Ignored, Brock stood by the door watching as George and Qasim demonstrated with flashing arm gestures the way in which Kathy had felled Manzoor. They urged her to produce her weapon and demonstrate it before them all, but she modestly declined, and murmured a few words to Qasim who reluctantly waved Brock over and seated them both at what was apparently the table of greatest status in the Horria. Here was already seated an old man whose leathery features were embellished with a magnificent large moustache and an embroidered skullcap.
‘This is my grandfather, also called Qasim Ali,’ Qasim explained. Grandpa Qasim was the patriarch, the doyen of merchants and wisest of men. He gracefully welcomed his guests while Qasim junior explained that, when he was a boy, before the Pakis had become so numerous, his grandfather had owned several shops and warehouses on Shadwell Road and had been the principal businessman in the neighbourhood. He had also been the king of the trade in qat, a narcotic leaf chewed by Yemenis, which Grandpa Qasim flew in twice a week to London from Ethiopia and Kenya, and stored in fridges that used to fill the rear store- room of the Horria, freshness being of the utmost importance to the connoisseur of qat.
‘Those days are gone,’ Qasim junior said sadly. ‘In those days any man foolish enough to interrupt a family burial would have ended up in a grave himself. But look at us today, shamed by those Paki cowboys. Only Kathy came out of it well.’
‘I know what you mean, Qasim,’ Brock nodded, rubbing his knee.
‘Oh, but yours was a great battle, two against hundreds. You couldn’t help what happened to Abu.’
‘How do you think Manzoor knew that Abu and his daughter were close?’
‘I don’t know, but I can tell you that nobody here, in Chandler’s Yard, told him. If they had, he’d have known that she was here…’ he pointed up at the ceiling, ‘all the time.’
‘Her room is up there?’
‘Top floor, in the attic above the mosque, across the landing from George and Fran.’
‘And Abu spent a lot of time with her there?’
Qasim shrugged. ‘It’s not something the imam would approve, perhaps, but they’d both experienced suffering, and who were we to say they weren’t good for each other?’
‘I know about Nargis’ story, but what suffering had Abu experienced?’
‘I don’t know all the details, but he came from a poor family in Lebanon, and they went through some very bad times and he got into some kind of trouble. But he was lucky, he said. He might have become a kid of the streets or maybe a terrorist, but instead he got a sponsor who helped him get an education. He went to university in Saudi or the Gulf, and when he was qualified he got a job from this professor who brought him over here. He said he owed this man everything. He said he was like a father to him.’
‘Professor Haygill?’
‘I don’t know his name. He just said this English professor had saved his life.’
They were interrupted by several women from Qasim’s kitchen who began to bring dishes to the table, containing stews and loaves of flat bread. ‘A feast for the heroes!’ Qasim announced, and then, in an undertone to Brock, added, ‘This is yer classic Yemeni asid. But I can do you steak and chips if you’d rather, eh?’ Brock said he’d stick with the stew, and everyone began to eat.
After they’d wiped their plates clean, and Qasim relaxed with a contented grunt and lit up, Brock said, ‘The room that Nargis lives in upstairs, who owns it?’
‘Grandpa Qasim owns the whole building.’
‘And did Nargis pay rent?’
‘No. She hadn’t a bean. She came with nothing.’
‘That was good of you.’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I want to have a look in the room, with Sergeant Kolla. You can come along too, if you want.’
‘You want to search Nargis’ room?’
‘Yes. I’m entitled to do that if I believe that Abu occupied the room too, and may have left something there. I’d like your cooperation. Would you ask Grandpa Qasim for me?’
Qasim tilted his weight back dangerously in his chair and drew on his cigarette, pondering. ‘You still ’aven’t got the gun, ’ave you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I don’t like the idea of you poking around in their room.’
‘No, neither do I, but I’m afraid it’s necessary. Fran could be a witness too if you like.’
‘Blimey.’ Qasim blew a puff at the ceiling fan. ‘It’s not that big a room.’ He leaned forward and spoke to Grandpa Qasim for a moment, then turned and nodded to Brock and got up to lead the way.
They climbed the stairs at the back of the cafe which led up to the lobby of the little mosque where Brock had found Abu’s shoes and coat, then continued up another, narrower dog-leg flight to the attic floor. There was no lock on the door of Nargis’ room, and Fran and Qasim looked on with disapproval as Brock and Kathy put on latex gloves and went inside.
It was a small space, once perhaps a maid’s room, largely filled by an old iron-framed bed, and the belongings it contained were pathetically few. As they studied it, their backs to the others at the door, Kathy murmured to Brock, ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’
He gave her a sidelong look, then nodded. ‘You’re right. Go back outside with the others. I’ll take care of it.’
She hesitated, then shook her head. ‘Come on. Let’s do it quickly.’
The clothes that Nargis had brought or been donated were hung behind a curtain in an alcove in one corner, and Kathy started there. Brock turned to a backpack in another corner, which held some of Abu’s things, his motorbike helmet, some socks and underwear and sweaters, a folder of documents.
They both finished at the same moment and turned together to the bed, approaching it from opposite sides, and began feeling swiftly under pillows, blankets, mattress as the witnesses watched them dolefully from the doorway. Beneath the pillow they found a folder of documents that appeared to belong to Nargis, her passport, birth certificate and medical papers, as well as a number of documents in foreign script that they assumed related to her period in Kashmir. They put these back and continued working down towards the foot of the bed where they raised the tail of the mattress and found a plastic bag.
Brock lifted it up, immediately disappointed that it didn’t seem heavy or hard enough. More documents, he guessed, and confirmed it by pulling out Abu’s passport and a number of documents in Arabic. Wrapped inside them was a plastic pouch, sealed with a strip of tape. He carefully pulled it away and looked inside, and as he did so his face lost all expression. He handed the pouch across to Kathy, who felt inside and slid something out of one of its pockets. They all recognised immediately what it was, a wad of money.
Kathy examined it and said softly, ‘Hundred pound notes. A pack of fifty.’ She laid it on the bed and slid five more identical wads out of the pouch.
‘Thirty thousand quid,’ Qasim breathed.
Brock took the pouch back from Kathy and held it up to the light of the lampshade hanging from the centre of the ceiling. ‘BCCD,’ he read. ‘What’s that?’ Then he squinted more closely at some small print. ‘Bank of Credit and Commerce Dubai.’
He replaced the money in the pouch and the pouch in the plastic bag and they continued with their search, under the carpet, behind the mirror, beneath the little table and chair, until they were satisfied that there was nothing more.
Sanjeev Manzoor bustled in looking belligerent and aggrieved. He was dressed in a smart dark suit as usual, against which the white triangle of the sling supporting his right arm looked particularly conspicuous, like a banner signifying ‘victim’. His solicitor was an older Asian with greying hair and a look of permanent scepticism on his face, as if he’d seen everything and heard every possible explanation for it. He carried a bulging, battered leather briefcase that seemed to require all his strength to hoist onto the table. They waved aside the offer of tea or coffee, and nodded curtly as Superintendent Russell introduced himself and Brock. They were in the scruffy setting of the interview room of the Shadwell Road police station, where Brock had found a fax awaiting him when he finally arrived after leaving Chandler’s Yard. The fax had comprised a cover sheet from Russell together with a copy of a single page from an interview with the skinhead Wilson.