Michael Fowler - Cold Death

“Mr Hassan could you speak in English please?”

He turned back to Grace. “Sorry about that. My wife doesn’t speak any English I told her you were making enquiries about Samia. She wants to know what type of enquiries you are making?”

“There is no easy way to say this Mr Hassan but we are concerned about her whereabouts.”

His eyes diverted again. Hunter watched them latch onto his wife’s. Hers were wide and searching. There was a slight delay in his response. “Why are you concerned?”

“Well we’re trying to track her down but we don’t know where she is.”

Mrs Hassan had started chattering unintelligibly again. Mohammed replied similarly his hands becoming animated.

“Mr Hassan if you wouldn’t mind?” checked Grace.

“Sorry,” he apologised, “my wife is asking what is going on — why are the police here?”

“Do you know where your daughter is?”

“Of course I do she is in Pakistan,” he replied sharply.

“In Pakistan,” interjected Hunter. “Are you sure about that Mr Hassan?”

“Of course I am. Why are you asking me these questions about my daughter?”

“As my colleague has already said we have concerns about her whereabouts.”

“Who has said these things? Who is causing us this trouble?”

“No one is causing you any trouble Mr Hassan all we are here for is to check on your daughter’s whereabouts,” continued Hunter.

“She is in Pakistan.”

“Whereabouts in Pakistan?” came back Grace.

“She is staying with my family in a small village in the Punjab.”

“What’s the name of the village?”

“Look what is this all about. All you keep telling me is that you have concerns about her. What concerns?”

“That she might have come to some harm.”

“My daughter has not come to any harm she is with my family.” He was starting to get agitated.

Hunter alternated his gaze between the man and his wife. He could sense that something was not right between them but he did not want to damage the enquiry at this early stage. “Mr Hassan — may I call you Mohammed?” He looked for acknowledgement.

The man nodded.

“Mohammed we’re not here to cause you and your wife any anguish it’s just that a close friend of hers has not seen her for a while and has not been able to get hold of her and therefore reported it to us because they thought it was unusual,” he lied. “Now if you can just give us a little bit more information as to where she is so that we can contact her it would be a great help.”

There was a delayed response before Mr Hassan answered. “You won’t be able to get hold of her it’s a small village in the mountains. My family do not have a phone. It is not like it is here in England. They are quite poor. They have to walk miles to the nearest town.”

“What about your daughter, did she not take her mobile?”

There was a slight pause then he replied, “it will not work in the mountains.”

“When did she go to Pakistan?” interrupted Grace. “And where did she go from?”

“I can’t remember the exact date, it was about two months ago. She flew to Lahore from London. I can’t remember if it was Gatwick or Heathrow.”

Grace scribbled some notes in the folder she was carrying. She held it away from his prying eyes so he couldn’t see what she was writing. Then she fixed him with a warm fake smile. “Thank you for that. That’s a big help.”

“Mohammed just one final thing before we leave you in peace,” Hunter continued the deceit, but because of the nagging doubts he had from Mr Hassan’s answers he knew they had to get sight of where Samia lived before they left. “It’s just a procedural thing but in all cases where someone reports something like this to us we have to check physically for ourselves that they haven’t come to any harm in their own home. You do understand don’t you? We would be heavily criticised by our bosses if we didn’t do a check.”

There was an uneasy silence for the best part of twenty seconds. Mr Hassan glanced down, seemed to be checking his hands, then he shot a glance at his wife before returning his gaze back to Hunter. “I don’t suppose we have any choice.”

“Mohammed it’s not a matter of choice, it would just help us with our enquiries. We’d be able to report back to our bosses that we’re okay with everything,” he added his own fake smile.

Mr Hassan began talking with his wife in Urdu. She huffed and clucked back and made an exaggerated gesture of throwing part of her sari back over her shoulder before turning and making for the back entrance.

“My wife is not happy with this interference. We are very private people. We have not done anything wrong.”

“Mohammed we’re not accusing you of anything, it’s just a formality we have to go through,” Hunter replied. “Now if you can just show us her room and then we’ll leave you.”

Mr Hassan set the lock in the shops front doors, turned a sign around to ‘closed’ and pointed them through to the rear of the store.

The entranceway at the back led them into a small semi-darkened stairway. It was cooler back here. Beyond that Hunter could see a large breeze-blocked room that was full of boxed goods. This was obviously the store room.

The bare wooden stairs led up to a door marked private and stepping through they found themselves in a lavishly carpeted hallway. There were five doors off the hall. A couple of those doors were open and Hunter could make out the lounge and what appeared to be a dining kitchen area. He guessed the other three rooms were the bathroom and two bedrooms.

“This is Samia’s old room,” said Mr Hassan pushing open one of the closed doors.

Hunter and Grace followed him in. Hunter’s immediate thoughts were that this room was more like a guest room than someone’s bedroom. It was completely devoid of any personal effects whatsoever. He could tell by marks on the wall that there been pictures or photographs hung up at one time but these had been removed. The bed had a duvet draped over it but the duvet cover and bottom sheet had been removed and were neatly folded and lay across the pillows. Hunter guessed it had not been slept in for some time. Against one wall was a chest of drawers the top of which was bare and next to the window on the back wall was a wardrobe. Hunter slipped past Mr Hassan and moved towards the wardrobe.

“Do you mind?” he asked but didn’t wait for his answer as he pulled open one door. He looked inside. It was empty except for a few wire coat hangers dangling from a metal rail inside. Next he checked the chest, tugging open its bottom drawer first. Moving upwards he slid out the next three. Whilst he carried out an eye search he asked some background questions of Mohammed — how long he and his wife had owned the business; how long they had been resident in this country; which region of Pakistan they had come from; the name of the village where the family lived and the place and date of birth of Samia. All formal questions but he asked them in an informal way in order to obtain as much information as possible without setting off alarm bells. He made a mental record of the answers to keep him at ease.

Finally he pushed all four empty drawers back into place and as he straightened he did another quick scan of the room setting a mental picture for his next visit, which he knew would not be in the too distant future. This room is soulless he thought to himself. Things are definitely not right but he knew they couldn’t move too fast under the circumstances. He had to be patient — make the enquiries first and cover all angles.

“Did your daughter take everything which belonged to her? Did she not leave anything behind?”

“My daughter has gone to join my family back in Pakistan. If you want to know she has gone to marry my cousin out there and make a new life for herself.”