Comply or Die

by Tony Hutchinson

  Carver slumped against the chair.

  ‘Do you remember falling over?’

  Bhandal glanced at Carver who shook her head.

  Silence.

  ‘Well, let me remind you. It’s all captured on the station CCTV. You fell near a coffee stand. I went back there while you were in our car. Underneath the stand I found this.’

  Sam pulled out a plastic bag from her pocket.

  ‘I am now showing Mrs Bhandal a plastic bag, marked Witness Reference SP1.’

  Nobody moved as Sam held it up.

  Aisha’s HSBC debit card slipped to the bottom of the bag and nestled in the corner, the embossed details catching the light.

  Carver broke the silence, her voice flat.

  ‘I need to speak with my client.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Ten minutes later, Sam and Ed were back in the interview room.

  ‘Before you had a private consultation with your solicitor I showed you a debit card in your daughter’s name that I found on the station platform where you fell. Do you know how it got there?’

  Parkash’s hands were clasped together on her knees, her eyes staring at the floor. Her words were slow, measured, barely audible and translated into English by the interpreter.

  ‘It must have fallen out of my purse, when I fell…you saw me fall.’

  ‘Mrs Bhandal, can you speak up please?’ Sam said.

  ‘I did use it this morning in London, by accident. At the tube station. Embankment. I was meeting a friend. I withdrew £30. I always looked after Aisha’s card and we both had the same PIN number. It was a horrible mistake. I’d forgotten I had it.’

  ‘Which friend?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘You can’t have spent much time with them?’ Sam pressed her.

  ‘As soon as I realised I’d used Aisha’s card, I broke down,’ Parkash said. ‘I just wanted to get home to my husband…’

  She started to cry.

  ‘These last few months have been awful. You won’t know what it’s like to lose a child.’

  Ed and Sam stood outside, drawing in the evening air, doing their best to rid their nostrils and clothes of the stink of the custody office; a windowless space regularly sprayed with a giant aerosol of human sweat.

  Sam was the first to speak. ‘How the hell people work down there day in, day out, never seeing the light of day, the noise, prisoners shouting for solicitors, cigarettes, their freedom… it’s beyond me. And the stink.’

  ‘Some of them enjoy it,’ Ed told her. ‘Keeps them off the streets.’

  Sam was pulling a cigarette from the packet. ‘Like HG Wells’s Warlocks in the Time Machine, living underground.’

  ‘Warlocks?’ Ed smiled. ‘Now there’s a good name for the custody office vitamin D dodgers.’

  Sam lit a cigarette.

  ‘Two down, one to go. All very neat and tidy so far.’

  ‘Yep, the Butcher’s doing her thing,’ Ed said. ‘Let her think she’s winning.’

  Ed glanced at his watch – 8.25pm.

  ‘Interview the father then call it a night?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Carver had finished her private consultation.

  Sam led the interview.

  ‘Mr Bhandal. I want to ask you about a settee you bought from Karan Singh in December.’ Her nose twitched. The stench-thermometer in the interview room had risen.

  Sam and Ed believed Bhandal’s attitude towards women, his sense of superiority, would make it difficult for him to sit there and go no reply. They hoped he would disregard Jill Carver if that had been her advice.

  If the son had a problem with women, it was likely he had learned those beliefs and behaviours from somewhere... or someone.

  So they weren’t surprised when Bhandal, unlike his wife, spoke loudly and clearly.

  ‘We’ve all heard of the fashion police, but none of us have heard of the furniture police,’ he sneered. ‘Is it an offence to buy a settee in England now?’ He smirked and relaxed back in his chair, in control and confident.

  ‘How many settees did you buy in December?’

  Carver coughed. Bhandal looked at her, theatrically raising his hand, pushing his palm towards her face.

  ‘Two.’ He turned back to Sam and Ed. ‘I bought one which my wife didn’t like, so I bought another one.’

  ‘And what did you do with the first one?’ Sam asked.

  He raised both hands, palms facing the ceiling. ‘My old one, or the one I bought and my wife didn’t like?’

  ‘The one your wife didn’t like.’

  ‘I sold it.’

  ‘Who to?’ Sam asked, the exchange gathering speed.

  ‘I don’t know his name. Just a man I met in a pub.’

  ‘Which pub?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘So you sold it to the proverbial unknown man in a pub you cannot remember.’

  ‘I’m a busy man,’ Bhandal protested. ‘I cannot remember everything.’

  He stretched his legs out in front of him.

  ‘How long did you have the settee before you sold it?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Not long. My wife didn’t want it in the house. She thought I’d made a bad choice. And as you know, Inspector... ’

  He paused and flashed a smile.

  ‘... if you’ve upset the wife, you rectify it as quickly as possible.’

  To Sam, the smile was one of utter disregard for her and the circumstances surrounding their conversation.

  ‘And how long was it before you got another one?’ she asked, masking her contempt.

  ‘Oh, just a couple of days. Mr Singh was very good.’

  ‘Can you remember the exact date?’

  ‘The exact date?’ Another smile. ‘I don’t know about you, Inspector... ’ each syllable was pronounced for maximum effect, reminding her he’d deliberately got her rank wrong, ‘... but I couldn’t begin to remember the exact date when I bought something in December.’

  The interview was turning into a game of chess, a head to head that Sam always somehow enjoyed.

  ‘Okay, let’s see if we can whittle it down,’ she said now. ‘Was it before Christmas?’

  ‘Most definitely.’ Bhandal shuffled forward, rested his elbows on the table, and steepled his fingers in what Sam saw as a mocking sign of concentration and sincerity.

  Sam wanted to pull him across the table and punch him. ‘What day was it delivered?’

  ‘Monday,’ Bhandal said after a pause. ‘The second one was delivered on a Monday.’

  ‘And the first one?’

  ‘Umm, I believe it was a Saturday. Yes, a Saturday.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sam said, trying to shape the game her way. ‘Did they arrive before Aisha went missing.’

  Bhandal dropped his head at the mention of his daughter’s name.

  ‘No. I think that’s why my wife didn’t like the first one. It came the day after Aisha disappeared.’

  ‘So the first one was delivered on Saturday 14th December.’

  Bhandal sat back, looked up, scratched his cheek, and looked back at Sam. When he spoke it was quiet, slow. ‘Yes, I suppose it was now you put it like that.’

  ‘Well, Mr Singh agrees. So Saturday it is.’

  Carver looked up and pushed her glasses from her eyes to her head. ‘Is there any purpose to this line of questioning?’

  ‘Indeed there is,’ Sam told her, turning her gaze again to Bhandal. ‘The first settee, the one you gave to a man in the pub.’

  Bhandal and Carver both stared at her.

  ‘That man is Joey Sanderson,’ Sam continued. ‘We have a statement from him saying you paid him to burn that settee.’

  Bhandal was rigid. This time his words were neither quiet nor slow.

  ‘Who? I’ve never heard of him. He’s lying.’ The knuckles on his right hand were white, his grip on the desk tighter now than his grip on the interview.

  Sam seemed almost serene. ‘He says he and ano
ther collected the settee from your house, but here’s the thing. He didn’t burn it. He sold it.’

  When Bhandal glared at Sam, she saw defiance not surrender. Neither looked away.

  Sam blinked first, the involuntary movement a trigger to speak.

  ‘And now we have it,’ she paused, allowing the significance of her words to register with Bhandal and Carver. ‘I presume you want a word with your solicitor. Interview terminated at... ’ she glanced at her watch ‘... 8.53pm.’

  Sam turned off the tapes and took her time packaging them, enjoying the moment, savouring a trap well sprung.

  She pushed the chair back, the legs screeching across the floor. She nodded at Bhandal, turned and walked out. Ed followed, fighting the urge to smile. He didn’t want the cameras recording his glee.

  He didn’t hide it once they stepped through the custody door into the corridor. ‘Marvellous, bloody marvellous!’ Ed said. ‘Couldn’t have gone better... I knew the little shit would ignore the Butcher’s advice.’

  Sam was also feeling elated.

  ‘He was so arrogant, it played right into our hands,’ she said. ‘He had to show who was boss. I want his balls on a plate. If that poor girl is dead, I want him to rot.’

  She glanced at her watch. ‘I need to ring Bev, check on Mia.’

  She made the call on speaker phone, Ed listening at her side.

  ‘How did you get on?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Nightmare.’ Bev’s voice was weary. ‘Social Services are bad enough Monday to Friday but on a Saturday? More life in a tramp’s vest. When they eventually got their arses in gear, they wanted to put her somewhere culturally appropriate... ’

  Sam dived in. ‘She hasn’t gone to Asians has she?’

  ‘No,’ Bev reassured her. ‘I remembered what Ed said.’

  Ed nodded.

  Bev went on. ‘I argued for Mia go to a white family, somewhere where she wouldn’t be asked all sorts of awkward questions. They weren’t happy, but I pointed out if they chose a so-called culturally acceptable placement and something happened to her, we... well, you... would crucify them in the media. She’s with a white family.’

  Relieved, Sam thanked her, ended the call and slipped the phone in her trouser pocket.

  ‘It’s about time we called it a day,’ she told Ed, rubbing at the tiredness in her eyes. ‘We’ll leave Technical Support to get on with their bit.’

  They walked towards the underground car park.

  ‘The three in the traps can be bedded down for the night,' Sam said. 'We’ll re-interview tomorrow. I’m minded not to mention the blood on the settee yet and we can’t use the ID evidence against the son from the UC in Devon and Cornwall until we get their go-ahead, so there’s not a lot we can put to Baljit. We can ask if he’s ever been to Plymouth etcetera. We’ll go through the train times with the mother and push her for who she was supposed to meet. The father… I’ll sleep on it. He might come up with some cock-and-bull. If he knows we’ve got the settee, he’ll know we found the blood.’

  Sam looked at her watch. It was gone 10.

  She got into her car, her head a food mixer again. No point going straight home, the mixer would continue stirring for some time. She detoured and drove into the town centre to watch the revellers walking about, the noise and colour of a vibrant town hopefully providing a distraction, a handbrake to slow down her thoughts.

  Neon lights flashed, doormen policed queues, staff in empty takeaways prepped food. Young people were staggering, yelling, laughing, or a combination of all three, the streets alive.

  Sam pressed two switches and the Audi’s front windows opened. Corona’s 1993 disco hit came into her head – ‘The Rhythm of the Night’. Music, shouting, and sirens: the Saturday night soundtrack of every town centre in the country. Paramedics and police working flat out, the paramedics stitching up the individual wounds, the police stitching up the fabric of a broken society.

  The pedestrian lights turned to red. Sam stopped and left a gap between her and the car in front. The Green Man was beeping. Is this a Pelican, Puffin or Toucan? Who cares?

  She closed her eyes; saw her teen self dancing around her bedroom to that Corona song.

  She opened her eyes.

  What the hell?!

  She shot upright, reached for the visor, and flicked it down. They were oblivious to her as they crossed. Just another young couple out for a good time.

  Elliott Prince linking arms with Amber Dalton.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Sam called Ed the minute she walked into her kitchen. The fluorescents under the wall units shone dully on to the granite worktops, the subdued lighting a complete contrast to the excitement in her voice. She told him what she’d seen.

  ‘There’s a link between the self-help group and maybe the cause of the women needing help in the first place,’ Sam said in a rush. ‘Forget the Sisters of Macavity for now. Amber facilitates a self-help group. Elliott is the alleged leader of Mortimers. There’s got to be a connection.’

  Then she heard Sue shouting in the background, catching the words ‘just bloody left her’ and what sounded like ‘joined at the hip’.

  Shit, I didn’t mean to cause him grief.

  ‘Look, sorry, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.’ Sam ended the call before Ed could speak.

  She’d considered getting fish and chips on the way home but reasoned the lunchtime Chinese takeaway was more than enough fast food for one day.

  The light from the fridge was as bright as a UFO in a Hollywood movie. There must be a way to dull it.

  She took the last slice of Wiltshire ham, pulled out the plastic salad drawer and found half a tomato. The brown paper bag on the bench contained just enough uncut wholemeal, although it was probably out of date. The knife battled through the organic bread, the bruised skin of the soggy tomato failing to soften the two slices it ended up between. Another couple of days and the loaf would have been croutons, but tonight it was just the wrong side of fresh.

  She sat on a high stool in the kitchen.

  Memo to self... apologise to Ed.

  Why had Prince not mentioned Amber Dalton? Why had Amber not mentioned Elliott? She would never have put them in a relationship, if that’s what it was.

  She bit into the unforgiving sandwich, jaws getting a gym workout.

  Was there any significance between TS Eliot’s Cats, and Prince’s first name? Two names, spelled differently but pronounced the same.

  Her teeth fought the sandwich.

  Get a grip Sam! Stop being ridiculous.

  The power shower failed to clear her head. Amber Dalton and Elliott Prince were still banging around in there when she went to bed.

  Stephen King was waiting and willing on the bedside table, but Sam gave him a pass. She turned off the light and tried to sleep.

  Sunday 20th April 2014

  Pounding water bounced off her skin and hit the gloss tiles. 6.30am and Sam was back in the shower. She couldn’t remember if Dalton and Prince had been the last thing on her mind before she fell asleep, but they were certainly bang there when she woke up. Their relationship needed closer examination. Had they been communicating on social media?

  She was out of the house before eight, the drive to Headquarters so uneventful she couldn’t remember it. Ed was walking across the car park and when she shouted, he stopped to wait for her as she ran.

  ‘I’m really sorry about last night.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Ed said, forcing a smile. ‘Forget about it.’

  ‘No I should have realised. Saturday and you’d been at work all day. It was thoughtless of me. I just couldn’t get the two of them out of my head.’

  Sitting in Sam’s office, they’d barely sipped their coffees when the Custody Sergeant at Seaton nick rang. Sam listened as he told her Jill Carver had been there since 8am talking with Davinder Bhandal, who now wanted to speak to the investigating officers as soon as possible.

  ‘Jill Carver’s already there and Bhandal wants
to be interviewed again,’ Sam said, putting the phone back in her pocket. ‘No doubt ready with his next defence statement.’

  Ed worked on his coffee.

  ‘No doubt but we won’t rush, eh?’ he said mildly. ‘The Butcher can wait. At least until I’ve had my caffeine hit and a bacon sandwich. Bilton’s is open on a Sunday.’

  Sam stood up as Ed rubbed his hands together.

  ‘The day’s off to a flier,’ he grinned. ‘Bacon sarnie from one butcher, ear-ache pie from the other.’

  Jill Carver theatrically checked her watch as they were admitted into the custody office.

  ‘Morning,’ Sam said. ‘Sorry, had a briefing to do.’

  The detention officer brought Bhandal from his cell. He may have looked dishevelled, but the smug look was back on his face.

  Once the tapes were running, introductions made and caution given, Jill Carver spoke.

  ‘My client wishes to make a verbal statement that will hopefully clear up this misunderstanding.’ She nodded to Bhandal.

  ‘Chief Inspector, I apologise if my answers were not clear last night. It was not my intention to mislead you or Detective Sergeant Whelan.’

  Sam and Ed said nothing. They both knew a load of bollocks was about to be served up.

  ‘I was upset last night, disorientated, stressed. The loss of our daughter is still raw. We just want her found, want her to come home. I did buy a new settee, a family Christmas present. It was delivered on the Thursday before Aisha went missing, not the Saturday as Mr Singh states. An easy mistake for an old man to make. None of us are getting any younger, and with age the memory fades.’

  Sam and Ed remained silent, staring at him. Carver, motionless, kept her eyes on the A4 pad on her knee.

  ‘That night Aisha got a nosebleed.’ He shook his head, smiled. ‘She was always getting them, had done since she was a child. They’d come on without warning. Sometimes there was such a lot of blood. She was laid down watching TV, testing out the new settee, then whoosh!’

  His hand went up to his nose. ‘It was so sudden. By the time she got up there was blood everywhere.’