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Authors: Conrad Jones

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BOOK: Slow Burn
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 Richard stepped behind his mother and opened the cupboard quietly, removing three more cookies with a deft touch. He slipped them into his pocket, silently. His father saw him and gently nudged him in the back.

  “Caught red-handed,” he whispered, so that Mrs Bernstein couldn’t hear him. He smiled at his son. Sarah`s recent behaviour made him appreciate his sons more somehow. Richard had weight and confidence issues, but he was never disrespectful, and he never got into trouble.

 “What are you two whispering about?”

 “Nothing, Mum.” Richard laughed and moved away from the cupboard. “Who is she hanging around with then?”

 “A couple of the girls from your year, I think. They`ve been going to parties at the weekends, with a group of Asian boys,” Mrs Bernstein put the chilled items into the fridge as she spoke. “Have you been eating the cheese?” She asked, noticing a large chunk was missing.

 “Asian boys?” Richard Bernstein felt a cold shiver run down his spine. “Which Asian boys?”

 “I`m not sure, but she keeps mentioning a boy called, Malik, or something like that. I think she has a crush on him.”

 Richard shoved his hands deep into his pockets and sulkily walked out of the kitchen. He decided that he wanted to play chess against his computer, in his room. Of all the boys in school for his sister to get a crush on, it had to be him. Malik Shah was building a reputation as the best drug dealer in school. Apparently, his gear was cheap and strong, not that Richard touched anything like that. If Sarah was running with that crowd, then it would only be a matter of time before she experimented with drugs. Richard didn’t think things could get any worse, but very soon they would be. Much worse.

CHAPTER TEN

Major Investigation Team

Superintendent Alec Ramsay briefed his troops about the findings that Will Naylor`s team had discovered, and he set them the task to find out as much information as they could about Malik Shah and Ashwan Pindar. The investigation was to be covert. No one would approach them directly, or their associates for now. They had to gather information from other departments, other constabularies, and international law enforcement agencies. There was no shortage of suspected crimes allegedly committed by their criminal organisation; however, there was no hard evidence against them. They were smart. Malik Shah hadn`t been arrested and questioned since the late nineties. His record was clean. It was just before three o`clock when the entire Major Investigation Team was present at their desks.

 “Half past three, ladies and gents please, let`s have a quick update. I don’t want anything overlooked, no matter how insignificant it might seem now,” Alec brushed his blond fringe back from his head. Grey and ginger strands were creeping into his mane; he had read that the `hair industry` called it salt and pepper. `Getting older`, he called it. His hair was parted down the centre, and while it was still thick, the roots always appeared darker, greying blond. The afternoon sun was sinking fast in the west, its warmth was gone now, but its glare was annoying through the full windows. In the near distance, the river looked slate grey in the fading light. Heads nodded in confirmation of the Superintendents order, and several small clusters of officers formed as they collated their team`s information. Alec had been kept up to speed all day as news came in, but each team needed to be completely aware what avenues their colleagues were following. Hundreds of man-hours could be saved by frequent briefings. They stopped people working on the same issue, or heading down a dead end that others had already been to. Alec had the bit between his teeth, and the longer they investigated the bombing, the less likely it seemed that it was a terrorist attack. He needed the Divisional Commander to have the same opinion, or it would be left to the Counter Terrorist Unit to deal with.

 “Guv,” Will Naylor held up his telephone. He looked sharp and refreshed after his break, as did his team. Even Smithy looked half-tidy. 

“It`s the Commander, Guv.”

“Patch it through to my office please, Will.”

  Alec stepped into his office and clicked the door closed behind him. He couldn’t make his mind up whether he wanted to be the lead unit on the bombing or not. It was a massive case, which carried volumes of kudos if it ended with a conviction. The careers of the entire team would be enhanced by working on a case like this. They could also be damaged beyond repair, if mistakes were made. Alec was too long in the tooth to be a glory hound, but he relished a challenge, and his detectives were the best.

 Alec was convinced it was a targeted hit. The problem was both the protagonists and targets lived in the world of organised crime. It was a world of secrecy and silence. There would be no informers, no tip-offs, and no witnesses. Malik Shah appeared to be made of Teflon, nothing stuck to him, and Alec would bet a year`s wages his enemies would be made of similar material. The police hierarchy would want results and convictions tomorrow, if not sooner. Alec couldn’t see either coming quickly.

He lifted the phone and pressed a button to connect the line.“Commander.”

 “Detective Superintendent, how are you Alec?” Alec and the Commander went back years. Alec had always been a few rungs down the ladder, but the two men had a mutual respect that can only grow over decades. Alec had been pulled out of a few close scrapes during his years on the force, and though he was never certain, he had a hunch that the Commander was his guardian angel. 

 “Not so bad, Bob. How`s Sally?”

  “Fine thanks, and how`s Gail?”

  “Still trying to poison me with organic everything. I`m still not sure what organic actually means, but I`ll live forever at this rate.” Alec was force fed a healthy diet by his long-suffering wife, whether he wanted it or not.

  “Heaven forbid! Why would you want to do that? By the time we retire our pension funds will have been invested in an Icelandic bank. It`ll be worth peanuts.”

  “Probably, but as long as they`re organic, the boss will be happy.” Alec Ramsey had been married twenty years, and he`d never strayed once, which he was proud of. He`d had plenty of offers over the years, a mixture of power and personality made him attractive to his female colleagues, but he`d never succumbed to the temptation.

 The Commander laughed and then said seriously, “All joking aside, Alec, how`s the investigation going?”

  “It depends on where you`re looking at it from,” Alec rubbed his chin as he replied thoughtfully. “What are CTU saying?”

 “They have nothing solid worth shouting about. You know what they`re like, cards very close to their chest and all.”

  “Do they think it was an extremist attack?”

  “I`m assuming from that comment, Superintendent, that you don’t,” the Commander batted the question back.

  “No, Commander, I don’t.” The two old friends slipped into their professional standings comfortably. “Have you seen the preliminary forensics?”

  “Yes. What do you make of it?”

  “Did you pickup on the mixture?”

  “I did indeed, Superintendent.” The Commander had spent a number of years in Belfast. “Echoes of our Republican friends?”

  “Without a doubt, Commander, I haven’t seen or heard of a cooked mixture since our time across the Irish Sea.”

  “You`re ruling out any Irish involvement, I presume.”

  “I can`t say for definite, but what would their motive be?”

 “I agree, so where does that leave us?”

  “I think it`s a hit, Commander.”

  “The Patels being the possible target?”

  “It`s a possibility that needs to be investigated. Patel has some very dubious business associates.”

  “Malik Shah, I believe,” Alec thought the Commander sounded like the bulldog from the car insurance adverts on the television. “That man has been a thorn in my side for as long as I can remember.”

 “It could be a coincidence, Commander, but the extremist tack doesn’t sit right. It`s a hunch, but the evidence tells me it`s a hit.”

“Was Patel of value to Malik Shah?”

“According to Smithy, the drugs squad had him down as the bookkeeper for the entire operation, but they could never follow the money trail to anything solid.”

 “Do you think Shah could have taken him out, maybe he was skimming off the top?” The Commander speculated.

“Who knows, it`s way too early to tell, but my money is on a link to Shah, rather than right wing extremists, Commander.” 

  “I tend to agree, but if it is, then the ball will be in your court.”

  “Yes, Commander, I thought as much.” Alec swept his hand across his mouth and eyes, rubbing them.

  “I think the joint departments meeting will iron out where we go with this.”

  “We`re working our way through the possible options, Commander. If it falls to us then we`ll hit the ground running.” Alec swallowed hard, and loosened his tie. It seemed that that case was about to drop into his lap.

Chapter Eleven

LANA PINDAR/ PRESENT DAY

Lana floated in and out of a troubled sleep. Her dreams were real and worrying. She dreamt of a lake and a rowing boat. Mamood had fallen into the water, and no matter how hard she rowed, the boat drifted further away from him. Lana called his name and shouted for help, but he was being carried away by an unseen current. There wasn’t anything she could do to help him. He became a spot on the horizon, just before he disappeared beneath the dark waters. She awoke with a start, out of breath and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. The red glow of their digital clock told her that it was past three in the morning, and she hadn’t heard Mamood coming home. She didn’t make a fuss when he was late, but she didn’t sleep soundly until she knew that he was home safe. Lana thought that maybe he`d sneaked in quietly, while she dozed, but she dismissed that as wishful thinking. She knew when her son was home, and when he wasn’t. It was a mother`s intuition. Lana lifted the quilt and slipped out of bed. Ashwan murmured and turned onto his back. He could sleep through an avalanche without waking. She tiptoed across the thick white carpet to the door, where she removed her dressing gown from its hook and pulled it on.

 Lana moved quietly down the landing, thick carpet cushioned her footsteps. She hoped she was overreacting as she pushed open her son`s bedroom door. Amir Khan, the Asian boxing hero from Bolton snarled at her from his place above Mamood`s bed. His Manchester United quilt cover lay unruffled. There was no sign of a sleeping teenager beneath it. Lana bit her lip and her stomach twisted and sank. She felt physically sick with worry. He had been home late from parties before, but never this late. Midnight was his allowed time, and he never pushed the deadline much past half-past. Mamood had been so full of life and excitement when he`d left that evening. The thought of his prospective date had made him high and giddy.

Maybe he`d got lucky, she thought, remembering what he`d said before he left, but then maybe he was in trouble. Lana was his mother, and she was bound to worry about her only son for the rest of her days, that`s what mothers do. She sat on his bed and touched his pillow. He was growing up so quickly, and staying out late with girls was something that she would have to get used to, whether she liked it or not. Lana thought about waking up Ashwan to tell him, but he would probably laugh and say, “That`s my boy,” or something equally macho and crass.

 Lana crept downstairs and walked down the long, wide hallway into a large open kitchen area. Their home was huge, and the kitchen was bigger than most people`s gardens. The floors were tiled with Egyptian white marble, and it felt cool beneath her feet. She opened the American refrigerator and took a glass from the cupboard, filling it with milk and then sipping it as she debated what to do. She leaned against a granite worktop and chewed her manicured nails as she debated in her mind. Finally she decided to ring Mamood on his mobile, after all that`s why he had it. To let them know where he was, and to keep in touch. If she was worried then it was his own fault for not letting them know that he would be late.

Lana dialled the number from memory. It clicked straight onto answering machine, voice mail. She tried again, just in case, voice mail. She bit her lip as she replaced the handset, remembering the nightmare she`d had before she woke. Lana tiptoed back to bed and slid gently under the warm covers, next to her husband, scolding herself for being overprotective of her child. She tried hard, but she could find no peaceful dreams that night.

Abdul/ PRESENT DAY

Chapter Eleven

Abdul Salim ground a cigarette butt into the pavement. A steady evening rain had started to fall, but he did not go inside to shelter. Salim was a teenage drug dealer and there were customers to serve, rain or shine. He was tucked between two empty shop units, which were situated beneath a gargantuan tower block. A service alleyway snaked between them, connecting the lockups to a delivery bay behind them. The tower blocks were once the architect`s solution to overcrowding and a simple method of providing state housing, but they actually became vertical human zoos. The tenants either were unemployed or in low paid jobs, easy pickings for drug dealers and loan sharks.

 Across the street, two police cars passed by and their uniformed occupants strained to look out of the steamed-up windows. Salim watched as they drove off down the street. The police knew what he was doing. Sometimes they left him alone, sometimes they didn`t. He always carried just enough drugs to qualify as being for personal use, never more. The rest of his stock, his takings and his weapon he kept stashed with a young runner. 

BOOK: Slow Burn
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