by Paul Gitsham
‘Let me get you a top-up, Mrs Meegan,’ interjected Hastings.
She smiled at him and handed him her teacup, which he carried back to the kitchen.
‘Do you think their father’s employment situation helped form the boys’ political views?’ Warren asked carefully.
Mary Meegan laughed throatily. ‘By “forming their political views”, do you mean “is that why they are nasty racists?”’ She answered her own question. ‘’Course it is. I believed Ray when he said he was keeping the boys away from any trouble at the football, but you tell me where the hell a nine-year-old learns to throw a banana at the TV when a black player comes on the pitch? I threatened to tan Tommy’s backside if he ever used that language again, but Ray laughed and said it was just a bit of fun.’
Mary Meegan slumped into her seat, as if the wind had been let out of her, and for the first time Warren saw the pain in her eyes.
‘Mrs Meegan, do you have any idea who might have attacked your son?’
Warren wasn’t expecting any great insights, but Mary Meegan was a lot more clued-in than she might at first seem.
‘It’s like Jimmy said – take your pick. They think I’m a fool, that I don’t know what they get up to. Until today they’d never really made the news and I don’t think they had any idea how much I know about them.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I don’t exactly bring it up over Sunday lunch – not that I ever see them for Sunday lunch these days.’ The smile disappeared and her bottom lip trembled. ‘I just want my boys with me. The way it used to be.’
She cleared her throat loudly and fished a handkerchief from out of her sleeve. Warren picked up his own teacup and joined Hastings and the Family Liaison Officer in the kitchenette. Mary Meegan was a proud woman and would want a few moments to compose herself. By the time they returned a minute later, it was as if nothing had happened. She took the fresh cup of tea from Hastings with a grateful smile.
She pointed at the laptop on the dining table.
‘They think I just use that for online shopping. It was an old one that Tommy gave me. But there’s a silver surfer club at the library. One of the boys that helps out upgraded it. Now I can use it for looking at Facebook and surfing the web.’ Her face darkened. ‘I’m not an idiot. I know exactly what they’re involved in. I even follow them on Twitter. I see what people post on there. The language they use… the threats…’ Again, her bottom lip trembled. ‘They used to try and hide it from me – still scared of their old mum,’ she barked. ‘But by the time they’d both been to prison it was obvious. They started showing off their tattoos, horrible things.’ She shuddered. ‘It’s as if they want to be unemployed. They’re supposed to be painters and decorators, but who’d let someone looking like that into their house?’
‘So they aren’t working?’
‘Not really. Tommy moved down to Romford about five years ago, the last time he was released. He said it was to set up as a decorator – he completed a City and Guilds in prison – as a mate had some work on. But I’m not daft. That part of Essex is full of right-wingers. Jimmy joined him three years ago when he got out and they were supposed to set up a business together.’
‘But they didn’t?’
‘I think they tried, but they can’t get any work. Of course, they blame the immigrants. They reckon there are too many Poles down there.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe they’re right. But who would you rather invite into your house? A nice young Polish fellow who turns up on time with a smile, or some scruffy English bloke who turns up late covered in tattoos with a mouthful of foul language?’
‘And so they hooked up with the local far-right?’
‘Yeah, although they never use that term. They call themselves “patriots”.’
‘Before today, when was the last time you saw your sons?’
Again, her bottom lip trembled. ‘It’s been a while. Months.’
‘So they don’t visit Middlesbury very often?’
She shrugged. ‘I think they still have friends up here. Tommy used to see a girl over in Attlee Place, but they split up ages ago.’ The ghost of a smile passed across her face. ‘She’s seeing a black fella now – got a lovely little boy. I thought it best not to say anything.’
Warren returned the smile. Despite everything, he was warming to Mary Meegan, and he felt more than a little sorry for her. It wasn’t hard to imagine the life she’d found herself trapped in. A man like Ray Meegan couldn’t have been easy to live with. Had she been the victim of domestic abuse? He doubted she’d admit it even now. And she’d had two boys with the man; boys that she loved and feared in equal measures. Boys that she’d tried in vain to steer away from the life their father had chosen.
It was easy to blame the parents in such circumstances, but was that always fair? Not for the first time, Warren found himself wondering what he’d do in her place. He doubted Ray Meegan was the sort of man who’d let her run off with his kids, and he couldn’t imagine Mary Meegan leaving without them. Having children seemed the easiest decision in the world, but was it always the right choice?
Suddenly, she grabbed Warren’s hand.
‘Please find the man who killed my boy. I know he wasn’t a nice man, but he didn’t deserve that. And now he’s gone I’m afraid of what will happen.’
‘Do you feel you’re in danger, Mrs Meegan?’ asked Warren.
‘Not me, Jimmy. Despite it all, Tommy was a good influence on him. Jimmy’s easily led and… he can get himself into trouble. Tommy used to hold him back.’
Warren had read Jimmy Meegan’s file. If that was how he behaved when his older brother restrained him, he dreaded to think what the man would do now that he was gone.
Chapter 6
Tony Sutton hated fires. Fortunately, there were no bodies, nevertheless the scene conjured up old memories that he’d rather not dwell on.
The Islamic Centre was a converted residential property, and luckily for the neighbours was detached. The blaze had done significant damage to the downstairs, with the windows on the ground floor broken, the frames blackened. The smoke that smudged the centre’s sign hadn’t obliterated the racist graffiti scrawled across it. The front door hung off its hinges where the fire service had smashed it open to tackle the blaze behind. It too had graffiti, along with a couple of crudely drawn swastikas for good measure. A white-suited CSI was taking a swab from the paint in the hope that they could match it to any aerosol cans recovered from a suspect.
Hardwick resisted the urge to hold her nose; the smell of scorched plastic was making her feel nauseous.
‘Imam Mehmud seemed pretty worried about the long-term fallout,’ she commented.
Sutton agreed. ‘It doesn’t look good. When you were in the bathroom, he told me he’s concerned about strangers turning up and using the fire as an excuse to make a point. There are some pretty angry social media posts in amongst the calls for solidarity and prayers for the victims. He’s pretty young and I don’t know if he wields enough authority to stop troublemakers.’
‘What about the stabbing? What if it turns out to be a member of his congregation?’
‘I don’t know. I’m trying not to think about it.’
‘Well we haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory either. I can’t believe they pulled those two officers off guard duty, they left the place completely unprotected. No wonder everyone is so angry. What do you think will happen to Superintendent Walsh?’
Sutton shrugged; he only knew the Gold Commander for Saturday’s operation in passing, but by all accounts she was a good officer.
‘Let’s not judge. It sounds as though she faced an impossible choice. I don’t think anybody was expecting that many protestors; she needed every warm body at her disposal in the centre policing the riot.’
‘Do you think the arson was planned, or just an opportunist? Could they have known that the patrol car would be pulled away?’
‘That’s what we need to find out,’ replied Sutton.
‘I don’t know what would b
e worse,’ said Hardwick quietly.
The two officers’ reverie was broken by the appearance of Chief Fire Officer Matt Brown, one of the county’s fire investigators. Sutton stuck a hand out and greeted a trim-looking man with steel-grey hair and thick crow’s feet that spoke of a lifetime squinting against smoke or bright light. Black smudges on his overalls confirmed that he was a hands-on investigator.
‘Walk me through it, CFO Brown,’ Sutton instructed after he’d introduced Hardwick.
‘Nine-nine-nine received a mobile phone call from somebody trapped on the top floor at 14.28. They called the volunteer appliance, but the roadblocks slowed things down and it took nearly eight minutes to assemble and another six to get to the scene. They only beat the crew from Cambridge by about two minutes. By that time the fire had taken hold of the whole ground floor.’
Brown pointed up. ‘Fortunately, everybody inside had managed to make it upstairs and was accounted for and we were able to start bringing them out by ladder.’
‘How did it start, you suggested arson?’
‘No question in my mind.’ He handed over a couple of hard hats and motioned for the two officers to follow him as he started up the front path.
‘Watch your step,’ instructed Brown as they stepped over the threshold.
The floorboards were warped and split and a pool of melted plastic had oozed across the floor.
‘The fire started here after somebody poured an accelerant, probably petrol, through the letter box. There was a plastic welcome mat that worshippers used to wipe their feet on here and as you can imagine that went up a treat.’
Brown pointed up the wall, where black smoke stains were visible.
‘Lots of soot and smoke damage, but the main structure remains sound.’
Straight ahead, the entrance to the prayer hall was visible. Stacks of rolled prayer mats still dripped water from the firefighters’ ultimately successful bid to stop the fire spreading further. To the right, a set of stairs led upwards. Black soot smeared the walls all the way up to a small landing halfway up that allowed the steps to turn through ninety degrees.
Either side of the entrance were open shelving units, with the remains of what looked like shoes, a number of pairs clearly children’s, the brightly coloured plastic burnt and twisted from the heat.
‘It’s early days, but as far as we can tell, there is no accelerant on the shoes.’
‘Meaning what?’ asked Hardwick.
‘It suggests that the person didn’t spray it through the letter box from a squirty bottle, but poured it from a canister. The doormat caught alight, which then spread and the shoes caught fire afterwards.’
Sutton scowled. If and when they caught the culprit, he could envisage a canny defence lawyer trying to use that as some sort of mitigation.
‘The fumes from these different materials are pretty nasty and would have filled the downstairs quite quickly.’ Brown pointed at the dark smoke stains travelling up the staircase. ‘Hot air rises, so we’d ordinarily recommend getting low, however in this case, going upstairs probably bought them some time as it took a little longer for the smoke to fill the landing and double back on itself.’
Sutton made a mental note to reassure Imam Mehmud that his decision to head upstairs had been the correct one.
‘What about the rear entrance?’
‘Come and see for yourself.’ Again, Brown led the way.
‘That metal wheeled bin was in front of the door to stop anyone getting out, so you can definitely add attempted murder to the charge sheet as well.’
The container was a large, heavy, dented affair with a lid, a design long since supplanted by plastic recycle bins. Sutton supposed it must have been an old one that the centre used if they filled the newer ones.
He squatted down and looked beneath. The wheels were rusted and at least one looked as though it would fall off if the bin was lifted.
‘We’ll get scenes of crime to take a closer look, but I doubt this has been wheeled anywhere for years.’ He pointed to white score marks leading back to a slightly darker patch of tarmac in front of the fence about three metres away. ‘I’ll bet it was dragged over.’
‘So no chance of it being an accident, then.’ Hardwick looked at her notes and then back at the door. ‘Imam Mehmud said that they rarely opened the back door and it hasn’t got a window so it’s unlikely anyone noticed when the bin was moved.’
Back on the street, Hardwick and Sutton were met by DS Hutchinson and a team of constables ready to start house-to-house inquiries.
Sutton consulted his notebook. ‘OK. According to the log, there was a patrol car with two uniforms sitting here as a visible deterrent until about 14.02 when they were called to the town centre to deal with the riot.
‘That leaves a twenty-six-minute window during which the arsonist or arsonists set the fire.’ He gestured at the street. ‘The street is a mixture of student and non-student properties and there was a fair-sized crowd of rubberneckers by the time the fire brigade turned up. Some of the morbid bastards were even filming it on their mobile phones. Let’s see if anybody saw anything suspicious; strangers hanging around, cars they didn’t recognise, people pouring petrol through the letter box, that sort of thing. I’d also like to know if there were any issues before Saturday. What were relations like with the neighbours?
‘Can anyone pin down when that charming graffiti appeared? We think it was late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. Did anyone hear the bin being dragged? I imagine it wasn’t quiet. What about the CCTV camera? It was broken in the early hours of Thursday morning.’
As they headed back to the car, Sutton looked over at his younger colleague.
‘You were very quiet back there, Karen.’ Sutton had noticed her pale complexion.
‘I’m still a bit under the weather.’
‘That bug you caught on holiday still bothering you?’
‘It’s been over a month now. Every time I think I’m getting over it, it starts again.’
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘I haven’t seen him yet, I can’t get a bloody appointment.’
‘How’s Gary?’
‘Fit as a butcher’s dog, the lucky bugger. He was sick first. By the time he’d finished puking, I was just starting. He was done in twenty-four hours, but it took me nearly three days to get over the first bout.’
‘And you’re certain it’s the food poisoning coming back?’
‘Not one hundred per cent, but the doctor that treated me in France reckoned it was a viral infection, and warned me it might.’
‘You’d think they’d be able to make an omelette properly in Paris.’
‘I guess not.’
Chapter 7
‘Single stab wound to the chest. Almost certainly a knife or bladed implement. Curved blade, no serration.’
Professor Ryan Jordan’s accent was still predominantly American, but decades living in England – married to an Englishwoman – had left their mark.
‘What can you tell about the attack?’ Warren had the phone on speaker so he could look at the emailed files Jordan had sent him without getting a crick in his neck.
‘It pierced his left lung, catching a rib on the way in. It didn’t reach the heart, but it nicked an intercostal artery. The knife was pulled out without twisting. He’d have bled out in less than a minute. From the shape of the pool of blood under the body and the lengthy smear, I’d say he expired where he finally collapsed. I see no evidence that his body was moved post-mortem.’
‘What about his killer. Any ideas?’
‘From the angle and position of entry, I would guess someone of a similar height, probably standing face-on.’
‘So his attacker would have been covered in blood?’
‘No question. Even if he jumped back, I’d say he’d have got a good spattering.’
Warren really hoped Andy Harrison and his team found the killer’s clothing, only a tiny speck of blood would be needed to tie i
t to the scene.
‘Anything else you can tell me about the weapon?’
‘Not a lot, but I’ve photographed the marks on the rib, so I should be able to match any suspect blade.’
‘What else have you found? Any defensive wounds?’
‘Inconclusive. He had a number of pre-mortem injuries. A cut on his scalp was clearly inflicted sometime earlier, it had already started to bruise. His knuckles also had contusions consistent with fighting, but again they were probably picked up a few minutes before he was killed. Unless there was a pause of several minutes between him meeting his attacker and the final wound, I’d say the injuries occurred during the ruckus in the square. I’ve scraped under his fingernails just in case.’
Warren thanked him and hung up. The first twenty-four hours of any investigation were crucial. The clock started ticking the moment a crime was committed, as evidence disappeared, memories began to fade and killers continued to cover their tracks. It had been a promising start and a couple more hours remained. He just hoped they could maintain this momentum over the coming hours and days.
Chapter 8
Arranging a preliminary interview for all those present at the previous day’s riot was no trivial task. Many of the members of the British Allegiance Party were from East London, or further afield, and those who had managed not to get arrested had returned on the coach late Saturday night. To help process them more easily, Welwyn had sent a minibus full of officers clockwise around the M25 and taken advantage of the generosity of the Metropolitan Police in securing the use of some interview suites. The news of their leader’s murder had shocked most of the BAP members into docility and, to everyone’s surprise, all of those invited to give a statement had meekly turned up first thing on Sunday morning. Anybody with something interesting to say would be interviewed more formally, under caution if necessary, at a later date. Establishing alibis prior to the fire breaking out as well as in the last minutes before Tommy Meegan’s demise were equally important at the moment; Warren was acutely aware that a quick arrest over the fire would go at least some way to making good the mistakes made by the police that day.
