Poisoned Ground: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 3) (17 page)

‘He doesn’t want to see you,’ the ward manager said.

Shirley had experienced Timothy Pool’s smug face many times before.

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ she said. ‘He in his room?’

She tried to walk past him but he shot an arm out and barred her path.

‘He won’t see you. He told me.’

‘Nurse Pool, if you stop me going about my business I’ll report you to the hospital management,’ she said.

For a moment they locked eyes. He knew something she didn’t.

He clicked his tongue against his teeth, slowly moved his arm out of her path and said, ‘You know where he is. He’s laying down.’

She walked past him and made for the corridor. Most of the bedroom doors were open for cleaning. But one was closed. She knocked on it. ‘Dylan? It’s Shirley. Are you in there?’

A service user she knew a little, a man convicted of stalking, walked past her, rolling a cigarette with one hand. That was quite a skill.

‘Dylan?’ She knocked again.

‘Leave me alone,’ he said.

Every alarm in Shirley’s head went off. He sounded broken and that wasn’t Dylan.

‘We need to talk about your complaint,’ Shirley said. ‘We have to get it written up.’

‘I’m not going to go ahead with it.’

Shirley opened the door. Dylan was lying on his bed holding his stomach. His face was grey.

‘I didn’t say you could come in here!’ he said. ‘Fuck off!’

‘What’s happened to you?’ Shirley walked towards him. ‘Dylan …’

He cringed away from her. ‘I changed me mind.’

She knew why. She’d seen it all before. Patient makes a complaint, patient is beaten up and/or intimidated, patient withdraws the complaint. From the look of him, someone had given him a good kicking where it wouldn’t show.

‘You should go,’ he said. ‘You can’t do no good here.’

‘Dylan, did someone …?’

‘I’m fine!’

She looked into his eyes, which were bloodshot and close to tears. Things were supposed to change. Dylan was going to be the patient who made up for all those others she’d fobbed off in the past. Was that selfish of her? It was but if it got the job done then who really cared?

Shirley said, ‘Dylan, you can’t give in to intimidation.’

‘Who said anything about intimidation? I’ve just changed me mind.’

He tried to reach a glass of water that was on his bedside table but she had to help him. As he took it from her, Shirley caught a glimpse of the bruising to his chest.

‘God almighty, Dylan, who did that to you?’

He drank. ‘Did what?’ he said. ‘I’m all right. What makes you think I’m not?’

‘Bruises,’ Shirley said. ‘On your chest. Dylan, if this is …’

‘Yates done it,’ Dylan said. ‘He wanted me to have sex with him and I had to fight him off. I’m no poof.’

‘Did you—’

‘Look, Yates battered me but I ain’t a grass so let’s leave it at that,’ he said.

‘But if Yates beat you up that’s got nothing to do with your complaint against Nurse Pool.’

‘I know. I changed me mind about that, like I told you.’

‘Why?’

‘Can’t be arsed.’

She was sure he was lying, but what could she do? Maybe Yates, who was known for his over-sexualised behaviour,
had
tried to assault Dylan. But maybe he hadn’t. Most likely he hadn’t.

‘Dylan,’ she said, ‘if you don’t stand up to people they will walk all over you.’

‘Oh, and since when did you give a shit?’ he said. ‘You think I really thought you was gonna go for Tim Pool?’

‘You asked me …’

‘You’re a pussy,’ he said. ‘Everybody knows the Advocacy don’t do nothing but do whatever the hospital wants. It’s a joke, man.’

Shirley was hurt but Dylan wasn’t saying anything she didn’t know. ‘That’s how it was, Dylan,’ she said. ‘I know. But that’s not how it’s going to be.’

‘What do you mean?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m taking them on,’ she said. ‘It’s my job and somebody has to. I was a coward in the past but I’ve had a bit of a Road to Damascus moment.’

He looked at her and frowned.

‘I’ve realized that what I was doing was wrong,’ she said. ‘I mean to help you, Dylan, I do.’

For a moment he looked as if he was thinking about it but then he said, ‘Nah, don’t think so.’

When Shirley left the ward she fancied that she heard someone laugh behind her back. She kept on walking.

*

Ken and Bette Rivers’ living room was not much better than the bedroom in terms of clutter. But at least it didn’t reek and there wasn’t a dead body in there – as far as Lee could tell.

A WPC called Wren gave him a cup of tea. ‘You know, you should really go to the hospital, Mr Arnold,’ she said. ‘Just so that they can check you out.’

‘Oh God, I’ve spent far too much time in those places recently,’ Lee said. ‘I’ll pass.’

To get checked out would be sensible but it wasn’t for him. Not this time.

A tall, thin man of about fifty came into the living room. For a moment he looked at all the dusty dolls that sat on the filthy mantelpiece and then he said, ‘Mr Arnold, I’m Detective Inspector Cobbett, Southend CID. All right if we have a chat?’

‘As long as you don’t mind if I smoke,’ Lee said.

Cobbett shrugged. ‘Knock yourself out.’

The policeman asked Lee how he’d come to be in the flat and Lee told him everything – who he was, what he was doing and why. He’d eventually managed to break the bedroom door down in the early hours of the morning, waking the girl upstairs. Ken Rivers was long gone by that time. Lee had just been grateful to get out of that room. Then the coppers had turned up. They’d offered to take him to hospital several times but all he’d wanted to do was talk to whoever was in charge.

‘From your knowledge of him, do you have any idea where Mr Rivers might have gone?’ Cobbett asked.

‘No,’ Lee said. ‘Like I told you, I’m looking for his son Phil, on behalf of Phil’s missus. I’ve yet to follow up on a supposed sighting in Manor Park but that’s nothing more than just a rumour at this point. The family originally came from North Woolwich and Phil used to work for an old car thief and clocker called Brian Barber. He also had an affair with Brian’s son Barry, years ago.’

‘Did this Phil’s missus know he was gay?’

‘No,’ Lee said. ‘And I don’t know whether his old man did either. I never got around to asking him. Ken denied that he was in contact with his son but he could’ve been lying. He’s either buggered off because I was getting too close to Phil, because of his debts, or possibly because he killed the old woman …’

‘We don’t know who that corpse is at the moment, Mr Arnold,’ Cobbett said.

‘Yeah, right.’ His stomach turned.

‘But the deceased has been dead some time,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you don’t want medical—’

‘No. But I do want to give you my statement while it’s fresh in my mind,’ Lee said quickly. ‘And I will need to call my assistant.’

‘That’s OK, we can arrange that.’

‘The SIM in my phone is undamaged, so all I have to do is get a new handset,’ he said.

‘Use my phone for now.’ He handed Lee a smartphone.

‘Will you need me to stick around?’ Lee asked as he dialled his own office number into the handset.

‘You’re not leaving the country, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Then you can probably go back to the Smoke tomorrow,’ Cobbett said. ‘You’ll have to make yourself available …’

‘Sure.’ And then Mumtaz answered. ‘Hiya,’ he said. ‘It’s me. You know that old saying about lightning not striking twice? Well, guess what …’

*

Her mother threw the telephone at its stand. It missed and hit the floor. Being careful not to meet her mother’s eyes, Rashida picked it up and carefully replaced it.

‘That private detective woman is always on another call!’ Salwa yelled. She was getting the younger children ready for school, pulling Zizi’s hair into a ponytail so tight it made her cheeks red. Rashida knew that once she was put in charge of her two brothers and her sister she’d loosen that elastic band, which would hopefully let Zizi continue her day in comfort. Her mother was always like this when she was angry. Spiteful.

‘Why all these Pakistani women round here say she’s good, I don’t know,’ Salwa continued. ‘Maybe they just tell me that because I’m outsider and they want to laugh at me, eh? Foreigners! That Polish man in the shop that sells all those disgusting sausages made of pig, he tries to cheat me if I have to go in there to get milk. Everyone is cheating us! Because they think bad things about your father …’

‘Not everyone knows who we are, Omy,’ Rashida said.

‘Then why do they all try to cheat us? Eh?’

‘They don’t.’

Salwa finished fiddling with Zizi’s hair and pushed her away. ‘Get your coat on.’ She said to Rashida, ‘So it’s me being stupid, is it?’

‘No, but—’

‘But what? Eh? Rashida, don’t make excuses for these foreigners. You do it too much these days. I’ve seen you with that white girl and that Indian.’

Rashida put her head down.

‘The one wears an instrument of death around her neck while the other worships demons in the shape of elephants and women with a hundred arms.’

Kerry did wear a cross on a chain around her neck, true, and MJ was Hindu, but hardly the most devout Hindu in the world. And even if she had been, that would not have changed the way that Rashida felt about her. She’d been able to turn to MJ and ask her for help when she’d had nobody else and was all out of hope. That particular ‘foreigner’ had come through. But she knew better than to challenge her mother over it. It was obvious that Salwa already felt that the girls were too close. And of course she did have a point. Kerry and MJ did worship idols and false gods; they were infidels. But did that make them bad? Rashida knew that on the one hand they had to be beyond the pale but on the other, they were probably the kindest girls she’d ever met.

‘Now take these children to school while I try to ring that detective again,’ Salwa said. She walked towards the phone. ‘If I am left with my sanity today it will truly be one of Allah’s greatest miracles!’

Rashida met her brothers and her sister in the hall. They looked up at her for some sort of reassurance. It had been one of ‘those’ mornings for all of them. Their Omy could be such hard work.

‘Come on, you lot,’ Rashida said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

*

Shirley at the Advocacy wanted to see her as soon as was convenient and Salwa el Shamy was all for cancelling her contract, judging by the answerphone messages she’d left. But all that Mumtaz could think about was Lee – and Naz Sheikh.

Lee had been hit on the head, again, although this time by a known person. The father of the man he was trying to find. And then he’d found himself locked in a room with a corpse. As Lee had told her, there was more to the massive fraud perpetrated by Phil Rivers than met the eye. He just didn’t know what it was – yet.

Ever since she’d spoken to Naz Sheikh in the middle of the night, Mumtaz had been fretting about what he’d meant. On the one hand, some way of paying him off without using money was intriguing, while on the other, it was terrifying. If he didn’t want money, what did he want? Usually he talked about Shazia when money became an issue for her, but this time he hadn’t. Trying to second-guess what was in Naz’s mind was impossible, but Mumtaz gave it a go anyway. What had all that stuff about being a ‘friend’ meant? Her life sometimes, she thought, felt like a Bollywood version of
The Godfather
.

The office phone rang again.

‘Arnold Agency. How can I help you?’

‘Mumtaz, it’s Tony Bracci.’ He sounded breathless. ‘I’ve just had a phone call from Lee.’

‘Oh, so you know …’

‘What the fuck – ’scuse me – what the hell is he doing?’

‘It’s his missing person case, DS Bracci,’ she said.

‘This geezer whose missus don’t want the law involved?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, sounds as if the law’s going to have to get involved if he keeps on getting thumped on the head,’ he said.

‘Southend police have to investigate the family now a body has been found in the flat where Lee was attacked,’ Mumtaz said.

‘Do they know who it is?’

‘Not yet, although Lee suspects very strongly that it was the old man’s wife. She had dementia …’

‘And he killed her?’

‘I don’t know, DS Bracci. Lee is hoping to be back tomorrow and so maybe you can ask him then.’

She knew that Tony was staying at Lee’s flat and she knew why but Mumtaz just said, ‘Are you all right for food for Chronus, DS Bracci?’

‘Oh, er, yes, you know I’m, um …’

‘Very kindly looking after Lee’s baby, yes,’ she said. ‘If I wasn’t moving I would have brought him to my house and taken care of him. But it’s so chaotic …’

‘He’s fine here, at Lee’s, you know.’

‘Yes.’ She looked at her watch. If she was going to get to Ilford Hospital in time for the meeting Shirley had asked her to, she’d have to get a move on. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’

‘That’s OK. See you soon, Mumtaz.’

‘Yes, and if I hear anything else, I will call you.’ Then, just before she ended the call she said, ‘Oh, and how is DI Collins now? Is she any better?’

She heard him sigh. ‘Well, her voice is getting stronger, sadly, and she can eat now. But she’s also, well, she seems a bit down. Know what I mean?’

Mumtaz picked her bag up from her desk. ‘Could be post-operative depression,’ she said. ‘That can sometimes set in after surgery.’

‘Could be. I dunno. Maybe she just needs another woman to talk to. It’s all men in the guv’s life, you know.’

Mumtaz smiled. Vi Collins was really a man’s woman and she couldn’t imagine her either wanting or needing a heart to heart with another female but she said, ‘I’ll go and see her, DS Bracci. Maybe she’ll open up to me.’

‘Be great if you could, Mumtaz, thanks,’ he said.

There was a note of desperation in his voice that made her believe that he really meant it. But then if Vi had been using him as a sounding board for her personal angst he was probably exhausted, especially given his own vexed situation.

‘Must go,’ she said.