Rooted in Dishonour

by Christina James

  “Typical of Prance! I know he served less than three years, after getting the sentence reduced for good behaviour. Jennings will be out now, though. It might be worth tracking him down. My guess is that Prance would be the last person he’d want back in his life, but you can never tell. His capacity for inveigling himself in where he wants to be is uncanny.”

  “I can check on the address that Jennings was using when he was released from prison. It won’t be the Wimbledon house. The judge ordered it to be sold to pay back some of the money.”

  “Thanks. I’d be grateful if you’d do that, but don’t go to the trouble of taking it further than that. If Jennings has turned into a wanderer, he’s going to be hard to find and Prance won’t be interested in him anyway, if he can’t cadge a reasonable standard of living from him. I may be wrong in any case: there was certainly someone after Prance when he was living with Hedley Atkins and I had a feeling it was connected with the fraud: one of Jennings’ buddies, maybe. Where did Jennings do his time?”

  “He was moved around a bit, but it was mostly Wormwood Scrubs and Brixton.”

  “As you’d expect. Odd that Prance managed to get himself sent to Liverpool – nicely out of the way of the London mob, if they were after him.”

  “He pleaded hardship. Said that he had an ancient mother and she wouldn’t be able to travel far to visit him.”

  “It was true he had an ancient mother. Whether she wanted to visit him is another matter. Probably another instance of him getting round authority to suit his own ends, making the very best of a bad job. Do me a favour, Juliet, and just get in touch with the Fraud Squad. Tell them that I think I’ve seen him twice now, both times at London stations – King’s Cross and Waterloo – and suggest they keep an eye out.”

  “Yes, sir. You didn’t say you’d seen him again. When was that?”

  “Earlier this morning, about half an hour ago.”

  “Should I tell Superintendent Thornton?”

  “Up to you. He may not be interested in Prance if he’s not in South Lincolnshire. But it might be diplomatic to mention it. Has he got you working on the Verma case?”

  “Yes, mainly to support you. We have the Verma family under surveillance. They’re adamant that the cousin in India is innocent but they have no explanation for Ayesha’s disappearance. The mother seems very upset.”

  “I know. There could be a variety of reasons for that, though.”

  “Do you really think that you’ll be able to arrest the cousin if you go to India?”

  “The police in Delhi have agreed to help. And apparently the cousin, although insisting that we fit in with his travel arrangements, isn’t trying to hide or run away.”

  “I just don’t understand this honour killing idea. It seems to be a contradiction in terms.”

  “I don’t, either. The Met’s dealt with more cases than anywhere else. That’s why I need Derry Hacker’s help.”

  “Taking my name in vain again, Yates?” said a cheerful voice. Tim looked up to see a tall, thickset man standing in front of him. He rose to his feet to shake the man’s hand.

  “Derry! Good to see you.”

  “Hi, Tim. How’s tricks? You’re looking a bit washed out.”

  “Just a minute, Derry. I’ve got Juliet on the phone. Juliet, Derry’s here now. Thanks for all that. I’ll call you again later.”

  “Love and kisses!” Derry Hacker shouted at the phone. Juliet terminated the call without replying.

  “Now,” said Derry, “we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. We’ll have a good dinner tonight. I’ve invited someone else you know, as a surprise. But first things first: breakfast, and then work. You look as if you could do with some breakfast. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Tim flinched a little under his old comrade’s scrutiny.

  “I have been a bit under the weather, but nothing to worry about, I think. It’s the malaria pills the quack gave me: they’ve made me feel a bit rough.”

  “You want to watch that stuff. It can really fuck you up.”

  “You’ve been to India, though, haven’t you? Didn’t you take the pills?”

  “Did the first time. They made me feel dreadful. Since then, I’ve just chanced it.”

  “I don’t think Katrin would like me to do that.”

  “I suppose not. It would be out of character, wouldn’t it? A mismatch with her prudent Teutonic roots.”

  Tim laughed uneasily.

  “It’s a pity you and Katrin don’t get on better. I’d see more of you then. The same goes for Freya: she’s never quite seen eye to eye with Katrin, either. Why don’t you like her?”

  “It’s not a case of not liking her: she was a good-enough worker when she was in London. Not my type, but that’s beside the point. I’ve just always felt sad on Patti’s account, that’s all.”

  “I’d forgotten you knew Patti. But she and I were over before I met Katrin. I didn’t two-time her.”

  “No, but you’d probably have got back together if Katrin hadn’t turned up.”

  Tim shrugged. “That’s conjecture. It was quite a stormy relationship: nothing like what I have with Katrin.”

  “Nothing wrong with a few storms. Keeps the interest going, I’d say.”

  “Well, you and I have to agree to differ over that. Besides, I’m tickled that you’re sitting here preaching fidelity. You must have had scores of girlfriends over the past ten years.”

  “Ah, but never a little gem like Patti.”

  “If you’re so keen on her, why don’t you . . . ?”

  “Do you think I didn’t try?”

  A spivvish waiter arrived and thrust a spotty menu at each of them. Derry returned his with alacrity.

  “No need to look,” he said. “Full English, and a pot of tea. Always have the same when I come here,” he added to Tim. “Place doesn’t look much, but they understand fry-ups.”

  The thought of a greasy spoon breakfast made Tim queasy.

  “I think I’ll just have a couple of slices of toast. And a pot of tea as well.”

  “Christ! You are feeling peaky, aren’t you? I hope you’ll be able to tackle the strange grub in Delhi.”

  Chapter 6

  Breakfast was over. Derry Hacker poured the last dregs of tea into his cup and, thrusting back his chair, drew a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.

  “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Go ahead,” said Tim, although his stomach was churning. “I assume they won’t mind, as we’re sitting outside?”

  “Nah. That’s another good thing about this place. Wouldn’t mind if we were sitting inside, probably.” He took out a cigarette and lit it, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs. “That’s better,” he said as he exhaled. “Can’t beat the first one of the day. Now, tell me about this case of yours.”

  “As I said on the phone, an Indian girl has disappeared. A teenager. We think she might have been the victim of an honour killing.”

  “How old?”

  “Seventeen, nearly eighteen.”

  “Why do you think it’s an honour killing?”

  “Her cousin came from India to marry her. An arranged marriage, agreed by both sets of parents. It didn’t happen, because the girl disappeared. The cousin’s gone back to India.”

  “How did you find out the girl was missing?”

  “The father reported it.”

  “That’s not typical. Not unheard of, but often the family just waits for us to discover that the girl’s gone. Often we don’t. It’s hard to keep track of girls once they’re past the school leaving age, especially if the family doesn’t want them to get a job. How well educated are the parents?”

  “Reasonably. The father works as a clerk for a local housing association. Mother works part-time, as well, at a florist’s. He’s a first generation immigrant. So is she, but
she grew up in Sweden.”

  “Any other children?”

  “Two other girls, both younger. No sons.”

  “Again, not typical, though every case is different. But often it’s the girl’s older brothers who carry out these honour killings. The father’s usually complicit, of course, sometimes the mother, too, but it’s more likely that she just has to go along with what they decide. From what you’ve told me so far, I think you’ve only got half a case. What’s to say the girl didn’t just bugger off because she didn’t like the look of the cousin?”

  “That’s not what the family is suggesting. And you know as well as I do, it’s difficult to disappear without trace in this country. They’ve still got her birth certificate and passport. And she has a National Insurance number, which hasn’t been used.”

  “Bank account?”

  “Yes, but virtually empty. And again, not touched.”

  “I agree that it could be an honour killing, but you seem to have come to that conclusion quite quickly, considering it’s South Lincolnshire. No other evidence of honour killings in your part of the world, is there?”

  “No. We don’t have any proper Indian communities: just the odd family, like this one. But Superintendent Thornton’s taken on board all the recent government stuff about forced marriages, etcetera.”

  Derry Hacker’s broad face split into a grin.

  “I should have guessed! Thornton’s seen a chance of being flavour of the month, has he? A rare opportunity, I’d say, in his little backwater.”

  “It’s not as far-fetched as all that,” said Tim huffily. “If I didn’t think he was on to something, I’d have told him so.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Derry teasingly, wagging his forefinger, “but not averse to a small jolly to India, are you?”

  “I’ve no intention of wasting my time or taxpayers’ money,” said Tim with more than a hint of priggishness. “That’s why I’m here. To benefit from your experience, see if you can put me on the right track.”

  “All right, old son, only joking. And in bad taste, because this isn’t a funny subject. I’ll tell you about the cases I’ve been involved in, so you can see if yours makes sense. As a possible honour killing, I mean. For a start, they’re not just Indian. They take place in countries all over the world, though mainly in Southern Asia and the Middle East or families who’ve settled elsewhere whose ethnic origins are in those places. They’re not associated with a single religion, either, though the people carrying them out often claim they’re rooted in their faith. Sometimes they just say whatever the victim’s doing is going against their customs. For the record, there’s no religion in the world that officially condones honour killing, though that doesn’t stop extreme and some not-so-extreme religious leaders from encouraging it. And the victims aren’t always female, though most of them are.”

  “But it’s usually the relatives of the person who do it?”

  “Yes, although there’s some evidence that wealthier families have hired hit men, to distance themselves from the actual act.”

  “I’ve never really understood the term ‘honour killing’, I suppose because it attempts to dignify sordid murders. Is the motive always disapproval of the victim’s sexual behaviour?”

  “Usually, but not always. There was a case in Canada where a husband and wife arranged the ‘accidental’ death of three of their daughters because they’d been seeing men unsupervised. This couple took the opportunity to dispatch the husband’s first wife at the same time, not because of the way she was behaving, but simply to get rid of her. And it’s not necessarily the victim’s actual sexual behaviour that is being disapproved of: it can just be what the relatives think or suspect.”

  “Sounds paranoid.”

  “You may have hit the nail on the head there. Apparently there’s a psychiatrist who’s carried out a study of some perpetrators of so-called honour killings and come to the conclusion that they were all mentally ill at the time. Two caveats there, though: in the first place, he was judging them by Western standards; secondly, we come back to the hoary old chestnut of whether any murderer is entirely sane. From the cases I’ve worked on, all I can say is that often the person who carries out this kind of murder has been pressured by someone else to do it: if not the head of the family, then a religious leader or some other person in authority, which raises the further question of exactly who is insane.”

  “I’d like to study your cases.”

  “Yes, you said so when we spoke. I’ve had someone dig the files out for you. We’ve got electronic versions of most of them. I’ve also looked out a couple of accounts of foreign cases that I asked for when I was boning up on it. Two more things you need to remember: one is that we’re fairly new to honour killings in the UK, but they’ve been going on for centuries in some places. And there’ve only been a handful of convictions in this country, but I strongly suspect that other cases have gone undetected, as we know they have elsewhere.”

  “Thornton won’t let this one go undetected, if he’s right about it. He’s buzzing with it. It’s the second case we’ve worked on recently where he’s got really involved.”

  “Not after a gong of some kind, is he?”

  “That hadn’t occurred to me, but you could be right.”

  “Let’s go to the office and get started, shall we? I’d hate to disappoint him!”

  Chapter 7

  As I get Sophia ready for her first proper day with Mrs Sims, I’m less apprehensive about leaving her than I thought I’d be. I suppose all working mothers do some soul-searching, but I’ve worked through most of it already. It’s Tim who’s worrying me. Not just this sickness episode in London – though that sounds as if it was bad enough – but his behaviour generally over the past few weeks. I know he’s preoccupied with his latest case – he always is when they’re new – but he won’t talk to me about it. I have a general idea of what it’s about – Superintendent Thornton’s said he wants me to do some background work for it – but I don’t know what Tim thinks. I’ve tried talking to him, but he just clams up. We haven’t had a proper conversation for weeks, not about the case or anything else. I feel as if a shutter has come down between us.

  Sophia is looking pretty in a green dress with a black dog on the front. There are little black dogs on her tights, too. I set her down on the floor, allow her to choose a toy. Her favourite is the Postman Pat figure that one of Tim’s colleagues has re-dressed as a policeman. I pack it into her small bag with spare clothes and her milk.

  Mrs Sims is a registered childminder. We can’t get Sophia into a nursery until later in the year, but I’m happy with the Sims set-up. She has a couple of girls helping her and the house is safe and cosier than the nursery. At the moment, there are four children there besides Sophia. Mrs Sims has space for one other. I’ve promised to keep my ear to the ground for her.

  She’s waiting on the doorstep for us when we arrive. She’s in her thirties and has bright yellow hair cut in a pageboy. She’s buxom rather than dumpy and dresses in Breton tops and jeans. She holds out her arms; Sophia goes to her straight away.

  “Come in for a moment,” she says. The house is a Victorian end terrace in Havelock Street. I follow her into the spacious front room, which is set out as a children’s playroom. One of the girls is seated on the wooden floor, helping a small boy to build a tower of bricks. She looks up when she hears us.

  “This is Margie,” says Mrs Sims. “I think you met her when you came with your husband.”

  Margie has a pinched little face. Her hair is very dark and cut short in a jagged asymmetrical style. She looks cross, almost sulky, until she smiles, when she is transformed.

  “Hi,” she says. She carries on with the bricks.

  “Cup of tea?” says Mrs Sims, depositing Sophia on the floor next to the boy. Evidently the other babies have yet to arrive.

  “I’ll get it,” says
Margie, springing to her feet. “If you don’t mind watching Thomas, that is.”

  I notice as she walks to the door how thin she is. Her legs, encased in the skinniest of jeans, are like matchsticks.

  “Nice girl,” I say. “How old is she?”

  “She’s eighteen. Older than she looks, I know.” Mrs Sims gives an uneasy little laugh. I recognise policeman’s wife syndrome kicking in. Its message: you’re always be a bit of an outsider, to be treated warily in case you let something slip to the law.

  “I wasn’t implying that she’s under age for the job,” I say quickly. “She just looks very fragile, that’s all.”

  “Fragile’s probably right,” says Mrs Sims grimly. “Her parents are splitting up and she’s taking it hard. Her father’s left her mother for a younger woman and more or less kicked over the traces, from what she tells me. The upshot is that she won’t be able to go to university this year, as she’d planned. She’s going to have to save some money first. I’m hoping she’ll stay all year – she’s a good little worker – but I know I’ll lose her if she can find something that pays better.”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to say that if Mrs Sims is getting what she’s asked us to pay for four other children besides Sophia, she should be able to afford decent wages for her staff. Not a good start to Sophia’s career chez Sims, I realise! I bite back the words.

  Margie returns with the tea. She hands me mine with the same radiant smile, but I think I spot conflict in her eyes: a mixture, perhaps, of defiance and sorrow. I wonder what sort of man her father is, to abandon his daughter at such a vulnerable stage of her life. I look at Sophia, content and safe, clapping two red bricks together, and hope that we’ll be able to give her what she needs to make her confident, fearless and happy when she’s growing up. Suddenly the anguish that I thought I’d mastered creeps in sideways and I have to contort my face to stop it crumpling. I down the tea with haste and stand up.