17
Z ayn
“I don’t know about any of you, but I don’t see much in the way of opportunity for a budding actress round here. Hollywood it ain’t.”
Beck delivers his verdict on the mean streets of Solihull while we navigate the catchment area serving Tudor Gate school.
“I should have asked that woman back there what car Bilal was driving when he gave her a lift.” All the questions I never got round to asking whirl in my head. I’m kicking myself.
“A twenty thirteen Volvo, apparently,” Tony puts in. “Grey.
“Frankie again?”
“Yup. I wonder how he could afford to run a car at seventeen, even a banger like that.”
I dread to think.
“Keep your eyes peeled, it might be parked up somewhere.”
It’s dropping dark when we cruise past the school again, just as the front door opens and a middle-aged man emerges. He locks the door behind him and heads for the lone car in the small car park.
“Let’s have a word with him.” Rome swings the SUV in through the gates when our quarry wanders across the tarmac to unlock his red Fiesta.
The man turns and glares at us, then stomps in our direction. “Hey, you. What do you think you’re doing, blocking the gate? You’ll have to move it. This is private property.”
Tony exits the vehicle and waits for the grumpy individual to reach him. I must admit, Tony makes a formidable sight, but this guy isn’t fazed at all. I suppose years of facing down feral ten-year-olds leaves its mark.
“You can’t park in here,” the man repeats. “I’m locking up now. You’ll have to move.”
“You in charge, here?” Tony asks, amiably enough.
“Mr Peterson-Jacobs. Headteacher. So if you would just?—”
“Ah, just the man we were hoping to find.” Tony extends his hand and flashes an ID card. “I’m Sergeant Hayes, West Midlands Police. I’m looking for a…” He consults a notebook which I know for a fact contains nothing but the scribbled efforts of his foster son, wee Robbie. “Ah, yes, a Mr Bilal Alahi. He lives in this area. As a school headteacher, you’ll know everyone hereabouts, I daresay.”
“Who did you say you were? Can I see that warrant card again, please?”
Ah, he’s on the ball. They don’t make you a headmaster for no reason round here.
“Sergeant Hayes,” Tony repeats but makes no attempt to show the ‘card’ again. Just as well, I don’t suppose Mr Peterson-Jacobs will be much impressed by Tony’s membership of the BodySmart Health Club in Edinburgh. “This is something of an emergency, we believe the family to be in danger. There have been threats… I understand there’s a little girl in the family, and his mother, too. They might be vulnerable, so if you can help at all…?”
“Threats? Vulnerable? What sort of threats?”
“Do you know the family, sir?” Tony prompts him. “It’s vital we find them quickly, before…”
“We have a girl in year yen, Sarah Alahi,” Mr Peterson-Jacobs offers at last. “She lives in Carting Street, just round the corner. I do believe she has an older brother, though he never attended here.”
“Excellent. We’re much obliged, Mr Peterson-Jacobs. Do you happen to recall the door number?”
“Not off the top of my head. I could go and?—”
“No, please don’t trouble yourself, we’ll find it, I’m sure. Once again, we appreciate your help.” Tony is already halfway back into the vehicle, and Rome has started the engine.
“But, shouldn’t you?—?”
“Have a nice evening, sir.” Tony waves to him as we reverse back out into the street. “You take care, now.”
“Nicely done, boss.” I always admire creativity at work.
He smirks. “Watch and learn, gentlemen. Watch and learn. Any sign of the grey Volvo?”
We’re driving slowly down Carting Street, scanning the closely parked cars of both sides of the road, but no sign of the Volvo.
“Let’s try there.” I point to the minimarket at the end of the road. “I can do my Amazon impersonation again.”
The harassed shopkeeper recognises the name on my ‘parcel’. “Ah, yes. Alahi. Number twenty-three. Do you need a cigarette lighter? They’re free today, with washing-up liquid.”
I make my excuses and dart back outside. “Number twenty-three,” I call, passing the SUV at a brisk jog.
Tony is beside me when I approach the front door, and Rome and Beck are headed round the back. We give them a couple of minutes to get in position, then I hammer on the door.
Nothing.
I lift my fist again ready for another go, when there’s a sound from the other side of the peeling paintwork.
Tony’s brow furrows. “What’s that? Rats?”
The scuffling repeats. “Probably,” I agree and apply my fist to the door again.
More scuffling and scratching, then the unmistakeable sound of running feet.
Small running feet, accompanied by a frightened squeal.
“Is that a kid in there?” Tony hisses.
“Certainly sounds like it.” I crouch to peer through the letterbox but can only see the grimy hallway and a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
“Anything?”
“No, but there’s certainly someone in there. Do we break in?”
I try shouting first. “Shahida? Bilal? It’s Zayn, Zayn Abbassi. I’m here to help. Let us in.”
Tony has hopped up onto the low wall beside the steps and is balancing there to get a view through the front window. “It’s a kid, all right,” he tells me. “I’d say about six or seven. Hiding behind the couch. Is that a couch…?”
“Girl or boy?”
“Can’t tell from here, but they’re not coming to the door.”
“So, we’ve got a Home Alone situation by the looks of it. Do we call the police or deal with it ourselves?”
“Does that door appear to be locked to you?”
I rattle the handle and apply my shoulder for good measure. “Nope, I wouldn’t say so.”
“Can’t be classed as breaking and entering, then.” He drags out his phone to call Rome. “We’re going in the front. Make sure no one nips out the back way, mate.” He pockets the device then grins at me as he hops back down from the wall. “On three, then?”
The battered old door is no match for the combined efforts of both our size tens. It flies open with a clatter of splintering wood to hang crazily from one hinge. We step inside.
“This place is a fucking midden.”
Tony’s not wrong. The stink is awful, stale air, rotting food, and if I’m not mistaken, human excrement. How can anyone live here, let alone the fastidious, oh-so-proper Shahida Malik who I remember?
“What the fuck is going on?” I breathe.
“I vote we get the kid and get out,” is Tony’s contribution, and I have to agree before we all suffocate.
“She was in there, wasn’t she?” I’m already heading to the one door to the right of the stairs. I enter the front room and find myself as confused as Tony was regarding the purpose of the pile of soiled cushions and upholstery in the middle of the room. It could be a sofa, I suppose, at a pinch.
The only other furniture is a sideboard with one leg missing. It wobbles on the remaining three and a house brick. The fireplace is empty; the entire place feels chilled despite the relatively mild weather outside. I doubt it’s been heated in years.
The kid hasn’t shifted an inch since we entered. A pair of haunted eyes follow our every move, but there’s no sound, no response to us at all apart from that unwavering stare.
I crouch in from of her. Him? “Are you Sarah?”
No answer.
“I’m Zayn. This is my friend, Tony. We’re here to see your mum. Shahida.”
Nothing.
“Is anyone else here?” I ask, already pretty certain that the kid was alone.
A crash from the back of the house heralds the arrival of Rome and Beck. The kid starts but just clutches the grimy cushion harder. They join us in the front room.
“Ah, who do we have here?” Beck wonders, dropping to his haunches beside me. “Hi, honey. What’s your name?”
She does at least focus on him and appears to be considering his question.
Beck produces a pair of sticks of gum from his pocket and offers one to her. “Fancy joining me, honey?”
One small, grubby hand snakes out to take the chewing gum, but she doesn’t seem to know what to do with it next. Beck helps out by peeling off the wrapper and handing it back to her.
“Mint,” he tells her. “My favourite.”
“I’m going to check out the rest of the place,” Tony murmurs. “You and the Pied Piper here can try and coax her out.”
“We think it’s a girl, then?”
“Of course it’s a girl,” Beck scoffs. “And a sweetheart at that. We’re good friends already, aren’t we, princess?”
“How old are you, love?” I try.
Her mouth moves, but I can’t catch any words.
Beck leans in closer, then turns to me. “She’s ten.”
“She looks younger,” I comment. A lot younger…
“She can’t be Sarah, can she? Sarah Malik? Or would that be Alahi?”
Another whispered conversation follows, before Beck turns to face us. “Yes, her name is Sarah Alahi.”
“Where’s her mum? Or her brother? Or her little brother or sister?” I recall that Shahida was pregnant when she left Glasgow
“Here.”
I whirl at the unexpected voice behind me and leap to my feet. “Who the fuck?—?
“Zayn? Is it you?” He takes a half-step forward.
“Bilal?” I would hardly recognise the scrawny kid from ten years ago, though to be fair, he hasn’t filled out that much since.
The kid darts out from her refuge in—or was that on—the sofa and flings her arms around her brother’s legs. He bends to hug her. “It’s okay, Sah, they’re friends.” He peers at me. “I think…” His brow furrows. “How? I mean, I thought you were dead.”
“Not yet,” I reply. “I work for Ethan Savage now.”
Tony enters, having completed his search of the house. “Nice place you’ve got here,” he observes. “Bilal Malik, I assume?”
Bilal glares at him. “I remember you.”
Tony was not exactly convivial the last time they met.
“I daresay.” Tony offers him a smile. “Ethan got your message, sent us to renew our acquaintance.” He saunters around the vile room, taking stock of the less-than-salubrious surroundings. “So, what’s this about, then? Where’s Shahida?”
“That’s just it,” the lad replies. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to find her…”
“Okay?”
“She’s been gone nearly two weeks.”
“Where did she go?”
“Work, she said. But she never came back.”
“And, where’s work?”
He shrugs. “Not sure. Here and there.”
I can tell Tony’s patience is waning. “What sort of an answer is that? Look, do you need help or not?”
Sarah whimpers and cowers behind her brother’s legs.
“Stop shouting,” Bilal snaps. “You’re scaring her.”
Tony drags in a long, calming breath. “I wasn’t shouting…”
“Maybe a bit, bro,” Beck counters. He turns to Bilal. “What sort of work does your mom do? A store? Or maybe an office?”
Thankfully, he makes no mention of budding actresses. I guess we’ll be coming to that.
His Boston drawl seems to have a calming effect on both the young Alahis.
Bilal produces a pack of tuna sandwiches from his backpack and hands it to his little sister. “I brought you something, like I said.”
She snatches at the food and rips the package open.
“When did she last eat?” I wonder aloud. “You, too, for that matter?”
“I do my best,” he answers defensively. “With no cash coming in… I nicked that from Tesco.”
“What about the baby, I ask. “Your mother was pregnant…?”
He shakes his head. “She lost it. About two weeks after we left. She blamed my dad.”
I nod. “I’m sorry, Bilal…”
Tony has heard enough. “Right, let’s go.”
“Where?” I demand.
“McDonald’s. We’ll talk there, then work out what to do next.”
The conversation flows rather more freely, helped along by a family-size box of Chicken McNuggets, half a dozen quarter pounders, and a mountain of fries, all washed down with an ocean of Diet Coke and half-decent lattes. We get a few odd looks from other patrons, our companions are not exactly dressed for eating out, even at such a modest establishment as this, but we can sort that later.
“So, she’s on the game?” Tony clarifies, his voice lowered in deference to ten-year-old’s ears.
Bilal shifts awkwardly but doesn’t deny it. “We were desperate. The rent, food, everything. I worked nights at a petrol station, but it wasn’t enough…”
“It’s okay, we get it. But what about that bloke she left Aston with? Fred, wasn’t it?”
Bilal gives a derisory snort. “That grasping bastard. He took all she earned, as fast as she got it.”
“Where is he now?”
“Gone, and good riddance. But there are more where he came from. Always more…”
I decide to probe a bit further. “One of your old neighbours told me Shahida wanted to be an actress.”
Another snort. “Porn star, more like.”
“Ah.”
“That was Fred’s ‘business’.” He makes little air quotes with his fingers as he describes the trade. “The only reason he took up with Mum in the first place if you ask me. She’s good-looking.”
“I know. I remember.”
“Men will pay…men like reels with Asian women in, but they’re rarer. Cost more. She thought the money was good, well, good enough. And it was, at first. We paid our bills, Sah had a school uniform, and there was stuff in the cupboards for breakfast. I started at college…”
I think we’re all getting the picture. “So, what happened?”
He shrugs again, a hopeless, forlorn gesture. “What always happens? Suddenly, the money dropped off. Fred wanted his cut, because he got her the work, he said. Commission, expenses. We had a house, that one in Carting Street, and he moved in there. He paid nothing towards anything, ate like a pig, helped himself to what he wanted and sold what he didn’t want, even Sarah’s toys and books.”
“What did Shahida do about it?”
“What could she do? He used to knock seven bells out of her if she complained, so she stopped complaining. She was out more and more, working. When she didn’t work, she slept. Not much, but she was exhausted all the time. And she seemed ill but she said she wasn’t. The place fell apart. No gas, no electric, no food in the fridge. No one to get Sarah to school, and she was too ashamed to go anyway because she was dirty and hadn’t the right shoes anymore. I tried, but…”
Tony pats him on the back. “We know you did, but it’s a lot…”
“Mum just disappeared. Went to work and has never come back. At first, I thought maybe she was in the hospital—she wasn’t well, I know that. But I checked, checked everywhere, and no one has heard a thing.”
“Have you seen this Fred charmer? Does he know where she is?”
“He says not. As far as he’s concerned, she’s history.”
“Did he actually say that?” Tony digs.
Bilal nods miserably. “Pretty much.”
“I think we’ll be needing a word with this guy ourselves. Any idea where we might find him?”
Tony’s saying what we’re all thinking, but we have other things to settle first. I check my watch.
“Nearly eight o’clock. What time do the shops close round here?”
“Shops?”
I slant a glance at the bedraggled child still tucking in to fries and ketchup. “We need something decent for her to wear, then a safe place for both of these two to get some sleep. I saw a Travelodge about a mile away, but we can’t check Sarah in in that state. They’d have social services round in a flash.”
“We need a retail park, something like that with late-night opening.”
“There’s the Steelers mall,” Bilal suggests. “There’s a Next, and M&S.”
“That’ll do. How far?”
“Five minutes?”
“Sounds fine. Have we all done?”
We scoop up the remaining fries and ketchup and take them with us since Sarah seems to be still eating and settle her and Bilal in the rear seats of the SUV. I have to say, though we’ve had hardly a word out of her, the little girl appears a lot brighter now. No doubt the restorative powers of the Golden Arches.
Bilal and Beck nip into Next and return with a couple of outfits. Some jeans, sweaters, T-shirts, shoes, socks, and underwear, enough to keep Sarah looking respectable for a few days. Sarah stares at the clothes in disbelief and hugs the bags to her.
“You can put them on when we get to the hotel,” Bilal promises her.
Her sad, apprehensive face lights up with the first smile we’ve seen since we met her.
At the Travelodge, Beck slips his jacket around her, and we check in. Three twin rooms, though I doubt we’ll be using all of them. We deposit Bilal and Sarah in one, where Beck explains the shower to Sarah and the minibar to Bilal, with strict instructions to lay off the alcohol. We leave Bilal in charge.
“You still got that burner?” Tony asks him before we leave to track down Fred.
“Yeah, I have.” He pats his pocket.
“Phone Ethan back, tell him we’re here and fill him in on what’s happened so far. I’ll report to him myself once we’ve found Fred.”
“Okay.”
“So, where should we start? Where did you last see this guy?”
He chews on his lip, obviously torn.
“Bilal,” I begin. “You need to help us out here. If you know anything…”
“There’s a warehouse,” he blurts, “on the industrial estate near the motorway…”
“Yeah? What about this warehouse? Is it a lock-up of some sort?”
“I’m not sure. I once followed Mum, and she went there. There was someone guarding the door, so I couldn’t get inside, so I don’t know… I waited a while and saw Fred coming out, though.”
I pat him on the shoulder. “We’ll check it out. Okay, you get some sleep now. And take care of your sister for us. We’ll be back as soon as we can, but meanwhile…” I pile some change into his hand. “For the vending machine in the foyer. And there’s a full breakfast in that gastropub next door, served from seven in the morning. Fill your boots, both of you.”