Now the kids seemed to have lost touch, drifted apart as people do, and Banks hadn’t seen George for a while. Brian had just started his third year at college in Portsmouth, and George was still in Eastvale, pretty much unemployed, as far as Banks knew, apart from helping his dad out at the shop. Even though they hadn’t see one another in a while, Banks still felt a little uneasy about interviewing George in connection with a criminal matter.
Charles Mahmood greeted Banks with a smile of recognition; his wife, Shazia, waved from the other side of the shop, where she was stacking shelves with jars of instant coffee.
“Is it about that brick-chucking?” asked Charles in his broad West Yorkshire accent.
Banks told him it wasn’t, but assured him that the matter was still under investigation.
“What’s up, then?” Charles asked.
“George in?”
“George?” He flicked his head. “Upstairs. Why, what’s happened?” Banks didn’t think she could have heard, but Shazia Mahmood had stopped putting jars on shelves and seemed to be trying to eavesdrop.
“We don’t know yet,” Banks said. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’d just like to talk to him. Okay?”
Charles Mahmood shrugged. “Fine with me.”
“How’s he doing these days?”
Charles nodded toward the stairs. “You’d better ask him. See for yourself. He’s in his room.”
“Problems?”
“Not really. Just a phase he’s going through. Another seven-day wonder.”
Banks smiled, remembering the way his father used to say that about every hobby he took up, from Meccano to stamp collecting. He’d been right, too. Banks still felt that he lurched restlessly from interest to interest. “What particular phase is this one?” he asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“I’d better go talk to him, then,” said Banks. “The curiosity’s killing me.”
He walked upstairs, aware of Shazia Mahmood’s eyes drilling into his back, and didn’t realize until he got to the top that he didn’t know which room was George’s. But it didn’t matter by then. At the end of the hallway, beside the bathroom, a door stood slightly ajar, and from inside the room Banks could smell sandalwood incense and hear piano music.
It was jazz, certainly, but not Monk, Bill Evans or Bud Powell. No one like that. It didn’t even resemble the wild flights of Cecil Taylor, one of whose records Banks had made the mistake of buying years ago on the strength of a review from a usually reliable critic. This music was repetitive and rhythmic, a sort of catchy, jangling melodic riff played over and over again with very few changes. It was vaguely familiar.
He tapped on the door and George Mahmood opened it. George was a good-looking boy with thick black hair, long eyelashes and loam-brown eyes. He looked at Banks a moment, then said, “You’re Brian’s dad, aren’t you? The copper.”
It wasn’t exactly the warm welcome Banks had hoped for; he had thought George might have remembered him with more affection. Still, attitudes change a lot in three years, especially when you’re young. He smiled. “Right. That’s me. The copper. Mind if I come in?”
“Is this a social call?”
“Not exactly.”
“I didn’t think so.” George stood aside. “Better come in, anyway. I don’t suppose I could stop you even if I wanted.”
Banks entered the bedroom and sat on a hardback chair at the desk. George slouched in an armchair. But not before he had turned down the music a couple of notches. He was wearing baggy black trousers and a white top with a Nehru collar.
“Who is that playing?” Banks asked.
“Why?”
“I like it.”
“It’s Abdullah Ibrahim. He’s a South African pianist.”
Now that George mentioned the name, Banks realized he had heard of Ibrahim and his music before. “Didn’t he used to be called Dollar Brand?” he asked.
“That’s right. Just like Muhammed Ali used to be called Cassius Clay.”
Banks hadn’t heard of Cassius Clay in years, and he was surprised that someone as young as George had ever heard of Ali’s old name at all. They made a little uneasy small talk about Brian, then Banks got quickly to the point he had come for. “George,” he said, “I’ve come to ask you about Saturday night.”
“What about it?” George looked away toward the window. “And my name’s not George anymore. That’s a stupid name, just my father’s post-Colonial genuflection. My name’s Mohammed Mahmood.”
As he spoke, George turned to look at Banks again and his eyes shone with defiant pride. Now Banks saw what Charles Mahmood meant. Now it made sense: Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim, the Koran lying on the bedside table. George was exploring his Islamic roots.
Well, Banks told himself, be tolerant. Not all Muslims support death threats against writers. He didn’t know much about the religion, but he supposed there must be as many different forms of Islam as there are of Christianity, which runs a pretty broad spectrum if you include the Sandemanians, the Methodists, the Quakers and the Spanish Inquisition.
Why, then, did he feel so uncomfortable, as if he had lost someone he had known? Not a close friend, certainly, but a person he had liked and had shared things with. Now he was excluded – he could see it in George’s eyes – he was the enemy. There would be no more music, laughter or understanding. Ideology had come between them, and it would rewrite history and deny that the music, laughter and understanding had ever happened in the first place. Banks had been through it once before with an old school friend who had become a born-again Christian. They no longer spoke to one another. Or, more accurately, Banks no longer spoke to him.
“Okay, Mohammed,” he said, “did you go to the Jubilee with a couple of mates on Saturday night?”
“What if I did?”
“I thought Muslims weren’t supposed to drink?”
Banks could swear he saw George blush. “I don’t,” he answered. “Well, not much. I’m stopping.”
“Who were you with?”
“Why?”
“Is there any reason you don’t want to tell me?”
George shrugged. “No. It doesn’t matter. I was with Asim and Kobir.”
“Are they from around here?”
“Asim is. Asim Nazur. His dad owns the Himalaya. They live in the flat above it.”
“I know the place,” said Banks, who had eaten there on more than one occasion. He also knew that Asim Nazur’s father was some sort of bigwig in the Yorkshire Muslim community. “And the other lad?”
“Kobir. He’s Asim’s cousin from Bradford. He was just visiting, so we took him out to listen to some music, that’s all. Look, why are-”
“What time did you leave the pub?”
“I wasn’t looking at my watch.”
“Before closing time?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you go?”
“We bought some fish and chips at Sweaty Betty’s, just down Market Street, then we ate them in a shop doorway because it were pissing down. After that we went home. Why?”
“You went your separate ways?”
“Course we went separate ways. You’d have to do, wouldn’t you, if you lived in opposite directions?”
“Which way did you walk home?”
“Same way I always do from up there. Cut through the Carlaw Place ginnel over the rec.”
“What time would this be?”
“I’m not sure. Probably elevenish by then.”
“Not later?”
“No. A bit before, if anything. The pubs hadn’t come out.”
“Mum and Dad still up?”
“No, they were asleep when I got back. They close the shop at ten on a Saturday. They’d been up since before dawn.”
“Did you see anyone on your way?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Doesn’t it worry you, walking alone across the rec at night?”