Dead Wrong - [31]

‘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.