6
TROUBLE IN STORE
Rafi Abd al-Qaadir looked around the filthy shop and wondered if he had made a mistake. Buckled metal sheeting marked the spot where the shawarma spits had turned, splattering grease onto the walls and ceiling, and there had clearly been a fire at some point in the past. The meat counters and the bolted-down tables had been left behind, but the ovens and the refrigerator had been ripped out, leaving ragged holes in the plaster.
Rafi had borrowed money from his brothers to buy the lease of the Paradise Chip Shop, Caledonian Road, and knew that he would have to carry out most of the conversion work himself. The first consignment of pottery and rugs was already on its way, and the task before him was daunting because he could not afford to hire a team of professional builders. Even though the lease he had purchased would soon need to be renewed, the handsome young Arab felt sure he could use his charm and wits to turn a profit. The site was good, a corner store in an up-and-coming area with plenty of passing foot traffic.
As he walked through the empty room, his boots crunching on scattered debris, he studied the task ahead. The trickiest part would be the removal of the enormous ventilation system that wound across the ceiling before punching its way out onto the roof. He could get hold of the right equipment easily enough, but the physical element of the job was beyond him. Rafi’s left leg had always been weak, and would not support him if he tried to carry anything too heavy. What he needed to find was a strong labourer who would work cheaply and quickly.
When the man with the shaven head and shoulders like an upended bed appeared in the doorway asking if he needed any work done, Rafi knew that fate had smiled upon him.
Former Detective Constable Colin Bimsley needed to make some fast money. He had already drunk his way through the pitiful payment granted to him by the Home Office. He was now broke. Walking back toward King’s Cross tube station, he had passed the derelict takeaway outlet and watched the guy inside measuring up.
‘Do you know how to take one of these out?’ Rafi asked, pointing up at the cylindrical ventilation shaft.
‘Easy,’ said Bimsley. ‘I can get that down for you, and put in new electrics. I can handle just about anything except plumbing.’
‘That’s fine, I’ve already got someone for that.’ Bimsley walked through to the far wall and gave it an experimental slap. Dirt showered down. Lathe and plasterboard, it would come apart easily enough. He could render and cement the outer wall, reboard the interior, sand and paint, put in new electrical sockets—it wouldn’t take long. ‘So you’re not going to be cooking in here?’
‘No, I’m going to be selling homewares.’
‘You could apply for a grant from the local council.’
‘I don’t understand. Why would they give me a grant?’ ‘You’re going to be improving the area, mate. This road has too many junk food outlets attracting trouble. You’ll be doing everyone a favour. I could probably help you with that as well.’
‘I’m Rafi,’ said the young man, smiling broadly as he shook Bimsley’s heavy hand. ‘Let’s talk about the money over tea.’
They agreed upon a fair price, and Bimsley offered to start at once. After making a trip to B&Q in Rafi’s van, they borrowed an industrial vacuum cleaner, a pickax, a drill and a box of tools from the mosque across the road, and set to work. Clouds of plaster dust billowed through the shop as Bimsley hammered through the partitions, tearing out the ventilation tubes to emerge looking like a herder caught in a sandstorm.
‘Hey, Rafi, the power’s still live in the back room.’ Bimsley lowered his paper mask and thumbed back through the white fog. ‘It must be on a separate circuit. I need to turn it off.’
Rafi headed down to the basement, found the breaker box beside the meters and killed the power. Upstairs, Bimsley checked the light and assured himself that it was safe to proceed. Ripping down the last of the wall with the end of a crowbar, he waited for the dust to settle. Something smelled bad. A broken drain? He dragged a stepladder beneath a small, high window, chiselled through the crusted paintwork and forced it open.
As the air became more breatheable, he shifted a stack of folding chairs, empty drums of ghee and flattened cardboard boxes away from a large white metal object as long as a coffin.
‘Hey, did you know you’ve got a freezer back here?’ he called.
‘I thought they’d thrown everything out,’ said Rafi as Bimsley tried the lid.
‘It’s got a padlock.’
‘Why would they lock it?’
‘Allow me. This is a job for a skilled professional.’ Bimsley eased his new friend aside and pulled out a set of slender keys, a memento of his days at the PCU. Deftly popping the padlock in a matter of seconds—an old party trick Arthur Bryant had taught him—he unstuck the lid.
‘Whoa.’ Bimsley backed away as the sour-sweet smell of putrescent meat filled the room, making them retch. ‘They must have left food in it.’
Rafi took a look inside. When he did not speak but merely covered his mouth and stared back into the freezer, Bimsley came and followed his gaze.
‘Blimey, no wonder they kept it padlocked.’
The body was that of a naked male in a bad state, knees bent to fit into the freezer. His hairless stomach was bloated by expanding intestinal gases, ruptured and blistered from attacking bacteria. Bimsley had seen plenty of frozen turkeys stacked in supermarket freezers, but the sight of a human being similarly arranged was made more grotesque by a further detail. The body was missing its head. The white knobble of the exposed spinal stump was as neatly carved through as any pork or poultry joint, even if the skin was marbled green and purple.
The freezer had not been airtight. Bimsley could see that insects had already burrowed deep into the decaying flesh, and hastily closed the freezer lid before any more could be attracted. At this time of the year swarms of flies appeared because the shop was near the canal, and he was aware of the dangers of further contaminating the corpse.
‘Who had this place before you?’
‘This has nothing to do with me, I swear—’
‘All right, calm down, nobody’s saying it does, okay? Who had the place?’
‘I don’t know, some Nigerian guy. I didn’t deal with him, just the agent. Then it was empty for a while.’
‘So when did you first see it?’
‘About a month ago. I came here with my brother a few times, but I couldn’t always lock it up behind me. There’s something wrong with the door. I figured there wasn’t anything worth stealing.’
‘Does the agent know about the problem with the door?’
‘I don’t know—I just said I’d rent it, it was cheap, I don’t know anything about the building or who had it before.’ Rafi’s cheerful confidence had vanished. Now he was sweating and fearful.
‘This is going to put back the opening of your store a little,’ said Bimsley, digging for his mobile and punching out John May’s number. ‘It looks like you’ve got yourself a murder site.’
‘Oh, no.’ Rafi covered his eyes with his hands. ‘I’ll lose all my money. Couldn’t we just get rid of him? Who would know? I could call my brothers—’
‘No, mate, we can’t do that. I’m a copper. I have to call it in.’
‘I thought you were a casual labourer. You’re with the police?’ Rafi looked betrayed.
‘Well, I was until recently. I’m sorry.’
‘What will happen now?’
‘Someone from the Coroner’s Office will come and take the body away. Then I think the investigation team will want to find out what happened to the most important part of him.’