Rough Cut: Rosie Gilmour 6 (2 page)

‘B-But . . . You’re taking his phone and his wallet. That’s a crime.’

‘I’m buying us some time, Nikki. If he’s got no documents or ID on him, then when some wee chambermaid
comes in tomorrow morning and finds him lying stiff, they’ll take ages to find out who he is. He’ll have used a false name for the room – that gives us time to work out some kind of plan.’

‘But the case?’

‘Just take it. Leave the holdall with the clothes. You never know what’s in the case. Trust me. Okay? That’s all you have to do.’

Nikki didn’t answer.

Julie gently moved her towards the bed.

‘C’mon. Get dressed. Let’s move it. The place is mobbed down there in the foyer. Seems to be some kind of party going on, so nobody will even notice us leaving.’

Nikki pulled on her dress over her head and shoved her feet into her boots.

‘I’m scared, Julie,’ she sniffed.

‘Stop it! You’ll be a lot more scared if somebody walks in here and we’re caught with a dead body on the floor.’

‘But taking the case – what if he’s a drug dealer or something?’

‘Never mind what he is. I don’t give a shit. I’m taking everything that will identify him for now. We can chuck the case in the river once we manage to open it. You never know, it might be full of money.’

She grabbed hold of Nikki by the elbow and pushed her towards the door.

‘C’mon. Let’s go.’

Rosie’s shoes made a scrunching sound as she crossed the frozen grass, her breath steaming in the crisp, cold air. She climbed the wide steps of the three-storey sandstone villa and gazed up at the top floor windows, wondering which one the young Pakistani bride had tumbled from to her death. She shivered a little at the thought of the girl’s final moments, that split second when the window had been flung open and she would have felt the blast of cold on her face for the last time. She wished morbid pictures wouldn’t flood her head, but it was always the same on a death knock – though this was no ordinary death knock. What brought Rosie to the place they called Little Karachi, a five minute drive from Glasgow’s city centre, was whether she fell or was pushed. A Pakistani girl had committed suicide, the police had concluded, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary.

The problem with poking around a place like Little
Karachi was that you had to tread carefully. Once home to generations of Scottish industrialists and merchants, Pollokshields, with its rows of two- and three-storey detached houses, was now the dominion of hundreds of Pakistani families – most of whom were business people, inter-married within their own communities. Of course, there was a bit of mystery about the way they led their lives, how they arranged their marriages, the strict rules and regulations – but they’d become part of Scottish culture. Nobody asked questions . . . until recently. A couple of years ago a gang of Pakistani yobs had kidnapped and beaten a local white boy, burning him alive and abandoning him in waste ground, where he died in agony. It had sparked outrage outside the community, and plenty of anger within. Then, another story about a young woman who’d apparently set fire to herself in a house up around Maryhill. There were whisperings of some kind of honour killing. Police couldn’t prove any foul play, and put it down to suicide. But a whiff of mistrust hung over the community now. People, probably racist deep down to begin with, started to question the way the Asians lived. The Asians shrank into themselves, but they were no longer left to their own devices. People asked questions and felt strongly that to do so was their divine right. Rosie’s Pakistani contact had told her there was something dodgy about the latest young bride’s death. Omar, a born and bred Glaswegian, might attend Friday prayers at the mosque, but he was
as much a wide boy as any street smart punter from the East End, and had his finger in every Asian pie. He was her only link into their closed world, and he would never throw her a line like that if there wasn’t something in it.

She could see shadows in the bay window of the big living room, where a few women seemed to be scurrying around. As she peered through the big stained glass door on the porch, someone was coming down the hall. More than one person. The door opened just a little, on a chain. Rosie put on her most understanding face.

‘Hello. Sorry to trouble you at this time. My name is Rosie Gilmour. I’m from the
Post
. It’s about the bride . . . Rabia—’

The door closed again. Rosie glanced over her shoulder to the car, where the photographer, Matt, was sitting looking up at her. She’d told him to stay where he was, as she thought it best to hit the door by herself. She shrugged at Matt. Then more shadows at the door, and this time it opened fully. A tall man in a traditional Pakistani tunic stood looking down at her, his pockmarked cheeks half covered by a bushy beard. She was ready with her pitch again, when to her surprise he took a step back.

‘You can come in,’ he beckoned her. ‘I am Rashid Shah. Rabia was my son’s wife.’ His accent was Glaswegian but laced with Pakistani tones.

Rosie stepped into the large, gloomy hallway, her eyes drawn to walls festooned with tapestries of what looked like
ancient Asian rituals or legends. Big porcelain jardinières with plant pots and plastic flowers framed the wide, spiral staircase, where a crimson carpet swept up to a landing, then around another staircase. A couple of children peeked out of a bedroom on the landing, then closed the door again. The pungent aroma of Asian cooking wafted from the kitchen at the end of the hall, and Rosie glanced over to see three woman coming out of an adjoining room, each of them dressed in full traditional clothes, bright oranges and reds. How many lived here? she wondered. Certainly more than one family, which wouldn’t be unusual. Many Pakistani families shared their homes with their offspring even after they married, and the mother of a young husband was often the matriarchal figure who welcomed, and if need be, scolded the new bride into their ways. The father and the men were the breadwinners. There was a status that came with growing old, unlike the mentality around the corner, where white feral youths ran riot and did what they wanted to their fathers and insulted their mothers. You didn’t get that in the Asian households. Their community had family and respect at its core, even if many of their ways seemed alien to outsiders.

‘Would you like some tea?’ the man asked as he led her down the hall, where a door opened into a large room.

‘Yes,’ Rosie replied, a little surprised at the hospitality. In a lot of death knocks you got huckled out smartish. ‘Thanks. Some black tea would be great.’

The man barked something loudly in Urdu in the direction of the kitchen, and a young woman in striking yellow traditional dress with her head covered, came out and more or less bowed. She made brief eye contact with Rosie. It was only a second, but it was enough. There was something there, something in the dark shadows under her eyes, which darted from Rosie to the ground. She was very pretty and probably in her early twenties; clearly cowed by the older man, she kept her eyes downcast as she nodded, then turned and went quickly back into the kitchen.

Rosie was a little taken aback when she was led into one of the large rooms off the hallway. She glanced quickly around the three big sofas and chairs, where at least eight men sat in a circle as though in a meeting. They were all dressed traditionally, a few of them rattling prayer beads in their hands, talking in hushed tones. They stopped instantly and turned towards her. Silence.

‘Hello,’ she said, not really knowing what else to say.

‘Please. Take a seat.’ Shah motioned her to an upright chair, and she could feel all the eyes following her as she sat down, as though it was she who had been summoned.

‘This my family. Brothers and cousins. And –’ he pointed to a lean-faced, handsome young man with thin lips, who looked up from the floor, then back down – ‘this my son, Farooq. The husband of the bride. His heart is broken.’

The widower nodded and looked away from her, clasping his hands on his lap. Rosie could see his white knuckles. She
glanced at his fingers, heavy with gold rings, a chunky bracelet on his wrist. A huge diamond ring, too big to be anything other than a fake, glistened on his pinkie. What was it with these guys and their bling? Don’t judge, she told herself. Listen to what they say. There were people in the newsroom who would make their minds up straight away, but Rosie wasn’t one of them. She did feel a little claustrophobic from the sheer presence of all these men, though, sitting looking at her, waiting. She swallowed back a little panicky feeling. Just get this over with, she told herself.

‘I’m sorry for your loss, Farooq.’ She looked directly at the widower, and waited at least four beats.

He raised his head in acknowledgement, but said nothing. Two out of five for the heartbroken widower impression, Rosie noted.

‘My son is too upset to speak. It’s been a very big shock. They were only married three months ago.’

‘Yes,’ Rosie said, and gave a sympathetic shake of her head. ‘I read it in the police statement.’ She took a breath and looked at Shah. ‘I understand they met in Pakistan just a few months ago?’

She was trying to choose her words carefully. Arranged marriages were a way of life in the Pakistani culture, and it was difficult for others to understand.

‘I take it the marriage was arranged in the normal way?’ Rosie glanced around the room, stony faces staring back at her, and then turned to Shah.

‘What do you mean – in the usual way?’

There was a little flick of resentment in Shah’s tone. A couple of the men shifted in their seats and puffed. Rosie had to rescue this, but she also had to stand her ground.

‘By that I mean, in the usual way within your culture, where people tend to meet their future husband or wife through family and connections.’ Rosie looked around at the men who stared back at her. She let the silence hang, the air cranking up with tension. She wasn’t going to shift on this. ‘I understand Rabia was in the UK for the first time for the wedding. She must have found it very different from back home.’

Nobody was answering. Christ!

‘What I’m trying to say is, Mr Shah, do you think perhaps she was homesick and it all got too much for her?’ Rosie turned to the groom. ‘Did she say anything, Farooq, about being depressed? Show any signs? Missing home? Understandable, really.’

Farooq glanced at his father but made no reply.

Shah took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

‘Yes. I think she may have been a little depressed. It happens with the young girls sometimes, because they are in a strange city, far from their families. But really, it just takes time to settle.’

‘So there was no indication of how depressed she actually was?’

‘I wish there was,’ he said and looked at the others, whose faces were like flint.

Rosie said nothing. Her Strathclyde detective pal, Don, had tipped her off that the girl had marks on her wrist, consistent with self-harming, or someone else harming her. But the family couldn’t throw any light on it, and Rosie got the distinct feeling that bringing it up right now was not a good idea. Police had ruled it was a straightforward suicide and the body had been buried within forty-eight hours, so it was really too late to do anything about it anyway. This was going nowhere. But something in her gut told her they were lying, or at the very least, hiding something.

The door opened, and the young girl from earlier came in carrying a small tray with a glass of tea and a plate of small pastries. She placed it down on the coffee table in front of Rosie and as she did, Rosie noticed welts and bruising on her wrists. The girl backed away, but was close enough to clock Rosie the moment she’d glanced at her wrists. She nodded in thanks for the tea and lifted the glass to her lips, hoping she had said enough with her eyes to acknowledge the girl’s distressed look, before she backed away and left the room.

‘She is the bride’s sister, Sabiha,’ Shah said. ‘It has been difficult for her.’

‘I see,’ Rosie said. ‘Has she been here for a long time?’

‘Yes. Four years. Married to Farooq’s cousin. They have two children.’ He sat back. ‘It takes time to settle down into the life.’

Rosie changed the subject.

‘Its a very large house, Mr Shah. It must be good to have all the family together. To be honest, I think that’s a great part of your culture, that family is at the heart of it.’

Rosie hoped to draw him out, but the notion of living with several families under the same roof would be her ideal of hell. She drank the lukewarm sweet tea.

He nodded.

‘Of course. We all work very hard for each other. We have three families living here. My own wife and our two sons and their children. Often Sabiha and her children come to stay. It is very comfortable. You like to see? I show you around?’

Rosie wasn’t sure what to do. He stood up. It didn’t seem to be an invitation. They left the room and she followed him along the hall and upstairs. He showed her what he called the playroom, where two boys sat with toys on the floor and another two girls were drawing with crayons. They climbed the creaking stairs to the top floor.

‘Did Rabia live on the top floor here with her husband?’

‘Yes. In the room at the end. But we won’t go there. It’s too upsetting.’

Rosie glanced down the hall, where the light faded, and a sudden chill ran through her. At the very top of the door was a bolt with a looped latch, a crude effort, not even straight. Her eyes flicked to the bottom where there was another, similar lock. She looked away and said nothing. She’d seen enough. Whether Rabia had been homesick, they
would never know. But she’d been locked in. Rosie suddenly wanted to get out of this house as fast as possible. She looked at her watch.

‘Thanks for your time, Mr Shah. I do know how difficult it has been, and I appreciate you explaining your loss and the background, and giving me this time. I will go now and leave you in peace.’

‘You will say what a good girl she was? That it is just a sad thing that has happened?’