’ she said. ‘Back on meds too.’ She shook her head. ‘No, Phil’s mum and dad live in Southend in a flat by the sea and are very happy and settled, in spite of Bette’s dementia. Or they were until Phil went missing.’

‘You’ve spoken to them?’

‘To Ken, yeah. I never saw either of them that much, but we always got on.’

‘What about any new people in Phil’s circle?’ Lee asked. ‘Did he come into contact with anyone you thought might be a bit dodgy or maybe had a bad influence on him?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Phil just went to his gym, which I had built for
him in the garden, he went out in his car sometimes and that was really all he did. When we was first together he used to go down the pub sometimes with Brian’s son, Barry, but then that all stopped years ago. Phil told me that all Barry ever wanted to do was pull birds and he wasn’t interested in that and so he knocked it on the head. I never once got any sort of feeling or heard any rumours that Phil was playing around with other women.’

‘Which pub did Phil and Barry go to?’

‘The George on Wanstead High Street,’ she said. ‘But that was years ago. Since me and Phil got together we did most things together, especially after I got ill. Poor Phil saw almost no one during that time because he had to be with me. I think I saw more people than he did, coming in to help me get well. Phil was just left to his own devices. Maybe that was why he wanted a divorce? Maybe he couldn’t bear the thought of going through all that with me again? What do you think, Lee?’

*

The patients (she could call them that in the privacy of her own head) and some of the staff said that the long corridor that connected the chronic block to the building containing the two acute wards was haunted. Some patient who had committed suicide back in the 1900s, supposedly. Shirley knew that a lot more had taken that route out of Ilford Hospital since then. Luckily she hadn’t been at work the day that young Sara Ibrahim had thrown herself out of the window. People who had seen it were still having trouble with it. Now that was haunting.

‘Mrs Mayfield.’

‘Mr Cotton.’

He’d appeared through a door ahead of her. There were several in the corridor but they were usually locked.

‘I saw a young woman I didn’t recognize with you this morning. Do you have a new volunteer?’

‘Yes. Miss Huq,’ she said.

‘Promising?’

‘I think so.’

They walked, he as usual with some difficulty.

Shirley was on her way to the car park via the acute wards. Inducting a new volunteer was always tiring and she wanted to get home and put her feet up.

‘There was a minor incident on the forensic ward this afternoon,’ the chief psychiatric consultant said. ‘Don’t know if it’s come to your notice.’

‘No. I didn’t hear the alarm go off.’

Even a minor incident on the forensic ward would necessitate the sounding of the old Second World War siren alarm.

‘As I say, it was a very minor incident,’ he said. ‘However, it may come to your attention. A male patient may ask you to institute an investigation into the conduct of a member of my staff.’

It was all right for him to use ‘patient’ because he was a doctor. It was also quite permissible for him to refer to ‘his’ staff. But he was also sending her a message and they both knew it.

‘Thanks for the heads-up,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll do whatever is appropriate, Mrs Mayfield. I have confidence in you.’

He strode off purposefully. Bad leg or no bad leg, Mr Cotton could put on a turn of speed when he wanted to. He could also leave a nasty metaphorical smell in his wake. Because Shirley knew that she would do whatever was ‘appropriate’ should that forensic patient contact her and she didn’t like herself for it.

Feeling excited and pissed off at the same time was exhausting, especially after a long evening shift followed by not much sleep. Susan staggered out of bed and walked unsteadily into her kitchen. She was useless before her first cup of tea. As she waited for the kettle to boil and flung a teabag into a mug, she wondered whether Lee would pop in on his way to the job he had on. Even though she was working every evening that week, he was going to stay over for a few days anyway. If she let him.

When he’d first called and told her that he was coming to Southend, Susan had been excited. She’d accepted that he had to work for much of that time and she’d been happy when he’d asked her if he could stay. But then he’d gone on about that old copper woman he used to work with when he was in the police. She’d had some sort of operation on her throat and when he’d been to see her in hospital she hadn’t been able to speak. It had spooked him and he’d clearly been worried. And while Susan accepted that it was normal to worry about a sick friend, to go on about it to someone who didn’t give a stuff had been a bit tiresome. And weird. But then, the first time she’d met Lee it had been obvious that Vi Collins had been jealous. The old girl had a thing for him and Susan wondered why he encouraged it by hanging out with her. Lee said it was because it was always
useful for private investigators to have contacts in the police. But Susan wondered whether he also enjoyed the attention.

She made her tea and took it back to bed with her. Once she felt human, she’d get up. She hoped that her mood would lighten. She didn’t want to be pissed off with Lee when he arrived. He was the best bloke she’d been out with for years and she didn’t want to frighten him off by appearing too clingy. Men like him didn’t walk into the casino every day. Most of them were either loud-mouthed car dealers who fancied themselves as Mafia dons or pathetic gambling addicts, too old and nervous to go on the internet to feed their habit. Then there was the odd high roller. At the moment there were two, a young black guy from south London and an old man who always dressed up in a full evening suit when he played the tables. The younger man spent heavily and won heavily, while the old guy was all about big stakes and even bigger losses. Whatever happened he was, strangely, always cheerful.

Lee had been such a breath of fresh air in the darkened, velvet atmosphere of the casino. He hadn’t gambled what he couldn’t afford – only one of those coppers had. He’d very clearly just been out for a laugh and that simplicity, as well as his dark good looks, had attracted Susan. She’d been out with Tony Soprano wannabes in the past and she was done with them. All the flash cars that turned out to belong to rich customers, as well as the mortgaged-to-the-hilt houses and unpaid credit card bills, were as tiresome as the men themselves. As far as she could tell, Lee was honest. He had a scruffy old car, a small flat in Forest Gate and a business that he openly admitted was struggling. He still supported a teenage daughter who lived with his ex-wife and he smoked more than Susan would have liked – she’d have to work on him about that. But he didn’t drink at all, which was
refreshing. Most middle-aged blokes did drink and, as a consequence, talked a lot of shit. But Lee didn’t talk shit and if she were honest the only time anything he’d said had really upset her had happened when he’d phoned to tell her about Vi Collins. He’d been, to Susan’s way of thinking, far too involved and she hadn’t liked it.

Susan finished her tea and tried not to be annoyed.

*

‘Have you met el Masri?’

Mumtaz had had to run up the stairs and open up the office as quickly as she could to take the call.

‘I’ve seen him, Salwa.’

Some blurry photographs of Salwa el Shamy, albeit from a distance, had been in a couple of the tabloids that morning. The decision by the Home Office to bar a radical Yemeni Islamic cleric from the UK had reignited the debate, particularly in right-wing circles, about a range of issues around immigration. This included the status of people like Salwa el Shamy.

‘You haven’t met him yet?’

She sounded agitated, but then she would be. The photographs Mumtaz had seen showed Salwa trying to hide as much of herself as she could behind her front door as she let her children into the house. The headline accompanying the pictures had screamed some odious invective she had immediately put from her mind. Salwa quite naturally wanted to hear some good news.

‘No,’ Mumtaz said. ‘But I’m volunteering twice a week and so I will meet him. The Advocacy has regular meetings with the hospital staff and that includes the doctors. Don’t worry, it’s in hand.’

She heard Salwa sigh. ‘You see my family are in the newspapers today?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry you had to go through that.’

‘They are like vultures. There’s no respect here for Muslims. I don’t know if I can do this any more! I can’t be in this country!’

She was becoming hysterical.

Mumtaz said, ‘Salwa, whatever is happening, you must support Hatem. That’s what you’ve decided to do, isn’t it? Stay until Hatem’s trial?’

‘And for children.’

‘Yes, for them too. They’re all at school.’

‘Yes, but …’

‘Salwa, what you have to understand is that newspapers like that don’t have respect for anyone. They don’t actually care whether you’re a Muslim, a Christian or a Hindu. If they can make a story out of something they will. And in this case it was the banning of Sheikh al-Kabir.’

‘I don’t know this Yemeni holy man!’

‘I know that, but his story reignited the debate—’

‘They say all Muslims are terrorists! This is not true!’

‘Of course it isn’t, but because this Sheikh has said some things about how it is all right to kill non-believers and because Hatem is in prison on suspicion of terrorist offences, some of the newspapers have connected them. Wrongly. But it will stop soon, Salwa, trust me. Tomorrow the papers will find another story and you will be forgotten. It won’t be the same as it was when Hatem was arrested.’

For a moment Salwa was quiet and then she said, ‘You know this free speech they talk about here? It doesn’t happen for Muslims.’

‘It can seem that way sometimes,’ Mumtaz said. ‘But, Salwa,
you do have to be strong for Hatem and your children. I am doing my best for you but getting the evidence you want may take some time. I have to become part of the hospital so that el Masri becomes used to me and, hopefully, ignores me. I have to ask questions without seeming to ask questions. Do you see what I mean?’

‘You must not make suspicious.’

‘That’s right.’ She saw her mobile phone begin to flash and looked at the screen. It was Naz Sheikh. She switched it off. ‘Salwa, I will tell you as soon as I have any news.’

‘You will tell to me first?’

‘Of course.’ Mumtaz crossed her fingers behind her back. There was no way she would pass on material as sensitive as this direct to the client without telling Lee first.

Salwa sighed. Calmer now, she said, ‘OK.’

‘OK,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Now, Salwa, you go and start your day. Are there any photographers outside your house this morning?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Then just go about your business,’ Mumtaz said.

‘I will.
Ma’is salama
.’

Although Mumtaz knew that meant ‘goodbye’ in Arabic she responded in English, just as she did with her English-speaking Bangladeshi clients. That she was a Muslim of Asian heritage was helpful sometimes in her work but it was also incidental. If she was to be free from accusations of bias she had to keep a professional distance.

After she put the phone down, Mumtaz looked at her mobile again and switched it back on. Naz Sheikh hadn’t left a message. He’d only called to wind her up and she could do without that. At the weekend she’d have to load the car up with stuff from the garage to take down to the tip in Barking. It was a dirty job that
she wasn’t looking forward to; the last thing she needed was Naz or any other member of his family hassling her for her new address. That, or some exhortation for her to be a ‘better’ Muslim woman. As if she were some sort of whore. And coming from a sexual predator like him! But then the Sheikhs and their ilk had double standards, not unlike Salwa el Shamy. Her reference to the Yemeni preacher who urged the faithful to kill unbelievers as a ‘holy man’ had not been lost on Mumtaz.

*

Ken and Bette Rivers’ flat occupied the lower half of an Edwardian house on a street just off the eastern side of the seafront, known as Southend’s Golden Mile. It sounded grand but although it had been tidied up in recent years, Lee could easily see it hadn’t changed that much. For a start there were still all the slot machine places with their promises of easy money and cheap teddy bears. Pubs he remembered his dad getting plastered in – ruining everyone’s day – didn’t seem to have changed at all. The Foresters, the Cornucopia and, of course, the Hope Hotel which, back when he’d been a copper, some Essex plod had told him used to rent out rooms by the hour. Then there was the smell. A combination of frying onions, sugar and chips.

Sandra’s casino was at the other end of the seafront, on the western side of the famous ‘longest pier in the world’. A much tidier and more sedate area, the western seafront had once been famous for its ornamental gardens on slopes known as ‘the cliffs’. But in recent years the land had become unstable and vast areas of the gardens had been cordoned off as too dangerous for the public. But it was still preferable to the Golden Mile.

Lee Arnold lit a cigarette and then stared down a kid who had been on the verge of asking him for one. The kid changed his
mind. Lee walked past the Rivers’ flat, put his cigarette out and then wandered into a small cafe at the end of the road. On one side its windows looked out to sea, while on the other they faced the house Lee was watching. He sat down at the fixed plastic table that gave him the best view of the street and, when the waitress came to ask him for his order, he said, ‘Cup of tea and a plate of chips, please.’

Susan hadn’t given him so much as a glass of water when he’d turned up at her flat half an hour earlier. She’d been in a bad mood about something and so he’d just dropped his bag in the bedroom, she’d given him her spare key and he’d left. He’d asked her if she really did want him to stay and she’d said that she did, but Lee wondered. Had she gone off him? Met someone else?

Lee looked at some of his fellow diners. Seaside towns always had a selection of easily recognisable types. By the front door was the regulation alcoholic, age indecipherable, talking to a man so thin he had to be a junkie. An old woman in a battered Persian lamb hat lifted a transparent cup of frothy coffee to her crinkled lips with purple and brown veined hands, while a young couple with a baby in a buggy made roll-ups in preparation for leaving. A middle-aged woman, who could only be a prostitute, pulled her V-necked t-shirt up a little to hide her cleavage. Off-duty, she was enjoying a bacon sandwich before, no doubt, returning to her bedsit somewhere behind the Golden Mile where the local ladies of the night had always lived. Unemployment was high in seaside towns: poor people flocked in with the vain hope their lives would be better by the sea where rents were cheap. It had been like that for decades, but since the recession, this trend had got worse.

Lee saw the junkie turn to look at him and wondered how long it would be before he tried to tap him up for some cash.
Would there be some story about how he’d left his wallet somewhere and couldn’t pay for his tea? Or would he just come over and beg?

Outside, a young woman came out of the Rivers’ house with a baby in a car seat. She had purple hair and wore hot pants over thick black tights. She put the car seat in a battered Mini and drove off as if the police were pursuing her. The Rivers owned their flat. Bette Rivers had bought their old council flat in North Woolwich back in the 1990s under the Right to Buy scheme. Selling it had enabled the couple to buy the Southend place, which they owned outright. Lee ran his gaze up and down the street outside again and still couldn’t find much to recommend it. But then, if Ken and Bette Rivers liked it then that was all that mattered.

The waitress put a mug of tea and a plate of chips down in front of him without a word. She was middle-aged and had a disappointed air; Lee knew how she felt. Because he had to pay his bills he’d let Mumtaz take that dodgy el Shamy job. As if the idea of working for such a contentious client wasn’t enough – if the press got to know they’d have a field day – he wasn’t exactly happy about her going into what could be a dangerous environment either. The mad (who were connected in Lee’s mind with the addicted, in the shape of his alcoholic father and brother) could kick off over nothing. Mumtaz might just walk on to one of those wards and get a punch in the face. He’d told her, but she’d laughed. She’d thought he was being overcautious and ignorant. Maybe he was, but even Mumtaz hadn’t been able to laugh about the predatory doctor.

‘Mate, you got a fag I could buy off you?’

It was the junkie, as Lee had predicted.

‘I’ll give you thirty pee for one,’ he pleaded.

Lee took a cigarette out of his packet and gave it to him. ‘No, that’s all right,’ he said.

The man smiled. ‘Oh, thanks. Can I have one for me mate?’

Lee frowned. But he gave him another cigarette and said, ‘That’s your lot.’

The man shuffled away. Lee put a chip in his mouth and took a swig of tea, which was so dark it made his teeth wince. He filled the cup with as much sugar as he could tolerate and carried on watching the street. If he remembered correctly, there was an old seaside rock factory somewhere on one of the streets off the seafront, but he couldn’t remember where. A white van came and parked in front of the Rivers’ house while the driver delivered a parcel to another house across the road and then left in a cloud of exhaust fumes. When the smoke had cleared there was an old man outside the house, coughing and smoking a fag. He was a bit of a state – limp trousers pulled up to his chest, a vest on underneath an old sports jacket – but there was definitely a resemblance to the picture of Ken Rivers that had been in Phil Rivers’ file.