An Act of Kindness: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 2) (26 page)

‘So tomorrow morning, bright and early.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Vi left and went out on Green Street with the intention of buying an early morning samosa. And she could have done, had not the realisation that Ramadan had started last Friday made her have a fag at the back of the car park instead. Nobody needed to see some skinny white woman eating when they were trying to be pious. Her thoughts turned to the late Abduljabbar Mitra and she found herself wondering what had possessed him to take his own life during Ramadan, when Muslims were not only supposed to abstain from eating and drinking but also from sin in all its forms. He was a religious man, so to do such a thing had to be an act of desperation. Wasn’t he afraid of God’s punishment in the afterlife, or whatever it was called? There had to have been something in this life that was even more frightening.

The burns on Nasreen’s legs had started to fester. She told Abdullah that she needed a doctor and antibiotics, but he didn’t appear to hear her. It was Monday morning and he said he had to go out to conduct some business before he could come back and do more work on the house.

He stood over her with the handcuff ties and tried to push her arms up to the headboard, but she resisted him. ‘I can’t walk with these legs! For God’s sake let me have my hands free! I can’t do anything!’

He looked into her eyes, trying to work out whether she was telling the truth. Then he looked down at her legs and he knew that she was. He lowered his hands to his sides

‘I need antibiotics,’ she said. ‘If I don’t get them then the baby will die.’

He thought for a moment and then he said, ‘But if I get them you’ll only be able to take them at night.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s Ramadan,’ he said.

Nasreen gathered every iota of strength that she had and yelled, ‘But I’m pregnant, I’m allowed to eat and drink! If you don’t get them then your baby will die.’

He went on his way, leaving her rolling around on the bed, her
body bent in agony. The baby could be dead already – it hadn’t moved for at least a day now.

*

Mumtaz watched Lee eat something that she would normally find absolutely abhorrent. It was a white bun filled with fake cream and cheap raspberry jam. But she only had herself to blame and she knew it. Lee had offered not to eat or drink in front of her, but she’d said that she really didn’t mind. She’d told Shazia exactly the same thing. Except that now she regretted it – bitterly. Getting up at four in the morning with the intention of stuffing your face until the sun rose didn’t really work for Mumtaz. In the mornings she was often vaguely nauseous, while by the time she got home for
iftar
in the evenings, she was often past caring about food at all.

But she couldn’t very well change her mind now and ask Lee to stop eating. He’d been so good to her that to rob him of the simple pleasure of a bun from Percy Ingle’s was beyond the pale. Mumtaz looked down at the stack of bills on her desk that needed paying, and shuffled uncomfortably in her chair. She couldn’t concentrate.

‘Why don’t you go down and get some more stamps from the post office,’ Lee said without taking his eyes away from the photograph on his computer screen. ‘I know we’re low and there’s a few bills to post out today.’

‘OK.’ Mumtaz got up and went to the safe to get petty cash. ‘How many do you want me to get?’

‘Couple of dozen,’ Lee said. He pressed his keyboard to bring up another picture which he frowned at.

Mumtaz took a twenty-pound note out of petty cash and put it in her purse. She had just one appointment with a potential
client later on that afternoon, so she knew she didn’t have to hurry back. Lee clearly understood what she was going through and was fine with it.

‘See you later, Lee,’ Mumtaz said.

‘See ya.’

She closed the door behind her and Lee Arnold let out a long sigh of relief. Being around Mumtaz when she was fasting wasn’t easy, even though she never said a word about it to him. Lee took the bag he’d got from Percy Ingle’s out of his drawer and put it on his desk. There were two other buns and an éclair to get through before she came back.

*

Paul had phoned to say he was fine, which was such a relief that Wendy almost cried. He’d gone on to say that he wanted to see her as soon as possible. She’d nearly gone mad with it. Make-up, perfume, making sure her legs were silky smooth.

Wendy paid Dolly to take the kids to the park for a few hours. She told her she needed to go shopping. Then, once they were out of the way, she went off to meet Paul. It wasn’t far, although it still seemed like a funny place to meet. But he’d been insistent. Maybe he had some sort of kink for derelict places, but she didn’t care. Wendy walked across the Barking Road and down Credon Road until she came to the walls of the old hospital between Credon and Western Roads. As instructed, she turned into Western and made for what had once been the main entrance.

Her gran had died at what used to be called Samson Street Hospital. Once a smallpox clinic, back in the 1980s it had become a place where people with dementia were ‘stored’, as Wendy’s mum had put it. Then in 2006 it closed. Now its damp-riddled walls were threaded with convolvulus and ivy, and barbed wire
sat in heavy rolls around gaps in the old metal gates that had once given entry to the hospital. One gap was unencumbered by barbed wire. Instead, there stood Paul, smiling at her.

Wendy smiled back. ‘I can’t decide whether this is a new kink of yours or what,’ she said.

He put his fingers up to his lips. ‘Sssh.’

‘Oh, we not supposed to be here? I …’

‘Sssh.’

He held a piece of bent metal aside so that she could get inside and then he pulled her into some bushes. She put her arms up on his shoulders and said, ‘The coppers said you shot your way out. I heard a crack but …’

‘I had to let off one round,’ he said. ‘The police took you to Forest Gate.’

‘Yeah, but I never told them nothing,’ Wendy said. ‘I said that joint was mine. I got a caution.’

She kissed him but, oddly for him, he didn’t respond. Then she noticed that he was sweating. He didn’t usually sweat, not much at least.

‘Are you alright, babe?’ she asked.

He didn’t answer but held her close, and although she was surprised she thought that having a hug was rather sweet. Even though she hadn’t come for that.

She’d woofed her hair up so high and with so much spray that Wendy didn’t feel the cold metal as it rested against her head. She heard him say, ‘I’m sorry,’ which did make her wonder, for just a second, what he was on about. But then he pulled the trigger.

*

It wasn’t far to Strone Road and if Nasreen was in then she might be interested in what Mumtaz had found out about her house. It
had been some time since she’d last tried to visit Nasreen and she could have gone into labour already, but Mumtaz wanted the walk. It would only have taken her five minutes to go to the post office and Lee needed rather more time than that to get through all the cakes he’d bought for himself from Percy Ingle’s. He’d thought she’d not seen all of them, but she had. How he kept so slim she didn’t understand. She walked down Green Street and turned into Strone Road. Nasreen lived right at the other end which, through the vague heat haze that was building, looked like miles away.

Mumtaz kept walking. The streets were quiet in spite of the fact that the children were on holiday. But then everybody had become accustomed to being indoors because of all the rain. Now it seemed to have stopped, just in time for the Olympics. For once, the Afghan women who wore burqas didn’t seem to be soaked from the knees down.

As before, the house was quiet and when Mumtaz knocked on the front door a hollow sound came back at her from inside. It made her want to look through the letterbox and see if it was empty, but she resisted the temptation – for a few seconds. She knocked again and this time she did lift the letterbox flap. What she saw was worse than empty. The hall at least looked as if it had been bombed. Old wallpaper, lumps of plaster, wood and ancient paint splinters were everywhere. What had happened? She knew that Nasreen and her husband had been decorating the house back in the spring, but this looked as if someone had gone in and beaten the place up with an axe. Had they perhaps moved out and vandals got in?

Mumtaz put her mouth up to the letterbox and called out, ‘Nasreen? Are you there, Nasreen? It’s Mumtaz Hakim. I have some information about your house that you might find
interesting.’

But nobody answered. Her voice reverberated through the shattered hall.

*

At first Nasreen thought she had to be hallucinating. Abdullah had gone out and then there had been nothing until the voice. Initially she thought that it had to be him. Then she heard it was a woman’s voice and she wondered whether he was just putting it on to trick her. But then she’d heard that name. Mumtaz Hakim.

Nasreen’s eyes began to water with tears. How and why had Mumtaz Hakim remembered her when the rest of the world seemed to have forgotten? She’d been a nice woman but Nasreen remembered that they hadn’t parted on the best of terms because Mumtaz had tried to tell her that Abdullah was no saint. She’d been right.

She heard her call again. ‘Nasreen … ?’

If Abdullah found her at the house he’d go mad, but Abdullah was out. Nasreen looked at her feet and wondered how she could get over to the window to call back. For a moment, just the look of her feet made her lose all hope. How could she stand on things that were so red and sore and infected? The floor of the bedroom was covered with plaster and wallpaper. Who knew what further damage she’d do to her feet if she tried to walk? But did she have a choice? If Mumtaz Hakim was outside her house, calling to her, then she had to be the best hope that Nasreen had of getting medical attention. Abdullah was supposedly getting antibiotics for her, but how could she know whether he really was?

The muscles in her sides and across her back hauled her vast body into a sitting position and for a second she just panted on the bed. The first time she stood it was so painful that she
screamed. Her feet felt like balloons, walking on them a precarious act of balancing on agony. The route from the bed to the window was strewn with litter and muck and there was nothing for her to hang on to. Nasreen had just made up her mind to pull herself to the window when she heard Mumtaz’s voice again.

‘Nasreen,’ she said, ‘is that you?’

‘Yes! Yes it is me! Please help me!’ Nasreen shouted. ‘Please!’

The sound she heard next was of breaking glass as a stone shattered the small window in the front door.

*

What had once been a beautiful young woman was now a creature crawling on the floor amongst gobbets of plaster and tumbleweed-sized bolls of dust. Mumtaz bent down and put her hands around Nasreen’s shoulders. ‘What has happened to you?’ she said.

Nasreen wiped a string of snot away from her nose. ‘He happened to me,’ she said. ‘You were right.’

‘Abdullah?’

‘I don’t know who he is anymore.’ She began to cry.

Mumtaz took her phone out of her handbag. ‘We have to get you to hospital,’ she said. She wondered why Nasreen’s feet were so swollen and infected, but she also knew that she didn’t have time to ask. Whatever had gone on, she had to get the young woman medical attention as soon as she could. She dialled 999 and asked for an ambulance. Once she’d given all the details she could to the operator, she turned back to Nasreen and tried to make her as comfortable as she could. She didn’t want to risk moving her, so she just draped a blanket around her shoulders and propped her head up against a pile of filthy pillows.

‘The ambulance’ll be here soon,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll get you
and the baby to hospital.’

‘The baby’s dead,’ Nasreen said. ‘It hasn’t moved for days.’

Mumtaz stroked her forehead and watched as the young woman sighed with something akin to relief underneath what she imagined had to be an unusually affectionate touch. ‘You don’t know that, Nasreen,’ she said. ‘Sometimes babies don’t move very much during the last few days in the womb.’

As soon as she’d said it Mumtaz felt stupid. What did she know? She’d never had a baby.

‘Mumtaz, I think that Abdullah has killed someone,’ Nasreen said.

One thing that Mumtaz did know was true was that pregnant women often suffered from high blood pressure. She smoothed Nasreen’s filthy hair back, away from her face, and said, ‘Don’t worry about that now. Just keep calm, Nasreen. We’ll talk about all of this later.’

‘He killed John Sawyer, I’m sure of it,’ she said. ‘He’s jealous of everybody. John used to come to our garden sometimes. I used to leave food out for him. Abdullah must have seen me talking to him. If he even found you here …’ Her chest began to pump in panic. ‘Oh God, he’s coming back,’ she said. ‘I asked him to get antibiotics for me and then he was coming back.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

Mumtaz looked at her watch. ‘When did Abdullah go out?’

‘I don’t know. Some time ago.’ Her head lolled back onto the pillows again.

Mumtaz rubbed one of her hands, which was hot and clammy. Nasreen would be lucky to get away with her own life given the extent of the infection in her feet. ‘Ambulance’ll be here soon.’

‘Good.’ She panted and Mumtaz took a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped some of the dirt away from Nasreen’s mouth and eyes.

‘There.’

‘Thank you,’ Nasreen said. ‘You know, he tipped a hot pan of curry over my legs.’

Mumtaz shook her head. ‘Why?’ Although as soon as she’d said it, she wondered why she’d asked – Abdullah was a man. Ahmet had once knocked her unconscious just for changing the channel on the TV without his permission.

‘Because I displeased him,’ Nasreen said. ‘Because I hoped and prayed that he was better than that. But he wasn’t.’

‘Don’t think about that now,’ Mumtaz said, stroking Nasreen’s forehead once again. ‘Don’t think about him now.’ She leaned forward and kissed her on the head and then she smiled.

‘Who are you? Get away from my wife!’

Neither of them had heard Abdullah come into the house and tiptoe up the stairs. Now he stood in the bedroom doorway, his face red with fury.