The Cover Up: A gripping crime thriller for 2018

Tariq wiped the spit calmly from his face, though Youssuf knew his fastidious son must have been cringing inside. ‘You work for the O’Brien crew?’

‘Fuck you, man!’

‘Smolensky!’ Tariq shouted. He looked over to the Fish Man who had just punctured another of the van’s tyres. Inside the vehicle, Dreadlocks was screaming something unintelligible through the closed window to his associate. ‘Come here! Our friend needs a little encouragement.’

The tall, thin henchman stalked towards Tariq, holding the machete in his right hand. But he blanched suddenly, his gaze fixed on something on the far side of the road.

‘Ellis James!’ Smolensky’s machete miraculously disappeared up into the sleeve of his coat. He slipped out of sight behind a parked van.

Like a startled goat, Tariq descended the man-mountain, disappearing swiftly into the shadows of the jet-wash enclosure, dragging Youssuf with him. He pressed his index finger to his lips, pushing his father out towards the kiosk on the far side of the car wash, where they could not be seen by whoever this Ellis James might be.

The Volkswagen van sped off on its wobbling, clack-clacking flats in the direction of Cheetham Hill Road, disappearing along with its kidnapping driver and passenger into the streets beyond the neighbouring Chapatti Corner and Gurdwara temple.

Youssuf staggered over to the low wall and slumped against it. Amir popped up from behind.

‘Have they gone?’ Amir asked. ‘Have you called the police?’

Tariq nodded, putting his arm around his father. ‘They’re gone. You both okay?’

Youssuf shrugged him off, though he was now shaking with cold. Light-headed. He felt like he might vomit onto his wet feet at any moment. ‘What a disgrace.’

‘What were you two thinking, wandering these busy streets on your own?’

‘Show some respect, Tariq!’ Youssuf said, glancing over at Amir for moral support. ‘We’re not children, are we? We’re grown men.’ He picked up his walking stick and shook it. ‘You think me and Amir can’t see off a couple of amateur pick-pockets?’

When Amir muttered an insult about the younger generation in Urdu, agreeing with him, Youssuf silently hoped his friend had bought the story that the aspiring kidnappers were nothing more than thieving opportunists. It wouldn’t do for an elder of the Asian community to click onto the sort of nefarious dealings Tariq was involved with on the side. To realise that those men had come for him – Youssuf Khan. What a dreadful situation to find himself in! Lying to his respectable buddy to protect his fool of a son!

‘Didn’t we decide that you weren’t going to leave my offices until I drove you to the day centre, Dad?’ Tariq tried again to put his arm around Youssuf, encouraging him to stand.

‘Don’t be so patronising!’ he said, taking his karakul hat out of his coat pocket. Agitated to see that it was sodden. He manoeuvred himself from the ground, using his stick. Wincing and grunting at the effort and stiffness in his knees. ‘If I have to spend another morning sitting around, waiting for you to drive me quarter of a mile down the road, like I’m some kind of deranged, drooling halfwit, I’m going to get on the first plane back to Karachi and I’m never coming back.’

Amir laughed. ‘And because the ladies love me, your dad’s taking me with him, aren’t you, Youssuf?’ More cackling. ‘Wait ‘til Ibrahim hears about this! Ha. Me and Youssuf. Fighting off criminals. That will knock the stuffing out of the stuck-up—’

‘Dad,’ Tariq said, making another attempt to grab him by the elbow. Scanning the street. ‘It’s not safe. Come back with me. Both of you! I’ll drive you both to the day centre once we’ve got Dad some dry socks and found his sandal.’

But Youssuf could barely articulate his mounting frustration. ‘No! I don’t want your help. Because it’s the wrong kind, Tariq! I need that kind of help like I need a prostate check from a doctor with fat fingers.’

‘I’ll make my own way, thanks all the same,’ Amir said, smoothing his suit down, starting to make his way across the forecourt. ‘I don’t need a babysitter.’

‘Wait for me!’ Youssuf called after his friend.

‘Look, Dad. If you come with me now, I’ll take you to Mecca for Hajj next year.’ Tariq held his hand out, his eyes softening at the edges. ‘How about that? We’ll fly first-class on Emirates.’

Youssuf inhaled deeply and raised an eyebrow. Ignoring the hand. ‘Really? You’d do that for me?’

But Tariq’s face fell. A short, chubby white man clad in a beige raincoat had just got out of a grey Mondeo and was walking towards them. Ellis James, no doubt.

‘We’ve got to go, Dad. Now!’

Too late.

‘Well, well, well,’ the man said, a twitch of a smile breaking the thin line of his lips. ‘Tariq Khan.’

The confrontation in the middle of Derby Street was short and civil but, Youssuf noticed, with a clear edge of hostility to every word uttered by both young men. Tariq insisted that nothing whatsoever had come to pass at the car wash – Ellis James could feel free to question the workers – if their English was good enough. Ellis James insisted that he was watching Tariq and was in possession of some interesting information about the Boddlington Gang that he would soon be acting upon. Youssuf knew to keep quiet.

When he got back to T&J Trading, stomach still rumbling, Youssuf rummaged in his coat pocket to see if there was perhaps a boiled sweet, hidden beneath the now sodden tissues and the container for his false teeth. His fingers picked out something smooth and dry with sharp, stiff edges. He withdrew a business card that had certainly not been there before. Took out his reading glasses to study the wording.

Detective Ellis James, GMP.

Beneath the name and number was a neat handwritten note.

Call me when the truth becomes too heavy to bear, Mr Khan.

Chapter 6 (#ulink_73a567e6-0f94-5f07-aff5-3c64e43cc535)

Gloria

‘You be careful,’ Leviticus said, cleaning Jay’s hands with a wet wipe before the child could shampoo the mashed banana into his hair entirely. ‘You wanna watch your back, Mam.’

Gloria eyed her son and grandson disdainfully. ‘I’d be more worried about him getting that banana on the carpets, if I were you. Don’t expect me to cover the cost of a lost deposit because you let him paint the floor with his pudding.’ She turned back to applying her lip liner in the make-up mirror that she’d set up on the kitchen windowsill. The remainder of the autumn daylight was best in there in the evenings. The last thing she needed was poorly applied lip liner. Her lips were her best feature, and first impressions counted.

‘Mam! Seriously. The farm’s on red alert. One of the lads spotted a van staking the place out the other day. And M1 House is definitely a target after that meeting between Sheila and Bancroft went tits up.’

‘Language, young man! I’m going to an elegant reception for grown-ups in Jack’s Bar. I’m sure nothing untoward will happen whatsoever. You’re being melodramatic.’

‘You’re being daft.’

‘Shouldn’t a child as little as my Jay be in bed by now?’

Her remark was pointed, she knew. It was an easy non-confrontational way to respond to her son’s flagrant impudence. Gloria was determined to have a nice evening and neither the perceived threat of Midland-based gangsters nor her cynical, paranoid son would rain on her parade. Speed-dating beckoned. Old Gloria felt like a hussy for even contemplating it; couldn’t stop thinking of how her heart had been smashed into smithereens by that scoundrel, Leviticus’ father and then, more recently, the pastor. New Gloria had relished every second of donning her most flattering Windsmoor dress and couldn’t wait to slip into the fancy matching heels that she could just about squeeze her only slightly swollen feet into. Water retention was a pig, but even that wouldn’t spoil her evening.

Climbing out of the taxi a while later, she felt a pang of apprehension at ever having agreed to this nonsense. The emotionally daring Gloria of old had been supplanted yet again by the heartbreak-fearing church elder.

‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t, love!’ the taxi driver shouted after her as she approached the bouncers. ‘You tight old cow.’

She wondered if the fifty-pence tip had been adequate. Decided it had been, given the taxi had stunk of stale sick. Beastly.

To her delight, Frank’s bouncers stood to attention, opening the doors for her with some ceremony.

‘I’m here for the speed-dating.’ She spoke her intention with an air of secrecy, mouthing the words in exaggerated fashion as though she was hard of hearing. Checking over her shoulder to see she hadn’t been overheard or spotted by anybody she knew who might conceivably be walking around an industrial area at 8 p.m.

Toying with the strap of her Sunday-best handbag, wishing she hadn’t worn a dress with such a plunging neckline – because she had no intention of meeting anyone anyway – she crossed the lofty main space of the night club. Conscious of the click-clack of her heels on the parquet dance floor. Was she stepping over the spot where Jack O’Brien had breathed his last? She shuddered, suddenly tempted to about-turn and head for home.

‘All right, Glo!’ Frank loomed before her like a well-meaning, underfed spectre.

‘Hello, Francis,’ she said, her smile faltering as she saw the sign for ‘Speed-dating this way.’

‘Come to find a nice feller to keep you warm at night?’ Frank asked, draping his arm over her shoulder in a gesture of friendship that was far too familiar for her liking. ‘Well you’ve come to the right place, then. Love is all you need, right?’