The Aladdin Trial E-Book

Abi Silver

• Herausgeber: Lightning Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

A new Burton and Lamb legal thriller A SUNDAY TIMES CRIME CLUB PICK 'An intense and compelling legal drama – quite wonderful' Geoffrey Wansell When an elderly artist plunges one hundred feet to her death at a London hospital, the police sense foul play The hospital cleaner, a Syrian refugee, is arrested for her murder. He protests his innocence, but why has he given the woman the story of Aladdin to read, and why does he shake uncontrollably in times of stress? In a spellbinding courtroom confrontation in which they once more grapple with all-too-possible developments in artificial intelligence, they uncover not only the cleaner's secrets, but also those of the artist's family, her lawyer and the hospital. A new Burton and Lamb legal thriller with an AI twist from the author of the acclaimed The Pinocchio Brief.

Leseprobe

An elderly local artist plunges 100 feet to her death at an overstretched London hospital, and the police immediately sense foul play . . .

The hospital cleaner, a Syrian refugee and a loner, is arrested for her murder. He protests his innocence, but why has he given her the story of Aladdin to read and why does he shake uncontrollably in times of stress?

Judith Burton and Constance Lamb reunite to defend a man the media has already convicted. Together they uncover not only the cleaner’s secrets, but also those of the artist’s family, her lawyer and the hospital.

A new Burton and Lamb legal thriller from the author of the acclaimed The Pinocchio Brief.

Yorkshire-bred, ABI SILVER is a lawyer by profession. She lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and three sons.

www.eye-books.com

For more information, please contact: Dan Hiscocks ([email protected], 07973861869)

For Sales information: Hugh Brune ([email protected])

Published in 2018

by Lightning Books Ltd

Imprint of EyeStorm Media

312 Uxbridge Road

Rickmansworth

Hertfordshire

WD3 8YL

www.lightning-books.com

ISBN: 9781785630750

Copyright © Abi Silver 2018

Cover by Shona Andrew/www.spikyshooz.com

Typesetting and design by Clio Mitchell

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

This one’s for you, Mum

Contents

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

Acknowledgements

PART ONE

1

The body lay unnoticed for hours. This was not startling; the area behind St Mark’s Hospital was hardly a magnet for revellers or a main thoroughfare, and it had been night time when she had fallen. But it might have surprised the corpse – before she died, of course – given the manner of her launch from the platform above and the spectacular splintering of her skull against an exposed tree stump.

As a young art student, she had tried many times to imitate Picasso’s style in his Cubist period, before tiring of painting portraits in vibrant colours with one eye bigger than the other. It might have been comforting to her to imagine her own face appearing that way now, one side swollen and disfigured, the eye bulging, out of proportion, a mass of yellow and purple, rather than the more gruesome reality of her situation.

And if she had had time to reflect on things, the deceased might have conceived of her plunge as a glorious swan song, a piece of intense performance art to herald her departure from this world and her arrival in the next, worthy of a standing ovation.

But in truth, there was almost nothing of any note; the crack of her head’s destruction, the snap of her neck and then her body listing to one side before settling quickly into the undergrowth, its flamboyant fall a distant memory. And then silence. No trumpets or fanfares, no applause, no rush to her aid. Barbara Hennessy’s life came to an end much as she had lived: erratically and with a burst of great drama.

This was how she was found by a walker around 5.30am, his dog first romping towards her crumpled body then pausing, its head turning one way and the other, enveloped in sensory confusion. Now the area was a hive of activity; forensics and police and local people, including hospital employees and workers, trying to get a glimpse on their way into work.

Barbara was still wearing her nightdress and hospital wrist tag. If she had been allowed to choose her own attire for such an occasion, she would have preferred the Stella McCartney number she had picked up from a car boot sale in Tring, and her Boho bangle. Sadly, those items were languishing in the bedroom of her modest flat in Primrose Hill (closer to Chalk Farm but she had persisted with the Primrose Hill tag), the dress hanging in the wardrobe, the bracelet in the drawer by her bed.

Perhaps, if considering the matter objectively (which was not actually Barbara’s forte) she would have appreciated the aesthetics of the scene: her forget-me-not blue nightgown complemented the rose bay willow herb and set off the last of the bluebells. And her fiery orange Vivienne Westwood rinse blended in with the carpet of crisp, fallen oak leaves she lay upon.

Chief Inspector Dawson lifted the flap of the makeshift tent erected over the dead woman. He was no art-lover and paid no attention to the colours or hues or shapes of what he saw. ‘Cause of death’ was what interested him first and foremost, and whether, as a result of what he could glean from the body and the attending pathologist, he would be heading up another murder enquiry.

Later, after a few direct questions to the pathologist, Dawson would go into the hospital, ride the crowded lift, and stand with furrowed brow at the place from which the deceased had perhaps plunged to her death. She had fallen – or been pushed (no conclusions had yet been drawn; all options were being assessed and weighed up) – not from her allotted bedroom but a staff room at the end of the corridor. So, for all Dawson’s complaints about ‘contamination’, in truth there was no way to secure this crime scene. This was a hospital. It was impossible to move any other patients out from their rooms. Even if he could negotiate the administrative minefield of where to relocate private patients in an NHS hospital, there weren’t any spare beds. And the staff needed somewhere to go, or they’d be changing in the corridor.

He would sniff the air in the woman’s room and smell only disinfectant and a mild, sweet scent from the roses next to her hospital bed. But here, again, the evidence was damaged. When the nurses had been alerted to the grisly discovery eleven floors below, they had rushed into Mrs Hennessy’s room (he knew her name now, although while he was outside and she was spread on the ground in front of him, she had been very much ‘the woman’ or ‘the body’), tweaking the bed and its covers, opening and closing doors.

One nurse admitted later on that she had crawled underneath the bed; ridiculous given Mrs Hennessy’s age and the fact that the gap beneath the bed was visible from the door. But perhaps the nurses had needed corroboration of what they had been told? How could effusive Barbara Hennessy, who had chatted to them animatedly about the effective use of elephant dung in paintings (they had been rather disgusted), and sitting as a model for Lucian Freud (they had pretended to know who he was, but it made her sound eminent in any event), really be lying dead on the ground below?

It was much simpler to imagine the former inhabitant of room 3 as having been discharged a little earlier than expected; all that remained was for a relative to return to pick up her things.

Inspector Dawson would placate himself with the conclusion that there was little of note in Mrs Hennessy’s room to assist his investigation: three pillows at the head of the bed, suggesting her last position had been fairly upright; the bed covers turned back as if she had exited in a hurry. A paperback book, The Arabian Nights, lay on the table, a bookmark showing limited progress through its pages.

And when Dawson exited, he would notice the blinds were closed across the glass-panelled door. For a second, he had a vision of a man with gloved hands, wearing a surgical mask, creeping in during the hours of darkness, sliding the blinds closed and rushing forward to strike the helpless woman as she lay asleep in bed. Dawson shook his head. He should stick to the facts and where they led him, and avoid extrapolation. He reached out to touch the glass and then hurried off to give express instructions for fingerprinting to dust that area down thoroughly when they arrived.

‘What can you tell me?’ he asked the pathologist, gruffly, acutely aware of the staleness in the air beneath the canvas. ‘And don’t hold back, I’ve already been put off my lunch.’

2

Constance Lamb was basking in the delightful aroma of her newly brewed coffee when her mobile rang. She toyed with ignoring it but then snatched it up on the last ring before it transferred to voicemail. Thirty seconds later she was considering how best to broach, with Mike, the subject of yet another early morning summons to the cells.

Mike lay on his side in the bed they shared, with his eyes closed. Constance hovered in the doorway, cup in hand, preparing herself to speak but, at the same time, certain that he had heard the ringtone and the snatched conversation which followed and knew what it heralded. This feeling that Mike was ‘all-knowing’ was borne out by prior experience.

Mike had that impact on other people too; after meeting him for the first time, her mother had remarked that he had ‘a presence.’ There were other things she had wanted to say to her daughter about Mike but she had held back.

It was hard to explain why he commanded such authority. He wasn’t enormously tall or dazzlingly handsome, and his voice was not piercing or resonant. Perhaps it was the opposite: his ability to focus long and hard on the task in hand, engendering the belief that he was a deep thinker, that nothing, however insignificant, would pass him by. This single-mindedness was what had attracted Constance to him that very first time she had spied him in Sammy’s bar, two years earlier.

He had been drinking a beer with ferocious intensity, and she had found herself peering at him over and over again. When he had drained it to the bottom, he had placed the bottle down deliberately in the centre of the table, lifted his eyes and smiled at her. Although now she knew him better, she sometimes doubted if that absorbed, intense personality was ‘the real Mike’ or only the image he had wanted to portray.

Constance crossed the room and retrieved her black trousers from the chair in the corner. They had almost made it back into the wardrobe the previous night, but Mike had interrupted her to ask if they had run out of cereal for his late-night snack and she had forgotten to put them away. She heard Mike’s breath leave his body in a short burst. She interpreted this as a sign of annoyance, but she wasn’t sure; she had finally taken a day’s holiday, they had planned to spend the day together, finishing up with the press night of a new play. Mike’s friend – well, rival might be a better description, as they had both auditioned for this part – had bagged the lead, and had graciously handed out tickets.

‘Mike,’ she whispered, receiving no response. ‘I’ve got to go out. I’ll probably only be an hour.’

Now Mike twitched his head away from her and lay still again. This time all traces of breathing stopped. He had performed this respiratory deception before and she wondered if it were a party trick he had used to impress previous girlfriends: ‘play dead’ so they would make a fuss of him. But she didn’t have time for his games this morning.

She pulled a white shirt from the wardrobe, tugged it over her head and buttoned it up. Then she sat down next to him, kissing his exposed neck above the covers. Mike remained unnaturally still but, unperturbed, she kissed him a second time and ran two fingers down his cheek ending on his lips, then returning them to her own. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. God he was stubborn.

‘Don’t go anywhere. When I get back I’ll fix you a huge breakfast. OK?’ she tried a final time.

When he failed to respond, Constance stood up and slipped her feet into her shoes before twisting her hair around into a tight bun and securing it with a hair pin. Five minutes later she was striding out into the cool air of the May morning, wondering how long she would have to wait for a train.

3

Ahmad Qabbani removed his jacket and hung it in the staff cupboard. The day was warm but, after three years in England, he knew better than to place any trust in the weather. He had learned the hard way that even the brightest start could be smothered and drenched in the time it took to unwrap his lunch, leaving him shivering and damp on his journey home.

He opened his locker and extracted his white apron, replacing it with the one he had carried home two nights before. His third and final apron had been delivered to Aisha, his wife, for washing only last night. He repeated this process every day to ensure he was always wearing a clean uniform. Not that he got really dirty, not often anyway, but you couldn’t see most germs and he had always had a spotless uniform in his previous life, before coming to England, so why should he change things now?

Aisha didn’t complain about the washing, she didn’t complain about anything at all. She accepted Ahmad’s apron each evening, or sometimes in the mornings when he worked nights, and there was always a clean replacement folded by the front door, together with a homemade meal for every day he went to work.

Maia, the other hospital cleaner, had worked through the night; not on this floor – they didn’t clean the private rooms during the night unless they received a special instruction – but they both had their lockers up here and their cleaning materials in the store room. She had left him a note on top of the bucket; she did that sometimes, scribbled on the back of a Tesco receipt. It read ‘Mr D room 6 very sick.’ And she had drawn a sad face with its tongue sticking out.

Ahmad grinned. Some days he and Maia worked at the same times and took breaks together. She was only twenty and from Romania, and had big dreams of marrying a doctor and living in a mansion overlooking the heath. Then she would have her own cleaner. He interpreted her note as a warning both to be prepared for whatever he may have to clean up in room 6, and also to enter quietly. Ahmad always did this anyway. He had learned the hard way that English patients really don’t like to be woken up when they have ‘just got off to sleep’ even if, in reality, they spend most of the day and night snoozing.

He checked his phone for messages. Only last week the school had called to say that Shaza, his daughter, was ill and he had had to return home almost as soon as he arrived, although it was still early – not time yet for school. He switched the phone to silent; he was not allowed to take calls on the ward.

Ahmad unpacked the pie Aisha had baked for his lunch and took a moment to savour the pungent aroma of zaatar before placing it in the staff fridge. The day she had visited the local shops and bought thyme and sumac and ground up her own zaatar, he had begun to hope she had turned a corner, that things might return to some semblance of how they used to be. But even though he had zaatar pie for his lunch, with olives and a pot of fatoush salad, little else of the joy of their former life had returned. How could it?

As he placed the apron over his head, he became aware of pounding footsteps in the corridor and raised voices speaking over each other. Ahmad peered out to see the cause of the commotion. Three nurses were standing outside Mrs Hennessy’s room talking in an animated way. One of them reached her hand out to touch the door handle and then withdrew it. Then a second nurse did the same. Ahmad watched them huddled together stepping forwards and back, stretching out and retracting their arms, rather like a bizarre form of dance. Maia would have thought it funny. She would have copied them, turning it into a loud, raucous Eastern European version of the hokey-cokey.

Ahmad considered offering to help but decided against it. Sometimes the nurses were friendly but not all of them and not always. He would wait to be asked.

He collected his bucket, mop and trolley from the cupboard and checked that all his cleaning materials were intact. But then heavier steps thundered past him and he heard a deep voice he recognised as Dr Mahmood, one of the senior consultants, delivering orders. Ahmad had little direct interaction with Dr Mahmood, although he frequently saw him on the wards and corridors. On the first occasion they had come across each other, he had nodded politely. On the second, Ahmad had tried to make eye contact, had tentatively craved recognition or kinship, from this English-adopted countryman of his.

But Dr Mahmood had merely reflected Ahmad’s bow of their first encounter and averted his eyes, and Ahmad had chewed his lower lip and chastised himself for his impertinence. After that, when he saw Dr Mahmood heading in his direction he stepped back and busied himself with something else. It was better that way.

4

Tracy Jones removed a KitKat from the cupboard and unwrapped it hurriedly, snapping the bar in two cleanly along its perforation. She almost shoved the first piece in her mouth then and there but suddenly remembered those ‘tips for dieting’ which recommended that you always sit down before eating, and assess clinically and rationally if you really want to consume something unhealthy before doing so. Huffing, she sat down at the table, held the KitKat under her nose for five seconds then, muttering ‘oh sod it’ under her breath, she ate both halves simultaneously.

Reaching forward, she grabbed the pile of letters which had accrued through the week, and began to leaf through them. Eventually she stopped and opened one brown envelope. She read its contents and scowled before moving on to the next one. She continued the shuffling and selection exercise, followed by opening, reading and a grimace, until all had been examined, the ripped envelopes forming an impromptu fan on the table top.

Then she read through each one again, placing them in a pile in her own order, at times holding one next to another to compare and contrast, all the time her tongue working around her mouth for the last vestiges of the chocolate she had just consumed.

The final item of post was a laminated, double-sided flyer for a cruise: ‘Aegean Odyssey’, it was called, and the sea in the picture was the blue of Vermeer, the ultramarine he loved to spread around so generously. She held the card up to her face, allowing it to touch her cheek. One small tear squeezed out of the corner of her right eye.

She pulled a magnet from the fridge in the shape of a Cornish pasty, from their holiday of sorts last summer – seven nights in Bude. It had rained for five of the days; the kids hadn’t minded but she had sat in the car, propped up with a flask of coffee, watching them cavorting in the spray, calculating whether there was enough radiator space in the cottage to dry everything off later. She couldn’t allow herself to dwell on holidays past: Barbados, The Maldives, Dubai. It was simply too painful.

She stuck the photo in the middle of the fridge and sighed before extracting a pile of green, dog-eared exercise books from her bag. She had an hour to spare before her own boys emerged from their beds, demanding breakfast, and another half hour before the school run.

Then she had promised her mother to be at the hospital by twelve, which she could manage if her colleague covered her afternoon lessons. God, she hoped Barbara wouldn’t make too many demands, as she wanted to get back to school in time for pick-up. She would make sure she took in some fresh food tomorrow, and the boys could visit too. That would be a daughterly thing to offer. But there was no way Barbara was convalescing at her house. There wasn’t the space, and Tracy wouldn’t survive twelve hours of her mother’s reflections on life and on what she should be doing to ‘lose that spare tyre.’ That had been the topic Barbara had helpfully canvassed with her at least three times over Christmas lunch.

Tracy focused again on the book in front of her, and her eyes glazed over. How many days were left till the end of the school term? But glancing across at the new addition to the fridge display, at least now she could dream.

Halfway through marking the third book, her mobile phone rang.

5

Chief Inspector Dawson was leaning against the glass wall of the interview room in Hampstead police station when Constance arrived, and he greeted her with a tired smile and a perfunctory shake of her hand.

‘You’re a long way from home?’ he said.

‘Not so far. And you called me. But what are you doing here?’

‘The Chief here had to take some leave. I’m told it’s not terminal but I don’t like to ask. And I fancied a change – see how the other half lives, you know. NW3 postcode is a nice addition to my portfolio. I’m here for six months probably. See how it goes. It’s an older station though, over one hundred years. The lads swear it’s haunted.’

Constance peered through the glass. The man she could see was sitting alone, his hands resting on his thighs and his head bowed. He was in his early thirties, hair receding at the temples, with a neat beard, and he was dressed in jeans and a casual shirt.

‘This is your guy. We’ve only got a few questions for him but he demanded a lawyer.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Cleaner at St Mark’s Hospital. We found a body there a few hours ago…well, I should say, outside there. A woman, Barbara Hennessy, seventies, injuries consistent with a fall from a height, probably from her ward on the eleventh floor. No idea if she fell or jumped or was pushed, provisional time of death between seven and midnight last night, so we’re talking first to everyone who was in the ward then, and that includes this guy.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Ahmad Qabbani.’

‘English?’

‘No. From Syria.’

Constance’s lips parted slowly but no sound came out. She examined Ahmad again through the glass.

‘He’s not a suspect?’

‘No. Not at the moment. We asked him and a few others to come here to help us with enquiries, to see if we could begin to work out timings better. He’s the only one who requested a lawyer. D’you think he has something to hide?’

Constance frowned.

‘Not necessarily,’ she replied. ‘Maybe that’s how they do things in Syria.’

Dawson guffawed.

‘Come on. You think you get a lawyer at a Syrian police station? Not sure if he’ll talk to you though, you being a woman.’

Constance bit her lip.

‘We were going to send him home,’ Dawson continued, ‘when he started the lawyer nonsense, but you have to be thorough these days. We’re even going to question the doctors. ‘Course we couldn’t get them to come here. Something about sick patients…but I’m heading over there this afternoon to interview Dr Wolf, Mrs Hennessy’s doctor, at the hospital. To get the full picture.’

‘Was she very ill?’

‘Who, Mrs Hennessy? No. She only went in to have her bunions done. Had the operation yesterday. She was going home today.’

‘She might have fallen?’

‘Might have. And the most likely place, given the location of the body, was from a fire escape right at the end of the corridor, if she was able to get herself down there. Or silly old bat might have got it into her head that she fancied a night out in Camden Town and didn’t want to take the lift. But we’re keeping an open mind.’

* * *

‘Mr Qabbani?’

‘Yes.’ Ahmad’s voice was imbued with concern.

‘I’m Constance Lamb. I’m a solicitor, a lawyer. You asked for me.’ She stretched out her hand and he eyed her suspiciously before taking it, his long, elegant fingers curling and uncurling themselves gently around the palm of her hand.

‘I have waited more than an hour and I need to return to my work now please,’ he replied, his fluid English augmented with a heavily accented ‘k’ sound which split the sentence unevenly.

‘I’m sorry. I came as quickly as I could but I live some distance away. This won’t take long now I’m here. The police just want to ask a few questions. They’re trying to piece together what happened. Then you can go. Can I check some personal details first? Your full name is Ahmad Qabbani and your address is 33 Braham Terrace, London W3?’

‘That is correct.’

Constance pulled a business card from her pocket and offered it to him.

‘This is my card, with my details, phone number, email. Just in case, well, just in case you need me afterwards. And the police will take your fingerprints and a sample of saliva after you’ve answered their questions.’

‘Am I being arrested?’

‘No. Nothing like that. It’s just routine. An elderly lady, a Mrs Hennessy, was found dead this morning, outside the hospital.’

Ahmad sat in silence.

‘Did you know Mrs Hennessy had died?’

‘Yes. I heard about it. That’s why I’m here.’

When Ahmad made no sign of interest in her offering or in providing any further response, Constance placed her card down on the table in front of him. He picked it up and put it in his pocket without reading it.

‘Did you know Mrs Hennessy?’

‘Yes. I cleaned in her room.’

‘When did you last see her?’

‘Yesterday in the morning.’ Ahmad was gazing somewhere over Constance’s left shoulder.

‘What time was that?’

He hesitated then continued, ‘Maybe around eleven o’clock. I am not sure.’

‘And when did you leave the hospital?’

‘I finish at eight o’clock.’

‘Did anyone see you leave?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Do you know why Mrs Hennessy was in hospital?’

A flicker of hesitation. ‘I’m just the cleaner,’ he said, his eyes finally settling on hers, but only fleetingly. They were black and probing, keen and searching. Constance cleared her throat.

‘Did you see her walking after her operation?’

‘I only saw Mrs Hennessy in the morning. Then I clean the rest of the hospital. Can you see if we can do the questions with the police now? I don’t want to lose more pay.’

‘You’ve lost your pay?’

‘If I’m not working I don’t get paid,’ he replied simply, his eyes wandering off again.

‘They’ll be in soon. Why did you ask for a lawyer?’ Constance watched Ahmad intently. He moistened his lips twice before answering.

‘I have read stories, in the newspapers, about what happens sometimes to people in police stations,’ he said.

‘I wouldn’t let Inspector Dawson hear you say that,’ Constance said. ‘He would be very offended.’ She attempted a smile. ‘How long have you been in England?’

‘Three years.’

‘Your English is very good.’

‘Like I was saying, I read the newspapers.’

‘And your family?’

Ahmad closed his mouth. Constance was not sure if he was preparing himself to stonewall her question but then the door opened and Inspector Dawson entered.

6

‘Hi Shadya, are you there?

‘Ah. You are. I thought you might have been sleeping. I haven’t slept a wink all night. No. Really I wasn’t.

‘When Baba came in this morning I was only pretending to be asleep. He had that “hard day at work” serious look on his face.

‘No. I was going to ask him but he got home so late and I was already in bed. And then, this morning, like I said, he had theserious look.

‘Anyway, I don’t want to talk about Baba. What shall we do today when I get back from school? Let’s go outside and play elastics.

‘Oh you sound just like Mama. She’s always saying that.

‘That the street “isn’t safe”. She says there are bigger children who will hurt me but I’m not scared. And anyway, I’d be with you.

‘No. I don’t tell her about you.

‘You know why?

‘She’s been OK, I think. Taking her tablets. Not crying too much although I made her cry last night.

‘I didn’t mean to.

‘She prepared kebab but she made so much. I said to her “Mama. You forget it’s just me. I can’t eat all this.” That’s when she cried.

‘No I wasn’t being mean. I just couldn’t eat it all.

‘Yes. But honestly, why do I always have to say things differently? Why can’t I just say what I think? Grown-ups are so weird, pretending they’re the ones who do everything and understand everything. We do too. Especially you and me together.

‘What’s that? OK. We still have time before breakfast. Let’s play Aladdin. I’ll be Princess Jasmine and you can be Aladdin. OK, OK. I’ll be Aladdin and you can be Princess Jasmine, just this once. But I’ll be the Genie too.

‘Shadya. If you had three wishes, three real wishes and they were going to come true, what would you wish for? I know already what mine would be.’

7

‘Hey, you’re up? I can still cook you some eggs if you like?’

Constance dropped her keys back into her handbag and swung it over the back of the chair. It was only just after eleven; she had been out longer than expected but the day was still young.

Mike was sitting at the table in his pyjama trousers, finishing off some toast, thick rolls of butter floating like rafts on the bread. He rose, without speaking to Constance, and slid the remains into the bin, before depositing his plate in the sink. Then, still mute, he marched towards the bathroom.

‘Mike, what’s up?’ Constance didn’t want to apologise. She had hurried back and, from what she could ascertain of Mike’s usual daily routine, he was hardly ever out of bed before 10:30 during the week in any event.

Mike stalled outside the bathroom, his fingers strumming the door frame. He didn’t turn around.

‘Is it because you had to make your own breakfast? We’ve still got the whole day,’ she said, shuffling her feet out of her shoes. When he remained motionless she sashayed up to him, slid her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his back, basking in the warmth of his body. Mike removed her hands, albeit gently, continued inside the bathroom and closed the door behind him. She heard him switch on the shower.

Constance retreated to the table.

Mike wasn’t being fair. It wasn’t fair that he was cross when she had no choice about her work. Did he really think she enjoyed trekking half way across London to a police station instead of enjoying a rare lie in? And she was always there for him, at endless rehearsals and ‘after parties’ with producers and actors who never remembered her name, helping him learn his lines, standing in for various other characters and props. If Mike had only evaluated things logically, as she did, he might have viewed things the same way. Granted he would still have been cross, but he would have recognised he had no right to be cross. And slowly, slowly he would have come around.

But Mike wasn’t like that. He enjoyed the theatricality of it all; inhabiting the skin of the wronged partner, the abandoned, lonely homemaker, the down-on-his-luck actor waiting for his big break.

For a second she thought about Ahmad Qabbani, his reticence, the way he had shrunk in his seat when Dawson arrived, had answered Dawson’s questions in clipped and hushed tones and, at one point, had steadied his right leg with his hand when it began to tremble. How she had concealed herself nearby and watched him leave the police station; first his lurch out onto the street, then his stagger to a shop doorway where he had crouched shivering for some minutes before standing up stiffly and heading down the hill towards the hospital.

Suddenly Mike reappeared, the patter of the shower his cue, inscrutable, his head tipped to one side, his hand outstretched, and he wasn’t wearing his pyjamas or his towel.

‘Would mademoiselle care for some brunch?’ he asked in an exaggerated French accent.

‘You are an unreasonable pig, do you know that?’ Constance replied.

‘Yes, but totally irresistible all the same.’

Constance unbuttoned her shirt as she went to take his hand.

8

Tracy Jones was upset. Since Dawson had called her, first thing that morning, to tell her that her mother was dead, she hadn’t known what to think or feel. His words were still ricocheting around her skull, and the two paracetamol she had taken had not made any dent in the wall of pain which traversed her forehead. She hadn’t called Pete, her husband – he had left early to visit a potential development site in the Midlands with his brother – and she had not been able to face telling the boys. So, she had dropped them off at school, pretending everything was fine and then emailed in a message that she had a migraine and would not be coming to work. She had hoped to have some time alone. But now her brother, Joe, had arrived without warning.

Tracy took refuge in the kitchen on the pretext of making some coffee. She filled the kettle and switched it on, pressing the palms of her hands onto the cool worktop to calm her nerves. She could hear Joe whistling to himself in the lounge, a trait he had had since childhood, and usually reserved for the most stressful of moments.

‘I brought some biscuits anyway,’ she mumbled, re-entering the room with two mugs and a packet of chocolate digestives, her voice quivering as Joe scowled from his vantage point by the window. ‘Joe, come and sit down. I know you’re upset…’

‘Too right I’m upset. Mum isn’t even in the ground and they’re asking all these questions. At ten o’clock they arrived at the showroom, put all the customers off.’

Tracy’s hands trembled as she balanced the biscuits on the arm of the sofa and sat down herself. She should have known that Joe wasn’t just here to commiserate.

‘Who’s asking questions?’

‘The police. They think I don’t know what they’re after. They came around pretending they were sorry; “bereavement counselling”, they called it. But then they started asking all this stuff. Have they been here yet?’

‘No. Someone’s coming this evening, I think.’

‘Well, be prepared for the third degree, I’m warning you.’

‘What did they ask you?’

‘First they asked about when I last visited. And how Mum was before? All that kind of thing.’

‘Well that should have been easy enough for you to answer. It’s months since you saw her and you wouldn’t have had a clue how she was.’

Tracy took a sip from her coffee. She really wanted a biscuit but forced herself to focus on Joe.

‘Then they asked all this other stuff: who were Mum’s friends? Did she have enemies? Even, did she have debts? I mean, she was in hospital, wasn’t she? She was ill. And then she died.’

‘She wasn’t ill. She had had her feet done, and she didn’t exactly die in her bed. They think someone pushed her out of a window. That was what the policeman told me.’ Tracy’s lip started to wobble and tears began to course down her cheeks.

Joe headed towards her, but stopped short and leaned against the back of the sofa.

‘They don’t know that, do they?’

‘What? You think she just fell out? One minute she was propped up in her hospital bed watching Britain’s Got Talent, the next she decided to see if she could fly?’ Tracy wiped away her tears.

‘I don’t know, do I? Last time I saw her she was being, well, a bit irrational.’

‘Irrational. I can’t believe you’re saying that. Of course she was irrational. The whole world knew that. Miles worked that one out after eighteen months; that’s why he never hung around very long. But if the police are asking about “enemies”, they must think someone pushed her. Why’s that got you so wound up? Don’t you want to find out what happened to her?’

‘Would it change anything?’ Joe said. ‘She’d still be dead. And I doubt she would be doing much investigating if either of us had pegged it.’

‘Don’t say that. She was our mother.’

‘Maybe someone should have told her that, explained to her what the word meant. I’d rather we could just have the funeral and move on.’

‘Hang on, Joe. Mum is hardly cold yet. I haven’t even had time to tell anyone she’s dead and you want to “move on”. I know you didn’t get on – not since, well never mind that now. But you’re wrong about her. The last year or so she had been more interested in us – all of us, including you – always asking how you were, and Janice. And she was so positive when I saw her at the hospital, like a new woman. She talked about painting again. Said she had an unfinished one of me. Asked me if I would sit for her again, like in the old days.’

‘You used to hate it, said it was boring.’

‘And she said she wanted to paint Pete, too. And the kids.’

Joe bit the side of his thumb, the tips of his ears flushing bright red.

‘She was a self-centred bitch and I don’t want people sniffing around us – our family – because of her. I don’t like it. First it’ll be the police and then the newspapers too.’

‘What is it you’re worried about exactly?’ Tracy finally succumbed and took a biscuit, waving it around as she spoke, and the relief associated with the sugar rush of that first bite was palpable. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ Now she felt capable of going on the offensive. ‘You’re worried about them finding out what you got up to at Mackenzies. They let you go without any fuss. That’s just like you. Mum’s dead, maybe murdered, and you’re just thinking about yourself.’

‘No!’ He roared out the word and it reverberated off the bare walls. ‘No one cares about that stuff now. I’m thinking about all of us, Trace, including you. That’s why I came here, to tell you what to expect when the police come around. I could’ve just called, or not bothered.’ Joe stood up straight. ‘I’m off now. Another stupid bloody idea that Janice had.’

‘When did you last see Mum?’ Tracy sat quietly, hunched over, her back to her brother.

‘None of your business,’ he replied.

‘Or even speak to her? She asked me, you know, “Is Joe going to come and visit, do you think?” That’s what she asked me, pretending she didn’t care too much. She even checked over my shoulder when I arrived, as if you might be waiting outside in the corridor and I was just the warm-up act.’

‘Shut up Trace. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just trying to make me feel bad. Well it won’t work. She never wanted to see me. Or if she did, it was only to remind me of how I disappointed her. Well, now I don’t have to hear it from her any more.’

Joe exited the room swiftly, and Tracy heard the front door bang in his wake.

9

Ahmad finished his shift at 5pm and hurried home. It had been a difficult few hours. All the time he had been thinking about Mrs Hennessy. He tried not to imagine her lying dead on the cold, hard ground, but when he had passed the police tent on his way in and on leaving, and had seen the people wearing white suits hovering around, it was hard to block it out.

The nurses had congregated in the corridor over lunch, as the staff room was ‘off limits’, and all they had spoken about was Mrs Hennessy and how awful and who had been the last one to give her her meds and who had been the last to take her blood pressure, shaking their heads and clicking their tongues. He had shrunk back, stumbled his way up the corridor, and sat down on the floor of the toilet cubicle to escape it all.

When he closed his eyes and concentrated, he could hear Barbara’s voice. ‘Ahmad,’ she was whispering in his ear. ‘This is such a treat. I don’t have a cleaner at home.’ She had imparted the information proudly.

‘You do yourself?’ he had replied. ‘Oh no. I just don’t clean. My apartment is very dirty.’ And she had laughed, a high girlish laugh like the trilling of a bird, and he had laughed too, a genuine laugh, not the one he put on so often for politeness.

It was just before he got off the train at Acton Central that Ahmad remembered he had left his apron behind in the hospital. He could picture it lying folded on the seat of the chair in the corridor, and imagined it scrunched up and discarded or, worse still, confiscated overnight for incineration. Then he’d have to go cap in hand to Sinead in Supplies to ask for another one, and he could imagine the disdainful response he would receive. He almost headed back to retrieve it, but Shaza would be waiting by Suzy’s door, brimming full of her day at school, and Aisha would worry if he was late. And, anyway, Mrs Hennessy was dead, so what importance did a dirty apron have in comparison?

Ahmad stood at the bottom of the staircase leading up from the platform to the outside world, as the other disembarking passengers streamed past him. Suddenly, for some reason he couldn’t articulate, it was as high and impassable as the Berlin Wall. He retreated to a nearby bench and placed his bag down between his legs on the smooth concrete. Did you know Mrs Barbara Hennessy? the policeman had asked him. And when did you clean her room? And did you notice anything unusual? And he had heard his answers – yes, yesterday and no – echo loudly in his head, even though in reality he had spoken feebly.

He disliked police officers and the lawyer he’d requested had been next to useless. She had just sat there and allowed the policeman to ask all his questions in his slow-witted manner. Still, at least he had walked out in one piece. Ahmad shivered. All this stuff with Mrs Hennessy, it had made him forget his apron. You’ve lost another one? He could hear the disgust in Sinead’s voice and the way she would tut and glower at him until he stammered out an apology.

He stared blankly at his hands, turning them palm up and then palm down before clenching them into fists. But they rotated before his eyes as if through a mist, and within seconds he felt unnaturally cold. It began at his toes and spread rapidly along the length of his feet, hovering around his ankles to sear into his flesh before worming up his calves. He had to stop it early on; he knew that from past experience. Otherwise it would overwhelm him – that slithering, scrambling, clambering cold.

He stamped his feet repeatedly, one after the other, and rolled his shoulders back. Then he inhaled and exhaled deeply and tried to clear his mind. That was what the psychiatrist had taught him; to help him relax, to make it go away.

There. He was beginning to get the measure of it. As he brought his breathing under control and wriggled his toes inside his boots, the cold began to recede. By the time he felt able to stand, it was retreating along each foot, driven away by his efforts. He dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief; despite feeling cold himself, he was aware he had been sweating profusely. He shouldered his bag and climbed the steps away from the platform, two at a time.

Five minutes later, Ahmad and Shaza were walking alongside each other. She was chattering away about Mrs Crane and Mr Martin and what they said today in assembly and how Mrs Crane had said her Maths was very neat. Usually Ahmad would ask a question or two and provide some encouragement, but not today. Today he was moving quickly and focusing all his energy on getting home. Shaza had to skip her fastest skipping, with her hugest giant-step leaps, to keep up with her father’s strides, her attempts to grab his hand being rejected without explanation.

10

Dr David Wolf was a slim, slight man, around five foot seven in height, although he identified with five foot nine. He was an orthopaedic surgeon of considerable skill and some years’ experience. But Inspector Dawson’s visit to the hospital that afternoon, and his blunt, trampling questions about Barbara Hennessy, had left him anxious and bruised, and he hovered, tapping papers on his desk ineffectually and tweaking the ends of his burgeoning moustache, until he was certain the police officer had left the hospital.

His wife, Jane, had suggested he grow the facial hair, and he was now attached to it; she propounded a theory that his lack of promotion to the highest echelons was the result of his youthful appearance. He thought it was more likely the work of senior doctors who refused to retire despite less-than-optimum working conditions, so that it was truly ‘dead men’s shoes’. And he wasn’t a ‘team player’ according to Hani Mahmood, his immediate boss, in his last appraisal. That was rich, coming from a man who was head of the team but had never attended one of its Christmas parties, forever pulling the religion card.

And it was Dr Wolf’s chance meeting in the corridor with Hani, just an hour earlier, that had made him even more jumpy when Dawson called in.

‘David. Any update on how she died, the Hennessy woman?’ Hani had begun.

Dr Wolf had stammered over the words.

‘No. It’s nothing to do with me. It’s hardly a medically related death. I’m letting the police get on with it.’

Hani had fixed him with a hard stare.

‘She was your patient, David. I think you need to take an interest. We wouldn’t want anyone pointing the finger at our team – unfairly, of course.’

Dr Wolf had opened his mouth to protest at how ludicrous that sounded but thought better of it.

‘We’ll have to add it to our list for the monthly review, so be prepared,’ Hani had said.

‘Why would we do that? She didn’t die as a result of her treatment.’

‘We don’t know that yet, do we?’ Hani had said. And he had marched off leaving Dr Wolf open-mouthed in his wake.

Dr Wolf pulled his mobile from his pocket and paused with his fingers hovering above the screen. It had started off innocently enough with Dawson. Who carried out the operation? Dawson had asked. But instead of providing a couple of job titles or simply referring to ‘the usual team’ he had found himself reeling off names and embellishing. ‘Myself, Dr Bridges was the anaesthetist; she’s very experienced, our ‘go to’ person for tricky operations – not that there was anything remotely complex about this one – Nurse Li, another key member of our nursing staff, Steven King, a highly able specialist registrar.’

‘The team you mentioned – they work together on many operations?’ Dawson had asked.

‘Yes. But I don’t see that any of this is relevant.’

‘Just part of our enquiries. Gathering all the facts. I may need to speak to the others in the team who operated on Mrs Hennessy.’

‘If you want to waste your time, of course, go ahead,’ Dr Wolf had said. ‘Anyway, we’ll have our own internal review of procedures.’

‘Will you?’

‘Yes, our head of department, Dr Mahmood, is going to examine all aspects of Mrs Hennessy’s care at our monthly meeting; it’s standard when we have a death in the hospital. Nothing sinister, or anything like that.’

‘There’ll be a note of this meeting?’

‘There’ll be a report.’

Then Dawson had asked how Mrs Hennessy was after her operation, in his slow way. And Dr Wolf had reported she was ‘fine’ and the officer had left shortly afterwards.

Dr Wolf made his call.

‘Hi. It’s me. I know you’re busy, so just listen; you don’t have to speak,’ he barked into the phone.

A pause.

‘The police were here asking questions about Barbara Hennessy. It’s possible they’ll come to find you and Steven and Nurse Li. They asked about the team involved in the operation.

‘I just said you were the anaesthetist; that’s all. He made a note of your name.

‘Yes I know. Crazy isn’t it? Although Hani seemed to think it was perfectly normal.

‘I saw him just before. He told me I had to protect the team – as if I would do anything else.’

Another pause.

‘Hani says he wants to review the procedure in the monthly meeting next week.

‘I know, it’s pointless, but he wants to. So we’ll need to be prepared, with our version of events. Will you speak to the other two? And the police want to see the report.

‘It just kind of slipped out.

‘No, I wasn’t trying to drop anyone in it. Why would I do that?

‘No. I’m fine. I just don’t like being interrogated, that’s all. It’s not a pleasant experience. Speak later.