Death in a Far Country (6 page)

But what her near paralysed brain was telling her to do was to go the other way, to the main stairwell, where another door gave access to the short flight of narrow steps that led to the roof. There, she knew that the parapet was low enough for her to climb, even in her weakened state, and the long drop to the ground would end the months of torment she had suffered once and for all. But as she leant wearily against the wall just inside the flat she knew that she did not have the courage to risk going that way in case she met the men who had come into the block. Men, she thought, any men, were the greatest threat of all. She could not, would not, suffer like that again. But here, on the walkway outside, a high parapet and a wire grille that must have been erected to prevent just what she had in mind, made it impossible for her to achieve her end. She would have to work her way downwards, she thought, and wondered if her weary body could even attempt her task, much less make an escape into the town outside in the twilight without being seen and reported to the authorities.

Eventually she gathered all her dwindling strength and, ducking low below the parapet, ran to the stairs furthest from the flat that had been her refuge. At each landing she stood listening carefully before inching down the next flight, but the raucous laughter she heard was a long way away and eventually she had dropped down all eight flights and stood
behind the emergency door, which was hanging on weakened hinges like most of the rest of the doors in the block. She inched it open and glanced outside anxiously. But she found that this end of the block was almost completely shielded from view by the protective fence that the builders had erected in their vain effort to keep intruders out.

She glanced down at herself before she dared move, and knew that she could not go far, partly because she had not the strength and partly because her appearance would arouse instant suspicion. Her short skirt and thin cardigan were filthy, her bare legs were stained with dirt and several smears of blood, and as she ran a hand across her dark hair she realised that it was filthy and matted. She guessed, too, that the time she had spent in the flats without access to running water had left her smelly. She would need to find another refuge and quickly, she thought, as above her she heard shouts and more laughter, closer this time, filling her with dread.

It was darker now, and she could see that above the fence the first street lights were beginning to come on. Very cautiously she worked her way around the fence to the first gap she could find, where she could see, beyond the rubble of the building site, a deserted road and a row of small, low houses, with tiny gardens in front and narrow pathways leading to the back. Some of the houses had lights on behind drawn curtains but as she scuttled across the road, looking fearfully behind her to make sure that she had not been spotted, she headed for one that was in darkness, opened the gate, and still glancing over her shoulder nervously, made her way down the path to the back of the building. In the dim light she could just make out the back door to the house, a dustbin beside it, and a small
outhouse with its door ajar. There was not much room inside, but by this time she was gasping for breath and her heart was thumping painfully and she slumped to the floor inside, pulling the door closed behind her. The darkness was almost total but she hardly noticed as her mind went blank and an even greater darkness overwhelmed her.

Thackeray was already home when Laura got back from the match, her face flushed and eyes sparkling in a way that set his heart beating faster in spite of the nagging pain in his back.

‘Did you hear the result?’ Laura said, peeling off her coat and flinging it on a chair. ‘A one-one draw. The new boy Okigbo got the equaliser right at the end. The crowd went completely mad. I’ve never seen anything like it. Grown men were hugging each other and dancing around. And the singing. You could have heard it in Leeds.’

‘You had a good time, then?’ Thackeray said drily. Laura glanced at him and grinned.

‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘It’s quite an achievement. Everyone thought Chelsea would win eight- or nine-nil. But the Bradfield lads played their socks off. The goalie made six or seven brilliant saves. I don’t know anything about the game, really, but I have to admit it was exciting. The whole town’s going to go bananas until the replay.’

‘And when’s that likely to be?’

‘Week after next,’ Laura said. ‘Not that I expect an invitation to go to London, but I expect we can watch on the box.’

‘I expect we can,’ Thackeray said, and as Laura calmed down she could see that her enthusiasm was washing over him
without any discernible impact.

‘OK, I can see United aren’t going to touch your rugby soul, but I enjoyed it,’ she said, more calmly. ‘Even Tony Holloway gave me a hug on the way out, though he’s furious that Jenna Heywood invited me into her precious directors’ box. I know he thinks it should have been him.’

She dropped onto the sofa beside him and put a hand tentatively on his.

‘How was your day?’ she said. ‘Did you make any progress?’

‘Not really,’ Thackeray said. ‘We had a couple of lines of inquiry to follow up, but most of the people we wanted to talk to seemed to be at the match. The African player seems to have built up quite a following in the black community.’

‘Well, I suppose he would do,’ Laura said. ‘He’s very good. Jenna’s sure he won’t stay in Bradfield. Some team like Chelsea will snap him up.’

‘What nationality is he?’

‘Nigerian,’ Laura said.

‘Someone suggested the dead girl might be Nigerian, but we’ve no evidence on where she came from yet. But that explains why when Kevin Mower went to the African social club today there was no one there.’

‘Well you can meet OK Okigbo tomorrow if you like. Jenna’s invited us to the United celebration party at West Royd, if you feel like going. I think you deserve a bit of time off for good behaviour, don’t you?’

Thackeray sighed. ‘I need to go into the office again,’ he said.

‘The party’s at six. You can do both,’ Laura said. ‘Come on, Michael. You’re not going to get through this inquiry business if you don’t relax occasionally. Go in to work, do
what you have to do, and then come to West Royd with me. Please?’

Thackeray shrugged slightly. ‘All right. If it’ll make you happy.’

‘Good,’ Laura said. ‘Now, I’m going to call my father and tell him about the game. And then I’ll cook us something good for supper. OK.’

Before she could move, Thackeray pulled her towards him with unexpected force and kissed her hungrily, and just for a second it seemed to Laura that all the old magic of their affair was about to be rekindled. But just as suddenly he pulled away again.

‘An early night?’ Laura whispered.

‘Maybe,’ he said, flinging himself back against the cushions, looking drained. ‘I’m shattered.’ Trying to hide her
disappointment
, she went into the kitchen with the portable phone and dialled her parents’ number in Portugal. It was answered almost immediately by her father’s typically peremptory tone.

‘Ackroyd.’

‘Dad, it’s me, did you hear the result? I was actually there.’

‘I caught it on BBC World,’ Jack Ackroyd said. ‘Something of a turn-up, that. And what were you doing at a United match, young lady? I’ve never known you to show any interest in football.’

Laura laughed, and described how she had come by her invitation to the match.

‘I met someone who was asking after you,’ she said. ‘Les Hardcastle? You must remember him.’

‘Aye, I remember Les,’ Jack said. ‘A canny lad, Les. He’s still a director then, is he?’

‘He’s leading the opposition to Jenna Heywood taking over as chairman,’ Laura said.

‘Aye, he’d not want to see a lass in that job. Especially if she’s that keen to turn the club around.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Laura said, puzzled. ‘Surely all the directors want to turn the club around.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t bank on that, love,’ Jack said loftily. ‘That’s a bit too simplistic. I don’t know what’s going on there now. I don’t keep my finger on that particular pulse. But I do know from my broker that someone’s trying to buy up any stray shares in Bradfield United they can get their hands on, like the few I’ve got myself.’

‘Have you sold them?’ Laura asked.

‘Not yet,’ Jack said. ‘I just told my lad to wait to see how high the offer price went.’

‘Could it be Jenna Heywood, trying to consolidate her position?’

‘I doubt it,’ Jack said. ‘More likely someone trying to take over and boot her out.’

‘Oh, dear. Just when they’ve had this fantastic Cup run and built up their following again,’ Laura said softly.

‘Aye well, I doubt this has got much to do with football,’ Jack said. ‘But don’t quote me on that, love, will you? I’m staying well out of this one. Well out.’

Sergeant Kevin Mower had no doubt that the African Social Club, based in a church hall on the busy main road out of town towards the M62 motorway, was open and jumping when, just before lunchtime on Sunday morning, he opened the door and stepped into a decibel level he could not even begin to estimate. The conversation inside was loud enough to make it almost impossible to hear the music, although as his ears became attuned to the clamour, he recognised the rap artist JJC’s inimitable mixture of English and Yoruba lyrics, music he had heard and liked when he watched
Dirty Pretty Things
, a film about an illegal Nigerian immigrant in London a few years back. He glanced around the entirely black crowd inside the hall and wondered how many of them might not like their papers to be inspected too closely.

DCI Thackeray was a couple of steps behind him, having decided at the last moment that some hands-on investigation was preferable to sitting in his office on a Sunday morning reviewing the slow progress of a murder inquiry that already threatened to run into the sand. Mower had driven him across the town centre, where Sunday shoppers thronged the pavements, in almost total silence, and up the hill past many of the surviving relics of Bradfield’s industrial past: several
churches and chapels converted to new uses, one or two still derelict mills and some council housing that had replaced the old stone terraces in the Sixties and was already looking seriously dilapidated.

Thackeray, never the most outgoing of men, Mower thought, seemed to have retreated almost totally into himself since he had come back from sick leave, only an occasional wince of pain giving the lie to his assurances that he was completely recovered from his injury. Mower had never believed that, and believed it less and less as the days went by, though he was at a complete loss to know what, if anything, he should do about it. Now, as they stood in the doorway of the church hall, Thackeray seemed to hesitate, as if intimidated, before stepping into the heaving throng inside.

Mower allowed himself a grim smile as he surveyed the room, alive with men, women and children of all ages, and waited until the presence of their white faces attracted attention. It came eventually in the form of a buxom black woman in a fiercely patterned long skirt and tunic, who threaded her way through the animated crowd and looked both men up and down with dark eyes and a serene smile.

‘How can I help you?’ she asked. Thackeray nodded for Mower to continue, evidently reluctant to get involved himself. Mower showed the woman his warrant card and her expression became more solemn as she studied it.

‘I am Hope Kuti and I am the secretary of the club here for my sins. The rest of the time I am at the university, studying for a PhD. Are you here about the young black girl who was found dead? I read about that in the local paper. Most of us did, I think. It’s a terrible thing.’

‘Exactly that,’ Mower said, realising that he was being offered more information by Hope Kuti than he really needed, and how defensive that made her seem. ‘Could we talk somewhere a bit quieter?’

Hope smiled again and led the two men back outside and into the small graveyard between the hall and the soot-blackened Victorian church next door and then to a wooden seat where she sat down, apparently oblivious to the chilly wind that whistled through the narrow space between the two buildings. Mower glanced dubiously at the stained wooden seat for a second before sitting down beside her, while Thackeray remained standing, clearly determined to maintain only a watching brief.

‘Sunday lunchtime is a favourite time for a
faji
– a party,’ Hope said. ‘It’s the only time most people are free. The church lets us open the hall after the morning service is finished next door at midday. They don’t mind us being here but they don’t want the
faji
to drown out the hymns, you know? There’s few enough people in there to sing them these days. Anyway, a lot of people here go to other churches first. I do myself. And then we come on here.’

Mower pulled out a copy of the drawing of the unknown girl and passed it to Hope.

‘It’s been suggested she might be African,’ he said. ‘Although personally I think Caribbean’s more likely. You don’t know her, by any chance, do you? We’ve had almost no response to the appeal in the
Gazette
.’

That was not strictly true. The only bright spot in a Saturday of dead ends had been a phone call from a young woman who had been near the canal the night the girl was found
and reckoned she had not only seen her, but had seen her in the company of another girl, small, white and mini-skirted, hurrying in the general direction of the towpath. But their informant was away for the weekend in Scarborough and would not be available to make a statement until Monday.

Hope Kuti shook her head sadly as she gazed for a long time at the artist’s sketch of the dead girl.

‘No, I don’t recognise her,’ she said. ‘But you’re right. She would look quite at home on the streets of Lagos. That’s where I’m from, incidentally. Though I haven’t been home for about five years. I’m hoping when I get my doctorate I may get a university job back home, but nothing’s certain. Back there, who you know counts as much as what qualifications you’ve got. It’s improving a bit, but not that much, I think.’

‘Best known here for prising cash out of gullible Internet users,’ Mower said.

‘Ah, the 419 scam?’

‘419?’

‘It’s the number of the legislation that is supposed to be stopping it,’ Hope said, with a shrug. ‘It wasn’t doing the country’s reputation much good. The rapper the kids are all dancing to in there calls his group the 419 Squad. Joke.’

‘Right,’ Mower said, slightly bemused by the torrents of information Hope offered. ‘So how do you suggest I circulate this picture to your friends in there? Are many of them West Africans?’

‘Not many,’ Hope said. ‘Most West Africans head to London and stay there. I know a couple of Nigerian nurses in Bradfield, and a family who came as asylum seekers and have been given leave to remain.’

‘How many members do you have altogether then?’

‘About a hundred, though that includes the children, and most of them must be here today, as you see. The place is packed. But there are more members from the other side of Africa – Somalis, Eritreans, and a few Zimbabweans, of course. A lot of them are asylum seekers who’ve been shunted up here into empty properties, and some don’t have good English, or any English. We arrange free classes for them if they want to learn. They can’t afford to go to college classes if they’re not working.’ She shrugged. ‘And they’re not allowed to work, of course. One of the more stupid rules you impose.’

‘So talking to the adults will be quite difficult, then?’ Thackeray broke in suddenly. ‘We may need translators?’

‘Some of them will have difficulty understanding English, yes,’ Hope said. She glanced at her watch. ‘But we have a lot of informal translators. Very often the children have learnt some English at school and help their parents. When we serve the food in about fifteen minutes, I’ll make an announcement to tell them all who you are and what you want. You can show them the picture of this poor girl. And then anyone who has anything to tell you can do so. Does that make sense?’

‘Perfect sense,’ Mower said. ‘Thanks.’ He hesitated, knowing that Hope would not like his next question, but that he had no choice but to ask it.

‘Do you have any contact with illegal immigrants?’ he asked. ‘We have to consider the possibility that she’s not being identified because that’s what she is and her friends or family are to frightened to come forward.’

‘I don’t know anyone here illegally myself, but I wouldn’t bank on there not being any in Bradfield,’ Hope said slowly.
‘And I doubt very much that anyone here would tell you about illegals if they knew. That would almost certainly be pushing it a step too far.’

Mower glanced down again at the artist’s impression of the dead girl and then at Thackeray.

‘Someone somewhere has lost a daughter,’ the DCI said fiercely to Hope. ‘And quite a young daughter, at that. Our chances of finding her killer are very slim if we don’t even know who she is or what she was doing in Bradfield.’

‘I know all that,’ Hope Kuti said, glancing away from Thackeray’s angry eyes. ‘But you know as well as I do that there’s an underworld out there, an underworld of desperate people with no money and no hope who’ll work for next to nothing because the alternative is to starve. You can’t blame people for doing the best they can to survive and avoid being sent back to whatever particular hell they’ve escaped from. And believe me, there are some hells in Africa. I sometimes think God has turned his back on that continent.’

‘Let’s do your appeal, then,’ Mower said, recognising the impasse. He would not argue with her analysis but he knew many people who would. ‘You never know. It might come up with something.’

But when he and Thackeray walked back to the car half an hour later they had to accept that they had drawn a blank again. With the music turned off and food being hungrily wolfed down, the crowd of Africans had listened politely enough to what Mower had to say, and various bits of informal translation appeared to have explained his message to everyone there as they had passed the artist’s impression of the dead girl amongst themselves, but most shook their heads
and shrugged their shoulders and although both Mower and Thackeray watched closely, there did not appear to be any hint of recognition from anyone in the crowd. As the groups of young men and families switched their attention back to their Sunday lunch, a multi-ethnic buffet with several dishes Mower did not even recognise, Hope Kuti made her way back towards them with a plateful of food in her hand.

‘Who’s that?’ Mower said to her when he had guided her out of earshot of any of the other party-goers. He nodded at a solidly built man, broad-faced and very dark, in whose eyes he had detected just the faintest flicker of some emotion as he had stood at the front of the crowd listening to the appeal for information. As their eyes met for the second time, the man cleared his plate of its last mouthful of food and made his way purposefully towards the door, shouldering slighter people out of his way.

‘Emanuel,’ Hope said. ‘I can’t remember his other name. I could look it up for you. I’ve never spoken to him. He doesn’t often turn up.’

‘Is he Nigerian?’

‘Yes, I think he is.’

Mower watched as the tall, broad figure in a brightly patterned orange shirt stretching against his belly, pushed through the swing doors, but made no comment.

‘Would you like some lunch?’ Hope asked. Mower was tempted for a moment but he could see the frozen expression in his boss’s eyes and knew that this was not the moment, if there ever was one, to persuade Thackeray to try Africa’s varied cuisine.

‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ he had said with a faint grin in
Thackeray’s direction. ‘My boss wants to get back. Some other time, maybe. And if you hear anything, you’ll get in touch?’ He gave Hope his card.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course I will.’

‘I reckon if she was African someone there would have recognised her, guv,’ Mower said as he drove back towards police HQ.

‘So she’s an illegal, or she’s not African at all,’ Thackeray said.

‘If she was West Indian and local, someone would have identified her by now,’ Mower said. ‘We’ll have the picture on TV tomorrow, local and national, so maybe that’ll come up trumps.’

‘Why did you ask about the man who left? What was his name? Emanuel?’

‘I just thought he looked a bit anxious when someone passed him the picture, that’s all. But maybe he doesn’t like the police for some other reason.’

‘Didn’t want his papers looked at, maybe,’ Thackeray said.

‘Or maybe he’s importing bush-meat. Some of those dishes on the table didn’t look like chicken or beef to me.’

‘Bush-meat?’

‘I don’t think you want to know, guv,’ Mower said.

‘I want to know,’ Thackeray insisted grimly.

‘Chimpanzee, all sorts of wild animals, smuggled in. There’s a flourishing trade in London apparently,’ Mower said, grinning at Thackeray’s appalled expression.

‘Dear God,’ the DCI said.

Mower swerved suddenly as they passed a pub where a group of youths in Bradfield United colours suddenly spilt
into the road, with silly smiles on their faces.

‘Still celebrating, I see,’ Mower said. Thackeray gave a half-smile.

‘Laura actually went to the match,’ he said, still sounding faintly astonished at the idea. ‘Seems to have enjoyed it.’

‘I’d have been rooting for Chelsea,’ Mower said. ‘They were just up the road when I was a kid. Not that I could often afford to go, even then, and now you have to take out a mortgage to get a season ticket.’

‘We’ve been invited to a club celebration at West Royd this evening, but I don’t think I’ll bother.’

‘Oh, you should go,’ Mower said, wishing he could just tell his boss to lighten up for once. But he knew that would be taking a liberty too far. ‘You could combine business with pleasure and ask their Nigerian star whether he knows our victim.’ Mower was joking but to his surprise Thackeray seemed to take him seriously.

‘Okigbo? I might just do that,’ he said.

The bar and reception area at the West Royd club was heaving at six o’clock that evening when Thackeray and Laura arrived for the celebration party. Laura was wearing a short low-cut black dress, which she knew did her a lot of favours, and had brushed her hair into a froth of copper curls under Thackeray’s watchful, and she hoped lustful, gaze.

‘Who are you trying to impress?’ he asked, as she picked up a wrap and inspected his dark suit and the silk tie she had bought him the previous Christmas with equal attention.

‘Just you,’ she said, brushing his cheek with a kiss. ‘Come on, cheer up. I think we both deserve an evening out.’

Thackeray had driven slowly up the hill out of town to the country club where the car park was already almost full. He wished that he was as confident as Laura that they would enjoy the evening, but he had his doubts. Football was not his game, parties were not his scene, but he knew that if he did not make an effort Laura was quite prepared to go on her own, and of the two options, he had decided that was the worse.