The nursery where Emma Clegg worked was housed in a conversion of one of the grand Victorian villas in Whalley Range. When it was first built, the area was an upmarket suburb for the merchants of Manchester – those doing well in the cotton trade and associated industries. It boasted spacious family housing, tree-lined streets and a grand park nearby.
Nowadays many of the villas are crumbling though the trees are still thriving. I could see the poverty of the area reflected in the dismal row of shops I passed; half of them were boarded up, littered with posters and daubed with graffiti, the others were shabby with neglect, roofs pitted with holes, paint peeling. There was a young prostitute on the corner where I turned; she looked bored and ill-tempered.
Emma was waiting for me at the door. We walked along to the park and found a bench with enough wood left on it to support us. There were squirrels and magpies busy chasing each other in the trees, and across the field a group of boys on mountain bikes swooped and wove around each other. The day was turning cooler but it hadn’t started to rain. They’d just mown the grass and the smell was intoxicating.
Emma was convinced that Luke Wallace had been wrongly accused. It was refreshing to talk to someone who was keen to help defend him. Nobody had bothered to interview her. Understandable, as she had left the club early on the night of the murder and had no close connection with any of the parties involved.
‘They were such good mates, I couldn’t believe it when I heard.’
‘You can’t think of any reason why Luke might attack Ahktar?’
‘He wouldn’t,’ she insisted. ‘They never fell out. They were cool. Never a bad word between them. I mean, there’s some people always taking the hump or losing their rag, like Zeb, say, foul temper. There’s times I had to pull him away from fights.’ She shook her head at the memory. ‘But Luke and Ahktar, they were as soft as sh-’ She blushed. I grinned to reassure her.
She opened her Tupperware lunchbox. Inside were two crisp-breads, a tiny pot of cottage cheese, a spoon and an apple. She took out the cottage cheese and, spooning it onto the crispbread, took a bite. ‘You seen Luke?’
‘Yes, I went to Golborne.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘Not really,’ I admitted, ‘it’s not easy for him.’
She nodded, took another bite. I was starving. Should I leave my lunch till later – show solidarity with her diet? Sod it. I unwrapped my sandwich. Was it my fault half the population counted calories?
‘Ahktar was stabbed,’ I said through my first mouthful, ‘but Luke never carried a knife.’
‘That’s right. And they check for people carrying on the door, run the wand over you.’
‘So it would be hard to get in with a knife but not impossible?’ I took a second huge bite.
‘Nah. I’ve seen people in there with all sorts. There’s ways, I suppose, and say if you know the bouncers they’re not going to give you any grief.’
‘You said Zeb sometimes got into fights. Would you say he was violent, then?’
She grimaced. ‘Short fuse, really, dead moody.’
I recalled his barely suppressed rage.
She glanced at me, frowned. ‘He never carried a knife. No,’ she shook her head several times, ‘it wasn’t him. He has his faults, plenty of them, but not that, he’d not do that. He might thump someone but he’d never use anything like a weapon.’
But if he was infuriated and a knife was at hand? Losing his temper, losing control. At that moment was it any different from thumping someone?
‘Besides,’ she added, ‘Ahktar was his cousin and there was no bad feeling between them.’
‘OK. Have you any idea who it might have been?’
‘I wish I had. It doesn’t make sense. Ahktar, he wasn’t the sort to get into trouble.’ She finished her crispbreads and cheese and took out the apple. ‘Someone said there were witnesses, though, someone who saw what happened?’
I nodded. ‘Mr and Mrs Siddiq.’
‘Siddiq – Rashid Siddiq?’ Her eyes widened. She held the apple in mid-air.
‘You know him?’
‘Yeah, he works for Jay, with Zeb and that.’
My stomach tightened as she talked, alert to the implications of what she was saying. Zeb Khan did know Rashid Siddiq. ‘At the Cash and Carry?’
‘They’ve a few places – a warehouse up Cheetham Hill, and they had a shop in the underground market as well. Expect it’s shut now.’
‘With the bomb,’ I bit off another chunk of sandwich, rescued some of the tomato as it slithered out of the side.
‘What was he doing at Nirvana?’ Emma wondered. ‘Shouldn’t have thought it was his scene.’
‘Too old?’
She blew out, raised her eyebrows. ‘Never seen him there before. Not the dancing type.’
And his wife had been very defensive about their decision to go there that night. ‘You didn’t see him New Year’s Eve?’
‘No.’
There was a burst of laughter and jeering from across the park as one of the boys fell and slithered along the ground, his bike on top of him.
‘What does Rashid Siddiq do for Jay?’
‘Dunno. Bit of a hard man, I reckon, security and that, sort out trouble. He used to come and pick Zeb up now and then. Gave me the creeps.’
I waited for her to elaborate.
‘He never had much to say for himself and if you tried small talk he’d just ignore you. Dead rude.’
‘Did he know Ahktar?’
She thought about it. ‘I expect they’d have bumped into each other at the shop or the warehouse. I know Ahktar went up there now and again. I suppose they’d know each other by sight, but not well, like.’
Not at all, according to the Siddiqs.
‘And what does Zeb do at work?’
‘As little as possible,’ she laughed. ‘He and Jay hate each other’s guts. Zeb reckons Jay got all the breaks, big brother and that, gets his own business going but Zeb never gets a share in it. He’s just an employee, thinks he should be a partner.’
‘So Jay’s in charge, and Zeb works for him?’
‘Yeah, and if it hadn’t been for the family, Jay would have slung Zeb out years ago. He’s well pissed off with him.’
‘Because he doesn’t work hard?’
‘And he’s unreliable and he throws it all away. All the money he makes goes on blackjack or on…’ She hesitated.
‘Cocaine? I know he uses it quite heavily.’ Something occurred to me. ‘Is he dealing as well?’
‘I never asked. He never said.’ The way she chose to phrase it made it clear she was ninety-nine per cent certain he was.
‘Does Jay know?’
She didn’t speak. When I looked at her there was a guarded look in her eyes which had not been there before.
‘It might be irrelevant,’ I said. ‘All of this might be, or it might fit in with something else that helps get Luke off.’
She started as there was a sudden crash of branches and a shriek from the magpie in the trees.
‘If anyone knew that I’d told you…’ she explained with reluctance.
‘The only way that could ever happen is if it becomes a vital part of the evidence in Luke’s defence. Then you’d be called as a defence witness and you’d have full protection. I’m not interested in drugs, or busting people, that’s not why I’m here. It’s my job to find out anything I can that casts doubt on Luke murdering Ahktar.’
‘What’s the connection?’ she asked.
‘There may not be one, like I said. It could all be irrelevant to the defence but I’d still like to know.’
‘Just in case,’ she said wryly.
‘Yes.’
She sighed. Turned the apple in her hand. ‘I couldn’t swear to it, I kept well out of it, but you hear things. Jay’s business, import/export – well…it isn’t all clothes and the Cash and Carry stuff. Now and then there’d be a lot of people coming and going, phone calls, stuff Zeb didn’t want to talk about. Sometimes he and Rashid would be away a day or two over at Hull or Holyhead or Southampton – where the ports are.’ She stopped. ‘That’s all.’
‘Jay was bringing stuff in?’
She bit into the apple. Nodded.
‘Was Ahktar involved in any of this?’
‘No way,’ she said emphatically. ‘I know they were cousins but they were really different. Jay and Zeb, I reckon they are mixed up in all sorts. Ahktar – he was studying for his exams, he wasn’t interested in any of that.’
I finished the rest of my sandwich while I absorbed what Emma had told me.
‘That night, at Nirvana, was Jay there?’
‘No. He never goes to places like that. Especially not anywhere Zeb might be. Zeb owed him money, he owed everyone money but Jay wanted paying. Zeb was in a foul mood; he thought he’d have to sell the flat.’
I asked Emma to go over the events of that night as she remembered them. She and Zeb had arrived early at the club, just after half past eight. Zeb sought out Ahktar and gave him the jacket he’d ordered.
‘It was only three months late,’ she laughed, ‘but Ahktar was made up, dancing round in it. Luke’s trying to get them side by side, Zeb and Ahktar, like a fashion show. Zeb is in one of his stupid moods so he goes off to the bar. Ahktar was dancing and twirling, he looked great.’ Her face fell. Without asking I knew she was thinking about how that evening had ended, with Ahktar’s new jacket drenched in his blood.
She told me how she had danced for a while, with Zeb glowering from the sidelines. Joey D had come along and they’d bought some Es off him.
‘Got better for a while,’ she said, ‘then Zeb goes and blows it, asks me for a loan – can he nip to the hole-in-the-wall with my card. I couldn’t believe it! I’d paid for my ticket already and now he wanted to borrow off me. You know what I earn? Four-fifty an hour; four-fifty an hour and he’s tapping off me. Wanting money. More money. I’d had enough. I’d loaned him before, I’m not tight, but I never saw it again. Oh, he’d take me out to dinner or buy me some flowers and call it quits. I was trying to save for a holiday, for a place of my own, and he was like a drain. I told him to stuff it and I went home. Happy New Year, eh?’
‘And after that?’
‘Well, he didn’t come crawling after me begging forgiveness. Not a word. And I haven’t seen him or any of that lot since.’
Emma had left about ten thirty that night. She said she would have gone to Ahktar’s funeral but it specified family only. She asked me if I thought Luke would like a visit from her. I assured her he would. Anything that made him feel he was believed and that he was not entirely alone would help his morale.
Before leaving I asked Emma about Joey D. Did she know he’d run away from home?
‘No. You don’t think he did it, do you?’
‘He did have a knife,’ I pointed out.
‘Yeah, he was like a big kid with it. But Joey,’ she shook her head in disbelief, ‘oh, he could be a pain but he was that sweet-tempered. Either that or thick-skinned. I felt sorry for him really.’
‘Why?’
I drank my pineapple juice.
‘He was like a limpet, clinging on, wanting to get in with everyone but he was just a big kid. He’d always get stuff for us. Couple of times we went to his place – you seen it?’ She widened her eyes. ‘Mansion. We had parties there. I reckon people took advantage of him, used him. He wanted friends but no one was interested. He only ever got invited anywhere if someone wanted him to bring some drugs.’
‘Did he get stuff from Zeb?’
‘I don’t know.’ She frowned. ‘He came round the flat a couple of times. I made myself scarce. But he must have had other people for his regular stuff. Joey could get you anything, small-scale, like, but he wasn’t in it for the money. It wasn’t a business for him, he just liked being able to help people out, I reckon.’
‘But with the brothers, Zeb and Jay, that was more serious? They were importing it, after all. Jay was probably setting it up, providing the finance, and sending Zeb along with Rashid Siddiq to collect it.’
‘I think.’ She stressed the word.
‘It was a business to them, they were in it to make a lot of money.’
‘Yeah. Least, Jay was. All Zeb ever made was a mess of things.’ I drained my drink. Wondered whether any of this talk of drug smuggling had a bearing on the murder.
‘Joey D,’ I thought aloud. ‘His grandmother said he was very frightened, just after the stabbing. That’s when he ran away.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe he knows something. Look, if Joey had done it he’d be the sort to give himself up. He’d like all the attention, he’d go for that, picture all over the papers, telly. I can’t see it.’
I sighed. Neither could I. I couldn’t see anything clearly yet. But there were clues there in what Emma had told me. Threads to pick at and knots to untie in the finicky process of unfolding the truth.