‘Very well,’ Helen said. ‘Thank you.’
Akhtar seemed pleased and began searching eagerly through the pile of magazines on the desk. He asked Helen if she would like something to read, told her he always kept an excellent selection. He offered her Hello!, Bella and Brides Monthly. Helen said thank you and told him that she would look at them later.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, then Helen nodded towards her phone. It was sitting on the desk, plugged into the charger that Helen always kept in her handbag. ‘Do you think I could make a quick call?’ she asked.
‘Who to?’
‘My sister,’ Helen said. ‘I just want to see how my son’s doing, you know?’
Akhtar looked suspicious, but his expression was almost melodramatic, as though he believed it was how he ought to look. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s not what’s supposed to happen.’
‘Please, Javed. Only for a minute.’ Her voice was barely above a whisper, but she kept it even at least. ‘I want to check he’s all right.’
‘No.’ Akhtar stood up. ‘ I’m running this bloody show and I decide what happens.’ He picked up the gun to emphasise his authority, but did not point it at her. He walked towards the shop then stopped in the doorway, calmer suddenly. ‘Anyway, we need to keep the phone free in case Thorne calls.’
‘I just wanted him to hear my voice,’ Helen said. ‘That’s all.’
Akhtar looked at his feet for a while, then disappeared into the shop.
Helen closed her eyes and lay down.
A few minutes later, she could hear him crying again next door.
Sue Pascoe emerged from the toilet cubicle and crossed to the row of small sinks to wash her hands and splash some water on her face. She smiled at seeing that someone had written ‘Wesley is a big knob’ in black felt- tip on the mirror. Wondered if Wesley, who could be no more than eleven, would have the wherewithal to change ‘is’ to ‘has’.
It was the first time all day that she had found a few minutes to herself or thought about anything other than the job in hand.
The first time she had smiled.
She looked at her watch. It was now thirty hours since Javed Akhtar had taken two people hostage at gunpoint. Donnelly seemed happy enough with the way things were progressing, though in a situation such as this one, that only meant that nothing bad was happening. Chivers was still making noises about the need for advanced technical support and Pascoe knew there would soon be pressure from elsewhere to relax the cordon so as to ease traffic congestion in the area, or at least make an effort to get the station at Tulse Hill reopened.
God forbid the commuters should suffer.
As things stood, none of this was her concern, but it soon would be if the whispers about resolving the hostage situation as quickly as possible grew any louder. If Donnelly started to listen. Then it would become Helen Weeks’ concern too.
She dried her face and brushed her hair. She groaned at the amount of grey coming through and determined to get back to the hairdresser’s as soon as she got the chance. She reapplied her lipstick, then stepped out into the school corridor feeling better. Passing one of the classrooms, she glanced in through the small window and saw a black woman talking animatedly to a WPC. The woman saw her and immediately stood up and walked towards the door.
Pascoe swore quietly and braced herself. She knew Denise Mitchell had clocked her, that there was now no possibility of walking quickly away.
The woman was pretty, with flawless skin and hair in cornrows, and she had begun talking before she had opened the door. ‘Look, nobody will tell me what the hell’s going on. I’m going mental stuck in here.’
‘Everybody’s doing everything they can,’ Pascoe said.
‘It doesn’t feel like it,’ Denise said. ‘It feels like everyone’s rushing around with serious faces, but nothing’s actually happening.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ Pascoe said. ‘Obviously if there was anything to tell you, I would.’
‘Right.’
‘Honestly.’
‘Even if it was something I really didn’t want to hear?’ The woman’s eyes were suddenly wet. ‘Is that your job or do they give that one to somebody else?’
‘Look, I think perhaps you’d be a lot more comfortable staying elsewhere. Has anybody talked to you about a hotel?’
A nod.
‘Don’t you think that would be a good idea?’
‘I don’t want to go on my own.’
‘What about family?’ Pascoe asked. ‘There must be somebody… ’
‘There’s just Steve.’ Denise reached into the sleeve of her sweater and drew out a used tissue. She lifted it towards her face then stopped and crushed it in her fist.
‘Everybody’s doing everything they can,’ Pascoe said.
‘Yeah, you keep saying that.’
‘Because it’s the truth.’
‘Really?’ The woman narrowed her eyes and stared at the Met Police badge on the lanyard around Pascoe’s neck. The WPC had appeared behind her in the doorway. ‘What are you doing?’
Pascoe wondered if there was anything she could say that would make this woman feel better. I’m the one being paid to negotiate with the man who has your husband. I’m the one whose job it is to keep him alive.
Denise Mitchell did not bother waiting for an answer. ‘It’s not fair,’ she said. ‘Steve hasn’t done anything.’ Her voice cracked as she raised it. ‘You should stop talking about it and get him out of there, because he hasn’t done anything.’
Now, Pascoe really had nothing to say.
She watched as the WPC guided the woman back into the room, then turned and walked back towards the hall.
THIRTY-TWO
‘You don’t appear to be with us today, Mr Jaffer… ’
Rahim looked up and stared at his tutor. She waited, as though expecting an explanation for his lack of attention or perhaps a precis of the topic she and the other students had been discussing for the previous few minutes. All Rahim could do was mumble an apology, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks while some of the others around the table laughed and shook their heads. The woman began talking again and Rahim did his best to listen. He scribbled a few notes on a page that was already covered with meaningless doodles, but within a minute or two the pen grew heavy in his hand and the tutor’s words had become no more than background burble and hiss.
So rack that fucking big brain of yours…
Thorne’s words were still ringing loud and clear though, the expression on the policeman’s face vivid enough to tighten the cold and slippery knot in Rahim’s guts whenever he closed his eyes.
I’m betting he had more than one secret.
He was squeezing the pen so tightly that purplish half-moons of blood had formed beneath his fingernails. He cast his eyes in the direction of his tutor and told his head to nod, while he tried to regulate his breathing. To keep the anger in check. He was not a child any more, and he hated being made to feel like one. He resented feeling ashamed and fearful when he had left shame and fear behind him, locked away back in his parents’ house with the ugly carpets and the stink of patchouli.
The other students laughed suddenly. One of his tutor’s bad jokes.
He laughed along, while he sat there and told himself that none of this was his fault. Not what Amin’s stupid father was doing and not what had happened to Amin. He could never have foreseen that, or done anything to stop it, and nothing he could do or say now would change the fact that he was dead, would it?
