Mark Billingham - Good as Dead

‘Why was he in prison?’

Akhtar shook his head as though it were a long story, or else one he could still not quite believe. ‘He was trying to protect a friend, that’s all. They were doing nothing wrong and they were set upon. It was all a mess, a big mess… ’

Helen nodded, happy to let him continue. Next to her, Mitchell was still and silent. He had not drunk the tea Akhtar had made for him, not said a word since the newsagent had come back into the room. He sat staring at the floor, his chin on his chest, breathing deeply.

‘We were told that he would be OK,’ Akhtar said. ‘They promised us, the police officers and the bloody lawyers. They said he would be OK and that they would be lenient. Liars, all of them. Lying bastards.’ There was anger in his voice, but it was controlled. ‘He was just a boy, for heaven’s sake, and we trusted them because we were trying to do the right thing. You understand?’

‘Of course I do,’ Helen said.

He nodded. He seemed pleased, but he was studying her.

It was good that they were talking, Helen knew that. She needed to convince him that she did understand, and more, that she sympathised. She needed him to believe that she was on his side and that they would sort everything out together.

That when this was all over, they would walk out of the shop as friends.

‘What happened to him?’

Akhtar grunted. ‘Well, there is what happened and what they say happened and they are two very different things.’

‘What do they say happened?’

‘He was attacked, again. He was attacked and later on he took his own life, but I know my son, believe me. It is not true.’

‘Had he been all right, up to then? When you visited him?’

‘He was not happy, of course he wasn’t. We talked about the appeal and all that and we tried to stay in good spirits, but it was clear enough in his face. He would not have been able to stand it in that place for so long.’ He raised a hand, eager to make a point. ‘But that did not mean he would ever do harm to himself, not at all.’

‘Did he have friends in there?’

‘There was one boy he spoke about, but I think he tried to keep to himself as much as possible. He was always quiet, you understand? Always studying, studying, studying.’

‘Sounds like a bright lad,’ Helen said.

‘Yes, yes, very bright, but in my opinion that only makes it worse. It is more frustrating for someone like my son in one of those places. He did not belong there.’

‘When did you see him last?’

Akhtar blinked slowly, remembering. ‘One week before he died. He was cheerful and we talked about his sister’s birthday and what I could buy for her. To give her as a gift from him, you know? He missed her and his elder brother very much… very much, and this is another reason I know that he was not responsible for his own death.’ He shook his head, waved the flat of his hand in front of him, the certainty bringing a half-smile to his face. ‘He could never have chosen not to see them again.’

‘Why do you think they say that he did?’ Helen was careful to sound as incredulous as possible. She shook her head, as though the very notion were preposterous.

‘You ask them.’ Akhtar spat the words out. ‘Because they are liars like the police officers and the lawyers from the bloody CPS. Maybe because it is easier and will cause less trouble. Nobody wants to admit that anyone could be killed in a place like that. That such things are allowed to happen.’ He leaned towards her, the anger building again. ‘But they are allowed to happen. They were allowed and now Amin will never see his sister get married, will never have the life he was working so hard for.’

He shook his head and bit back whatever was coming next. He reached across to the desktop and moved the gun a few inches closer to him. He leaned back in his chair. ‘Now it is up to your friend Tom Thorne to find out the truth.’

Helen barely knew Thorne, though she had formed a good opinion about him based on how he had behaved during the investigation into Paul’s death the year before. Now, she realised, she was counting on him every bit as much as Akhtar was. Tom Thorne had suddenly become the best friend she had.

‘I know he’ll do his best,’ she said.

*

‘My son is dead,’ Nadira Akhtar said. She spoke quietly and without colour. ‘That’s all, it’s finished.’ She turned her head away and stared out at the concrete blur of the A40 moving past the window.

Thorne accelerated to overtake a white van, gave the driver a good hard look. ‘Javed doesn’t think it’s finished.’

She turned to look at him. ‘My husband is… ’ She waved the thought away and went back to her view.

‘Stupid? Stubborn?’

‘He is not stupid. Never that.’

‘What he’s doing is stupid,’ Thorne said. ‘It’s beyond stupid.’ He waited for a response, but none was forthcoming. ‘You know what’s going on in the shop?’

She nodded. ‘They told me.’

‘Did you have any idea he was going to do something like this?’

‘Of course not.’

‘You knew he was angry though, right?’

‘Javed has been angry for a long time.’

Barndale was a medium-sized Young Offenders Institution thirty-five miles north-west of London; its location in an area of lush Buckinghamshire countryside a constant source of irritation to the well-heeled residents in the nearby towns of Chorleywood and Amersham. From Javed Akhtar’s shop, Thorne had driven north and crossed the river at Chelsea Bridge. The blue light cleared a path through the traffic into Earls Court and Kensington until he picked up the Westway at White City. Even without the flashing light, it was only ten minutes in the outside lane from there to the M40, then a couple of junctions on the M25 and they would be there. No more than forty minutes all told.

‘Javed doesn’t think that Amin killed himself,’ Thorne said. ‘He wants me to prove it. To find out what happened.’

Nadira laughed derisively. ‘I want to win the lottery, so what?’

‘You’re not holding people at gunpoint until you do though.’

She turned to him. She was ashen. She said, ‘What is it that you want?’

‘You can start by telling me you think he’s wrong. About what happened at Barndale.’

‘My son took his own life,’ she said. She might have been telling Thorne her son’s name or how old he was. A simple statement of fact. ‘He could not cope with what had happened to him. What was happening to him every day. He was not… a hard boy.’

‘So why does your husband believe that he was killed?’

She thought about it for half a minute. ‘It’s easier for him to believe that, perhaps. He likes to think that everyone is lying to him.’ She stretched her legs out, but they still did not reach the end of the footwell. ‘He doesn’t really sleep any more, so there is a lot of time for brooding on things and for foolish ideas to take hold.’

‘What about you?’ Thorne asked.

‘Me, what?’

‘How are you sleeping?’

She gave a small shrug, and smoothed out the material of her sari against her legs. ‘I have some pills. It’s fine.’ She glanced at Thorne. ‘You have to move on.’

Nadira Akhtar sounded fine. She spoke as if she had come to terms with what had happened to her son in a way that her husband had not, but Thorne could sense the anguish beneath the matter-of-fact exterior. He knew this was how couples coped sometimes. How they handled disaster. There was little point in both partners going to pieces and, if one did, the other had to at least maintain the pretence of getting on with things. Hadn’t he and Louise done much the same thing after the miscarriage?

All a front, of course, but one that had served its purpose for a time.