The Singhing Detective

by M. C. Dutton

  His second marriage to Linda was destined to fail. He was working every hour under the sun and only going home to sleep. The marriage was never going to last under this pressure, but finding time to argue and split up takes more hours than he spent at home. He worked hard for his money and she went out and spent it. It was opening the door to the bailiffs one morning that finally closed the door on his second marriage.

  The mental breakdown had been a long time coming out but the build up could be tracked back to the stake out. There were many ingredients that vied for pole position. His first marriage was finished in a blasé way that belied the shame he felt for the loss of face he had brought on his family. Jazz had blustered but all the posturing, shouting and condemning of arranged marriages didn’t stop the depression he felt for humiliating his family. He was born and brought up in England. He spoke like an East Ender, joked like a Londoner and ate like a westerner, but he was Sikh deep down in his heart and he knew what he had done was wrong.

  Priya was a girl from the Punjab. She was 19 years old and a sought-after bride. Priya was 16 years younger than Jazz and her experience of life was simplistic and protected. Her father was very respected and it was only because Jazz had such a good job and was in England that the marriage was agreed. She had been used to servants waiting on her and the sun had always shined on her. In Manchester, she knew very few people and it was dark and wet and she had to cook and clean. She was very unhappy. The community in Bradford knew she came from good stock and deserved more respect.

  Through Jazz and Priya’s marriage, the Singh family were now aligned to a very rich and well known family. The Singh’s were Ugandan Sikhs, which meant they were not as strict in their religion as those from the Punjab. The marriage was seen as the pinnacle of the Singh family’s rise in Sikh society. In Sikh culture marriage is not just between two people, it is the marriage of two families. Priya came to live in England and all the grandchildren would be English. Jazz had a very good job and it was known that he was going to do very well in the police force. The marriage was deemed perfect. The Singh family basked in the glory it brought them.

  Looking back, Jazz realised why he had been railroaded into an arranged marriage he never wanted: The timing had been perfect. He had been sent away in disgrace to the Manchester Police force and his mind was tottering between either wiping away the events in Ilford or just going for a full blown breakdown. To be his family’s saviour, he paraphrased his uncles words, by such a prestigious marriage, seemed a good idea at the time. He wanted to please someone. A big mistake.

  The marriage was a disaster. Jazz found Priya spoilt, stupid and pathetic. It wasn’t her fault, he conceded, but this is not how he saw his life turning out. They had nothing in common and couldn’t talk about anything on similar grounds. She came from a culture very different from the life Jazz was living. Watching football, a beer in the pub, fish and chips on a Saturday night; none of this made sense to Priya. The sex had been interesting but not enough. They didn’t love each other and very soon after their marriage, they couldn’t tolerate being in the same room together. She wanted to go home. Jazz divorced Priya; something that was unthinkable in their class. The Singh family’s dignity and prestige in the community was lost and this hurt them badly. Priya was taken in by Jazz’s uncle and she lived in Bradford until Priya’s family decided what they wanted to do. Jazz was told not to darken their door again. The humiliation was appeased by this estrangement and the Sikh society forgave the Singh family but they could not forgive Jazz. His mother prayed for him and forgave him. It had been a distressing time for her but she loved him. He was her only son and he could do no wrong.

  CHAPTER THREE

  After he moved to Manchester, Amereen didn’t see Jazz very much. As she had told Alice, he was so important and busy he just didn’t have the time. His first bride, Priya, was a good marriage. There was a big society wedding, which meant Amereen and her family in Bradford had to travel to India. It had been very many years since Amereen had travelled to India, or even been on a plane. One of her brothers came to get her and she travelled with him to India. Her brother acted as the elder of the family and spoke for Amereen and for Jazz. She stayed for several months in India and saw some of her family who lived there. She didn’t want to come back but Jazz lived in England and she wanted to be in the same country as him. A visa was applied for and after quite a short time, Priya was able to travel to England with Jazz. She told Alice that she missed not being with her own family but her home was in Newbury Park. The wedding had been spectacular and the celebrations went on for days. Priya’s family had made her very welcome.

  Amereen had sat one afternoon and tried to explain to Alice what a Sikh wedding was like. She started by explaining when the marriage took place and about the holy shabads and the rituals but Amereen could see that Alice was finding it hard to grasp all the names and what the rituals meant so she cut it short and said the ceremony ended with the holy sweet pudding Karah Pasad, which was distributed to all present.

  Alice had thought Gawd, all those confusing and strange names, it all sounds very complicated. But she could see that Amereen felt very proud and so she made her a cup of tea and brought out Amereen’s favourite chocolate digestives. Alice was very pleased to see Amereen back. She had missed her and listened for hours to the strange and beautiful tales Amereen told her of the wedding and the reception.

  Amereen had come home with a suitcase full of colourful saris bought as presents for her and gold bracelets on her arm. As the mother of the groom, she was paid a lot of attention and it was something she talked about for a long time. Alice could imagine all the colours of the saris and the flower petals and the music and the dancing. It sounded beautiful to her. Amereen bought Alice a necklace made of a bright gold. The necklace was so beautiful and Alice was overawed that such a fine piece of jewellery had been bought for her. She kept it in a jewellery box to be worn on special occasions. When Amereen died, Alice wore it for months, not wanting to take it off; it reminded her of Amereen and she felt she was close by when she wore the necklace.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  There were things Amereen hadn’t told Alice, one of which was how religious Priya’s family were and that they didn’t drink so there were no drinks at the wedding celebrations. Jazz had brought a secret stash for himself. He was seen to slip out to his car often for a drink. This was kept secret by Jazz’s male relatives. It was when Jazz took to the dance floor later in the evening that all became apparent and very public. Jazz never wore a turban, but as a mark of respect for his future family, he arrived in the Punjab wearing traditional clothes and a turban. He had decided that for his wedding day celebrations he would drink whisky instead of beer. This was a big mistake, which he later confessed to his mother. The music had got livelier during the evening and the five-piece band were enthusiastically banging out a popular tune.

  Jazz, fuelled up with an alcoholic confidence, strode onto the dance floor to join in the Bangra dance; an enthusiastic step in time to the music caused him to slipped backwards in a grotesque display of Bangra gone wrong. As he hit the floor face up, for a few moments of disbelief, he lay still whilst his turban left his head and slid three metres across the dance floor. The music stopped and everyone present became mute with shock. It was, Amereen knew, the most disastrous and embarrassing moment for the groom’s family. It would be said in Punjab circles for years that the wedding bode disaster for the marriage from that eventful moment.

  Amereen had kept another secret from Alice. She never told her of the marriage break up with Priya. This was very painful and although she forgave Jazz, she would never live the shame of it down. She took to her grave the heartbreak and the rift in her family this had caused.

  As the mother of Jaswinder Singh, Amereen carried much shame. The Singh family may not have visited her but the phone calls upset her greatly. With no man in the family to protect her, she was buffeted and bullied by her brother in law to disown Jazz as her
son. Because the Singh family had publicly renounced Jazz as a member of the Singh family, they could not speak to him. They satisfied their need to vent their shame by terrorising Amereen. Her life was unhappy and she carried the mantle of shame across her buckling shoulders. Jazz never knew what the Singh family did to her. Alice was her one saving grace and her ignorance of these shameful events gave Amereen an oasis in her life. When Amereen died suddenly from an aneurism, no one took the blame of the stress that may have caused it.

  At 38 years old, Jazz only became aware that he had no family to call on when his mother died. He inherited the family house in Newbury Park and spent a week clearing it out and accumulating bits and pieces of memorabilia. He missed the gentleness and uncompromising love of his mother. If only was added to the list of triggers that would cause the breakdown.

  Jazz took Alice to his mother’s funeral. She was the only person there talking to him. The Singh family arrived and left as soon as the funeral finished. They had fulfilled their obligation to Amereen and it was organised that the head of the family would collect the ashes after a suitable time and distribute them in flowing water as is the custom. They ignored Jazz, adding another side swipe to ensure he was fully aware of the ongoing rift he had caused in the Singh family. It phased Jazz out. He had hoped that his mother’s funeral would bring him back into the family and they would forgive him as his mother had done.

  After the funeral, Jazz spent the evening with Alice. He knew she was grieving badly for his mother and he hoped they could grieve together. He felt Alice’s pain when she said, none too gently and actually incorrectly, “A bleeding heart attack has taken another loved person from me.” She added defiantly, “How come he only takes the good ones? Bollocks to him and all the bleeding priests in the world.” With that statement, Alice had cried for an hour. It was only after drinking the sherry Jazz poured her, in a desperate attempt to keep her from collapsing under so many tears, that Alice managed to regain her composure. He had always liked Alice, but in that moment he loved her with all his heart.

  He cuddled her and joined her in having a sherry. After they finished the bottle, the stories began. Alice told Jazz all his mother’s thoughts and how proud she was of “her Jazz” as his mother had always lovingly called him. They laughed when Alice told the story of teaching Amereen to do the Okey Kokey and the mess they got into trying to keep up with the music. He would remember it as the best funeral night he could have had for his mother. In years to come, his mother’s love as felt through Alice, would keep him afloat.

  After a week of packing up the house, he returned to Manchester, glad in some way to return to normality, whatever that was. He had spent every evening with Alice. The local Tesco was busy restocking their Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry. Alice had never been so tiddley so often as during that week. She giggled as she told Cissie how wonderful little Jaswinder had been. She was so sad to see him go but he had promised to keep in touch. Two years had passed since Amereen had died and little Jaswinder must have been very busy because he hadn’t rung her yet. She told Cissie he would ring her when he had time.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When Jazz had arrived back in Manchester, all the niggley little things that had caused him problems over the years intensified. He ignored all the symptoms as best he could; it was at Manchester Police Station, two months after his mother’s funeral, that cracks started to show. He was interviewing a known pain in the neck domestic violence case. Jazz, having been here before, listened to this cocky lump of shit who knew his wife would withdraw her statement, even though he had beaten her so badly she needed stitches to her lip where he had punched her hard in the face. This skinny little woman’s body had turned purple from the barrage of punches landed with a force that threw her across the room. As she lay on the floor, her husband continued to pummel her with huge fists. The exertion of it all left him sweating heavily and out of breath but the fucking bitch deserved more. The final kicks fractured two of her ribs. He was going to get away with it again!

  Jazz sat opposite the fucking bastard in the custody suite interview room listening to the bastard baiting him. Jazz watched as this low life sitting there calmly smiling that you cant touch me bastard look which intensely annoyed Jazz. In the past, he could cover it with a professionalism that didn’t allow the baiting to get to him. Today, he was getting seriously angry.

  The fat, ugly tosser in front of Jazz knew he had got away with the charges. His Tracy knew what was good for her. She was nothing without him and she knew it, he had told her often enough. He could tell that the bastards were just trying to find another reason to keep him there. It was the fourth time that year she had called the police and they didn’t want to let him go again. He would make sure she didn’t call the police again; they said next time they would do a victimless prosecution on him. The bitch would lose her sodding mobile when he got out of here, he would take it from her and smash it to bits.

  For now, he, Charlie Shaw, was in control. He controlled her, he could control the police because they had nothing they could use, and he controlled the Social Services. He liked the feeling of control. With no job and all his bills paid through children’s allowance, dole money and a bit of disability money, he had no goals in life other than to be the biggest pain in the butt to anyone he came into contact with. Tracy looked after the three kids: Skye, Bart and Sumer. His kids were good. It meant Social Services got them a 42” flat screen HD TV, and the washing machine and tumble dryer were also given to them for the children. All the heating bills were paid for them and they never had to turn the heating down or off if they didn’t want to. They also got a computer so the children would not feel different. He never wanted a bloody computer. What good was that? He was working on Social Services to get them a car too so he could take the children out. Charlie’s plan was that him and his mate Jimmy could go to any race track they fancy, anywhere in the country, if they had a car. His last conversations with Social Services said they were thinking about a car for the family but no decision had been made yet. As far as he was concerned, they could take Tracy away for all he cared, she was a scrawny, ugly bitch, but they could never take his children away from him. He had never touched the children. He could always find another woman to keep him company and look after the children.

  Social Services saw him as a loving father. They had expressed some concern regarding his drinking and his violence towards Tracy, but they never doubted his devotion to his children. As he told them, his bad leg and bad back stopped him going out with his children, but they did watch television together. He never mentioned it was the racing programmes he watched with them. The kids knew all about the odds on a horse and how to place a bet before they knew how to read.

  So here he was again, Charlie Shaw, in police custody. They had to be professional and treat him correctly. He would complain if they breached his rights. The police were well aware of his knowledge of his rights; he told them often. He very much enjoyed the look of frustration on the officer’s face. If he was in the mood, he would bate them and push them. Many had been close to hitting him but that would have suited him too much. He would have sued for compensation, made a fuss, rung the newspapers. He was hated and reviled by all who knew him in the community.

  Charlie Shaw was right. Tracey Shaw had been into the Police station and made a withdrawal statement. She had been let out of hospital and she had gone straight to the police station. She looked a mess. A policewoman sat with her to check how she was. Tracy, in pain, but stiffly upright in her anger, told the policewoman, in no uncertain terms, “You let my Charlie go now. I love him and I want to go home with him.” The policewoman checked that Tracey knew what she was doing; next time Charlie could cause her more injuries, it was even conceivable that he could kill her next time. The WPC had introduced herself as Rebecca and asked her kindly and with care to seriously reconsider her decision. Tracy was having none of it. Shouting loud enough to be heard in the next room, she spat at the policewo
man, “Mind your own fucking business, he is my man and I want him with me now.” At this point, WPC Rebecca Reid, the policewoman who had sat so patiently with Tracy, gave up.

  Jazz was called out of the interview room to be told a withdrawal statement had been made and signed by Tracey Shaw and therefore Charlie Shaw could be released. As Jazz walked back into the interview room, Charlie knew he was free, but before he left, he wanted to make sure this bastard of a Paki DS knew his place. Charlie got up out of his chair and told Jazz to be more respectful next time. He told a barely contained Jazz, whose eyes were flashing and his cheeks had gone a bright red, that he didn’t like his attitude and he was gonna report him for his lack of respect for a member of the community.

  Jazz, tired, fed up and riled beyond belief by this scum, forgot himself and with one fist clenched he pulled Charlie close to him with the other hand and punched him hard. There were no muscles in Charlie’s bulging, fat stomach, and the punch knocked all the wind out of him and he fell to the floor. After a few wheezing moments where he tried to gulp in as much air as possible, Charlie told Jazz he was going to get him. Jazz laughed and said, “Prove it! You fell over, I saw it.” He shouldn’t have given in to his hot anger but enough was enough and Charlie needed to be taught a lesson. Jazz felt good. It was the start of behaviour found unacceptable by the police and the beginning of the breakdown that would take him out of the force for six months.

  If Charlie Shaw had known he was responsible for the final straw that caused the breakdown of Jazz Singh he would have been very proud!