Barry Maitland: Babel

‘Changed my mind. Found I couldn’t do without it.’

She watched Qasim and George weaving back through the crowd, their hands full with the trays of pint glasses, when she noticed them abruptly stop. Across the bar the babble of conversation faded suddenly as everyone turned to stare at the man standing in the pub doorway. Sanjeev Manzoor was holding a brown cardboard box. The tension in his face was apparent to everyone as he stepped slowly forward towards the two men with the drinks. They seemed stunned and uncertain what to do, burdened as they were. At the last moment he glided past them and came to the table by which Kathy was standing, and placed the package in front of her, as carefully as if the slightest jolt might be fatal. A voice somewhere in the room broke the silence with a muttered ‘Shit!’ as Manzoor began to ease the lid of the box up.

He straightened upright with the box lid in his hand. Inside they could see something beneath a layer of green tissue paper. He addressed himself to Kathy.

‘Sergeant,’ he said, very tense and formal, ‘I have completed your suit.’ He drew back the tissue and lifted a hanger on which was draped a black jacket and skirt.

A roar of laughter filled the pub. Some joker called for a camera to get a picture for the front page of The Job, another for the phone number of the CIB.

Kathy took in a deep breath and said, ‘Mr Manzoor, I don’t know what to say.’

‘It is not a gift, of course. That would be misconstrued. But it is a fair price, my best price. The invoice is in the pocket. When you have tried it on, I shall make final adjustments. And I would ask one favour. It concerns my daughter, Nargis.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Yes. I have a message for her, and I would beg you to deliver it for me. Since you are my enemy, she will believe it from you. Despite all that has happened between us, I want only what is good for my daughter. I hear that she is with child. I do not know if the child is of her husband, or of the other man, but I do not care. It is my grandchild, and I want to help her. If she wishes I shall instruct my nephew in Kashmir to divorce her. Please tell her this.’

‘Very well.’

‘Thank you. And to you, sir…’ he gave a little bow to Brock, then to Bren, ‘… and you, I offer my humble apologies for any discomfort my actions may have caused you.’

Bren nodded and offered his hand, but Brock, less forgiving and suspecting Manzoor’s motives, did not. Someone told him to stay and have a drink, but he shook his head. ‘That is not possible. I have done what I came for,’ and he turned and left.

‘Blimey!’ Qasim marched forward and put his tray down on the next table. His face was red, whether from the excitement or the strain of holding the drinks Kathy wasn’t sure. ‘Never thought I’d ever see Manzoor inside a pub.’ He passed drinks to Brock and Kathy and raised his glass in a toast. ‘To old enemies.’ He hesitated a moment with the glass almost at his lips as he saw the door open again and another Asian face appear, then he relaxed and smiled, recognising Leon Desai. He had been attending another crime scene, and he looked uncharacteristically tired and grimy as he came over.

‘Get anyone a drink?’

Kathy said, ‘We’ve just been refilled. I’ll get you one. Sit down, you look beat.’

‘Yeah. I’ll have a wash first.’

They crossed the bar together, and when they were out of earshot of the others he said, ‘I won’t stay long. Can I give you a lift home?’

She hesitated, then said, ‘I chipped in for the mini-bus. I’d better go with the others, Leon.’

He gave a resigned little smile and turned away.

The following day Kathy kept her promise to Sanjeev Manzoor and called on Nargis at Chandler’s Yard. Alone in her room she wasn’t wearing a headscarf, and Kathy saw again her beautiful, long, gleaming black hair.

‘It’s a shame you have to cover that up,’ she said.

‘I’ve thought about giving up the hijab often, but I never did. Not for the same reasons as Fran. While Abu was alive I did it for his sake, and now, with the baby, I feel I need my faith to hang on to. Qasim told me about Dad turning up at the pub last night, but he didn’t say what he wanted.’

‘He asked me to give you a message. Apparently he thought it would come better from me, since I’m what he described as his enemy.’

‘That sounds like the way he thinks, yeah.’ She listened expressionless as Kathy told her what her father had said. At the end she gave a quick shake of her head. ‘That’s easy for him to say, isn’t it? He wasn’t raped, was he? He didn’t have his friend stabbed to death in the street…’

For the first time Kathy saw the turmoil beneath Nargis’ extraordinary composure. Her mouth curled with the pain of grief and she covered her face with both hands and began to sob. Kathy put an arm round her and held her till the wave of despair passed.

‘You know everything now, don’t you?’ Nargis whispered. ‘Briony told you?’

‘Yes, almost everything. If it’s any comfort, I believe they will let you keep the money Abu gave you.’

‘It’s for the baby, you see. I don’t need dad.’

‘We’d still like to know where the gun came from. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’

‘Qasim tried to find out. He thought he could prove Abu innocent if he tracked it down, but nothing came of it.’

On the way out, Kathy stopped at the counter of the Horria to speak to Qasim. For once the jukebox was silent. There were no customers and he was buttering bread slices, eyes narrowed against the smoke of the cigarette in his mouth.

‘How is she?’

‘It’s going to take time, Qasim.’

‘Sure, sure. Anyway, she’ll always have a place here if she wants it.’

‘You’re a good friend. She tells me you tried to trace the gun Abu used, to help his case.’

She wondered exactly how he’d gone about it.

‘Right. I just couldn’t believe that Abu could shoot somebody in cold blood like that. Well, I was both wrong and right, wasn’t I?’

‘We all were. So you had no more luck than us then, with the gun.’

He squinted at her through the smoke. ‘I didn’t say that. Only it didn’t help him, so I said nothing.’

‘You found out where it came from?’

‘Maybe. But I couldn’t tell you if I did. My sources wouldn’t appreciate it.’

‘Really?’ Kathy was filled with curiosity, and she thought she detected something teasing in Qasim’s manner. ‘Not even to the enemy of Sanjeev Manzoor?’

He gave a grin. ‘Well, I might drop a hint to a friend, Kathy, but I couldn’t go on the record, see?’

‘I understand.’ She leaned across the counter, all ears.

‘Young PC Talbot told me what you’d found out about the gun from the slugs-7.62 mill, probably Russian or the like, and used once before in a punch-up in North London, when a drug dealer got shot. Now it happens I may have an acquaintance who knows someone who knows someone who was mixed up in that. And through these contacts, I may have heard that someone else, a customer of one of these characters, had made inquiries about purchasing a certain item of hardware from them, and had in fact done so, round about last Christmas.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, that’s it.’

‘No it’s not. How did you know that this wouldn’t help Abu?’

Qasim scowled with fake reluctance. ‘Because…’ his voice dropping to a whisper, ‘… the party in question was at the same university as Abu, so it just made matters look worse.’

Kathy stared at him. ‘The party? Male or female?’

Qasim spread his fat fingers. ‘I’ve said enough.’

‘Come on, Qasim! Male or female?’