Jerry said, ‘Where’d you get the knife, Rusul?’
‘The shank? Man bought it in Asda.’
‘It’s not a “shank”, you twat. It’s a Victorinox kitchen knife for cutting up cauliflowers. I doubt if it said anything on the packaging about murdering your mates with it. When did you buy it?’
‘Yesterday morning.’
‘So you bought it with the specific intention of killing Attaf?’
‘Man don’t know, blud. Man wanted to teach that paigon a lesson, like, but man didn’t think about him actually being dead, like.’
‘You didn’t think that if you stabbed him eleven times with an eight-inch kitchen knife there was more than a remote possibility that he might snuff it?’
‘Man was so aggy, man didn’t not think about that. That Attaf, he was always irking me, like, but that was always just jokes, you know what I mean? But then he started chirpsing with Joya, and took her off me, even though she was my wifey, you know? And she had my baby inside her, and he only offed it. How would you feel, blud, if this pig here offed your baby? Would you forgive him?’
Jerry turned and looked at Mallett.
‘I think the chances of that happening are what you might call infinitesimal. And here in the nick, Rusul, we usually refer to ourselves as “officers”. Otherwise, blud, we get irked. We might even get aggy.’
It was 11:30 in the morning, and they were sitting in the bare, beige-painted interview room. Jerry and Mallett were facing Rusul across the table, and Rusul’s duty solicitor was sitting next to him – a thin young man in a blue Marks and Spencer’s suit. He had a prominent nose and thinning blond hair, and Jerry reckoned that he would be bald in less than three years.
‘Well,’ said Jerry, closing the file in front of him. ‘I don’t think there’s a lot more that I need to ask you. You’ve admitted that you purchased a knife earlier in the day with the deliberate intention of taking your revenge on Attaf. It wasn’t as though you picked up some random knife that was lying around the karate club and stabbed him in a spontaneous fit of rage. You purchased the knife to kill him, and you had all day to think it over, so you could have changed your mind, but you didn’t.’
He turned to Rusul’s solicitor and said, ‘Anything you want to add, Mr Teape?’
Mr Teape was wiping his nose with a crumpled-up tissue. ‘I’m going to apply for my client to undergo a full psychiatric examination. I am strongly of the opinion that he suffers from an underlying mental disorder, and that this disorder led to his violent over-reaction when he discovered that his former partner had been encouraged to terminate her pregnancy.’
‘You didn’t know that Joya was pregnant when you and she split up though, did you, Rusul?’ asked Jerry.
‘That’s beside the point,’ said Mr Teape. ‘Whether he was aware that she was pregnant or not, it was a tragedy, nonetheless. Supposing she had gone full term and given birth to the child, and then years later he had found out that he was a father but had never known?’
‘But she had an abortion, and she was well within the twenty-four week limit, and the choice was totally hers. If he was going to be angry at anybody, he should have been angry at her, but it was her body, and ultimately, it was her decision, and it certainly gave him no justification to murder Attaf.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mr Teape. ‘Manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, that’s what we’ll be going for.’ He picked up his cheap leather briefcase and tucked his notes into it.
Mallett switched off the voice recorder. ‘Don’t count on it, Mr Teape. Murder on the grounds of being a jealous dim-witted arsehole, that’s what we’ll be going for.’
*
They found Joya in the back of her father’s grocery store. It was halfway along Streatham High Road, a wide two-mile stretch of the main A23 into central London, lined on either side with a tatty collection of discount stores and Chinese restaurants and travel agencies and vaping shops.
Sanghavi’s Halal Foods was gloomy inside and smelled pungently of cinnamon and turmeric and allspice and cloves. The shelves were packed with Najma chorizo sticks and Royal gajar halwa dessert and Haloodies chicken fillets, as well as brown rice and parathas and poppadoms.
Mallett took a deep breath and said, ‘Blimey. If this doesn’t clear me catarrh, nothing will.’
A tubby Pakistani man in a green striped apron was standing behind the counter, prodding furiously at a tablet. He had a shiny bald head and circular spectacles and a heavy black moustache that reminded Jerry of the brushes in front of a road sweeper.
‘Looking for a young lady by the name of Joya,’ said Jerry, holding up his warrant card.
‘Joya? Yes. I am her father. What do you want of her?’
‘And your name is?’
‘It is over the front of my shop. Sanghavi.’
‘Okay, Mr Sanghavi. Any chance of having a word with Joya? Gather she comes in to give you a hand now and again. Is she here in the shop today?’
‘Is this about Attaf?’
‘We need to speak confidentially to your daughter, Mr Sanghavi. I’m afraid we can’t discuss it with you.’
‘She was told about Attaf late last night by one of her friends. She is very upset, but she insisted on coming in to help me in the shop today. She said she did not want to let me down.’
‘So she’s here?’
‘I told her so many times that I did not approve of her friends from that karate club. They were all nimna varga – low-class. I met that Attaf once though, and he was not as bad as some of the others. Clean and very polite, and called me “Sāhēba”. But Joya promised me faithfully that she would not see any of them again. Please do not tell her this, but we will be taking her to Pakistan next month in order to marry her to her cousin. That will put an end to all of our worries about who she is mixing with.’
‘Oh. Lucky girl,’ said Mallett. ‘How old’s her cousin?’
‘Forty-three. But a fine man. He has made a lot of money in mobile phones.’
‘So… can we talk to her?’ asked Jerry.
‘Yes. She is in the stockroom in the back. Just come with me.’
Jerry and Mallett followed Mr Sanghavi down one of the narrow aisles to the back of the shop. The stockroom was piled high with sacks of rice and boxes of Pakistani food and drink, like Khalai Khaas almond and cardamom biscuits and tinned goat curry and cans of cow urine. Sitting on one of the boxes was a young woman of about eighteen or nineteen, wearing a red silk headscarf, a loose pink sweater and jeans. She had been talking on her iPhone, but as soon as her father appeared, she switched it off and pushed it into her pocket.
‘Joya, these are police officers. They wish to speak to you about Attaf.’
Joya stood up. ‘What about Attaf?’ she demanded. Jerry immediately recognised the defiance of somebody who is stricken by grief but is trying hard not to show it. ‘Attaf is dead.’
‘Well, that’s what we want to talk to you about. And in particular, why he’s dead.’
‘How should my daughter know why he is dead?’ Mr Sanghavi demanded. He was standing in the doorway with his arms folded. ‘Surely, you should be asking that of the fellow who killed him.’
‘Mr Sanghavi, we do need to talk to Joya in private.’
‘She is my daughter, officer. She lives in my house. She is a member of my family. What is the business of a member of my family is also my business.’
‘Not in this case, sir, with all due respect.’
‘And why not, may I ask?’
‘Because she may want to confide in us information that she’s reluctant to share with you. And since this is a murder case, that information could be of critical importance in prosecuting the offender.’
‘That is ridiculous. She tells me everything.’
‘All right then,’ said Mallett. ‘Who’s her favourite pop singer?’
‘How should I know?’
‘There you are then. QED. She doesn’t tell you everything.’
Mr Sanghavi stayed where he was, in the doorway. Jerry took a deep, patient breath then said, ‘Look, sir, I’m sorry, but we have to talk to Joya in confidence. If we can’t do it here, we’ll have to ask her to come down to the station with us.’
‘Well… very well. But I am sure she has nothing to tell you that can help you. Why should she? You don’t, do you, Joya?’
Joya said nothing but lowered her eyes, her hands clasped together like a meek and dutiful daughter. Mr Sanghavi made a snorting noise then went back into the shop. Jerry closed the storeroom door. He knew that Mr Sanghavi wouldn’t be able to hear them even if it were open, but he wanted to give Joya the feeling that their conversation was going to be truly held in private.
‘How long were you dating Rusul?’ asked Jerry.
‘Not quite a year,’ said Joya. Her accent was a strange blend of South London and Pakistani. She pronounced ‘quite’ as ‘qvite’ but ‘year’ as ‘yurr’. ‘I met him at my friend’s walima.’
‘Walima? That’s a wedding party, unless I’ve got it wrong.’
‘No, that is right. And because it was a walima, Rusul was dressed very smart and he was behaving very polite. It was only after I had been dating him for two or three months that I found out how rough he could be. His room was like a pigsty, and even his flatmates used to give him a hard time for being so messy. He never changed his sheets, and all his dirty clothes he just dropped on the floor.’
‘So why didn’t you dump him?’ asked Mallett.
‘Oh, come on, ’Edge,’ said Jerry. ‘Same reason women don’t walk out on blokes who give them a regular pasting. They always believe they’re the ones who can change them. And then there’s l-o-v-e, of course.’
‘I did love him, yes,’ said Joya. ‘He was rough, and not so clean, but he never hit me. Sometimes we had bad arguments, but most of the time, he was funny and he was very generous and… well.’
‘He was good in bed?’
Joya blushed and looked away.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ said Jerry. ‘When did you find out you were expecting his baby?’
‘Who told you such a thing?’
‘Rusul himself.’
Joya didn’t answer for almost a quarter of a minute. Jerry could tell by the way she was breathing and biting her lip that she was close to breaking down.
Eventually, she said, ‘Two months ago. August the eleventh.’
‘But you didn’t tell Rusul? Why not?’
‘We were going through a difficult time. Rusul had lost his job at the garage because he was always late for work. And also—’
‘Yes? Also, what?’
‘I went to see my bhavishya kahēnāra.’
‘Oh, you did, did you? And what’s one of them when they’re at home?’
‘My fortune teller. She is a friend of my aunt. Her name is Hazeema, and she lives in Mitcham. Somehow she knew that I had come to see her because I was pregnant, even before I told her that I was expecting Rusul’s baby.’
Joya paused and sat silent again, her black eyelashes sparkling with tears. Jerry and Mallett stood patiently and waited for her to collect herself.
Eventually, Joya said, ‘Hazeema gave me a blessing. Then she laid her hand on my stomach and closed her eyes so that she could tell what the baby’s life was going to be like. When she took her hand away, she told me that there was something wrong with the baby. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but it wasn’t growing proper.’
‘How did she work that out?’ asked Mallett. ‘She’s got X-ray hands, has she?’
‘Everything she has ever told me in my life has always come true,’ said Joya. ‘She told me when I was only fourteen that I would meet a man who liked to fight and that I would give him a strange baby. She also told me that after that, I would marry an old man with lots of money.’
Jerry looked at Mallett and pulled a face.
‘Have to meet this Hazeema,’ said Mallett. ‘Maybe she can tip me the wink about Friday’s lotto numbers.’
‘I love Hazeema,’ said Joya. ‘I love her and I trust her. I can tell her things that I could never tell my mum or my dad.’
‘So… after what she told you about the baby… that’s why you decided on a termination?’ asked Jerry.
‘Not straight away. But it put me off Rusul even more. I went to the karate club to meet him one evening and that’s when I met Attaf.’
‘And that’s when you gave Rusul the old heave-ho?’
‘Attaf was so sweet and gentle and understanding. His family welcomed me too. I used to go to his house and his mother taught me how to cook cardamom kheer.’
‘But it was Attaf who arranged for you to have a termination?’
‘Yes. I told him that there was something wrong with the baby and he said that I should. He said that Ibn Hajar Al Asqalani believed that it was the right thing to do, when a baby isn’t right.’
‘Oh well,’ said Mallett. ‘So long as old Ibn Hajar Al-What’s-His-Name thought it was okay, no worries.’
‘He’s a great Islamic scholar,’ said Joya.
Jerry said, ‘As I understand it, you got the pills off a doctor in Brockley that Attaf took you to, and you had the termination at home?’
‘At Attaf’s parents’ house, when they were away for the weekend.’
‘And I’m sorry to have to ask you this, and I know that it probably wasn’t nearly developed enough for you to tell, but did you see any evidence that the foetus wasn’t properly formed?’
Joya shook her head, and shivered at the recollection. ‘I felt it, when it slipped out, but I didn’t look.’
‘Only one more question then. Did Rusul say anything to you about how he felt about Attaf? Did he say he was angry or jealous? Did he threaten to hurt him at all?’
‘When he found out about the baby, he came to me and asked me if it was true. He didn’t shout or scream when I said that it was, but I could tell that he was very angry. All he said was, “Jīvana mātē ēīka jīvana”. That means “a life for a life”. At the time, I didn’t really understand what he meant. Of course I do now.’
‘Would you be prepared to repeat that in court, if you were asked to?’
‘He killed Attaf. I loved Attaf. If this was Pakistan, he would be hanged.’
‘So that’s a yes then?’