‘It’s not open for discussion.’
‘What do you think he’s got in there? A bazooka?’
As Thorne moved closer to the shop, he was aware of eyes on him. Those of Donnelly and the many others watching on the monitors; of the uniformed officers still manning cordons a hundred yards away either side of him and probably unsure of what was happening. He was most aware, most apprehensive, about the armed officers who had been swiftly briefed and instructed to take up firing positions behind appropriately placed vehicles. Thorne knew that eyes were not the only things being trained in his direction.
‘It’s them I’m scared of,’ Thorne said. He nodded back towards the helmets just visible above the bonnet of a Volvo. ‘Not him.’
‘Well, you’d better hope those shutters don’t start to open then,’ Chivers said. He seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘And just remember whose bright idea this was in the first place.’
There was not much Thorne could say. He looked at Pascoe, but she was walking with her head down. She had not spoken to him since the call had ended.
They stopped a few feet from the front of the shop.
‘Just talk,’ Chivers said. ‘That’s it. On no account suggest that you go inside or that he comes out, because if those shutters do go up and he’s got a gun in his hand, you’re in all sorts of trouble. Clear?’
‘Clear,’ Thorne said.
Finally, Pascoe spoke. ‘And if the conversation starts to move in a direction you’re not comfortable with, back away. I’ve been working hard to build up his trust and I really don’t want that compromised.’
‘I’m not trying to step on your toes,’ Thorne said.
‘I never suggested that you were.’
‘I just need him to know I’m doing what he wants and that I might actually be getting somewhere. He needs to trust me as well.’
‘Can we crack on?’ Chivers said.
Thorne stepped up and knocked on the shutters. There was a distant hum of traffic from the nearest main road, but suddenly everything went very quiet.
‘I’m here,’ Akhtar said.
It was strange, hearing the man’s voice at close quarters. It was muffled by the glass in the shop’s front door and Thorne had to lean in close to the sheet of ridged, spray-painted metal that separated them still further.
‘Thanks for doing this.’
‘Are you alone?’
Thorne saw little point in lying. ‘No. Sue Pascoe is with me and so is the head of the firearms unit. That’s just the way things have to be done, I’m afraid.’
‘I understand.’
‘But it’s just you and me talking, Javed, so… ’
‘What do you want to tell me?’
‘I wanted to tell you in person that I think you’re right,’ Thorne said. ‘I don’t believe that Amin took his own life. It would be easy enough for me to say that anyway, whatever I thought, because I know it’s what you want to hear, but I’m not just saying it. I need you to believe that, and to believe that I’m doing everything I can to find out who killed him. To get you the truth.’
There was a long pause, then Thorne heard Akhtar say, ‘Thank you.’
‘I’ve already talked to the authorities at Barndale and to Amin’s friends. I’ve spoken to the boys and the relatives of the boys who attacked him a year ago, and to Rahim Jaffer.’
‘Why are you talking to Rahim?’ Akhtar asked.
‘I’m talking to anyone I can think of.’
‘You think Rahim knows something?’
‘I think… he might know things about your son’s life that you didn’t, that’s all.’ Thorne was choosing his words carefully. ‘Sometimes we can talk to our friends about things we might not want to discuss with our parents.’
‘He talked to us about everything,’ Akhtar said.
‘I’m sure he did.’
‘There is nothing Amin could not come to us about.’
Thorne turned to see Pascoe and Chivers watching him. He could still feel the eyes on him and the telescopic sights of the sniper rifles. ‘Javed, I need to know that you’re ready to hear whatever I find out.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re saying to me.’
‘Listen, I know that you don’t want to hurt anyone, or hurt yourself, so I’m asking you to hang on. To be patient, and to be prepared if the facts about what happened to Amin are not very pleasant.’
‘My son was murdered,’ Akhtar said. ‘How could the facts be pleasant?’
‘They might not be easy to hear, that’s all.’
There was another long pause. Pascoe signalled to Thorne that he should step away. Mouthed: ‘That’s enough.’
Then Akhtar spoke, his voice a little louder suddenly, as if he too were leaning close to the shutters. ‘The lies we have been told about Amin, about what happened to him in that prison, have torn our hearts out, Mr Thorne. Mine and Nadira’s. They have sucked away my decency and turned me into the kind of man I despise. The kind of man who no longer has any respect for the law and would do something unspeakable like this.
‘Lies have done these things, do you understand? So how can I be afraid of the truth?’
THIRTY-FIVE
Just a few seconds after Akhtar came back into the storeroom, a phone began to ring. They both looked at Helen’s handset still sitting on the desk, then quickly realised that the noise was coming from the shop.
Mitchell’s mobile, ringing in his pocket.
They sat and listened to it ring, then when it had stopped, Akhtar said, ‘I meant to tell you this before, but I wrapped Mr Mitchell’s body up as best I could. There were some black bags, so… ’
‘That’s OK,’ Helen said. ‘I don’t see what else you could have done.’ She was already wondering when the body would start to smell. It would not be long, not in this heat.
Akhtar sat down. ‘I am so ashamed that he is lying out there… like that, so very ashamed, but I promise you this, Miss Weeks. When all this is over, I will do everything necessary to make sure that he has a proper burial. It does not matter what it costs. I swear to do that.’
Helen just looked at him. The nodding, the earnestness. Did he really think that when it was over he would just walk out of here and go back to his old life? Home to his wife and dinner on the table and up again at half past four the next morning to open the shop? Did he really think there were any other options besides death and prison?
And what were her options?
She thought again about the price she was likely to pay for keeping Stephen Mitchell’s death a secret, the career she had worked so hard for and had now jeopardised, and she felt a hot rush of anger for the man lying dead in the next room. Why had he not listened, why had he been so stupid? He was the one who had put her in this position.
Had made her lie and squirm and snivel…
When the anger had finally subsided, she felt every bit as ashamed as Akhtar did. The truth was that she would sacrifice anything, her stupid career included; that she would crawl out of this shop bleeding and limbless if it meant the chance to see her son again. And she knew that if she did, when she did, Stephen Mitchell would be carried out in a body-bag, stinking, in a shroud of bin-liners.
‘Are you all right, Miss Weeks?’
Helen looked at him and tried to smile. ‘Don’t you think “Miss Weeks” is a bit formal? I mean, considering where we are and everything.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Akhtar said. ‘Stupid.’
‘It’s Helen.’
He nodded and moved his chair a little closer to her. ‘I think this might be over soon, Helen.’
‘That’s good,’ Helen said. A genuine smile broke, unbidden, across her face and for the first time in many hours she forgot the numbness in her backside and the pain where the cuff had bitten into her wrist. ‘That’s really good, Javed.’ She did not want to push it, to ask him what he and Thorne had been talking about at the shutters. She had heard Akhtar’s voice but could not quite make out what Thorne had been saying. She was happy enough to wait until Akhtar told her.