Cath Staincliffe - Dead Wrong

After snacking on cheese and pineapple kebabs, veggie sausages on sticks and jelly, I didn’t feel hungry enough to cook a big meal and neither did the others. It was dry and warm even if it was overcast, so we decided to have a picnic in the garden. Sheila had some hummus and cheese, I made a salad, Ray boiled some eggs and heated up some pitta bread, I opened a bottle of chilled white wine.

Maddie and Tom were busy playing with his new acquisitions and ate on the hoof.

It was rare to share a meal with Sheila, who as our lodger led a fairly independent life. She was in her first year of a geology degree and enjoying it immensely. Term was practically over and she was planning a summer travelling round – a mixture of study and socialising.

‘I’ll start up in Scotland, at Dominic’s,’ she referred to her younger son. ‘He’s kept his flat on and St Andrews will be a great base for touring. I’ll do a few of the cities then head off to the highlands.’

I groaned with envy, ‘I need a holiday.’

‘Thought you were going camping,’ said Ray.

‘Maddie, get off that trellis.’ I waited till she obeyed me. ‘Yes, I need to sort something out, borrow a tent, see if Bev and Harry can lend me theirs.’

My old friends and their three boys lived a couple of miles away in Levenshulme. We’d all squashed into that tent on shared holidays when Maddie and Sam and David had been tiny.

‘It’s mine!’ Tom’s shriek rent the air. He clung to his new scooter, Maddie stood astride it.

‘You’ve got to share, Tom.’ Maddie cast a guilty glance our way.

‘C’mon, Maddie, it’s his birthday present. Get your own bike out.’

‘I hate my bike, it’s horrible.’ She let go of the scooter which fell, but not on Tom, and wandered off to sit on the swing at the other end of the garden. Tom lifted his scooter up and stood uncertain what to do with it now he’d won sole possession. He could not yet scoot. Once he judged Maddie far enough away to pose no immediate threat, he ran to join her.

The phone broke into the conversation. I looked at Ray. ‘It won’t be for me,’ he insisted.

‘Hello?’

‘I want Sal Kilkenny.’

‘Speaking.’

‘That boy that was killed, Ahktar Khan, you’ve been asking questions about it.’ A woman’s voice, my age or younger.

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, that witness, Sonia Siddiq, she wasn’t there. She’s lying – she never saw anything, she can’t have done.’

Mancunian accent but with a tinge to the words that made me think she was Asian.

‘Who is this?’ I asked. No reply. ‘How do you know she wasn’t there? Do you know where Mrs Siddiq was, that night?’

‘She wasn’t at the club. She’s been told to say it – it’s not right, she’s lying.’ The phone went dead.

I sat down trying to digest what I’d just heard. It made sense. It made so much sense when I thought of Mrs Siddiq’s attitude, the questions that had troubled her, the delay in coming forward. What about him, though? The caller had only talked about Sonia. Emma had been astonished that Rashid had been at Nirvana. Had he? Had either of them?

But an anonymous phone call – untraceable, impossible to corroborate. A mixed blessing. Progress though. She’s lying.

Outside it had started to spot with rain. The picnic was over.

On the way to see Luke at the remand centre I played with scenarios in my head. The club, kids tripping, happy. Joey, running round with a little something for everyone, knife tucked away. Ahktar and Luke partying, Zeb irritable and pressed for cash, Emma storming off. Rashid Siddiq, on his own? Out of place, looking like some of the hired help?

Joey stabbing Ahktar, a bad trip, seeing monsters instead of his friend. Luke holding Ahktar, too drugged to cope, to stay awake. Ecstasy wires you up, lets you dance all night, but they’d taken all sorts, hadn’t they? Maybe the drugs had been bad, cut with something nasty? Or a dodgy combination powerful enough to make someone psychotic for a while?

I wiped the image clean and started again. Suppose the lads had argued, what then? Joey, eager to help, slipping Luke the knife. ‘Here Luke, you show him this, soon shut him up.’ Luke, out of it, takes the handle, stumbles. Surprise as Ahktar pitches forward, blood spilling. It wasn’t meant to be this way. Joey watching, clocking it, running. Rashid Siddiq walks on by.

With a chill in my guts I realised that there really was no guarantee that Joey’s account would exonerate Luke. Joey might not even know what had happened – only that his knife had gone and a young man lay dead. But it must be more than that, surely, to send him so far for so long?

We met in the same grim cubicle as before. Luke looked pinched and pale; he’d lost weight and the nervousness I’d noticed had given way to a dull apathy. He seemed to be half-asleep. I told him about Mrs Deason buying a new knife from Henson’s. He frowned in concentration. ‘You think Joey did it?’

‘I think his knife was used. That’s the only reason she’d go out and buy a new one, and it partly accounts for him doing a runner. Though I think there’s more to it than that.’

He blinked a couple of times and shook his head. I wondered whether he was getting some sort of sedative, he seemed so dull.

‘We don’t have to convict anyone else,’ I said. ‘We just need to make the charge against you look doubtful. I’ve seen Emma, she wanted to know how you were.’ He looked mildly surprised at that. ‘She’s convinced you’re innocent. She split up with Zeb that night, hasn’t seen anyone since, but she had some interesting things to tell me. Your dad probably mentioned it. Emma said Rashid Siddiq worked with Zeb and would have known Ahktar, by sight if nothing else. So the Siddiqs have been lying about whether they knew Ahktar, and Zeb Khan has been lying as well, claiming he didn’t know Siddiq. For some reason he wants to make a secret of it. Emma also told me that the brothers are involved in drugs, importing stuff. Zeb and Rashid Siddiq collect the stuff and distribute it. You’re not surprised?’

‘Ahktar said something once, how they were getting into deep water. He knew it was happening but he never had anything to do with it. They were family, so I suppose he heard stuff but he kept his distance. Zeb is a jerk anyway.’

‘Emma says he owed Jay money.’

‘He owed everyone money,’ Luke said, ‘but what’s all this got to do with me and what happened to Ahktar?’

If only I knew. ‘There’s something else which makes me more sure that there is a connection,’ I went on. ‘I got a phone call on Saturday, an anonymous one. The caller said that Mrs Siddiq had not been at Nirvana that night, that her statement was all lies. That someone had told her what to say.’

Luke looked at me, struggling to work out what I meant.

‘I’ve no proof,’ I said, ‘but it fits with what I’ve heard so far. When I saw her she got very defensive about the details of that evening – innocent stuff about where they’d sat and who they’d seen. If she’s perjured herself, it’s good news for you as their testimony is the biggest part of the case against you. There’s no motive, after all.’

‘What about him?’

‘If all I’ve heard is true, Rashid Siddiq is a very nasty piece of work. He’s employed as a minder, security man, whatever, by Jay and every so often he’s involved in drug smuggling. According to Emma, he drives down to Southampton or up to Hull or over to Holyhead with Zeb and they collect a little something for Jay. Now, this hard man sees a crime committed. He does nothing at the time but late the next day he’s at the police station offering himself up as a witness. To me, that’s a bit peculiar. Most people in his position wouldn’t go anywhere near the police. They don’t want to be known to the police.’