Poisoned Ground: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 3) (7 page)

She’d still been off with him when he’d arrived a second time and had gone away to the casino, leaving Lee to fend for himself, food-wise. He’d bought a bag of chips from a local takeaway and waited for her to come home. When she’d got in she’d been all loved-up again and they’d had sex. But Lee was no more enlightened about what had been wrong with her to begin with. Not for the first time, he wondered why he tried to work out what made women tick.

Southend high street was mostly pedestrianized. This made it easier to walk about but also seemed to make Lee notice the squashed patties of old chewing gum on the pavement. They made him long for a wallpaper scraper. Ken Rivers went into Greggs the bakers and came out carrying a small paper bag. Although Lee knew that Bette Rivers had dementia and probably couldn’t leave the flat he was shocked at Ken’s behaviour. Since he’d been observing him, Ken had been out in the day most of the time. Who was looking after Bette?

He followed the old man up the High Street in the direction of the Victoria Shopping Centre. All along the street were the sorts of businesses he associated with Southend, like bookies and pawnbrokers, but also some that he didn’t, like posh coffee places and even a university. He’d heard that the town was coming up but he hadn’t quite believed it; even when he’d spent those few days with Susan back in early September he didn’t
remember noticing it. Although he didn’t see what he would have regarded as many well-heeled people about, there were a lot of young students as well as a selection of the sorts more usually seen around the seafront. Ken Rivers made for a branch of NatWest and Lee followed him in. In spite of all the self-service options on offer to pay in or take out money, Ken walked up to one of the two cashiers’ desks and took either a cheque or paying-in book out of his pocket. Lee went to a cash machine and took out thirty pounds. He also got a personal account statement that almost put him off what he was doing.

But then he heard Ken Rivers speak. ‘I’ll have it in fifties, please, love,’ he said.

And while Lee didn’t catch what the cashier said back to Ken, he did watch as she counted out notes in front of him. She did it for some time. When Ken Rivers left the bank, Lee reckoned that he’d folded at least a thousand pounds into his battered old wallet. Once he was outside the bank, the old man ate the jumbo sausage roll he’d bought from Greggs and then threw the paper bag on the ground. Lee Arnold itched to pick it up.

*

Salwa watched her daughter walk towards a group of lock-up garages under the railway bridge on Balmoral Road in the mistaken belief that she hadn’t seen her. But Rashida had. She took a key out of her pocket and then turned to look at her mother.

‘What you doing, Omy?’ she asked.

Salwa answered her in Arabic. The girl spoke to her in English when she wanted to annoy her with her superior language skills. ‘What are
you
doing, Rashida?’

‘Don’t you know?’ Rashida still held keys in her hands. ‘If you didn’t know, why did you follow me?’

‘I didn’t …’

‘You followed me from school, Omy,’ she said. ‘What’ve you been doing, watching me?’

It was lunchtime and usually Rashida had her food at school.

Her mother pulled the bottom of her jilbab up across her mouth like a naughty schoolgirl. Then, suddenly angry, she pulled it away and said, ‘Why aren’t you having school dinners?’

Rashida shook her head. ‘You’re unbelievable! Omy, tell me why you’re here! Go on, tell me, we both know!’

Salwa took a deep breath. Then she took another. She said, ‘It was what you said after the private detective came. About … not keeping quiet. I saw you come here yesterday, by chance, and … I know this place, Rashida. We both know.’

Salwa had come upon Rashida as she went a convoluted way home from the shops on Upton Lane. That time she hadn’t seen her. Rashida had stood outside the lock-up, looking anxiously from left to right and then back again.

‘Well, if you admit you know, then tell me I don’t have to marry Cousin Anwar and I’ll never come here again.’

‘You can’t come here again.’ Salwa looked over her shoulder. ‘We shouldn’t be here now.’

‘Then why were you here yesterday “by chance”?’

Salwa looked away. ‘I come to check, sometimes.’

‘Check for what? You don’t have a key. I do.’

‘I didn’t know where it was. Where did you find it?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I got it,’ Rashida said.

‘You mustn’t go inside!’ Salwa looked over her shoulder again. ‘We have to leave, there are people about.’

‘I’ve never been inside,’ Rashida said.

‘Then what—’

‘It doesn’t matter why I’m here. That isn’t your business, Omy.’

‘You are my daughter.’

‘Who you want to marry off to a football hooligan, yes!’ Rashida said. ‘Omy, if you promise not to give me to Cousin Anwar then I will never come here again. I promise.’

‘A man is coming!’ Salwa grabbed hold of her daughter’s arm and pulled her away from the lock-up garages and towards the Romford Road. ‘Come! Come!’

The girl was reluctant to move but she did. There was a man walking in their direction.

‘Rashida!’

She walked beside her mother. ‘So?’

‘So what?’ Salwa said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Cousin Anwar …’

Salwa flung her arms up in exasperation. ‘I cannot do anything about Cousin Anwar,’ she said. ‘The family have decided. There is nothing I can do.’

‘Then I’ll come back to the lock-up,’ Rashida said.

‘No. You will give me that key and you will never come here again.’

Rashida stopped. ‘My baba gave it to me. He trusted me. I won’t give it to you.’

For a moment, Salwa was too shocked to speak. Then she said, ‘You will.’

‘Make me.’

Salwa walked towards her. ‘Rashida, I will lock you in the house if necessary. But don’t make me. You should go to school. I want you to.’

‘What for?’ She began to cry. ‘What will Cousin Anwar do with an educated woman? Omy, men like that want a slave. He will beat me and make me stay in the house all the time. He’s not a man like my baba. He doesn’t have morals or beliefs or …’

‘Anwar is a good Muslim and you will do your duty,’ Salwa said.

‘I won’t!’

Salwa grabbed the girl by the back of the neck and pulled her along the road. ‘You will. You will come home with me now and there will be no more of this nonsense.’

But Rashida was hysterical. ‘I won’t!’

Salwa pulled her along the road, aware that people were looking at them. ‘You’re making a spectacle of yourself,’ Salwa hissed.

‘I don’t care! I don’t!’

Salwa slapped her face. Then there was silence.

Ken Rivers’ not so hard-drinking stint on the first day of Lee’s observation seemed as if it had been an anomaly. A more usual morning consisted of a painfully slow walk up the High Street, into Greggs for either a meat pie or a jumbo sausage roll and then on to NatWest to withdraw a large sum of money. On the way back to his flat he’d eat whatever he’d bought and then he’d stay indoors for an hour or so. For the rest of the day, if the sun was out he’d sit by the sea and chain-smoke. If it rained he’d go into one of the seafront cafes and nurse cups of tea in the same way he’d nursed pints in the pub. All the waiters and waitresses knew him. In spite of being a small spender it was all ‘Hello, Ken’ and ‘How you doing, mate? How’s your legs?’ But no one ever asked him about his wife. Was it because they were too frightened to ask, given Bette’s condition? Or did Ken just live his life outside the flat as if she didn’t exist? He spent precious little time in the flat, apart from after dark, and once again Lee wondered who, if anyone, looked after the old woman. He’d phoned Sandra Rivers, but she didn’t know. She’d only spoken to Ken in recent years.

It wasn’t warm even though it was sunny, so Lee was glad that he could sit in one of the small Edwardian cabins that shielded those contemplating the Estuary and, in the case of Ken Rivers,
two cabins along from him, smoking roll-ups. If the old man did know where his son was, he certainly wasn’t visiting him, and Ken hadn’t seen anyone who could have been Phil. Lee wondered whether it was Phil who was looking after Bette back at the flat; perhaps that was why Ken was able to roam about so freely. But he’d recced the flat twice when Ken had been out and had seen and heard nothing. He hadn’t even been able to make out an old woman inside, much less a youngish man. The place had been like a Chapel of Rest – dark, silent and a little bit frightening. There was a part of Lee that wanted to call the police to find out if Bette was all right. But the coppers wouldn’t come out unless they had some sort of proof the old girl was in danger. And maybe she was in a care home, anyway? Maybe that was what all the money had been for? Those places cost a fortune.

His phone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘Lee, it’s Mumtaz.’

‘How’s things?’

She hesitated just a little and then said, ‘Fine. Lee, Mrs Mayfield at the Advocacy in Ilford has just called me to ask if I can come in today. She’s been let down by both of her other advocates and she has a Care Programme Approach meeting for one of her clients today at the same time as the advocacy surgery on the acute wards. CPA meetings are important so she can’t just skip it. I said I’d see what I had on today and get back to her. If I do it, it will mean that the office will have to be closed this afternoon. Is that all right or not?’

‘Do you think that doing this surgery will help?’ Lee asked. ‘What I mean is, in terms of your job?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mumtaz said. ‘I still haven’t met Dr el Masri and I don’t know whether he’ll be at the hospital this afternoon.
But one just never knows. The girl who killed herself, Sara Ibrahim, the one Salwa el Shamy reckoned was abused by el Masri, had been on one of the acute wards and so there is a chance that some of the patients may remember her.’

‘Mmm.’ Lee thought for a moment and then he said, ‘All right.’ It was only one afternoon and it was a Friday when they could often be quiet. And the answerphone message included his mobile number. ‘Just be careful what you ask people. You’re new, remember.’

‘I know.’

‘This is almost certainly going to be a long game.’

‘Yes.’

He went back to observing Ken Rivers, who’d got into conversation with an elderly woman with a shopping trolley. He heard the old man say, ‘My missus used to have a thing like that to do the shopping.’

‘Oh, they’re very handy,’ the woman replied. ‘Especially if your arms have gone.’

‘Absolutely,’ Ken said. And then, in a change of subject that frankly left Lee Arnold staggered, he said, ‘Here, you live local or you just down here on a beano?’

The woman blushed.

‘Not often I get to see a pretty face round these parts,’ Ken said, his eyes twinkling.

‘Oh, well, I’m sort of local, Thorpe Bay …’

‘Very nice. Very tasteful part of town, that is.’

‘Oh, well, yes …’

The old dog was trying to pick her up!

Lee’s phone rang again.

‘Mr Arnold?’

He didn’t recognize the voice, which was male and gruff.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s Barry Barber,’ the man said. ‘You left a message for me to call you. Something about Phil Rivers …’

‘Ah, yes, Mr Barber.’ He was Phil Rivers’ old boss’s son. ‘Thanks for getting back to me. I’m a private detective. Mr Rivers is missing and I’m trying to find him.’

‘Phil’s missing?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so. I wondered if you’d seen him recently. I understand from his wife that you and Phil used to drink together.’

‘Years ago, yeah. But I’ve not seen Phil for ages. I wouldn’t have a clue where he might have gone. Don’t Sandra know?’

‘No,’ Lee said. ‘But she’s very worried even though she’s no longer with him.’

‘They split up?’

‘Yeah.’ Lee didn’t want to go into the details so he just said, ‘Irreconcilable differences.’

‘Oh. I see.’ And then he went quiet for a moment.

‘Mr Barber?’

Another silence and then Barry Barber said, ‘I think that maybe we should meet somewhere so we can talk.’

‘Well, I’m outside London at the moment,’ Lee said. ‘Can’t you tell me—’

‘Not now, no,’ he interrupted. ‘Look, I do Saturday nights behind the bar at a pub in Dagenham, the Cross Keys. I don’t know if you know it? It’s an old-fashioned place.’

‘Yeah.’ Back in his dim and distant past Lee could remember going out to what looked like an old coaching inn in Dagenham with his ex.

‘Well, if you meet me outside there this Saturday night, eleven-thirty, I’ll just be finished with me shift.’

Ken Rivers and the old woman were laughing at something. Lee had promised Susan that he’d spend some time with her on Saturday but he’d have to go back to London that night. Tony Bracci couldn’t carry on going in to bird-sit Chronus forever, even if his home life was dead miserable.

‘Yeah, that’s fine,’ Lee said.

‘I’ll be outside in the car park.’

‘OK.’

The call finished and Lee heard Ken Rivers say to the old woman, ‘I’d ask you to go for a drink, love, but I’m a bit skint at the moment.’

She said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll buy you one.’

‘Well, that’s very nice of you, I must say, Mavis.’

Lee Arnold thought,
Ken Rivers, you old liar!

*

She felt like an idiot. Sitting at a table in the day room with a rough handwritten sign saying ‘Advocacy’ in front of her and not being approached by anyone. Admittedly, at least four of the service users were asleep, while a large group was outside smoking. Those that remained and were conscious seemed to be mesmerized by Jeremy Kyle on the TV. Mumtaz wondered whether it was always like this, or whether her headscarf was putting the mainly white British service users off. Maybe she’d been wrong to wear it for this job? But whenever she could have her head covered in public, she preferred to do so.

It had been Ahmet who had insisted that she cover when they got married. Given what kind of ‘Muslim’ he had been – a drinker, sexual abuser, gambler – that had been a joke. But then Mumtaz had discovered that she preferred it. Covered, men didn’t look at her, or rather Muslim men didn’t. Other men, and
occasionally women too, sometimes grimaced as she passed. The bombing of the World Trade Centre in America in 2001 and then the London bombings of 2005, both perpetrated by Muslim extremists, had delivered a massive blow to the reputation of all Muslims, which saddened her. But in spite of the drawbacks, she still felt better when her head was covered.

An elderly woman woke up and said, ‘Henry?’ She looked around the room with an expression of complete confusion on her face and then began to cry. Mumtaz didn’t know what to do. The purpose of the advocacy service was to try to resolve service users’ issues on matters such as sectioning, accommodation, staff conduct and access to activities. Shirley had told her that comforting patients in any way that went beyond a verbal ‘there, there’ was strictly prohibited. But the old lady was sobbing her heart out. Who was Henry? Her husband? Her son?

‘Henry! Henry!’

Mumtaz leant forward in her chair. What could she say that would help? In her experience only the comfort of some sort of contact with another person …

‘Oh dear, Hilda.’ A woman Mumtaz recognized as a nurse came and sat down next to the old lady. Briefly she smiled at Mumtaz. ‘I’m sorry, darling, Henry isn’t here any more,’ she said.

The old woman carried on crying. The nurse picked up the TV remote control and turned the volume down. Eventually the old woman managed to say, ‘So, where is he then? Henry?’

‘He’s gone, Hilda,’ the nurse said.

‘Where? To Jesus?’

‘No, he went to Norfolk, didn’t he?’

‘Norfolk? Why’d he go there? Why isn’t he here? What’s he doing in Norfolk?’ With every question she became more agitated.

The nurse said, ‘Look, why don’t you and me have a little stroll outside? It’s a nice day. Not too cold and you’ve got a thick cardie on.’

But the old woman just looked at her as if she was talking gibberish. Then she pointed at Mumtaz. ‘Who’s that?’

‘That’s the lady from the Advocacy,’ the nurse said. ‘She’s here to find out if you’ve got any problems.’

‘Well, I have. I want my Henry, that’s my problem. Do you know where Henry is, love? Do you?’

‘No, I’m—’

‘Not those sorts of problems, Hilda,’ the nurse said. ‘Now come on, let’s go outside for a bit. You know you like it outside and you can have a smoke.’

‘A smoke? Oh.’ The old woman smiled and then stood up. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’

‘Well, let’s do that then, shall we?’ The nurse guided Hilda out of the day room with a small smile back at Mumtaz as she went.

Jeremy Kyle
, on faintly in the background now, rolled back into the silence and Mumtaz was left feeling useless. She could have at least gone and sat with the old lady when she started crying.

‘Ah, so you’re the new Advocacy volunteer then?’

The voice was foreign and male and when she looked up to see where it was coming from she found herself staring into Dr Ragab el Masri’s eyes.

‘Oh.’ To come upon him out of the blue was a shock.

He sat down opposite her. Overweight and buck-toothed, he nevertheless had a pleasant smile and wore a pair of almost invisible glasses that looked as if they had cost a fortune.

‘I am Dr el Masri, consultant psychiatrist,’ he said. But he didn’t offer to shake her hand. As a Muslim himself he would know that physical contact wasn’t always appropriate with a
woman who covered her head. Usually Mumtaz didn’t mind a handshake but on this occasion she was grateful he had observed that convention. If he was guilty of what Hatem el Shamy claimed, she didn’t want to shake his hand. ‘And you are?’ he asked.

‘Ah, Mumtaz Huq,’ she said.

‘Mumtaz,’ he smiled. ‘And what qualifies you to work with our patients, Mumtaz? Have you worked in a psychiatric setting before?’

‘Um.’ She hadn’t expected an ad hoc job interview. But he was still smiling and so she assumed it was a friendly question.

‘Well?’

His teeth were very heavily stained.

‘I have a degree in psychology,’ Mumtaz said. ‘And I’ve worked in a community setting with people with mental health problems on a volunteer basis before.’

‘Oh. Where?’

‘Here in London,’ she said. She didn’t want to get specific. And she didn’t need to, he wasn’t her boss.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘You know, I get on very well with Mrs Mayfield – Shirley. It’s good to see that she now has someone like you to help her.’

Mumtaz didn’t know how to respond to that. What did he mean? One of the service users, a sleeping middle-aged male, began to snore. The doctor looked over at him and the smile on his face faded.

‘I mean, these ex-patient advocates are all very well,’ he said. ‘But they have no clarity of judgement. They always favour their own kind over others.’

By ‘others’ he meant the staff.

‘I think you’ll find, Dr el Masri, that advocates are impartial,’ Mumtaz said.

His smile came back again. ‘And I think you will find, Miss Huq, that that is simply the theory,’ he said.

‘I can’t comment on colleagues I’ve not even met,’ she said. ‘But I think you’re wrong.’

‘If only I were.’ He stood up. ‘But good to see you, and I hope that we can work together as well as Mrs Mayfield and myself do. If you need to discuss anything with me, my office is on the second floor. My door is always open to you. If I’m out, please feel free to leave a message with my secretary.’

‘Thank you,’ Mumtaz said. ‘I will.’

He bowed slightly. ‘I will leave you to your labours.’ And then he walked away. Leaving behind him a suspicion about Shirley Mayfield that Mumtaz had felt right from the start. Shirley had been very quick to point out that complaints against hospital staff were to be treated with extreme caution. She’d said she was happy to receive complaints about food and other ‘housekeeping’ issues. But what did she do with the complaints that she wasn’t happy about? And had she received such complaints from her advocates on behalf of some of Dr el Masri’s female patients? If so, what had happened?

*

Without Vi, Tony and the other ’erberts from Forest Gate, the casino was dull. Lee had gone along because Susan had wanted him to and because she’d been able to get him in for nothing. But they couldn’t spend time together. She was working on what was apparently called an American roulette wheel. This was permanently surrounded by squawking women with orange skin and bad jewellery and men in dinner jackets clearly going for a ‘brick shithouse’ vibe. It was like looking at an East End gangster’s wedding from the nineteen sixties – all big hair, false
eyelashes and knuckle-dusters. It also left Lee hanging about on his own with nothing much to do.