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

it, hadn’t bothered her much. Mumtaz was so glad that her stepdaughter was enjoying college. She was just anxious that nothing should stop her from doing so.
    Now that the girl was up in her bedroom doing her work, Mumtaz could roam the house looking for things to sell. She’d given up on the idea of selling kitchen equipment; it just wasn’t worth it. Even one of the many canteens of cutlery that Ahmet, her husband, had liked so much would barely fetch the price ofa week’s shopping. Mumtaz went from the kitchen and into the room Ahmet had called ‘the games room’. It was where he’d sat with his friends, smoking, drinking and playing poker. Even with his friends, for fivers and tenners, he played it badly. With other people it was worse. She opened the large teak chest in the corner by the window and took out a bundle enrobed in sheets of tissue paper. She laid it on the larger of the two card tables and began to unwrap it, removing layer upon layer of thin, white tissue – a modern and, she felt, deserved mummification.
    Her red wedding sari came into view. Made of banarasi silk and decorated with zari and buta work, it was a sari fit for a Bollywood superstar. Ahmet had spared no expense and Mumtaz and her family had been dazzled. How happy she’d been! Not even a scowling Shazia, resentful that – as she saw it – Mumtaz had usurped her dead mother, could spoil her big beautiful wedding. Rich, handsome and generous, Ahmet had been the perfect bridegroom and her female cousins – and even some of her aunts – had been openly jealous of her. And although she had been nervous about her ‘first time’ alone with her husband, Ahmet had been so gentle it had been wonderful. Her father and mother, she had felt back then, had chosen carefully and well. But within a year she’d wished Ahmet dead.
    She looked down at the dress with nothing but contempt. She’d take it to one of those vintage shops at the northern end of Brick Lane so beloved by those young white people known as ‘hipsters’. If she stuck to her guns, she’d get a good price for the sari. Also, it would probably be bought by someone who would do something self-consciously ironic with it. Some boy would make it into a jacket to wear to the pub or a girl would team it with a pair of combat trousers and a bag made out of old tractor tyres. The thought of its defilement pleased her. She went into the teak boxagain and found her wedding shoes and the heavily jewelled bag she had used at her wedding.
    Her mobile rang. Mumtaz took it out of her pocket and looked at it. She put it down on top of her wedding sari. It was always like this when a payment was coming up. Relentless.

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    First she took him some mutton biryani and chapatis, but Nasreen quickly learned that John had a sweet tooth. Her mum made good baklawa which she took him, and he had a particular weakness for halua. She bought some from one of the shops on Green Street.
    Whether or not she and Abdullah were working on the house, she’d go there most days and put a small box of food out for John just in case he was around. If she was alone they’d talk, and he’d tell her how much he’d liked the Afghan people and how sad he’d been to see so many of their beautiful buildings in ruins. She told him that if her husband was around she would hide his food in the long grass just in front of the trees.
    ‘You seem a bit afraid of your hubby,’ he said to her one day. ‘Why is that?’
    ‘John, it isn’t your business,’ she said, but she smiled.
    He’d said he understood. Nasreen wished that she did too. Her husband was a good man.
    When she was with Abdullah, sneaking food out wasn’t easy even if they were taking something to eat for themselves. He always wanted to look in the bag to see what she’d packed before they left her parents’ house. She had to pretend to have eaten more sweets than she had which had made Abdullah tell her thatshe should watch her weight. ‘Just