Poisoned Ground: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 3) (19 page)

‘Which is?’

‘I think that Muslims lost their way,’ she said. ‘Back in medieval times amazing work was taking place. In Andalusia we had al Zahrawi the surgeon, whose techniques were so advanced they look modern. And what about ibn Sina, the Persian who described the different forms energy can take and the properties of light? In Christian Europe people were still touching the dead bodies of saints to effect cures and buying Indulgences to limit the time they had to spend in Purgatory.’

‘Scientists like ibn Sina came into conflict with their rulers.’

‘Just like the Christian, Galileo,’ she said. ‘But we were on a trajectory, Dr el Masri. Islamic scientists were moving forwards.’

‘And then they stopped.’

‘Yes. It would be too simplistic to say that progress stopped because so many Islamic lands were colonised by non-Muslims. We had the Ottoman Empire, we didn’t just grind to a halt. But colonisation was a factor, together with low levels of education, which were exploited by corrupt rulers keen to consolidate their power. They used and continue to use religion as a weapon and a tool to crush dissent. I have read the Koran many times and I believe it to be the true word of God. But I also do not and cannot believe that God doesn’t want us to be curious about the world He has made available to us. I think it is our duty as Muslims to question and explore.’

He frowned. ‘But Islam means submission …’

‘To God, yes,’ she said. ‘I submit to God’s will every day of my life. I accept my lot. But I also work to make my own life and
those of others better. To not do that would be to deny the education my parents worked so hard to give me.’

‘Your headscarf,’ he said, ‘is that an outward sign of your submission to God?’

‘In part,’ she said.

‘You feel it offers you protection?’

She saw a light in his eyes.

‘From men?’ he added.

‘I like to cover my head,’ she said. ‘But I am not a fool, Dr el Masri. I know that if a man wants a woman, a piece of cloth will not save her. That kind of man doesn’t care what type of woman he assaults. That’s why the whole notion of women in short skirts tempting men is flawed. Men either assault women or they don’t.’

‘Maybe.’

‘There’s no maybe about it!’ Mumtaz shook her head. ‘But I’m sorry, Dr el Masri,’ she said, ‘I’m ranting.’

‘That’s OK.’

Rather than focusing on el Masri, the conversation had made Mumtaz think about her dead husband again. Ahmet had raped her covered or uncovered. He’d even raped his own daughter.

‘I am a great believer in the power of catharsis,’ Dr el Masri said. ‘It’s good to release emotions and tension; I encourage my patients to do that whenever they can.’

Mumtaz made herself concentrate. ‘So, you use psychoanalytic techniques …’

‘I refer to any school of thought I think may help my patients,’ he said. ‘But as a psychiatrist, as I am sure you know, Miss Huq, my principal job is to medicate and then rehabilitate. These days we have wonderful drugs that can turn a person’s life around. But the wrong drug prescribed to the wrong person can be a disaster. I am paid well to try to prevent such things happening.’

She wanted, somehow, to get around to the subject of Hatem el Shamy, but that was difficult because they’d moved on from Egypt. Mumtaz let the conversation run and it was, she had to admit, enjoyable. Only once, when he’d talked about her headscarf and she’d seen that light come into his eyes had she recognized the lecher that Salwa el Shamy had described. And even then it was very slight. It was only as she was leaving that Mumtaz brought the subject of el Masri’s homeland up again.

‘Did you ever practice in Egypt, Dr el Masri?’ she asked.

‘For a while,’ he said. ‘But, to be truthful, it was difficult.’

‘Why?’

He shrugged. ‘You won’t want to hear it.’

‘Please?’

‘The Muslim Brotherhood, even before they came to power, made life difficult sometimes for people like me. Don’t get me wrong, I come from a wealthy family and my people don’t live anywhere near to the seats of the Brotherhood’s power. But I wanted to work with the poor, that’s what I do here.’

‘Why couldn’t you in Egypt?’

‘Because elements within the Brotherhood don’t believe in psychiatry. They certainly don’t believe in a Copt practising psychiatry. For a while I kept my head down and tried to just do my job without attracting attention. But it was too hard. Now all I can do with regard to Egypt is send money to my old hospital whenever I am able. I have provided accommodation for several members of my family who have wanted to leave Egypt over the years. One does one’s best. I imagine you know that we had a member of the Muslim Brotherhood working as a nurse here?’

‘Yes. Didn’t he plant a bomb?’

‘A bomb was found in his locker, yes,’ he said. ‘Whether he put it there will be for a jury to decide.’

‘Did you get on, as fellow Egyptians?’ she asked.

He sighed. ‘On the face of it he was a good nurse,’ he said. ‘But I had some doubts about him that went beyond the fact that he hated me because I am a Copt and a supporter of Hosni Mubarak.’

‘Did you hate him?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t trust him. I can’t say any more than that because his case has not yet come to court. It’s difficult for me, Miss Huq. I cannot approve of him but at the same time I cannot, as they say here, badmouth him either. Do you see?’

She did. When she left, Mumtaz thought about her conversation with Dr el Masri in detail. On the face of it he seemed a very reasonable man. He hadn’t condemned Hatem el Shamy and had even left the door open to the idea that he might not have planted the bomb in the locker.

Why hadn’t Salwa el Shamy told her that el Masri was a Copt? It was well known that the Copts and the Brotherhood were often at odds and although Mumtaz had known that the issue between the two men was in part personal, she hadn’t been aware to what extent. In Salwa’s world, el Masri had set her husband up, but why would he? El Masri was a successful psychiatrist doing what he wanted and, by his own admission, getting paid well for it. Why would he bother with Hatem, however much he hated the Brotherhood?

Her phone rang.

‘Ah, Mumtaz,’ her father said, ‘about this house move …’

‘Baba, it’s fine,’ Mumtaz said. ‘It’s ten days away and we’re almost packed.’

‘Good. Your brothers and I will move you,’ he said. ‘Your cousin Aftab has a van.’

Mumtaz rolled her eyes. She already had the move organized. ‘Baba, I have a van,’ she said. ‘I’ve paid for men to move us.’

‘Then un-pay them,’ her father said. ‘Did you really think that your family would just let you move all alone? Two ladies moving alone – ridiculous!’

‘Baba, I can’t un-pay the men I’ve engaged to move me.’

‘And I can’t un-ask your cousin Aftab,’ he said. ‘If we turn down his generous offer now he’ll be offended. And he’s family.’

The great Bangladeshi family. Mumtaz had known when she’d booked the van from Forest Removals that she should have consulted the family first. But if the Sheikhs turned up, she didn’t want her father or her brothers anywhere near them.

‘Ron and Harry who run the removal company are very nice men,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Ron’s a neighbour. If they don’t get another job for Saturday week they’ll be out of pocket and that isn’t fair.’

‘So maybe they will get a job?’

She walked out of the hospital and into the car park. A small group of service users smoked in the lee of the old laundry block. While Mumtaz had been in with Dr el Masri it had got dark. She pulled the collar of her coat close around her neck.

‘And if they don’t get another job?’ Mumtaz asked. ‘What then?’

‘Well then, I will pay them,’ her father said. ‘If it’s so important to you. We can’t have Aftab inconvenienced. He uses his van for his shop and so this is a very big favour he is doing.’

She shook her head. ‘Yes, Baba.’

‘Tell your men I will pay them,’ her father said. ‘Your Ron and Harry.’

She sighed. Resistance was pointless. ‘OK.’

‘Good!’

He finished the call, leaving Mumtaz stressed at the thought of the Sheikhs seeing her family with her. They knew who the Huqs were, of course they did, but she still preferred to create some distance between her tormentors and her blood relations.
As she got into her car, Mumtaz saw one of the smokers looking at her. He turned to one of his companions and said, ‘Do you think she’s got any tobacco?’

The other man said, ‘No. They don’t smoke.’

‘Who?’

‘Covered-up women.’

Although she’d never smoked in her life, Mumtaz was almost tempted to pick up a dog-end and give it a go. Few people smoked more than her Auntie Asma who lived in complete purdah in a village fifty miles from Dhaka. When her friends visited her for tea they all arrived completely swaddled from head to foot. But once in her salon, off came the niqabs and out came the cakes and the cigarettes. Then they all danced.

Salwa couldn’t sleep. Mumtaz Hakim’s call had upset her. So what if el Masri was a Copt? How did that change what he had done to Hatem? If anything it made it worse. Everyone knew that Copts were just worshippers of the old Egyptian gods in disguise. Why would they have almost total control of the ancient temples otherwise?

And then the Hakim woman had gone on about how
nice
the psychiatrist had been! Hatem had told her that el Masri was cunning, but she hadn’t thought for a moment that the so-called private detective would fall for his lies. And they had to be lies. Salwa looked at her clock. It was two a.m. so to leave the house would be madness. All sorts ranged around in the night – drunks from the local pubs, drug addicts, perverts. Salwa put a hand in the drawer of her bedside cabinet and took out a set of keys. Such a fight she’d had to get them from Rashida! Now she could go to Hatem’s lock-up any time she wanted. If she wanted.

Salwa didn’t know what was in the lock-up any more than she hoped her daughter did. She had some ideas, but they were disloyal and she tried to suppress them. This time she failed. What if Hatem was not the man she thought he was? She’d never forget how guilty he’d looked when she’d first found him
at the lock-up. She’d been on her way home from taking the children to school and suddenly there he’d been. Underneath those arches, a bunch of keys in one hand and a sack containing who knew what in the other. He’d been furious. He’d put the sack just inside the door of the unit and then locked up. He’d shouted at her to mind her own business and stop following him, and although Salwa had tried to make him understand that she hadn’t been following him, he hadn’t been convinced. From then on, until his arrest, he had looked at her with suspicious eyes. That had to be why he’d given the lock-up keys to Rashida.

Had Hatem known that Rashida wouldn’t look inside? He couldn’t have done. Salwa knew her daughter wanted to. She’d almost done it when she’d caught her there, skipping school. But then Salwa thought Rashida must have looked, because if she hadn’t, why would she threaten to reveal what her father had inside? What was in there? Her palest fantasy was about Muslim Brotherhood leaflets. Her darkest was guns, ammunition, explosives. Even thinking about it made Salwa cringe. How could she think that Hatem had explosives in that lock-up? He was a man of peace. Or, at least, he had become one.

There had been a bomb, long ago. Designed to blow up Mubarak’s car it had detonated in a garage in the suburb of Manshiyet Nasser. When Hatem and his brother Muhammed had opened the door it had gone off, luckily not wounding either of them. After that, so Hatem said, he had been too frightened to make any more bombs. Salwa had to believe him. But if the lock-up didn’t contain bomb-making equipment then what did it contain? And why was Hatem so adamant that no one should know what was in there?

*

‘You’re a fucking shitbag,’ Lee Arnold said. ‘And you’re a stupid one.’

Muttering to himself, he was glad that it was a dark autumn night in the rain on a deserted Southend seafront. If anyone had heard him talking to himself, he was sure he’d be sectioned. But Lee needed a good talking to, even if it was only from himself. The codeine had felt so good it had made him weep. There were no words for the relief it had given. He’d forgiven Susan for stalking Vi and then he’d made love to her and, with the codeine on board, he had felt completely involved in the act. That was rare.

Stunning as she was, Susan’s was not the kind of body Lee dreamt about in the deepest, darkest places of his soul. He wouldn’t even give those desires a name. If he did he knew he’d disappear down a black hole from which he’d never emerge. Wasn’t he down a black hole now? Lee took the packet of co-codamol out of his pocket and counted the number of tablets he’d taken. Four was nothing when you had been on twenty a day. But four tablets after years of abstinence were making his head woolly in a very good way. And if his past addiction had taught him anything, it would get a whole lot better before it got worse. If he could catch it just before it went bad on him …

That was fucking ridiculous. Nobody ever managed to do that. He’d left Susan sleeping in bed to come and rant at himself on the seafront because he knew that was bollocks. If he stopped now he’d never have to go through all the headaches that nudged the codeine-dependent back to addiction. All he’d have to contend with was being a bit pissed off that he had to deal with reality in the raw. That was if he didn’t succumb.

Lee walked past the old Foresters pub. Devoid of lights and with boards advertising strippers, it looked like an old caravan park toilet block. Caravans brought to mind Leslie Baum; Lee
wondered if he was playing Dungeons and Dragons with a group of boys half his age or whether he was having a lonely wank. Ending up like Leslie wasn’t hard to do. Tens of thousands of men did it every year. Lee lit a fag. As he watched it burn, he wondered whether he should ask Susan to marry him. He knew she’d be up for it and he’d never be lonely again. And he’d have good sex.

If only something happened in his head when he thought about her. Lee’s feeling of unease with Susan, exacerbated by her behaviour towards Vi, had only been assuaged by the addition of codeine. And now that it was wearing off a bit he was beginning to feel pain again, both mental and physical. What was it about Phil Rivers and his family that made this job so bloody dangerous? When he’d gone to meet Barry Barber at that pub in Dagenham, he’d got beaten to within an inch and now Phil’s dad had almost put him back in hospital. It was unlikely that Barber had had anything to do with that first assault. He’d wanted to talk to Lee about Phil. But if he hadn’t smacked him up, who had? Someone had to have been following him to know he was going to that obscure part of Dagenham. That thought made his skin creep. To go to so much trouble just to give him a slap seemed like madness. Unless they’d intended to kill him. But why? Phil had had it away on his toes with a lot of money and he may or may not be a gay boy, but were either of those things worth killing for? But then it was one point two million …

‘It’s got to be here somewhere. Where are you, you little bastard?’

In the summer the seafront was heaving with people even in the wee hours of the morning. But once winter came it was given back to the homeless. What looked like a bundle of rags scrabbled after a bottle of something or other, presumably alcohol, as
Lee walked by. He’d just pulled level with one of those slot-machine places, now mercifully silent, and he would have carried on going if the tramp hadn’t started crying. And if he hadn’t recognized his voice the second time he spoke.

‘Oh, fuck! Where’s that fucking bottle. Somebody? Please?’

Lee didn’t even look for the bottle but he did bend down and look into the man’s face. It made him go cold. ‘Ken?’ he said. ‘Is that you?’

*

‘No, you can’t examine me. Fuck off!’

Dylan pushed the doctor away.

‘Mr Smith …’

‘What’re you doing, coming in here in the middle of the fucking night?’ Dylan pulled his blankets up to his chin and pushed himself back into his pillows. ‘And with him!’

Timothy Pool blinked as Dylan jabbed a finger at him.

‘Dylan, I am your ward manager …’

‘Leave me alone!’ Then he looked at el Masri. ‘And you, you’re not even on-call here tonight. What you doing here?’

‘Dr el Masri has come to examine you,’ Pool said. ‘Mrs Mayfield from the Advocacy made a request for you to be examined by a doctor because of these injuries you seem to have sustained.’

‘I never asked her to do that!’ Dylan’s eyes bulged. It was all very well shouting at Tim Pool but dobbing him in, after what Dylan had been through, was quite another. ‘She made a fuss about it all, not me!’

‘Mr Smith, I can see bruises on your arms,’ el Masri said. ‘Why don’t you just let me have a look at you?’

‘No!’ Dylan turned away.

‘These issues between patients can be intractable, as you
know, Dr el Masri,’ Pool said. ‘It’s like prison culture, you know. Nobody “grasses”. What can I do?’

Bastard! Dylan wanted to smack Timothy Pool’s lying mouth. Dylan might not know who’d smashed him up but he did know who’d ordered it. And anyway, why should he tell a perv like el Masri about what had happened? Word was that he shagged female patients when they were asleep. Why should he trust someone like that?

El Masri said, ‘I don’t need to know who assaulted you, Mr Smith. I just want to make sure that you are all right.’

‘I am.’ If el Masri examined him, he’d have to write something in his notes and give some sort of account of himself to that bloody Shirley. What was she doing suddenly meddling in things she’d always avoided before? Why did she suddenly give a shit?

‘What’s going on?’

Someone had told Dylan that Dr Golding was going to be on call. But he hadn’t expected to see him, not with el Masri in the room. Now he stood at the end of his bed.

‘Mrs Mayfield from the Advocacy expressed some concern about this patient’s physical wellbeing,’ el Masri said. ‘I am offering him an examination.’

‘In the middle of the night?’

Golding’s tone expressed precisely what Dylan had felt. ‘They woke me up!’ he said.

Golding frowned. He was the doctor on-call that evening, and he hadn’t heard anything about this. ‘Dr el Masri,’ he said, ‘can I speak to you about this in private, please?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

They left. But Timothy Pool didn’t go with them. Dylan tucked his bedclothes tightly around his body. Pool looked him in the eyes, ‘It’s OK, Dylan,’ he said. And then he smiled.

Then he left.

Dylan shivered. He knew exactly why el Masri hadn’t turned up until just after midnight. That was when Timothy Pool was on shift and the doctor wouldn’t examine him without Tim. The Egyptian might be a highly qualified psychiatrist with years of experience, but at Ilford he knew his place in the pecking order and that was below Timothy Pool. Unfortunately, as he was sure it would turn out to be for somebody in the end, nobody had told Dr Golding what the score was. Dylan had seen Tim Pool’s face when Golding had suddenly turned up and intervened. It hadn’t been pretty.

*

Even though he was ex-job, Lee was surprised when DI Cobbett offered to let him watch Ken Rivers’ interview. Behind a one-way mirror, Lee sat with a constable called Frith and a cup of bad cop-shop coffee. The codeine had almost worn off and he felt wide awake again.

Ken Rivers, who looked like a crumpled collection of charity shop donations, sat next to a knackered-looking duty solicitor. He told Cobbett his name, his age and his address without sounding much more than a bit tipsy. Even when he asked him about Lee, Ken answered immediately.

‘I hit him,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘He was nosing in my business,’ the old man said.

‘You made him go into a room with a dead body before you hit him, though, didn’t you, Mr Rivers?’ Cobbett said.

There was a long silence. When Ken spoke again he sounded as pissed as a parrot. ‘Dead what? What? Dunno what you …’ He looked at the solicitor. ‘Can I get a drink, can I?’

The solicitor shrugged.

Cobbett looked down at some notes and said, ‘When Mr Arnold called us from Miss Franks’ flat, which is the one above yours, he said that there was a dead body on the bed in the room where you, Mr Rivers, had locked him after your assault.’

‘Don’t know nothing about that.’ Lee could see the old man trembling. ‘He must’ve put it there,’ Ken said.

‘What, Mr Arnold?’

‘Yeah.’

Cobbett consulted his notes again. ‘Mr Arnold called us at three forty-five yesterday morning,’ he said. ‘Our forensic team sealed off the crime scene, which contained a dead body. The corpse has been examined by a pathologist whose findings so far are interesting. Want to know what they are, Mr Rivers?’

Ken shrugged.

‘She – we know it’s a female – has been dead for at least a month. A considerable amount of her had liquified into the mattress she was lying on, apparently.’ He looked up. ‘An elderly lady, the pathologist reckons. Where’s your wife, Mr Rivers?’

Ken didn’t answer, but he continued to shake.

‘Elizabeth, or “Bette”, Rivers? Know where she is, Mr Rivers?’

Again, Ken said nothing.

‘You were married for a long time, weren’t you, Ken?’ Cobbett said. ‘Forty years or so? Then there was your son. Philip, thirty-five years old.’

‘He’s missing,’ the old man said. ‘And the old woman too.’

‘Your wife is missing?’

‘She’s got the dementia,’ Ken said. ‘She just wanders off. I try to keep hold of her but she’s away with the fairies.’

Cobbett leant onto the table between them. He wore an expression Lee knew well. It said:
You know and I know that you are full of shit
.

‘So how long has Bette been missing, Mr Rivers?’

Ken pretended to think. Then he said, ‘About a month.’

‘So you’ve reported her disappearance?’

‘No.’ As soon as he’d said it, Ken put his hand up to his mouth. Closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.

‘Why not?’

There could be no reasonable answer. Ken looked at the floor.

‘I mean, I don’t know, but I imagine you’ve still been collecting Bette’s pension since her disappearance,’ Cobbett said. ‘Given your dire financial straits. When did you sell your flat to Shane Warner? There’s no point lying to me, Mr Rivers, because that I can find out easily.’

Lee finished his coffee-like drink and Constable Frith said, ‘Would you like another, sir?’

‘No thanks.’

Behind the glass, Ken Rivers said, ‘Four months ago.’

‘When you sold to Warner?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

He shrugged. ‘She was off her nut. I thought I might need to have her put in care, you know.’

‘But you didn’t, did you, Ken?’ Cobbett said. ‘Far as I can see Warner gave you a shit price, you agreed to some ridiculous rent and then you decided you’d have some fun trying your hand at being a professional gambler. How much did you lose? And again, don’t lie because we know where you gambled and we can make the casino show us their records.’