Dead Wrong - [39]

I groaned with envy, ‘I need a holiday.’

‘Thought you were going camping,’ said Ray.

‘Maddie, get off that trellis.’ I waited till she obeyed me. ‘Yes, I need to sort something out, borrow a tent, see if Bev and Harry can lend me theirs.’

My old friends and their three boys lived a couple of miles away in Levenshulme. We’d all squashed into that tent on shared holidays when Maddie and Sam and David had been tiny.

‘It’s mine!’ Tom’s shriek rent the air. He clung to his new scooter, Maddie stood astride it.

‘You’ve got to share, Tom.’ Maddie cast a guilty glance our way.

‘C’mon, Maddie, it’s his birthday present. Get your own bike out.’

‘I hate my bike, it’s horrible.’ She let go of the scooter which fell, but not on Tom, and wandered off to sit on the swing at the other end of the garden. Tom lifted his scooter up and stood uncertain what to do with it now he’d won sole possession. He could not yet scoot. Once he judged Maddie far enough away to pose no immediate threat, he ran to join her.

The phone broke into the conversation. I looked at Ray. ‘It won’t be for me,’ he insisted.

‘Hello?’

‘I want Sal Kilkenny.’

‘Speaking.’

‘That boy that was killed, Ahktar Khan, you’ve been asking questions about it.’ A woman’s voice, my age or younger.

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, that witness, Sonia Siddiq, she wasn’t there. She’s lying – she never saw anything, she can’t have done.’

Mancunian accent but with a tinge to the words that made me think she was Asian.

‘Who is this?’ I asked. No reply. ‘How do you know she wasn’t there? Do you know where Mrs Siddiq was, that night?’

‘She wasn’t at the club. She’s been told to say it – it’s not right, she’s lying.’ The phone went dead.

I sat down trying to digest what I’d just heard. It made sense. It made so much sense when I thought of Mrs Siddiq’s attitude, the questions that had troubled her, the delay in coming forward. What about him, though? The caller had only talked about Sonia. Emma had been astonished that Rashid had been at Nirvana. Had he? Had either of them?

But an anonymous phone call – untraceable, impossible to corroborate. A mixed blessing. Progress though. She’s lying.

Outside it had started to spot with rain. The picnic was over.

Chapter Eighteen

On the way to see Luke at the remand centre I played with scenarios in my head. The club, kids tripping, happy. Joey, running round with a little something for everyone, knife tucked away. Ahktar and Luke partying, Zeb irritable and pressed for cash, Emma storming off. Rashid Siddiq, on his own? Out of place, looking like some of the hired help?

Joey stabbing Ahktar, a bad trip, seeing monsters instead of his friend. Luke holding Ahktar, too drugged to cope, to stay awake. Ecstasy wires you up, lets you dance all night, but they’d taken all sorts, hadn’t they? Maybe the drugs had been bad, cut with something nasty? Or a dodgy combination powerful enough to make someone psychotic for a while?

I wiped the image clean and started again. Suppose the lads had argued, what then? Joey, eager to help, slipping Luke the knife. ‘Here Luke, you show him this, soon shut him up.’ Luke, out of it, takes the handle, stumbles. Surprise as Ahktar pitches forward, blood spilling. It wasn’t meant to be this way. Joey watching, clocking it, running. Rashid Siddiq walks on by.

With a chill in my guts I realised that there really was no guarantee that Joey’s account would exonerate Luke. Joey might not even know what had happened – only that his knife had gone and a young man lay dead. But it must be more than that, surely, to send him so far for so long?

We met in the same grim cubicle as before. Luke looked pinched and pale; he’d lost weight and the nervousness I’d noticed had given way to a dull apathy. He seemed to be half-asleep. I told him about Mrs Deason buying a new knife from Henson’s. He frowned in concentration. ‘You think Joey did it?’

‘I think his knife was used. That’s the only reason she’d go out and buy a new one, and it partly accounts for him doing a runner. Though I think there’s more to it than that.’

He blinked a couple of times and shook his head. I wondered whether he was getting some sort of sedative, he seemed so dull.

‘We don’t have to convict anyone else,’ I said. ‘We just need to make the charge against you look doubtful. I’ve seen Emma, she wanted to know how you were.’ He looked mildly surprised at that. ‘She’s convinced you’re innocent. She split up with Zeb that night, hasn’t seen anyone since, but she had some interesting things to tell me. Your dad probably mentioned it. Emma said Rashid Siddiq worked with Zeb and would have known Ahktar, by sight if nothing else. So the Siddiqs have been lying about whether they knew Ahktar, and Zeb Khan has been lying as well, claiming he didn’t know Siddiq. For some reason he wants to make a secret of it. Emma also told me that the brothers are involved in drugs, importing stuff. Zeb and Rashid Siddiq collect the stuff and distribute it. You’re not surprised?’

‘Ahktar said something once, how they were getting into deep water. He knew it was happening but he never had anything to do with it. They were family, so I suppose he heard stuff but he kept his distance. Zeb is a jerk anyway.’