by Paul Gitsham
‘I’m not a big cook, what are we talking here? Two hours?’
‘About that.’
‘And you started about 3 p.m.?’
‘About then…’ Kaur paused. ‘I picked up the keys from Mrs Maninderjeet Kaur.’
‘Yes we know, we spoke to her.’
Kaur looked even more uncomfortable.
Warren made a note on his pad.
‘So you and Mr Singh Mahal worked together for about two hours. And then the next shift took over, to do the actual serving?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what time was that?’
Kaur let out a little huff of air.
‘As I said before, about 5 p.m.’
Warren made another note. Kaur shifted in her seat, before ostentatiously looking at her watch.
‘I’m very sorry, DCI Jones, I have an important council meeting in a few minutes. If I don’t leave soon, I’ll miss the start. If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to call me.’
Kaur’s solicitor followed her cue, closing her briefcase and standing.
‘Sit back down please, Councillor, we haven’t finished yet and I would rather you didn’t go anywhere.’
‘My client is here voluntarily, DCI Jones, you don’t have the authority to stop her leaving. If you wish her to stay any longer, you will need to arrest her and interview her under caution.’
‘If that’s what you want,’ said Warren quietly.
Both women stopped in their tracks.
Chapter 58
Binay Singh Mahal was even more sullen than the first time he had been arrested. The same lawyer, Dan Stock, who had accompanied him on his previous visit sat beside him. He didn’t look happy.
‘Before we start, my client would like to protest in the most vigorous fashion that the imposition of bail conditions, based on purely circumstantial evidence, are a breach of his human rights and yet more evidence of the institutionalised racism demonstrated by the police as a whole and Hertfordshire Constabulary and you, DCI Jones, specifically.’ It was a long sentence, delivered in one go, with an impressively straight face. Warren ignored him.
Warren turned to Singh Mahal. ‘Mr Singh, why didn’t you tell us that you were serving langar on Saturday afternoon with Councillor Kaur? It would have saved us all a lot of wasted time and effort.’
Singh Mahal sneered. ‘None of your business, was it? Why should I do your job for you?’
‘Regardless, based on what Councillor Kaur has stated, it would seem very unlikely that you were in a position to kill Mr Meegan on Saturday, given the estimated time of death.’
‘So I’m free to go then?’
‘Not just yet, I have a few more questions I would like answered.’
‘You have just said that my client was not involved in the death of Mr Meegan. I must insist that you release him from his bail conditions or re-arrest him.’
‘I said no such thing.’
Tony Sutton cleared his throat.
‘Mr Singh, have you ever met Tommy Meegan?’
‘I said no last time and I meant it.’
‘So you and Mr Meegan have never had a conversation?’
A fraction of a pause.
‘No, of course not. The guy’s head of the BAP. Why the fuck would I be talking to him?’ The man’s indignation sounded real, but his eyes told a different story.
‘So you and Mr Meegan have not been in contact?’
‘No.’
‘Can you tell me your whereabouts at approximately six-thirty on Monday, sixteenth of June?’
Singh Mahal shrugged. ‘Not a clue.’
‘What about Sunday, eighth of June?’
His eye twitched. ‘No idea.’
‘OK, we’ll come back to that.’
Warren took over again.
‘You know, there’s a problem here. You say that you never had contact with Mr Meegan, but we’ve had a look at your social media and it would seem that isn’t true.’
He slid a transcript across the table.
‘This appeared on the BAP’s official Facebook page. Do you recognise any of the user accounts here?’
Singh Mahal barely glanced at it. ‘No comment.’
‘OK, let me help you out. This account here—’ Warren pointed to the person who had originally started the thread, calling for supporters to sign a petition against the proposed mosque and community centre ‘—belongs to Tommy Meegan, the late leader of the BAP.’
He ran his finger down the list of replies beneath the original article. ‘We’ve linked a dozen of the other accounts to other BAP supporters, as well as several well-known anti-fascist protestors. I must say that some of these replies are likely to be in breach of Facebook’s own community policy, if not the law.’
Singh Mahal affected nonchalance.
‘This reply in particular is pretty strong. It could be construed as a death threat.’
Singh Mahal said nothing.
‘Do you recognise the user account, Mr Singh?’
‘No comment.’
‘What about these posts, from the same user account on a different thread?’
‘No comment.’
‘What about this different user account? Very similar views are expressed.’
‘No comment.’
Sutton sighed theatrically. ‘OK, quit the stalling, Binay. We found the login details for both of these accounts stored in your phone’s browser and on your laptop. We know that you wrote all of these posts. You threatened to kill Tommy Meegan if he set foot inside Middlesbury.’
Singh Mahal stared at the wall, before looking over at his solicitor.
‘Yeah, I joined in a couple of flame wars.’
‘And that was the only contact you had with Tommy Meegan? You didn’t meet up with him?’
‘No.’
‘I hardly think that overblown rhetoric typed in the heat of the moment on Facebook is sufficient cause to continue wasting taxpayer’s money.’ Singh Mahal’s lawyer started to rise. ‘We’ve already established that my client was nowhere near the alleyway where Mr Meegan was found at the time of his death. I must formally request that he is released from his bail conditions and allowed to continue his lawful business.’
‘Have we established such a thing?’ asked Warren mildly. ‘Tell me again, Binay, where you were on the afternoon of Saturday, nineteenth of July?’
Singh Mahal glared across the table. ‘I was at the community centre preparing food for langar.’
‘Was anybody else there?’
‘Yes, Councillor Kaur.’
‘This has already been established, DCI Jones,’ snapped Stock.
‘Has it?’
Sutton took over again.
‘Think very carefully, Binay. According to the printed rota pinned to the wall in the community centre, you weren’t originally due to work that Saturday. However, you switched with somebody else to cover that shift alongside Councillor Kaur. You can see the change in blue biro.’ Sutton passed across a printout of a photograph taken on Hastings’ cameraphone the previous day.
‘So? People switch around all the time. As long as there are two people on duty and nobody takes the piss, everyone is cool with it.’
‘But you didn’t turn up for that shift, did you?’
Singh Mahal paled slightly. ‘Sure I did. Ask Councillor Kaur.’
‘We did and she corroborates your story.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘She’s lying.’
‘That’s rather a serious accusation, DI Sutton.’ Stock turned to Warren who ignored him
‘According to those coming on shift to serve the food,’ continued Sutton, ‘you were nowhere to be seen when they arrived just before 5 p.m.’
Singh Mahal raised a hand dismissively. ‘I nipped off a few minutes early, didn’t I? We was done.’
‘Reports in the media say Mr Meegan’s body was found at approximately six-thirty,’ said Stock. ‘Assuming he had died some time before then, I don’t b
elieve it would be possible for my client to cross the town centre from the community centre to the alleyway where Mr Meegan was killed, given the police presence and the closed roads,’ interjected Stock again.
‘Statements from those taking over claim you weren’t done though. Councillor Kaur was still busy chopping vegetables and the others had to help her finish. In fact, they had to delay serving the food by half an hour.’
Singh Mahal licked his lips. ‘I wanted to get home in time to watch the footie. She said it was OK and she had it all covered. I’d have stayed if I knew it was going to cause so much trouble.’
‘Which match?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What match did you want to see?’
Singh Mahal coughed. ‘I can’t remember.’
Warren dismissed it with a wave of his hand. ‘No matter, we’ll look at the records on your Sky box.’
Singh Mahal rubbed his hands together; a faint sheen of perspiration lingered for a moment on the shiny table top where his hands had rested.
‘So you left a few minutes early because Councillor Kaur said that she had it all in hand?’
‘Yes.’
‘So why is it that when the next shift arrived, Councillor Kaur was swearing about you not turning up at all and complaining that you never answer your phone?’
Binay Singh Mahal had been caught in a lie, but he was determined to wriggle out of it. After a short pause he put his hands up.
‘I’ve been seeing someone.’
‘Someone other than your girlfriend?’
‘Yeah. I skipped preparing langar so we could spend some time together.’
‘I see. Could you tell me the name of this person that you were seeing?’
‘No comment.’
‘Really? This person could provide you with an alibi for the time that Mr Meegan was killed.’
It was clear to everyone in the room that Singh Mahal was lying, that his story was in its death throes. How long would he continue to deny his involvement? Even his lawyer looked fascinated.
‘No comment. I don’t want to get her into trouble.’
‘All we need is for her to confirm your whereabouts. It’s unlikely that we’d need to speak to anyone else.’ The recording would show that Warren was giving him every chance.
For the first time since he’d been brought in, Singh Mahal’s eyes betrayed something other than arrogance.
‘OK, I’ll let you have a think about that. Why don’t we come back to it later?’ Warren cleared his throat and shuffled the papers in front of him.
‘Let’s go back to your relationship with Mr Meegan. You say that you only had contact with him online? Some back and forth on Facebook, a few tweets?’
‘Yeah.’
‘My client has already confirmed that the contact was nothing more than a bit of overblown rhetoric, said in the heat of the moment.’
Strictly speaking that wasn’t true. Singh Mahal’s solicitor had said that was the case.
‘Was that the extent of your interaction, Mr Singh?’
Stock picked up on Warren’s subtle emphasis on ‘Mr Singh’ and took the hint, letting his client answer for himself.
Singh Mahal paused for a fraction of a second.
‘Yeah.’
‘In that case, could you explain why we have CCTV of you calling Mr Meegan from a payphone opposite the Chequers estate?’
* * *
Binay Singh Mahal had slipped back into his ‘no comment’ routine again and so Warren formally arrested him on suspicion of perverting the course of justice and arranged for him to be sent to the cells to have a bit of a think.
John Grayson and Theo Garfield had been watching the interview on the monitors.
‘Softly, softly, catchy monkey?’ asked Garfield.
Warren nodded. He was mentally exhausted from juggling both interviews.
‘I don’t want either him or his solicitor to get wind of everything we’ve got. I don’t trust that lawyer of his not to contact Lavindeep Kaur’s brief and swap notes. He’s getting a little too involved for my taste.’
Grayson looked at his watch.
‘You won’t have any trouble getting an extension to custody for either Rhodri or Binay Singh Mahal, but you’ll need something more if you want to keep Councillor Kaur here even for the initial twenty-four hours.’
Warren agreed; truth be told, he doubted that Kaur was guilty of anything more than lying about her friend’s whereabouts, and that was almost certainly after the fact. He’d seen little evidence of a conspiracy and after charging he would have to release her on bail; there was nothing to justify remanding her in custody until her court appearance.
‘Gut feeling, Warren: did Binay Singh Mahal have anything to do with the death of Tommy Meegan?’
‘Difficult to say. We know that Meegan and Singh Mahal had a lot of contact on Facebook and then later over the phone. We can’t know what they discussed over the phone, but late last night Pete Robertson contacted me again.’
‘That man’s worth every penny of the overtime he earns.’
‘There was nothing of interest in Meegan’s email folder on his phone, but Pete was looking at his browsing history and found that he used another, different web-based email account which wasn’t synchronised with his phone’s email app.’
‘So emails to that account aren’t stored on his phone.’ Grayson smiled tightly. ‘Seems as though I did learn something useful in that cybersecurity workshop they made me attend.’
‘Precisely. Fortunately, Pete Robertson isn’t one to ignore a challenge.’
‘Don’t tell me, he managed to crack the password. Was it the name of his cat?’
‘Nope, no cat and no cracking. The silly sod had clicked yes when his browser asked if he wanted it to remember his password. It redirected Pete immediately to his inbox.’
Grayson gave a short bark of laughter.
‘The account was set up within hours of his first phone call with Binay Singh Mahal and only exchanged emails with a single contact. You can guess who.’
‘So what were they talking about?’
‘Singh Mahal claimed that he had another fifty so-called patriots willing to join in the march. That would have more than doubled the total. All they had to do was meet up beforehand.’
Grayson whistled. ‘Don’t tell me, fifty patriots all queuing in an alleyway between the chippy and the nail bar?’
‘No, the coach park. The alleyway came later.’
‘Are you deliberately speaking in riddles?’
‘The last batch of emails, sent two days before the march, seem to be the lure that enticed Meegan down that alleyway. To cut a long story short, he convinced Meegan that he had been in contact with other “concerned patriots” about the possible impact of the new mosque on local businesses. Complete bollocks of course, but just the sort of thing that people like the BAP would lap up. Anyway, he claimed that these people were willing to help fund the party’s “patriotic fight”.’
‘But it had to be done discreetly and they couldn’t be seen to help publicly,’ interrupted Grayson. ‘Let me guess – brown envelopes in a back alley?’
Grayson closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose at Warren’s confirmation.
‘We knew these folks were idiots, but even so, this has to be worthy of a Darwin Award.’
‘Theo Garfield says that these guys are such true believers that they can’t imagine that the rest of the world doesn’t see things the way they do. It wouldn’t occur to them that the other person may have different views and might not be on the level.’
‘Confirmation bias, I believe they call it. Anyway, what about the coach park? There weren’t fifty shaven-headed white supremacists waiting for the BAP when they turned up Saturday. Where did they go? Did they cancel?’
‘No idea. Besides which, they weren’t shaven-headed white supremacists.’
Grayson looked surprised.
‘Back up a second, what do you mean t
hey weren’t white supremacists?’ Another thought occurred to him. ‘And how on earth did Singh Mahal and Meegan even hook up? The two of them were tearing chunks off each other all over Facebook. I can’t imagine Meegan accepting a friend request from somebody who had threatened to kill him.’
‘That’s where another of Mr Singh Mahal’s online identities comes into play.’
‘Could this get any more complicated?’
Warren opened to his mouth to reply when Janice poked her head around the door. ‘Sorry to interrupt, a Mrs Sims from Dame Etheridge Academy is on the phone.’
‘Sorry, boss, I’ve been waiting for this call all morning. I’m following a hunch that could help us clear up everything.’
Grayson sighed. ‘Fine. But I want a full briefing when you get back. I don’t like being in the dark when we have an elected politician cooling her heels in one of our cells.’
Chapter 59
After arriving at Dame Etheridge Academy, Warren signed the visitors’ book, donned a badge and followed Jenny Sims, the headteacher, to her office. Through the windows, he could see at least three of the tower blocks that made up the Chequers estate. Assuming that Newington Lane Comprehensive, as it had been then, was the only school in the vicinity, it was quite possible that a decade or so previously Tommy and Jimmy Meegan had also been pupils at the school.
The chair of the school’s governing body was a gangly man in his early sixties, Warren estimated, fighting a losing battle against baldness.
‘Peter Etheridge – no relation, it’s a common name in these parts,’ he said quickly. ‘You realise that under data protection rules, there may be limits to what we can tell you, even though Mr Singh has not been a pupil for many years?’
‘Of course, Mr Etheridge, I understand. Anything you can give me would be appreciated.’
‘May I ask what this is about, Chief Inspector?’ asked Jenny Sims.
‘Just routine inquiries,’ Warren replied smoothly.
‘Hmm,’ was all she had to say. However, she wasn’t daft; routine inquiries didn’t usually involve visiting a school in the summer holidays to ask about a pupil who had attended over a decade earlier.
‘What can you tell me about him?’
‘Not huge amounts I’m afraid. Although we were already using computers back then of course, we were still transitioning from paper to digital. Pretty much everything is stored electronically these days, but at that time most records were still hard copy.’