Born Bad Page 21

  ‘Fancy that, eh? Mia Margulies in the background, there,’ he said to Paddy.

  ‘Well, I still don’t believe that he raped her,’ Paddy said. ‘I remember she was all over him like a rash on a cheap prozzy. I thought they were going out.’

  Conky nodded in agreement. ‘Except there Mia is, smooching with another lad. In not one, but in five of these photos.’

  Behind him, Frank was aware of Gloria craning her neck to examine the familiar face in the frame with Mia.

  Paddy looked up at her. ‘Did you know about this, Gloria? Did you know your Lev was poking Jonny Margulies’ daughter? Because it sodding well looks that way in these photos.’

  Standing, straightening her skirt, Gloria glanced nonchalantly at the albums. ‘How in the good Lord’s name would I know what that morally bankrupt little twerp was up to?’ she asked. ‘I haven’t seen that boy in five years or more. And I say, good riddance to bad rubbish.’ Gloria grabbed her clutch bag and poked at her elaborate hair. ‘Anyway, it’s getting late so I’m going to take my leave from you fine people.’ She smiled expansively at Sheila, though Frank was certain the smile never made it to her eyes.

  When she had left the Green Room, Paddy and Conky exchanged a knowing look, focusing anew on the photographs of Mia and Lev. Pages in, and there were photographs of them together, months later. Caught kissing on the dancefloor with the long-lens Nikon of the club’s official photographer.

  ‘Looks like little Mia couldn’t make up her mind if she liked mince-meat or fillet steak,’ Paddy said, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘So, she went for both,’ Conky said. ‘In some kind of erotic Mancunian club sandwich. Aye. Fishier than the Fish Man himself.’

  ‘And then, she’s screaming rape the minute Jack gives her the brush-off, just at the point when I’ve done a deal with her father.’ Paddy caught the fist of his right hand in the palm of his left with an ominous smack.

  ‘I think young Mia is not as innocent as she likes to make out,’ Conky said, pushing his sunglasses back up his nose in ceremonious fashion. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Kill the bitch!’ Frank said, slurring; draining his second glass of wine. ‘Actually no. Don’t kill her. That makes us as bad as them. Teach the slag a lesson, though.’

  ‘No,’ Paddy said, locking eyes with Katrina. ‘The deal’s on. I’m getting out of this shit. We’re going to Thailand. No more bullshit tit for tat.’

  Chapter 31

  Tariq

  ‘We got any branflakes left?’ Tariq asked, staring into the larder unit at box after box of cereal. Mildly irritated that his children had put them back in wrong size order.

  ‘No. We’ve got cornflakes. If you want branflakes, get them yourself before you take your dad to the mosque,’ Anjum said, slamming her handbag and car keys onto the kitchen island. She thumbed her password into her phone. ‘Some of us have got serious jobs to hold down.’

  There was a sharpness to her tone that made Tariq shiver. She had been like this since that evening she had returned from work, quizzing him about the Slovakian girl, Irina. Of all the places the silly pregnant bitch could have sought help, she had to go to Anjum’s place. And of all the days when Anjum was out, lobbying this, that and the other and pressing the flesh with dignitaries and the council and various embassies, she had to pick a day when the big Dr Do-Gooder boss-lady was actually in for once.

  ‘Okay. Not a problem, my love,’ Tariq said, selecting muesli and making a failed attempt at kissing his wife on her freshly made-up cheek.

  Anjum had swiftly turned to their children, Shazia and Zahid. Tariq watched her fussing over them, wiping their faces in readiness for the school run. Telling them in Urdu to brush their teeth and stop dawdling. She threw her pink silk dupatta over her shoulder repeatedly. Bangles jangling. No power-suit today. She liked to wear her traditional salwar kameez on a Friday, and she always tied back her thick black hair. Everything was seemingly normal for a Friday morning at the start of a school day, except her movements were jerky and stiff. Her shoulders were hunched, her posture unrelentingly ramrod straight. More to the point, she was avoiding making eye contact with him, he was certain.

  He held out his hand to her. ‘Are you going to cheer up and tell me what’s bugging you?’

  ‘Don’t be puerile,’ she said, packing some samosas into a Tupperware container and stuffing the container into her handbag with unequivocal hostility. ‘You know exactly what’s the matter because I’ve tried to have this conversation with you already. Several times! I recognised him, Tariq. The boy with the pattern shaved into his hair. A zig-zag. I know he works for you. I’ve seen him in the factory when I’ve dropped stuff off for you. And she described you, the Slovakian girl. To a T! You and Jonny. She even said where you worked.’ She lowered her voice so that it was audible only to the two of them, with the noise of the children arguing over who had the better snack in their lunch packs, providing a useful diversion to allow for this interrogation. ‘And then, you disappear for three days. Come home, wearing the same clothes you went out in. What am I meant to think? I think you’re up to no good. That’s what I think.’

  ‘What is this? Guantanamo Bay?’ Tariq asked, pouring milk on his muesli. ‘I’ve told you. That Eastern European girl – it was mistaken identity. How many brown men do you know who run businesses at the back of Strangeways, for God’s sake? There must be hundreds.’ He tutted loudly. Trying to arrange his features into a semblance of hurt sensibilities and innocence. All these long years he was certain she hadn’t suspected a thing, and now, Leviticus arsehole Bell and that girl had had to let the cat out of the bag.

  ‘But there aren’t hundreds with Jewish business partners, Tariq!’ Anjum said, pouring the curry she had prepared after dawn prayers ready for the evening meal into an old margarine tub. Shoving it into the fridge. Even washing her hands seemed to be an act of passive aggression. ‘Think it through! She didn’t know your name but she knew Jonny’s.’ Turning to the children, she snapped her fingers abruptly. ‘I told you two to get upstairs or we’ll be late. Come on!’

  Tariq forced a smile as Shazia and Zahid bustled out of the kitchen, disappearing upstairs in a tornado of energy, limbs and gleeful giggling. ‘Did you have to bring this rubbish up with them in the room?’ Alone with his suspicious wife, without the buffer of his father or the children, Tariq felt fear manifest itself as a heavy sensation, weighing down his head so he could barely look up from his muesli. Was this it? Was this The Big Confrontation? The point at which he would lose everything that really mattered to him just when he had won a long-fought war?

  ‘I love you, my darling,’ he said. ‘I thought we were a team. I thought we trusted each other.’ He reached out to grab her hand but closed his fingers around nothing but negatively charged air.

  Anjum pulled a small mirror out of her handbag. Started to apply deep rose-coloured lipstick to her shapely mouth. She rubbed her lips together and regarded her image. Sniffed and returned the mirror to its place. ‘I am utterly trustworthy, Tariq,’ she said, collecting her paraphernalia for work – her pad, her pen, her phone. ‘You on the other hand …’ She treated him to an accusatory stare. Those large, dark eyes suddenly seemed devoid of warmth. ‘I thought I knew you. But running brothels staffed by trafficked girls? She said you’d tried to sell her as a sham-bride to some dirty old Afghani. Is that where you were when you didn’t come home? Sampling your product?’ Her dupatta slid free. She tossed it over her shoulder once again. ‘You make me sick.’

  Holding his head in his hands, Tariq wondered if there was any way back from this. Was she toying with him, like some cat playing with a spider? Pulling his legs off one by one. Anjum was the brightest woman he had ever met. Being economical with the truth for the past fifteen years was one thing. She’d always been too busy with the kids and her own career to probe him, and he, after all, was the master of subterfuge. But lying to her …? That would be folly. Nevertheless, what option did he have but to try? Th
ere had been nothing but a wall of ice between them for days. He was sick of sleeping on the sofa.

  ‘It’s mistaken identity, love. And coincidence. That’s all. Just coincidence.’ He examined his perfectly clean nails, looking for a blemish that wasn’t there. ‘Some girl comes in your office, banging on about an Asian bad man who made her do terrible things. What’s the likelihood that she’s racist or an Islamophobe? They all think we look the same for a start.’

  ‘It’s the description of Jonny that was telling! And she wasn’t complimentary.’

  ‘Maybe she hates Jews.’ He forced himself to look her directly in the eyes. Fronting it out for all he was worth. ‘Maybe she’s disturbed. Some of these Eastern European girls have very traumatic childhoods at the hands of the Russian Mafia, Anj.’

  ‘Now who’s succumbing to racial stereotypes?’ she said, zipping up the children’s school bags. She looked down dolefully at the Star Wars and Adidas rucksacks. Blinked hard as if checking her next words on some production line of thought for quality and consistence. ‘I’ve worked with refugees and asylum-seekers for over ten years, Tariq.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Before that, I represented the ones who were threatened with deportation in court. I’ve met murderers, gangsters, dealers, rapists, suspected terrorists. I told you I got your dad’s pharmacist in my place the other week with a Chinese girl, didn’t I? He left sharpish when he saw me, but it was definitely him. Everyone’s at it. This city’s got too many dirty secrets. Nothing surprises me. I’ve seen it all!’ She spoke each word with conviction. Sounded each vowel and consonant with a richness she normally reserved for public speaking. ‘And I’ve met victims. Thousands of victims from all corners of the world. I know a liar from someone telling the truth no matter what bloody language they speak.’ She strode over to a pile of cookbooks stacked against the worktop. Took a small lozenge-shaped case from the top and removed her glasses: no-nonsense black-framed Prada glasses with four diamante studs along the arm.

  Tariq balked. Anjum meant business when she put those on. He could feel the end of his marriage drawing near. Would she dare divorce him if she found out the truth? Surely not! ‘I’m telling you, love. I had to go to London unexpectedly on business. I couldn’t ring you because I lost my phone. And the pregnant girl – it’s all a big mix-up. How can you put two and two together and make seventeen?’

  ‘Who told you she was pregnant? I certainly didn’t.’ Her face twitched with deadly fury.

  The sound of uneven footsteps on the stairs heralded his father’s imminent arrival at the breakfast table. They both fell silent. Suddenly, it was as if the clouds had parted and the sun had come out.

  ‘Morning, Youssuf,’ Anjum said, beaming at her father-in-law. ‘Sleep well? I’ll do you some toast before I go out.’

  She turned her back to the dishevelled-looking elderly man, still wearing his baggy pyjamas over his painfully thin frame with an old sweater on top. She switched the smile for a scowl, directed at Tariq. Pointed to both of her eyes with her index and middle finger. Pointed to him.

  Tariq swallowed hard, counting the minutes until his wife left the house with the kids. When they were gone, he closed the front door, stroking his beard and exhaling slowly. Realising that his back was pouring with sweat. He would need another shower before he left for work.

  ‘Tariq! Son! Are you coming in?’ Youssuf called from the kitchen.

  Sighing deeply and wishing he could somehow wake from this terrible dream, Tariq dragged himself back to the reality of Friday mornings. Sitting at the island with a hunched back, panting, though he had done nothing of note apart from walk down the stairs, his father looked even more unwell than usual.

  ‘You been taking your meds, Dad?’ he asked, putting his arm around the old man.

  Youssuf looked up at him with milky cataract-eyes. Breathless and open-mouthed. ‘Ya-allah, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,’ he said. ‘My pharmacist. He’s a nice boy. I get my repeat prescriptions from him when Anjum takes me into town. Sometimes he drops them off, here. But he’s gone.’

  ‘What do you mean, he’s gone, Dad?’

  ‘Disappeared. The shop’s locked up. It’s not like him. He normally leaves a girl if he goes away. Sometimes he goes to Hong Kong, apparently.’

  ‘Well, maybe he’s there now. There are other pharmacists, Dad. Loads of Asian ones.’

  ‘But I like this one. He’s a Chinese. They’re very respectful.’

  Escorting his father into the downstairs bathroom, Tariq wondered if his father’s favourite missing pharmacist and the O’Briens’ loose cannon of a Chinese chemist were one and the same man. Perhaps he’d absconded after the cannabis factory raid and blown the whistle. Perhaps the O’Briens had caught up with him and neutralised the threat. In this business, there were always too many loose threads, threatening to unravel at all times.

  He said nothing. Helped the old man to shower and then dressed his bedsores. Carefully assisted him as he donned the thermal underwear and thick socks that would keep his frail frame warm. Slid his tunic and pants over the ensemble in readiness for the mosque. Trimmed the moustache above his upper lip and neatened his white beard. Nagged him to eat the toast that Anjum had made. Wondered who the hell would look after him if Anjum went to the police. Would she accompany him to hospital appointments or leave him to travel alone in an ambulance with strangers, forced to starve or eat a haram sandwich from the café?

  ‘You look preoccupied,’ Youssuf said, touching Tariq’s cheek tenderly. ‘You’re in trouble.’

  Tariq shook his head and sighed. ‘You’ve no idea. Just when I thought I’d imposed some order on the madness …’

  Even beyond the opacity of the cataracts, he detected disappointment in his father’s eyes. ‘She’s found out, hasn’t she?’ He encircled Tariq’s hand inside his own. ‘A boy like you could have done anything. Why did you choose this path?’

  ‘Nobody chooses to become a career criminal, Dad. I just slid into it. You know that. We needed the money. One thing led to another.’

  ‘Nonsense. With your education you—’

  ‘Okay!’ Tariq shouted, withdrawing his hand from the old man’s bony grip. ‘Okay! I didn’t want to be dirt poor like you and Mum were when you first came over. I was frightened.’

  ‘You’re a law graduate from Oxford.’

  ‘You’d been an architect in Lahore but you ended up breaking your back for tuppence a week in a crappy factory off Bury New Road, sewing up cheap duffle coats till all hours! Even when you opened the shop, we were always scrabbling around for cash. And I hated it. I hated that estate, with all those fat white kids jeering “Paki” at me. Having to run the gauntlet every day, just to get to the bloody bus stop to get to school.’

  ‘Come on! What were the odds of you having to live on a council estate in Sweeney Hall? You could have been a hot-shot solicitor, working in London. Didn’t one of those big city law firms offer you a job? You could have been Mayor of London! I worked my fingers to the bone and sent you to a good school so that you wouldn’t end up some two-bit gangster, running with the Mirpur wide-boys, talking Desi-English.’ His father bit into a piece of cold toast from the plate in front of him and chewed defiantly. Smug in the knowledge that he was absolutely right and that anything Tariq said was a poor excuse.

  ‘I couldn’t go to London. Mum got ill, then I had to look after you. So Sadiq Khan can kiss my Mancunian—’

  ‘Watch your mouth!’

  ‘I was bored with the law. I like the thrill of what I do. I get to be around for you and Anjum and the kids, don’t I? You’d never see me if I was a hot-shot in the city. I couldn’t bunk off and take you to the Masjid every week, could I? And I thought, if I could just balance it all up by doing the charitable stuff and encouraging Anjum in her work …’

  His father snorted. ‘You embarrass me. If Anjum does go to the police, maybe she’d be doing us all a favour.’

  Enough. He had had enough. Ignoring the cold, cl
ammy sweat that clung to his skin like shame, Tariq padded calmly to the hall, adjusted a family portrait on the wall, put on his sneakers.

  ‘I’ll pick you up later, Dad,’ he shouted. ‘How about you have a little think about what it might be like when the money’s gone and they put you in a filthy NHS nursing home in Cheetham Hill?’

  Slamming the door, he inhaled and exhaled deeply, relishing the fresh Boddlington Park air that was so much easier to breathe than the Sweeney Hall stink of his youth, heavy with poverty and desperation. Here, it was heavy with the aroma of newly mown grass. Summer blooms. Affluent perfection, disturbed only by the incessant noise of leaf blowers in winter and hedge-trimmers in summer. Tariq climbed into his gleaming car, savouring the sense of wealth that manifested itself in the hand-stitched leather. His heart rate slowed as he watched the impressive wrought iron gates swing open with a press of his fob. He edged forwards out of the drive, noticing as he passed Jonny’s house on the cul-de-sac of mansions that an unfamiliar car was parked outside the Margulies’ pile. Peering into the driver’s side window, he was certain he saw two unlikely visitors – one of them almost certainly unwelcome.

  Chapter 32

  Gloria

  ‘Was that Tariq Khan?’ Gloria asked, craning her neck to see out of the hire car’s rear window, watching the Mercedes CLS as it glided slowly past. She was sure their eyes had met for a split second. And those were definitely Tariq Khan’s heavy black eyebrows knotted together. Had he placed her?

  Lev dropped his head into her lap, clamping his eyes shut. ‘Oh, shit. If he knows we’re here, we’re stuffed. We might as well go back to yours now and cut our wrists.’

  Gloria slapped him repeatedly on his head. ‘Get off, you silly boy. Nobody said you could put your bowling ball of a head on my lap. You’re not five any more. Lord have mercy!’

  Sliding back up in the driver’s seat and gripping the wheel, Lev mumbled, ‘Sorry.’