‘Did you have any money then?’
A crease appeared between Nargis’ dark eyebrows at this question. ‘No. Mr Ali’s family took pity on me. They helped me.’
‘And you began to see Abu Khadra again? When was that?’
‘Yes, soon after I arrived there.’
‘You became lovers?’
Nargis looked startled, glanced at the social worker, then down at her lap and didn’t answer. You’re right, Kathy thought, tell me to mind my own business.
‘What I mean is, Nargis, that you couldn’t go outside for fear of your family, and so Abu came and spent time with you. A lot of time.’
She gave a meek little shrug.
‘In fact, he pretty well lived with you in Mr Ali’s house, didn’t he?’
Again she said nothing, and Kathy went on, ‘So you were very close. Did he tell you about what he had to do? To kill Professor Springer?’
‘No!’ The girl shook her head firmly. ‘Never. I don’t believe he did that.’ Yet the words lacked force.
‘But he did, Nargis. There’s very strong scientific evidence. And since Abu died, you must have thought about that a lot, haven’t you? About what signs he gave? For instance, do you know where he was that afternoon that Springer was killed? Just over two weeks ago, the Thursday. You must have thought back to that day.’
Nargis’ eyes slipped away. ‘I don’t know,’ she said softly at last. ‘He came home that evening…’
‘To Chandler’s Yard?’
‘Yes, at about eight. He said he’d been working, at the university.’
‘Didn’t he seem agitated, worked up about something?’
She didn’t reply, head bowed to her hands clutched over her tummy, and Kathy was again struck how self- possessed she was, as if she had determined to let nothing further intrude on her private meditation with her unborn child.
‘You see, I’m wondering if someone forced Abu to do this terrible thing, Nargis.’
‘How could they?’ she said simply.
‘Perhaps he needed money for something?’
Again Nargis seemed to focus at mention of the word. ‘Money? No, he had a good job.’
‘He didn’t seem anxious at around that time? Under stress? Did he talk about other people? People at his work, perhaps? Or new people he’d met?’
But Nargis only shrugged and said nothing. Kathy began to feel that she was wasting her time against this implacable artlessness.
‘Where did he keep his gun?’
‘I never saw a gun.’
‘What about the money?’
‘The money?’ Nargis’ head came up and she stared at Kathy, fully engaged.
‘Yes, Nargis. The money under the mattress in your room.’
‘You’ve been in my room?’ She seemed more astonished than upset.
‘Yes.’
‘That money belongs to my baby and me. Abu gave it to us.’
‘When did he do that?’
She hesitated, then said, ‘About… about two weeks ago.’
‘When exactly?’
‘I don’t know. He just showed it to me one evening and said that it was for me and the baby, if anything should happen to him.’
‘“If anything should happen to him”? You must have thought that was very strange, didn’t you? Didn’t you ask him what he meant?’
‘No.’
‘Where did he get it from?’
‘I don’t know. It was his.’
‘It’s a lot of cash.’
‘Thirty thousand pounds.’ Then she added fiercely, ‘You’d better not have taken any. He said it was for the baby and me.’
Kathy eventually left her in the care of the social worker who wanted to talk to her about her benefit entitlements, and returned home. There were two messages on her answering machine. One was from Tina the travel agent, sounding bright and cheerful; the other, guarded and ominous, was from an inspector of the Metropolitan Police Complaints Investigation Bureau, CIB2. Both asked her to return their call. Despite having anticipated it for the past several hours, Kathy still found her hand trembling when she pressed the button to replay the second message. Together, the two calls seemed to sum up her choices, the fork in the road. She had a bath, went to bed, and didn’t sleep.
When she reported to Queen Anne’s Gate the next morning she discovered that the CIB inspector had left a message there too. She found an empty room, and without putting on the light, sat at the unfamiliar desk and stared at the phone. Then she realised that she was behaving as if she were guilty, hiding herself away as if deserving to be separated from the others. So she got up and returned to the office she shared with Bren and another detective, and picked up her phone.
The inspector informed her curtly that a serious complaint had been made against her by a member of the public, a Mr Sanjeev Manzoor; that she was not under any circumstances to approach Mr Manzoor or any member of his family or acquaintances; and that she should consider herself suspended from duty until a preliminary interview had been held some time in the following week, to which she would be entitled to bring one adviser.
She cleared her throat and said, ‘Superintendent Russell has asked me to make a report on a related matter at a case conference he’s holding this morning, sir. May I attend that?’
The inspector considered this, asked her a couple of questions, then agreed.
Again that trembling hand when she replaced the receiver. She swore softly under her breath and took some deep breaths. She became aware that Bren and the other man, a DC on secondment from SO8, were looking questioningly at her.
‘CIB,’ she said.
‘Shit!’ Bren breathed.
‘Shit!’ the DC echoed.
‘They didn’t take long. What’d they say?’ Bren asked.
Kathy explained and both men swore again. It seemed to be the only adequate word. Kathy found their anxious sympathy even more scary than the CIB inspector’s curtness.
‘This happened to one of our blokes last year,’ the DC said. ‘He’s still on suspension, eight months later.’
‘We had a DI suspended eighteen months,’ Bren said gloomily.
Kathy was wishing she’d made the call from the empty office. Then Brock put his head round the door to check they were all available for the conference, and Bren, nodding at Kathy as at someone who’d just been diagnosed with something terminal, said, ‘CIB, chief.’
‘Oh, they’ve been in touch already have they, Kathy? That was quick. What’s the story?’
She repeated it and he nodded, point by point.
‘Just the usual, then.’ He didn’t seem particularly dismayed.
‘We were saying, boss,’ the DC chipped in, ‘how long the process takes. What do you reckon?’
‘Opening a book on it, are we?’ Brock asked. ‘Put me down for a fiver. Let’s see…’ He rubbed his beard contemplatively, then took out his wallet and pulled out a note. ‘Forty-eight hours. No, make it twenty-four. Five quid says they’ll have dropped it within twenty-four hours.’ He winked at Kathy and limped out of the room.
The DC shook his head sadly. ‘Got to hand it to him, though, haven’t you, Bren? He knows how to do the right thing. For morale and that. That’s leadership, that is.’
Kathy left them to work out their own doom-ridden forecasts and went back to the empty room to nurse her morale and make her second phone call in private. Tina had exciting news, she said. She’d heard of a group that
