Nowadays many of the villas are crumbling though the trees are still thriving. I could see the poverty of the area reflected in the dismal row of shops I passed; half of them were boarded up, littered with posters and daubed with graffiti, the others were shabby with neglect, roofs pitted with holes, paint peeling. There was a young prostitute on the corner where I turned; she looked bored and ill-tempered.
Emma was waiting for me at the door. We walked along to the park and found a bench with enough wood left on it to support us. There were squirrels and magpies busy chasing each other in the trees, and across the field a group of boys on mountain bikes swooped and wove around each other. The day was turning cooler but it hadn’t started to rain. They’d just mown the grass and the smell was intoxicating.
Emma was convinced that Luke Wallace had been wrongly accused. It was refreshing to talk to someone who was keen to help defend him. Nobody had bothered to interview her. Understandable, as she had left the club early on the night of the murder and had no close connection with any of the parties involved.
‘They were such good mates, I couldn’t believe it when I heard.’
‘You can’t think of any reason why Luke might attack Ahktar?’
‘He wouldn’t,’ she insisted. ‘They never fell out. They were cool. Never a bad word between them. I mean, there’s some people always taking the hump or losing their rag, like Zeb, say, foul temper. There’s times I had to pull him away from fights.’ She shook her head at the memory. ‘But Luke and Ahktar, they were as soft as sh-’ She blushed. I grinned to reassure her.
She opened her Tupperware lunchbox. Inside were two crisp-breads, a tiny pot of cottage cheese, a spoon and an apple. She took out the cottage cheese and, spooning it onto the crispbread, took a bite. ‘You seen Luke?’
‘Yes, I went to Golborne.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘Not really,’ I admitted, ‘it’s not easy for him.’
She nodded, took another bite. I was starving. Should I leave my lunch till later – show solidarity with her diet? Sod it. I unwrapped my sandwich. Was it my fault half the population counted calories?
‘Ahktar was stabbed,’ I said through my first mouthful, ‘but Luke never carried a knife.’
‘That’s right. And they check for people carrying on the door, run the wand over you.’
‘So it would be hard to get in with a knife but not impossible?’ I took a second huge bite.
‘Nah. I’ve seen people in there with all sorts. There’s ways, I suppose, and say if you know the bouncers they’re not going to give you any grief.’
‘You said Zeb sometimes got into fights. Would you say he was violent, then?’
She grimaced. ‘Short fuse, really, dead moody.’
I recalled his barely suppressed rage.
She glanced at me, frowned. ‘He never carried a knife. No,’ she shook her head several times, ‘it wasn’t him. He has his faults, plenty of them, but not that, he’d not do that. He might thump someone but he’d never use anything like a weapon.’
But if he was infuriated and a knife was at hand? Losing his temper, losing control. At that moment was it any different from thumping someone?
‘Besides,’ she added, ‘Ahktar was his cousin and there was no bad feeling between them.’
‘OK. Have you any idea who it might have been?’
‘I wish I had. It doesn’t make sense. Ahktar, he wasn’t the sort to get into trouble.’ She finished her crispbreads and cheese and took out the apple. ‘Someone said there were witnesses, though, someone who saw what happened?’
I nodded. ‘Mr and Mrs Siddiq.’
‘Siddiq – Rashid Siddiq?’ Her eyes widened. She held the apple in mid-air.
‘You know him?’
‘Yeah, he works for Jay, with Zeb and that.’
My stomach tightened as she talked, alert to the implications of what she was saying. Zeb Khan did know Rashid Siddiq. ‘At the Cash and Carry?’
‘They’ve a few places – a warehouse up Cheetham Hill, and they had a shop in the underground market as well. Expect it’s shut now.’
‘With the bomb,’ I bit off another chunk of sandwich, rescued some of the tomato as it slithered out of the side.
‘What was he doing at Nirvana?’ Emma wondered. ‘Shouldn’t have thought it was his scene.’
