by Paul Gitsham
‘Maybe, but he lives alone.’
‘Well I’m sorry, DCI Jones, but you’re going to have to get another extension and see what else you can come up with.’
Warren thanked her and hung up. The excitement of the arrest yesterday seemed a long time ago.
Turning to his computer he opened a blank application form for an extension to the time in custody. A local magistrate would need to authorise any further detention for up to seventy-two hours.
Warren just hoped that it was long enough.
Chapter 22
DC Gary Hastings pulled onto the patch of gravel that served as the forecourt for Durban’s vehicle repairs and tried to clear his head. Karen had been sick again. He’d been Googling her symptoms, even though he knew he shouldn’t. He reckoned it was unlikely to be bowel cancer, but could it be irritable bowel syndrome? Or what if she was a coeliac? He had an aunt who had developed the gluten allergy when she was about Karen’s age and it had been life-changing.
Stop being silly, he ordered himself, focus on the job. He slipped his sunglasses off, returned them to the case attached to the sun visor, and looked around. To his left was a BMW with a crumpled left wing, to his right a fluorescent yellow Fiat, emblazoned in signs advertising cut-price MOTs.
The front of the garage was open, with two vehicles on raised platforms and a third with its bonnet open. Rap music echoed off the concrete walls as workers in blue coveralls and white rubber gloves fussed over their charges.
Large signs forbade members of the public from entering the workshop, so Hastings followed the arrow to the reception area. The faint tinkling of a bell when he entered must have been amplified inside the workshop, since within seconds a door marked ‘Staff Only’ swung open and an older man dressed in trousers and a shirt greeted Hastings. His name badge identified him as Jim Durban, owner.
‘What can I do for you, lad?’ The man’s voice still bore traces of a Scottish upbringing.
Hastings introduced himself and was promptly invited into the back office.
The small room was pretty much what Hastings would expect a vehicle repair office to look like; shelves of lever arch folders interspersed with technical manuals. The desk was cheap, dark brown MDF and the chairs were well worn but comfy. Except for the laptop and printer, it could have been from any time in the last thirty years. That and the fact that his nose told him nobody had lit a cigarette in here in recent memory. And the up-to-date calendar was about as un-titillating as possible – assuming that full-colour photographs of different alloy wheels weren’t your thing.
‘I’m enquiring about one of your employees, Binay Singh Mahal.’
Durban’s expression became guarded. ‘Is he in trouble?’
‘It’s just a routine inquiry. Mr Singh gave your business as his place of work.’
Durban waited in silence for a few seconds, but soon decided that Hastings was not going to assuage his curiosity.
‘Sure, Binay works here. He’s a mechanic, been here about five years. He should be in today, but I haven’t seen him since last week. Says he has the flu. You haven’t spoken to him lately, have you? I’m getting a little worried.’
‘Like I said, I’m just confirming his details. Does he work full-time?’
‘Pretty much. We’re open Monday to Friday, eight until five. We also have a rota for Saturday mornings, everyone does one week in four; a bit more if we’ve got a lot on.’
‘I see. How well do you know Mr Singh?’
Durban shrugged. ‘He’s a quiet bloke. Pleasant enough, I suppose, but doesn’t say a lot.’
‘What about the other workers. Do they get on with him?’
‘He’s not the most sociable. He tends to sit in the corner and just eat his sandwiches at lunchtime.’ Durban looked a little uncomfortable. ‘He’s never said anything, but I get the feeling he doesn’t really approve of some of the banter and jokes between the lads. He tends to read or play on his phone.’
‘What sort of banter?’ Hastings chose his words carefully. ‘Could it perhaps be seen as a bit… racial?’
Durban looked genuinely shocked. ‘Christ no! I wouldn’t be having any of that crap in here. Besides we’ve got a couple of black lads, they wouldn’t stand for it either.’ He paused, then his eyes widened and he sat up straight. ‘Wait, he hasn’t complained has he?’
Hastings raised his hands. ‘No, no, nothing like that. Please don’t be concerned, I’m just trying to get a fuller picture of what Mr Singh is like.’
Durban leant back in his chair.
‘I don’t suppose you know what he does outside of work? If he has any hobbies? Do you know anything about his family?’
‘Not really. I think he has a girlfriend, but he doesn’t say much about her.’ He scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘I think he visits his parents for Sunday lunch most weekends.’
‘And nothing else? No mention of hobbies or interests?’
‘Not really. He doesn’t talk about politics and doesn’t seem to watch the same stuff on TV as everyone else. I know he likes cricket, but that puts him in a minority of one in here – we’re strictly football and rugby, I’m afraid. He’s pretty strict about his religion, he’s a Sikh, he wears his turban and has those bangles. He doesn’t drink either, which I thought was a Muslim thing, but apparently some Sikhs don’t. Oh, and he’s a veggie.’
‘You said you haven’t seen him since last week. Can you remember when exactly that was?’
Durban thought for a moment. ‘Wednesday. He seemed fine, no evidence of the flu. He sounded a bit nasally when he called in sick on Thursday, but that’s it.’ Durban’s expression suggested he had increasing doubts about his employee’s story.
Wednesday was the night Singh Mahal claimed to have been mugged, and a swollen nose would probably account for his voice. Why would he try to hide that from his employer?
Hastings closed his notebook. He’d taken plenty of notes, but he doubted any of them would be of use; hopefully his next stop would prove more fruitful. On the surface of it all, it sounded as though Binay Singh Mahal was just a normal guy trying to make a living. A bit antisocial perhaps, but if they ever made that a crime they’d be locking up a lot of people, not least Hastings’ own father.
Chapter 23
Binay Singh Mahal’s parents lived on the opposite side of the town to their son, in an area as far removed from the squalor of the Chequers estate as one could imagine. Dr Jag Singh Mahal was a GP, practising in Cambridge. His wife, Professor Dalip Kaur Mahal, was a consultant paediatrician at Addenbrooke’s, with a thriving private practice on top of her NHS work.
The front living room occupied an area roughly equivalent to the total square footage of the flat Hastings shared with Karen Hardwick, with a carpet that probably cost more than the couple’s entire furnishings combined.
‘When was the last time you saw your son, Dr Singh?’ asked Hastings.
The older Singh Mahal eyes narrowed slightly.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I’m just making some routine inquiries,’ said Hastings. Unfortunately, the doctor wasn’t as easily placated by the detective’s dismissal as his son’s boss had been.
‘He came around for Sunday lunch the weekend before last,’ said his mother.
‘And that was the last time you saw him?’
‘Yes, he would have been around this weekend but he said he had the flu.’
Hastings was aware that Singh Mahal hadn’t answered the question.
‘What about you, Dr Singh?’
The man paused.
‘I saw him Friday.’
Professor Kaur blinked in surprise at her husband’s revelation. ‘You didn’t say. Why did you see him?’
Singh looked over at his wife, plainly unwilling to say too much in front of her. However, it was clear that she wasn’t going to let it drop.
‘He said he had the flu. I’m a GP, I dropped by to check on him.’
‘Well, how was he?’
/> Singh licked his lips, his gaze flitting between his wife and Hastings.
‘Jag…’
‘He was fine.’ He paused. ‘He didn’t have the flu.’
‘Then why didn’t he want to come around?’ Kaur sounded hurt.
‘He got into a bit of a fight. He didn’t want us to worry.’
‘A fight!’
‘Well, more of a mugging.’
‘When? When did this happen?’
Hastings leant back in his chair slightly, trying to make himself invisible. It looked as though the couple would answer all of his questions without any intervention from him.
‘Wednesday night.’
‘Well, did he report it?’
‘No. They didn’t take very much, he said it wasn’t worth complaining about. Besides, you know how he is about the police.’
As if remembering they had a guest, the two parents turned back to Hastings.
‘Is this why you are here?’ asked Kaur. ‘Has he decided to report it?’
‘Not exactly. Dr Singh, could you tell me what the muggers stole?’
‘Not a lot, from what I can tell. They emptied his wallet of a few pounds, but then they threw it and his mobile phone over a wall and he retrieved them later.’
‘Did they injure him?’
Singh nodded reluctantly. ‘A couple of black eyes, a cut to his nose and some bruising to his ribs – nothing serious,’ he added hastily.
‘Did he describe his attackers to you at all?’
‘He said there were two of them, that was all.’
‘Did he suggest any sort of motive?’ asked Hastings.
Again Singh paused, but the glare from his wife prompted him to continue.
‘He said that one of them called him an “effing Paki”.’
Kaur put a hand to her mouth.
‘Why didn’t he report it to the police?’ asked Hastings.
Singh paused and it was his wife that replied.
‘Binay had some trouble with racists when he was younger. He never felt the police took him seriously. Then when he was a teenager he was arrested for being in a stolen car. He believed that the police were quick enough to deal with him when they thought he was a criminal but weren’t interested when he was the victim. He still thinks that.’
‘Can you remember if anything else was stolen?’
Singh started to shake his head, before stopping. ‘Hold on. When I saw him, I insisted that he took his shirt off to show me the bruises. I remember he wasn’t wearing the holster that he keeps his Kirpan in. He’s baptised and takes that very seriously. I asked him where it was and he changed the subject.’
Chapter 24
DS Mags Richardson’s career had travelled almost full circle. Her first specialist role in the police had been with traffic; she’d left the road safety unit for CID as video surveillance was really starting to take off. Now she was increasingly becoming Middlesbury’s go-to person when a case involved the analysis of large volumes of CCTV and other video footage.
‘As you know, forty-three BAP activists arrived in Middlesbury at approximately noon on a privately hired coach from Romford. Our colleagues in the Met gave them a warm send off a little after 10 a.m. and took some video of everyone who got on the bus. All but three have been positively matched to faces on Inspector Garfield’s database.
‘The coach driver comes from an Essex-based firm, and he wasn’t best pleased to find out who he was driving. Unfortunately, he felt too intimidated to object to them walking around the coach and drinking beer. They spent about thirty minutes stuck in traffic and had a fifteen-minute comfort break after exiting the A10. As far as he can tell, the same half-dozen or so that went to the toilet returned and everyone that got off for a smoke got back on again.
‘We’ve compared the Met video against the video that we took as they left the coach and the faces match. Nobody left or got on the coach after it left Romford.’
‘OK, so what about during the march and rally?’ asked Sutton, ‘Could anyone have slipped away and made it down to the Islamic Centre during the twenty-six-minute window when the fire was set?’
Richardson shook her head.
‘No. The BAP were escorted along the entire march, until they reached the rallying point outside the council house. They were then corralled there until everything went tits up and the protestors breached the cordon at 14.32. I can guarantee that nobody left that area before then.’
‘What about the three unknowns?’ Hardwick had arrived late, her face pasty under her make-up. Warren was going to insist that she made a GP appointment if she didn’t perk up later. The last thing he wanted was for one of his best officers to work herself into a month’s sick leave.
‘We are looking to see if they appear on the PNC for any other offences. We’re also trying to get other BAP members to identify them, but they aren’t being helpful.’
‘Could there have been any other BAP members that travelled to Middlesbury under their own steam?’ asked Warren.
‘Quite possible; not all of the BAP members are based in London and the South-East and only about two-thirds of the members we know about were on that coach. But if they did, they didn’t join the march. At least they tend to show their faces, unlike the counter-protestors.’
Warren looked at the next question in his notepad.
‘What about the counter-protestors? How many have we identified? Are there any interesting suspects?’
‘We’re doing what we can, but there were over five hundred of them. Based on the number of people wearing anti-BAP T-shirts we reckon there were up to two hundred organised anti-fascists. It’s a little hard to tell since they’ve taken to wearing two face masks and swapping them around. The rest were a mix of students, concerned locals and casual lefties on a day trip.’
‘We do have a database of the biggest agitators,’ said Garfield, ‘but it’s pretty poorly populated. For the most part these guys behave themselves and are only added if they get arrested or commit a violent act.’
Warren puffed out his lips in frustration. He’d caught a few minutes of the news as he’d wolfed down a sandwich in his office. The increasing rhetoric on social media showed no sign of easing off, with increasingly inflammatory posts coming from all sides. The longer both cases dragged on, the more likely that online fights would spill over onto the streets, with Middlesbury the likely epicentre.
‘What about the surrounding streets?’ he asked.
‘It was still a Saturday afternoon. The shops and businesses in the immediate centre were closed down on police advice, but there were plenty of folks wandering around enjoying the sunshine. Apart from the obvious, it’s hard to work out who is a protestor and who is a member of the public. There were lots of people in the vicinity of the alleyway where Meegan was found in the time running up to the line being breached, but we haven’t managed to find anyone acting suspiciously. We could really do with some CCTV from that area, but we’ve got nothing.’
‘So watch this space?’
‘Pretty much. I know we have a blank cheque, but unfortunately there are only so many trained analysts and even fewer super recognisers not busy with counter-terrorism. We barely get a look-in.’
Chapter 25
‘The marks on the knife match Singh Mahal’s prints; there’s blood on the blade that matches the victim—’ Warren raised a finger and Sutton corrected himself ‘—probably matches the victim – the autopsy states that the wound is consistent with a bladed weapon similar to the Kirpan and there’s blood on his tracksuit. I say we wait for the DNA on the tracksuit to match and push the CPS to charge. We can worry about the CCTV or mobile phone footage later. We’ve got a whole horde of the great unwashed from the protest out on bail, I’m sure someone will be able to ID him.’
The two men were sitting in Warren’s office and taking the opportunity to refresh their coffee cups and eat a pastry.
Sutton brushed some crumbs off his jacket.
‘Hiding the
evidence?’
Sutton scowled. ‘It’s fine for Marie, she gets a regular lunch break, with plenty of time to eat healthily. None of this grabbing food on the hoof and trying to get a sugar boost when you can.’
‘Well it seems to be working for her,’ said Warren. ‘Susan told me she said she’d lost half a stone last time we met up.’
‘Yeah, and I’ve found it.’ Sutton looked over his cup at Warren. ‘Don’t look so smug, boss. You’re past forty now, your days of eating like Gary Hastings are coming to an end.’
The jibe stung more than Warren cared to admit; maybe if he’d taken a bit more care of his diet over the past few years he and Susan wouldn’t be facing the problems they were struggling with now.
Warren forced himself back to the topic at hand.
What Sutton had said was probably correct; nevertheless, Hastings’ failure to catch out Singh Mahal in a lie about his mugging and the loss of his Kirpan worried Warren.
‘If it turns out that he really was mugged, then we have to find out who did it, and if they did take his Kirpan,’ said Warren. ‘Get Hutch to organise some door-knocking on the Chequers estate and see if we can find some witnesses.’
‘I wouldn’t hold your breath, the police aren’t exactly welcome there,’ warned Sutton.
‘Which poses a problem for us,’ said Warren.
‘You’re thinking the mugging might have been staged? To give him an alibi?’ said Sutton.
‘Not impossible,’ replied Warren, keen to let his friend work through the holes in the theory.
Sutton took another bite of his pastry.
‘I’m struggling to make that work,’ he mumbled, spilling yet more crumbs down his front. ‘The mugging supposedly happened in the middle of last week – which his wounds are certainly consistent with, yet the murder happened Saturday. So it was definitely premeditated.’
Sutton’s wife was probably right to nag him, thought Warren. He’d put on a fair bit of weight in the three years that they’d worked together and he definitely seemed to be more out of breath when he climbed the stairs from the ground floor. Maybe the two of them should try and exercise together? Perhaps a regular run? He’d suggest it when this case was over, he decided.
