though.’
Pascoe said, ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ but Akhtar had come back to the phone.
‘Is that acceptable?’
‘Yes, thanks, Javed.’ She glanced at Thorne. There was an odd formality to Akhtar’s voice that she had often heard in those who spoke English as a second language. But there was an unmistakable tightness there too. ‘So how was your night?’
‘It was fine,’ Akhtar said. There was a long pause. ‘How was yours?’
‘It was good, thanks. Listen, is there anything we can do to make you all a little more comfortable in there? Anything-’
‘We’re fine,’ Akhtar said. ‘Nobody’s coming in, OK? No policemen dressed as pizza delivery men or any of that.’
‘I understand,’ Pascoe said. ‘Nobody’s coming in, Javed. We just want to do anything we can to help while we try and get everything sorted out the way you want.’
‘Is Thorne there?’
Pascoe looked to Donnelly. He nodded. ‘Yes, he’s here.’
‘Let me talk to him.’
Pascoe took off her headset and handed it to Thorne. He sat down and adjusted the microphone. Said, ‘I’m here.’ Pascoe made ‘calm, calm’ gestures with her hands and Thorne nodded, thinking that there was someone else he needed to tell that he wasn’t an idiot. ‘I’m listening, Javed.’
‘No, I’m the one that is listening. I want to know what you have found out about my son. About what really happened to him.’
‘Did you get my message?’ Thorne asked. ‘Did Helen tell you what I said?’
‘That you believe me? Yes, she told me.’
‘That’s good.’
‘So now it’s up to you to make people believe us. The fact is, I don’t care one way or another what you believe as long as you find out who murdered my son. And I am not a fool, so please do not keep telling me that these things take time.’ The voice was tighter still now, the anger surfacing fast. ‘It did not seem to take very long for your colleagues to decide that Amin had killed himself. It took less than an hour for the jury at that ridiculous inquest to confirm it. I only hope that you can prove that they were wrong just as quickly.’
‘I’m doing everything I can, Javed. I’m-’
‘You are sitting out there, talking on the phone,’ Akhtar said. ‘How is that going to help either of us? How is it going to help your friend Miss Weeks?’
Thorne looked at Pascoe and searched for something to say, but before he could come up with anything the line had gone dead.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Thorne asked Donnelly if he could speak to Nadira Akhtar again before he left. Told him that, with luck, she might be able to suggest where he should be going.
‘You think she knows something that will help?’
‘Not a clue,’ Thorne said. ‘But I haven’t got any better ideas.’
‘Listen, wherever you go, make sure you stay in touch, OK?’ The superintendent was walking with him to the classroom that had been set aside as a family liaison area. Donnelly was rather more casually dressed today, in short-sleeved white shirt and black tie. Dispensing with the jacket and hat gave the impression to fellow officers and interested civilians alike that he was mucking in with the rest of his team, rolling up his sleeves. Though it might just have been because he was sweating. ‘And obviously, if you have any communication with Helen Weeks, you let me know straight away.’
‘I have been,’ Thorne said.
‘So what was all that about on the phone?’
‘All what about?’
‘Your message.’
‘You know what it was.’
‘Is it true?’ Donnelly stopped outside the classroom. ‘Do you think he’s right about what happened to his son?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Thorne said. ‘But whether I can prove it and give him what he wants in time is a different question.’
‘He hasn’t given us any kind of time limit.’
‘You heard him just now.’ Thorne nodded back towards the hall. ‘And a certain firearms officer with his cock where his Glock should be is getting decidedly twitchy, if you ask me.’
Donnelly flashed him a warning look as he knocked on the window in the classroom door and beckoned to the WPC inside. He told her that Thorne needed to talk to Mrs Akhtar and the officer stepped out, looking grateful for the chance of some air, or perhaps just a change of company.
The desks had been pushed back against the walls and a few plastic seats set up in a circle in the middle of the room. There was a low table with tea and biscuits. A few magazines were scattered about, but Nadira Akhtar did not look as if she felt much like flicking through Take a Break or OK!
She was sitting on a chair near the window.
Thorne saw the open holdall beneath one of the desks as he carried a chair across to join her. Clothes and a flowery washbag. ‘Did you sleep here last night?’
‘I wanted to,’ she said. ‘The house is empty anyway.’
‘Where’s your son?’
‘He has a family of his own to take care of.’ She looked at Thorne for the first time. ‘He will come back later but I am happier being on my own, to be honest with you. We argue.’
‘About what?’
She waved the question away.
‘Couldn’t your daughter stay with you?’
‘I told her to keep away.’ She shook her head, then tucked a strand of greying hair back beneath her embroidered headscarf. ‘I do not want her to see her father like this. To see how much he is frightening everyone.’ She looked towards the door. ‘To be around all these people who hate him.’
‘Nobody hates him,’ Thorne said. ‘They’re just doing their jobs.’
Nadira turned away and stared out again at the empty playground. A group of uniformed officers was gathered in one corner near a climbing frame, and on the far side it was just possible to see a row of emergency vehicles parked up beyond the tree line: the ARVs, the squad cars, an ambulance.
‘Do you still see Rahim Jaffer?’ Thorne asked.
Something tightened, just momentarily, in Nadira’s face.
The boy who had been with Amin the night of the attack.
The boy he had been trying to defend when he had stabbed Lee Slater to death.
‘He came to Amin’s funeral, of course,’ Nadira said. ‘Lots of his friends came, some I had never even met before.’ She nodded, proud. ‘He had a great many friends.’
‘So what about seeing Rahim?’
‘Not since then, no.’
‘Any particular reason?’
Another small wave of the hand, as though what she were about to say was silly and unimportant. ‘We used to be friendly with his parents, but after what happened there was some… awkwardness. Perhaps they thought we would blame their son. Perhaps because he was free and ours was rotting in that place. So we have not seen them in a while. We sometimes hear about Rahim, but only because one of his cousins still comes into the shop now and again.’
‘What’s he doing?’
