River of Souls (7 page)

He stared down at the table’s scratched surface. ‘It was sunny that afternoon. She met me in Hyde Park; we lay on the grass talking for hours. About seven we went our separate ways. I took a bus to my flat to study, and she went to a party.’

‘What mood was she in when you parted?’

He hesitated. ‘Not great. We’d just had a row.’

‘Didn’t you want to go with her?’

‘I couldn’t. I had to finish my dissertation.’

‘Is that why you argued?’

He gave a reluctant nod. ‘Jude never had to graft for top grades, she always had time to socialise. It drove me mad sometimes.’

‘Were you worried about her going out alone?’

‘I wasn’t jealous, if that’s what you mean.’ Khan’s eyes blazed. ‘We trusted each other. I got angry because she wouldn’t confide in me. There was a problem in her family she said she couldn’t discuss; something to do with her dad.’

‘That’s what sparked the row?’

‘Partly, but talking about the future made it worse.’

‘Forgive me for asking so many questions. I’m just trying to understand your relationship.’

‘What’s so hard to grasp? A rich Catholic girl falls for a poor boy from a Muslim family. Opposites attract, don’t they? But it never works out.’ His speech had dulled from rage to exhaustion.

‘I’m sorry. I can see this is painful for you.’ I let him calm down before continuing. ‘Had Jude fallen out with anyone at college?’

‘No one.’ He shook his head firmly. ‘She always kept people on side.’

‘But she must have attracted attention. Not every student’s got a cabinet minister for a dad.’

‘Her real friends didn’t care about that.’ Khan frowned, as if I’d said something crass.

‘Did you meet each other’s families?’

He gave a grudging nod. ‘My parents are practising Muslims but they accept I’m not religious; they let me make my own choices. Her dad was the opposite; he couldn’t stand me from the off. It made things impossible.’

‘In what way?’

‘You want me to be honest?’

‘Please.’

‘A few days before Jude was attacked, a man came to my flat. I thought it was just some freak who’d picked my door at random; he was dressed in a wig and black sunglasses, so I couldn’t see his eyes. Afterwards I wondered if her dad had sent him. He tried to get in, but I shoved him back into the street.’

‘What did he say?’

‘A load of threats. He said he’d hurt me if I gave away secrets.’

‘Can you remember anything else?’

‘Something about the river’s soul. None of it made sense.’

‘And you think Timothy Shelley was behind it?’

Khan stared at me. ‘If you were a cabinet minister, would you want your daughter dating a Muslim?’

‘Why didn’t you tell the police?’

‘I didn’t want Jude to worry.’

‘You never told her you’d been threatened?’

‘Things were bad enough already. She’d been tense for weeks about her family, but I never found out why.’

Timothy Shelley’s bland face appeared in my mind, his skin shiny with ambition. Why would he risk his position by employing a heavy mob? It seemed more likely that Khan had received a visit from the killer himself. His babble about the river’s soul echoing the words Jude had remembered. Burns’s team would have to interview Khan in more detail about his threatening visitor, and I needed to question Jude about the family problem she’d refused to share with her boyfriend.

‘Your police record says you were involved in a fight last November. Can you tell me why?’

Khan let out a sigh of protest. ‘The guy never pressed charges. It shouldn’t even be on my record.’

‘All police contact stays on your profile for twelve months. You know that, don’t you?’

‘He tried to mug me. It was self-defence.’

‘The report says you threw him against a wall so hard he broke his shoulder.’

‘I had no choice.’

When I studied Khan again, his face held despair as well as rage. It was easy to see why the trauma of Jude’s attack had left him desperate to punch someone.

‘Have you seen Jude since she was hospitalised?’

‘The second time she told me never to come back. Her face was covered in bandages, I couldn’t even see her eyes. After that the nurses sent me away every time I tried to visit. I don’t even know if she got my messages.’ He pulled a card from his pocket, his anger finally evaporating. ‘Can you do me a favour? Get Jude to call me if she’s changed her mind.’

I studied the card then slipped it into my bag. ‘Thanks for your time, Jamal.’

He gave a tired smile as he rose to his feet. ‘I’d better go. Wednesday’s our busiest day of the week; people are collecting vouchers for the food bank.’

I watched him march back to work, arms swinging like a soldier on parade, then began to scribble on a psychological assessment form, recording my impressions before they faded. If Khan had been a patient, I’d have been concerned about the way his manner had vacillated between hostility and despair. The reasons for his hatred of the police were obvious. He had been held in custody despite a complete lack of evidence and kept in their sights long after he stopped being a formal suspect. The pain in his voice was so raw, he still seemed burdened by unresolved feelings for Jude. His claim that she had been troubled by a family issue to do with her father was interesting. Khan’s description of the words used by the thug at his door echoed those of her attacker; it sounded like the same man had threatened him because of his relationship with Jude.

I put down my pen and looked back across the square. The queue outside the community centre had grown even longer and I tried to put my impressions in context. Khan seemed like a man with a strong social conscience. His job would require constant patience to deal with the severity of his clients’ needs: unemployment, lack of money, and no food on the table. The demands of his work must be keeping his unhappiness at a permanent simmer.

My next meeting was only a twenty-minute Tube ride away, but it felt like entering a different world. Office workers strolled through Holborn, clutching takeaway lunches and giant lattes, the area oozing with prosperity. I inhaled the scent of the world Jude Shelley had once belonged to: Chanel Number Five, cashmere and expensive cigarettes. If she’d finished her degree she would have walked shoulder to shoulder with the sharp-suited young lawyers milling outside Eat and Pret a Manger.

I paused to admire Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The wide swath of grass was surrounded by limestone buildings, which housed the city’s most expensive legal firms. Jude’s closest friend, Natalie Poll, worked for Pembroke’s on Newman’s Row. She was a pretty, curly-haired blonde with china-blue eyes and a ready smile, her blouse so immaculate it must have been loaded with starch. She shot me an apologetic glance as we entered her office.

‘Sorry it’s such a squeeze. They keep this room for new recruits to test our grit.’ The space barely accommodated a desk and two upright chairs. ‘Heather called me last night. I’m so glad you’re looking into Jude’s case.’

‘I’m hoping you can give me some background information. You and Jude shared a flat, didn’t you?’

Natalie gave a crisp nod. ‘I moved back into halls after she got hurt. The flat had too many echoes. We’d been like twins since our course began – going to the same lectures, sharing meals. She even came on holiday with my family.’

‘Were you close to Jamal too?’

Her eyes blinked wide, like a doll being shaken. ‘He wasn’t my favourite human being.’

‘Did he upset you in some way?’

‘Their relationship didn’t seem worth the anguish.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Her family thought he was a bad influence, and I could tell he made Jude feel vulnerable.’

‘Was there a specific reason for that?’

‘I’d find her crying her heart out some nights. One time her room was trashed after he left, stuff broken on the floor. It looked like he’d been chucking furniture around. I told her to report it, but she didn’t of course.’

‘Why do you say “of course”? Plenty of women report abusive behaviour, don’t they?’

‘She’d hate me for talking like this, but I think she had a victim mentality because of her past.’

‘You think she’d experienced violence before?’

Natalie pursed her lips, as if she was holding back a torrent of words. ‘You should ask Jude about her childhood, and the man she was seeing before Jamal.’

It seemed odd that, despite her friend’s injuries, Natalie was still defending her privacy. Jude must have been a strong personality, still commanding loyalty from her friends after so much time had passed. ‘Do you know what she and Jamal used to row about?’

‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Someone like Jude could never marry someone like him, there were too many barriers.’ Natalie’s cupid-bow lips pressed together in a tight line.

‘You still see Jude regularly, don’t you?’

‘I take her books and magazines. She’d do the same for me.’

We talked for a while longer, but Natalie provided little new information. Her friendship with Jude sounded like it had been intense until Jamal upset the applecart. The two girls had gone to the gym together, partied and shared each other’s clothes. Apart from Jamal, she couldn’t name a single person who had argued with Jude. When I said goodbye, her handshake was tight enough to burn.

‘I hope you catch him, whoever he is,’ she whispered. ‘Hanging’s too good for that bastard.’

It was a relief to escape from the airless room, drizzle blurring the red-brick buildings on the far side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I thought about the impact Jude had made on the people she knew. Jamal Khan was so haunted that his pain still bubbled close to the surface, but only Jude could explain if their relationship had included violence, or whether someone had hurt her as a child. Natalie Poll seemed to be telling the truth, but she’d kept her distress hidden behind her well-groomed façade right until the end of our meeting. My knuckles ached from the tension in her grip as I walked back to the Tube.

9

There’s been no sign of her for hours, but her closeness sings in his veins, louder than the traffic’s roar. He takes care to stay in the shadows, sheltered from the rain. His face is hidden under a broad-brimmed hat and dark glasses. He’s darkened his skin tone too, with a smear of fake tan. Pedestrians march along St Pancras Way, oblivious to his presence, souls shrouding their faces like mist. None of them interest him. Only the girl will satisfy the river’s appetite.

She emerges from the police station at three o’clock, her aura so bright he has to shade his eyes. She trots down the steps, as though she’s happy to be chosen. When she stands at a bus stop, he waits by the railing, beyond her line of vision. She’s listening to her iPod, locked in her own world, but her closeness is overwhelming. The woman carries on nodding to a rhythm only she can hear. She boards a northbound bus and he finds a seat at the back, his whole body pulsing with her existence. He stares out at the shops on Caledonian Road without noticing a single detail. When he sees her preparing to leave the bus, he stumbles to his feet.

The man glimpses his reflection in a shop window, huddled in a wet raincoat, a bag slung across his shoulder, the brow of his hat concealing his face. He could be one of a million office workers hurrying home from work. The woman takes her time walking through Barnsbury, stopping for a newspaper and a bunch of flowers. Then she walks more purposefully and his breath quickens. He’s a few metres behind her when she unlocks her door.

‘Can you help me please?’ he calls.

The woman is wearing a half-formed smile when he bundles her into the hallway. She has no time to scream, her aura blazing more brightly, blue-white, crackling with electricity.

‘Is this some kind of joke?’ Her voice quakes with panic.

‘There’s no point in fighting. I came for this.’ He drifts his fingers through the haze of her soul.

‘My boyfriend’ll be back soon. You should leave.’

‘You haven’t got a boyfriend.’ She reaches for her phone, but he grabs her arm. ‘Struggling won’t help.’

The woman’s teeth sink into his wrist, and he gives a yelp of pain before letting his fist fly. Her body falls unconscious at his feet, red flowers scattering across the carpet, beautiful and scentless. He arranges her limbs neatly, arms straight at her sides. Then he collects the blossoms and arranges them around her face. A flicker of guilt rises in his throat. He doesn’t want to hurt her, but she knows too much. If she told her secrets, his world would be broken. The man kneels beside her to enjoy her beauty while it lasts.