“You know I can’t do twenty-four hours?”
“We can work round that. The harassment usually happens when Mr Ibrahim is at work, in the evening. He’s got a job at a take-away in Chorlton.”
“So Mrs Ibrahim’s on her own with the children then?”
“Yes. It’s not Mrs Ibrahim though, they have a different custom for names, she keeps her father’s names even though she’s married. All Somali’s have three names, the children will take two of their father’s names and be given a name too. So even they won’t be known as Ibrahim. It gets very complicated,” she smiled, “well, it does for us as you can imagine but the Somalis know exactly what’s what.” She checked the file. “She’s called Fatima Hassan Ahmed, so you can call her Mrs Ahmed or Fatima – that’s her given name. Now, there have been incidents at the weekends too and they seem to be increasing in frequency. We’d like you to start with a night this weekend, his shift is six to two, you could cover that. I’m hoping you’ll be able to get the general picture, maybe do another night if you need to. In addition to that I want you to be on call – we’ll ask Mr Poole, that’s the neighbour, to ring you if trouble starts. The Ibrahims don’t have a phone. Mr Poole has called the police for help in the past though he doesn’t want it broadcasting.”
“Do the Brennans and the Whittakers know?”
“Not sure, they may have their suspicions. However Mr Poole’s got a great deal of respect in the area, used to run the local Tenants group until a couple of years ago. If they go up against him there’ll be a lot of antagonism from other neighbours. He’s not such an easy target.”
I thought about the role Mandy wanted me to play. “I might be coming and going quite a bit and at odd times if I’m on call. I’ll need some cover to allow for that.”
The pair of us began to invent possibilities,
“District nurse?”
I shook my head. “Too risky, people might know who the nurses are and he’d have to play sick as well. If I was a relative why would I be at Mr Poole’s? Job interviews?”
“Training course?”
“They usually do accommodation. What about clearing my mother’s house out? Recent bereavement.”
“Why not stay there?”
“Sick aunt in hospital?”
“You could stay at her place,” she objected.
“No, she lives in a nursing home, but she’s gone into hospital for an operation or tests. She’s my mother’s sister, I’m the closest living relative – I can’t afford a B &B.”
There was a pause while we both considered any major flaws in this scenario. It sounded general enough to be plausible and I wouldn’t have to wear a uniform or gen up on any particular skills or knowledge. I would adopt some basic disguise though. Hulme was only a couple of miles north of my home in Withington and it was possible that in the future I’d run into someone who knew me from Mr Poole’s, or somebody who knew me would turn up unexpectedly in Hulme and blow my cover. It would be safer to preserve a different identity.
