‘I’m not sure I should leave him alone …’
‘Alone?’ I said. He floundered, searched for the right words. His hands were clasped so hard behind his back that I felt like I’d cuffed him. ‘You mean that my reputation precedes me, Constable?’ He gave me a combined look of relief and dismay as I addressed the elephant in the room. He nodded tentatively. ‘That’s fair enough,’ I said. ‘I’ll find us both a coffee.’
Ali was awake an hour or so later. The doctor saw him first and, satisfied that he was OK to talk, asked a passing nurse to take me through. The nurse was a sick-looking man with grey, translucent teeth. He sucked them, audibly, as we walked. I wondered if he’d begun working here as a healthy person and then slowly absorbed the aura of madness and death surrounding him. I wondered what I was absorbing in my line of work. The patient I’d heard howling from the other side of the door fell silent when he saw us. He was rose-cheeked and sweating. He looked exhausted.
‘Is he all right?’ I asked the nurse.
‘Ignore him, he’s due for the deep six any day now.’
I stopped walking. ‘I think I’ll be all right on my own from here.’
‘Great,’ he said. He gave me a smile I could see through, turned on his heel and headed out of the ward. He paused by the door to exchange a few vicious words with the terrified patient and then left. I took a seat next to Ali, whose eyes were closed. He was a large man. His forearms, which rested on top of the bed sheet, were the size of my calves. It must have taken some blow to the head to put him under. He heard me sitting down and opened his eyes.
‘Good morning, Mr Nasser. How are you feeling?’
He held out his hands as if to say, take a look.
‘Did the doctor explain what happened?’ His dark eyes moved on mine. ‘You’re in hospital. You were assaulted last night …’ He put a hand to his head and nodded. ‘I’m Detective Constable Aidan Waits. I was called to the Palace Hotel because something triggered the alarm.’
He spoke with a clean, considered Middle Eastern accent. ‘You are the man who found me?’
I nodded. ‘In the third-floor corridor. Do you know how you came to be up there?’
He frowned, concentrating on the memory. ‘I heard voices.’
‘What kinds of voices?’
‘Men.’ He hesitated. ‘Shouting.’ He thought for a second more and then corrected himself. ‘Screaming.’
‘Do you know how many voices?’
‘I think two?’ He shook his head. ‘It sounded like an argument, a fight.’
‘And what were they saying?’
He strained. ‘I … could not tell …’
‘Do you have any idea what time this was?’
‘Before midnight, certainly. Or I would have already been on patrol.’
‘So you heard the voices from the lobby?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that led you through to the stairwell?’
‘Yes, I followed the voices.’ He smiled, self-deprecatingly. ‘Old fool.’
‘You were only doing your job.’
‘Was anything taken?’ he said, trying to sit up.
‘I’m afraid it’s a little more serious than that. We found a body on the fourth floor.’
‘I don’t understand …’
‘We’re treating the death as suspicious.’ I watched the news sink in, like a drop of ink in water.
‘Who …?’
‘We haven’t identified the body yet, but I have to ask, have you ever let any other people into the building?’
‘Never.’
‘No one at all?’
He thought about it. ‘Workmen, months ago for repairs. Mr Blick occasionally for inspections …’
‘Mr Blick’s an owner?’
‘Solicitor,’ he said. ‘Mr Blick is the man who hired me.’ He was proud of the fact.
‘I see, does he work with Ms Khan?’
‘I believe he’s her employer.’
‘When was Mr Blick last around?’
‘Months ago. He’s been unwell, I believe.’
‘OK. Did you see or hear anything unusual, anything out of the ordinary last night?’
‘Not until the voices.’
‘When I arrived I found a fire exit open on the fourth floor …’
He frowned. ‘I didn’t open any fire exits.’
The statement felt like a dead end so I changed direction. ‘Can I ask how you came to be working at the Palace?’
He gave a cynical snort. ‘How I came to be in this country?’
‘If you like.’
‘I am here one year, from Syria.’
‘You sought asylum?’
‘The devil is real there.’ He looked down at the bed, his face clouded by thoughts I couldn’t guess at. ‘Yes, I sought asylum.’
‘How did you find it?’ He looked up at me. ‘The process, I mean.’
‘It’s difficult. Like …’ He searched for the word. ‘Humiliation. Life in the detention centre is very bad. That’s why I found this security work. I can do the same job but with kindness. With a good heart.’ He shrugged. ‘But so far, I’m only a guard.’
‘What kind of work did you do in Syria?’
He looked, almost wistfully, at our surroundings. ‘I was a doctor,’ he said. ‘Fifteen years.’
‘We’ve had some trouble locating your colleague, the day guard, Marcus. The description I have of him is neat, dark hair, tanned skin and blue eyes …’ I was actually describing the dead body. There seemed no point in alerting Ali to his colleague’s possible murder unless I had to, but he shook his head at the description.
‘Marcus is white, pale, no hair.’
‘Can you think where we might find him if he’s not at home?’
He shook his head. ‘Not close friends.’
‘How do you get on?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, before amending the statement. ‘I don’t know him well.’
‘Is he good at his job?’
‘When you meet Marcus, will you ask about me?’ I didn’t say anything. ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Very good at his job.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Marcus has a business mind, entrepreneurial spirit.’
‘Meaning?’
He snorted. ‘You might find my meaning in the third-floor dustbins of the Palace.’ I waited for more but he didn’t expand on the statement. ‘I’m telling you more than I know, sir,’ he clarified. ‘I’m telling you a guess.’
‘OK. What about Marcus’s key card?’
‘Sir?’
‘Can you think of any reason why we might find it in room 413, with the dead man?’
He struggled. ‘None.’
I looked at him for a moment. ‘Well, an officer will be along to take a full statement from you this morning. Until then, we’d like to leave someone on the door as well.’
‘Watched?’
‘It’s for your own protection,’ I said, standing to leave.
‘Why?’ he said, suddenly animated. ‘Why protect me now?’
‘You’re a witness to what looks like a serious crime.’
‘In Aleppo I saw everything. Then, when I sought asylum, no one asked. No one cared.’ He laughed, joylessly. ‘Here I see nothing, I am protected.’
‘Sometimes we know things that we think we don’t.’
He snorted again. ‘And sometimes we don’t know things that we think we do. Old saying,’ he said. ‘Shit in, shit out.’
‘I think I’ve heard that one.’
As I left the ward the agitated patient started screaming again. I saw the grey-toothed nurse pacing down the corridor towards him, relishing the thought of an argument. I half-turned to intervene.
‘Is he fighting with the patients again?’ said a woman who I took to be a doctor.
I nodded. ‘I think a guy in there might have given him a long night …’
‘Well, that’s the job,’ she said, recognizing a fellow night owl in me. This happened more often than you’d think. We marked out the pale skin, the tired eyes in each other. ‘I’ll talk to him,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
When I stepped outside, the heat was like a wall. I was thinking about Ali’s experience, our talent for dehumanizing each other, when a large black BMW pulled up in front of me. I tried to walk around it, but the driver nudged forwards, blocking my path. The glass was tinted and I saw my own, troubled reflection before the rear window buzzed down. It revealed a familiar face, staring out at me.
‘Aidan Waits,’ said the man, in a low, Scottish growl. ‘As I live and breathe …’
He looked like a grey-haired Lucifer, and I wasn’t convinced he did either of those things.
‘Parrs.’
‘Put some respect on my name, son.’