She told me how she had danced for a while, with Zeb glowering from the sidelines. Joey D had come along and they’d bought some Es off him.
‘Got better for a while,’ she said, ‘then Zeb goes and blows it, asks me for a loan – can he nip to the hole-in-the-wall with my card. I couldn’t believe it! I’d paid for my ticket already and now he wanted to borrow off me. You know what I earn? Four-fifty an hour; four-fifty an hour and he’s tapping off me. Wanting money. More money. I’d had enough. I’d loaned him before, I’m not tight, but I never saw it again. Oh, he’d take me out to dinner or buy me some flowers and call it quits. I was trying to save for a holiday, for a place of my own, and he was like a drain. I told him to stuff it and I went home. Happy New Year, eh?’
‘And after that?’
‘Well, he didn’t come crawling after me begging forgiveness. Not a word. And I haven’t seen him or any of that lot since.’
Emma had left about ten thirty that night. She said she would have gone to Ahktar’s funeral but it specified family only. She asked me if I thought Luke would like a visit from her. I assured her he would. Anything that made him feel he was believed and that he was not entirely alone would help his morale.
Before leaving I asked Emma about Joey D. Did she know he’d run away from home?
‘No. You don’t think he did it, do you?’
‘He did have a knife,’ I pointed out.
‘Yeah, he was like a big kid with it. But Joey,’ she shook her head in disbelief, ‘oh, he could be a pain but he was that sweet-tempered. Either that or thick-skinned. I felt sorry for him really.’
‘Why?’
I drank my pineapple juice.
‘He was like a limpet, clinging on, wanting to get in with everyone but he was just a big kid. He’d always get stuff for us. Couple of times we went to his place – you seen it?’ She widened her eyes. ‘Mansion. We had parties there. I reckon people took advantage of him, used him. He wanted friends but no one was interested. He only ever got invited anywhere if someone wanted him to bring some drugs.’
‘Did he get stuff from Zeb?’
‘I don’t know.’ She frowned. ‘He came round the flat a couple of times. I made myself scarce. But he must have had other people for his regular stuff. Joey could get you anything, small-scale, like, but he wasn’t in it for the money. It wasn’t a business for him, he just liked being able to help people out, I reckon.’
‘But with the brothers, Zeb and Jay, that was more serious? They were importing it, after all. Jay was probably setting it up, providing the finance, and sending Zeb along with Rashid Siddiq to collect it.’
‘I think.’ She stressed the word.
‘It was a business to them, they were in it to make a lot of money.’
‘Yeah. Least, Jay was. All Zeb ever made was a mess of things.’ I drained my drink. Wondered whether any of this talk of drug smuggling had a bearing on the murder.
‘Joey D,’ I thought aloud. ‘His grandmother said he was very frightened, just after the stabbing. That’s when he ran away.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe he knows something. Look, if Joey had done it he’d be the sort to give himself up. He’d like all the attention, he’d go for that, picture all over the papers, telly. I can’t see it.’
I sighed. Neither could I. I couldn’t see anything clearly yet. But there were clues there in what Emma had told me. Threads to pick at and knots to untie in the finicky process of unfolding the truth.
I couldn’t fathom out why Sonia Siddiq had claimed that Ahktar Khan was a stranger to her and her husband. Surely the witness testimony would be just as valid if Siddiq knew the victim. I tried to find a reason for the denial. Why did it matter? What changed if Rashid Siddiq had known Ahktar Khan? I turned it over and over in my mind but came up blank. Apart from the startlingly obvious conclusion that Rashid Siddiq had wished to obscure the relationship because if it was known about, it could lead to awkward questions.
‘OK,’ I muttered aloud as I paced my office, ‘if Rashid Siddiq has something to hide, then why come forward in the first place?’ He could have just left it. Nobody knew that the Siddiqs had seen Ahktar being killed, so why speak out? Conscience? From someone Emma had described as a heavy with involvement in drug smuggling? It didn’t add up. My investigation was revealing new facts and the picture was shifting, but it was still jumbled; nothing was in focus, no clear relationship between the different elements.
