Page 96 of Savage Protector
“Yes, they’re safe for now, but didn’t you say your mother was of the same mind as Abdul? If your father is as weak as he seems, well…”
He doesn’t need to finish, I know what he thinks. It’s crossed my mind, too. “She’s religious and very traditional in her views, but she always deferred to Abdul. He was the driving force. I doubt she’d do anything on her own, and my dad won’t go along with it anymore.”I hope.
“Now that Abdul and his idiot sons are out of the picture, you could have contact with your family. If there’s any more crap about marrying that uncle in Pakistan, we can deal with it then.”
“I’d like that. I’ve missed them, especially Farah.”
He takes my face between his hands and tilts my gaze up to meet his. “You cannevertell them what really happened,” he says. “No matter how much your aunt weeps and wails. Your mother, too, for that matter.”
“I know,” I reply. “I understand.” And it’s true. Idounderstand. Finally.
Maybe I’m more a part of his world that either of us thought.
Zayn
I leaveLeila surrounded by her books, swotting for the toxicology exam. Apparently, she can take it in two weeks’ time along with any would-be doctors who failed the first time around. I make my way downstairs and join the others in the lounge for our regular afternoon briefing.
“How’s Leila?” Ethan greets me with the question as soon as I enter. “Did you manage to sort things?”
“Yeah, I think so. Or Jack did. I don’t know exactly what he said to her, but it worked.”
He simply nods. “I see. Good. We were just starting.”
Tony, Rome, and Beck are already here, along with Jack, Nico, and Aaron. Ethan leads off with a recap of what we think we know so far.
“So, Shahida’s dead, as far as we can tell. Frankie is trawling through archive footage for solid evidence, but we have no reason to suppose otherwise. Agreed?”
We all nod.
“We leaned hard on Freddie,” Tony puts in. “I don’t think he was lying at the end.”
I’m pretty sure he wasn’t. Like most bullies, he was pathetic when faced with someone stronger. He couldn’t tell us enough.
“What did you do with the body?” Ethan wants to know.
“Tipped him into a reservoir on the way back to pick up Bilal and Sarah. We won’t be seeing him again anytime soon.” Tony sips his coffee. “Fucking good riddance.”
No one is disagreeing.
“So, moving on.” Ethan is keen to get to the nub of the issue. “We have reason to believe the brains behind it was Abid Malik, your old boss, Zee.”
“That’s what Freddie seemed to be saying, but he never met the guy and didn’t know his name. He always got his instructions over the phone. If Abid is still banged up in Barlinnie, I don’t see how he could orchestrate that whole operation from a cell.”
Ethan frowns and strokes his chin. “I’ve been doing some enquiries of my own, asking around my contacts in Barlinnie. Seems our Abid is something of a wheeler-dealer. He has a reputation for being a thug, rules the wing like his own little fiefdom. The other prisoners, and some of the officers, apparently, live in fear of him. He’s never short of money and controls the supply of drugs in there.”
“He could be running businesses outside, as long as he has a way of communicating,” Jack remarks. “He’ll have a mobile, no doubt about it.”
Ethan nods. “That’s what I’m thinking. And it would have been easy enough for him to hire someone outside to track Shahida, especially if she wasn’t being careful.
“She used a different name. Elahi. But other than that,” Tony muses.
“It’s a long shot, but I have Frankie working on something,” Ethan continues. “We have Freddie’s phone and can check his call history. If we can isolate the incoming calls from his ‘controller’, we might be able to pinpoint where the calls came from, and even, possibly, hack into that phone account. It’d be interesting to scroll through Abid’s texts, don’t you think?”
“Is that even possible?” I ask.
“Casey thinks so,” he replies. “She’s helping Frankie on it.”
That sounds promising. “How long before they come up with the goods?” I wonder.
