Chapter 25
Nadeeka looks out of the window of the unmarked police car in which Lauren is driving them to the mortuary.
She is sitting in the back like a child – or like a suspect, she supposes – because the front passenger seat is occupied by Detective Sergeant Fraser Hogan.
He’d offered her the choice, but Nadeeka is half his size, and it seemed wrong to ask him to fold himself into the back.
Occasionally, Lauren says something to Fraser in a low murmur.
At first, Nadeeka strains to hear – anxious not to miss anything relevant to Jamie’s case – but the snippets she catches are about seating plans and salmon.
They’re getting married, she realizes, as they draw near to the hospital.
She envies the ease they have; envies the time they get to spend together.
She feels a spark of anger that she and Jamie were given so little.
‘Here we are,’ Lauren says, as they pull in.
It has taken Nadeeka several days to summon the courage to see Jamie’s body.
She has been warned about the decomposition that has taken place, and the discoloration of his skin.
Lauren has explained about the viewing room, and that she will be right outside if Nadeeka feels faint or wants to leave; that Nadeeka mustn’t feel under any pressure to see Jamie. No one will judge her.
But Nadeeka does want to see him. Not least because she still feels as though she’s living a nightmare, the sands shifting under her feet with every step.
She trusted DI Burton and he turned out not to exist; she trusted Lauren and her team, and now they have turned on Jamie.
In the small hours when Nadeeka lies awake, a tiny flicker of hope whispers Maybe Jamie is still alive.
Maybe the police have the wrong man. She knows this is absurd – that the police have Jamie’s DNA – but she knows, too, that until she sees him with her own eyes she will not believe it.
The mortuary is grey and stark with clean lines and even cleaner floors. A young man in green scrubs leads them through a series of doors, a waft of disinfectant accompanying them through each one.
‘Would you like something to drink first?’ Fraser asks. ‘Tea, coffee? I think there’s a machine.’
Nadeeka shakes her head. ‘I just want to see him.’
They show her to a small room with a window covered with brown curtains. Nadeeka’s breath catches. When Lauren pulls those curtains back, it won’t be the outside world they see, it will be Jamie. Her Jamie.
Lauren takes hold of the fabric. ‘Ready?’
No, Nadeeka thinks. ‘Yes,’ she says.
And the curtains open.
The first time Nadeeka met Jamie, she thought how much more handsome he was in real life than in the photos he’d posted on Hinge. When he talked, his whole face became animated, and she’d thought I could look at this face forever.
Tears roll down her cheeks as she looks at him now. It is Jamie, of course – she had been foolish even to hope there had been a mistake – but the man lying on the other side of the glass is unrecognizable as her Jamie. No longer animated. No longer there, she thinks. She turns away.
‘You can stay longer,’ Lauren says, when she leaves the viewing room. ‘Take as much time as—’
‘I’m done.’ Nadeeka can’t look at her. She feels suddenly resentful of Lauren, with her upcoming wedding and plans for the future. ‘I’d like to go home, please.’
‘We’ve been looking at Jamie’s financial transactions in the weeks before he died,’ Lauren says, as they pull out of the hospital. ‘There’s a cash withdrawal of three hundred pounds – any idea what it was for?’
‘How would I know?’ In the back seat, Nadeeka flushes slightly at her own rudeness. She can’t help it; she has an overwhelming desire to scream at someone, to release the pent-up tension inside her.
‘It doesn’t look as though he used cash much, which is why it stood out.’ Fraser twists in his seat to look at her. ‘Groups like New Dawn rely heavily on private donations.’
‘Jamie wouldn’t fund terrorist activities,’ Nadeeka says firmly, although her heart sinks as she acknowledges yet another red flag from what she’s learned about radicalization. Unusual financial transactions.
‘We have to explore all possibilities.’
‘When did he take the cash out?’ Nadeeka waits while Fraser checks the date of the withdrawal, then makes a show of contemplating it. ‘Right . . . that would have been for me. I had to get the boiler serviced, and the girls needed new shoes. Jamie offered to help.’
Fraser leaves a beat. ‘Okay. That’s helpful.’
Nadeeka keeps a steady gaze on the passing traffic. She keeps thinking of Jamie’s parents – of Penny’s brave smile and Frank’s stiff upper lip – and how it would destroy them to be told their son had donated to the far right.
‘There are a few other transactions we’re struggling to trace,’ Fraser says, ‘including one from a company in China. Did Jamie have any packages delivered from overseas?’
‘I don’t think so.’ They had joked about Jamie’s shopping habit. Have you been influenced again? Nadeeka would say, when another package arrived.
‘Intelligence suggests New Dawn have access to weapons, possibly explosives.’ Lauren looks in the rear-view mirror, searching for eye contact.
Nadeeka looks away. ‘He didn’t get much post.’
They drive the rest of the way home in silence, Nadeeka thinking not of all the packages Jamie used to receive, but of one in particular.
A small, square box with Chinese lettering on the label.
What’s this? she had said, bringing it into the kitchen.
Just some supplements I saw advertised on Facebook, Jamie had said, taking the parcel.
Probably a load of rubbish. He had put it away without opening it.
Nadeeka had never seen him taking any supplements.
When she gets home, Nadeeka crouches on the floor of the garage and sifts through the recycling.
Card and paper are collected fortnightly along with glass and plastic, but boxes get stuffed into larger boxes and thrown in the garage until one of them has time to go to the tip.
She pulls out the packaging for a pair of trainers, a replacement shower hose, the coffee capsules she orders online.
The square box with Chinese writing isn’t there.
Maybe Jamie squashed it in with the card, she thinks, or maybe . . .
Nadeeka jumps to her feet.
She knows exactly where the box will be.