A Private Business (41 page)

He shrugged. “Easy enough. Betty or Grint could have asked Maria to hold onto something for one or other of them for a second. They made sure they were wearing gloves. Simple.”

Mumtaz poured more wine for her guest and then drank some Coke. “What I really don't understand is how Maria could have had seemingly full knowledge about the child, which she kept, but be in total denial about Betty's knowledge of it.”

“She blocked it out. Maybe,” Mark said. “Maybe she just didn't mention it to Betty because she was so ashamed. You'd have to talk to her psychiatrist. But I think that when her husband died something gave inside her. To finally give up on her daughter's body was a big sacrifice
for her. And yet at the same time by burying Leonard and the baby together she was putting the child into the care of a man she'd loved and trusted. Only later on, out on the circuit doing all the knob gags and whatever, did the double bereavement and the guilt really hit her. She was back in the old days when all she did, all the time, was rip people apart to keep her own demons at bay.” He shrugged. “In my opinion, that is.”

She smiled.

“She also took a lot of psychiatric drugs, some of which Betty gave her,” Mark said. “Psychiatric patients do give each other their drugs sometimes, it's well known. Maybe she did it at Grint's suggestion, which may not have been overt. I mean, we know he has hypnotic skills. Do you know if all the objects she told you about were real?”

“I saw them,” Mumtaz said. “I still had the peacock feathers, I gave them to the police.”

Mark took a sip from his glass. “From what you've told me she was in such a mess at the end, anything could have gone on. If Grint did plant suggestions in her mind then she could still have those in there. But unless that happens and somebody sees it, or unless she fingers Grint, if she even knows what he was doing …”

“Grint gets away with it.”

Mark frowned. “In this world, Tazzie, the world of faith, magic and illusion, anything's possible.”

* * *

Lee opened the front door and saw Vi Collins standing on the doorstep.

“It's half past one!” he said. He hadn't been in bed, just dozing in front of the telly. “What's going on?”

“Nothing.”

Vi pushed past him and entered his living room. As usual it was squeaky clean. Lee looked at her with sore, bleary eyes. “Vi?”

She walked over to Chronus, asleep on his perch. “Came to see the parrot,” she said.

“You've too much time on your hands since you caught that Olympic Flasher,” Lee said. “Vi, it's the middle of the night and Chronus is a mynah bird. What do you really want?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Oh.”

She flared, “Well don't drown me in your enthusiasm, darling!”

Chronus opened an eye and looked at her. “Well at least I woke
you
up,” Vi said. Then she turned and stared at Lee. “I'm not going to beg.”

“Vi …”

She raised a hand. “I'll go.” She stroked Chronus's head, smiled and began to walk back toward the front door. But just before she got there, Lee put his hand on her arm. She stopped.

“Stay,” he said. “The bird likes you.”

She took a step toward him and he placed his other hand on her hip.

“I'm sorry …” he muttered. “It's been a long time.”

“Last century.” She moved in closer, so that he could feel her breath on his face.

“Not exactly rushing into anything, are we.”

She kissed him and Lee Arnold became silent.

Maria wrote what she felt in the notebook Dr. Black had given her so that she could record her thoughts. She read the entry she'd just written.

Paul Grint and Betty Muller are innocent of any wrongdoing on my account. I want Paul and the church to have all my money, all my property, all my goods. I am the only criminal. I killed my own innocent child. Please don't blame any of the nurses or the doctors for this.

And then she signed it.

The door creaked open. Maria put her notebook underneath her bedcovers. Nurse Julie smiled. “Try and get some kip, Maria, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Maria slid down so that she was lying in the bed.

“Night.” Nurse Julie left.

Maria got out of bed. She was on fifteen-minute observations, what some still called “suicide watch.” So she had fifteen minutes …

She took out of her knickers the tie the woman who'd prostituted her own children to buy drugs had sold to her
in the dayroom and tied it around her neck. The woman said that if you managed to tie the other end round the door handle and then loll your head forward you could be dead inside fifteen minutes. She quickly tied the other end around the doorknob and leaned forward with all of her weight.

Mark had gone. In the morning the rubbish would be collected and so Mumtaz filled the wheelie bin up with the last of the waste from the kitchen and then pushed the whole thing out onto the pavement. Mark's visit had been nice but also upsetting. Because of what he'd told her about Grint, Betty Muller and Maria. It was possible Grint never was going to pay for what he'd done to those women. Try as she might, she couldn't find that leaflet that had come to the office. Given time, Grint would engineer another scam, try taking other people's money.

She was walking back down the darkened garden path when she heard a noise behind her. She turned and saw the Silver Prince standing by her gate, his trademark trainers shining in the moonlight.

“What do you want?” Her heart was pounding.

“Your husband still has a debt,” he said.

Shaking, she nevertheless walked toward him. “My husband is dead,” she said. “Is that why you've been following me? Because Ahmed had a debt?”

He didn't reply.

“Well, you're out of luck, I'm behind with the mortgage,” she said. “I have nothing.”

“I don't think that's strictly true. I've been watching you for some time, remember? You have a job, parents, friends.”

She moved still closer to him. “Get out of my garden,” she said. “Leave us alone!”

“Oh, I'd love to,” he said. “But my boss, a man Ahmed Hakim was deeply indebted to, is still owed money by your husband and now you'll have to pay, I'm afraid. You're a solvent lady and my boss has decided that you have inherited Ahmed's debt.”

“Debt for what? And who is this boss of yours?” Mumtaz asked.

“Ahmed, amongst his many vices, liked a little flutter on the roulette wheel,” the man said. “He was absolutely rubbish at it, just as he was absolutely rubbish at paying what he owes.”

For a second she didn't know what to say. Ahmed had been many things, but a gambler was a new one on Mumtaz. She swallowed. “I'll go to the police,” she said.

“You can't.”

“I can. I can tell them what you did to Ahmed.”

“And explain to them why you didn't give me to them before?”

“Yes!”

And then he said, “You could, but you wouldn't want
young Shazia to go through what her father did to her again, would you? Anyway, you owe my boss, Mrs. Hakim, for stopping Ahmed raping you—and the kid. You are going to need some friends in high places if you want to get that girl married off well, without her virginity. So I would pay up, if I were you. We'll discuss terms in the next few weeks.”

Every bone in Mumtaz's body vibrated with fury. How did this man know that Ahmed had abused Shazia? No one knew that. Had Ahmed told him? Boasted about it maybe? “I'll see you dead before that happens!” she said and then she walked through her front door without looking back.

The man in the silver trainers smiled. He knew when women were attracted to him and he knew they often did it in spite of themselves. He also knew he had Mumtaz where he, and his boss, wanted her.

It was amazing what the mind did sometimes. Sometimes it just woke up. Betty Muller sat bolt upright on her prison cot and she knew exactly how Maria's key had got into her bag. She'd seen him do it! That last day at Maria's house, Paul had slipped it into her bag and then he'd just smiled at her.

She'd only told him by phone what Maria was about to do later that afternoon. So how had he known? Had he set her up as an accomplice to that act? Had he wanted
the police to think she'd been terrorizing Maria? That had been God, hadn't it? Oh, if only Maria had taken the gift of a child that God had given her and been grateful!
She
would have been.
She
would have done anything to have a child. Anything. How she'd hated Maria for that. Hated her!

All she had to decide now was whether she was going to tell anybody about what Paul had done. She tried to have a little practice to see what it sounded like. But when she said Paul Grint's name, she found that, try as she might, she could only say nice things about him.

This book would have been impossible without help and input from the following people.

For loving the whole idea of the Arnold Agency I must thank my agent, Juliet Burton, my editor at Quercus, Jane Wood and my Quercus publicist, Lucy Ramsey. You really got behind it, and me, and I thank you so much for that.

Comedy help came from Warren Lakin, Hattie Hayridge and Susan Murray. You all taught me so much about a profession that almost defines the word “guts.” Thank you.

For accompanying me on seemingly endless jaunts around the Olympic site, the Thames shoreline, in and out of ruins and cemeteries, as well as feeding me, putting me up and putting up with me, I have to thank my good friends Kathy Lowe, Jim Reeve and Sarah Bancroft.

Help also came, as usual, from the wonderful Newham Bookshop in Plaistow, from Stratford Circus and from arange of local people, some with names and some without as well as from familial and other sources who prefer to remain anonymous.

Equipment advice was provided by Lorraine Electronics Surveillance of London E10 and much thanks to them for that.

Finally I'd like to thank my family and my friends, particularly my husband, my son and my mother. And, although she is sadly no longer with us, I'd also like to thank my friend and fellow author Gilda O'Neill who loved the east end and knew so much about it and its people. I hope she would have liked this book.