‘It’s what you need now, isn’t it? Something to get your teeth into – something where you can actually use your skills.’ She glanced over. ‘It’s going to be very hard for you, being on the outside while this is going on. I thought this would give you another focus, something else to think about.’
‘Thank you,’ Robin said.
She watched Stratford Road slide past outside the window, One-Hour Photo and the Kerala Ayurvedic spa, a place offering cash for gold. Outside UK Furniture Clearance, a ragtag assortment of wooden cots, bedframes and awkward-looking cabinets metastasized on the pavement. She concentrated, focusing on details, looking for something she could throw a line around. If anything, the unreality was stronger this morning, the lack of sleep compounding the sense that what had been concrete was now wily, unreliable. Malign. The world had spun away – she was out on her own, free-falling.
A couple of minutes later, Maggie pulled into a spot outside a bakery three times the size of the travel agent and sari shop either side. Weddings, Parties, Functions read the awning, while photographs propped at the bottom of the plate-glass window showed enormous, multi-tiered cakes in colours and degrees of ornamentation from subtle to Bollywood. At eye level, a poster offered Morning Breakfast Deals at astonishing prices. Fried egg, two toasts and beans, £2.75 – you’d be lucky to get a single slice of toast for that in London.
‘Come with me,’ said Maggie, undoing her seatbelt. ‘Meet Gamil.’
Inside, the air was heady, the smell of coffee and eggs on the griddle cut with condensed milk, coconut and cinnamon. On the right, a long glass cabinet displayed ranks of Indian sweets in pinks and greens and caramel tones. Kaju barfi, mysore pak – an image suddenly of Aisha’s wedding, the boxes and boxes of sweets they’d pressed on her because they all knew – it was a family joke – how much she loved them. Robin shook her head, flicked the memory away.
‘Maggie.’ A man in his mid-fifties stepped out from behind the counter, pulling off a pair of blue gloves. He dropped them in a bin and came to greet her, taking her hands in his. ‘We haven’t seen you for ages.’ Indian sing-song met Brummie sing-song, his voice all music. Heavy-lidded eyes with extravagant bags looked out from a face that was otherwise remarkably line-free. His hairline had receded parallel with his ears, and the deep exposed forehead and long nose with its arched nostrils gave him an avian look. At the same time, he had something French going on, the thick white cotton shirt with cuffs rolled to the elbow, perhaps, or the tan loafers. An Indian Serge Gainsbourg, minus the sleaze.
‘I haven’t had much over here lately,’ Maggie said, ‘but we might do for a bit and I wanted to introduce you to my friend Robin. Friend and colleague – we’re going to be working together.’
‘Robin? My pleasure.’ A firm, dry handshake. ‘Coffee for two? I’ve got a fresh pot this side, just done.’
‘How are things with you?’ Maggie looked at the line of people queuing to order breakfast sandwiches. ‘You’re mobbed.’
‘Yes, morning rush, always busy, busy.’ He went back behind the sweets cabinet and pulled paper cups from a long stack. ‘Just as well – three kids at university. Have I seen you since? Wasim got a place at Nottingham. Computer Science.’
‘Younger son,’ Maggie said. ‘He helps out in the shop sometimes, you might meet him if we’re over here. That’s smashing, Gamil, congratulations.’
‘Last one. Just the A-levels now and then, pouf, all my little birds flown. Now, what are you having? Doughnut, flapjack? New muffins are just out of the oven.’
‘You’re all right, thanks, love. Still playing chicken with the diabetes express here, so I resist on the very few occasions I can do it without chewing my arm off. Rob?’
‘No. Thank you.’
He brought the coffees over and put them on top of the display counter. ‘Very hot – careful. Omelette’s good if you don’t want sugar. I can make it for you myself.’
‘Thanks, this’ll do me.’ Maggie inhaled a vaporous sip from the top. ‘Now, ulterior motive, I wanted to ask you if you know someone.’ She reached inside her long suede coat and brought out a folded sheet of A4 printed with a grainy photo. ‘He’s basically the mayor of Sparkhill,’ she said to Robin. ‘Knows everyone round here.’
Gamil rolled his eyes. ‘Show me.’
Maggie handed it over and he unhooked a pair of glasses from the V of his shirt and put them on. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I don’t know her but she gets the bus just outside, comes in two or three days a week to get something to take with her. Friendly girl, says hello, good morning. She lives somewhere up that way.’ He gestured towards the shop door, left, in the direction of Valerie Woodson’s house.
‘You don’t know her name?’
‘Wasim might. Though she looks a bit older, more Faiza’s age?’
‘Yes, she left school three or four years back. Can you remember when you last saw her?’
‘Not today. Not yesterday but I was in the kitchen a lot so … Last week, yes, that big rainstorm – Tuesday, Wednesday – the bus shelter was full so I said to the people come and stand under cover. She was there.’
‘Have you ever heard anything about her?’
Gamil smiled at Robin. ‘She thinks I’m a gossip.’
‘You are a gossip,’ said Maggie.
He shook his head. ‘So mean to me. No, no rumours.’ He passed them plastic lids from a box on the counter behind him. ‘I see her walk past sometimes at the weekend, too, maybe shopping, but otherwise …’
‘How do you know she lives up that way?’ Robin asked.
‘Ah.’ A small frown, eyebrows drawing together. ‘You’ve reminded me. There was one time, I remember it – just before Divali, the end of October – I was coming in early to deal with the festival orders, walking, and I saw her.’
‘Early?’
‘Four, four thirty – still dark. Bakery hours, you know.’
‘What was she doing?’
‘Getting out of a taxi. Coming home from a party, I think – she was a bit … wobbly. Big shoes, heels – she took them off, walked barefoot up the street in that direction.’ He mock-shivered. ‘Too cold. She was in one of those unlicensed taxis. Like a normal car. Maybe Uber, no way to be sure.’
‘How did you know it was a cab?’ asked Robin.
‘She got out of the back, but when it went by, the front passenger seat was empty.’ He shook his head. ‘Too dangerous – how do you know who you’re getting? When she left home, I made Faiza promise, promise me she would never do that. Black cabs only, I said, send me the receipts, I’ll pay. I meant to say something to her the next time I saw her,’ he tapped the paper with his fingertip, ‘this girl. But I forgot. May I ask what’s happening with her?’
Maggie nodded. ‘She’s gone missing.’
Becca’s room was at the rear of the house, its narrow sash window overlooking the side return, a tiny yard and the red-brick backs of the houses behind. The bed was a single, tucked tight into the corner, but it ate up almost a third of the floor space anyway, leaving an L-shaped peninsula of carpet barely wide enough to walk around. The redundant chimney breast took a big chunk, too, and created two deep alcoves, one that housed a wardrobe, the other a chest of drawers topped with a pine-framed mirror.
Despite its size, the room was quite appealing. Robin had expected clutter, slippery stacks of magazines, heaps of clothes, a sticky basket of make-up slowly gathering dust, but instead it was minimalist. The two magazines on the shelf of the tiny bedside table – she stooped: Elle and Heat – were both lined up squarely under a library copy of Veg