Are you okay?’ Conky’s voice, close by.
Clutching his arm, Frank dropped to his knees. I’m coming, Jack. I’m coming.
Tariq
‘I’m not coming in,’ Jonny said. His voice was gruff and thick with sleep.
Tariq imagined his business partner lounging in bed or, perhaps, sprawled on the sofa in his den. Par for the course, these days.
‘Aw, come on, Jon. For God’s sake! You’ve been in work twice in a fortnight. When you do come in, you hole yourself up in your office with the Fish Man.’ Tariq held his phone in one hand, pouring muesli into a bowl with the other. He could feel Anjum’s eyes on him, scanning his every move for signs of subterfuge. The kitchen felt several degrees colder with every second that she scrutinised him. He lowered his voice, turning his back to her, hoping the sound of her mashing egg mayo for the children’s packed lunches would be enough to drown out the finer points of his conversation. ‘Plotting. That’s all you do. Plotting revenge. Like that’s going to bring Mia back!’
Screwing down the plastic muesli sack deftly, he replaced the box inside the cereals cupboard. Irritated that the flaps wouldn’t quite fold shut, destroying the neat line of the cereal packets. Taking the muesli out again, he jostled the phone in one hand and rummaged for the sellotape in the stationery drawer with the other.
‘Hold on,’ he said, exasperated. Setting the phone down, he detached a length of tape with his teeth and strapped the wayward flaps shut – the way he liked it. At least he could impose order on a cardboard box, if on no other area of his life. ‘Now. What was I saying?’ Eyeing his wife as she smoothed the eggs onto bread for Shazia and Zahid and buttered toast for his father, he imagined agitation, rising in waves from the top of her hair. She wore a chignon today – styled tightly against her skull, mirroring the tight expression on her unmade-up face. Only animosity between them now that she finally knew how he and Jonny really made their handsome living. ‘So, you’re staying at home. Again?’
‘Yeah. I’ll be in tomorrow.’
‘I won’t hold my breath.’
Tariq was just about to hang up when he remembered the point of the call. ‘Wait! Before you go … You ever seen a black guy with dreadlocks and a big white guy with a dirty blond crop working for the O’Briens?’
There was silence, followed by a yawn. ‘No.’
Glancing at the finance pages of the newspaper, laid out on the breakfast bar, Tariq yet again scanned the article that reported on multi-millionaire Nigel Bancroft’s expansion into corporate property, north of Birmingham. He tapped the photo of the bland-faced playboy in his collarless, pin-tucked dress-shirt and jazzy leather-trimmed evening jacket, posing for a professional shot at some post-polo-match charity ball. ‘What do you know about Nigel Bancroft?’
On the other end of the phone, Jonny smacked his lips. A rustling sound as he rolled over in bed, perhaps, preparing himself for nothing more taxing than spending yet another day obsessing over the possible Margulies blood on Leviticus Bell’s hands while Tariq did all the work.
‘Runs the Midlands, doesn’t he?’
‘Yep.’ Tariq walked to the fridge. Scowled at the selection of milk in the door, staring in disbelief at the almond milk. Sweetened! He took out the carton, shaking it at Anjum with a questioning look on his face.
There was a hint of mischief in his wife’s eyes. A smile, playing at the corners of her mouth. Had she deliberately bought him the sweetened milk, knowing he wouldn’t drink it? Knowing that if he resorted to using the wrong milk, it would set him on edge for the rest of the day?
‘Look. I don’t know any more than you about Nigel-whatever-his-name-is,’ Jonny said. He hung up then, leaving Tariq staring at the word ‘sweetened’ with a bad taste in his mouth.
Had the men who had tried to snatch his father from the car wash forecourt been Sheila’s soldiers? Or had they heralded the arrival in Manchester of a sortie that had been despatched on a reconnaissance mission by an enemy force from beyond the Staffordshire hills?
He set the phone down. Held the almond milk out gingerly, as if it contained plutonium. ‘Darling, what’s with this?’ he asked Anjum. ‘You know I’ve cut out processed carbs.’
She slammed the plate of toast onto the butcher’s block counter in front of Youssuf with some force, sending the toast scudding onto the wooden surface. ‘You know where Tesco’s is, darling.’
With a bemused expression, Youssuf looked from Anjum to him, then to Shazia and Zahid. His father smiled at his grandchildren with a shrug and a wink, though Tariq could see the discomfiture behind those milky eyes. The children merely giggled in response, thinking their old Daada funny; not for an instant picking up on the bitter acrimony between their parents in that kitchen.
Sighing, Tariq poured the wrong milk onto his muesli, wincing inwardly as the sickly-sweet taste registered on his discerning palate as a culinary affront. Damned if he was going to give his wife the satisfaction of not drinking it.
‘What have you got on the cards today, my love?’ he asked, willing her to make nice for the sake of the kids.
She peered at him through her Prada glasses, narrowing her eyes. ‘Oh, you know … preparing asylum cases for trafficked girls …’ She raised her voice. There was an edge to it. Even the children fell silent. ‘Who have been forced into slave labour by morally bankrupt, money-grubbing hypocrites and subjected to systematic abuse by men who see them as nothing more than commodities made from flesh.’ Anjum sat down primly at the breakfast bar and took a violent bite of her apple, gnashing her molars together without moving her laser-like gaze from him.
Tariq felt a twinge of corresponding pain in his groin. He swallowed hard, wishing that time-travel back to the winter – the time when his secret had still been safe – were feasible, or that if parallel worlds were really a possibility, another Tariq Khan existed, still living a harmonious family life with a wife who still believed he was nothing more than a respectable, hard-working businessman. He pushed away the bowl of unpalatable muesli, realising that Anjum would never unsee the trafficked Slovakian girl in her offices or unhear the story of her enslavement at the hands of the Boddlington bosses.
In spite of the comforting sound of the children jabbering away excitedly in the back, the journey to school was agony. At his side, his father sat in silence, clutching his karakul hat on his lap and sighing repeatedly.
‘Give it a rest, will you, Dad?’
The old man threw his hands up. ‘What? You have a go at me for talking while you drive. If I sit quietly, minding my own business, you’re still not happy. I can’t win.’
‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Shazia shouted.
With mounting frustration, Tariq glanced at his daughter in the rear-view mirror. ‘What is it, sweetie?’
‘Is Mummy picking us up?’
‘No darling. Daddy is. Mummy’s in court today.’
The
