Guts for Garters

by Linda Regan

  Georgia felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment at the realization that Banham’s remark was aimed at her. ‘Celik has told us that one of our trusted informants is importing machetes, and is laying the blame at their door.’ She watched heads turn to each other and then back to her. All the team had, in the past, made comments about the validity of Alysha Achter as an informant. ‘Celik tells us he earns his money not from drugs but as a DJ on the continent. He says there is a lock-up near or on the Aviary, with some distinctive graffiti, a skull and cross in green on a red door with peeling paint, which is where the weapons are being stored. I’ve circulated the description to uniform and asked them to keep an eye out when patrolling the estate. Sergeant Green and I will be paying a visit to Alysha Achter tonight and we’ll have a look for that lock-up. Should we find it, we’ll call it in, request backup.’

  ‘Do that,’ Banham nodded his agreement. ‘If you take Sergeant Green with you, Alison and I will go,’ he turned to Alison, checking she was up to it, and was met with a brusque nod, ‘to talk to the Ghazianis.’

  ‘Melek Yismaz told us the mother has previously burned Zana with an iron for not wearing her hijab,’ Alison told the team. ‘Melek took photos of the injury; again, we’re waiting on TIU for all the photos on the laptop.’

  ‘I’ve seen them,’ Stephanie confirmed. ‘They’re being blown up as we speak.’

  ‘We’ll talk to them,’ Banham said, ‘but at this stage we’ll only bring them in if it’s absolutely necessary. The post-mortems on both victims have now been put back until tomorrow.’ Banham looked around the room. ‘Any volunteers?’

  Georgia caught Stephanie’s eye. Banham was well-known for throwing up at post-mortems, and after Alison fainting at the crime scene of a burns victim, there was no chance she would volunteer. It was Georgia’s chance to climb back into the DCI’s good books.

  ‘Sergeant Green and I will go,’ she said.

  ‘Jolly good,’ he said dismissively. She watched him beam at Alison, who was sitting at the front of the room, pale and looking as out of place.

  Stephanie batted her eyelids at Georgia. Georgia grinned, and then looked up and noticed Banham was glaring at them.

  Nine

  Melek Yismaz had asked to be dropped a five-minute walk from her street. She said she fancied a walk, but Alison knew she was nervous of being seen in a car that belonged to a ‘fed’.

  Melek thanked Alison and started her walk home, taking the route around the side of the estate where the footbridge crossed a dried up stream and the parkland had become wasteland.

  She had been walking for only a minute when she saw Bilaboo and Trent, Harisha’s lieutenants, walking towards her from the other side of the pathway.

  ‘Harisha wants you, innit,’ Bilaboo told her as he approached. Bilaboo was another of Harisha’s cousins; he was also over six and a half feet tall. He had come from the same part of Turkey as Harisha. The families had moved to England in the same year. The two boys had lived on the same estate in Bermondsey and grown up together, attending the same school, and bunking off lessons more frequently than attending them. They were selling drugs together from an early age, and both served time together in young offenders’ centres, and then separately a few years later, in open adult prisons, for grievous bodily harm. Out of his seventy-strong gang, Harisha Celik trusted Bilaboo most of all, and Bilaboo, in his turn, worshipped Harisha Celik.

  Melek felt threatened by their friendship. She knew Bilaboo would do anything for Harisha, and that he came before her in the pecking order of the gang. Normally Bilaboo was polite and kind to her. He took care of her when Harisha lost his temper and took it out on Melek. He would always walk her home to make sure she got there safely, but not say a word about the fact that Harisha had given her a slapping and then left her to fend for herself. To be Harisha’s girlfriend, she’d had to be initiated into the gang, and pass a test, to prove loyalty to Harisha. The test involved having sex with a few of his chosen soldiers while Harisha watched. Bilaboo and Trent were among the chosen eight. The gang-rape she was forced to endure was both demeaning and painful. She had been treated like a piece of meat, her hands had been tied, her knickers removed, and one by one each of the eight were told to enter her. They were not allowed to ejaculate, that was for Harisha alone. When they were near to ejaculation, they were to pull out and her job was to suck them off while Harisha watched. It was clear that Bilaboo hadn’t wanted to partake, but he would never go against the word of Harisha. He was the last in the queue of eight. He had entered her only very briefly, and then kept his gaze averted to the garage wall while she performed the oral sex. All the while it went on, Harisha stood watching, telling them they were his brothers, his family and his blood, and he was happy to share with them.

  After it was over Melek had become hysterical, and had shouted at Harisha that no family she knew had sex with each other, nor did they dish out that kind of pain if they cared for someone. That had earned her a hard slap across the mouth from Harisha. Her lip had stayed swollen for a week.

  Walking towards her now, she was aware Bilaboo’s large, dark eyes, with the over-long lashes, looked furious.

  ‘Harisha wants you, innit,’ he said again, gripping her arm and quickly turning her to walk in the opposite direction with him. Trent then moved in and gripped her other arm, walking close to her, as they started to frog-march her back to the street.

  ‘Ow! You’re hurting me,’ she protested, attempting to pull away from them. ‘What’s going on?’ I can walk on my own!’

  They ignored her.

  She raised her voice. ‘I said, let go you’re hurting me.’

  Trent smacked her across the back of the head. ‘Shut up.’

  ‘You bastard.’ Her tone was furious. She kicked him in the leg. That was the start, Bilaboo and Trent then both turned on her. Bilaboo grabbed her long black hair, twisting it round his hand until he reached her scalp, then tugging her head back and downwards, until she was bent backward and nearly dragged along the path. ‘Heard you’ve been talking to the feds,’ he said, still not looking at her. ‘Against SLR rules, you know Harisha don’t like none of us doing that.’

  Trent landed a globule of spittle on her face. ‘Fucking arsehole, fed sucker.’

  Bilaboo’s grip was now so tight on her hair that she was twisting her body to avoid her hair being tugged out. Her back was bouncing on the paving stones as she was dragged along the pathway towards the road.

  From her upside-down position, body and head throbbing, she spotted the familiar black Porsche, with its tinted windows, speeding up the street. It pulled to a screaming halt by the pavement.

  As they reached the car the back door opened, and she was thrown in, catching her shin as she fell, landing face down on Harisha’s lap.

  He was sat, bolt upright, wearing his dark glasses and staring straight ahead.

  She struggled to get up, she was feeling dizzy and shocked. As she opened her mouth to protest his hand clamped over her lips. He removed his tinted glasses with his other hand and glared at her. ‘You’ve said enough already.’ His lizard-like eyes pierced into hers, and the scar on his neck seemed very prominent as his lip curled angrily.

  He removed his hand from her face. ‘We don’t talk to the feds. You know that.’

  ‘Harisha, I didn’t, all I …’ The hand clamped over her mouth again.

  ‘You have broken SLR law and you will be punished.’

  She bucked her head to free herself. He removed his hand, but held the cold glare.

  ‘I had no choice,’ she argued. ‘I didn’t tell them anything. They were asking about Zana. They knew she was my friend, and they dragged me in to tell them about her. I just told them that Wajdi was loose with his fists. That was all I said. Nothing about you.’

  ‘What else they ask you?’

  ‘Nothing. I swear I said nothing to them. It wasn’t my idea, they made me come in, like they made you, to give them a statement. Harisha, two people ha
ve been murdered.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what I already know.’ He curled his fist and landed a punch on her nose before she knew it was coming. Her hand flew to her nose as she tasted blood. She tried to sniff it back but it spilled through her fingers and ran over her hand.

  ‘Not in my fucking car,’ he shouted. ‘Don’t bleed in my fucking car.’ He pressed the window button and shouted to Bilaboo and Trent, ‘Get her out, she’s fucking bleeding in my car.’

  She had the back of her hand to her nose as the door opened and she was pulled out.

  Bilaboo then dropped her on the pavement. Then she felt her feet being lifted, and Bilaboo was dragging her, her body bouncing again, across the stony ground beneath it, back over the path, out of sight of the road, then behind a tree on the wasteland, near the edge of the path, where again she was dropped.

  Harisha was following, unzipping his jeans and as he strolled, checking around him to see no one was watching.

  Bilaboo stood one side of him to mask any view as Harisha stood over Melek and pulled a knife from his ankle.

  ‘No, please, Harisha, I haven’t said anything.’ Melek shrieked at him. Her jacket was already torn, and her face grazed and raw from being dragged, as well as the nosebleed she still endured. She started to sob loudly.

  He ignored her plea. Bilaboo lifted her so her face was against the tree, then she felt the knife in the top of her jeans, by her spine. Her body shuddered as the knife moved, and she realised Harisha was tearing her jeans open. Next thing she felt the ice-cold wind on her bared buttocks. She tried to kick. Bilaboo and Trent stepped in and held her ankles and her wrists. Then she felt Harisha tickle her bare flesh with the sharp edge of the knife. She gasped. Next she knew, he had cut into her G-string, and she felt it fall from her, leaving her shivering buttocks bare and in full view.

  She was frightened and angry and started to struggle. Realising she was no match for Bilaboo and Trent, she then started to scream.

  ‘Shut it.’ Harisha quickly pulled the remains of her G-string from her bare bottom and in an instant had it tied around her mouth and face. Then she felt his penis against her, and next thing he had entered into her from behind, smashing her face brutally against the tree as he bounced ferociously against her.

  Realising it was futile to fight, she buried her face into the tree and sobbed.

  He was getting rougher as his excitement built. ‘You’re a cunt,’ he shouted at her. ‘Say it, what are you? Tell me? Tell me!’

  She could only cry. Her G-string was bound around her mouth, as she whimpered and attempted to speak.

  ‘Say it,’ Harisha commanded, nearly out of breath from excitement, as he bounced speedily and brutally against her.

  Bilaboo leaned over, took the knife from where Harisha had dropped it on the floor, and cut the G-string from her face so she could speak.

  ‘A cunt,’ she whispered through tears.

  ‘And I am the boss.’

  ‘And you’re the boss,’ she whimpered quietly.

  The bouncing was increasing in frequency. The zip of his jeans was cutting into her bare bottom and thighs. He hadn’t even bothered to take them down.’ Say it again,’ he panted, pushing hard in her.

  ‘You are the boss.’ she repeated.

  The pain and pressure was becoming nearly unbearable. She was fighting with herself not to cry out. It suddenly came to an abrupt halt, and he leaned his weight against her against her for a couple of seconds, breathing heavily, before pulling himself out of her and zipping himself back into his jeans.

  After telling her to call him when she was ready to apologise for what she had done, he turned and left.

  Bilaboo and Trent followed him.

  She clung to the tree, her face raw and throbbing, her nose still bleeding, and her bottom cold and raw.

  When she heard the engine of the Porsche start up and the car roar off down the road she picked up her broken G-string, and attempted to cover her sore and throbbing body, then she stepped out of her jeans. They were muddy and filthy. She turned them back to front and stepped back in them, tying the torn material in a make-do knot to hold it together at the front, before pulling her large baggy T-shirt down to cover the damage.

  She was five minutes away from her home, but did she dare go there now? She was filthy, and grazed, and bleeding. She had to pray that no fed would see her and pick her up again. The consequences of that were too terrifying to think about.

  DCI Banham’s eyes were fixed on Alison as she sat questioning Wajdi Ghaziani in the large front room of the Ghazianis’ Victorian house.

  Wajdi gave short, polite answers to her questions. He kept glaring at Alison, a look of contempt across his face, making it obvious he had no respect for women.

  He admitted he had often smacked his sister, but that was reasonable, he told Alison and Banham, as Zana behaved badly and disrespected her family. When asked about the photos they had found on her computer of her swollen and beaten face, he became very defensive and said that was what he was protecting her against. Who was responsible for them, he didn’t know, but he was on a mission to find out. In the end he looked after his sister, and how dare Alison even infer that he might be responsible for that damage. It was the gang she hung around with, he told her, they were violent bullies. He didn’t know who they were, but he knew they were dangerous and trouble, and Wajdi, as all good brothers would, was trying hard to protect his sister.

  Banham was taking in all Wajdi said, but he was becoming concerned about Alison. He thought she looked pale and tired. It had been a long, hard couple of days for her, and he intended to take great care of her from now on. She was carrying his baby, so however independent she wanted to be, it was his responsibility to make sure she was all right. His baby daughter, Elizabeth, had been brutally murdered, found lying in the arms of her murdered mother, fourteen years ago. Now he was being given a second chance to be a father, so he was taking that very seriously. He took a breath. Alison had only said she thought she was delighted at being pregnant. Alison was an independent woman and she would do what she wanted to do, but he really hoped it included him. Right now she needed some TLC. After interviewing the Ghazianis, he was going to drive her home, put her in a warm bath, and cook her supper. He felt the tingling of happiness that he had felt the night that Alison and him had first got together, a few years back, though that had been very short-lived. The next morning Alison had told him she didn’t want it to get heavy, she wanted to keep the relationship casual. Shortly after that, when a fellow officer was killed, in the line of duty, Alison changed again, becoming very introverted, blaming herself for not preventing the death. She had become heavily depressed, said no longer wanted the relationship to continue and had taken compassionate leave.

  Banham had visited her regularly during that time, in his role as DCI, building her confidence back up, telling her what a good detective she was, and how much they all missed her. Eventually she came back, but asked for a transfer to the Sapphire rape unit; she wanted to work with emotionally scarred women and track down their rapists. She started to find herself again during that time; she restarted their love affair, and then decided to come back to the murder division.

  Now she was pregnant, and things might have to change again, although Banham knew her well enough to know she wasn’t the kind to put her feet up and take nine months off.

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ Wajdi said again. ‘It is my duty to stop my sister disrespecting my parents, and if that means a smack, then that is what happens.’

  ‘Not in this country, it isn’t,’ Alison said sharply, handing him the photo of Zana with the iron mark burned on her back. ‘What do you know about this?’

  Wajdi shook his head. ‘She didn’t mean the iron to land,’ he said. ‘That was an accident. Zana had no right to photograph it. Mama was ironing and Papa was shouting at Zana. Zana walked into the iron. It was an accident. No one burned her on purpose.’

  Alison stared at him.
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br />   ‘Don’t look at me like that. It was an accident. She didn’t report it because it was an accident.’

  ‘But she did photograph it,’ Alison reminded him. ‘Perhaps she didn’t report it because she was afraid. Of your parents? Or of you? Who was she afraid of, Wajdi? Alison pushed.

  ‘No. She took no notice when I smacked her; she went with bad people and has gone and got herself killed.’ He put his hands to his face, then took them away, and looked at Banham, ignoring Alison. ‘Why don’t you find who killed her, my family are grieving and you pick on us?’

  ‘We intend to find who killed her,’ Banham told him,’ And they will be brought to justice.’

  ‘He will not get away?’ Wajdi asked.

  ‘No, not a chance.’

  ‘I am looking too, I will find …’

  ‘Please do not try and take the law into your hands, or you will find yourself on the wrong side of it,’ Banham said rising. ‘Thank you for your time.’

  Alison and Banham then spoke to Mrs Ghaziani, who related the story word for word about the iron burn. She showed Alison where she had stood, where Zana was and how she walked, backwards, into the iron. She said her bad friend, the Turkish girl, Melek, made her put it on Facebook.

  Banham studied the small woman. She was polite, cold, with busy eyes on the move all the time.

  The father had been asked to wait in another room with the family liaison officer while they questioned his wife. He was then called in, and he too, told the same story. Asked to demonstrate where everyone was, he pointed to the ironing board, and indicated exactly as the mother had done, where Zana walked in, and how she was half dressed, and the angle she was when she walked into the iron. It was identical, so much so, it could have been fabricated.

  ‘Melek Yismaz was the influence that sent Zana down the wrong road,’ the mother said as Banham and Alison thanked them for their time. ‘But she is still our daughter,’ she told Banham, ‘and we need to bury her. You must understand. In our country we have a culture, it is the way.’