Dishonour (27 page)

‘Enough.’ The chief super slapped his hand against his desk. ‘This is getting us nowhere.’

Jack needed to think fast. He knew he didn’t have enough evidence to charge Malik and that the chief super would do anything to avoid bad press. But he wasn’t ready to give up. The man was involved, he could feel it.

‘Give me an extension, sir,’ he said. ‘Let me hold him another twenty-four hours.’

‘To do what?’ asked the chief.

‘He didn’t act alone,’ said Jack, ‘which means there is someone out there holding Aasha.’

‘You have absolutely no idea about that,’ said DI Bell. ‘And in a community like this, no one is going to talk to you.’

Jack didn’t take his eyes off the chief. ‘I have some names.’

Bell snorted. ‘What names?’

Jack pulled out the piece of paper that Malik had scribbled on.

‘He gave me the names of some mates who can supposedly give him an alibi.’

Bell snatched the paper. ‘And?’

‘And if these men are prepared to lie for Malik, maybe they’re involved in all this.’

The chief continued tapping, the noise chipping away at Jack’s brain. If he could just have a little more time he could find Aasha and Ryan’s attackers, he was sure of it.

At last the chief nodded. ‘I’ll get the extension.’

Jack couldn’t contain a smile.

‘Twelve hours,’ said the chief.

Jack’s smile slipped.

The chief pointed to his watch. ‘The clock is ticking.’

Aasha sits cross-legged on the floor, her back against the cold stone of the wall. From time to time the man unlocks the door to let her use the bathroom or to pass in some food.

Other than that she is alone in this room with its tiled floor and bare walls. There are no windows and a single bulb hangs from the ceiling. Sometimes she falls asleep but she has no way of knowing what time of day it is.

She pulls her knees up into her chest and waits.

She thinks about Ryan. He was just trying to help her by letting her stay with him. He couldn’t have known just how much trouble Aasha was bringing to his door.

Aasha’s mum has always been quick to pass on the disaster stories of her friends’ children.

‘Auntie Shahida called today.’ She would shake her head and sigh, before launching into a tortured story of ungrateful children failing their A levels or marrying beneath them.

Aasha had never done the smallest thing to bring shame to her family. She laughs out loud at the irony.

She prays that Ryan is all right. She makes a pact that if he is OK she will never do anything wrong for as long as she lives. She will get the best results in her class,
study medicine at university and Mum will have something to brag about to all the neighbours.

The key rattles in the door and Aasha is on her feet before the door is opened. Though she is desperate to get out of this prison cell she feels the familiar stab of fear.

‘Come on,’ the man grunts, ‘bathroom break.’

Aasha nods and follows him down the hall. Sunlight streams through the windows, dust dancing on the beams. It feels good after the sickly half-world of the electric bulb.

He lets her into the bathroom and stands outside. He allows her to shut the door but she knows he guards it from the other side. She gets about five minutes then he gives a knock of warning and opens it once more.

She quickly fills the bowl and splashes water over her face. As she wipes it with the cardboard stiffness of the towel she looks through the window. Outside there is a field, and another field beyond that. Aasha is a townie and has never been this far into the countryside. It seems to go on for ever, though that can’t be true.

She listens carefully. At first she thought it was totally silent but she’s started to pick up other sounds. The odd car in the far distance which means she must be within walking distance of a road. Not that she could get to it because the window is locked.

Sometimes she catches something else, like a baby crying or something.

There it goes again. Aasha stands perfectly still and concentrates. Not a baby, but an animal bleating.

She once read an old book called
The Silence of the Lambs
where some FBI agent mentions hearing her uncle
killing the baby lambs on his farm. Well, they wouldn’t have been silent, would they? They would have been bleating like the animals outside.

She tries not to think about sharp knives, and blood and screaming.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the man’s phone. In the quiet of the house it makes her jump. She listens at the door. The man is speaking in Urdu.

‘What’s going on?’ He sounds cross but scared as well. ‘Has he said anything, do you think?’

There is a pause while the person on the other end speaks, and by the sound of footsteps, the man is pacing up and down the hallway.

‘I’m telling you now,’ the man shouts, ‘I’m not going to gaol.’

Aasha presses her ear to the door. The man is panting as if he’s totally stressed by what he’s being told.

‘So what shall I do with the girl?’ he growls.

What the answer is, Aasha has no way of knowing, but she is not as stupid as Imran says. She knows that some of the options are very bad. She’s heard the stories about girls that were sent ‘back home’, forced to marry cousins they had never met. Girls that were in school one minute, then never seen again.

She moves back just as the door flings open, without the usual knock. The man scowls at her. He is so angry she fears he might beat her, and she flinches.

‘Out,’ he barks at her.

She scurries down the corridor, back to her cell. She’s almost glad when he shuts her back inside.

Lilly hurried towards the station. Jack hadn’t been able to tell her over the phone what had happened during Malik’s interview and she was frantic trying to guess the permutations of what could have happened.

The best-case scenario was that he had made a full confession and implicated himself in Yasmeen’s murder. But as Lilly had explained to Taslima, that wasn’t very likely.

When she saw him leaving the car park she beeped her horn for him to cross the road and jump in.

‘How did it go?’ she asked, though his face told her everything she needed to know.

‘He didn’t say a word.’

Shit. To be fair, if Lilly had been his lawyer she would probably have advised the same thing.

‘Did you have enough to charge him?’ she asked.

Jack shook his head. ‘Without forensics or a witness I can’t place him at the scene.’

Lilly felt her heart plummet. She knew how badly Jack would take it. He had been desperate to put things right.

‘When did you release him?’ she asked.

‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I got an extension on the custody limits.’

Lilly let out a low whistle. ‘That must have taken some fancy footwork.’

‘Let’s just say I have twelve hours and not a second longer.’

Lilly instinctively checked her watch. It was impossible. They both knew it. They looked at one another.

‘I’m not ready to give up yet,’ said Jack. ‘Are you?’

‘Not fucking likely.’

‘Then we need to move fast,’ said Jack, ‘collect as much evidence as we can.’

‘Where do we start?’

‘I have a list of Malik’s close friends. Uniform are checking them now.’

‘What about us?’ Lilly asked.

‘I’m going back to Aasha’s family to see if there’s any link between them and Malik,’ said Jack.

‘I’ll do the Khans,’ said Lilly.

Jack threw open the car door. ‘If anyone has so much as spoken to this bastard on the bus I want to know.’

She had been about to tell him about the scan, show him the grainy photograph of their unborn baby, but somehow it seemed all wrong.

‘OK?’ he asked.

‘Let’s do it,’ she said.

Ismail sat on his hands. He’d bitten his nails right down to the quick but he still felt an urge to bring them to his lips.

His brother had taken up his usual position, lolling on the sofa. How could he be so relaxed? Did it not worry him that they might spend the rest of their lives in prison? Probably not. He could spend his days lifting weights and watching TV—identical to what he did now. But Ismail had plans. College, a good job, maybe run his own little business. He wanted to get his end away with a ton of English girls before his parents introduced him to some nice girl from Kashmir. Or lose his cherry, at the very least.

And what about Aasha? Didn’t Imran care that their
sister was locked up somewhere and they had no way of finding out where?

A quick glance at his brother told Ismail the answer. Imran didn’t give a shit about Aasha, never had done. Ismail wasn’t convinced he gave a shit about anyone or anything apart from himself.

Mum perched on the very edge of her seat, listening to every word the policeman said.

‘Abdul Malik is a very dangerous man,’ McNally told them. ‘The young lad he attacked is in a serious condition.’

Tears welled in Mum’s eyes and Ismail had to turn away. This whole mess was killing her. He imagined how she’d feel if the police found out he and Imran were involved. It didn’t bear thinking about. And what if they were arrested and taken to court? The shame would probably finish her off, which was stupid when you considered that this all started because Imran said Aasha had shamed the family.

‘I’m sorry,’ Mum murmured. ‘I don’t know him.’ She looked over at her sons, desperation glinting in her tears.

‘Nah,’ said Imran. ‘Never heard of him.’

Ismail didn’t trust himself to speak and just shook his head.

The policeman frowned at them. He was one of those white men you just couldn’t read. He seemed so polite and ineffectual, yet Ismail could sense something behind that.

‘That’s strange,’ he said. ‘Malik admitted that he did know you.’

Ismail risked a glance at Imran. What had Malik been
saying about them? Imran met his eyes and the warning was very clear.

‘He must be mistaken.’ Imran shrugged at Jack.

The policeman smoothed down his tie, a horrendous, polyester thing that he must have got cheap.

‘He was quite clear that he knew you.’

Ismail’s stomach flipped and bile stung his throat. He leaped to his feet and ran to the kitchen, retching into the sink.

Mum was behind him in seconds, rubbing his back. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, a string of mucus stretching between them.

‘Everything all right?’ The policeman was standing in the doorway, Imran by his side.

‘We’ve all been very upset,’ said Mum.

‘Of course,’ the policeman said, but he stared hard at Ismail.

Imran shot towards Mum and took her arm from Ismail’s back.

‘Why don’t you show Sergeant McNally out and I’ll take care of Ismail?’

She smiled at him gratefully and led the policeman away. When they were safely out of earshot he took a handful of Ismail’s hair in his fist and hauled back his head. He yanked hard, making Ismail cry out.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

Imran twisted the hair, his knuckles digging into Ismail’s scalp. Ismail could feel the roots ripping away from the skin. ‘What do you mean?’

Imran pushed Ismail’s head down into the sink so his nose was almost touching the vomit.

‘This crap,’ he hissed. ‘Like some sort of batty boy pussy.’ He let go of Ismail and snorted in disgust. ‘You may as well crawl down to the station and tell them everything.’

Ismail took a swipe at his tears. His scalp was screaming.

‘That policeman said Malik told them about
us
.’

‘He’s lying,’ said Imran.

‘How can you be sure?’ Ismail sobbed.

‘Because Malik’s a true Muslim brother.’

‘But what about Aasha? What’s going to happen to her?’ asked Ismail.

‘Malik will sort it out.’

‘From prison?’ Ismail shook his head. ‘Maybe we should talk to that policeman. Explain that we never meant for any of this to happen.’

Imran grabbed his chin. ‘Listen to me. If you go to the police Malik will kill you.’

‘But what about Aasha?’

‘That bitch is the reason we’re in this mess.’ Imran squeezed until Ismail’s chin stung as much as his scalp. ‘And if I hear you mention one word of this to anyone, I’ll kill you myself.’

Anwar showed Lilly and Taslima through to the sitting room. He was anxious and agitated.

‘Is Raffy OK?’

‘Let’s sit down,’ Lilly suggested.

Saira and her mother had already taken chairs at the edge of the room. Saira held her mother’s hand. Anwar gestured to Lilly and Taslima to sit, then took his place opposite. He was fidgeting and biting his lip.

‘What’s happened?’ he asked. ‘The prison called an hour ago and said there’s been an incident. We’ve been trying to contact you.’

Lilly took a deep breath. She was here to discuss Malik but obviously the situation at Arlington was all the Khans could think about.

‘I saw him yesterday,’ she said. ‘He’s been moved to the hospital wing.’

‘Why didn’t they inform us sooner?’ asked Saira.

‘Prison communication is glacial,’ said Lilly. ‘A day’s delay is not bad.’

She glanced at Mrs Khan, still silent and unmoving. Saira squeezed her mother’s hand so hard her knuckles were white.

‘The governor said there had been a fight.’ Anwar shook his head. ‘What has my brother done now?’

‘Absolutely nothing,’ said Lilly. ‘He was attacked by another inmate.’

Anwar stood up and began to pace. ‘You saw him at court, Miss Valentine, totally out of control.’

‘He was provoked by the guard,’ Taslima pointed out.

Anwar flapped his arms. ‘There’s always some reason why he loses his temper. His behaviour is never his fault.’

Saira gently replaced her mother’s hand in her lap and approached her brother. She led him back to his place and sat close to him, patting his leg.

‘Calm, Anwar,’ she whispered.

Lilly was taken again by how maternal this seemed, as if Saira had taken on the role of mother.

‘I don’t believe this was Raffy’s fault,’ said Lilly. ‘It was a racially motivated attack.’

Anwar’s eyes opened wide. ‘He was attacked because he’s a Muslim?’

‘A Muslim, a Sikh, a Jew,’ said Lilly, ‘black, brown or yellow, these people don’t care.’