Slow Burn (14 page)

“I have statements from witnesses who saw Malik Shah coming out of the bedroom waving a used condom over his head and bragging that, `I took her cherry on the first date, a hole in one`.” Ms Bangor-Jones looked embarrassed as she glanced at Mr Bernstein and his daughter. Mr Bernstein crumpled into his chair, broken and confused. “If I may continue?”

 “Please do,” the clerk said looking down at her notes. Her face had darkened to a scowl. Nobody enjoyed watching a young girl being dissected publicly, but this had to be done.

“Do you remember the night when Malik and Ashwan drove you home after a party?”

Sarah`s head stooped lower. She stared at her fingers and bit her lip. Mr Bernstein could tell by her posture and body language that Sarah knew what was coming.

 “Sarah?” the clerk prompted her.

“Yes I remember,” she whispered.

 “They stopped the car near to your house and you performed oral sex on both of them,” Margaret Bangor-Jones spoke calmly. “Is that true?”

“Yes,” Sarah whispered. Tears rolled down her cheeks and her chin sunk to her chest. “Malik told me it was to prove how much I loved him, making his friend feel good. I didn’t want to.”

 “Oh my god!” Mr Bernstein took a deep intake of breath as she spoke. He couldn’t get the sickening images out of his mind. Tears of anger leaked from the corners of his eyes and he wiped them away quickly.

“I do not want to make this any more painful than it is already, Sarah, but you had performed sexual acts on all of the boys that you have accused of raping you, at one time or another, prior to this allegation, had you not?”

 The prosecution lawyer was aghast, as was the clerk. This revelation had come unexpectedly. Mr Bernstein sat open mouthed as he digested the information.

“Is this true, Sarah? A simple yes or no will suffice,” the clerk removed her glasses. She had heard enough in five short minutes to realise that this case was going nowhere.

“Yes, it`s true, but not that night. They drugged me, and they raped me, all of them did.” Her voice was monotone, defeated.

 The legal representatives looked at each other, and a silent communication passed between them. Raped or not, Sarah would never be believed in a court of law by a jury of ordinary people. The prosecution had to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that guilty was the only verdict. Sarah`s prior behaviour would make that impossible.

 “I can see no point in proceeding any further with this. I`ll submit my findings to your offices and the police by finish of work tomorrow. Thank you both for your time, and thank you Mr Bernstein. This cannot have been easy for you. I would thank your lawyer to recommend some counselling for Sarah, and your family.”

“You don`t believe her do you?” Mr Bernstein was livid. He wasn’t sure who he was angry at. Sarah? The Crown Prosecution? Himself? How had he allowed this to happen?

 “Whether I believe Sarah or not, Mr Bernstein, is irrelevant. I have to assess the evidence from both parties and gauge the probability of gaining a conviction,” the clerk removed her glasses and looked at him with a stern face. He had to face the truth, like it or not. “Sarah has given her evidence, as have the accused. You have heard some of it yourself, Mr Bernstein. If you were on a jury could you convict, beyond all reasonable doubt?”

“These animals put my son in intensive care, they cut him with a knife, and now they have raped my fourteen-year old daughter. She is fourteen!” Mr Bernstein`s face was purple, and his jowls shook as he spoke. The veins at his temple throbbed angrily. “Are they going to get away with this?”

 The room was silent. The lawyers began to pack away their files into briefcases. The clerk shook her head and stood up from her chair. She looked as if she was going to speak again, but then she thought better of it and walked hurriedly toward a door at the back of the chamber. Carol Smythe led Sarah away from the bench toward her father. The young girl looked pallid and drawn. She couldn’t look her father in the eye. Sarah kept her head down and walked past him, heading for the doors. Mr Bernstein followed her with a look of disdain on his face.

 “Don`t be too hard on her, Mr Bernstein. For what it`s worth, I believe that she was drugged and abused. If it means anything to you,” Carol Smyth tried to smile.

 “Your opinion is of no importance to me. It doesn’t mean anything to me at all, absolutely nothing,” Mr Bernstein turned and walked out of the courtroom. He felt like his daughter had died. He felt like he was a grieving father, pining for his innocent little girl that had somehow been lost. As they left the antechamber, the two detectives turned to face them. Mr Bernstein`s face flushed with anger. His face was like thunder.

 “It didn’t go well?” Detective Sergeant Aspel asked sheepishly.

“You knew what evidence they had, contrary to Sarah`s statement?” Mr Bernstein`s voice was hushed, almost a whisper.

 “We interviewed the attackers, Mr Bernstein,” Detective Wallace nodded solemnly.

  “Then you knew what they would do to her in there, and yet you allowed me to take my daughter into that room, and made me sit there and listen to that?”

  The detectives looked at the floor, disappointed, guilty and embarrassed all at the same time. “Mr Bernstein, we interviewed your daughter, and we interviewed her attackers. We believed Sarah`s version of events. That`s why we proceeded.”

  “We`re leaving,” Mr Bernstein walked away from them and spoke to his wife. She was holding Sarah in her arms, the young girl sobbing uncontrollably. “We`re leaving now.”

  “Mr Bernstein, this was always going to be difficult....” Detective Sergeant Aspel began, but he was cut short.

  “Difficult?” Mr Bernstein turned to face them, his voice boomed across the waiting area. “Difficult?”

  The people in close proximity fell silent and all eyes watched the drama unfolding before them. The detectives were fully aware that the eyes of the public were on them. Some of their old criminal adversaries were present, and they sniggered as they watched the officers cringing.

  “Mr Bernstein, we acted with Sarah`s best interests at heart.”

  “You raped her again in public. You put her in that room knowing full well what would happen.” Mr Bernstein began to shake. His voice cracked with emotion. He pointed a shaking finger toward the courtroom. “You let me take her in there, knowing she would be humiliated in front of me, her father.”

  “Mr Bernstein,” Aspel tried to placate him, but he took his wife by the arm, and guided his daughter through the watching crowd.

  The waiting area remained silent for long minutes as the embarrassed detectives followed them at a distance.

Chapter 20

Malik Shah

 “Do you think we endear ourselves to the people we do business with?” Malik turned angrily and waved a gloved hand around the hallway as Lana ran up the stairs. She was hysterical.

“Do you think I care?” she screamed. “Get out of my house, you animals, and if Mamood isn’t back here tomorrow, I`m calling the police, and to hell with the both of you!” The bedroom door slammed closed.

“Get changed, Ash. We need to find out who is doing this.”

 An hour later, they were driving along the dock road, heading north. To their left were acres of unused dockland, silted up canals and rusted anchor rings. On the right towered ancient warehouses, once the centre of international trade, now derelict and deserted. Malik indicated, and turned his BMW off the main road, steering it between two giant grain stores. The buildings were twelve storeys high, built from chocolate brown brick. He slowed the vehicle and turned off the headlights. As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they saw two Asian men sat in a Mercedes a few hundred yards away, down an alleyway. The driver flashed the headlights and pulled the vehicle away from the kerb, driving toward them slowly.

 “We`ll find out who is fucking with us, and we`ll wipe them off the planet. Do you have the balls to do this, Ash?”

 Ash looked at the approaching vehicle and swallowed hard. He recognised the two men inside it. They`d been with them since their school days. They didn`t have the IQ to help run the organisation, but they were loyal to Malik. They used them as hired muscle, stone cold killers that they employed when they needed to `disappear` somebody. Ashwan was tired of the killing. He was tired of being on the wrong side of the law, and he was tired of Malik Shah. They were no better than the men that had killed his dealers in the blink of an eye, and kidnapped his son. He chose to live in this world, and financially it had been kind to him, but when you work with vicious animals, it is easy to be bitten. For the first time in his life he wished he`d chosen a different path. Lana would never be the same again, how could she be? 

  “What are you going to do with Abdul`s body?” Ash was shaking as he replayed the night`s events in his mind. “I cannot involve the police. They said they would kill Mamood if I didn’t do as they say.”

 “You know how it works, he`s on his way to feed the fishes tonight.” Malik replied. They disposed of bodies the same way every time. The corpses were strapped to gym weights with duct tape and then wrapped tightly in several rolls of chicken wire. The wire ensured that the weights never dropped of the body, no matter how rotten it became, and it allowed bottom feeders and crustaceans to devour the corpse through the mesh. The body of Abdul Salim would be gone in less than a month.

  “You don’t know who has your son, Ashwan. I`m going to find out who they are, and then we`ll get Mamood back.”

  “How can we find out who they are?”

  “We`ll ask some of your enemies, first hand,” Malik turned to the road. The Mercedes was nearing.

  “I don’t know what you have in mind, Malik. I`m so confused, and they said they will kill him if we don’t follow their orders. Where do we start? ”

  “Shut up, you tart! I follow no one`s orders.” Malik was fuming. This wasn’t the first incident of this kind. Although he hadn’t realised at the time, some of the trouble that his bookkeeper experienced had been the beginning of something bigger, but Ashwan didn’t know that yet. Amir Patel received blackmail demands, death threats, and his haulage company was attacked. Malik kept it a closely guarded secret. Any sign of weakness in this business could be fatal. Rival gangs in the city would smell blood a mile away, and they would circle his empire like vultures, waiting for it to become weak enough to devour. Amir asked Malik to help him, and he had made some enquiries, but his enquiries drew a blank. Demands for money were made, and three tractor units were torched as a warning. Malik ordered Amir not to pay any monies under any circumstances. He was convinced that the blackmailers would make a mistake, sooner, or later. A week later Amir and his wife were blown to bits at the opening day of the Mosque, coincidence? Malik didn’t believe in coincidence. Now Ashwan was being attacked. The level of violence being used was escalating, and they`d kidnapped his son. Someone was playing with fire, and people that play with fire get burnt. Malik was going to burn them himself. “Who was the last person you had an issue with?”

 “What do you mean an issue?”

  “Fucking hell, Ash! Who did you last have trouble with?” Malik was becoming frustrated with Ashwan. Over the years, he had been his right hand man, ever since school. Ash had been handy with a knife as a youth, and was quick to use one if there was trouble. As Ashwan aged, he mellowed and avoided violence. He was becoming squeamish, and that made him a liability. Malik on the other hand had not tired of the violence.

 “I`ve had no trouble for months, what are you getting at, Malik?”

  “Listen to me. You repeat this to no one, do you understand?”

 “Yes, of course I understand.”

 “Amir was being blackmailed.”

 “What?”

 “He was blackmailed. Someone torched his lorries and demanded money. Then he received death threats, about two weeks before the bombing at the Mosque.”

“I thought it was a terrorist attack?” Ashwan was stunned as he tried to process the information.

“I think someone made it look like one, to send a message to us. At least that is what I suspected, until Mamood was kidnapped and Abdul Salim was shot and dumped on your lawn. Now I`m sure that we`re being targeted. Somebody is coming after us, Ash, and they`re very clever people. ” 

  “I can`t think straight.”

 “You need to think, Ash.”

  “Nobody comes to mind that would have the audacity to attack Amir, and then kidnap my son.”

  “What about that trouble in the Eagle and Child?” Malik was making reference to a minor dealer that had strayed into a pub that was in Ashwan`s area a few month earlier. Dealing on Ashwan`s turf was a dangerous game. Ash sent his heavies to wait for him. He was given a good beating, robbed of his drugs and his money, and then sent to hospital with his thumbs in his coat pocket. Ash`s men used a carpet blade to remove his digits.

  “Bruce Mann?” Ash said thinking about what Malik had said. “He wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t dare.”

  “You had his thumbs cut off, Ash. He might be coming after us.”

  “He is stupid enough to have a pop at us, but this takes planning and a level of intelligence.” Ashwan whispered to his himself as he thought about it. “Do you think he would be capable of this?”

  Malik smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “If you cut my thumbs off, I`d kill your kids and make you watch, just for a starter.”