Ghost Virus Page 3

  ‘Tell DS Patel how it was done, though. It wasn’t thrown at her, was it?’

  ‘No, not thrown,’ said the forensic officer. ‘I mean, that’s the way they usually do it, isn’t it? – walk right up to them when they’re standing or sitting and splosh it straight into their face. But this young lady, she was lying on her back right here on the bed. You can tell by the pattern of acid discoloration on her hair and the bedspread underneath her that it was poured over her while she was prone.’

  Jerry leaned over the bed so that he could examine the young woman’s glistening red face more closely. The flesh on her cheeks was all twisted and knotted, and in places the bones were exposed.

  ‘If you’re conscious, you’re not just going to lie there and let somebody pour concentrated sulphuric acid all over your mush, are you?’ he said. ‘Maybe she was drugged with Rohypnol, or something like that. Either that, or there was more than one assailant. If she wasn’t drugged, somebody would have had to pin her down.’

  ‘There’s no apparent bruising on her wrists,’ said the forensic officer. ‘We’ll know more, of course, once she’s been taken to St George’s for a full post-mortem.’

  ‘All we know about her so far is that her name is Samira Wazir,’ said Jamila. ‘She’s seventeen-and-a-half years old and a former pupil at Al-Risalah Secondary School. Her parents recently took her to Pakistan and judging by her orange shalwar kameez I’d say that they may have taken her there to meet her husband-to-be.’

  ‘You mean an arranged marriage?’ asked DI Saunders.

  ‘That’s the usual custom, yes.’

  ‘So maybe she didn’t like the look of this husband-to-be and said she didn’t want to marry him.’

  ‘That can be the motive for an honour punishment, yes,’ said Jamila. ‘But it’s far too early to say in this case. We need to find out from her mother and her brother who she was supposed to be marrying, and whether she had any boyfriends here in the UK that her family didn’t approve of. Or maybe she had a Pakistani boyfriend here who was angry that she was going to marry another man, and wanted to ruin her looks.

  ‘It’s even possible that she was being punished for something that her brother has done. That has happened many times in Pakistan. A man might commit adultery but it will be one of his sisters who gets punished for it. Sometimes she might be forced to marry the cuckolded husband, and often she’ll be gang-raped, too, by all of the male members of his family.’

  ‘Charming,’ said the ginger forensic officer. ‘I’m bloody glad I don’t have to gang-rape the wife’s sister. I wouldn’t climb on her to hang wallpaper. Mind you, she’d probably enjoy it.’

  ‘I’ll go down and have a word with this poor girl’s mother and brother. Jerry – come with me. It’s important that I have a man with me, especially when I question her brother.’

  ‘Where’s her father?’ asked DI Saunders.

  ‘Still in Peshawar, doing business, so she said. He might have stayed there to arrange the wedding with her prospective husband’s family – sorting out the dowry, maybe. We’ll find out, anyway.’

  Jerry and Jamila left the bedroom, but before he went out of the door Jerry took one last look at the girl lying on the bed. He was shocked but also fascinated by that gruesome face, with its wild mane of black hair spread out all around it, and by that blistered tongue poking out as if she were challenging anybody who dared to suggest that she didn’t look beautiful. He had seen plenty of dead bodies during his nine-year career – some crushed, some charred, some bloated from the river – but none as horrifying as this. He would probably have nightmares about her, but he was trying to imagine what kind of sadist could have deliberately mutilated her like that, and wanted her to suffer so much agony. In the name of what? Religion? Or jealousy? Or family honour? How could it be honourable to kill a young woman by melting her face off?

  Mrs Wazir was twisting her green dupatta nervously as Jerry and Jamila entered the living-room. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen from crying. Jamal was standing by the window looking at the police cars out in the street and he didn’t turn around when they came in. The young woman constable who had been sitting with them stood up and said, ‘Do you want me to wait outside, ma’am?’

  ‘No, stay,’ said Jamila. ‘It’ll be good experience for you. Mrs Wazir – this is Detective Pardoe. He’s been seconded from Scotland Yard. He’s very experienced in dealing with domestic incidents so you can be quite open with him.’

  ‘What do you mean, “domestic incidents”?’ demanded Mrs Wazir, using her dupatta to wipe her eyes. ‘This had nothing at all to do with my family. Like I told you before, my son Jamal and me, we had both been away for two days when this happened, visiting my cousins in Redbridge.’

  ‘Mrs Wazir, our forensic team have now examined all of the doors and windows in this house, and there is no sign of forced entry. This means one of four things. Either Samira’s assailants possessed a key, or had borrowed one; or Samira knew them and invited them into the house; or they forced their way in once she had opened the door, whether she knew them or not.’

  ‘That is only three things,’ said Mrs Wazir.

  ‘Well, I think the fourth is obvious. She was assaulted by a member or members of her family.’

  ‘That is an outrageous suggestion,’ said Mrs Wazir. ‘If you repeat such a thing I will be forced to call our solicitors.’

  ‘Please,’ Jamila told her, ‘I’m not trying to be offensive, or make false accusations, but I have to consider every possibility, or else I wouldn’t be doing my job. I’m sure you can understand that.’

  ‘I can only understand that you are trying to accuse me of burning my own beloved daughter’s face with acid. Can you imagine what it was like for me, to find her like that? I shall never sleep again as long as I live.’

  ‘She was wearing an orange shalwar kameez, which suggests to me that she was soon to be married,’ said Jamila.

  ‘Yes. This is true. The reason we took her to Peshawar in September was to meet her husband-to-be. He is a very fine upstanding young man from a good family, and Samira liked him and was very happy that she was going to be his bride.’

  ‘Does she have any boyfriends here in Tooting?’ asked Jerry.

  ‘She has friends who are boys but not what you would call a boyfriend. She was a virgin.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘How about her brother here – Jamal, is it? Do you know if your sister had any boyfriends?’

  ‘My sister did what she was told,’ said Jamal, without turning around.

  ‘That’s not what I asked you.’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know any of her friends.’

  ‘Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to harm Samira for any reason at all? Had she upset one of her girlfriends, maybe?’

  ‘You will have to ask them,’ said Mrs Wazir. ‘Her best friend is Aqeelah Abdali. She lives in Streatham somewhere. I expect you will be able to find her address from Samira’s telephone book.’

  ‘Was Samira planning on further education?’ asked Jamila. ‘Going on to college maybe, or university?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Mrs Wazir. ‘She was going to be married.’

  Jerry was tempted to ask Mrs Wazir why being a wife meant that she couldn’t continue her studies, but he decided to keep his mouth shut.

  ‘What has she been doing since she left school?’ he asked her.

  ‘Helping me in the house mostly. Sometimes to make herself a little money she worked in the evenings at Saravanna Bhavan restaurant in the High Street.’

  Jamila noted that down, and then she said, ‘How about Samira’s health? Had she said anything to you about being worried or depressed or not feeling well?’

  Mrs Wazir thought about that, and then shrugged. ‘I will say that for the past week she was very quiet, and I didn’t see much of her. In fact she went out almost every day and she would come back late and go straight
up to her room.’

  ‘Did you ask her if there was anything wrong?’

  ‘I knocked at her door, yes, and asked her if she was all right, but she said everything was fine.’

  ‘She didn’t join you for meals, or come downstairs and watch television with you?’

  ‘No. When I told her that supper was on the table she said that she had already eaten at the restaurant.’

  Jamal came away from the window. His black hair was brushed up into a point and his moustache looked false, although he had the beginnings of a curly beard, too. He was wearing a dark green zip-up fleece with the nickname Pak Shaheens on it for the Pakistani national football team, and skinny black jeggings.

  ‘Come on, Mum,’ he said, in a strong South London accent, ‘why don’t you tell them that you and Sam was always shouting at each other anyway? You was always arguing and slamming doors.’

  ‘Is that true, Mrs Wazir?’ said Jamila. ‘You and Samira weren’t getting on?’

  Mrs Wazir threw up her hands and said, ‘Pfff! What do you expect? Mothers and daughters always argue. And Samira could be very stubborn. That was why we thought it was time that she was married. To be married would teach her to be obedient, like a woman should be. But my heart still bleeds for her, I can tell you. I cannot believe that I will never see her again. I cannot believe it!’

  She pressed her dupatta to her eyes, and shook her head in disbelief and grief.

  At that moment DI Saunders appeared in the doorway and looked around the living-room in his bird-of-prey way, left and right, as if he expected to see mice scurrying along the skirting-boards that he could pounce on.

  ‘How’s it going, sergeant?’

  ‘I think we’re done for tonight, sir,’ said Jamila. ‘We’ll come around again in a day or two, Mrs Wazir, when you’ve had more time to get over the shock, and we’ve had time to talk to Samira’s friends and assess exactly what happened to her. If you like, I can arrange for a volunteer from Victim Support to come and visit you.’

  Mrs Wazir raised one hand to acknowledge that she had heard her. Jamal just stood there with his hands in the pockets of his fleece and a bored expression on his face, as if he couldn’t wait for Jerry and Jamila and the young woman police officer to leave.

  They had to wait for a moment while two paramedics carried a stretcher past the living-room and up the stairs. As they stood in the doorway, Jerry said, ‘Where’s that coat gone?’

  ‘What coat?’ asked Jamila.

  ‘There was a grey coat on that coat-stand, on top of all of those other coats. It’s not there any more. There’s a red coat on top now.’

  ‘I can’t say that I noticed it.’

  ‘No, there was definitely a grey coat on top. I remember it because it was just like a coat I used to have when I got my first motorbike.’

  ‘I can’t seriously see anybody half-inching it,’ said DI Saunders. ‘It probably dropped off and they’ve hung it up somewhere else.’

  The police officers who had been standing in the hallway had stepped out into the front garden so that the paramedics could get past, and were chatting and stamping their feet to keep warm.

  ‘Did any of you see what happened to that grey coat?’ Jerry asked them, as he and Jamila came outside.

  They all shook their heads. ‘What grey coat?’

  ‘There was a grey—’ Jerry began, but then he said, ‘Never mind.’

  ‘Not suffering from optical illusions, are we, Jerry?’ asked DI Saunders, as they walked back up the road to their cars.

  Jerry was strongly tempted to say, ‘You actually smiled when you said that, “Smiley”,’ but he decided against it. He was becoming quite proud of his self-restraint these days. But he was still convinced that he had seen a grey coat on top of that coat-stand, and if nobody had taken it, where had it gone?

  5

  Sophie was woken up by Mike’s snoring. He always snored, but he snored even louder and more elaborately when he had been drinking. Each exhalation started softly, like a motorboat puttering across a lake, but it would gradually grow into a harsh, rabid growl, and finish up with an off-key squeal.

  She turned her head to look at the digital clock beside the bed. It was 3:41. Because of Mike’s snoring she never slept well, and she wondered if that was one of the reasons why she had been feeling so depressed lately.

  She lay there for a while, while Mike snored on and on, with an occasional snuffle. The streetlights were shining through the gap in the curtains, so that a shadowy pattern of leaves was dancing on the ceiling. She couldn’t stop thinking about the blue velvet jacket, and the way that she had felt when she had tried it on. Bereaved, strangely, but furious, too.

  She had left the jacket on the sofa in the living-room downstairs. Maybe if she went down and tried it on again, she would understand why it had made her feel so sad and so angry. The more she thought about it, the more she knew that she needed to do it. Anyway, she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, not with Mike snoring so loudly. She could try on the jacket and make herself a mug of warm chocolate Ovaltine and listen to Adele on her headphones.

  She folded back the duvet and climbed out of bed. She was naked, but their maisonette was always warm, and neither she nor Mike ever wore anything at night. He was always so hot and sweaty, in any case, and she had to change the sheets at least twice a week because they smelled so sour, especially if they had been having sex. Not that they had been having sex very often – not for the past three or four months, anyway.

  She felt her way across the darkened landing and down the stairs, and once she was in the living-room she closed the door behind her and switched on the table-lamp. There was just enough space in the living-room for a tan vinyl two-seater sofa, one armchair and a glass-topped coffee-table. A 55-inch television was mounted on the wall, and Sophie could see herself reflected in its black shiny screen as she crossed the room to pick up the jacket. She thought she looked like a ghost of herself, pale and out of focus.

  Perhaps that’s what I’ve become, staying with Mike. Nothing more than a ghost.

  She tried on the jacket, and this time, because she was naked, she could feel its wrinkled silk lining across her back, cool and slippery, but slightly clinging, too. She had to admit that it was still too tight for her across the bust, although she managed to fasten the middle button out of three. There was something about it that she hadn’t noticed when she had first tried it on – probably because there was lily-of the-valley air freshener in the Little Helpers shop to mask the smell of second-hand clothes and yellowing paperbacks. The velvet had a faintly bitter aroma to it, as if its last wearer had been standing close to a bonfire. She sniffed one sleeve and there was no doubt about it. It had absorbed the pungency of charred wood.

  She closed her eyes. She could picture the smoke billowing across the owner’s garden, and hear the crackling of burning timber. Although she had no idea why, it made her feel both angry and pleased with herself.

  There – you’ve got what you deserved. Did you really think that I was so weak that I wasn’t going to punish you?

  She opened the living-room door and stepped out into the hallway. She didn’t care now if the light from the living-room shone upstairs and woke Mike up. It might make him annoyed, but even if he started shouting at her, so what? She preferred his shouting to his snoring – at least when he was shouting he was recognising that she existed.

  She stood in front of the long wall mirror at the bottom of the stairs and admired herself. She thought the jacket gave her style, and sophistication, and a certain authority, too – the look of a woman who commanded attention whenever she walked into a room. Somehow it made her prettier, too. Mike had once called her ‘suet-pudding-face’ when they had been having one of their rows, but now her cheekbones seemed more angular. Perhaps it was only the subdued lighting in the hallway that lent her that look, but her jawline seemed stronger, too, and more clear-cut.

  She held her breath and listened. She heard
Mike snuffling again, and it sounded as if he had said something, but after a few seconds he continued snoring, although his snores no longer ended in that oboe-like squeal.

  What makes you think you can treat me with such contempt, as if I’m nothing? Just because you’ve been paying the rent and you’ve lent me money, what makes you think that I don’t deserve to be loved, and respected, and given my freedom?

  She stared at herself in the mirror for almost half a minute, only blinking twice. Her eyes still had that feline slant to them, but she thought they looked wider, and a much darker brown, as dark as polished mahogany; and there was an intensity in them which she had never seen before. Not just pride, although she could see pride as well – pride in her personality and pride in her appearance. Most of all she saw cold determination.

  Nobody is ever going to trap me again. Nobody is ever going to grind me down, so that I have to live the same tedious life, day after day, afraid to express myself, afraid to disagree. This is where it ends.

  Sophie went back through the living-room to the small kitchenette, switching on the fluorescent lights. The dishes from last night’s Indian takeaway were still soaking in the sink, with a greasy orange film on the surface of the water. She had intended to wash them up before she went to work in the morning. Mike wouldn’t do them, even though he didn’t have to leave for the office until 9:15.

  She opened the second drawer down in the kitchen cabinet. This is where they kept the tongs and the slotted spoons and the potato-peeler, as well as the cooking knives. She took out a wooden-handled carving knife, as well as two smaller knives.

  Her heart was beating hard, but she felt mentally calm and completely focused, unlike the white-skinned ghost of herself that she had seen in the television screen. She knew exactly what she was going to do and how she was going to do it, and she also knew that nothing in the world was going to change her mind.