To Die For Read Free Page B

I was there, less joking, as if the air had changed, become thicker, heavier.
    On my way back from the gym, I stopped at Akram’s to see if there was a message for me. The shop was long and narrow, with discoloured yellow and white vinyl floor tiles, and a layer of dust and filth in the unused corners. One wall had racks of magazines from floor to ceiling, and newspapers bundled along the floor. Along the other wall were shelves of groceries, sweets, crisps, drinks. Stuff like that.
    Akram always wore the same beige-striped shirt and brown trousers, and never seemed to realize they were too small for him. He was always behind his counter, always sweating behind his thick black beard, always worried about something and apologetic, always surrounded by women, or so it seemed. The shop was always open and always staffed by Akram or his sisters or his mother. His wife spent her life at the back, behind the bead curtain, where she cooked spicy food and listened to a London-Asian radio station. She never came out, as far as I could tell, but she would call out to Akram in her sharp voice, getting him to do some task or other.
    When I walked in, an old Asian woman in a purple sari was ranting at Akram. She jabbered away and he, palms towards her, shook his head and tried to answer. Akram’s wife called out something and Akram sighed. The old woman saw me and flinched. Akram said something, pointing at me. The old woman muttered a reply and shuffled off, keeping her eyes to the ground. Akram smiled and lowered his arms.
    ‘My grandmother,’ he said. ‘She thinks everyone here is trying to rob her or rape her. She wants to go back to Pakistan.’
    ‘She should go back,’ Akram’s wife’s voice said.
    There were no messages for me. I left them to it.
    On Wednesday, I went to my local library. The young assistant was at the front desk, busy cataloguing or whatever they do there. I’d said hello to her once and since then she’d avoided my eye, busying herself, like now, with some job that needed her to look down or up or anywhere else. I walked past her. Maybe I’d said hello too aggressively.
    Mostly, I read history. I wanted to see how the great figures had risen, how the great crimes had been carried out. You got to see what people were up to, what their angle was, how they disguised their self-interest, how they fooled and bullied others into following. You got to see where the con was, how the winners had got it right, how the losers had got it wrong. Wars, especially, interested me. Like boxing, they were the end of things, human nature at its most basic.
    I spent the rest of Wednesday reading about how people in history had fucked up, and in that time I’d heard nothing, and that was strange. Usually, Kendall would at least call and tell me when to expect the money or the reason for the delay. I didn’t mind waiting, but three days after a job with no word wasn’t right.
    And there was something else. I was waiting to hear about another job that was supposed to go off in a week or so. I didn’t need the money so much now, but I’d still agreed to do the job. I had a reputation for being reliable and I had to keep that. It was the most valuable thing I had. The job was a jeweller’s over in Brent Cross. The outfit was local, from Tottenham – Nathan King and his crew. King, I knew. We’d worked together a couple of times. He was a neat operator. He’d found me in Murray’s gym and had asked me to do the job.
    ‘Quick in and out,’ he’d said. ‘But we need to go mid-afternoon, and it’s a big place. We could use some crowd control.’
    That had been a couple of weeks ago and by now King should have fixed it up with Kendall who would’ve waited until the casino job had been done before confirming.
    On Thursday, I decided to give Kendall a call.
    I went down from my top-floor flat and along to Akram’s. He was handing change to an old woman who muttered complaints about her missing free scratch card.