Poisoned Ground: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 3) (23 page)

Salwa had had enough. Rashida had come home smelling of smoke. Things had to change. She was going to book flights to Egypt for the first day of the childrens’ school holidays and then she was going to dismiss that private detective. She’d do it in writing so there could be no misunderstanding. She’d deliver the letter to Mrs Hakim’s office herself. She’d done nothing and Salwa was angry. Why hadn’t Mumtaz Hakim tried to tempt el Masri herself? She was a good-looking woman, he had to want her. But she hadn’t. She’d said something about how it wasn’t right to ‘trap’ someone like that. But he was a criminal! Salwa couldn’t understand it. Surely if el Masri was a criminal it didn’t matter how he was unmasked? And why hadn’t she broken into his house to find his explosives? He had them, Hatem had said so. Why couldn’t Mumtaz Hakim just go in there and find them?

She put the computer on and while it booted up she thought about how she’d never understand this country she’d come to so many years ago. On the one hand, the British seemed to do everything they could to protect the guilty and prison sentences were really short. On the other hand, they had just assumed that Hatem was guilty right from the start. Was it because he was a Muslim? It seemed so. And yet they allowed her to visit Hatem
and he was going to be tried in court, albeit using made-up evidence.

Salwa made her way to the British Airways site. Four returns and one outward journey. Once Rashida was married to Anwar she’d forget all about smoking and her father’s lock-up.

She looked at the screen for flights that left at a reasonable hour. She wished Hatem was coming too. The new Egypt was Islamic and exciting, everything Hatem had ever wanted, but it was still poor. Her family were poor. Rashida’s wedding would be a cheap affair and she’d have to live in a house with no bathroom. She would hate it. But what could Salwa do? When Hatem had gone to prison the family had funded them, and now the family wanted Rashida for Anwar. What could she do but agree to the match? Salwa would return for Hatem’s trial, which wasn’t until February. Now she had a few weeks to get into el Masri’s house and find his explosives herself. She just had to discover where he lived.

*

Mumtaz took her headscarf off and put it into her handbag. The basement was underneath the admin block, and although she didn’t know whether she’d be able to get in, she did know where the stairs were. It hadn’t been easy deciding whether to try to get in as herself or as someone unknown. As soon as she took the scarf off she was a different person as far as the world was concerned. She suspected that the hospital receptionist, who had a liking for celebrity magazines, would barely raise her head whatever Mumtaz did.

On her way from the car to the admin block, Mumtaz had a moment of anxiety when she found herself walking towards Roy, her fellow advocate. But he didn’t appear to recognize her.
Mumtaz entered the admin block and the receptionist briefly looked in her direction. She was about to say she was on her way to the finance office when a man came in carrying multiple bunches of flowers. The receptionist looked over at him and smiled. ‘They from the crem?’ she asked.

The man said they were. Mumtaz moved towards the door to the staircase.

The receptionist picked up two bunches of lilies. ‘Ah, aren’t they lovely?’ she said. ‘These from that Thelma who used to be on Chronic?’

‘Yeah,’ the man said. ‘There’s bloody loads of them.’

‘Oh, it’s nice of her family to send them to the patients.’

Mumtaz slipped through the door and down the stairs. This was supposed to be her day off. She’d told Shazia she’d just pop out to the hospital and then she’d spend the rest of the day packing. And if the door to the basement was locked, that was what she would do. If it was unlocked she’d have a task on her hands that would take some time. She didn’t even know how or where the records of deceased patients were stored. Loads of stuff was, she had been told, put down in the basement. Defunct employment records, old equipment, rat poison, out-of-date accounts – the basement apparently held it all, along with the records of the dead.

*

‘Puffy’s in a coma. Mrs Brzezinski – Antoni’s mother – says Antoni won’t tell the police the names of the other boys in the car,’ Amy said.

‘Kind of confirms her worst fears,’ Lee said.

‘We keep the customer satisfied once again.’

Amy took a cigarette from Lee’s packet and lit up. They were
sitting on the metal stairs outside the office. Amy had forgotten it was Mumtaz’s day off and had come in to update her on Antoni Brzezinski, but she’d found Lee instead.

‘You took the reg of the car the kids used?’ Lee asked.

‘I gave it to the doctor who passed it on to the police, yes,’ she said.

‘So the driver’ll be tracked down eventually, provided the car wasn’t nicked.’

‘I imagine if he hasn’t already ditched it, he will do,’ Amy said. ‘Those kids must know what Puffy took and exactly where he got it. They all just strode into that block of flats. They went there for a purpose. What I don’t understand is, why just Puffy? Why didn’t they all take what he took?’

‘Maybe he was the only one brave enough to try whatever it was,’ Lee said.

‘Or they used him as a guinea pig. He’s a bit of a sad lump of a kid. I got the feeling he followed the others around.’

Lee’s mobile rang.

‘Hello, mate,’ Vi Collins rasped.

‘Hiya, Vi.’

Amy put her fag out and walked back into the office.

‘Listen, got a text off your Susan last night,’ she said.

Lee felt his heart sink. ‘Oh, Christ, I’m so sorry, Vi!’

‘Not a problem, love. She just wrote the word “Sorry”. I assume it was for giving me the silent treatment. Just thought I’d better let you know.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I don’t know where you two are up to or …’

‘Neither do I,’ Lee said. ‘She’s a nice girl and all that, but … Shit, Vi, I can’t be checked up on at my age. All that jealousy stuff …’

‘Depends if you love her,’ Vi said. ‘You know what people put up with if they’re in love.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Lee said. He knew he wasn’t in love with Susan, but he also knew that he wasn’t sure he could give her up. Was it just the sex?

‘Well, I just thought I’d let you know,’ Vi said. ‘All being well, I’m back at work in a couple of days.’

‘That must be a relief.’

‘Just a bit. You ever watched daytime telly?’ Vi put the phone down and Lee smiled.

When Vi was back at work she’d be happier and, maybe, she’d be able to help him sort Tony Bracci out. Lee didn’t want to make Tony homeless, but he did want him to leave. When Tony had finally gone to bed the previous night he’d left his cup in the living room, together with an empty crisp packet and a light dusting of crisp particles all over the chair. Lee had had to clean there and then but he’d had to do it quietly. It pissed him off and made him wonder if his life was spinning out of control again. But then he knew the answer to that. That little incident had resulted in another dose of co-codamol. Soon he’d be swinging between co-codamol and co-dydramol, just like the old days.

Lee got up and walked into the office. ‘I s’pose I’d better bite the bullet and write me report for Derek Salmon. Then I’d better do some paperwork,’ he said to Amy.

‘Unless you want me to do it,’ she said.

‘I’d have to pay you.’

‘True. But, come on, Lee, I’ve just lost Antoni Brzezinski and I’ve got to pay for my roof to be re-tiled.’

Derek Salmon had just given him what for the Arnold Agency was a vast wedge of cash. And Mumtaz had got seriously behind
with the paperwork since she’d been working up at Ilford Hospital. And Lee was a soft touch.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Make a decent cup of tea for me and you’re on.’

*

There were things in that basement that didn’t bear close inspection. Electrical and other contraptions that Mumtaz suspected had once been used to try to cure patients. There were also some suspicious scuffling noises that, at first, had alarmed her. Was she alone in there or not? After she saw her first rat she realized that she wasn’t by herself. She found several tins of unopened rat poison, which she did consider using, but she didn’t know what she was doing with the stuff and so she decided against it.

Mumtaz very soon discovered that the job she’d set herself, to find Sara Ibrahim’s medical records, wasn’t going to be easy. There was no system. Not just in the storage of medical records but in any part of the basement. Medical notes were jumbled up with accounts, letters to and from the hospital management were in turn tangled up in old equipment. The tins of rat poison were complemented by dozens of mouse-traps, some of which were also mixed up in paperwork. But in spite of what she’d told Shazia about doing more packing, Mumtaz knew that she wasn’t in a hurry. Sara’s notes had to be in there somewhere and if she didn’t find them this time, she’d look again another day. Her only fear was that someone might lock the basement door, not knowing she was in there. But it was a risk she’d have to take if she wanted to know whether Dr el Masri and/or Hatem el Shamy had changed Sara Ibrahim’s medical records. Why either of them would have done such a thing she couldn’t imagine. But if she had the proof in her hands she could at least go back to her client and tell her she had something. Depending upon what
she found that could incriminate el Masri, Hatem el Shamy or both. For Hatem’s wife, whatever Mumtaz found could be a mixed blessing. But at least it might just move her nearer to the truth.

*

‘Oh, good God, you frightened me!’

Shirley was still nervous after the previous night’s experiences. Then to have Roy apparently creep up on her …

‘Are you supposed to be in today?’ she asked him. ‘I thought Mandy was coming on her own?’

‘She’s still not well,’ Roy said. ‘Panic attacks.’

Shirley sat down behind her desk. Put next to somebody threatening to kill somebody else, a few panic attacks were very small potatoes. But she also knew how badly Mandy could suffer. She said, ‘I’ve got a couple of appointments on Acute One so if you can do the chronic ward that’d be really great, Roy.’

‘Yeah, OK.’

Roy had been an inpatient on Acute and Forensic at Ilford many times. Although only thirty-four, he’d got to know most of the regular patients who came in and went out of residential care. Unlike Mandy, who was always wary of the chronic ward, he regarded the psychotics, sex addicts and other apparent incurables on the ward as his friends.

‘Anything I need to look out for?’ Roy fiddled with the pens on her desk, which irritated Shirley. But she didn’t say anything. Roy fiddled. It was what he did.

‘Only the usual,’ she said.

‘Staff still telling them off when they light up in the bogs?’

‘We know that smoking’s banned everywhere inside the hospital, but you can’t make someone who’s been an inpatient for
thirty years just stop,’ Shirley said. ‘Staff can tell them to take their fags outside, but shouting at them and bullying them is out of order. Ask the service users about their experiences.’

‘Except for Melvin,’ Roy said.

‘Oh, yes,’ Shirley said. ‘That’s just common sense.’

Melvin lived in a world that was controlled by immense violent rodents. Whatever sense of reality he may once have possessed was long gone. Even his food had to be mushed up and fed to him with a straw because that was how the rodents wanted it to be.

‘Ask Len,’ Shirley said. ‘He’s generally got more of a hold on what’s happening than most of them.’ Then she remembered something that Mumtaz had said about Terry, the man who lived in fear of planes. ‘Also, let me know if you think they’re particularly agitated on Chronic, if you will, Roy.’

‘OK.’

He didn’t ask why she wanted to know this, or how he was supposed to assess their agitation. But Shirley knew he’d know if the residents were particularly distressed because he’d been one himself.

Roy left and Shirley began to prepare herself for her meetings on Acute One. But at the back of her mind those words wouldn’t go away.
I’ll fucking kill you!
People did say things like that all the time, and they rarely meant anything. But in this case, she wasn’t so sure. There had been so much malice in the tone. What had it been about and why had one of them wanted to kill the other? Had they been service users or staff? And had they realized that the door to the Advocacy office had been open?

Shirley had what she knew was an irrational fear about one or other of the protagonists coming to ‘get’ her at some point. Rationally she knew it all stemmed from being locked in her
office that night. But if one of them did kill the other, it could happen. Then again, she hadn’t seen anyone and no one had seen her. But Shirley still felt her hands shake as she put the papers she needed into her briefcase.

*

Millie had just been given her first course of electroconvulsive treatment when Mumtaz heard a noise. It wasn’t a rat, she was used to them by this time. Someone had come into the basement. She sat, frozen to the pile of wood she was using as a chair. Footsteps followed, and then some whistling. This wasn’t good. Mumtaz took her headscarf out of her handbag and put it on. The footsteps came closer. Then she saw him.

He was an elderly man, carrying a load of heavily-filled cardboard files. Whistling and muttering to himself, he would see her if he just turned his head. If she moved he’d definitely hear her. Mumtaz became stone with a pounding heart.

For a moment he appeared to be searching for the right place to put the files, even looking up and down a rack of shelves to try to find where his documents might fit. But then he sighed, shrugged and just dropped the whole lot on top of another stack of files on the floor. She heard him say, ‘Bloody state!’ and then he left. The door closed behind him but she didn’t think that she heard the lock turn. When he’d gone, Mumtaz breathed out. She’d been certain he’d see her and she still couldn’t quite believe that he hadn’t. She took her headscarf off and began to follow Millie’s story again.