by Jane Casey
‘Definitely not.’
‘But you might be friends with some of them,’ she suggested.
‘Not because they’re in the gang. But yeah. I’ve grown up there. I know everyone, just about.’
‘It’s very hard to be friends with people in a gang and not end up belonging to that gang.’
He sneered. ‘What would you know about it?’
‘Am I wrong? I’m basing that on what I’ve heard from other police officers.’
‘Yeah, you’re wrong. Everyone knows I don’t do that shit.’ He sniffed. ‘I stay out of it, I swear on my life.’
‘Maybe your friends know that. Maybe everyone on the estate knows that. But do the rival gangs know?’
‘How would I know that? I don’t talk to them.’
Derwent sighed. ‘What we’re saying is that most kids carry a knife for their own protection, especially if they have lots of friends in one particular gang. It would be stupid not to.’
‘It wasn’t my knife. It wasn’t.’ He sounded definite.
‘The knife is at the lab right now. They’re testing it for your DNA, Ashton.’ Derwent waited for a response and got a shrug. ‘They’re testing it for Minnie Charleston’s DNA as well.’
Ashton gave an even bigger shrug at that. ‘OK, so first of all, I don’t know her. Second of all, I don’t carry a knife. Third of all, that knife isn’t mine. And finally, if you do find this girl’s blood on the knife, that doesn’t prove anything. Anyone could have put the knife there. That hedge is public property, know what I mean? It’s not my hedge. And it’s on the edge of the estate. You wouldn’t even have to live on the Castle to hide something there. People leave stuff like that hidden in bushes so they don’t get stopped carrying it. Everyone knows, you see the cops, you dump whatever you’re carrying. It being on my estate doesn’t mean shit.’
‘He’s right.’ The young solicitor glanced up from her notes. ‘You’ve got to link it to my client. Otherwise it’s just circumstantial.’
‘That’s why we’re testing it for his DNA.’ Derwent looked back to Ashton. ‘But if you want to get ahead of us and get some points for cooperating, tell us what happened on the bus.’
‘Nothing. Nothing happened. I don’t know why you won’t believe me.’ His voice cracked, and he looked mortified, a teenager for a moment instead of the streetwise young man he liked to pretend to be. ‘I got the bus, OK? I sat on the bus. I stayed on it for a few stops. I got off. Usually I would just walk, you know, but it was cold and raining and I didn’t feel like being outside. The bus was at the stop, so I took it. If I’d known how much grief I was going to get, I’d have kept on walking.’
‘Why did you sit beside Minnie?’
‘I don’t even fucking know who I sat beside! I just sat down in a free seat near the back.’
‘Calm down.’ His solicitor touched his arm. ‘It’s all right.’
‘It’s not all right! They’re trying to make out I killed someone! I never saw the girl before, I never spoke to her, I never had any reason to attack her. The first time I heard her name was when you said it to me earlier. I didn’t even look at her. She was a posh kid from a private school, that’s all I know, and I sat beside her for five minutes. That’s it. End of story.’ He shook his head, close to tears. ‘This is a fit-up. And I just want to go home.’
Half an hour later, Derwent walked into the room where Belcott and I had been watching the interview, took off his jacket and threw it onto a chair with unnecessary force. Maeve followed him in, easing her head from side to side as she loosened a kink in her neck. They both looked exhausted.
‘Well? What do you think?’ Derwent was rolling up his sleeves with quick, irritable movements, so the muscles in his forearms flickered in and out of view.
‘He seems pretty sure it wasn’t him,’ Belcott said. ‘He won’t own up to the knife.’
‘He’s a good liar,’ Derwent said through gritted teeth. ‘You’d almost believe him.’
‘Is he lying?’ Belcott said it casually, but then glanced at me, giving himself away.
All right, fat boy, try to undermine me. Let’s see how far you get.
‘Of course he’s lying. Georgia saw him with the knife,’ Maeve said.
‘Did she?’ Belcott pursed his lips, ostentatiously saying nothing else.
‘Yes. I did,’ I snapped. Everyone looked at me and I felt myself blush. ‘I saw him throw it away. That was how I knew where to look for it.’
‘And you’re sure it was the knife he threw.’ Maeve didn’t quite make it a question. I opened my mouth to say yes, and found myself hesitating. Was I sure?
‘It was definitely the knife,’ I said at last. ‘There was a glint off it that was the blade. It was definitely metal.’
‘And he definitely threw it in that part of the hedge.’
‘I thought so. It was hard to see. I didn’t really – I mean, I knew it was in that general area.’
‘Before you picked it up, was it caught in the branches?’
‘N-no. It was on the ground. But it could have fallen there when he threw it.’
Derwent had his hands on his hips. He was staring at me and I quailed at the attention. I always wanted him to notice me, but not like that.
‘Did you search the rest of the hedge?’ Maeve asked, and I shook my head.
‘I had a quick look, but once I found the knife …’
‘Right.’ She walked out and Derwent followed her, a muscle tightening in his jaw as he went. Danger here.
‘Don’t say anything,’ I snapped at Belcott, who beamed.
‘Wasn’t going to. I think I’ll leave that up to them.’
Where they had gone, it transpired, was back to the interview room. Ashton and his mother came into the room looking confused: they had been set to have a half-hour off, and now they had been summoned to the room again, a bare five minutes after they’d left. The lawyer looked suspicious, quite rightly. It could have been a psychological game that Maeve and Derwent were playing. I might have suspected as much if I hadn’t known what was going on. I kept my eyes fixed on the screen and tried to work some moisture into my mouth, which felt as dry as the Sahara.
‘Thanks for coming back so promptly.’ Maeve’s voice was softer now. ‘I wanted to apologise.’
‘Apologise? For what?’ Ashton’s eyes were wide.
‘For not listening to you. I don’t believe the knife belongs to you and as a result we’re going to de-arrest you.’
‘Did the DNA come back already?’ the solicitor asked. She was frowning.
‘No.’ Maeve smiled. ‘We can wait for it if you want, but I’m sure it will be negative.’
‘I’ve been telling you the truth,’ Ashton said.
‘I know.’ She glanced at Derwent. ‘We know.’
‘We made a wrong assumption.’
‘Because you’re racists.’
Derwent leaned back in his chair. ‘No, we’re not. Maybe a bit short-sighted, that’s all.’
Beside me, Belcott cleared his throat. When I turned my head, he was revolving his tongue in his cheek.
Fuck off.
On screen, Derwent was asking, ‘What did you actually throw away?’
Ashton bit his lip and looked over his shoulder at the silent figure of his mother. She motioned to him to answer. ‘I – I didn’t want my mum to know.’
‘What?’ Maeve asked.
‘That I’ve been vaping.’ He was barely audible, his chin on his chest. Behind him, his mother was shaking her head. Her expression was thunderous.
‘It’s dangerous,’ Derwent said sternly.
‘Less dangerous than a knife though.’ Maeve smiled at Ashton.
Derwent flipped his notebook open. ‘What brand is it, mate?’
‘Why?’
‘We’ll get a team to look for the e-cigarette. Just so we’re sure.’
Ashton’s head snapped back, the cynicism resurfacing. ‘Yeah, you believe me.’ Sarcasm dripped off every wo
rd.
‘We do believe you,’ Maeve said quietly. ‘But our job is all about evidence. We have to prove what we say happened, and that means we need to prove what you tell us too.’
‘Look, we’re not going to cause you any more trouble,’ Derwent said. ‘We just need your help. A teenage girl died on that bus, Ashton. She was young and she had her whole life ahead of her, but she was stabbed to death. And we don’t know why.’
Ashton considered it. ‘Or who did it.’
‘Why is the first thing,’ Maeve said. ‘Once you know why, you usually know who.’
He nodded, interested now. ‘You know, I used to want to be a copper when I was little.’
‘We can give you some information about careers in the Met. They’re always looking to recruit from different communities.’
He laughed at her. ‘Yeah, no. I grew out of it.’
‘But you still basically want to know, don’t you?’ She tilted her head to one side, considering him. ‘You want to know what, and why, and who.’
He chewed his lip before he answered. ‘Yeah. I do.’
‘Tell me about what happened on the bus,’ Derwent said. ‘From the moment you got on.’
He sighed. ‘I saw there was a free seat in the second row from the back. I didn’t really look at the girl who was sitting there. She was my age, or near enough. White. I didn’t know her.’
‘Did she speak to you?’
‘No. She was listening to her music, I think. She had her headphones on, anyway. She didn’t even look at me.’ He shrugged. ‘The girls from Lovelace don’t talk to the likes of me, know what I mean? At least, most of them don’t. A few are all right, but the rest – they don’t even see us. We’re not in the same world.’
He went quiet for a moment, all the light and life gone from his face, and when he spoke again his voice was flat.
‘As far as they’re concerned, we might as well not exist.’
Chapter 7
Do I really have to tell you that the DNA on the knife didn’t match Ashton? Or that they found an e-cigarette with his DNA and fingerprints on it, exactly where he’d thrown it? The knife had unknown DNA on it, from whoever had stuck it in the hedge, and ‘from its appearance it had been there for some time’. I should have guessed, really. I should have noticed the rust on the blade, and felt the chill off the metal that should still have been warm from Ashton’s body. I should have known better.
To give her credit, Maeve didn’t rub my face in it. She didn’t even tell me; it was Pete Belcott who made a special trip over to my desk to check that I’d seen the report from the lab.
‘So you were wrong.’ He’d grinned down at me, his spongy face happier than I’d ever seen it before. ‘You made us all look like idiots.’
‘Well, it doesn’t take much effort with you.’
If anything, he looked even more cheerful. ‘OK. But I’d rather look like an idiot than be the office joke.’
The office joke. The words burned through my mind for the rest of the day, and the next. The one thing I’d always feared was being laughed at, for any reason at all, but especially looking stupid or being stupid. Belcott couldn’t have said anything worse to me if he’d tried.
Safe to say that after the knife debacle, I wasn’t expecting to be involved in the rest of the investigation in any meaningful way, but I was wrong about that too. The next day, Maeve stopped by my desk.
‘Georgia, are you coming with me?’
‘Yeah, of course.’ I hurried to put my coat on, jamming my arms into my sleeves in case she changed her mind.
‘What’s up, Sherlock?’ Derwent crossed the room. ‘Worked out whodunnit yet?’
‘Not yet,’ Maeve replied briefly. I could tell she was irritated by the nickname and I could also tell she had missed the tenderness in his voice when he spoke to her, even if he was mocking her.
‘Where are you two going?’
‘To interview Halima Bashir, the second person who sat beside our victim.’
‘Why can’t I go with you?’ he demanded, stepping into her personal space. He had his back to me and I had to guess at his expression from Maeve’s reaction to it. She held his gaze, not backing down.
‘Halima is a devout Muslim. She’s not allowed to speak to men who aren’t related to her.’ Maeve paused, considering it. ‘Or it’s a good excuse to avoid talking to people like you. Either way, you’re not invited.’
‘Can’t you convince her I’m not going to take advantage of her in the middle of an interview?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Oh come on.’ He sounded hurt. ‘I wouldn’t.’
‘You’re capable of it.’
‘Give a man a bad name. I haven’t done anything like that for years.’
‘And you should never have done it at all.’
He changed tack. ‘Look, I’ve seen where she lives. I don’t want you wandering around on your own.’
‘You’re not coming and that’s final.’ She looked at me. ‘Ready?’
‘Absolutely.’
I followed her out, aware of Derwent’s brooding stare on my back, hot and dangerous, focused as a laser sight.
In the car, Maeve was silent. I lasted about three minutes before I gave in.
‘Thanks for letting me come along.’
‘No problem.’
‘I didn’t think you would.’
She gave me a wide-eyed stare. ‘Why not?’
‘Because of the whole knife incident.’
‘The not-a-knife incident.’ She grinned, then saw the look on my face. ‘Oh Georgia, don’t worry. Anyone can make a mistake in the heat of the moment. You saw something that you believed to be a knife, and you found a knife. The fact was, you were wrong about who it belonged to, but it got sorted out in the end.’
‘I’m not racist.’ I swallowed the lump in my throat. I thought I wasn’t racist. I tried not to be biased. I’d spent the small hours staring at the ceiling, wondering how I could have got it so wrong. I had made an assumption. If he’d been white, would I have thought the same thing? I thought so, but how could I know?
‘I didn’t say you were racist. Ashton said you were, but we got over that. I think he’d have said it to us anyway. The cops don’t have a great reputation on the Castle Estate.’ Maeve shrugged. ‘If anything, you thinking you saw the knife helped. It meant we could arrest him and interview him. When we told him we believed him about the knife, we got him to trust us. I think we got more out of him than we would have if we’d been nice to him from the start.’
‘I thought I’d fucked up.’
‘Oh, you did. But it didn’t matter.’ She glanced at me again. ‘There’s plenty you can learn from it. Think about it, then move on. But don’t let it bother you too much.’
I nodded.
‘Let’s talk about Halima. She wasn’t all that keen to talk to me when I called her. She said she didn’t notice anything.’
‘Didn’t you believe her?’
Maeve shrugged. ‘I can’t tell if she’s telling the truth or if she just doesn’t want the hassle of being interviewed. Better to see her face-to-face, I think.’
‘Does she speak English well?’
‘She’s London born and bred, so yeah, I’d say so.’
I bit my lip. Jumping to conclusions again. I’d learned nothing.
‘She really didn’t want us to come to her flat,’ Maeve went on. ‘If I’d turned up with Josh, I think she’d have taken the opportunity to refuse to let us in. Her husband is very involved with their local mosque and I get the impression she doesn’t go out much. I don’t know if that’s his preference or hers, but tread softly.’
I nodded. I planned to say nothing at all, if I could avoid it. But then …
‘Why did you want me to come with you? You could have done this by yourself.’
‘Two heads are better than one,’ Maeve said briskly. ‘You might notice something that I don’t. Besides, I thought you needed to get out of th
e office.’
Translation: I felt sorry for you because you made such a twat of yourself.
I should have been grateful, and I wasn’t completely unmoved, but I wished I didn’t need her kindness and thoughtfulness. I wished I could just do the job properly instead of getting it wrong, time after time.
Halima Bashir lived in a council flat on a 1980s estate, Stanley Court, that was much larger than the Castle where we’d picked up Ashton Mayfield but had an equally terrible reputation. The bus route was typical of London, swooping in and out of areas of great privilege and deprivation without fear or favour. Where it had ground to a halt was in one of the well-heeled parts, in front of the big Victorian houses that overlooked Clapham Common, but its journey had taken it to some bleak bits of South London too.
‘I’d hate to live somewhere like this,’ I said as we parked outside her block. ‘There’s so many people living here, all crammed together. I’d feel like I was in a prison.’
‘It’s probably all right inside. You could make your own flat nice. Cosy, even,’ Maeve said vaguely. She was looking around, frowning.
‘What are you looking at?’
‘Just the people.’ She indicated with her knuckle rather than pointing, to be discreet. ‘Those kids over there.’
I saw a knot of five teenagers, all wearing black or grey tracksuit bottoms and black jackets, like a uniform. All had expensive trainers on and two had top-of-the-range wireless headphones slung around their necks, while one was wearing AirPods. Two bikes lay on their sides nearby: rental bikes that had surely been nicked rather than hired with a credit card.
‘Dealers?’
‘They look a bit young for that. Runners for dealers, more like. The dealers get them young – eleven or twelve – and they work until they’re fifteen or thereabouts. Then if they’re still alive and still on the streets they might make dealer status.’ She looked at me. ‘There’s a big gang problem on this estate. I don’t want to get into a stop-and-search situation here with no back-up. If they’re smoking weed, ignore it. If they say anything to you when we walk past, don’t hear it. Don’t look at them and don’t act as if you expect them to look at you. If you see something that looks like a knife or a gun, we’ll call it in when we get inside. An ARV can take care of that.’
