By Death Divided (5 page)

‘I know,’ Sharif said, knowing that far from being insulated he was in the front line, part of a police service horrified and disgusted by the effects of terrorism, which reached them on the grapevine in detail far more graphic than ever reached the public. He was lucky that his nickname had not been transformed into Osama by now, he thought bitterly. Maybe in his colleagues’ private conversations it already had.

‘So what is your family problem?’ Siddique asked quietly. ‘Are you thinking of marriage at last? To someone your parents have difficulty accepting?’

Sharif laughed.

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Although I’m sure the time will come. No, what I wanted to ask was whether you have any contact with the imam in Milford. My cousin Faria – you remember – married Imran Aziz and went to live there. For some reason she has lost touch with her parents and I’ve not been able to contact her for a while, either. It’s been a couple of months since anyone has spoken to her and everyone is very worried. I remember when I went to the wedding I was told that Imran was a religious man, very traditional, and I wanted to find out if he was still observant and whether the imam there had contact with either of them.’

‘They have a new young man at the mosque there,’ Siddique said slowly, looking unhappy. ‘I’ve only met him once and I was surprised at how poor his English was. His name is Abdel Abdullah. They recruited him in Pakistan and he preaches only in Urdu.’

‘Special branch will be taking an interest, then,’ Sharif said.

‘I’m sure.’

‘Do you think he’s a serious menace?’

Siddique looked even more unhappy at that, but he shook his head slowly.

‘You know it doesn’t work like that. After everything that’s happened, the most dangerous people are working very quietly, in the youth clubs, the gyms, the bookshops, or simply in their own houses. They don’t raise their heads over the parapet if they can help it. The mosques don’t know who they are, if they ever did. I don’t think there is anyone dangerous in Bradfield, but I can’t really know for sure. Some of the young men shout a lot but I think that’s all they do. But there’s no doubt the anger grows all the time, even amongst the most peaceable people, and with some justification. Not just Palestine, but then Iraq and Lebanon on top of that. Your security friends will have a better idea than I do what’s going on but there’s no doubt that times are getting more difficult. As for Milford,’ he shrugged. ‘I think my new brother is just not very experienced, that is all. He should learn the ways of the mosques here soon, God willing. Tone down his passion against sin, adultery, homosexuality, all that. This is not a fanatical country.’

‘Could you ask him if he knows Aziz?’

‘I could,’ Siddique said. ‘If Aziz is as devout as you say, I’m sure he will know the name. I’ll see what I can find out, Mohammed, but I can’t make any promises. But there’s probably some innocent explanation. Perhaps your cousin has been ill.’

‘According to her sisters, she may be expecting a baby. But that’s no reason not to contact her parents. Quite the reverse.’

Siddique nodded. ‘Perhaps her husband is of such a traditional mind that he dislikes her travelling alone.’

‘Perhaps,’ Sharif said, his expression hardening. ‘I always
thought that she had been persuaded into this marriage. Forced, maybe, though I hate to say that about my uncle and aunt. It seems unlike them.’

‘Ah,’ Siddique said. ‘That would be…’ He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. ‘That would be unfortunate. Change takes a long time.’

‘Too long,’ Sharif said, not hiding his own anger. ‘We bring much of the dislike and suspicion on our own heads by clinging to old customs that are not required by the Koran.’

‘It’s not all on one side,’ Siddique came back quickly. ‘What’s that English saying? Six of one, half a dozen of the other? I think that’s right, you know.’

‘Maybe,’ Sharif said. ‘All I know is that if you make an effort you can succeed in this country. It’s not impossible. How is it that the Indians do so much better than we do here? Are they better? Brighter? Or just more adaptable?’

‘Well, you’ve done it, you’ve succeeded in a most unlikely profession,’ Siddique said soothingly. ‘But you don’t bother to come back and show these angry young men at the mosque your success. You should think about that, maybe.’ Sharif got to his feet and turned to go, not wanting the imam to see that his last comment had hit harder than he liked. ‘Maybe,’ he said again.

He walked slowly back down the narrow street to where he had left his car, but before he got there he was aware that he was being watched by a group of young men, bearded and in
shalwar kameez
rather than the jeans and sweatshirts worn by most of the teenaged youths around the Lane. They clustered on the corner where the road swung round to rejoin the main road and its bustling shops. He avoided their eyes as he flicked open his electronic lock and made to open the driver’s door
of the convertible that was his pride and joy. The young men had been chattering in Punjabi as he approached but they fell silent as he got within ear-shot, until one suddenly spat in his direction, narrowly missing his shoe, and followed with a flood of invective aimed at the antecedents of policemen in general and himself in particular. Sharif could feel the anger surge like a tsunami from his stomach but, gritting his teeth, he slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Another gout of saliva hit the windscreen and without thinking he switched on the screen-wash and was slightly surprised when it showered the nearest of the group with a mixture of dirty water and more.

The young men drew back, shouting furiously as Sharif slammed the car into gear and pulled away from the kerb as fast as he dared. Safely round the corner he slowed again and stopped, clutching the steering wheel with trembling hands, taking deep gasping breaths for a moment until his rage subsided. He was, he thought, stretched on a rack not of his own making in his chosen profession, eternally marked out as some sort of traitor even by those in his own community who seemed genuinely to want peace and harmony, and watched at work with cold-eyed suspicion by those few of his colleagues who wanted – and expected – him to fail.

Ten years ago as an enthusiastic recruit he had truly believed he could make it work. Now, after all that had happened since at home and abroad, he was beginning to suspect he was losing everything, his own culture, his prospects of promotion, his peace of mind and his chances of happiness. He no longer prayed, as the Prophet (peace be upon him) instructed, but he certainly cursed, regularly every day, with multicultural enthusiasm. But he cursed George Bush, bin
Laden, Tony Blair and the Saudis, the Palestinians, the Israelis and the Pakistanis indiscriminately and with vigour for the destruction of his hopes and dreams. He had always thought of Bradfield as his home, had balanced nimbly between two cultures and, he thought, made a success of his life, and had begun to hope recently that he might even be able to pull off a marriage that flew in the face of tradition, but it was getting harder. The tightrope felt as if it was fraying fast.

Michael Thackeray opened the door of the flat he shared with Laura Ackroyd and sniffed the air, surprised not to identify the cooking smells that greeted him more often than not. He tried his best to be the modern man Laura expected but cooking was not a skill he had ever acquired and she seemed happy enough to reign as queen of the kitchen when they ate at home, veering between experiments in fusion food and plainer fare, only a cut above the canteen fodder he had survived on for most of his adult life and that, if he was honest, he still preferred.

Laura was not in the living room and he found her in the bedroom, brushing her copper red curls and wearing very little, a sight that filled him with urgent desire. He slipped his hands around her breasts and kissed the back of her neck, and she responded with a long lingering kiss. But then she glanced at her watch and pushed him away.

‘There isn’t time,’ she said regretfully. ‘We’re due at David and Vicky’s at seven-thirty.’ She smiled at him mischievously. ‘I did remind you this morning. Had you forgotten?’

‘I had,’ he said, not bothering to hide his disappointment. ‘Do we have to go?’

‘Vicky says – though honestly I can’t remember – that it’s
the anniversary of the night I met you at their dinner party. You can’t have forgotten that, surely?’

On that unexpectedly significant previous occasion, David Mendelson had been intent on introducing Bradfield’s new DCI to his father Victor, one of the town’s longest serving solicitors from its most eminent law firm, to a member of the town council and to a journalist from the local paper who, to Thackeray’s surprise, turned out to be young, beautiful and red-headed.

If Vicky had harboured an ulterior motive for introducing her oldest university friend to an apparently eligible single man she had had no intention of admitting it back then and had often wondered later, as Michael and Laura’s stormy relationship progressed, whether such a thought should ever have entered her head at all. But there was no hint of those doubts in her eyes as she opened her door tonight to her guests, both of whom, she was relieved to see, appeared unusually contented with each other.

‘Come in,’ she said. ‘It’s just the four of us. Or at least it will be when I’ve got my demon boys upstairs to bed.’ Right on cue, her two sons tore out of the sitting room and flung their arms around Laura whom, they obviously hoped, would save them from banishment for at least a few precious minutes more. Laura followed Vicky into the sitting room with a hand on each boy’s shoulder, followed by Thackeray, his face impassive as he came to terms once again with a family life he bitterly envied and feared he would never now reproduce, having lost his chance so catastrophically the first time around. He took a proffered soft drink from David Mendelson with a nod of thanks and sank into a chair beside him, leaving the women and children chattering on the other
side of the room. He greeted his host’s immediate launch into a discussion of a recent case they had both been involved in with guilty relief.

When Vicky had finally filled Laura in on Daniel and Nathan’s continuing achievements in primary school, and persuaded the boys in the direction of their bedrooms, Laura turned to the two men again and picked up the thread of their conversation.

‘The last I heard the stupid woman had gone back to the bastard,’ David said. ‘She’ll end up one of your murder victims, you’ll see.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Thackeray said. ‘But if the combined persuasion of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service can’t get a woman to give evidence, I don’t see what else we can do. According to our domestic violence people, there was no corroboration from anyone else with the Robinson woman. No neighbours, no frequent visits to A and E, nothing you could have proceeded on without her testimony. She just turned up the one time at the infirmary, beaten half to death, said her husband attacked her and then changed her mind and withdrew the complaint.’

‘What’s all this?’ Laura asked. ‘Battered wives? I’m supposed to be writing something about that. I suggested it to Ted Grant after Vicky’s friend Julie turned up here. She won’t make a complaint about her husband either. Says it would be bad for the child.’

‘Well, anything you can do in the
Gazette
to make people take it seriously would be good,’ David said. ‘It really isn’t easy to launch a prosecution never mind get a conviction. And there’s always that fear at the back of your mind that it’s going to end up with someone dead.’

‘I haven’t trawled through our archives yet,’ Laura said. ‘Can you remember any cases from the last few years that I should look at, cases where the husband has ended up in court?’

‘Not offhand,’ David said. ‘I think there was something in Leeds about ten years ago where the wife ended up killing her abusive husband. There was a great furore about whether she could plead provocation even if he hadn’t been attacking her at the precise moment she took a knife to him. I think he was asleep when she actually stabbed him.’

Laura shuddered, avoiding Thackeray’s eye. She found it difficult to comprehend the curdled emotions that polluted and destroyed relationships which must have started off in harmony, although she knew he understood some of it only too well.

‘I’ll look it up,’ she said. ‘I do remember it vaguely.’ She glanced up as Vicky came back into the room, glad of the opportunity to change the subject.

‘So how is Naomi Laura?’ she asked brightly after the child the Mendelson’s had named after her. ‘I’m sorry we missed her bedtime.’

‘Are we completely crazy?’ Vicky Mendelson asked Laura Ackroyd the next day as they pulled up outside a neat and tidy semi on the cheaper side of Southfield, close to the primary school that Anna Holden no longer attended.

‘Probably,’ Laura admitted as she turned the engine off and peered at the anonymous modern house. ‘But as Julie says, he can be charm and consideration itself if he chooses. I think in most cases like this the violence is only directed at one person.’ She fervently hoped she was right, knowing that she faced Thackeray’s justified wrath if this unannounced visit went pear-shaped.

‘I hope you’re right,’ Vicky said. ‘Anyway, perhaps he’s out.’ But Bruce Holden was in, unshaven and in his dressing gown but awake enough to recognise Vicky and offer her a shamefaced smile as he held the door open. He was, Laura thought, a normal enough looking man, attractive even in a slightly overweight way, with clear blue eyes and tousled fair hair, nothing like the monster she had been half expecting to confront.

‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Did Julie send you?’

‘She asked me to pick up one or two things for Anna,’ Vicky said. ‘This is Laura, another friend.’

Holden’s eyes flickered in Laura’s direction without interest. He waved the two women into the sitting room, where a thin veil of dust over every flat surface indicated as clearly as anything the abandoned state of his home.

‘I want her to come home,’ he said thickly, not sitting down himself but beginning to pace around the room with a sort of restless irritation. ‘She knows I love her and Anna to bits. Will you tell her please to come home? I need them here.’

‘I’ll tell her,’ Vicky said. ‘But that’s something you’ll have to resolve between you. In the meantime, she wants this stuff for Anna.’

She handed Holden a list handwritten on a sheet torn from an exercise book, which he glanced at cursorily. For a moment Laura thought he was going to screw it up, but he seemed to overcome whatever surge of emotion the list had prompted and nodded dully.

‘Most of it’s in her room,’ he said. ‘Do you want to go and look? I don’t think I can.’

Vicky nodded and made for the door.

‘I’ll wait here,’ Laura said quickly, thinking that would give her a chance to talk to Holden privately. She guessed that he did not trust Vicky but might regard her as a more or less unknown quantity in his marital war. And that he might be looking for allies.

Holden kept on pacing for a moment as they listened to Vicky going up the stairs and opening the door of Anna’s room. Then he flung himself down into a chair opposite Laura and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to what
was happening around him. He was a tall man, carrying his superfluous weight easily, but now she could see that the skin around his eyes was slightly puffy and putty coloured, and he constantly licked dry lips.

‘Has she persuaded you to put her up then?’ he muttered resentfully. ‘Given poor little wifey sanctuary, have you?’

‘Not in my tiny place, even if my partner would put up with it,’ Laura said.

‘So where the hell is she? I know Vicky knows, though she won’t bloody tell me, will she? I never liked that woman, chattering away about my affairs at the school gate. She put Julie up to this nonsense. She’s got a vivid imagination, has Julie. Makes things up a lot.’

Laura opened her mouth to protest that bruises could not be imaginary when she had seen them with her own eyes, and then thought better of it. It would do no good to provoke Holden, she thought, and in spite of his relatively normal demeanour he might actually be dangerous. But it seemed to be too late. Her scepticism must have shown in her eyes.

‘Do you know where they are?’ he shouted suddenly, his colour rising.

‘She and Anna are safe enough,’ Laura said. ‘I don’t think they feel safe here at the moment.’

‘I haven’t even been here much,’ Holden said, his face as sulky now as a spoilt child’s. ‘I’ve had to go to my mother’s to get a square meal. Anyway, it’s Anna I want to see. That bitch has no right to keep my daughter away from me. I’d never hurt Anna. I love her to bits. I have rights too, you know. I’m her father.’

‘You would need to talk to a solicitor about that,’ Laura said.

‘Has she gone to the bloody police?’ Holden asked furiously. ‘Why do I need a solicitor, for God’s sake? They’re all bloody sharks.’

Laura floundered for a moment, unable to grasp how thoroughly Holden seemed to have blanked out the implications of his recent behaviour.

‘When a marriage breaks down you usually need a lawyer,’ she offered feebly. ‘Perhaps an advice centre… Or your doctor, maybe, could help with your problems.’

But if the suggestion of a lawyer had enraged Holden the word ‘doctor’ seemed to turn him incandescent. He jumped up from his chair and for a moment Laura froze, thinking he was going to attack her, but instead he lurched across the room and took hold of a photograph of Julie that had been standing on a low table and hurled it into the fireplace, where the glass and frame disintegrated with a crash.

‘That cow,’ he spat. ‘What’s she been saying about me? Why would I need a doctor? I hate doctors. I never want to see another bloody doctor in my life, investigating, prying, spying, trying to get inside your head.’ As he ranted, Laura got up and sidled towards the living room door, relieved to see Vicky coming back downstairs carrying a carrier bag full of the books and other items Anna had asked for. Vicky glanced into the sitting room and seemed shocked by the change in Holden’s mood.

‘Time to go, I think,’ Laura said quietly, heading towards the front door, but as she opened it Holden followed them into the hall.

‘Tell that bitch I want to see my daughter,’ he yelled. ‘Tell her I’ve got rights. She can’t just take Anna off like that without a word. Tell her if she doesn’t arrange for me to see
her I’ll organise it myself. I’m not stupid. I’ll find them. Believe me.’

Laura pulled the door shut with a feeling of relief and followed Vicky back to the car.

‘Well, that wasn’t a triumph of diplomacy, was it?’ Vicky said with a tight smile. ‘What did you say to him?’

Laura shook her head. ‘Not a lot,’ she said as she pulled away from the kerb, the quiet suburban street almost deserted in the pale sunshine, and she wondered how many other well-kept façades hid horrors like Bruce Holden. ‘I suggested getting help – a lawyer, counsellor, doctor, and he went mad. I really thought he was going to hit me. I think Julie’s right and Bruce Holden is seriously dangerous.’

‘We could have got him done for assault if he’d touched you,’ Vicky said. ‘That might have been quite a good thing. We could have given evidence then.’

‘Well, thanks,’ Laura said dryly. ‘I’ll do a lot of things for battered wives but I don’t think getting battered myself is one of them.’

‘He’s going to keep looking for her, isn’t he?’ Vicky said.

‘Yes, I’m sure he is. He asked me if she was staying at my place.’

‘I think she needs to get out of Bradfield for a bit,’ Vicky said. ‘It won’t take him long to find the refuge and he’s mad enough to try to break in to find them.’

‘I think he’s mad, full stop,’ Laura said. ‘He made some seriously odd comments about doctors.’

‘Well, it’d be a lot easier to get him for assault than get him treatment for mental illness,’ Vicky said seriously. ‘David always says madmen have to kill someone before anyone takes their problems seriously.’

‘I can believe it,’ Laura said.

‘Why don’t you discuss it with Michael. He might have some ideas without making it official.’

‘Mmm,’ Laura prevaricated. ‘Did you say his mother lived in Bradfield? He said he’d been blagging meals off her.’

‘Julie has talked about her mother-in-law. I think she gets on quite well with her.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘But I can’t come detecting again with you again just now. I left Naomi with David. He’s working at home this morning but he has to be in court later so I must get back. Would you like to drop in for a coffee?’

Laura shook her head.

‘No, I must get back to the office before Ted Grant fills my desk with some bright young recruit willing to work for half the salary – or on work experience for nothing at all. It’s not safe to venture out for long the way things are these days. Redundancy’s hanging over the place like a big dark cloud.’

‘What’s caused this crisis, then? Is the
Gazette
in trouble?’

‘It’s not just the
Gazette
. Fewer and fewer people seem to want to read local papers any more,’ Laura said. ‘They’re all glued to the Internet and reality telly. It’s the curse of
Big Brother
. Our readers are all in their fifties and sixties and rising. You can tell from the ads: lots of walk-in baths and stair-lifts, while the world of all-singing and dancing mobile phones passes us by.’

Vicky glanced at her friend curiously. She knew that she had put some of her ambitions on hold to stay in Bradfield with Michael Thackeray and she wondered how much that still frustrated her. As Laura pulled up to drop her off she kissed her quickly on the cheek.

‘Maybe you should take a break,’ she said, but then wished she hadn’t as Laura looked stricken.

‘Maternity leave, you mean?’ she said. ‘In your dreams.’ She did not tell Vicky of the few days she had spent recently wondering whether her carelessness had led in that direction anyway, sleepless and unwilling to confess to Thackeray why she was tossing and turning all night. It had been a false alarm but had confirmed what she had known in her heart for years: if she and Michael were to have children she would have to persuade him first, and she was not at all sure that she would be successful.

‘I meant a holiday,’ Vicky said lightly.

‘Yes, of course, that might be a good idea if I can prise my overworked copper away from his job for a while,’ Laura said. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

‘You were right to tell Kevin, and Kevin was right to insist that you pass it on,’ DCI Thackeray said, taking in both the officers who had come to see him together that morning. ‘It may be nothing, but it may be something. No one should take chances in the present climate.’

‘And no one’s free of suspicion,’ DC ‘Omar’ Sharif muttered resentfully.

He had gone to Sergeant Kevin Mower that morning to ask for his advice but had been hustled into the DCI’s office against his better judgement when Mower heard what he had to say. Sharif had been up early and had driven quickly against the commuter traffic back to Milford to knock again on his cousin’s front door. When once again there had been no response, he had headed into the centre of Milford and parked outside the mosque, which was housed in a converted
Victorian chapel. As he arrived he could see a few men leaving after attending morning prayers but by the time he had taken off his shoes and gone inside he found only a handful still present, surrounding a heavily bearded man who was talking to them in Punjabi. Abdel Abdullah, the new imam who preached only in Urdu, glanced at Sharif, clearly taking in his jeans and bomber jacket without approval, and greeting him in the traditional way.

‘Can I speak with you privately?’ Sharif asked, in English first, to lay down his own ground rules, and then repeating himself in Punjabi. The imam nodded and the other men moved away.

‘I’m trying to make contact with Imran Aziz, who’s married to my cousin Faria,’ Sharif had said bluntly. ‘She’s not been in contact with her family for a couple of months and they asked me to visit her. But there’s no one at their address, and I wondered if her husband had been to the mosque recently. I am told he is very devout.’

‘I do know our brother Imran,’ Abdullah said in Punjabi. ‘I have not been here very long but I think it is true he is very devout. But I have not seen him at prayers this week. Not at all, which is a strange thing.’

‘Did he say they had plans to take a trip? A holiday in Pakistan perhaps? Maybe Faria has travelled out in advance. He answered the phone a couple of nights ago but simply said she wasn’t there.’

‘As I say, I am new here,’ Abdullah repeated. ‘So I know nobody very well. I have heard nothing about his plans. But if you like, I can ask some people who might know him. Do you have a telephone number?’

Sharif reached automatically for one of his cards, but
then hesitated, and pulled a pen and notebook out instead, transcribing his mobile number carefully and handing it over. He could not explain the sudden hesitation to let this man, who was watching him with unsmiling intensity, know he was a policeman. He just guessed that he would get more cooperation if he kept his profession private.

‘I’m sure there is an innocent explanation for my cousin’s silence,’ he said. ‘If they have gone to visit his family I know it can be difficult to make international calls sometimes from parts of Pakistan. But it is strange she didn’t let her parents know and they are concerned.’

‘She is part of her husband’s family now,’ the imam said flatly. ‘He will decide these things.’

Sharif opened his mouth and then thought better of contradicting this version of a wife’s status, but he was surprised at how much he was repelled by it. It brought to mind images of burkas and the Taliban and reminded him of the outrage of one of his girlfriends years ago, a North African woman who had lived many years in France, when film of women in Afghanistan had been appearing on television screens every evening.

‘I hope to hear from you, then,’ he said, swallowing down the urge to argue with this man, every inch of whom radiated self-righteousness. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and spun on his heel and left the mosque quickly, knowing he was being watched all the way by some of the young men who had moved away when he came in.

He glanced at his watch as he walked back to his car, and wondered if there was time to try to discover where Faria worked. But he was due in the CID office at nine, and guessed that the various travel agents who had offices in the town
centre would not be open so early. He would have to come back another time.

All the way back to Bradfield he wondered whether he had over-reacted. But it was crazy, he thought, for small mosques like Milford’s to still be recruiting imams from Pakistan. Surely the Muslim community in Britain was big enough to be able to train its own teachers and scholars and ensure they had a reasonable grasp of English. By the time he got to police HQ in Bradfield he had worked himself into such a suppressed fury that Kevin Mower soon spotted his abstraction and crossed the room to ask him what was wrong. And when Sharif told him, he offered neither comment or advice, but insisted that he repeat his story to the DCI.