Post Mortem (7 page)

‘What about?'

‘I'm not sure I can discuss that—'

Mrs Mehenni was talking loudly and gesturing for the phone. Lizzie handed it to her. There was a ring at the doorbell and she turned to see who was there. But Mrs Mehenni was passing the phone back and Lizzie was detained by the angry voice on the other end of the line.

‘My mother says Younes is not there. You can look in the garden if you like.'

Mrs Mehenni had opened the back door and was gesturing for Lizzie to go outside. Along the hallway Lizzie heard the click of the front door opening. She looked over her shoulder. Hadley was standing in the doorway. Just past his bulk she could see the slight figure of a girl dressed in school uniform. She could not concentrate on this new arrival – Mrs Mehenni was speaking and through the earpiece of the phone Lizzie also heard the other distant voice, imperious and seething with disdain.

‘Have you been outside?'

Lizzie stepped into the yard. It was neglected, damp and cold under an overcast sky. Concrete paving slabs that she could see had once been yellow and pink were stained grey-green by lichen and rainfall. In the corner a neglected sandpit was filled with rain. Just over the fence she could see Ben Stewart's toppled red tricycle. The splat of a raindrop landed on the discarded novel that lay next to Carrie's bench. Another raindrop fell on Lizzie's hand.

‘No one there?' Lizzie heard again the scornful disembodied voice down the phone. ‘Now you've looked everywhere, please go. You are upsetting my mother.'

‘Could you tell your mother we need to speak with her son? Does she know where he is?'

There was the sudden heavy patter of the rain shower bursting. Lizzie stepped back into the kitchen. The voice on the other end of the phone continued.

‘Give me back to my mother.'

Mrs Mehenni spoke to her daughter in a torrent before handing the phone back to Lizzie with some urgency. The dam burst of words between mother and daughter was reported as a brief statement: ‘My mother does not know where my brother is.'

‘Can one of you tell him we need to speak to him? Can he come to the station?'

‘Neither of us has spoken to him for more than a week. We don't know where he is. If you don't leave immediately, you can expect a formal complaint.'

Hadley was standing in the entrance to the kitchen. He was watching with the air of a sceptical observer and Lizzie felt a flash of irritation. She did not feel in control and she didn't feel as though she had any understanding with Hadley. What was the plan? Why were they still there when Mehenni was clearly not present?

Behind Hadley was the half-seen figure of the girl.

Lizzie tried to retrieve the memory of that first encounter. It was an image through a darkened, fragmented lens – a shifting shadow in the hallway and yet, somehow, a haunting integer. A thing complete in itself. Perhaps Lizzie was the fragmented one in the de-silvered glass. The voice was still rattling away angrily down the phone.

‘What are you doing in my mother's house? I've told you to leave. Why are you still there?'

Hadley had been fully in the kitchen by now, and the figure behind him had stepped forward into the light. Lizzie had realized then that this was the girl from Carrie Stewart's photos, suddenly there, standing in the doorway to the kitchen in her school uniform – baggy sweatshirt, green tartan skirt and soft green headscarf. She was slight of frame, with dark eyes in which a watchful intelligence flickered. Her name had come back to Lizzie: Farah.

Hadley's bulk, the vulnerability of the mother, the unnerving hostility of the teenager: the place had felt crowded. But Hadley as usual seemed at ease, unaware of peril perhaps, or accustomed to facing it down. An air of benign perplexity hung about him. It was the cloak that disguised him, or the shield that protected him.

The voice on the end of the phone had now been so loud that Lizzie had held the phone away from her ear. It was audible in the room: ‘Do you have a warrant?'

Hadley spoke loudly and cheerfully. ‘We don't need a warrant. Your mother has invited us in.' He gestured to Lizzie to give him the phone. He took it from her briskly and spoke over the rattling voice. ‘Yes, I've got all that. Could you tell Younes when you see him that he'd better come down to the station? We'll have to keep coming here until we've spoken with him.'

The volume of the shouting at the other end of the phone increased. There was the sound of a click in the hallway.

Hadley said, ‘I've got to go now. Cheerio.' He pressed the disconnect button and handed the phone back to the mother, then turned towards the hallway, but Farah was ahead of him, already running towards the door. She shouted something in that other language. Lizzie followed, realizing suddenly what was happening.

In the kitchen the phone was ringing incessantly but no one was answering it. Mrs Mehenni was pulling on Lizzie's arm, trying to hold her back. Lizzie shrugged her off. She followed Farah and Hadley down the hallway and out of the now open door. The street was dripping from the recent rainfall but the sky was suddenly a brilliant blue. Looking to her right, she saw a man running away: Younes Mehenni. Hadley was chasing – a fat man struggling to run. Lizzie transmitted. ‘Suspect making off east down Kenley Villas, IC2 male, blue jeans, dark top, approximate age forty.' She began to run. Ahead of her Hadley turned off down the side street where they had left the car. Lizzie was fast. She was gaining on Farah and her father. She glanced ahead and then to her right; saw Hadley getting into the car. But Farah had retraced her footsteps and was also turning into the side street.

Lizzie slowed and looked down the road. The car's engine had started and she could see the front wheels turning, but Farah was in the road, beside the vehicle, obstructing its exit. Lizzie ran down the street. Farah was clambering on to the bonnet now and Hadley was opening the car door.

‘Get off the bloody car.'

Lizzie shouted. ‘It's all right, Hadley, I've got her.'

But Hadley was already there, outside the car. Farah was trying to grip on to the edges underneath the windscreen, her fingers clutching, white with effort, but Hadley had reached over and had a firm hold of her. He pulled her from the bonnet and lifted her, kicking like a child having a tantrum, towards the pavement. He set her down and stretched out his hand, stopping her getting any closer. The girl was shouting furiously at him in that unfamiliar language. Lizzie stepped between them, raising her left hand. ‘Farah, stay back.' Her right hand was feeling for her cuffs. ‘It's all right, Hadley,' she repeated. ‘I've got her.'

But something was happening to Farah: she had started to suck in breath and was holding her ribs, arms wrapped tightly around her chest as if she were in pain. Behind her Lizzie heard the siren wail as the car swung round and roared off to search for Mehenni. Farah fell forward on to her knees. She seemed to be struggling for breath, taking deep inhales.

‘Are you all right?' Lizzie moved forward, all thoughts of handcuffs long gone. ‘Are you injured? What's happening?'

Farah did not respond. Suddenly there was a long, deep cry that seemed to come from deep within her. She shuddered and spluttered. Her face was contorted in a grimace, as if in pain. Then she was sobbing and wailing, rocking back and forth, digging her nails into her arms. Down the street someone came out of a door and watched. Lizzie moved forward and crouched beside the girl. She seemed unreachable, somewhere other than the London street.

‘Farah, what's happening? What's happening? Are you all right?' Lizzie put her arm around her. ‘Do you need a doctor?'

Farah shook her off, throwing her arm wide. She had stopped wailing and she clenched her fists tightly. ‘No. No doctor.' She stood
up and turned away from Lizzie, starting back towards Kenley Villas. Lizzie put a hand on her shoulder.

‘Hang on, Farah. Are you OK? Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?'

Farah turned on her. ‘Don't touch me.' Her eyes were dark, hostile beads, her face a closed little circle as if it had been drawn tight by a string. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. ‘No, I don't need an ambulance. Leave me alone.'

There was the sound of another siren. A marked car drew up beside them. Arif was in the passenger seat and he wound down the window. ‘You all right, Lizzie?'

‘Yes, I think so.'

‘You sure?'

‘Yes.'

‘We'll crack on, then. There's a couple more cars out doing an area search.'

The car sped off. Farah had stopped to listen. ‘Why have you got cars looking for my father? He is not a criminal.'

‘Farah, let me take you back to the house. We can talk about this.'

‘I don't want you anywhere near my house. You shouldn't have come in at all. Go away.'

‘But Farah, you don't understand. We need to speak with your father. It's not such a big—'

‘It's YOU who don't understand. Go away. Go away. Go away.' She started walking off briskly.

‘Farah, hang on . . .'

There was the wail of an approaching siren and Hadley's car drew up beside them. He stopped in the middle of the road and got out, switching off the siren but leaving the blue lights flashing. Farah became still. She was pale, and mascara had smudged down her face in sad black streaks. Hadley stepped towards her.

‘What on earth did you think you were doing, young lady?'

Farah tipped her head back. She couldn't have looked further from her earlier distress. He was an ignorant adult: she was indifferent, bored even.

‘I repeat, what do you think you were doing? You could have been hurt.'

Lizzie tried to intervene. ‘Hadley—'

He flashed her a look. ‘Have you arrested her?'

Arrested her?
It hadn't crossed her mind.

‘No.'

Farah was standing up to the bulk of Hadley, as fierce as a weasel. He towered over her.

‘You are very lucky my colleague has decided not to arrest you. That trick you played: it's called obstructing police. Don't ever try it again.' He turned back towards the car, the keys already in his hand. ‘Come on, Lizzie, we're going to carry on looking for him.'

Farah was already walking quickly away from them back along the street towards her house. She had her arms wrapped tightly around her chest again. Hadley slowed the car and wound down his window, coasting alongside her.

‘There's four cars out looking for your dad, and if we don't catch him now, that just means we are going to keep on looking until we do. You'd better tell him to hand himself in. This isn't going away.'

He hit the siren and the car accelerated. They turned on to the main road and past a row of shops, then off down a residential street a couple of miles from Kenley Villas. Hadley killed the siren and pulled over into a parking bay. He pushed his seat back, stretching out his big feet into the footwell. After a brief silence he took out a tube of Rolos and emptied a handful into his mouth. He began to chew noisily. Lizzie braced herself – she was clearly due a bit of a lesson.

‘You OK?' Hadley said between chews.

‘Yep.'

‘Mad cow.'

Lizzie nodded. She felt powerless, ineffective. ‘I thought we were looking for Mehenni?'

‘That was just a bit of theatre for the girl. You not heard of rattling their cages yet? Mehenni's long gone.' He offered the tube of Rolos. ‘Want one?'

‘No thanks.'

‘We'll have to write it up when we get back to the nick – that bit of soap opera on the car bonnet. Use of force, all that.'

‘What was it? Common law or section 117 of PACE?'

‘Search me. She was stopping us making an arrest, felt right to me.'

Lizzie didn't know if he was serious. She said, ‘I think it was PACE 117.'

Hadley shrugged. ‘You'll need to put a notification for her on the system as well. Every child matters, after all. Don't forget to mention that she's a nutcase. And say you considered arresting her but used your discretion – not in the public interest, all that.'

‘It never crossed my mind to arrest her.'

‘Well it bloody well should have.'

He was right, of course he was. Farah had been obstructing police, absolutely to the letter. It should have at least crossed her mind. It would have been perfectly lawful to arrest her. The girl's distress had overwhelmed her. It still overwhelmed her.

Hadley took out another couple of Rolos. They looked small in his big paw and were already beginning to melt. ‘Sure you don't want one?'

Lizzie nodded. ‘Mmm.'

‘Suit yourself.' He emptied them into his mouth. ‘What a pain it would have been to nick her.' He smacked his tongue loudly against the roof of his mouth. ‘Frightened you a bit, did she?'

‘She did, yes. A bit.'

‘She's not top billing, keep that in mind. We'll refer her for some TLC, but let's not forget we are police, not bloody social workers, thank the Lord. We need to nick Mehenni, that's the main thing. A lot of that shouting stuff is just a smokescreen. It's all right doing the bleeding-heart routine at the side of the road, but that girl stopped us catching him, which was what she wanted. Farah Mehenni needs to know we mean business. We can't have them taking the piss, Lizzie.'

13

F
luorescent light. Stainless steel. White tiles.

They dealt with the school bag first. At the scene it had been lying face down, but Collins now saw that it had a stylized drawing of a cat's face on the back flap. In addition to a maths textbook and a spotty pencil case, the bag also held a crumpled blue paisley headscarf, a pot of pink sparkly lip gloss, an embroidered purse containing 78p in change, a crushed pack of T-Zone nose pore strips and, in the front pocket, a small blue plastic horse with a silver nylon mane. Steve bagged up the items individually and made a note in the exhibit book.