Take It Back. Kia Abdullah
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‘Oh yeah, I’m just a babe in the woods, me.’ Erin laughed, deep and throaty, and followed Zara to her office. Inside, she reached into her jacket and pulled out a manila file. ‘I’ve got something for you guys.’ She placed it on the desk. ‘Can you give this to Stuart when he’s back? It’s the San Telmo financials he was after.’
Zara raised a brow. ‘Of course. I don’t want to know how you got them but thank you.’ She watched Erin, her angular features and lanky limbs clearly poised in thought. With her cropped hair, leather jacket and big dark eyes, she looked like a comic book anti-hero: an anime goth designed to drive a certain type of man wild.
Fittingly, beneath the dark hair and piercings, she was as wily as a snake. It was why Stuart had hired her as an investigator to freelance for Artemis House. It was five years ago and he was in the midst of his first big battle: Lisa Cox against Zifer Pharmaceuticals. The company’s sparkling new epilepsy drug, Koriol, had just hit the market. Alas, no one was told that depression was a rare but possible side effect. When Lisa Cox stepped in front of a moving train, she miraculously escaped without injury. The media went wild, Big Pharma went on the defensive and the Medicine Regulatory Authority denied all wrongdoing. When Lisa decided to sue, she was smeared as a money-hungry whore with little regard for herself or the three children she would have left behind. Lisa lost her job and almost lost her home. She was an inch from surrender when Erin – young, laconic, beautiful – strode into the Whitechapel Road Legal Centre and handed Stuart a file. Inside were memos between regulatory officials and Zifer acknowledging the drug’s dangerous side effects. Stuart couldn’t use the documents legally but a well-timed leak prompted an investigation that not only exonerated Lisa but made her a very wealthy woman.
Stuart immediately offered the mysterious young Erin a job. She refused to take it and instead offered her freelance services pro bono, and now here she was pushing classified documents across a cheap fibreboard desk.
Zara placed the folder in her bottom-right drawer, the place she reserved for sensitive material.
Erin watched her, then asked, ‘Seriously, what’s the girl’s story?’
Zara locked her drawer and set down the key. In a measured tone, she relayed Jodie’s story, recalling the horrors of the story she’d told.
When Zara finished, Erin leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and said, ‘Tell me what you need me to do.’
Zara handed her a piece of paper. ‘Find out everything you can about these boys.’
Erin scanned the handwritten note. ‘Wait.’ She looked up. ‘They’re Muslim?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jesus. You’re telling me that four Muslim boys raped a disabled white classmate?’ Erin whistled softly. ‘The tabloids will have a field day when this gets out – not to mention the Anglican Defence League. Those right-wing nutjobs will besiege anyone that’s brown.’
Zara nodded tensely. ‘That’s a concern, but we can’t be distracted by what could happen or might happen. We need to approach this with a clear head.’
Erin’s features knotted in doubt. She smoothed the note on the desk and traced a finger across the four names. ‘What if I tried talking to one of them?’
Zara held up a hand. ‘No, don’t do that. Leave it to the police.’
‘Screw the police.’ Erin’s voice was heavy with scorn. ‘You think they’re going to get to the heart of this?’ She didn’t pause for an answer. ‘Look, the way I see it, these boys did the crime or they didn’t. Either way, the police are going to fuck it up. You think they can get more information out of these bastards?’
Zara thought for a moment. ‘Fine,’ she ceded. ‘Please just wait until the formal statement. We’ve overstepped the mark before and we can’t do it again.’
Erin’s eyes glinted in the sun. ‘Tell me which one refused to take part.’
‘Farid, but it wasn’t out of sympathy.’
Erin smiled. ‘Yes, but maybe he’ll confess to save his skin. When are you going to the police?’
‘Wednesday. Tomorrow.’
‘Perfect. I’ll scope him out on Thursday.’ Erin slipped the piece of paper into her leather jacket and readied to leave. ‘Four Muslim boys. Well, no one can accuse you of upholding the status quo.’
‘Yeah,’ Zara said dryly. ‘Rock ‘n’ roll.’
The bells of St Alfege Church cut across the quiet, sending birds fleeing across the early evening sky. Canary Wharf shone in the distance – Zara’s favourite feature of her tidy Greenwich flat. She watched from the balcony and raised a joint to her lips. A blanket of warmth clouded around her, loosening the painful knots in her shoulders. Her head felt light but her limbs were heavy, almost sensual in effect. She leaned forward and laid her head on the wrought-iron railings, welcoming relief.
Just as her mind quietened, the doorbell cut through the breeze. Cursing, she snuffed out the joint and stepped back inside. Her flat on the top floor of a converted warehouse was large and bright with creaky old ceiling beams and exposed brickwork. The giant cream corner-sofa sat next to her desk, a sturdy structure of reclaimed oak. Opposite, stood a large bookcase stuffed with legal textbooks next to floor-to-ceiling windows. At the far end of the enormous room was her rarely used kitchen, a modern mix of chrome and glass offset by her giant wooden dining table. In a sea of minimalism, the only signs of personality were her antique lawyer lamp – a graduation gift from her sisters – and five large posters on the western wall depicting headlines from what Zara considered the greatest legal achievements of all time. She padded past them now and opened the door to find Luka outside with two bags filled with takeout.
He smiled sheepishly. ‘You said you missed lunch so I brought you some food.’ His gaze fell to the joint cooling in her hand.
She drew it back. ‘I’ve had a bad day.’
‘I didn’t say anything.’ He gestured inside. ‘Can I come in?’
She held the door ajar.
Luka set the food on the breakfast bar and started to unpack. ‘So why did my beautiful girlfriend have a bad day?’
She baulked. Six months and she still wasn’t used to ‘girlfriend’. They were meant to be casual. He was meant to be a distraction, a mindless and uncomplicated diversion, and yet here he was buying her comfort food and calling her his girlfriend.
She waved a hand. ‘It’s just something at work.’
Luka stopped. ‘What happened? Are you okay?’ His concern only reminded her that she had told him too much, pulled him too close.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’s fine.’
He met her gaze, his eyes a stormy green, frustrated by her caginess. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to somehow soften her sharp edges, but opted instead to do nothing. She moved to the dining table and he followed, sitting next to her instead of opposite. We’re closer this way, he had once said. His hand rested on her knee, a subtle non-sexual gesture. She moved her leg so that he fell away. Don’t forget, it warned. She poured a large glass of wine and offered it to him.
He waved it away. ‘I can’t. I’m training for the climb.’
She set the glass on the table, noting the irony of a white man refusing a drink from a Muslim woman. She pushed it towards him. ‘You’ve still got a few weeks before you leave.’
He reached forward and wiped a crumb off her lip. ‘Yes, I do.’ His fingers rested there a moment too long. ‘I’ll miss you.’ He paused. ‘You know what’s happening between us, don’t you, Zara?’
She looked at