The Cover Up Read online

  The enormity of what he had been about to do had started to nibble away at his bravado at having run away from home. He had been about to ruin his son’s life in a bid to save his soul: swapping a mansion built on corruption for prison and purifying penitence.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Colin had asked.

  ‘Miles away,’ he had said. ‘It’s our stop next.’

  Walking through the backstreets up towards the day centre had been a cause for concern. Youssuf had been blighted by his slow, heavy legs and the laboured breathing of a sick man who had not taken his medication for three days. Furthermore, he had realised that Tariq would almost certainly have had every man, woman and child in the Asian community keeping their eyes peeled for him. Only the rain that had begun to fall in earnest had offered the hope of evading discovery – just long enough to meet with the detective.

  ‘Why couldn’t we have just met this Ellis James in town, where it was safer?’ Colin had asked, linking him in a bid to speed up their progress.

  The question had been a good one. Youssuf had frowned, considering his answer. He’d stealthily observed two women in billowing black burkas, making their way up the hill towards the main road, wheeling shopping wagons. Had they recognised him? Unlikely, given how they had been engaged in womanly chatter. ‘This is my turf,’ he had said. ‘If we’re going to do something daring and defiant, it should be on familiar ground.’ Had that been a good enough answer?

  Colin hadn’t seemed convinced. ‘It’s not my turf.’

  ‘I don’t know, then! I guess I just wanted to come home.’ There it had been. In the pit of his empty, growling stomach, Youssuf had acknowledged an ache – a combined malady that couldn’t be cured with tablets: homesickness and doubt. Now that his need for a quiet rebellion had been sated, he had been left with the very real and fairly unpalatable prospect of handing his only son over to the authorities. He had reflected on his cherished memories of his long-dead wife. What would Saffiya have counselled him to do?

  ‘Is this it?’ Colin had asked, shaking him out of his reverie.

  Youssuf had smiled and exhaled deeply. Had looked up at the battered old signage, written in English, with subtitles beneath in Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi and Gujarati explaining that this was the day centre for North Manchester’s elderly Asian community. He was back. And he had brought Colin with him. To avoid Tariq getting wind of his return, he’d better act fast. ‘Yes.’

  Inside, Colin had immediately aroused suspicion amongst the regulars. Youssuf had found himself beset by questions from his buddies, all shouting above the limits of their hearing aids in Urdu or Mirpur Punjabi.

  ‘I heard you were missing, Youssuf. Your boy has been nagging everyone. Handing out leaflets. Where were you?’

  ‘Who’s the Chinese, dressed up like one of us? What’s going on?’

  ‘He’s not Chinese,’ Youssuf had said, avoiding the steely-eyed gaze of his arch-rival, Ibrahim. ‘He’s … from Kashmir. Yes. This is Mohammed from Kashmir, right near the Chinese border. He’s a family friend. He’s come for lunch, then we have business matters to discuss. Private business.’

  Ibrahim, still enjoying the posture of a man half his age, had towered over Youssuf imperiously, snorting with derision. ‘If he’s Kashmiri, I’ll eat my flip-flops. Does your wide-boy son, Tariq, know you’re here?’

  ‘Asalaam,’ Colin had said, squinting through the borrowed glasses, trying to tug Youssuf away.

  Youssuf had nudged him sharply in the ribs, shushing him and ushering him into the day room. But the massage chairs had already been taken, and though the smell of cooking had wafted through the day centre like narcotic gas, the food had not yet been ready. His stomach had growled in protest. ‘We’re going to have to get this over with quickly.’

  They had sat together at the back of the packed arts and crafts room, hoping to take cover among the canvases – art of the arthritic, daubed in bright colours with shaky brushes. Youssuf had discreetly placed the call to Ellis James, explaining that they had arrived back in town and that they had better meet sharpish, lest Tariq get wind of his return.

  ‘So, what’s the plan?’ Colin had said, pushing the half-framed glasses that were too big for his face back up his nose. Scratching at his flattened, black hair beneath the Pashtun hat.

  ‘We wait.’

  Now, Youssuf found himself staring blankly at the wonky-eyed portrait of a Bollywood starlet – Pooja Hegde – that one of the women had been painting as a gift for her granddaughter. But his mind was not on poorly proportioned Pooja. He realised that once he began the process of revealing all to Ellis James, he would be stepping over a threshold to a new, harsher world from which there would be no return. The Boddlington Park family home would be seized as an asset by the authorities, no doubt. Tariq’s bank accounts would be frozen, rendering him reliant on Anjum’s significantly lesser, legitimately earned income. Where would they stay? And if Tariq and Jonny were sent to prison – which undoubtedly, they would be – what would happen to Tariq inside? Were there other Asian men in Strangeways? Would he be ostracised for his cultured accent or revered by the other criminals as North Manchester’s co-ruler?

  He regarded Colin Chang, who presumably had nothing whatsoever to lose by giving evidence against the O’Briens, as long as he was guaranteed protection by the police. Colin had the chance of a clean slate. But the well-being of the Khans …? Now he was faced with the day of reckoning, Youssuf was wondering if his dogged pursuit of spiritual unimpeachability was actually just an act of self-indulgence.

  Checking his watch, he saw he had fifteen minutes before they were due at the café rendezvous, just five minutes’ walk away. Fifteen minutes to decide. To tell. Or not to tell.

  ‘Hey, Mr Khan!’ one of the young men who volunteered at the day centre said, placing a hand on his shoulder. The boy looked over at Colin, his eyebrows knitted together in an expression of puzzlement.

  Youssuf looked up and patted his hand. ‘Is it lunchtime?’ He grabbed his stick, wondering if he could snaffle some pakoras before they headed out to meet the detective.

  ‘No. But I called your family to tell them you’re here. I hope you don’t mind. Only, I’ve had your son dropping in three or four times a day, looking for you. It was your daughter-in-law I spoke to on the phone. She says Tariq will be round in five.’

  ‘Round where?’ Feeling the griping pain in his empty stomach move to his chest, Youssuf hoisted himself out of the seat, legs almost giving way beneath him. He dropped his stick. Cursed himself for his clumsiness.

  Colin had also leaped to his feet, scooping the walking stick from the ground. Offering it to him. No need to communicate. They both realised that their window of opportunity to do the right thing was closing fast.

  ‘Here,’ the boy said, smiling, as if he had said something clever, the interfering donkey.

  Glancing through the succession of doorways from the art room to the front of the building, Youssuf glimpsed the street beyond and the parking spaces out front. Was that Tariq’s Mercedes, swinging into the space right beneath the window of the main day room?

  ‘Out the back,’ he told Colin, pushing the pharmacist towards the patio doors that led out to the communal gardens, certainly devoid of day centre members on a squally day like today.

  Get going! He’ll see you! But why am I running away from my boy? Why am I doing this? The din of conflicting voices was deafening. But Youssuf felt a compulsion to put distance between Tariq, Colin and himself. To buy those extra five minutes in which to consider this devilish conundrum.

  Slipping through the side gate back onto the street as Tariq entered the day centre, wearing a smile of triumph and relief, Youssuf led Colin down a dark, desolate and drenched backstreet that led to the rendezvous point.

  When a tall man stepped out from the shadowy recesses of a doorway, Youssuf yelped.

  ‘Hello, Mr Khan. And Mr Chang. What a surprise! Going anywhere interesting, gentlemen?’ The man’s accent was identi
fiably Israeli. His appearance was distinctive too. A wide-brimmed black hat, a long black satin coat and the bushy beard and immaculate ringletted sidelocks of a Hassidic Jew.

  This was the man who worked for Tariq at the factory. Youssuf was sure of it. He greeted him with a bemused smile, but at his side, Colin Chang baulked and started to crumple downwards to the floor.

  ‘Smolensky, isn’t it? Asaf Smolensky!’ Youssuf said, feeling somehow this scene was all wrong but trying to keep the friendliness in his voice.

  No answer.

  The smile slid swiftly from his face when Tariq’s taciturn employee withdrew a long, thin knife that in the murk of the alley seemed to draw all light to it. It shone now with lethal menace.

  Chapter 34

  Lev

  ‘You took your time,’ the DCI said, stepping out from behind a giant roll of felt-backed office carpet.

  The sheer volume of the floor covering absorbed almost entirely any echo his voice might have had in that lofty space. Sales assistants were nearby, talking to some Asian man about a Berber in his native language. But their voices were reassuringly muffled.

  ‘Fifteen bloody minutes, I’ve been waiting here like a berk! There’s only so much browsing for cheap shit carpet you can do before you start to attract attention.’

  ‘It was hard to find,’ Lev said.

  ‘Your type can’t find your arse with both hands.’ The DCI’s breath was visible in the freezing Carpet It Quick warehouse air.

  Lev could see why this destination had been chosen. Not far from the police HQ, on a quiet trading estate. No CCTV whatsoever, by the looks. Row after row of roll-ends stretching from the concreted floor to the corrugated iron ceiling and a veritable, double-height maze of off-the-roll bales to hide behind. It was a place you could get lost in.

  The DCI looked Lev up and down; eyeing the pushchair and Jay, who was teething on a plastic ring, with clear disgust. ‘Why’ve you brought a snotty-nosed kid to a meet?’

  ‘Because he’s my snotty-nosed kid.’ Lev sized up Sheila’s man-on-the-inside. The older detectives often seemed to let themselves go. This one had a round, shaved head and a fat neck like a Buddha. All red cheeks and wheezy, like his blood pressure was high. Too many years eating chippy in the car during a stakeout. ‘Why you an ugly fat bastard?’

  ‘Wind your neck in, son,’ the copper said. ‘It wouldn’t take much to get you banged up. I know who you are, Leviticus Bell.’ He took a step forwards and poked Lev in the chest with a chipolata digit.

  ‘Yeah, I’m really scared,’ Lev said, quietly praying that he would get this exchange over and done with as quickly as possible, securing his exit route from this purgatorial life. ‘Cos being a bent Chief Inspector who takes handouts from South Manchester’s crime boss makes you untouchable, doesn’t it? The local Sunday schools are gonna be sending the little kids round to bottle everything that comes out of your gob, like you’re spouting the word of God or some shit.’

  ‘Shut your trap, smart-arse.’

  Lev didn’t much like the sneer that had set in like bad weather on the DCI’s oversized face. This was not a cool guy. ‘You’re like one of them fishes what feeds on a shark’s underbelly,’ he said, pleased with the comparison. ‘Anyway, I’m not standing here flirting with you. You got the SIM or what?’

  The bent copper nodded and handed over a tiny baggie containing the small gold square.

  ‘Money,’ he said.

  Lev took the robust brown envelope out of the inside pocket of his parka, wondering how much Sheila had put in there in return for this ‘favour’. He was surprised that the DCI didn’t check it but merely squeezed the envelope, trousering it with the deft hands of a man who regularly stashed illicit things of value in a hurry.

  ‘Tell her I swapped that SIM for an identical one. Ellis James only got it from the fire service the other afternoon and I’ve made sure he’s been a busy boy, investigating an attempted armed robbery that turned out to be owt and nowt.’ The DCI winked. ‘Far as I know, he didn’t even get a chance to look at the original SIM, so I doubt he’d have made a copy.’

  ‘You doubt?’

  ‘That’s as good as it gets, son. If she doesn’t like it, she can give me her SIM back and see how that works for her. But the sweetener’s non-refundable.’ He patted his pocket and manoeuvred his heavy features into a half-grin.

  Only too glad to be away from the freezing-cold claustrophobia and fibrous, asthma-inducing air of Carpet It Quick, Lev hastened away from the trading estate as fast as Jay’s pushchair would allow him. He zig-zagged through the East Manchester backstreets, past almost identical run-down Victorian terraces, certain he could hear the call to prayer from a mosque, amplified to the faithful masses by the wind, though he couldn’t spy a minaret from his vantage point. With every step he took, he felt a weight lifting incrementally, allowing the corners of his mouth to curve upwards.

  Soon, he reached the place where Sheila O’Brien was parked in an anonymous-looking Nissan four-wheel drive. A rental, no doubt.

  ‘Well?’ she asked, leaning out of the driver’s side window.

  He popped the boot, collapsed Jay’s pushchair, ramming it sideways into the space. Installed his son in the car seat at the back.

  ‘Jesus! You know how to keep the sodding tension going, don’t you?’ she said, as he clambered into the passenger seat, blowing kisses back at Jay.

  ‘Got it!’ He withdrew the baggie, waving it beneath her nose. Snatched it away when she reached out to grab it from him. ‘I want paying first. A deal’s a deal. I’ve got a future to fork out for.’ He held his hand out, expecting his palm to be crossed with rather more than silver.

  The delight in Sheila’s face – brilliant enough to light up the interior of the car and that dank street – was quickly extinguished. ‘You’re getting nothing til you’ve done another job for me.’

  That sensation of lightness that had buoyed him from Carpet It Quick to the car was replaced by a leaden feeling in the pit of his stomach. Thoughts of the judgemental social worker suddenly started to nibble away at the rosy mental image of him and Jay, spending their first night together in a new home, far, far away from shitty, gritty Manchester and its godforsaken satellite towns. ‘You said. You said you’d pay me when I got the SIM card back. Well, I have. You’re safe. And as long as you pay me, I won’t be telling no one about you and Tariq. A promise is a promise. I wouldn’t mess about with Jay’s future like that.’

  Sheila glanced back at the tiny boy in his car seat, babbling away happily to himself, pointing to the sky, the tree across the road, and the white van, parked some hundred yards away, naming them all in some language that clearly made sense to him. ‘Why did you bring him with you on a job, for Christ’s sakes? Why couldn’t you have left him with Gloria?’

  ‘Me Mam? She’s got her head stuffed up her arse since she met this new feller. She trashed the house getting ready this morning and disappeared off, saying she had to go out and get something for a date. Lipstick, new knickers, fluffy bloody handcuffs … Who knows? It’s like having teenager in the house as well as a toddler. She got stuck in a bloody maze near the Lakes! A maze. What the fuck’s that about? He buggered off and left her to be rescued by some German tourists. I don’t think she even likes him, but she keeps going back for more.’

  Tutting, Sheila shook her head. ‘She’s shag-happy. That’s what’s going on with her. I’ll deal with her later. But in the meantime, I need you to get some heavy bags for me from the safety deposit place.’

  Lev exhaled so hard that the windscreen of the Nissan steamed up. ‘Aw, man! You’re not on.’

  ‘It’s just some heavy lifting. Five rubble bags. You get to keep one if you bring them up to the car for me and help me get them stashed. I can’t lift them and they’ve got to come out, like yesterday. That DCI you just got the SIM card off gave me a hot tip. He says the tax are gonna raid me.’ With a broken red nail, she tapped the giant, glittering solitaire engagement ri
ng and the diamond-encrusted eternity rings on her tanned, slender fingers. ‘They can piss off if they think they’re getting my money! But I can’t be dragging bags and they weigh a bloody tonne.’

  ‘Why not?’ Lev ran through all the reasons why Sheila might feasibly entrust him with what was obviously a huge sum of cash. A sporting injury? Concern for her nails? He smiled, wiping the steamy windscreen with his forearm. ‘You’re up the duff, aren’t you?’

  She pushed him hard in the shoulder, her over-made-up face looking pinched. Dark under the eyes, beneath that concealer. Something was troubling Sheila O’Brien. ‘I am not up the duff!’ Started the engine, revving it for all it was worth as if to make some kind of a point. They squealed away from the kerb, unaware that the white van had started to follow them.

  ‘Nope. Whatever you say.’ He grimaced. ‘A little Conky, running round, eh? Will it inherit his eyes and nose? Ouch.’

  Glancing to the side, Lev was surprised to see Sheila had fat, shining tears standing in her eyes.

  ‘I’m giving you a big bloody bag of cash, Leviticus Bell,’ she said, blinking fast, as though she could will the tears back inside her. ‘Enough for you to stop shooting your mouth off.’

  Tariq’s baby, then. He opted to hold his tongue.

  They pulled up close to the safety deposit facility in town, among the hubbub of workers scurrying from their places of work to cheap eateries, emerging minutes later with cardboard coffee cups in their hands. Outside the office block where Sheila had found a parking space, men and women stood, muffled up in anoraks or shivering in inadequate woollen coats, dragging on vaping sticks and cigarettes, their complexions almost the same shade of grey as the sky that hung limply above them.