An Act of Kindness: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 2) Read Free

abrupt step backwards. ‘No. I think you should go.’
    John couldn’t remember when he’d first found the shack. The coppers had moved him on from his old billet down in Silvertown some time in the winter. Then there’d been the shack, Central Park sometimes, occasionally down by the river.
    ‘Where will I go today?’ he said to himself rather than to her.
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Where do you come from?’
    John said it entirely without thinking, ‘Helmand province, Afghanistan.’
    And Nasreen Khan’s heart changed in an instant.
    *
    It was a slow day – a slow week as it went – and Lee let Mumtaz go home early. Whatever was upsetting her wouldn’t be helped by sitting in the office with not much to do. She had a couple of appointments booked for later in the week – a missing husband and a background check on a potential bride from Leeds – so things could pick up. But Lee had bugger all. Clearly the upcoming Olympics were having an adverse effect upon infidelity in Newham. Lee let himself into his Forest Gate flat and put his keys down on the telephone table in the hall. From his living room he heard a low, cawing sound followed by a high-pitched rendition of that famous West Ham United anthem, ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’. Christ, he’d taught that bloody bird well!
    Lee took his coat off and walked into the living room. The mynah bird eyed him with his usual slight suspicion.
    ‘Evening Chronus,’ Lee said. He rubbed the bird’s blue-black head with his fingers and Chronus stopped singing and shouted, ‘Up the ’ammers!’
    Lee laughed. ‘You’re a poor brainwashed fucker, aren’t you?’
    ‘Bobby Moore! Trevor Brooking!’
    Lee went into the kitchen and took a bottle of diet Pepsi out of the fridge. He poured some into a glass and drank it straight down. He wanted a pint of bitter, or gin, or anything that would get him out of it for a bit, but that was out of the question. He walked back into the living room and put the TV on. It was all gloom as usual: Egypt still in turmoil, the endless civil war in Syria, another British squaddie killed in Afghanistan. Then there was the farce of the London mayoral elections. Bumbling Boris Johnson, the clever, posh boy, not-so-idiot, or Ken – there go my Socialist credentials – Livingstone. He’d have to vote for someone, but who?
    His mobile rang. He picked it up and saw that it was Vi. He put it down again and let it ring out. She’d been a bit keen lately and he wanted to nip it in the bud. It was all very well sleeping together occasionally but Lee didn’t want a girlfriend. Well, he didn’t want Vi Collins to be his girlfriend. The phone stopped ringing. Vi didn’t leave a message and Lee thought again about Mumtaz. Not for the first time he wondered whether he could pay her more. Thanks to the internet and modern home security systems, people were doing some forms of private investigation themselves. Not always well, but they were doing them. And that included some of Mumtaz’s covered Asian ladies. He’d thought about a career change, but where, if not to private investigation, did an ex-soldier, ex-copper go? The wonderful world of security? Lee had turned his Roman nose up at that years ago. Nights spent wandering about outside dodgy factories chasing down illegal immigrants jumping out of lorries? No chance.
    The telly showed a picture of the squaddie who’d just been killed in Helmand province and Lee felt his blood pressure rise. They’d called the conflict he’d fought in the ‘First’ Iraq War. Then there’d been the ‘Second’ Iraq war and now the endless Afghan campaign. It made him mad. When was it going to end, for Christ’s sake?
    *
    Nasreen gave John a bottle of fizzy water she’d bought earlier in the day. He took it gratefully and drank it down.
    ‘Thanks.’ He smiled at her.
    ‘It’s no problem,’ Nasreen said.
    Nasreen knew a little about men like John, if that was really his name. He was