An Act of Kindness: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 2) (15 page)

‘In what way?’

‘He has no family, which is very unusual in our culture. And so Nasreen, and her parents, have had to take whatever Abdullah Khan has told them about himself at face value.’ She looked at her screen again. ‘For instance, he is a solicitor and yet when he first came down to London from Lancashire he stayed at a cheap boarding house that was run by his uncle.’

‘I can understand that,’ Lee said.

‘Yes, it makes some sense until you factor in that he had apparently been practising law for some years. So he can’t have been poor.’

‘Maybe he stayed in the boarding house to help his uncle out.’

She shrugged. ‘He would have been helping his uncle out more if he had obtained tenants for him. And anyway, Abdullah was in the boarding house for some years. Lawyers are highly prized in our culture and it would be shameful if a lawyer lived as a poor person. So there is that,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Then there is the fact that
when he did finally buy a property, in spite of surely having saved some money during his time in the boarding house, Abdullah bought the cheapest house, at auction, in Newham. Do you see?’

‘Yeah. So you think he’s got a gambling habit? A woman somewhere?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Nasreen has not as yet instructed me to follow her husband. But this I do know …’ She looked back at her screen again.

‘What?’

‘No person named Abdullah Khan, resident and practising in Newham, is listed with the Law Society,’ Mumtaz said.

*

Wendy Dixon didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t fathom how she’d survived one of Sean Rogers’s parties unscathed. In fact she’d spent the time with just one man, Paul.

Beyond the fact that he was dark and sexy, Wendy didn’t know anything about him. He
was
attractive, and although he hadn’t hurt her or treated her like shit as the rest of Sean’s friends and associates generally did, he had wanted some dirty sex. But for once, because he was polite and he was fit, Wendy had been into it herself. He’d
asked
her to do things. Not even the fathers of her children had done that.

Wendy got out of the posh car that Paul had summoned up to take her home and she made a point of thanking its young Asian driver. It had been early and so most of the other party-goers had been in bed or flaked out in that hideous blind orgy room when she’d left. And although Paul hadn’t said anything about wanting to get her away from Ongar before all the rank old men decided they wanted just one more shag before they left, she knew he’d got her out quickly on purpose.

He’d liked her, he’d said so, and she knew she’d given him pleasure. Wendy could be mechanical at sex, but she could also be good at it. They’d fucked almost all night, there’d been top quality smoke and they’d done it in one of Sean’s best guest rooms. He’d even let her sleep.

Just once she’d thought that maybe Paul was some sort of imposter who’d broken into Sean’s house and taken advantage. But some time in the early hours of the morning, Marty had opened the door to the room and looked at them. Then she’d seen him nod at Paul. She hadn’t known what that had meant and just the memory of it made her anxious. Then she looked up at her bedroom window and saw Dolly, holding baby Stuart in her arms, and Wendy smiled. She felt such warmth for her kids at that moment!

Was this, she wondered, what being in love was like?

Her phone rang. It was Sean. Wendy ignored it.

*

Nasreen was learning new things. She’d been sick again that morning and, unlike the first time it had happened, she hadn’t really felt better since. So she’d stayed in bed and once she’d started to feel a little brighter, she’d entertained herself on her laptop computer. Her parents were having a quiet Sunday with their newspapers and Abdullah still hadn’t returned from his latest business trip.

After checking her e-mails and a quick glance at Facebook, Nasreen decided she would look up some information on mezuzahs.

The first thing that struck her about the Jewish information sites was that the word God was never actually shown. Expressed as G-d, it struck her as weird until she compared it to the commandment
against physical representation of human beings and animals that existed in Islam. Those who were orthodox and followed the Koran to the letter as well as abiding by rules added via Hadith, wouldn’t even photograph their own children. This G-d thing was the orthodox Jews’ version of that. The name of God should never be written or spoken.

A mezuzah, she read, contained a parchment with verses from the Jewish Holy book, the Torah, written on it. These verses made up what was called the
Shema Yisrael
which was a special prayer which began, ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our G-d, the Lord is One.’ Again, parallels with Islam were clear to Nasreen. The
adhan
, or Call to Prayer, always began:
Allahu Akbar! Ash-hadu an-la ilaha illa llah
– God is Great! I bear witness there is no God but God. What was the difference there? Some Muslims she knew had this thing about how different the Jews were to everybody else. Nasreen had never knowingly met any Jews but even this small piece of information about them was enough to convince her that they were not a million miles away from Islam.

The mezuzah parchment had to be prepared by a scribe and written in indelible ink with a quill pen. Having mezuzot on doors fulfilled a
mitzvah
or commandment to Jews from God. It had to be placed at shoulder height and if the household was an Ashkenazi one then it had to slant towards the property, if a Sephardic home then it pointed straight up towards heaven. The ‘lump’ that Nasreen had found on the back doorpost at Strone Road had been painted over so many times it was difficult now to remember whether or not it had slanted. And did it matter anyway? Ashkenazi and Sephardic were just different branches of Judaism, like Sunni and Shi’a Muslims. What she did know, however, was that she had only found one mezuzah in the house. According to the websites she was looking at, really orthodox
Jews would have a mezuzah on every doorpost there was, even cupboard doors. But then if Mrs Hakim was right about the family who had lived there before, it had only been the wife, Lily, and her son Marek who had actually been Jewish. Maybe the Christian husband, Mr Smith, hadn’t wanted to have mezuzot all over the house …

In Israel it seemed, mezuzot had to be affixed to doorposts as soon as a family moved into a new home. But out in the diaspora there was always a hiatus of thirty days, in order to allow time in case the family had to move again: legacy of a persecution Nasreen knew she could never understand. Her uncles sometimes talked about the ‘Paki bashing’ of the 1970s but it didn’t compare to gas chambers. Her husband was one of those Muslims who said that it did, but Nasreen couldn’t agree with him and so ‘Jews’ were not a topic of conversation between them.

And then Nasreen read something that made her smile. The purpose of mezuzot was basically to remind people of the continuing presence of God in their lives. But it had another purpose too. Every mezuzah fixed to a doorpost added to the divine protection given by God to people everywhere. It was, as one writer put it, ‘an act of kindness’ to humanity. Nasreen felt that was incredibly beautiful.

Mumtaz looked at her office telephone. She should call Nasreen Khan. It was Monday morning, a work day, and so she had no excuses left not to call.

The door buzzer went.

Lee walked over to the entryphone box on the wall and looked at the monitor. ‘Come in, Brian,’ he said as he released the office door lock.

Brian Green, the bereaved husband, walked slowly into the office. He was a big man, whose shoulders slumped and whose skin was grey and pitted with acne scars. More significant than his physical defects, however, was his demeanour, which was that of someone who had had the spark of life forced out of them. Brian Green was empty.

He took Lee’s proffered hand and said, ‘Hello, mate.’

‘Brian, I’m …’

Brian Green looked over his shoulder at Mumtaz. ‘Hello, darlin’,’ he said.

‘I am really sad to hear about your loss, Mr Green,’ she said.

‘Thank you, love, that’s appreciated.’ He turned back to Lee and said, ‘Can we talk? About the weekend?’

‘Yes, of course, Brian.’

Although Lee and Mumtaz generally had the door between
their two offices open all the time, there were occasions when that wasn’t desirable. This was one of them. As Brian Green closed the door to Lee’s office behind him, Mumtaz heard him say, ‘The number plate of the car what killed Amy was a fucking fake.’

She heard Lee draw in breath and then she heard no more. Before she could think for any longer about what she had to say, Mumtaz called Nasreen Khan. When the young woman picked up, she sounded terrible.

‘Nasreen? What’s the matter? Are you sick?’

‘I’ve just been sick,’ Nasreen panted. ‘Morning sickness.’

Of course … she was pregnant. Mumtaz would have to tread carefully.

‘I found out some more details about your house in Strone Road,’ she said.

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. Lily Smith, you know the Jewish lady who was the mother of the boy Marek who disappeared …’

‘Yes?’

‘She lived in the house with her son, Eric, until sometime in the 1960s when she died. Her husband Reg predeceased her. But Nasreen, the main thing I’ve found out about Lily Smith is that she was a blonde.’

‘So she’s not the woman in the photograph?’

‘It’s unlikely,’ Mumtaz said.

‘Oh.’ She sounded a bit disappointed, but only a bit.

Mumtaz took her courage in her hands. ‘However, your husband, Abdullah Khan …’

‘Yes?’ This time her voice had more tension in it. Then she said, ‘He’s at the house today, sanding floorboards.’

‘Nasreen, there’s no easy way to say this but I think it’s possible that Abdullah has been lying to you about what he does.’

‘What? At the house?’ She was clearly rather woozy from being sick.

‘No,’ Mumtaz said, ‘about his job. I’ve searched for his name on the Law Society’s register of practising solicitors and I cannot find anyone called Abdullah Khan who matches the profile you have given me. Which firm does he work for?’

But all Nasreen said was, ‘There has to be a mistake!’

Mumtaz had expected this response. ‘I will check again,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think so, Nasreen. Can you tell me which firm of solicitors your husband works for?’

‘They’re based out in Essex,’ Nasreen said.

Mumtaz had assumed that Abdullah Khan worked for a local firm but that wouldn’t change how she searched for him much. ‘And the name?’

‘Rogers and Ali,’ Nasreen said. ‘The senior partner is a man called Sean Rogers.’

*

Wendy slammed into the television, sending it crashing to the floor. She heard Dolly scream.

‘When I call you, you answer me, right?’ she heard Sean say as he punched her in the side of the head. ‘Just because one of my business acquaintances decided to have you all to hisself at my party, don’t think that you don’t still owe me.’

Wendy struggled to clear the blood out of her mouth. She looked at Dolly whose eyes were as big as space. She’d never met Sean Rogers before, Wendy had made sure that she hadn’t. But that morning, straight after breakfast, he’d just kicked the door down and let himself in.

‘Paul,’ she mumbled.

Sean ignored her. ‘I want you, up the pub tonight at seven,’ he
said. He looked at Dolly and smiled. ‘Couple of my friends want to fuck your mother,’ he said.

Wendy watched, horrified, as Dolly’s little face just collapsed. She’d never told her what she did, of course she hadn’t!

‘You pay what you owe me by playing pig for men I need to keep on side,’ Sean Rogers said. ‘You don’t get brownie points for persuading some geezer to go down on you all night long.’

There was nothing to say.

‘Getting a bit fucked off with people trying to rip me and my brother off. Fucking arse’oles on the make, tarts like you!’ He kicked her in the ribs. Dolly screamed again, ‘Don’t hurt my mum!’

But he did it again. Dolly launched herself at him – arms chopping, teeth grinding. To Wendy’s horror, he caught her in mid-air and then pulled her towards him and smiled. Dolly’s face went white.

*

Lee had expected Brian to pay him for his services in cash. He was old fashioned like that.

‘I just hope the coppers’ll get whoever killed Amy,’ Lee said, as he led Brian to the office door.

‘And the boy.’

‘Yes, and him.’ Lee had told the police about what he’d seen Amy and Dale Champ doing in Spicey’s car park just before they died, but he hadn’t discussed it with Brian. Now he wondered what, if anything, he had been told.

‘He was gonna take her home,’ Brian said. ‘Bring her back to me.’

Lee, for once, was stumped.

‘She’d left her mates in the club and she was coming home,’ he said.

Amy and Dale hadn’t been anywhere near his limo when they died. Surely Brian had to have been told that? Surely the police had to have told him that the couple had been in each other’s arms when they died? When the bodies were autopsied it would be obvious that they’d been having sex. For a moment, Lee thought about telling him himself, but then he changed his mind. It wasn’t his responsibility and he didn’t work for Brian any more.

Brian Green left and, after Lee had spent a few minutes outside the office having a restorative fag, he said to Mumtaz, ‘I couldn’t tell him.’

‘That his wife was having an affair?’

Lee sat down in the chair opposite Mumtaz’s desk. ‘He suspected her which was why he employed me. But to confirm that? For sure?’

‘If she was having sex at the time of her death, the police will know,’ Mumtaz said.

‘Yeah. And maybe they’ve already told him?’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe Brian’s in denial.’

‘Would it be in character for him to do that?’

‘Partly,’ Lee said. ‘Or rather, that’s my reading of Brian inasmuch as I
can
read him. Old-time gangsters like him are good at hiding things. What he knows and what he don’t know are not easy things to discover. There’s kudos involved too, see. Brian can know that Amy was playing away from home and that’s alright, but he wouldn’t want anyone else to know.’