‘And do you have proof that Azza Khan’s family name was Jat before she was married?’ Whitestone said.
‘I’ve had every intern on my paper digging into it for weeks. I have a copy of the marriage certificate. I have immigration and naturalisation records from the Home Office. I have a copy of Azza Khan’s British and Pakistani passports. And I have a source that I can’t disclose.’
‘And is the source you can’t disclose in the police or the intelligence community?’ Whitestone asked.
‘I am not at liberty to say.’
‘Maybe you’re being played by someone, Miss Bush. Did that ever occur to you?’
‘My story all checks out. Even my paper’s lawyers are happy.’
‘But maybe Azza Khan was just some woman who got caught up in the tides of history,’ Whitestone said. ‘A woman who happened to live her life at a time when the men in her family were in a nihilistic death cult. How about that for a theory?’
‘It’s a stretch, isn’t it?’ Scarlet said. ‘Look at her brother. Look at her sons.’
I looked at Edie and I could see she felt it too.
We believed her.
Whitestone sighed. ‘But so what?’ she said. ‘Whatever her beliefs, whatever her brother or her sons have done, Azza Khan hasn’t committed any crime. We’re not the thought police. It’s still a free country. You can believe whatever you like – no matter how crazy. We can’t lock someone up because they dream of black flags flying over Buckingham Palace and Downing Street.’ Whitestone gestured at the ancient photograph. ‘This is not enough to charge her with anything,’ she said.
Scarlet Bush looked surprised.
‘I’m not suggesting you charge her with anything,’ she said. ‘But what do you think will happen when I run my story?’
‘Bad Moses will stir,’ I said. ‘Bad Moses will look at Azza Khan and he will see the enemy.’ I looked at my boss. ‘And he will come for her.’
‘You’re asking me to use an innocent woman as live bait to apprehend a murderer?’ Whitestone said. ‘That’s not going to happen.’
Scarlet’s face hardened.
‘I’m not asking you for a damn thing,’ she said. ‘Apart from this one small favour as a courtesy for bringing you this information: I want to be embedded with your officers when my story goes live.’
‘But maybe Bad Moses will stay away,’ Whitestone said. ‘Maybe he’ll smell a rat trap. Maybe he’s had his fill of blood.’
She looked at me.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I think he’ll come after her.’
‘Can’t you see the significance of this?’ Scarlet Bush said, as if we had still failed to grasp her central point. ‘The poison is not from some raving Iman. And it’s not from the dark corners of the Internet. The Khan brothers didn’t need any of that stuff.’
She tapped the old photograph and Hamid Jat smiled at us across the years, proudly cradling his Russian AK-74.
‘They had it all at home,’ Scarlet said.
There is a small supermarket near Victoria Park and most of its façade is covered in the satellite dishes of the flats above. Groceries – Fruit & Veg – Money Transfer says the worn blue awning.
Layla Khan was sitting at the shop’s cash register. The hijab she wore covered her hair and revealed her face. There was a raw red scuff mark near one eye. It was new.
She wore no make-up. Her make-up days were done.
She stared wearily at Edie and me when we walked in.
‘What now?’ she said.
‘We wanted to warn you,’ Edie said. ‘There might be some trouble on Borodino Street.’
Layla laughed bitterly.
‘Taking care of me now, are you? Watching out for me? It’s a bit late for all that. You sent me back.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Edie began, but I cut across her.
‘We’re not social workers, Layla,’ I said. ‘And we’re not your parents. We sent you back because we had no choice. The options were to put you into care or send you back to your family.’
‘But I thought you were my friend,’ she said to Edie, and I felt her flinch. ‘You should have been there for me. You shouldn’t have sent me back to that house.’
‘Layla,’ Edie said. ‘Please. We just want you to be careful. We just want to warn you – it’s not over yet. Is there somewhere you can go?’
Layla laughed bitterly. ‘Look at me,’ she said.
The doorbell dinged and Edie and I turned. The fat young man with the hair slicked across his bald spot came into the store carrying a box of fizzy drink.
‘Unloading van,’ he said.
We watched him stagger to the back of the store.
‘Look at me,’ Layla repeated.
We looked at her and I saw it at last. Something in her eyes had already died. They had beaten her in every way imaginable. And we had done nothing to help her. She still had her East End accent. But the rest of her old life was gone.
‘I go where my husband tells me to go,’ she said.
33
Near the end of the night, in one of those moments when the first of the sunlight is creeping into the room and you are not sure if you are asleep or awake, I felt Edie slip from the bed, then pause and briefly place her mouth on my forehead.
‘Sleep more,’ she whispered. ‘Busy day.’
I stretched, I turned and I reached for her, wanting to hold her again. But she left the bedroom and I must have slept because when I reached out for her again there was full sunrise streaming through the skylight.
It was still very early. When I got up Edie was in the main space of the loft, sitting on the window ledge in just her T-shirt and pants, her legs tucked up beneath her, clutching something to her chest. I stood in the doorway of the bedroom and watched her for a while, enjoying watching her, that pale face lost in its own thoughts, the red hair that was never entirely tamed and the slim, muscled limbs of Edie Wren.
She is the woman I see, I thought. And she is the only woman I will ever see.
I went to her at the window. Our mouths still fit. They would always fit. I felt like the world had suddenly thrown its arms around me. It was a good feeling.
Outside, the market was winding up for the night. The sunlight was dazzling and Edie shielded her eyes.
‘Everybody let her down,’ she said, and I saw that it was thoughts of Layla that had disturbed her dreams. ‘The authorities. Her family. And me.’
I placed a hand on her shoulder, still warm from our bed.
‘You didn’t let her down,’ I said.
‘Have you seen her wrists, Max? Have you seen what she does to herself?’
‘I’ve seen them.’
‘And now she’s in a marriage to some creep she can’t stand. And now she has to cover her pretty hair …’
I took her in my arms. There was nothing I could tell her. Edie had done nothing wrong apart perhaps from believing that she could rescue Layla from the culture she came from.
And now I saw what she was holding. The Angry Princess rucksack that I had been replacing on the day the plane came down, that old, outgrown rucksack stained with paint and ice cream and who knew what else?
She laughed and wiped her eyes.
‘Don’t you love a good office romance?’ she said.
‘It’s my favourite,’ I said.
‘Are we really going to take a chance on each other, Max?’
I smiled. Because there was not a cloud in the sky above our city, because we had got here in the end, and because I had waited so long for this woman.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What else would make any sense?