Rooted in Dishonour

by Christina James

  “I’ll leave it to you to ponder that. You’re better at tact than I am.”

  Juliet laughed. She might have felt flattered if the statement had not been incontestable.

  “What was the other thing you wanted to mention?”

  “What? Oh, yes. Mrs Verma told me that you’d taken Ayesha’s hairbrush for DNA testing. There’s no record of that in your report. Did you really take it? And if so, where is it?”

  “Oh God,” said Tim.

  “Tim? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I think so. But I did take the hairbrush, and I’ve forgotten to have it processed. It’s still in the top drawer of my desk. Would you mind having it sent to the lab for me?”

  “Of course not,” said Juliet. “I’ll do it straight away.” Her voice was taut with disapproval. Tim wasn’t surprised.

  “Thanks. I’d better get on now. I’ve got a load of files to read before DC Chappell comes back.”

  “Who?”

  “The DC I’m working with. Don’t worry, she wouldn’t interest you. A very difficult woman.”

  “Goodbye, then. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Thanks. Goodbye, Juliet.”

  Tim put down the phone. The call hadn’t been at all satisfactory. First he’d annoyed Freya, then Katrin, and now Juliet. Not to mention assorted taxi drivers, residents of Ilford and DC Chappell. What was wrong with him?

  He glanced down at the waste paper basket. Perhaps he was suffering from a virus. The next task he had to negotiate was how to dispose discreetly of a waste basket full of vomit. He sighed, and recoiled at the smell of his own breath.

  Chapter 10

  The hotel reception area was vast and glittering. Trees had been planted in beds of earth let into the floor and trained to grow straight and tall until they reached the two-storey-high ceiling. White leather chairs and sofas were arranged around a central fountain which flung out leaps of water that increased in size by degrees until, after an extravagant crescendo, they subsided, then began to grow again from tiny jets. Outside the temperature was 27 degrees, but here the noiseless air conditioning kept the ambience fashionably chilly.

  A phalanx of reception desks had been installed, sunray fashion, around three walls, each serviced by two mannequin-like young women to minimise the chance that any guest might be kept waiting. Each of these young women was presented as exactly like her counterparts as possible: long dark hair entwined in a perfect French pleat on which sat a small taupe-coloured pillbox hat, dramatic, skilfully-applied kohl and mascara, cherry-red lips and fingernails. They wore tailored skirt-suits in taupe with discreet dashes of red, the single-breasted jackets emphasising high breasts and small waists as snugly as if the flesh of their owners had been poured into a mould. The pencil skirts were also skin-tight, their little kick pleats revealing a tantalising flash of red lining as the women walked cautiously on their five-inch-high scarlet stilettos.

  The small man entered this wealth-infused atrium with considerable aplomb. He was neatly dressed in a blazer and flannels, his shirt fastidiously adorned with a highly-starched detachable collar, his feet Church’s-shod. To the casual observer he was on home territory, belonging as much to this milieu as the French millionaire seated on one of the white leather thrones playing with his iPad or the gaggle of rich young Arabs drinking coffee and chattering excitedly next to the fountain. A closer inspection would have indicated he was not as affluent as at first he appeared: the elbows of the blazer were shiny, the shoes in some need of repair. However, the cosmopolitan clients of the hotel were not disposed to scrutinise, much less judge, their fellow guests. They were too bound up in contemplation of their own superiority, for one thing; and the presence of an eccentric Englishman merely served to enhance their appreciation of the place, for another.

  The small man walked up to the counter nearest the back wall, having flicked his gaze quickly at the two desks most adjacent to it, perhaps to check that he wasn’t being watched or overheard. He disregarded the two young women stationed there and they as studiously ignored him. Deftly, he pressed a buzzer fixed to the edge of the counter and so near the back of it that he would have been unlikely to spot it if he hadn’t already known it was there.

  A middle-aged woman appeared as if by magic and stepped to one side of the desk. She, too, was dressed in a taupe uniform, though her figure was much more buxom than those of the many receptionists and her more generously cut skirt was long enough to brush her ankles. She wore cherry-red loafers on her feet. She had wide, almond-shaped eyes. She might have been of mixed race descent.

  “Hello, darling,” said the small man. “I’m rather early, I’m afraid, so glad that you’re here. And looking lovely, if I may say so.”

  The woman regarded him impassively. Undeterred, he continued as animatedly as if she’d been more encouraging.

  “I’ve come to see Jas. He said we could meet this afternoon.”

  “He isn’t here yet.”

  “No matter, I can wait. Is there somewhere comfortable for me to sit down?”

  The woman gestured towards the white leather furniture.

  “You can buy coffee here. Or a drink, if you’d rather. One of the girls will send a waiter over.”

  “Yes, but that will cost me an arm and a leg, won’t it darling? I’m sure Jas wouldn’t expect me to pay for my own refreshments. Besides, he hasn’t paid me yet and the expenses are totting up. To tell you the truth, it’s leaving me a bit short.”

  The woman scowled.

  “You can start an account, pay later.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to, darling, won’t I, if you’re in that frame of mind? As you know, I’m the last person to try to cause any kind of disturbance.”

  “Is he bothering you, Moura?” The tone of the speaker’s voice was teasing, not menacing.

  The small man did not spin round to confront this unexpected intruder into his conversation, but instead gave an adroit bird-like flick of his head which served the same purpose and simultaneously made a good stab at conveying his nonchalance.

  “Ah, Jas, I was just saying that I didn’t think you’d begrudge me a few refreshments.”

  The newcomer was quite tall and rather thick-set. Like the woman, he could have been of mixed race, but his English was perfect. Though it was a warm day, he was conservatively clad in a charcoal grey suit and blindingly white shirt. He held out one arm expansively and pointed at the furthermost sofa, shooting his cuff as he did so to reveal a discreetly opulent gold cufflink adorned with a small crescent of diamonds.

  “Certainly. If you’d care to sit over there, I’ll join you shortly. What would you like? I always think that iced tea is excellent on a day such as this.”

  The small man grimaced.

  “You are joking, darling, aren’t you? No? Well, all right then, I’ll have an iced tea, but only if you’d be so good as to provide a whisky chaser to go with it. A large one, please: none of your penny-scrimping little optics.”

  The newcomer gave the woman called Moura a quick nod. They exchanged a momentary expression of distaste before she said to the mannequin standing nearest to her: “Please ask a waiter to serve the gentleman.”

  The newcomer clapped the small man briefly on the back.

  “Order what you wish, Peter, with my compliments. Now go over to that sofa and wait for me there, otherwise the waiter will have arrived before you. I’ll try not to leave you alone for too long.”

  Chapter 11

  Having surreptitiously smuggled the puke-filled waste-bin into the lavatories and cleaned it, Tim returned to his temporary office. He’d decided to read the files in chronological order, so he began with the Canadian case that Derry Hacker had mentioned when they were having breakfast.

  His head was beginning to ache and he started to see a yellow rim around the page on the computer screen, for him a classic sign of im
pending migraine. Quickly he popped the Mogadon tablet that he produced from his rucksack, drank another cup of water and waited for the symptoms to subside. After a while, the effects of the drug kicked in and he was able to limp his way painfully through the first of the case reports.

  It was the police account of the Canadian honour killing and much as Derry had described it, though the report provided more details. Mohammed Shafia, a Shi’a Muslim who’d made a fortune in real estate in Dubai and emigrated to Canada with his two wives and several children, had, along with his son and second wife, been convicted of murdering his first wife and three daughters. Shafia had himself reported the disappearance of the four women, which Tim noted: Bahir Verma had also reported that his daughter was missing. Shortly afterwards, a car was found submerged in a local lock. When it was hauled out, four female bodies were discovered inside. At first the Canadian police had thought that the deaths were accidental, but when they realised that the son had notified police that the family’s other car had been damaged on the same morning as his father had reported the women missing, a detective put two and two together and decided there were grounds for suspicion. Forensic evidence proved that the second car had been used to ram the first into the lock. Shafia and his wife and son were convicted of first degree murder, which under Canadian law meant that they must serve at least twenty-five years without parole.

  Tim made a few notes as he was going along, but although he found the case fascinating, he realised when he reached the end of the report that he only partly understood the motive. This concept of honour killing was puzzling, particularly as it had been applied here. One of the daughters had been suspected by her parents of becoming too friendly with a Pakistani youth, but as far as Tim could gather there was no suggestion that the other daughters or the first wife (who had brought up the children jointly with their mother: biologically they belonged to the second wife) had been behaving ‘improperly’. It seemed to him it was glaringly obvious that the motive for the murders was to enable the husband and second wife to dispose of the first, though even this did not quite convince, as apparently she had relatives who were prepared to look after her. And why did all the girls have to die? He could just about comprehend that a warped logic might dictate a girl should be murdered for bringing her family into disrepute, unnatural though it was for both her father and her mother to collude in the crime, but how could it then impel them to get rid of all their daughters? If the reasoning was that the whole family was now contaminated by the eldest daughter’s sin, why not kill the son as well? Indeed, why not end their own lives? Tim scribbled a few words to remind himself to ask Nancy Chappell if she could explain.

  He turned to the first of the crimes that Derry himself had been involved in. This had taken place towards the end of 2012, the same year that the Shafias had been convicted. The victim in this case was of Punjabi descent. Her father, Naresh Kaul, had arrived in the UK as a child and his family had settled in Hounslow. He worked for a catering company that supplied in-flight meals to Heathrow Airport. He’d married young, to a bride chosen by his father, and they’d had two daughters and a son. The elder of the two daughters, Sahika, was a clever girl who’d won both a scholarship and a bursary for Kingston Grammar School. Apparently the parents were dubious about allowing her to travel so far to school and although she managed to persuade them, they subsequently refused to allow the younger daughter, Daivi, also to attend. Sahika was working for her A levels, intent upon studying Law at university, when she was sent to the Punjab, ostensibly for a holiday, but in reality to meet the man chosen by her extended family as her fiancé. She expressed dislike of the man and apparently reacted so extremely to any suggestion that she should stay in touch with him that she tried to kill herself by drinking bleach. She damaged her throat badly and returned to the UK early in order to receive medical treatment.

  She hadn’t been back in Hounslow for very long before the parents decided to remove her from the school. She was so distressed by this and such a promising pupil, that one of her teachers, a woman, offered to coach her in private so that she could still sit her A levels. The parents were persuaded to agree, but after some time discovered that she had also been receiving tuition alone from a male teacher introduced to her by the female teacher. Naresh Kaul confronted the man with such vicious threats that he felt obliged to resign. He was under police protection for a while and eventually relocated to another part of the country.

  Sahika disappeared from view. Her old Kingston school friends weren’t allowed to contact her. One of the Kauls’ neighbours, a Scotswoman, later told police that it was more than two weeks since she’d seen Sahika, although apparently the rest of the family’s comings and goings had been much as usual. Eventually the police were alerted because Sahika had failed to keep appointments at the hospital where her throat was being treated. The Kauls were evasive when questioned about her whereabouts. They said that she’d run away from home – the neighbour confirmed that she had done this before – and claimed that they thought she’d ‘gone to wickedness’ and therefore they’d disowned her, which was why they hadn’t reported her missing.

  Derry Hacker was put in charge of the case. His notes showed that he was extremely suspicious of the Kauls, especially Naresh, who seemed completely to dominate his wife and children, but he could find no proof that Sahika had been murdered. He was refused a warrant to search the house, but on one of his visits still managed to secrete a listening device in the main downstairs room. Later he was criticised for using this unorthodox method. Tim smiled when he reached this part of the account: ‘unorthodox’ described Derry to a T. The listening device didn’t produce any conclusive results, though Naresh Kaul was heard on more than one occasion warning the other two children not to discuss their sister’s disappearance.

  Derry and his team made no progress until the body of a young woman was found in the Thames at Richmond some four months later. It was partially dismembered and so badly decomposed that the pathologist could not establish the cause of death. However, it was possible to prove that the body had been deliberately wedged beneath some rocks. Police retrieved several items of jewellery, which upon being questioned the Kauls admitted had belonged to Sahika. That the corpse was hers was further confirmed from her dental records.

  Though the coroner ruled that the death had been caused by ‘unlawful killing’, there was still not enough evidence to pin it on the family. Derry was again refused a search warrant, in all probability because the magistrate was wary of being accused of victimising members of an ethnic minority.

  The case wasn’t closed, though the police could make no progress. The breakthrough came when, out of the blue, Naresh Kaul decided to challenge the coroner’s ruling and requested it should be changed to an open verdict. He could offer no sound reason for this – he claimed rather lamely that it would stop the neighbours suspecting him and his wife of murder. Derry concluded that Kaul’s somewhat naïve reasoning was that if the coroner changed the verdict, the police would drop their investigation. He applied again for a search warrant, which was granted. Examination of the Kauls’ living room showed that a large quantity of blood had seeped into the floorboards. Although the boards had been vigorously scrubbed with a detergent strong enough to destroy DNA evidence, the stains remained. Some tiny drops of blood had also fallen on to a rug, which was taken away for forensic examination. A match was found with Sahika’s DNA. When questioned separately from her parents, Daivi Kaul said that she was almost certain that her parents had murdered her sister, though she had not actually witnessed it. She provided further details that suggested she was telling the truth. The police accepted that she’d been too afraid to reveal them before, as it would have meant putting her own life in danger. It was because of her evidence that her mother was convicted as well as her father. Both parents were serving jail sentences of twenty-five years.

  Tim scribbled some more notes. This was much more like the Verma case.
The family were Punjabi Hindus; they were of modest means and only the daughter who’d ‘dishonoured’ them had been targeted. Also common to both cases was a kind of ambivalence about educating girls. On the one hand the parents were proud of their clever daughters and encouraged them to pursue a good education; on the other hand, they did not want to support this to its logical conclusion, i.e., the prospect of the daughter getting the sort of job that would give her financial independence. Bahir Verma had said that his daughter’s husband would allow her to study for her degree after their marriage, but how likely was that in practice? She’d probably have her first child within a year of the wedding.

  Tim got up to pour himself more water and saw that Derry Hacker was peering through the glass in the door. “Can I come in?” he mouthed. Tim nodded.

  “Christ!” said Derry as he entered, “it’s bloody cold in here.”

  “I don’t feel cold – in fact, I’m sweating – though DC Chappell did warn me that the air con was ferocious.”

  “If you’re not cold, there must be something wrong with you,” said Hacker suspiciously. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Tim briefly lost his temper.

  “I wish people would stop asking me that! I’m just a bit under the weather because of the malaria tablets, that’s all.” He’d been debating whether to tell Derry about the strange image on the computer screen, but abandoned the idea immediately.

  “Sorry I spoke! How’re you getting on, old son, anyway? Is Nancy being helpful? Where is she?”

  “I’ve read through a couple of the files – the Canadian one you told me about and the Kaul case. The Kaul case is interesting because the family was Hindu, like the Vermas. But I admit that I’m finding all this honour killing stuff confusing. It goes without saying that it’s against nature for parents and siblings to kill their womenfolk; but aside from that I’m finding all sorts of inconsistencies that I’m struggling to get my head around.”