Nothing But Lies Page 9

  The nurse gave him a small, sad smile and sighed. ‘It never gets any easier,’ she said. ‘Especially when they’re so young. It’s such a waste.’

  Daniel nodded. ‘I used to be a policeman.’

  ‘Then you’ll know,’ she said, nodding, and touched his arm briefly as she moved away.

  Because he wanted one and there wasn’t anything else he could usefully do, Daniel went in search of a decent coffee, returning a little later with a tray bearing three lidded cardboard cups.

  Jo-Ji and Tamiko were still with Hana. Tamiko was by the bed, holding her sister’s hand in silent misery, but as Daniel hesitated in the doorway, Jo-Ji left her side and came over.

  ‘Is Jafari still with the police?’ Daniel asked, low-voiced. Jo-Ji nodded.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’

  ‘Not so far. They won’t talk to me, of course. Investigators are on site and Walters did tell me they were concerned about the circumstances of the accident.’

  ‘In what way, exactly?’

  ‘Well, it’s a hit-and-run, so they’re looking for witnesses. We can’t discount the idea that it might have been deliberate.’

  ‘Mm.’ Daniel proffered the tray of drinks. ‘I may be wrong, but however much I dislike Jafari, I’m inclined to believe that he knew nothing of this till I told him,’ he said finally.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re wrong,’ Jo-Ji said. ‘Because if it wasn’t him, I don’t even want to consider the alternative.’

  ‘I know. Hana was driving Tami’s car, and from a distance they don’t look dissimilar …’ Reluctantly, Daniel voiced what they were both thinking.

  ‘Yeah.’ Jo-Ji looked bleak.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jo-Ji nodded.

  They both knew that if the crash hadn’t been accidental and Jafari was cleared of blame, then far from having come to a tragic end, their troubles might just be beginning.

  SIX

  ‘Well, he’s finally sleeping.’ Tamiko came into the kitchen where Jo-Ji and Daniel were drinking beer over the debris and remains of takeaway fish and chips. ‘I’m not sure he really understand what is happening, but I think maybe that is good.’

  ‘Come and sit down, love, you look shattered,’ Jo-Ji said. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea. Daniel?’

  ‘Please.’ It was nearly midnight and Daniel was feeling tired himself, and he hadn’t anywhere near the same level of emotional involvement that Tamiko had. She had hardly eaten anything. He drained his glass and gathered up the greasy paper, wrapping it round the inevitable surfeit of chips and dumping the lot in the bin.

  ‘Recycling …’ Tamiko protested faintly.

  ‘Not tonight,’ he stated.

  Silence fell, broken only by the chinking of a spoon against china as Jo-Ji stirred the tea. It had been an evening of long silences.

  ‘I keep thinking about Jahan,’ Tamiko said finally. ‘Kawaiso ne – poor little boy. He have so much trouble for such a short life.’

  ‘Well, he’s lucky to have you looking out for him,’ Daniel responded. ‘I was very impressed with the way you took charge at the hospital. That nurse was left standing with her mouth open!’

  ‘To be honest, so was I,’ Jo-Ji told him. ‘I have known Tami for four years and I’ve never seen her like that.’

  ‘Well, somebody has to do something!’ she exclaimed. ‘That stupid woman who say he must wait for a social worker. And then what? Couldn’t she see that what he needs most is people he knows, hot food and a bed?’

  ‘I was very proud of you,’ her fiancé stated. ‘And the image of you standing toe to toe with that nurse and wagging your finger at her is one I shall treasure for years to come.’

  Daniel nodded. The amply proportioned ward sister had dwarfed Tamiko’s diminutive form but she had in no way allowed the woman to dominate her, informing her that if the social worker wished to see the child, she was welcome to visit him at the cottage – tomorrow.

  ‘I was just so angry,’ Tamiko said in a smaller voice. ‘About everything. And then that woman … Was I rude?’

  ‘No. Don’t worry.’ Jo-Ji put her mug of tea on the table and kissed the top of her head. ‘Drink this and get to bed.’

  ‘But I won’t sleep,’ she protested. ‘How can I? There is so much we have to think about – to decide. What happens to Jahan now? What if Samir—’

  ‘One day at a time,’ Jo-Ji said sitting beside her and putting his arm round her shoulders. ‘What is that saying you’re so fond of?’

  ‘Yes, I know. “Ashitawa ashitano kazega fuku”,’ she murmured, translating for Daniel’s benefit, ‘“Tomorrow it will blow tomorrow’s wind”. It is true; I say it many times to others but now I find it not so easy to follow. My sister I already miss very much and I worry so much about her little boy. I don’t know what to do. It is all seeming such a mess.’

  ‘Jahan isn’t just your problem,’ Daniel told her. ‘You’ve got Joey to help you and, if there’s anything I can do, you have me, too. Things will sort themselves out eventually. I’m so sorry about Hana.’

  ‘If only she hadn’t gone to meet Samir, she would still be here,’ Tamiko said, tears filling her eyes once more.

  ‘I’m sorry. I feel a bit responsible for that,’ Jo-Ji admitted.

  ‘But you couldn’t know,’ she exclaimed. ‘It wasn’t your fault. But why is he again being questioned? They don’t think – I mean, it was an accident, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It’s routine.’ Jo-Ji and Daniel had agreed not to tell her of their suspicions just yet. ‘But given his history, we have to check Jafari’s movements, just in case.’

  Tamiko shook her head. ‘He’s a bully and I think maybe he has hit her one time, but surely he wouldn’t try to kill her?’

  ‘It depends what she said to him when they met, this morning,’ Jo-Ji said. ‘If she didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear, who knows …? But Daniel got the impression they had come to some agreement, so let’s hope he’s in the clear.’

  ‘How awful it would be for Jahan, when he’s older, to find out that his father had killed his mother,’ Tamiko suggested.

  ‘I honestly don’t think it’ll come to that,’ Daniel said gently. ‘Jo-Ji’s right. This is getting us nowhere. We’re all too tired to think straight. We should get to bed.’

  Tamiko pushed her chair back. ‘I’ll just go to see the horses first.’

  ‘I can do that,’ Daniel offered.

  ‘No. It is for myself I need to see.’ Perhaps aware that her tone had been sharp, she added, ‘I’m sorry. That was rude. I just feel that, after everything, I won’t rest until I have seen that they are OK. I need something to be right. To be normal.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, then,’ Daniel said.

  Tamiko looked as though she were going to protest further, so he added, ‘Taz needs to stretch his legs.’ He didn’t want to have to explain to her at this point that until they knew for sure who had driven their car into the side of Tamiko’s car, he and Jo-Ji were going to make sure that she was never out of their sight.

  The next morning brought authority in the burly person of DS Walters and a female colleague with auburn hair, who Jo-Ji greeted as Sue, and who was introduced as the Family Liaison Officer assigned to Hana’s case.

  Jo-Ji answered the door and brought them through to the kitchen where Daniel and Tamiko were sitting having a late breakfast after an early ride. No matter what the human tragedy, the animals still had their needs and Tamiko had wanted to ride, to clear her head. She had cancelled her clients for the day, but Karen had just arrived and Jahan had followed her upstairs to her treatment room where he was happily, if somewhat messily, engaged with a colouring book and crayons while she worked.

  ‘What news?’ Jo-Ji asked. Rostered on duty, he had been given compassionate leave to be with Tamiko.

  ‘We haven’t yet found a witness who saw the collision, but we’re going to put a notice out at the roadside and see if anyone comes forward,’ Walters reported.
Bald-headed, with just a shadow of a ring of hair at the lower edge of his scalp, he had a slightly avuncular air about him.

  ‘Was it – do you think it was Samir?’ Tamiko asked.

  ‘No. He’s in the clear. He did meet your sister at the shopping centre, as he said, but at the time of the collision he was refuelling at a garage on the Bath road. They have him on CCTV.’

  ‘That’s convenient for him,’ Jo-Ji observed dryly. ‘Do we know if he’s down here alone? If he was with her yesterday morning, he’d have a pretty good idea of her route home. He could have had someone waiting at a convenient point while he established his alibi at the petrol station. What about this Assim Kahn character that owns the van?’

  ‘I can’t really discuss the investigation with you, you know that,’ Walters told him, apologetically. ‘But of course, we’re checking everything out.’

  ‘So where did it happen?’

  ‘That’s the interesting thing,’ the sergeant said, naming a rural B road, southwest of Bath. ‘Not the most ideal spot to set up an accident, one would think.’

  ‘I know that road,’ Tamiko said. ‘We use it the other day, when I drop off the martingale and visit my client, do you remember, Daniel? But why would she have been there? That’s not the way home.’

  ‘We have no way of knowing,’ the FLO spoke for the first time. ‘It’s possible she just took the wrong road.’

  ‘There are road works on that stretch of the road,’ Walters added, unbending a little from his strictly procedural stance. ‘She was stationary at the lights. We believe that the vehicle that hit her was travelling in the opposite direction and it looks like it just swerved into her, pushing her car into a tree at the side of the road. I’m sorry, miss,’ he added, as Tamiko flinched at his words.

  ‘So it doesn’t look as though it was premeditated,’ Daniel put in. ‘Not an ideal choice of location, one would have thought. On the other hand, it’s a strange place to lose control – on a straight road.’

  ‘There was mud on the road but it seems the vehicle that hit her made no attempt to stop,’ Walters said. ‘The collision was heard by a farmer in a nearby field and it was him that called the ambulance. He reported that the other driver drove away straight after the incident.’

  ‘His vehicle must have taken a bit of a battering,’ Jo-Ji observed. ‘Did no one see it further along the road?’

  ‘That’s what we need to find out,’ Walters said. ‘But forensics think the vehicle probably had bull bars fitted. It may have come off relatively lightly. We are working to trace it. It could hold valuable DNA evidence.’

  ‘Unless they’ve torched it,’ Daniel responded.

  ‘Yes. Unfortunately that’s often the case,’ Walters agreed. ‘We do, however, have a couple of mobile phone traces for that area at the time of the collision. One of them is your sister’s phone but if we can track the others down, we might have our man – or woman, of course.’

  ‘He uses his phone after driving into my sister?’ Tamiko asked bitterly.

  ‘Not necessarily used it,’ Jo-Ji told her. ‘Phones are talking to the nearest masts all the time – we can pick up those signals and triangulate a position for any given phone at any time, even if it’s not actually being used. People don’t realise, they’re like little trackers that we take with us everywhere.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Sergeant Walters said, ‘I just need to ask you a few more questions about your sister’s recent movements and her relationship with Samir Jafari, and then Constable Reece will explain her role as the liaison officer. Basically, she’ll be your first point of contact from now on; anything you want to know, any worries – yes, well, I’ll let her explain.’

  Jo-Ji had barely closed the door on the departing backs of his colleagues when another car drew up in the lane outside the cottage, and a plump young woman in an over-tight skirt and cream blouse climbed out and began to make her slightly unsteady way up the path on impractically high heels.

  In her mid twenties, with a friendly smile and a broadly Bristolian accent, she introduced herself as Cara Siddons and produced ID that backed up her claim to be a social worker.

  Tamiko immediately assumed a defensive stance, but having met Jahan and asked numerous questions of Jo-Ji and his fiancée, good sense miraculously prevailed, and Cara announced that although the situation would have to be reviewed, she was satisfied that the boy was in the best place for the time being. Reams of paperwork followed and countless forms had to be filled in and signed before the social worker stood up, twitched her skirt into place over her curvy behind and departed with a cheery wave and a clop of stiletto heels.

  ‘Thank God.’ Tamiko heaved a sigh and looked at Jo-Ji. ‘I hope no one else come now.’

  ‘You’ve been brilliant,’ he said, slipping one arm round her and ruffling Jahan’s hair with his free hand. ‘Both of you.’

  ‘So what happen now?’ Tamiko asked. ‘My head is.… . .’ She made a circling movement with her hand and looked at Jo-Ji for help.

  ‘Whirling? Spinning? I’m not surprised.’

  ‘But what I must do and I wish not, is phone my parents,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how I will tell them. I can hardly believe it myself. Hana was my father’s favourite. Even her name means that – favourite. He will be very sad.’

  It was mid evening; the day had been a long one, taken up with all the dreary formalities that follow a death, but now animals and humans had been fed, Jahan had gone to bed, and it was the first time Daniel, Jo-Ji and Tamiko had had the opportunity to relax.

  After a day of dealing with the authorities and endless conjecture, the three of them had talked themselves out but although the TV was on, the volume was turned low and none of them were really watching. Outside the open window, a blackbird’s alarm call sounded in the dusky lane, possibly pinpointing the location of one of the cats, and in the kitchen, Taz was stretched out on the cool, tiled floor, apparently asleep but not so deeply that he didn’t open his eyes whenever Daniel so much as shifted his position on the beanbag.

  After fidgeting for a while, Tamiko stood up and disappeared across the hall into the room Jo-Ji used as his study. For several minutes, the two men could hear her rummaging and eventually, Jo-Ji called out to ask if she needed any help.

  ‘No, I’m fine. I have find it now,’ came the muffled reply, and in due course Tamiko reappeared carrying a large white box which bore the insignia of a local removal company. She placed it on the carpet and knelt down in front of it.

  ‘What have you got there?’ Jo-Ji asked.

  ‘Just some things. Family things. I realise today that Jahan has never know his grandparents – never seen a picture, even – so I thought I find photograph that is still packed since we came here.’

  Daniel and Jo-Ji watched with lazy interest as she tore the tape from the box and delved inside, lifting out a number of keepsakes wrapped in newspaper, followed by three large photograph albums. Sitting back on her heels, she began to leaf through the first of these, absorbed in her memories and occasionally turning the book round to show Daniel pictures of Japan, her childhood home and family.

  ‘This one is my whole family when I was about twelve years,’ she said at one point. ‘That is me sitting in the front; my mother, my father, my sisters – that is Hana, pulling a face at the camera – and my two brothers. My uncle and aunt stand at the back. We are a big family. Ah, in this one you can better see my parents. My mother, she is beautiful, I think.’

  Daniel looked at the small faded print, seeing a middle-aged woman with a familiar, heart-shaped face.

  ‘You are very like her,’ he commented, without thinking.

  Tamiko blushed a little, delving into the box once more.

  ‘Somewhere, I have a copy of that photo in a frame, which is bigger,’ she said, as Daniel carried on turning the pages of the album. Jo-Ji, who had almost certainly seen them before, took his phone from his pocket and began to scroll through his messages.

  ‘Ah, he
re it is,’ Tamiko said presently, holding up a silver frame. ‘Tomorrow I will show it to Jahan.’

  She laid the photograph on top of the leather-bound albums and began to replace the other items in the box.

  ‘One day I hope we will have a house that is bigger and these things can be seen,’ she said wistfully, then paused, frowning. ‘Oh! …’

  Jo-Ji looked up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘That is strange. This man I have seen somewhere.’

  She had smoothed out a sheet of the newspaper wrapping and was pointing at the picture.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Tamiko bent closer to read the text. ‘It says, a businessman. Oh, Dennis Travers! He must be the one who was husband of Stella, in Bath, who I give massage to.’

  ‘Well, you can’t have seen him recently,’ Jo-Ji observed, returning his attention to his phone. ‘He died a couple of years ago. Boating accident. It was big news at the time.’

  ‘Perhaps you saw a photograph at Stella’s house?’ Daniel suggested.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But I don’t think so. She was angry when she spoke of him. I don’t think she’d have a photo for people to see.’

  ‘Well, maybe he just reminds you of someone,’ he said. ‘Can I have a look?’

  Tamiko handed him the newspaper and he looked at the rather grainy photograph, which showed a suited businessman cutting the tape at the opening of a building that the text named as a new youth club. According to the glowing encomium that accompanied the photo, Dennis Travers (46) had been a philanthropist of no common order, making generous gifts to various good causes. Either he was indeed a candidate for canonisation or he had a friend on the editorial staff of the paper, Daniel thought cynically, looking more closely at the man in the picture.

  Dennis Travers, at the time managing director of Travers-King Construction, appeared to be of average height and build. In a black and white photograph it was difficult to judge hair colour but it appeared to be either fair or greying, and receding at the temples. He wore a benign smile, as did those around him, and peering closely, Daniel, who had a good memory for faces, also felt the man looked vaguely familiar and mentally scanned the new acquaintances of recent days.