The Unbroken, page 18
He continued singing songs in her ears as he wanked off against her back.
He wasn’t so bad. He was quite good-looking in his own way. He just repulsed her. She felt like a captive, kidnapped in an ancient battle, some other man’s wife, taken in servitude and bondage to her conqueror.
In the third trimester the pregnancy became unbearable. Moomy was feverish, tired, swollen, barely lucid, crying for Haroon and her mother. There were days she couldn’t leave the bed, soiled herself, was moved around like a doll.
The baby kicked at her, gnawed at her insides, the delight she felt at its existence turning into dread and terror. Still, she had clung on.
Rehan took to sleeping in the courtyard, unable to stand her weakness. Moomy wondered if he took other women. But then who would he take?
There was a kotha, a brothel in a nearby town. But where would Rehan get the money? The answer was obvious. The money her parents sent.
Why did she even care? Another woman’s misfortune meant she would be spared.
Through thirty hours of the most agonising labour, when Moomy was convinced she was dead, would die, spewing blood and human plasma, Moomy eventually had her child ripped from her insides.
She was too shattered to realise anything, slept for ten hours straight. When she woke up and demanded to see her baby, they couldn’t meet her eyes, told her to rest.
She screamed like a banshee until they relented. They brought the child in, clean, wrapped in a white sheet. Still.
He had cried for ten minutes, they told her, before being silent forever.
Finally Moomy cried, rocking back and forth, holding her child, her only reason for living.
She called him Haroon. Her mother-in-law said Moomy had been saying that name a lot in her delirium. They understood now, it was the name she wanted for her baby.
Her parents were told. Rehan asked them if they wanted to speak to their daughter. They said no. She had been through enough. Moomy was numb to their rejection already.
‘You have to go to the UK and invite me from there,’ Rehan said.
‘Why can’t we just do it from here?’
‘They want to see you working in the UK, see you can support me before they will let me in.’
‘Let’s just stay here.’
She was broken. She didn’t want to go back, to see the lives being lived by the girls and boys not forced down the road she had been. She didn’t want to see Haroon. His love gone, proved to be as fake as his promises. She wanted to live out her life in this nothing place. Pretend she was never anything else except Rehan’s abused wife. Only Rehan wouldn’t let her.
‘Are you crazy? I only married you so I could get to the UK and get away from here. I don’t want my children growing up here, barely able to feed themselves, growing up ignorant and uneducated.’
‘You seem fine,’ Moomy said. ‘You’re not starving or uneducated.’
‘Here,’ he said, throwing her an envelope. ‘Your parents sent you a ticket.’
‘I don’t want to go. I like it here. My son is here.’
‘Don’t be absurd. We have to go on and live. This is why my family treat you like a queen. Haven’t you noticed how you don’t have to cook and clean and do all the things my sisters and sisters-in-law do? Because you’re our golden ticket.’
‘Sorry, Rehan, you picked the wrong lottery ticket. I’m not going anywhere.’
He grabbed her plait, twisted it in his hands, his face close to hers, spittle hitting her skin. She refused to acknowledge the pain.
‘Listen to me, you stupid bitch, this is too important for me and my family. You mess this up and I will beat you every day until you die. Do you want that?’
She didn’t, but she couldn’t leave her dead son. Not a single person in this place would care about him, look after his grave. She would not leave her child. Whatever she had to suffer. Then the woman inside her spoke up again. The woman that she was meant to be, if things had gone the way she had planned. Take the ticket and get out of here, you silly girl.
So Moomy packed her bags. Her mother-in-law had confiscated her wedding jewellery the day after the wedding, so she had nothing of value.
She made them stop the borrowed car at the graveyard and prayed over her son’s tiny grave. She took a handful of the yellow dirt that covered it, and put it in a glass jar.
‘I’m sorry, my baby, I won’t be back. But I’m taking you with me. And know this, I loved you for every second you breathed, and I will love you for every second that I breathe.’
* * *
As a married woman, her parents assumed the ghost of Haroon would have evaporated.
It had been two years, and he had left for university. He didn’t make the grades for Oxbridge, went to UCL instead.
Moomy saw Haroon’s father, aged because of his heart attack. Haroon’s mother barely acknowledged Moomy when they met by accident at a khatam.
She asked how Haroon was. His mother looked daggers at Moomy, asked her how her husband was.
She had been back a month when she decided she would never go back to Pakistan, or stay in Manchester, where she would eventually be forced to call Rehan over.
Her movements were less curtailed. She packed a rucksack, held the jar of dirt from her baby’s grave, took the money her father had given her to open a bank account and make a visa application for Rehan, and left for London.
Before she went she took hold of her plait that had grown long down her back – a thing cherished and loved by her mother, oiled regularly – and cut through it using heavy-duty scissors. She left it on her mother’s bed.
Her parents didn’t dare call the police, told people Moomy had gone back to Pakistan. Rehan had married another cousin, had managed to immigrate to Canada. Where he worked in a chicken shop. Eventually her parents told people she had died in childbirth. Haroon told her this much later.
Dead to her parents. Dead like her own child.
* * *
Moomy ended up in Southwark, at a women’s refuge. She got a job in retail, attended evening classes, did her A levels and got into the London School of Economics to study law.
She had lost all semblance of innocence by then. Fuck had become her favourite word. She didn’t track Haroon down or get in touch with her family.
London was lonely, with only the battered women of the refuge for company. Moomy kept to herself, opening up to the counsellor she was offered sometimes, usually trying to forget.
Her GP said she was probably suffering from postnatal depression. So what if there was no baby to show for it. It still happened.
Moomy just had one determination: get revenge for the murder of her child. She wasn’t thinking straight and didn’t know who was responsible.
Everyone? The entire world? Maybe she could start at home and with Haroon? Or that entire village?
She’d know when it was done.
* * *
Moomy was lost, dreaming, suffocating when Sarah rushed into the lounge, switching on the lights. She was shouting, fully dressed.
‘We have to go.’
‘What’s happened?’ Moomy said, her eyes blinded. Tears and light.
‘They found Oscar.’
Chapter Forty
It was 4 a.m. by the time they got to the Hayat residence in Knightsbridge. The place was full of bodies. John, Lara, Victor and Spencer. All awake. Tired, but awake. Stress, fear. The air was thick with it. A middle-aged man introduced himself as the family doctor, Gerald Sandler. Ari was there too. Sarah avoided looking at him. Yet all she wanted was answers from him. About Rachel. It took every fibre in her body, to stay on track. She would have her moment with Ari. He would have to answer her.
‘Is this really necessary now?’ John was saying. ‘Can it not wait until the morning?’
‘No, it really can’t. We need to see him.’
‘He’s not well. Gerald, please tell them.’ Lara pleading.
‘My patient has suffered immense trauma after the events of this past week. I don’t think it’s wise for him to be subjected to your interrogations…’
‘Listen, mate, his wife’s dead, murdered, and he’s just turned up. Unless he’s in a coma we are talking to him, okay?’
‘Really, you come into my home with this attitude,’ John blustered at Moomy. Wrong move.
‘We came here because your son has been missing for a week. We busted our asses trying to find him, trying to stop him ending up like Millie. Now, if he’s back, we want to know where the hell he’s been all week. And we need to know what he can tell us so we can find the fucking scum that killed Millie.’
‘DS Khan, please,’ said Sarah. ‘John, this has to happen. None of us want to make this unpleasant.’
Lara scoffed at this. The Hayat clan gathered around them. A wall to prevent them getting to Oscar.
‘The sooner we speak to him, the quicker we’ll be out of here. If Millie’s killers are still out there, we need to find them. Before they get away. Don’t you want us to find them? Give your son closure over who killed his wife?’
John muttered in Arabic, turning away from them. Sarah could tell he was swearing from the tone of his voice. Ari was staring at her from where he was seated. She wished Scott was here. He had simply called to tell her that Oscar had come home and he needed her there to speak to him. That was all he had been told. Scott’s presence would make this more official than they wanted it to be at this moment.
‘My son has been through hell.’ It was Lara’s turn now. ‘And I cannot believe you will deny him a few hours of rest. Have you no heart?’
The beseeching mother, but Sarah was immune to it. Paying Millie off to not marry Oscar and then what? Killing her if she reneged on the deal? Oscar was home. For Sarah it opened everything up again. The family getting rid of the stray Millie, while their own son was protected. Or were Paul and Oscar behind this? Was Moomy right about the whole heartbroken widower act so they could carry on and make a life together? Keep John’s money in the process.
‘And what about Bill? Don’t you think he deserves answers?’ exclaimed Moomy.
No one responded. They had forgotten about Bill and Angie, it seemed, the parents who had lost their only child.
‘Come on,’ Sarah said, addressing Moomy. ‘Let’s come back in the morning. With a warrant. And who knows, the press might hear about all of this by then. So we might have an audience too.’
Sarah turned to go but John stopped her.
‘Thirty minutes. That is all I give you.’
It was a start and it would be enough to at least get some answers. Sarah was not enthralled by the way the Hayats were behaving, it was textbook shifty. Ari was still watching her. His text message played in her head. What did he know about her sister Rachel? She looked away from him, she couldn’t get distracted like this.
That would have to wait. For now she needed to speak to Oscar and find out exactly what had happened to him and Millie.
* * *
Doctor Gerald Sandler sat by Oscar’s side. It was a condition of the interview. Or chat. Whatever they were going to say to Oscar would be done in front of the doctor. Sarah took a seat on the other side of the bed. Moomy was calling Romesh; he had messaged to say he needed to speak to them urgently. Sarah urged her to make the call. It was a necessity as well as an excuse. Sarah hated herself for it, but she thought Moomy might be too abrupt and end up potentially sabotaging the interview.
Oscar looked a lot better than Millie. Not just because he was alive. He was wearing a T-shirt, his body hidden under the bedsheet. His forearms and hands were visible to Sarah, but there were no tell-tale signs of struggle or damage. None of the trauma that Millie had suffered. Maybe he was just showered and clean, but he didn’t look like he’d been subjected to the same trauma that Millie had been.
His face looked concerned. He kept staring at the doctor, trying to make sense of who Sarah was and why she wanted to speak to him.
‘Where are my parents?’ he asked.
‘They are just outside,’ said Doctor Sandler. ‘The detective here wants to ask you some questions about Millie.’
At the sound of her name Oscar became agitated, trying to get out of bed, but wincing in pain.
‘Millie…’ he said, strangled voice and sobs colliding to make it sound almost animalistic.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Sarah said, giving him a few moments to compose himself.
‘I still don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe she’s gone.’
‘When did you last see Millie? Alive?’ Sarah asked.
Oscar looked at her, his eyes almost childlike, then he looked at Doctor Sandler. The doctor shook his head, his voice low when he spoke.
‘He doesn’t remember anything,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He remembers the wedding, but that’s it. After that, the kidnapping, what happened to him this week. He doesn’t recall any of it.’
Sarah didn’t trust herself to speak. Was this a joke? How very convenient.
‘Please, I don’t know what’s happened to me. I only remember the wedding day. Millie and me at the altar. After that, it’s all gone. All of it.’
‘Where were you this past week?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, sounding more and more distressed.
‘How did you get home tonight, Oscar?’
‘We found him outside,’ Doctor Sandler said. ‘He was ringing the bell, confused, hallucinating.’
‘What are you saying to me? How did he get here? Who dropped you off, Oscar?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you remember? Tell me.’ She tried not to raise her voice but she didn’t believe this charade. He didn’t remember anything of this last week and then turns up at home?
‘I remember the wedding. And then I remember being on the street, outside the house. That’s all.’
‘How did you get to the street?’
‘I can’t remember. Oh God, I can’t remember. Please. Millie, what happened to her?’
‘We were hoping you might be able to tell us,’ Sarah said exasperatedly.
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember anything.’ He started to emit sounds as if he were in pain. Doctor Sandler calmed him down and told Sarah they should let Oscar rest.
* * *
Sarah was in an empty room at the Hayat’s, Scott on the line. This room was decorated in the same Versailles style.
‘His doctor is claiming he’s had some sort of trauma. It’s affected his memory. Apparently that can happen short term. He doesn’t remember anything.’
‘You don’t believe him?’ Scott yawned on the other end, tired from being awake all night, just like her.
‘No, I bloody well don’t. It’s so unbelievably convenient, he just happens to forget the last week where his wife was murdered and he was kidnapped. All of it gone, but then he turns up outside his family home, able to remember everything else. Come on, Scott, things like that don’t happen. You don’t just have such perfect memory loss.’
‘His doctor believes him?’
‘His family doctor? Are you kidding me? We can’t trust someone so close to the Hayat family. He’s got to be hiding something for them. The whole thing is a convenient joke.’
‘Calm down, Sarah…’
‘Don’t, Scott, just don’t. This isn’t me overreacting or being difficult. This is them trying to cover up the murder of a young woman.’
‘What can we do? If he doesn’t remember being kidnapped, what can we do?’
‘We treat him like a victim and we process him like we would anyone else. Do not let Jane Haslam or any other political a-hole get in the way of this. I want a forensics team here now. And I want our own medical expert.’
Scott sighed into the phone. She knew she was asking a lot, him having to face up to the likes of Jane Haslam, the Foreign Secretary. She would end his career if she could. And probably hers. Still, there was no way she was going to let this play out any other way.
‘Okay, hang tight. I’ll see what I can do.’
Moomy came in when she was done.
‘What’s the craic’
Sarah filled her in, watching the anger she felt on Moomy’s face.
‘No fucking way, that is utter bullshit.’
‘Keep your voice down.’
‘This is just… bullshit. He did this. I swear to you he did this so he could live his secret life with Paul Chandran. He arranged this, I know he did. There’s nothing wrong with him, he’s a fucking liar. His whole life is a lie and this is just one more.
Sarah felt the same, but she was also aware that they were at an impasse. How could they prove he was lying?
‘I doubt he just materialised on the street,’ Sarah said. ‘He must have taken transport here. I want every CCTV camera link on this road checked, and the pricey properties around here; I can guarantee you that he will have been caught on camera somewhere. I have forensics coming, we can take blood samples to see if he was under the influence of something, check for any foreign bodies on him.’
‘He’s had a shower, you said, it’s all probably gone.’
‘Not all of it ever really goes that quickly. Along with forensics, I’ve asked DCI Blake to send through some psych support. I want a full evaluation done on him. There must be a way to tell if he’s lying.’
‘Let me punch the truth out of him.’
‘Yes because torture works, doesn’t it?’
‘It does on 24.’
‘This isn’t a TV show. We just have to hope we find a way to get the truth from him somehow. He is faking his memory loss, and I want to know why. I will not let this family get away with a cover-up.’
She stared hard at Moomy, both of them silently aware that money could let you do anything. Even let you get away with murder.
Chapter Forty-One
It was 7 a.m. The sun had hidden itself behind thick clouds, which were spitting rain.
