Poisoned Ground: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 3) (9 page)

She wasn’t in the mood for another day all on her own. Mumtaz’s weekend had been physically hard and emotionally draining, then Shazia had kicked off about not having enough money to buy her lunch at college.

‘I don’t want another cheese sandwich!’ she’d said when Mumtaz had suggested she make herself something to eat from the fridge. ‘I had cheese sandwiches all last week. They’re boring.’

‘Shazia, until I get paid …’ Mumtaz had started.

‘Oh, I’ll go hungry!’ the girl had said and then stormed out of the house. And now Lee hadn’t turned up. He was probably just late but it annoyed her.

Mumtaz listened to the answerphone messages and made notes for call-backs. A woman wanted her son followed to find out if he was dealing drugs, while a representative from an insurance company just wanted to speak to Mr Arnold about ‘something’. Organizations rarely went into detail on the machine while individuals, like the woman, almost gave a full biography. She left Lee notes on his desk and then began opening the post. The first one was an electricity bill.

The phone rang.

‘Arnold Agency. Good morning.’

‘Hello, Mumtaz?’ It was a man’s voice and she recognized it, but she couldn’t put a face to it. ‘It’s Tony Bracci.’

‘Oh, DS Bracci. Hello,’ she said. He’d been looking after Chronus while Lee was in Southend.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘don’t want to alarm you, but Lee’s in hospital.’

‘What?’ She felt her face redden instantly.

‘He’s OK,’ Tony Bracci went on, ‘but he’s had to have surgery and he’s still pretty out of it.’

‘What happened? Is he sick?’

‘All I know is … Well, a bloke found him in a churchyard in Dagenham in the early hours of this morning. Someone had done a right number on him.’

‘He was beaten up?’

‘Broke his jaw, bruised his ribs, knocked him out. When he was found he was unconscious. But he’ll be all right. He’s lost a few back teeth—’

‘Oh my God.’

‘At the moment he’s doped up to the eyeballs so talking to him is a bit like trying to have a conversation with a haddock.’

The policeman’s attempt at levity left Mumtaz cold.

‘Mumtaz, do you know what Lee was doing out in Dagenham last night?’

‘I don’t. He was due back from Southend yesterday. That’s all I know.’

‘Me too,’ Tony said.

‘Does Mrs Arnold know that he’s in hospital?’

‘His mum?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes, she’s here,’ he said. ‘Here being Newham General.’

‘Oh, good, so he’s close to home. Can I visit him?’

‘I wouldn’t for the moment,’ Tony said. ‘Like I say, he’s well out of it. They had to operate on his jaw and so he’s off his ti— off his head on morphine at the moment.’

‘How did you find out?’ Mumtaz asked.

‘I’ve a cousin on the force over in Dagenham,’ he said.

Although she didn’t know him well, Mumtaz was aware of the enormous Bracci family, which seemed to have branches all over east London.

‘Listen, Mumtaz, did Lee have a diary that he kept with him? I don’t mean his desk diary.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘He has all his appointments on his iPhone. When he comes into the office he puts them into the desk diary too, but he hasn’t been into the office. Look on his phone.’

‘If I could find it, I would.’

‘Oh.’

‘Far as the plods in Dagenham could see, that was all that was missing. He still had his credit cards, bank card. No cash, but then that’s hardly surprising. Cash always goes even if the beating’s not about money.’

‘You don’t think that it was?’

‘I don’t know. But seeing as how they left his cards in his wallet and his car in the car park of a local pub it seems unlikely. Do you know what he was working on?’

‘A missing person,’ Mumtaz said.

‘You know who?’

She couldn’t remember the name but she could have looked it up. Instead, she said, ‘I think you should ask Lee when he comes round, DS Bracci.’

‘OK. Although if he was putting himself at risk …’

‘Not that I know of,’ Mumtaz said. Unless Lee told her to disclose information, she would keep the details of his cases
and clients confidential. Those who used private investigators had to have confidence that their personal details, except in very exceptional cases, would be withheld from everyone, and that included the police. ‘Do you have his girlfriend Susan’s number?’

‘Yeah, Lee give it to me in case I needed to get in touch, cos of Chronus. I had his number, her landline and her mobile. You know how he is about that ruddy bird.’

Mumtaz did. Chronus was Lee’s baby.

‘I’ve spoken to her,’ Tony said. ‘He didn’t leave her place until ten and she thought that he was going straight home. She tried to call him early this morning but of course she couldn’t get hold of him.’

‘She must’ve been worried,’ Mumtaz said.

‘Yeah.’

When she eventually put the phone down, Mumtaz just sat. How could she concentrate on anything while Lee was lying in hospital after being attacked and beaten unconscious? And why had whoever it was done it? She couldn’t believe that it had just been for his phone and a little bit of cash. Lee didn’t carry much money around with him because he didn’t have much. For a moment she wondered whether the Sheikhs had beaten him up as some sort of warning. But then she took hold of herself. That was paranoia speaking. And how would the Sheikhs know where Lee had been when no one else had? Mumtaz chided herself for being so self-centred. Her own mother had always said to her ‘the world doesn’t revolve around you’. And she’d been right.

The phone rang again. This time it was Shazia, saying that she was sorry for the argument they’d had over her lunch. Mumtaz didn’t tell her about Lee.

*

Shirley knew her thoughts were irrational. The only reason she was standing in front of the door to Sara Ibrahim’s old room was because the service user who had come in afterwards had been discharged. The room was empty and quiet so she could easily imagine she could hear whispers from the conversations she’d had with the girl in the past.

To think that, had she been at work the day Sara died, maybe she could have done something to save her was nuts. Sara’s other confidant, the male nurse who’d turned out to be a terrorist, had been on duty and he hadn’t saved her. Admittedly, he’d been on the chronic ward. Maybe Sara had been an al Qaeda supporter too? She hadn’t seemed as if she was that way inclined. She’d been a very western type of Asian girl. In some respects. Shirley closed her eyes. Sara had been so young and so sick. She’d had psychotic episodes where she heard voices and had experiences that weren’t real. Sometimes her voices told her to kill herself, sometimes she experienced hallucinations, imagining taking an overdose or slashing her wrists. How could anyone have relied upon her testimony when she made complaints about the hospital and its staff?

Shirley opened her eyes and looked through the doorway and into the room. There had been one time when Sara had asked for her when she’d almost taken her complaint forwards. It had been first thing in the morning and Sara had refused to get up or eat any breakfast unless the staff went and got her an advocate. Hatem el Shamy, the nurse she usually chose to confide in, wasn’t available and so Shirley assumed she was the next best thing. She could see Sara’s small, thin body on that bed as she gazed into the room. As soon as she’d entered, Sara had said, ‘Someone had sex with me last night.’

Then she’d cried and Shirley had waited for her to stop before
she’d asked her who had had sex with her. For a while the girl had said nothing and so Shirley had reiterated her question. Sara had pushed her bedcovers off and Shirley had seen that she had blood between her thighs.

‘See what he did to me?’ Sara had said. ‘I was a virgin!’

‘You’re not on your period?’

‘I’m not stupid!’

Shirley could see the fury in Sara’s eyes even now.

‘Who did this to you, Sara?’ she’d asked.

And the girl had looked as if she might say a name for a moment but then her face had clouded and she’d said, ‘If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. I wonder if I made it up myself.’

‘I would believe you. God almighty, that blood is real, isn’t it? Tell me.’

But she’d shaken her head. Shirley had asked her if she would tell Hatem el Shamy, but Sara had said nothing. Then the staff nurse, Michelle, had come in with her morning meds and Sara had covered herself up. When Michelle had gone, Sara had said, ‘I’ll have to go and wash now. I need to get him off me.’

And Shirley had given Sara an opportunity. ‘If you wash,’ she’d said, ‘all the evidence will disappear. If somebody has raped you, Sara, you need to stay as you are until the police get here.’

That had been the right thing to do, even though she’d known to the core of her soul that the girl wouldn’t proceed with her complaint.

‘No.’

She’d taken a sanitary towel from her locker, put it between her legs and then she’d stood up.

Shirley had said, ‘Why did you call me, Sara, if you didn’t think I’d believe you?’

‘Because you’re
supposed
to do something.’

That had hurt.

Then the girl had smiled. ‘But it’ll all come out in the end, Shirley, and then you’ll be able to tell them that I wasn’t making it up, because you saw my blood.’

Sara had gone to the bathroom and Shirley hadn’t tried to stop her.

And now she was dead and it still hadn’t come out. She owed the girl something, but what?

‘Mrs Mayfield?’

Shirley turned around. It was that new, young doctor, Golding.

‘Hello.’

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

‘Oh,’ she smiled. ‘Nothing really. Just remembering a patient we used to have here.’

‘The girl who threw herself from the window?’

Dr Golding hadn’t been employed until after Sara had died. How had he known? He saw her confusion and smiled. ‘The patients told me where her room was,’ he said. ‘A lot of them still seem very disturbed by it. I wanted to see it.’

‘A suicide upsets everyone.’

‘Especially the suicide of a young person,’ he said. ‘Did you know the girl well, Mrs Mayfield?’

She paused and then said, ‘A little.’

‘She was particular friends with the nurse who tried to blow the hospital up, wasn’t she?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘What was he like?’

‘I didn’t know him well,’ Shirley answered.

‘Were you surprised that he set a bomb here?’

Shirley didn’t want to talk about Hatem el Shamy. Her mind was on Sara. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know him well.’

‘Dr el Masri—’

‘Yes, he knew him,’ she said. She was tired of this conversation. Dr Golding seemed like a nice man but he had interrupted her private thoughts and she wanted him to go. ‘Ask him.’

‘Thank you. I will.’

As he left, slowly, Shirley had such an overwhelming urge to tell him what Sara had told her that she felt herself begin to sweat. But she didn’t say anything. Anyway, she thought to herself, he was more interested in Sara’s nurse. Golding went about his business and she walked into Sara Ibrahim’s old room and cried.

*

Lee hurt in places he hadn’t even thought about before. Like just behind his ears. Now that he could only speak in a whisper, he and Vi Collins were a right pair. He looked at her sitting beside him on his bed and wondered when she’d go. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her visiting him, but he didn’t want her going all copper on him.

‘What were you doing in Dagenham?’ she asked for at least the third time.

‘I was going to see a bloke about this misper I’m investigating, I told you.’

‘Didn’t tell me who the bloke was.’

‘None of your business,’ Lee rasped.

‘You told Dagenham.’

‘I had to,’ Lee said. ‘Get off my case, Vi.’

He hadn’t got a good look at either of the men who had
attacked him, but he was sure neither of them had been Barry Barber. He couldn’t have described his assailants in detail to save his life, but one thing he had known was that they had been young. The one who’d kicked him had worn steel-toed work boots. The plods from Dagenham already knew all that and he didn’t want to go over it again for Vi. She knew most of it, anyway. It wasn’t only Tony Bracci who had a contact or two at Dagenham nick. Vi would come across the name Barry Barber in the fullness of time. But Lee wasn’t going to help her.

A small elderly woman walked down the ward towards Lee’s bed carrying a plastic cup. Vi got off the bed.

‘This is supposed to be coffee but I can’t see how it can be,’ Rose Arnold said.

‘Mum, you don’t have to stay here,’ Lee said. ‘I’m all right now.’

Rose Arnold, a small plump woman in a pink tracksuit, sat in the chair beside her son’s bed. She took a sip from the cup and then said, ‘Oh, well, it’s wet and warm.’

With the exception of Tony Bracci and a copper from Dagenham, Lee had been surrounded by women ever since the hospital staff had got his pain under control. First his mum, who had almost taken root, then Susan, who’d torn down from Southend all tears and tits, and then Vi. He appreciated each one of them in their own way but he was tired and drugged up and he was really more interested in finding out what Barry Barber had to say for himself. Could Barry have ordered a couple of thugs to beat him up? He could, but why would he? If he hadn’t wanted to speak to Lee about Phil Rivers he could have just said he had nothing more to add and left it at that. But he’d arranged to meet him about something. Unless he’d lured him to Dagenham with the sole purpose of getting him thumped. But again, why?

‘Well, I’d better be off,’ Vi whispered. ‘Supposed to be resting.’

‘It was good of you to come,’ Lee said. He was glad she was going.

‘No problem,’ she said. As she left he noticed that the scar on her neck was big and ragged. But it was still early days and Vi was a very thin woman. When she’d gone his mother, who remembered Vi from Lee’s old coppering days, said, ‘She’s looking rough.’

‘She’s just had surgery to remove a goitre,’ Lee told her.

Rose Arnold went quiet for a moment and sipped her coffee. ‘Roy would’ve come but he had to go out,’ she said.