‘Sit down,’ said Banks. ‘Superintendent Carver here has brought some very serious complaints to me regarding you two. What do you have to say for yourselves?’
‘We’d like to hear what we’ve been accused of first, sir,’ said Annie.
‘You ought to know by now,’ Banks said, ‘that it’s a matter of courtesy to inform the officer in charge of a neighbouring policing area when you intend visiting his patch.’
‘It wasn’t a planned visit,’ said Annie. ‘We received an anonymous phone call identifying the girl found dead on Bradham Lane and we—’
‘You should still have informed Wytherton Police Station of your visit. But that’s the least of the problems. I have it on the authority of Superintendent Carver here that you intimidated two of his patrol officers on the street. PCs Reginald Babcock and William Lamont.’
‘Intimidated? That’s a laugh.’
Carver glared at her.
‘Would “played silly buggers with” describe the incident more accurately?’ Banks asked, with one arched eyebrow.
‘Last night we returned to Southam Terrace on the Wytherton Heights estate to talk to the girl’s mother, a recovering heroin addict who wasn’t home during our first visit.’
‘So this was your second unannounced call on Wytherton in the same day?’
‘Yes.’ Annie glanced at Carver. ‘Apologies for not ringing ahead. Perhaps we should have said we were coming, but we thought we had more important matters to deal with at the time. Sometimes you just get caught up in the momentum of an investigation. The case was breaking fast after several days of getting nowhere.’
Carver inclined his head in acceptance of the apology.
‘When DC Masterson and I got out of our car,’ Annie went on, ‘we were approached by the two officers in question. DC Masterson made a note of their numbers if—’
‘I know who they are,’ growled Carver. ‘Reg and Bill are two of my best men.’
‘Then I’d hate to meet any of the others,’ said Annie.
Carver gave her an appraising glance. ‘I imagine you would,’ he said. ‘I’ve been having a word or two about you, and it seems your record is hardly unblemished, not without incident.’
‘That’s out of order,’ said Banks. ‘DI Cabbot was—’
Annie touched Banks’s arm. ‘No, boss,’ she said. ‘It’s fine. Let him go on. I’m interested to hear.’
Carver coughed and fiddled with his tie. ‘It’s just that your attitude to male police officers might be seen as prejudiced.’
‘Am I prejudiced against men?’ Annie said. ‘Is that what you’re saying? Maybe I am towards some, but that prejudice doesn’t necessarily extend as far as every thick sexist oaf on the force or I’d have a hard time indeed doing my job. Your men tried to bully and intimidate us.’
‘That was because you didn’t announce your presence as police detectives.’ Carver’s expression took on a distinct sneer. ‘Not because they’re rapists or bullies. Not all men are, you know.’
‘Listen to yourself,’ Annie said, her voice rising. ‘Just listen to yourself.’
It was Banks’s turn to touch Annie’s arm. ‘OK, DI Cabbot, Superintendent Carver, that’s enough of that from both of you. Let’s agree to differ and leave personal slights behind us. Is that OK, Superintendent?’
Carver bristled. ‘Go on, DI Cabbot,’ he grunted. ‘We’re listening.’
‘We were approached by the officers in question, who informed us that we couldn’t park where we were because it was a double yellow line.’
‘And?’ said Banks.
‘There were no double yellow lines, just a single.’
‘But as I understand it, the officers were simply enforcing what they knew to be a parking law for that stretch of road,’ Banks countered.
‘There were no signs about not parking there, either. They said one of the lines had faded over time, and the council hadn’t got around to repainting it yet, which I thought was a load of bollocks.’ Annie looked at a smirking Superintendent Carver. ‘I’ll bet they found time this morning, though.’
‘Why didn’t you just do as you were instructed and move on?’ asked Banks. ‘Better still, why didn’t you tell them who you were and why you were there?’
Annie bit her lower lip. She knew that in one sense she had behaved the way she had because she had wanted to provoke the officers, to push them, test their behaviour. But she also knew that she had been sticking up for herself and Gerry, as members of the general public, trying to strike a blow against big hulking men who get pleasure from pushing women around. ‘It was their attitude,’ Annie said. ‘Their manner was confrontational right from the get-go.’
‘So you didn’t like their attitude,’ mocked Carver. ‘Funny, that’s exactly what they said about you.’
‘Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?’
Banks smiled, but Annie’s Mandy Rice-Davies imitation didn’t get her far with Carver. Perhaps he was too young to remember the Profumo affair.
‘In fact,’ Carver continued, pulling at the sharp crease in his uniform trousers, ‘they went on to say that you two were both abusive and belligerent. That at one point you—’
‘Now hold on a minute,’ said Annie. ‘It was one of your men who grabbed me by the elbow and pulled his baton. Not us.’
‘Because he was provoked.’
‘Provoked, bollocks,’ said Annie. ‘He did it because he’s a bully.’
‘The officer said you were reaching into your bag. He thought you could have been reaching for a knife or even a gun. It’s a dodgy area. Drugs and stuff. They have to be careful. Every night they go out on patrol they could face some serious threat to life and limb. That’s why they might seem a bit more aggressive than some.’
‘And I thought it was just in their nature,’ said Annie. Gerry shifted uncomfortably in the chair beside hers.
‘Again, I’d like to know why you didn’t simply identify yourselves as police officers from the start,’ said Banks. ‘That would no doubt have prevented all these problems from arising, including the parking.’
‘I didn’t see why we should have had to,’ protested Annie. ‘We weren’t asking for special treatment. As far as I was concerned, we had broken no laws. We were simply two women parking a car – legally, as far as we were concerned – and walking down the street minding our own business when those two brutes came over and started hassling us for no good reason. The fact that we didn’t introduce ourselves as fellow officers only means they thought we were members of the public. And members of the public deserve to be better treated than we were. I’m sorry if you don’t like to hear it, but those two officers set out to bully and humiliate us from the start. Anything we did, whether you call it “intimidation” or whatever, was by way of defending ourselves.’
‘Including insinuating that one of my men was “bent”?’ asked Carver.
‘I said he reminded me of a bent sheriff in a bad Western. He did. I don’t think that constitutes calling him bent.’
‘Semantics,’ said Banks, again suppressing the laughter. ‘Let’s put the incident with the officers aside for the moment. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I understand the two of you then went on to inflame the local Asian community.’
‘We most certainly did not,’ said Annie. ‘I don’t know who told you that, but whoever it is, he’s a liar.’ She held Carver’s gaze as she spoke. ‘Mimosa’s family told us that she sometimes hung out on what they called the Strip, a half-mile stretch of Wytherton Town Street between the overpass and the canal bridge. Mimosa’s stepfather told us he didn’t like it because there were too many Asians around, but it’s the nearest place where there’s anything happening at night, and most kids aren’t as bigoted as Lenny Thornton. They like to hang out on the street, especially on warm nights. As Mimosa was from Wytherton Heights and our DNA specialist has informed us that the samples of semen taken from her body were Pakistani in origin, that’s why we went there in the first
place after talking to Sinead Moffat.’
‘What do you think about that, DC Masterson?’ Banks asked, turning to a terrified Gerry.
‘It’s true, sir, what DI Cabbot says. We didn’t set out to inflame anyone in the community, and I don’t believe we did. As DI Cabbot said, we were following a perfectly valid lead about the murdered girl.’
‘Did you find the place swarming with young girls?’
‘No,’ said Annie. ‘But considering that Mimosa Moffat has been dead for almost a week, it’d hardly be business as usual, would it?’
‘Even so, it’s a thin lead, or so it seems to me,’ said Banks. ‘I understand that certain accusations were made?’
‘No accusations,’ Annie replied. ‘I showed the two men behind the counter in a kebab and pizza takeaway an artist’s impression of the dead girl. They said they didn’t know her.’
‘And then?’
‘I wasn’t sure I believed them. After all, if she hung out on the Strip and she ate kebab and pizza, there was a good chance she’d been in their takeaway, wouldn’t you say, sir? It’s the kind of place young people hang out, especially if they’re under the legal drinking age. I might have mentioned her stomach contents as I left, just to make them think a bit.’
‘There are dozens of such places around,’ said Carver.
‘Not as close to where Mimosa Moffat lived,’ said Annie. ‘Not in her own neighbourhood. And an area she was known to hang out in. And the PM did find—’
Carver waved his hand. ‘Even so. That was still no reason to strut into my manor and start harassing racial minorities. Wytherton is a balancing act. And the fact that the dustmen are on strike and we have a heatwave at the moment doesn’t help, either. Tensions are high.’
‘Well, that explains the smell,’ said Annie. ‘But as for harassing racial minorities, come off it, sir. In the first place, the Asians didn’t seem to be a minority in the area, and in the second, I didn’t harass anyone. Nor did DC Masterson. Maybe I didn’t wear kid gloves, but I treated them all in exactly the same way I treat everyone else I question in a homicide investigation.’
‘Well, if that’s the way you go around—’
‘Did you discover anything more on this Strip?’ Banks cut in. Carver glared at him.
‘No. Apart from the smell. We talked to the guys in the minicab office next door, but that’s all. Everything else was pretty much closed, and there weren’t a lot of people about. None of the ones we talked to admitted to knowing Mimosa. It was if she didn’t exist. I got the feeling that someone’s got these people scared, or well trained, sir. They—’
‘This is pure balderdash,’ fumed Carver, getting to his feet. ‘Just because you couldn’t get any leads in your investigation, you accuse a whole community of being involved in a cover- up. If they said they didn’t know her, it was probably because they didn’t. I suppose you think my officers are part of the conspiracy, too?’
‘I never said that, sir,’ Annie answered. ‘But if the cap fits . . .’
‘You certainly implied it. Don’t you think your time might have been better spent asking them if they had noticed anything, instead of pestering local cafe owners and businessmen?’
‘That’s enough of that, Superintendent Carver,’ said Banks. ‘Let’s leave implications out of it for the moment. Sit down.’
Carver didn’t look happy, but he subsided into his chair.
‘And we did ask Reg and Bill if they’d noticed anything,’ muttered Annie. ‘Or if they recognised Mimosa Moffat.’
‘By which time you’d already alienated them.’
‘Did they, by the way?’ Banks asked him. ‘Notice anything?’
‘No,’ said Carver. ‘I talked to them about it once we knew why your officers were nosing around. And none of my men saw anything on the night in question, either. Reg and Bill weren’t even on duty. But the fact remains,’ he went on, ‘that Wytherton is a racially sensitive community. The place is like a tinderbox. It could go up at any moment. You don’t go marching into such an area and start pushing people around and making arbitrary insinuations. If you go in there at all, you go there with all your facts straight – and preferably with specific names, warrants, evidence, the lot.’
‘More than if they happened to be white?’
‘Damn right,’ said Carver.
‘We didn’t push anybody around,’ Annie said. ‘I don’t get it. Is this some sort of positive non-discrimination?’
‘Think about it, DI Cabbot,’ said Banks. ‘Call it post-colonial guilt, if you like.’
‘Even that doesn’t explain it.’
‘Then just accept it.’
‘It’s simple,’ said Carver. ‘It’s pragmatic, a matter of simple practicalities. Let me explain. Your average whites don’t make too much of a fuss if you hassle them. The Muslim community pulls together and makes a noise about it. No matter that they’re mostly third-generation Pakistanis in Wytherton – their grandparents came over in the fifties – and that they often embrace Western culture and seem just as English as you and me. Maybe their grandparents brought the old religion with them, but it started to fade with their children. These days, they’re either westernised or . . . well, you know, attracted by the other extreme. Luckily that doesn’t happen too much around Wytherton. Either way, they feel themselves to be different, singled out, as easily demonised, especially when it suits them, and they make a noise about it. And when they do, guess who has to deal with it.’ He pointed his thumb at his own chest. ‘Wytherton is a split community. We’ve got the Muslims mostly to the south of the Strip in Lower Wytherton, though they’re spreading slowly into the north, and Wytherton Heights is mostly white. There are also areas where whites and British Pakistanis live side by side and have done for years. The boundaries are constantly changing. If we went in and came down hard on the Muslim community for no good reason, we’d have pitched battles on Town Street. Is that what you want to see, DI Cabbot?’
‘No,’ said Annie. ‘But we didn’t go in hard, and it wasn’t for no good reason. Besides, I don’t believe the men we’re dealing with are Muslims in any real sense of the word. Muslims don’t do what was done to Mimosa. Muslims don’t rape and kill young girls. Well, they do, actually, some of them, but we’ll leave that aside for the time being. And they don’t exactly have an enlightened attitude towards women, while we’re at it, but if you point that out to some people, they just accuse you of picking on it as an excuse to demonise them because they don’t believe the same things you do. We may be wrong, but we think – I think – that Mimosa and probably some of her friends were being groomed. And we think it’s happening on your patch. Whether you simply ignored it or hadn’t a clue, I have no idea, but I should think they’ve suspended operations for the time being. What I want is justice for Mimosa Moffat, a fifteen-year-old girl from the Wytherton Heights estate who was gang-raped by three men of Pakistani descent, according to DNA evidence, and beaten to death by a person or persons unknown on my patch. If that means upsetting a few people in the community, so be it. Boo-bloody-hoo. Besides, the nearest any of that lot have been to Pakistan is the nearest Karachi Curry House.’
‘Irrelevant, DI Cabbot,’ said Carver. ‘Are you on some sort of personal vendetta? Is that what’s preventing you from seeing the bigger picture? Because if—’
‘That’s enough, Superintendent Carver,’ said Banks. ‘We take your point, but we do have a murder investigation to carry out. It seems you’re running a slack ship, as far as I can tell. The artist’s impression of Mimosa Moffat – done, by the way, because her face was beaten to a pulp – was circulated throughout the country, including Wytherton. Someone clearly isn’t doing their job right.’
‘I resent that.’
‘Resent away. How would you suggest we approach the problem?’
‘Well, you’ve got all the facilities, and your minds are made up, so you hardly need my advice.’
Banks could tell that Carver was annoyed that he had
a difficult area to police, while Homicide and Major Crimes was housed at the more peaceful Eastvale Police HQ and had a mini forensic lab attached. But Banks could hardly help it if Carver were trying to pass his manor off as Fort Apache, the Bronx. ‘Humour me,’ he said. ‘What about CCTV on the Strip?’
‘You can try,’ said Carver. ‘But there isn’t very much. Besides, it was over a week ago. They’ll have recorded over the hard drives or DVDs or whatever they use by now. You might try questioning some of the local shopkeepers.’
‘I get it,’ said Banks. ‘Basically, not much chance of finding out if there was a car or a van parked near the kebab and pizza takeaway and the minicab office a week ago?’
No.’ Carver shot Annie and Gerry a withering glance.
‘So where do you suggest we start?’
Carver puffed up his chest. ‘I don’t know how you go about doing things down here, but I’d suggest you start by taking the Moffat house apart. We’ve had cause to pay more visits there over the years than we have to the entire Muslim community.’
‘Well, that’s no surprise if you’re too frightened to say boo to them, is it?’ said Annie. ‘You can’t have it both ways.’
‘Let Superintendent Carver speak,’ said Banks.
‘Thank you,’ said Carver. ‘Let me tell you about the Moffats. When it came to handing out brain cells they weren’t exactly at the front of the queue. By now they’re second-generation unemployed, third, if you discount Albert Senior’s artistic pursuits. He never did a day’s work in his life either, just sat around smoking joints and splashing paint on canvas. Albert and his common-law wife Maureen moved there in the late sixties and had Johnny and Sinead about five years apart. The family was called Kerrigan back then, no Moffat on the horizon for a while. Touch of the Irish about them, a background of wandering navvies and horse traders. Albert Kerrigan bought 14 Southam Terrace in the eighties when Mrs Thatcher made it possible for less well-off people to buy their own council house in the hopes they would become more law-abiding and house-proud.’
When the Music's Over: The 23rd DCI Banks Mystery Page 22
