‘Then, I met Nadira.’
Helen saw his face change, a wash of pleasure. ‘How did you meet?’
‘It was through someone at the bank. Someone senior to me. She was from a very well-off family, very respectable, so of course her father wanted to make absolutely sure I was suitable. He came to see my flat and spoke to people at the bank. It was not arranged, but it was
approved
.
‘Thank heavens …
‘I stayed on at the bank for another year or so, but a cousin of mine had a shop in Bristol and after I had been to stay with him, Nadira and I decided that we would try to do the same. It was eighty thousand pounds plus the stock to get the shop and we could not get a loan, so we remortgaged our house. It was a big risk, but we had to take it.’ He pressed a hand to his chest. ‘
I
had to take it, if you want the truth. I wanted my own business, the same as my father. We already had my eldest son and daughter by then and Nadira was pregnant with Amin.’ He swallowed, tried again. ‘With Amin … ’
‘It can’t have been easy,’ Helen said.
‘Not easy, no.’
‘With a young family.’
‘Nadira would have to bring the children in of course and I remember very clearly that she was working in the shop until the very last day of her pregnancy. Sitting behind that counter, the size of a house! Nowadays, she helps out if I need to go to the cash-and-carry, but most of the time it’s just me and to be honest, that suits me fine. I have plenty of time to read and listen to the radio, or just to think about things, you know? Perhaps too much time, lately.’
‘Don’t you ever take a holiday or anything? I mean, you never seem to be closed.’
Akhtar shook his head. ‘I get up at a quarter to four and get here an hour after that. I sort out the newspapers, do the paper round then get back to open the shop ready for the morning rush. I stay open until half-past six Monday to Friday, five o’clock on Saturdays, two o’clock on Sundays. No holidays.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Helen said.
‘I think I have worked hard.’ Akhtar’s face had changed again. He leaned forward in his chair, angry suddenly. ‘I thought that would make me the sort of person that deserved to be taken seriously. That would be respected. I thought I was the kind of person, that we were the kind of family, the law should be protecting.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Helen said.
‘
Now
they are taking me seriously though.’ He picked up the gun and pointed it. ‘This thing gets you plenty of bloody respect.’ He stared at her for a few moments, then looked at his watch. Said, ‘They should be calling again soon.’
Helen closed her eyes.
She leaned her head back against the radiator and tried to forget about the metal cuff eating the flesh from her wrist, the stiffness in her back and neck and the terrible cramp in her legs.
She tried to empty her mind.
To get back to that beach, and her two beautiful boys.
Thorne had called on his way back from Hackney, and while they were waiting for him to arrive, Donnelly, Chivers and Pascoe gathered for a pre-contact briefing in the small room behind the school stage. Pascoe listened while Chivers continued to press for technical support, arguing that the operation was not moving forward, that the information they were getting back from the phone calls was limited. Donnelly nodded and grunted, casting the occasional glance in Pascoe’s direction. He had not been in the best of moods since they had relieved the overnight team a couple of hours before.
‘Everything OK?’ Pascoe asked.
Chivers looked at her, annoyed, as though he had almost forgotten she was there at all. Pascoe ignored it. She had been trying to do the same with him.
‘Just the usual carry-on,’ Donnelly said.
Pascoe waited.
‘My boss is getting it in the neck from the Commissioner, who’s getting it in the neck from the Mayor’s office because Transport for London are kicking off.’
‘So now your boss is giving you grief.’
‘People need to get around.’ Chivers slurped at his coffee. ‘They want their lives back.’
‘So does Helen Weeks.’
‘It’s not your problem,’ Donnelly said. He turned back to Chivers and asked him to carry on.
‘We get a Technical Support Unit in, let them do their stuff and see how it pans out,’ Chivers said. ‘I don’t see what we’ve got to lose. At least with all that in place, we’ll be in a far better situation if anything does happen and we need to go in quickly.’
‘We’re all hoping that doesn’t happen though, obviously.’
‘I said “if”.’
‘What exactly are we talking about?’ Pascoe asked.
‘Microphones in the walls. Maybe some cameras in there if we’re lucky and depending on the set-up.’ Seeing that Pascoe was about to raise her usual objections, Chivers steamed on. ‘Listen, Akhtar won’t have a clue what we’re doing, all right? No need to worry on that score. Some of the gear these guys have got is so sophisticated they could slip a microphone in your knickers and you wouldn’t know it.’
‘You reckon?’
Chivers smiled. ‘They’re like ninjas.’
Nobody spoke for a long few seconds. The only sounds were the squawk of a radio from the hall and the rustle as Chivers adjusted the weapons belt around his waist. Pascoe saw that he had now added an M26 Taser to his personal armoury.
‘OK, we’ll see how this next call goes,’ Donnelly said. ‘If there’s no significant change we’ll bring in a TSU.’
Chivers nodded, happy.
‘Is this just because they want the bloody station reopened?’ Pascoe asked.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Donnelly said.
Pascoe knew she had overstepped the mark and looked away. A tiny, suspicious part of her thinking:
is this because I knocked you back yesterday?
Donnelly stood up. ‘Like I said, we’ll see what happens when Thorne gets here and we put the one o’clock call in. That might change things.’ He gathered his notes together. ‘From what Thorne told me on the phone, it sounds like he’s planning to rattle Akhtar’s cage a bit.’
Chivers said, ‘Good,’ and Pascoe said nothing.
She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of what Thorne was planning at all.
Hendricks called as Thorne was on his way into the hall.
‘Queue-jumping again?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Peter Allen.’
‘It’s important, Phil, and I don’t think too many of your customers are likely to complain.’
‘
I
can complain though.’
‘And just so you know, I still need help with the drug thing. Amin Akhtar’s overdose, I mean. Soon as you can, mate.’
‘I’m starting to see why Louise dumped you.’
‘It was mutual,’ Thorne said.
Hendricks laughed. ‘What, as in the two of you talking things over and mutually deciding you were a complete and utter cock?’
‘Something like that.’ Thorne nodded across to Donnelly, who was waiting with the others at the monitors. ‘Call me when you’re done, will you?’ He hung up before the abuse became rather less good-natured, and walked across to join them.
He took Pascoe’s seat and put on the headset while she gave him the usual instructions. Again she urged him to keep his tone nice and even when talking to Akhtar, to listen and to reassure, but Thorne could sense her uncertainty.
He told her that he was ready.
‘Do we really think this is a good idea?’ she asked.
‘It’s the only one I’ve got,’ Thorne said.
‘There’s no way of knowing how he’s going to react to this and that worries me.’ Pascoe looked to Donnelly. ‘Excitement, rage, guilt. None of them are exactly ideal.’
‘He wants answers,’ Thorne said. ‘That’s why he’s doing this. That’s why we’re all here and why Helen’s in there. We’re only going to get the right outcome if I start giving him some.’
‘Some,’ Chivers said, quietly.
‘Look, I can’t give him the one answer he really wants, not yet, but surely it’s important that he knows I’m close.’
‘Are you?’ Donnelly asked.
Thorne said that he was, and he meant it, but he had also lost count of those times when touching distance was as close as he got. When a killer had remained that all-important step ahead and a case had finished up as nothing more than a folder full of paper and an uncomfortable memory. Donnelly nodded, but Thorne knew he understood the way it worked as well as he did. ‘I want him to know I’ve shaken things up,’ he said.
Donnelly told him to make the call.
As soon as Helen answered, the sound quality told those listening that her mobile had been put on speaker. Thorne asked her how she was and, though her voice was a little smaller, a little flatter than it had been the last time he’d heard it, she told him she was fine. Ticking along. She told him she was being well looked after, but that she didn’t want to see another bar of chocolate for as long as she lived, that she was desperate for a hot bath and something a bit stronger than 7-Up to drink. Donnelly signalled to him and Thorne asked her how Stephen Mitchell was, but Akhtar cut in before Helen could answer.
‘Do you have any news, Mr Thorne?’ He sounded almost as tired as Helen Weeks. ‘Or are you just calling to tell me how busy you are? To remind me once again that these things take time.’
Thorne remembered everything Pascoe had told him a few minutes earlier, her worries about Akhtar’s reaction. But there seemed little point in going round the houses, and besides Thorne wanted the news to sound every bit as important, as shocking, as it was.
‘He’s killed somebody else.’
‘Who has?’
‘The man who murdered your son.’
There was almost half a minute of silence. Thorne glanced at Pascoe, but she was looking at the floor. Behind them, the doors to the hall banged as someone came in. They started to apologise and were quickly shushed.
‘Who is he?’ Akhtar asked.
There was no easy way to say it. ‘I don’t know,’ Thorne said. ‘But he is scared because we’re getting close to him. He’s
scared
, Javed.’
Though Pascoe had been unsure as to how Akhtar would react, Thorne had expected something approaching pleasure at the news. But when Akhtar spoke again, there was little sign of it.
‘Who was killed?’
‘Another boy from Barndale,’ Thorne said.
‘A friend of Amin’s?’
‘No, not a friend. I think he was the boy that attacked Amin.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Someone paid this boy to attack Amin, because they wanted to make sure he ended up in the hospital wing. That was where they planned to kill him, so they could make it look like suicide.’
‘That’s what I
said
, didn’t I?’ There was anger creeping into Akhtar’s voice. ‘I said that to the police over and over again and I told everybody at the bloody inquest. I kept saying that my son would never have taken his own life.’
‘Yes, that’s what you said.’
‘And you see what happens? You
see
?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now another boy is dead because nobody would listen.’
‘That boy is dead because the man responsible was worried he could identify him.’
There was another long pause.
‘So, if this boy is dead, how
are
you going to identify him?’
‘I’m waiting for more information,’ Thorne said.
‘Waiting.’ There was a snort of derision. ‘There’s been far too much waiting.’
‘I know that sounds a bit vague, but I’m hopeful.’ Even as he said it, Thorne realised that he was often guilty of confusing ‘hopeful’ with ‘desperate’. ‘OK, Javed? We’re nearly there.’
Akhtar did not reply. Thorne exchanged a long look with Donnelly while they listened to the hiss and crackle from the speakers, something muttered which was impossible to make out clearly, Helen coughing.
‘Helen?’
‘Yes, I’m here.’
‘You heard all that?’
‘Yes, I heard. I hope you get the information you need.’
‘It’s going to be over soon, OK?’
‘Thank you.’
‘So, what are you drinking?’ Thorne asked. ‘I’ll have a bottle waiting.’
‘Right now, I’d settle for paint-stripper,’ Helen said.
Then Akhtar’s voice. Louder, as though he’d suddenly moved closer to the phone. ‘Don’t start planning your celebrations just yet, Mr Thorne. You have to find this man first. Then you have to catch him.’
The line went dead.
Thorne removed the headset and looked at Pascoe. ‘All right?’
‘Let’s hope so,’ she said.
Chivers nodded towards the monitors. ‘She’s every bit as good as you said she was. Weeks.’ He looked back to Thorne. ‘I reckon she could really help us.’
‘Help us how?’ Thorne asked.
‘With information,’ Chivers said. ‘Once the tech boys have done their stuff, if we can somehow let her know that we’re listening in, she might be able to send us messages.’ He looked to Donnelly. ‘We can slip it into a call or whatever. “TSU’s set up” or something. She’ll know what that means and maybe she can find a way to let us know where Akhtar is when the time comes. What might be waiting for us on the other side of that door if we need to go in.’
Donnelly nodded. Said, ‘Makes sense.’
Thorne turned to Pascoe.
She was looking at the floor again.
Though she could not know it, Helen had been every bit as surprised as Thorne that Javed had not reacted more positively to what he had been told. To hearing about Thorne’s progress. He had quickly grown irritable on discovering that he had been proved right and that he might soon know the name of the man who had murdered his son. When the call was over, he had spent a few minutes stalking back and forth between the shop and the storeroom, muttering to himself angrily. He had waved his arms around and slapped himself on the side of the head. Then, he had suddenly fallen silent and become morose.
Inconsolable.
As though he had just remembered something terrible.
Helen had said, ‘Good news,’ and ‘Sounds like you got what you wanted,’ but he had ignored her. She had asked for water and he had snapped at her, saying that he was not her bloody servant. Then he had brought it to her without a word.