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  Once they’d discussed the move from Croydon and how that had gone, David tried another tack he’d never tried before. They were getting close to the end of the year and so the time had come to think about the next season.

  ‘I want to really bring in the older generation,’ he said.

  Roman frowned. ‘We’re about parents and kiddies,’ he said. ‘Don’t want the place gummed up with old farts like me. Unless it’s grandparents with their grandkids.’

  ‘Yeah, but who’s got money?’ David said. ‘The Baby Boomers. Youngsters don’t have a pot to piss in these days. Middle-aged people do. And what do they like? Something new and unusual and weird. A lot of them grew up in the sixties and in the punk era. You look at what they like to do for entertainment and it’s stuff like Cirque du Soleil, immersive theatre. And there’s hipsters, the rich kids from places like Shoreditch. Christ, Roman, the stuff they’re into!’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Anything vintage, tattoos, taxidermy, weird stuff.’

  ‘Don’t like the sound of that!’

  ‘You might not, but they do, and if we want to attract them as opposed to a load of kids bunking off school, we have to think about them. People like this are moving into places like Croydon and especially Barking. If we want to get them in, we have to think about what they might want to come and see and do.’

  ‘And what’s that, then?’ Roman asked.

  ‘Something weird. Something that harks back to the old days of travelling shows.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like some of our old stuff,’ David said. ‘That old steam carousel we keep in storage down in Kent. Proper vintage glamour that, if we can paint it up a bit, have a girl in a crinoline and a bloke in a top hat running it. Proper Dickens.’

  Roman shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘We spent a fortune on the BigO.’

  ‘Yeah and refurbing some vintage stuff won’t cost a fraction of that,’ David said. ‘Look, let me put together an old rig for you so you can see what I mean. I know we’ve got a couple of defunct attractions onsite, we use them for storage. Let me give them a lick of paint and show you what I’ve got in mind.’

  Roman Lester thought for a moment, then he said, ‘Alright. Just don’t spend real money on it.’

  David smiled. ‘You won’t be sorry,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t remember any such thing,’ Irving said. ‘And if that was the only thing my mother brought with her from Germany, I would.’

  He had no memory of a Steiff teddy bear! His mother had been too unsentimental to have something like that.

  ‘Your mother told the police your sister had it with her when she went missing,’ Lee Arnold said.

  ‘I’ve said before, there was no toy,’ Irving said. ‘Not a bear or anything else.’

  ‘There’s nothing like that in the house?’

  He looked around his living room as if expecting to find something in the jumble of ‘things’ on every surface.

  ‘No …’

  ‘You’re sure? I know you can’t have gone through everything when your parents died, nobody ever does.’

  ‘I did,’ he said. He was tired and wanted to just fall asleep in front of the TV. ‘Anyway, if mother told the police that Miriam had this bear, then it would be with her, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. But because you couldn’t remember it from that day, maybe it wasn’t with her. Maybe your Mother was wrong and the bear was at home.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, can you give it some thought?’ he said. ‘Constable Askew’s daughter was very sure about this.’

  ‘Alright, I will.’

  He put the phone down. God, wasn’t it enough to have just come back from Germany empty-handed and now this? But Lee Arnold meant well. He was doing his job. Left to Irving himself nothing would happen. And maybe this business about a Steiff bear meant something?

  But he’d been through the house since his mother had died and he’d found nothing that pertained to Germany or to Miriam – not even her birth certificate. That continued to bother him. When he’d first realised that he couldn’t find it, he’d gone mad, tearing the house apart. Then he’d got ill and so any tearing had stopped. And, of course, he didn’t know what was in every nook and cranny of his house. Who did? There was the garage, for a start. Semi-derelict now, it looked like a shack that might be found in a Brazilian favela. He couldn’t even remember whether his father’s old car was still in there or not. All he knew was that the last time he’d been in there the poor, drunken structure had been jammed to the rafters with who knew what.

  SEVENTEEN

  Lee had given her the weekend off, which was nice, especially now that Shazia was speaking to her again. It gave her time to wash the clothes she’d taken away with her and do some housework. Mumtaz also thought that she might look at some of the paperwork she’d brought with her from their old house. Some of it was hers, but much of it had belonged to Ahmet. Maybe if she looked through it she might be able to find a clue as to why the Sheikhs had singled him out particularly for death.

  It was unlikely he would have committed anything inflammatory to paper. When she had gone looking for evidence of his debts, she’d found nothing. Everything Ahmet had done had been furtive. That included his abuse of his wife and his daughter. It had only been the drinking that had been obvious to people outside the house, and that very rarely. At home he would get slaughtered, rolling around the house screaming abuse and taunting Mumtaz with tales of his infidelity. Not that she ever knew who he’d been unfaithful to her with, or even if those stories were true.

  She cleaned a space on the dining table and began to move unpacked boxes that still almost filled the hall into the middle of the living room. She wasn’t sure which ones contained paperwork and so she’d probably have to wade through lots of useless ornaments and crockery first. Mumtaz took a deep breath. But then maybe now was the time to get rid of the mountains of ‘stuff’ she no longer used. Why did someone like her even have a twelve-place dinner service?

  ‘It’s the Sabbath.’

  ‘I know that,’ Lee said. ‘Which is why all I want you to do is sit in a chair and watch. I’ll clear out the garage. Look we’re in September, but today the sun’s shining; tomorrow it could be pissing it down with rain. Irving, mate, you gave me a job to do; I’m trying to do it.’

  Irving Levy shrugged. ‘What can I say?’

  Lee Arnold had turned up at the house in Barking early. Irving hadn’t even showered. Now wandering around in tracksuit bottoms and a pyjama jacket, he just wanted to be alone.

  ‘It’s terrible in there,’ he said. ‘Like a junk shop. And I think there’s a car.’

  ‘What kind of car?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was my father’s. I never learnt to drive.’

  It was a Morris Oxford Farina. Lee’s Uncle Wol had one in the seventies. Big tail fins, smaller but similar to those seen on cars in old American films. Uncle Wol’s had been green, this one could be red, but then maybe that was just the rust. From the way the shelving full of God-knew-what sagged around it, the car was probably all that was holding the garage up.

  ‘Christ!’

  ‘I told you,’ Irving said.

  Lee had brought a wicker chair out of the conservatory for him to sit on. The garden was still damp from the overnight rain and so he spoke from inside a thick covering of blankets.

  ‘I’ll need a hand with this,’ Lee said. He took out his phone.

  John Shaw, fag hanging out of the corner of his mouth, trudged across the wet morning grass and said, ‘I reckon you can see that bastard from space. But it can definitely be seen from Dagenham.’

  David Sanders smiled. ‘That’s what we like to hear,’ he said.

  The BigO, billed as the tallest big wheel in the world, had cost Lesters a fortune and, although it still had a long way to go before it paid for itself, at least the bloody thing could make an impact. In Croydon, the BigO could be seen fr
om Kenley, which had been good going. Dagenham in Barking was equally gratifying. It was just a pity the fucking thing wasn’t proving the draw Roman Lester had imagined. But then, as David knew, big rides that didn’t offer any new thrills were not what people wanted from fairs. There was nothing exotic about a big wheel, especially when riders were trapped in bloody great perspex pods. No risk, no romance, no nothing.

  David pulled the tarpaulin off the roof of the old rig and tossed it to one side. Christ, it was filthy! If he hadn’t known what it was, there was no way he would have been able to work it out now.

  John shook his head. ‘What the fuck is that?’ he said.

  ‘Ah, this is my big idea,’ David said.

  ‘What big idea?’

  ‘Back to the future,’ he said.

  ‘They got that ride at Universal Studios,’ John said. ‘My brother took his kids.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the film, muppet,’ David said.

  They both looked at the filthy old wagon, but only David smiled.

  ‘People like experiences these days, think about Harry Potter World and that winter fair thing they have in London round Christmas. Bit of candyfloss and a go on the ghost train don’t cut it any more. I want to give people a fair experience.’

  ‘Candyfloss and a go on the ghost train is a fair experience.’

  David shrugged. ‘In one sense, yes. But it’s a shit experience. It’s still stuck in the seventies. Toffee apples, bumper cars, boys with mullets shagging girls round the back of the helter-skelter. It’s childish and it’s sexist and people don’t want to eat the shit we sell no more.’

  ‘People who come to fairs do,’ John said.

  ‘Then why are our takings down?’

  ‘I dunno. Recession?’

  ‘Over, officially,’ David said. ‘People want more sophisticated entertainment. What I want to do is try out some old Victorian attractions.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘We’ve got an old carousel in storage down in Kent, for a start. Powered by a steam engine, which we’ve also got, but which may need some work. We can adapt some of the sideshows with a lick of paint, get some animals in …’

  ‘People don’t like to see animals caged up these days.’

  ‘Not caged up, in a petting zoo, donkey rides …’

  ‘You’ll get complaints from animal rights nutters.’

  But David ignored him. He looked up at the old wagon and said, ‘And then there’s this.’

  John shook his head. ‘What the fuck is it?’

  A voice that wasn’t David’s answered, ‘It’s something you should cover up and not even think about using. It’s a bloody horror,’ Eva Horvathy said.

  Lee Arnold had always had a lot in common with Jasvinder Patel. They’d both worked out of Forest Gate nick, they’d both believed that many of their superiors’ attitudes towards Muslim communities in the East End were ill-informed and fucked up, and they were both tall, thin and wiry.

  Jas had given the Job a couple more years than Lee, but that was because, at the time, she’d needed the security of a regular wage while she paid off the mortgage on her flat. Now a freelance PI and part-time personal trainer, Jas was a happy, carefree singleton, living a dream her permanently worried Hindu parents in Ilford found hard to fathom.

  Lee and Jas pulled the old car backwards no more than a foot. They heard unnamed things clank to the floor and onto the bonnet.

  ‘It’s holding the whole thing up,’ Irving said. ‘I told you!’

  Having him around kvetching like an old woman wasn’t helping. But it was his garage …

  ‘Mr Levy—’

  ‘Irving!’ he said. ‘Call me Irving, Miss Patel!’

  ‘Then please call me Jas,’ she countered.

  The day was getting lost amid Irving’s constant anxiety that the garage would collapse and Jas’s irritation that ‘Mr Levy’ seemed to think she shouldn’t be lifting old cars about because she was a woman.

  Lee, hands on hips, said, ‘This is getting us nowhere.’

  ‘I told you, leave it!’

  ‘And if there are things in this garage that might lead us to your mother or your sister …’

  Irving looked down at the ground. Although Lee knew he wanted to find his mother and his sister with a passion he couldn’t even begin to appreciate, he could also see how tired and ill he was.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Irving said. Then he hauled all the blankets piled on top of him to one side. ‘I’ll go and make us all some tea.’

  ‘No, I’ll—’

  ‘Lee, no,’ he said as he moved slowly across the garden to the house. ‘So it’s the Sabbath, but what you’re doing is important. I know this. For God’s sake pull the car out and let the bloody garage collapse. What’s the point?’

  Once he’d gone, Lee and Jas sat down on the remains of an old rockery and had a fag break.

  ‘Does he mean it about pulling out the car?’ Jas said.

  ‘I dunno.’ Lee shook his head. ‘He’s supposed to be in remission, but he was tired when we went to Germany and knackered after. It’s tough, because everything that happened did so such a long time ago. Everyone who could have told us anything about his mother is dead and I can’t believe that his sister can be alive. You know the score. First twenty-four hours are crucial; if the kid’s not rocked up after seventy-two hours, chances are the worst has happened.’

  Jas had always been a practical woman. ‘It’s a job, Lee,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t get too involved.’ She shrugged. ‘But then it’s you and so you do.’

  ‘A fucking freak show!’

  Almost blasted backwards by the force of her words, John Shaw said, ‘Whoah!’

  David, who, as a member of the Horvathy family by marriage, was a little more used to such behaviour, shook his head.

  ‘Yeah, the same wagon where Ping and Pong used to work,’ he said. ‘If you can call it work …’

  ‘Exactly!’

  Eva Horvathy flung her arms in the air.

  ‘Be good if they done something to earn their keep instead of living off your dad,’ David said.

  ‘No it wouldn’t!’

  ‘Yes, it would.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘You’ve never seen a freak show. It was disgusting. To exploit people because of the way they look …’

  ‘Yeah, it’s weird,’ he said. ‘But, believe me, Eva, it’s what the punters want these days.’

  ‘These days? These days people are, what do they call it, politically correct …’

  ‘Some are, but look online and you’ll see that most aren’t,’ David said. ‘Like I told old Roman, people are mad for the unusual these days. Don’t ask me why. But if they can see a kid with a massive birthmark all over its body, a giant blackhead or a bloke with an arse for a face, they’re happy.’

  ‘They’re sick!’

  ‘Maybe. But look online and look on telly and you’ll see I’m right,’ he said. ‘Fucking hell, Eva, there’s even a late-night show about extreme tattooing. I’ve seen it. Geezers with tattoos between their toes, for God’s sake!’

  She shook her head. ‘My father won’t like it,’ she said. ‘Not if Ping and Pong are involved.’

  ‘So we won’t involve them,’ David said. ‘I’ll advertise.’

  ‘You what?’ John said.

  ‘I’ll advertise.’

  ‘For freaks?’

  ‘For unusual people with unusual skills,’ David said.

  Eva walked away, shaking her head. John, if he was honest, rather sympathised.

  Strictly, the car didn’t come out in one piece. All the hub caps fell off, one door and part of the bonnet. But it didn’t bring the garage down with it. And, crucially, Irving wasn’t watching them when Lee and Jas pulled the car out. However, the stuff that remained in the building looked precariously balanced and was uniformly filthy.

  ‘Where the fuck do we start?’ Jas said.

  Lee said, ‘I’ve no idea.’


  ‘So we’re looking for a teddy bear …’

  ‘And photographs and documents, particularly if they’re in German and anything that looks unusual.’

  ‘It all looks unusual.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he said. ‘Personal things, stuff you wouldn’t expect to find in a garage.’

  ‘What wouldn’t I expect to find in a garage, Lee?’

  He shrugged. ‘I dunno. Jewellery, knickers, jazz mags …’

  ‘Oh, now you as a copper should know that a garage is a wonderful place for illicit jazz mags!’ She laughed. ‘In fact, porn can be and is found anywhere.’

  ‘Yeah, well forget the jazz mags, then,’ he said. ‘But anything else – personal.’

  The dining table, which was far too big for her only living room, was covered in paper. Bills, bank statements, certificates, letters, things so old Mumtaz couldn’t make out what they were. She’d only emptied two boxes and there were nine more to go. Just looking at it all exhausted her. Ahmet had only been forty-five when he died and yet he’d accumulated so much!

  She made herself a cup of tea and sat down. At this rate she’d need to hire a skip to get rid of it all. And still she was none the wiser about her husband’s activities. Of course, most of what should have been his fortune had been gambled away. Poker had been his game and he’d been hopeless at it. But he’d also been an addict, which meant that even when he lost big time, he couldn’t stop. It was a state of mind she couldn’t understand. She looked at the pile of papers on her table again and shook her head. In a way it was an emblem for modern life. Too much, too complicated, too desperately sad in its profusion.

  And yet sometimes, data, for want of a better word, was exactly what was missing. Irving Levy had nothing that could throw light on the identity of his mother and that was partly because so much ‘data’ had been lost. Entire families had been excised, meaning that even when a connection was established, it was at best tenuous and at worst a lie. Or worse.