Free Poisoned Ground: A Hakim and Arnold Mystery (Hakim & Arnold Mystery 3) by Barbara Nadel Page B

was enjoying a bacon sandwich before, no doubt, returning to her bedsit somewhere behind the Golden Mile where the local ladies of the night had always lived. Unemployment was high in seaside towns: poor people flocked in with the vain hope their lives would be better by the sea where rents were cheap. It had been like that for decades, but since the recession, this trend had got worse.
    Lee saw the junkie turn to look at him and wondered how long it would be before he tried to tap him up for some cash.Would there be some story about how he’d left his wallet somewhere and couldn’t pay for his tea? Or would he just come over and beg?
    Outside, a young woman came out of the Rivers’ house with a baby in a car seat. She had purple hair and wore hot pants over thick black tights. She put the car seat in a battered Mini and drove off as if the police were pursuing her. The Rivers owned their flat. Bette Rivers had bought their old council flat in North Woolwich back in the 1990s under the Right to Buy scheme. Selling it had enabled the couple to buy the Southend place, which they owned outright. Lee ran his gaze up and down the street outside again and still couldn’t find much to recommend it. But then, if Ken and Bette Rivers liked it then that was all that mattered.
    The waitress put a mug of tea and a plate of chips down in front of him without a word. She was middle-aged and had a disappointed air; Lee knew how she felt. Because he had to pay his bills he’d let Mumtaz take that dodgy el Shamy job. As if the idea of working for such a contentious client wasn’t enough – if the press got to know they’d have a field day – he wasn’t exactly happy about her going into what could be a dangerous environment either. The mad (who were connected in Lee’s mind with the addicted, in the shape of his alcoholic father and brother) could kick off over nothing. Mumtaz might just walk on to one of those wards and get a punch in the face. He’d told her, but she’d laughed. She’d thought he was being overcautious and ignorant. Maybe he was, but even Mumtaz hadn’t been able to laugh about the predatory doctor.
    ‘Mate, you got a fag I could buy off you?’
    It was the junkie, as Lee had predicted.
    ‘I’ll give you thirty pee for one,’ he pleaded.
    Lee took a cigarette out of his packet and gave it to him. ‘No, that’s all right,’ he said.
    The man smiled. ‘Oh, thanks. Can I have one for me mate?’
    Lee frowned. But he gave him another cigarette and said, ‘That’s your lot.’
    The man shuffled away. Lee put a chip in his mouth and took a swig of tea, which was so dark it made his teeth wince. He filled the cup with as much sugar as he could tolerate and carried on watching the street. If he remembered correctly, there was an old seaside rock factory somewhere on one of the streets off the seafront, but he couldn’t remember where. A white van came and parked in front of the Rivers’ house while the driver delivered a parcel to another house across the road and then left in a cloud of exhaust fumes. When the smoke had cleared there was an old man outside the house, coughing and smoking a fag. He was a bit of a state – limp trousers pulled up to his chest, a vest on underneath an old sports jacket – but there was definitely a resemblance to the picture of Ken Rivers that had been in Phil Rivers’ file.
    Lee watched him. He didn’t do much. Ken Rivers used his front gate to hang on to and when he did move it was clear that his legs were stiff. Several people came and went down the pavement in front of the old man but he didn’t speak or even look at any of them. Ken Rivers didn’t want to talk to anyone. Decades of unemployment could do that to a person. But Lee thought that there was also something hard behind his eyes, something inbuilt. Lee could see Phil in his father but what he couldn’t spot, along with the younger man’s good looks, was the innocence that shone through from all the