Death Comes for the Fat Man

13

They stopped for a sandwich at the Woolley Edge service station on the M1. Pascoe went off to the loo and when he came back to his table, Rod was on his mobile.

He finished his call as Pascoe sat down and said, “Thought I’d better let them know we’d be keeping the car longer than I said.”

“Do they charge by the mile or by the hour?” said Pascoe, gently mocking. “Never answer questions till they’re asked; didn’t they teach you that at Hogwarts?”

Hogwarts, he’d picked up, was their generic term for training courses.

He ate half a sandwich, washed it down with coffee which wasn’t at all bad, and said, “Can’t sit here enjoying ourselves all day. Come on.”

On his way back from the toilet he had popped into the shop and picked up a Bradford A to Z. In the car, he handed this to Rod and said, “We’re looking for a suburb called Marrside. Sixteen Blackwell Road.”

Rod studied the map closely for the next fifteen minutes or so, then set it aside and gave crisp, incisive directions as they turned off the motorway.

Marrside had probably once been a small village, but at least a hundred years had passed since Bradford had reached out and buried its rural identity under a grid of long terraces, most of which opened straight onto the pavement. But for the most part these terraces had avoided, or recovered from, that sense of dereliction which had hung over the house in, say, Mill Street. They looked well kept, there were cars parked along the curbs, the small shops were bright and busy, and where there were buildings boarded up or half destroyed, it was because of the ongoing reconstruction program advertised, with apologies for inconvenience, on billboards.

Sarhadi, according to Pascoe’s information, was a part-time student who paid his way by sharing shifts on his father’s taxi cab. Unmarried, he still lived at his parents’ house in Blackwell Road, which Rod brought them to with no hesitations or diversions.

There was a taxi parked outside the house. Pascoe drew in behind it and sat for a moment taking stock.

“Always have a good look at a door afore you kick it down,” was one of Dalziel’s more useful tips. “You can tell a lot from a door. Like, is it going to break your toe?”

This door looked solid enough to do just that. He told Rod to stay in the car while he got out. Closer inspection revealed the door to be not only solid but freshly painted, with a gleaming brass letter box and a matching knocker buffed to such a high degree of shine he found himself wiping his fingers on his trousers leg before he grasped it.

There are many types of knocks a policeman uses. The dawn-raid knock which sends a thunderous summons through a house, the gentle knock which wouldn’t disturb a nervous cat but counts in evidence as a genuine attempt to gain conventional admittance before you kick the door down, the reluctant knock which presages the sharing of bad news, and the polite but firm knock which just means you’d like a friendly chat.

Polite but firm did the trick here. The door was opened by a round-faced woman, middle-aged, comfortably built, in loose black slacks and a waist-length blouse patterned with enough red and brown and orange leaves to choke a Vallombrosan brook.

“Mrs. Sarhadi?” he said.

“Who’s askin’?”

He could see he was being weighed in the balance, salesman or council. Policeman didn’t figure. There was a certain tightening round the eyes which affected most people when they realized they were being door-stepped by a cop.

He said, “Is Kalim at home?”

“No, he’s not. What do you want him for?”

“Just a chat.”

“You a journalist then?”

Kalim’s fame must have accustomed her to journalists.

“No. I’m police.”

He saw the eye tightening and hastily added, “Nothing serious, just a tidy up really. Kalim knows me. I met him and his fiancée last Saturday. And my wife was on the TV show with him the night before.”

“Oh aye? Her. Here, that madwoman who tried to shoot my lad, what’s going off with her then? Slap on the wrist and two hours community service, is it?”

“I think the CPS are still working out charges,” he said.

“What’s to work out ’less you’re brain-dead?” she demanded.

Pascoe, feeling some sympathy with this response but not caring to incriminate himself, nodded.

“Tottie!” came a plaintive cry drifting down the stairs. “Where’s me clean pants?”

“In the fridge where I always put them! Where do you think? In the airing cupboard, you daft bugger,” Mrs. Sarhadi yelled back. “Men. You’d not know which way was forward without we told you.”

Tottie. The name rang a bell somewhere with Pascoe. She was, he recollected from Joe Fidler’s interview with Sarhadi, a local convert who clearly had not found that accepting Islam meant giving up being an independent Yorkshire lass.

He said, “If you could tell me where I might find Kalim…”

“He’s down the mosque. Here, what’s your rush?”

This was addressed to a slim middle-aged Asian who came rushing down the stairs tucking his shirttails into his waistband.

“I told you, I’m picking Mrs. Atwood up from the station this afternoon. You should have woken me earlier.”

“What with? A cannon in your ear? Have you forgot-I’m meeting Jamila down the Grange and you said you’d drop me off.”

“Did I? Sorry, no time no time.”

“What do you mean, no time? Mrs. Atwood can’t wait, but your own wife can walk? Any road, when did you ever know a train to be on time?”

Pascoe could see that Mr. Sarhadi was in that position much favored by Yorkshire wives-between a rock and a hard place.

Self-interest and male solidarity combined to make him say, “Perhaps I could give you a lift, Mrs. Sarhadi.”

The man’s eyes, which had run over him questioningly, now brightened with grateful relief.

“Well,” said Tottie doubtfully. “We’d have to pass the mosque on the way, so I could show you where to go.”

This was ur-Yorkshire. Never let yourself be put under an obligation if you could see a way to turn it back on the giver.

“There,” said her husband. “Problem solved. See you later.”

He pushed past Pascoe and got into his taxi.

His wife yelled after him, “You don’t even know who he is. Could be my fancy man for all you care!”

But she said it in that tone of exasperated affection which is the hallmark of a Yorkshire marriage.

“That’s my car,” said Pascoe, pointing to the Focus. “As soon as you’re ready…”

“I’m ready now,” said the woman, seizing a broad silk scarf from a peg behind the door and draping it over her head. “Let’s be off.”

Pascoe opened the rear door of the car for her and she slid in. Rod turned round and gave her a smile and said, “Hi. I’m Rod.”

“And I’m Tottie. Glad to meet you,” she said, returning the smile with interest.

I should have sent him to the door, thought Pascoe. Except that he’d have probably been inside by now, drinking tea and eating fresh-baked parkin.

He got in the driver’s seat, started the engine.

“You not the boss then?” said the woman.

“Sorry?”

“Thought with coppers, it were always the boss who sat in the passenger seat.”

“That depends. You’ve been in a lot of police cars then?”

“You’d be surprised,” she said knowingly, with a wink at Rod.

Suddenly Pascoe recalled where he’d heard the name Tottie. It was Andy Dalziel, that day a lifetime ago when they’d squatted together behind the car in Mill Street. The Fat Man had reminisced about an old dancing partner of his, Tottie Truman from Doncaster, a girl remarkable for her spirit, her body, and her tango.

Could this be the same woman, who’d continued the journey from one Mecca toward another? Hadn’t Dalziel said she’d got religion? He must check it out with him…if he ever got the chance…

“Left,” said the woman loudly. “Are you deaf?”

His autopilot, which had stopped the car at a junction, clearly didn’t have audio.

He said, “Sorry,” and turned.

“Up to the lights, then right,” she commanded. “The mosque is fifty yards on.”

“Where?” he said as he turned.

“There!” she said. “Can’t you read?”

Now he looked and saw not the white dome and tall minaret his autopilot had been looking for, but a large sign in English and Urdu telling him they’d arrived at the Marrside Mosque, which turned out to be an old redbrick building with the words Marrside Board School 1883 carved on the lintel of its forbidding main door.

He brought the car to a halt.

“Why’ve you stopped? The Grange is half a mile on, by the bypass.”

“The Grange Hotel? Yes, I noticed it as we drove by earlier,” said Rod. “It looks very nice.”

“Aye, mebbe, but looks aren’t everything,” said Tottie grimly. “It’s where we’re having the Walima after my lad’s wedding. What you’d call the reception. I’m meeting my daughter-in-law there to make sure their dozy catering manager’s on top of the job. At least I would be if young Lochinvar here would get his finger out.”

“Tell you what,” said Pascoe. “Rod can drive you on to the hotel. I’ll drop off here and see if I can find Kalim.”

He got out of the car. Rod followed suit to transfer to the driving seat. As they passed, the young man paused and said, “Peter, do you think you really ought to be doing this? Without consultation, I mean.”

“Doing what? Having a friendly chat with a friendly witness? Nothing in my book which makes that a hanging offense.”

He moved across the pavement toward the building.

From the rear window, Tottie yelled after him, “Make sure you go in the right door. And I hope your missus darns your socks!”

Both remarks seemed a little enigmatic till he noticed that to the right of the main entrance, which didn’t look as if it had been opened in a decade, was a door with boys carved in the stone lintel. On the other side was a corresponding door marked girls.

Might have been purpose built for conversion from school to mosque, he thought as he went through the boys door.

He found himself in a long porch lined with shelves bearing many pairs of shoes, and the woman’s second comment made sense. As he slipped his slip-ons off, the entrance door opened behind him to admit a young Asian man who regarded him with unfriendly curiosity.

Finally he spoke in a broad Yorkshire accent.

“Can I help thee wi’ owt?”

“I’ve come to see Kalim Sarhadi,” said Pascoe.

“Oh aye? And what do you want with him then?”

This, Pascoe guessed, must be one of Jamila’s headbangers, who did not look as if the revelation that he was talking to a cop was going to lighten his mood.

“Hey, I’m just a friend. It’s about the wedding,” said Pascoe smiling.

He didn’t get a return smile, but at least the man grunted what he took as an instruction to follow and led the way out of the entrance porch down a long corridor.

It became apparent to Pascoe as they walked along that though to outward appearances the old board school had scarcely changed in the past century and a half, inside the new occupants had really made their mark. Though there was still evidence in plenty of the old institutional dull browns and drab greens, it was being overlaid with a new brightness of color and ornament. Ceilings were painted in a rich gold, in places the old cracked wall tiles had been replaced with intricately patterned ceramics, and areas of flaky old plaster had been smoothed over and inscribed with flowing Arabic letters which he guessed spelled texts from the Koran. Many of the windows were glazed with stained panels through which the summer sun poured a torrent of rainbow hues, and his stockinged feet sank into deep-piled intrinsically patterned carpet.

His guide halted, grunted, “Wait,” and entered a classroom, closing the door firmly behind him but not before Pascoe glimpsed a group of men sitting cross-legged on the floor. One of them, a tall bearded man with piercing eyes, he recognized as Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Hijazi whose activities were a source of such virulent speculation for Voice journalists.

After a moment the door opened again and Kalim Sarhadi came out.

“Hello, Mr. Pascoe,” he said.

“It was Peter at the fete,” Pascoe replied, smiling.

“This not official then?”

“Well, sort of,” admitted Pascoe.

“Aye, I didn’t really think you’d be wanting to talk about my wedding.”

“I just didn’t want to trouble your friend. But it’s not official in any official kind of way,” said Pascoe. “Can we talk somewhere?”

“Along here,” said Sarhadi, leading him into a small office. “So what do you want?”

His attitude was polite but restrained.

Pascoe, who knew when to go round the houses, when to be direct, took a photograph of Youngman out of his pocket and put it in front of Sarhadi.

“Do you recognize this man?” he asked.

“Aye.”

Pascoe felt that tremor of pleasure that comes from a hypothesis proven.

“So how do you know him?” he asked.

“Didn’t say I knew him. But he’s the guy who writes them SAS books, right?”

The tremor of pleasure fizzled out.

“That’s right,” said Pascoe. “You’ve never actually met him?”

“Why should I? Some of the lads wanted to go over to a reading he were doing at a bookshop in Leeds earlier this year.”

That must have been the tour Ffion had told him about.

“To demonstrate?” he asked.

“Well, they weren’t planning to buy his book, that’s for sure. Have you looked at the stuff he writes? Don’t mind a good thriller, superhero killing all the baddies, but in Youngman’s books that’s everyone who’s not white plus anyone who is who doesn’t agree with him. It weren’t just Saddam and his supporters that was the enemy, it was every Iraqi, bar none. And he gets on the best-seller lists. Makes a lot of our lads think, If this is your multicultural society, you can stuff it.”

“So off they go and train as suicide bombers because someone’s written a bad thriller?”

Sarhadi said, “That’s a jump. I’m not talking killing people, just a bit of a demo. Mind you, doesn’t take much to make some folk think it’s right to take the law into their own hands. I know. I got beaten up to prove it. And these Templar loonies going around murdering people, what did it take to push them over the edge? Not much, probably.”

“So why didn’t the demo take place?” asked Pascoe, not wanting to get onto the topic of the Templars.

“What’s the point? Would likely have ended in a ruckus with us getting all the bad publicity.”

He paused and regarded Pascoe shrewdly.

“This writer guy, Youngman, you don’t think he’s one of them Templars, do you? Is that why you’re here?”

He was bright, thought Pascoe. Bright enough to be playing a double game? Could the woman waving the air pistol on Fidler’s Three have been right after all?

“Just part of a general inquiry,” he said. “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

But Sarhadi wasn’t finished yet.

“But if you’re after Youngman ’cos he’s a Templar, why do you think he might have spoken to me? Hang about! You’re not thinking he might have tried to recruit me ’cos I’m on the record as saying Al Qaeda extremism’s the wrong way? Bloody hell, you must be desperate! You’re really reaching, aren’t you?”

It was true, thought Pascoe. Freeman’s skepticism he’d been able to dismiss as partial and prejudiced, but Sarhadi’s open mockery made him feel the absurdity of what he’d been suggesting. If there really were someone in the Lubyanka pulling the Templar strings, then they must be laughing their bollocks off watching him running around like a blue-arsed flea. Whoops, there he went slipping into Fat Man terminology again.

He was saved further embarrassment by the door opening and the tall bearded man coming in.

“Here you are, Kalim,” he said in a pleasantly musical voice with just the slightest hint of guttural continuo. “Won’t you introduce me to our visitor?”

“Of course. This is Chief Inspector Pascoe of Mid-Yorkshire CID, isn’t it?”

Pascoe nodded. And Sarhadi went on, “And this is our imam, Sheikh Ibrahim.”

The Sheikh put his hands together and inclined his head.

Pascoe said, “Glad to meet you.”

“And I you. Is there any particular reason for your visit, Chief Inspector? Or are you just seeking after truth?”

“That’s my particular reason and my general profession,” said Pascoe.

The Sheikh smiled.

“Then I hope you may find it. Peace be with you and the mercy of Allah.”

He turned and went out.

“So that’s the famous Sheikh Ibrahim,” said Pascoe.

“Aye, that’s the famous bogeyman that’s going to eat you all in your beds.”

“You must read the Voice,” said Pascoe. “My paper just says he preaches from a rather extremist viewpoint. Which makes me wonder about your relationship with him.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, if as you say, you’re anti-demonstrations and anti-Al Qaeda, then you don’t seem to have a lot in common.”

“He’s our imam, so we’ve got our faith in common. Anyway, you want he should only deal with people who agree with everything he says? One thing I’m sure of, if you lot had owt on him, you’d arrest him. Here, is that the real reason you’re here? To see if you can dig up some dirt on the Sheikh?”

“If I wanted to do that, where would you suggest I dig?”

Sarhadi shook his head and said, “I’ve told your lot already. I’ll not turn into a spy on my own people.”

“Not even if you see one of them heading off toward the town center wearing a Semtex corset?”

“I hope I’d act like I hope your lot would act if they saw someone trying to take another shot at the Sheikh. By the way, it were him that stopped the lads demonstrating against Youngman, not me.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Pascoe. “Kalim, I’m sorry to have troubled you. Many congratulations in advance for Saturday. I hope you have a long and happy married life.”

“Ta,” said the young man. “Give my best to your missus. How’s that poor woman with the gun, by the way?”

“She’s receiving treatment, I believe.”

“Hope it turns out OK for her. Losing someone like that must be hard to get over.”

Then his face split in a very attractive smile.

“Still, out of bad comes good. When she shot Joe Fidler in the bollocks, that must have made a lot of people think there has to be a God, eh?”

Pascoe was still grinning as he got back into the car, which was waiting outside.

Rod, who was on his phone, didn’t return the grin. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and said, “Bernie. And he’s pissed off.”

Frowning, Pascoe took the phone.

“Hello, sir,” he said.

“Peter, what the hell are you playing at?”

“Don’t follow you, sir. I’m just doing the job you gave me.”

“Then I must brush up on my communication skills. I don’t remember giving you carte blanche to be a one-man band!”

“I’m sorry, sir, but if you could be a little more specific…”

“You want specificity, do you? Right. Item, you do not interrogate detainees in Safe Houses without clearance from a senior officer. And you certainly do not subject them to sexual harassment. Item, you do not remove confidential files from this building without clearance, and you certainly do not sit reading them in a public place. Item, you do not invade the privacy of distinguished ex-officers in Her Majesty’s armed forces without preparing the ground very carefully. Item, you do not descend unannounced on a location which a moment’s thought should have told you we have under close surveillance. Is that specific enough for you?”

“Yes, sir. Look, I’m sorry but…”

“Save your excuses. Get yourself back here as quickly as possible. And that means don’t stop on the way, not even if the Angel Gabriel appears to you with yet another brilliant idea!”

The phone went dead.

He handed it back to Rod, who said miserably, “Peter, I’m sorry. I did try to say…”

“That we shouldn’t be doing this? Yes you did. And I’m sure it’s already on tape if not on video,” said Pascoe wearily. “Sorry. It’s a lot more than that. And none of it is down to you, I’ll make that clear. So let’s head on back and face the music, shall we?”