The Retribution

by Shankar Kashyap

  “Have you ever thought it could be those Asian guys who had killed the Priest and loaded Lenny’s hand with his own knife?”

  “Why do you say that? There has not been a peep out of any of the contacts so far on that front.”

  “Well, the Priest was beaten up by some guys a few years ago and there was a rumour that he was beaten up by one of the grooms he had officiated before who felt that the wedding vows was somehow tainted by the priest being gay.”

  “No one has come forward about those three Asian guys seen on the Harrison road around the time of the murder yet. The regular boyfriend of the Priest appears to have disappeared into thin air. The gay community might be protecting their own. The priest appears to have made some enemies among them too.” Stoker replied. “Any word from your contacts in drug scene?”

  “No chief. I know the priest was a runner for a brief period a year ago when the regular guy was ‘indisposed.’

  “I don’t think it would be drug killing. The killing was not really professional. It was more of a frenzied attack. They tell me the guy was stabbed thirteen times and the stab in the neck was the one that finally killed him.”

  “I agree with you chief. They would have cleaned out the flat and we would not have found any drugs in the house if it was a drug killing.”

  There was silence for a minute as neither of them spoke. It looked like they had run out of scenarios.

  “I know you went meet her last week, Sean.” Stoker had picked up one of the whisky glasses on the side table and holding against the light coming from the window, was staring at the dark lipstick mark on the glass.

  “Who do you mean chief?” Sean’s bravado was not convincing. He could feel the heat under the collar.

  “I know you met her twice Sean.”

  “Are you having me tailed?” Sean tried to sound indignant.

  “You know me better than that, Sean. But I have been reading the Internals’ report. You do know they still have their eyes on you.”

  Sean snorted and ground his teeth as he replied, “The buggers don’t have anything on me. The tribunal cleared me last year. Why are they still after me?”

  “Once you are in their sight, they never let you go. They are like leeches. They won’t rest till they have their fill with your blood.”

  “The sons of bitches.” His knuckles were white and stopped himself from slamming his fist on the glass top.

  “You still have not told me Sean.”

  “Yes, I did meet the Priest’s wife. I swore to keep it out of the official records.”

  “That does not make any sense to me. Don’t tell me it had nothing to do with the killing?”

  “I really don’t know what to make of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sean spent the next half an hour telling Stoker about the contents of the little red book. He could see the fascination in Stoker’s eyes as he recounted the years in Mombasa and the story of a manipulative and yet an extremely charismatic man. The story of a little boy in a strange country, sexually abused as a child growing up to be one of the most influential characters of the community. He seemed to be quite pally with several public figures including the local Member of Parliament, Fred Homuz and senior officials in the government, media and even the police. There was a lot about Sheena. Quite mixed. Towards the end he appeared to be reticent about his entries on Sheena There were intimate details of his trysts with several of the “boys” as he liked to call them. They were all marked with letters x, y or z. No names. When Sean finished, Stoker was almost speechless. He sat there staring at Sean, who got up and went to the bathroom.

  “It was as if he was scared of something towards the end. There were quite a few entries scratched off in the book ….” His voice tailed off towards the end from the bathroom. “And there was something else I could not get my handle on.”

  “Where is the red book then?” Stoker called through the bathroom door.

  “I gave it back.” came the mumbled reply.

  “What do you mean gave it back? Why did you give it back?”

  Sean came out wiping his face with a towel and hair.

  “I had to. I had promised her. She said I could only have it for a day.”

  “I don’t believe you Sean. This is a bombshell and you gave it back.” Stoker was incredulous. “Sand what was that you couldn’t get your handle on?”

  “I did not think it had any useful information regarding the murder chief. Anyway we could not have use the book as evidence, as it did not give any dates and only the first names or nicknames of people.” Sean said moving towards the bedroom door. “There were some pages missing towards the end. And a promise is a promise chief. You know very well, I could not get any contacts if I don’t keep my promises.”

  “What do you mean pages missing? How do you know?”

  Sean came out of the bedroom pulling on a fresh shirt. He described the discontinuity in text.

  “I could not understand how come someone who had taken so much care in looking after the book is so clumsy in some of the entries.”

  “Maybe someone else has done it.”

  “That is what I thought. But who?

  “We could have identified the people and questioned them without divulging the source.

  “No chief. You know very well I could not do that.”

  “You are not going soft on the girl. Are you Sean? She is way out of your league.”

  Sean was flustered for a moment, but recovered quickly.

  “She is some looker, isn’t she?”

  “She has a perfect reason to bump the Priest off. All that talk of loving and devoted husband and visits to the infertility clinic could be a cover up. I thought she laid it on a bit too thick at the press conference about the devoted wife part. I can just imagine her wanting to knock of her husband when she found out he was gay. Don’t you think?”

  “She knew he was bisexual before she got married to him.” Sean said stuffing the shirt inside his trousers.

  “Maybe he was cheating on her with a boyfriend. Remember he had a boyfriend at the club?”

  “Who, no one can find anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It could be a red herring chief. It could be a story of jealous lover. The guys who claim that, might be saying that because he would not sleep with them.”

  “But she would fit the bill perfectly for this case in all respects. She did not have to steal any drugs or money from the house and she would not have to steal her husband’s car. How do you know she did not pay someone to beat her husband to stop him from straying into Gay clubs? Is that not what the reporter said to you?”

  Sean did not say anything for a minute.

  “Why would she show me the book if it was going to implicate her? She is too clever for that chief.”

  “Maybe that is exactly what she wants us to think.”

  “I was quite convinced she had the priest killed till yesterday. Now, I am not so sure.” Sean was scratching his head. “I wish I had the book a little longer. Maybe I have missed something.”

  “Are you sure here was nothing unusual in the book?”

  “I only had it for a night chief.” Sean was thoughtful.

  “Now. Why did she want it back in such a hurry.”

  “Maybe I should have hung on to it a bit longer.” Sean was beginning to doubt himself.

  “It does not matter now, anyway. We now have a confession for the murder. Was there any link between Lenny and the wife?”

  “No chief. I don’t think she had even heard of him before. I have been through her statements a few times since I read the book. She looks clean on paper.”

  “Did the priest know that Sheena had seen the red book?”

  Sean though for a minute, trying to remember the contents of the little red book. “I am not sure. Maybe he did. She told me that she found the book after his death.”

  Stoker stood up and started walking towards the front door.

>   “I can’t help feeling we got the wrong man.”

  Sean pulled on his jacket and said, “I feel the same way chief. It is up to the lawyers now. Come on chief, let’s eat. I am hungry.”

  Justice done

  The case dragged on for nearly nine months. Sean spent several fruitless hours researching Sheena’s background and trailed through the names he could remember from the little red book. He was no further forward at the end of nine months when Lenny was brought to the court.

  There were tentative links between the priest and the local drug dealer, he bumped into links with right wing activists and even links between the priest and several leading men and women of the society. One enigma remained throughout - Sheena Achar. He could not get into her story. She appears to have come into the Priest’s life out of nowhere, a law student from a respectable Gujarati family and working as an industrial lawyer for a reputable company in Leeds. She seems to have targeted the priest from the time she set her eyes on him. She was the perfect girlfriend and a loyal wife. Maybe a little bit too perfect. Everyone he spoke to had nothing but praise for her and at the same time no details were coming out. It was as if she was there and at the same time she wasn’t. There were gaps in her story that Sean could not fill despite talking to people in both Leicester and Leeds. There were veiled links to the brutal attack on the priest, a year after the marriage.

  The Gay community, particularly the Asian side of it, were very quiet in the beginning. As the months rolled by, they became more vociferous. Most of them had nothing but praise for the priest, but there were many who were not enamoured by the man. He appeared to have alienated many young men and was considered arrogant and ‘stand-offish’ by several. But none of them had any particularly strong enough feelings to mean any harm to the priest.

  Sean spent many hours and many meetings with his contact, Johnny, exploring the possibility of a drug related hit. He even managed to speak to ‘the gaffer’ on the phone without any luck. Yes, ‘the Gaffer’ did confirm that the priest worked for him for a brief period. But there was no strong attachment or enmity he could detect. The priest had been a successful runner for ‘the gaffer’ and there was no animosity. He appeared to have been a good customer.

  He had spent a lot of time talking to the Lenny’s two girlfriends and his mother, Lisa Mitchell. He had even spoken to the teachers at John Ellis Community college where he was called a “string bean.” He would rather run away than confront anyone during school days. He had dropped out of college without finishing his course and held down jobs in labouring and decorating. Life on one of Leicester’s problem estates in Mowmacre Hill meant that he began smoking cannabis at a very young age and graduated to harder drugs culminating in a heroin habit. He had made friends with the priest around one of the gay clubs and the friendship had blossomed over the years. Lenny had looked up to the priest for more than just material gain. Sean also found out that Lenny had introduced the drug dealer, ‘the gaffer,’ to the priest.

  Lenny’s mother told Sean, “I was ill with pleurisy when he was boy. He would run to the neighbours and ask them to call a doctor. Later he got into drugs, because there were dealers on every corner of our estate.”

  One of Lenny’s schoolmates recalled a “caring boy” – how he helped nurse a friend who was suffering from cancer. His long term girlfriend, Sharon Green insisted that Lenny was not a violent man.

  “He is not violent, he didn’t even like me to smack the children. I insisted he carry a knife for protection. You have to, living round here.”

  Both Sean and Stoker felt frustrated at the lack of progress on many of the promising leads they had. By the time Lenny was brought to court nearly nine months later, both of them felt that Lenny may in fact be telling the truth.

  Justice Hughes was the trial Judge in this case. The trial went on for seven days with twelve members of the jury. Lenny had sat through the trial without saying much. He repeated his name and address to the prosecutor and the defending attorney did not bring him back to be examined as normally is the case. He would sit in his chair throughout the hearing without saying a word with the same smug expression on his face, the detectives had seen when he was arrested nine months earlier. He was now an inmate in the secure psychiatric institution where the doctors were trying to take him through the drug withdrawal programme.

  Sean was trying to stay behind scenes. He sat at the far corner of the courthouse watching the proceedings with increasing disquiet. He was watching the faces of the different actors in the scene. He sat at the darkest corner of the courtroom trying to blend into the background.

  Joan Butler, Queen’s Counsel, prosecuting, told how Lenny met Dev, and was aware he was an “extremely promiscuous” homosexual who would pay for sex.

  “The defendant now admits he was carrying a knife,” Butler told the court. “We say Lenny was picked up in Leicester by the deceased and there was going to be some sort of sexual activity for which Mr Deodhar Sharma was going to pay.”

  She then continued saying that Lenny was a regular heroin user who spent a considerable amount of money on drugs and “was often short of money.”

  She added; “Mr Sharma was in the habit of carrying lots of cash on his person and in his car. After stabbing him, the defendant took the money.”

  She paused for minute and walked towards where Lenny was sitting and said,

  “Lenny Mitchell had so little cash on the evening of the murder that he had to borrow the bus fare from his girlfriend‘s mother. Yet the very next day he bought a pair of expensive trainers and also spent a lot of money celebrating his wife’s birthday.”

  “Bugger wouldn’t buy me a pair cheap slippers, but goes ahead and buys an expensive trainers for that floozy.” The murmur from Sheena was loud enough to be heard across the room and the justice gave her a scowl.

  The jury was shown a video footage of the body. The clothed body of the priest was shown lying face down on the lounge floor of a house in a pool of dried up blood and then the body lying on the stretcher on the way to a police van. His throat had been cut. Kishen and Jai were visibly shaken and their mother Meera Ben started to sob loudly. There were gasps of horror from the gallery. Jai and his father helped her out of the court room as the judge was about to slam his gavel on the oak desk.

  The jury of eight women and four men watched the film in complete silence. There was no commentary on the recording. It showed the outside of the house and inside, panning around the downstairs and pausing on smoke damage from a fire, allegedly started after the attack.

  Mr D’Costa, representing Lenny tried to vilify the priest, calling him “an extremely promiscuous bisexual, who would do anything for sex.” He also stated that Dev was “a manipulative individual who blackmailed young men into having sex with him.” The priest was painted as a drug abuser and an opportunistic drug dealer. D’Costa spent a while harping on the statement made by Lenny to the fact that the priest was trying to rape him along with his friends on the night of the murder. He implied that Lenny only defended himself against a vicious attack. He drew picture of a predator trying to take advantage of his client while he was most vulnerable under the influence of hard drugs and paid the price. D’Costa claimed that it was an act of self-defence and not a premeditated murder.

  Lenny Mithcell was convicted by the jury on 9th July of murder committed on previous October 20th. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Judge, Justice Hughes.

  “He is an “existing prisoner” within the meaning of schedule 22 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003. No minimum term has been set by the Home Secretary. Accordingly, it falls to me now to determine, pursuant to section 269 of that Act, the minimum period which he should serve before the early release provisions apply to him.”

  He paused, adjusted his glasses once again and continued.

  “My recommendation to the Home Secretary on the minimum period the defendant should serve was 16 years, based upon the then operative letter of practice of Lord Bing
ham, dated 10 February 1997, that is to say a starting point of 14 years. That recommendation was endorsed by Lord Woolf .”

  Justice Hughes stopped again, looked up to see the reaction of the crowd. There was a gasp from the left side of the hall where Sharon was sitting with David and Vanessa Hutchins. Sharon was impassive, but one could see her jaws clenching and her hands tighten their grip on the plastic handles of the court chair. The teenage girlfriend was missing from the audience. She stayed away throughout the hearing. A low murmur had started waiting for the judge to continue. He cleared his throat and bent his head down to see over the top of his glasses to see who was making the noise. The murmur died instantly.

  “I have read written representations from Mr D’Costa, Queens Counsel, on behalf of the Defendant. He has not requested an oral hearing. I have read written representations from the family of the deceased, contained in a statement dated 3 December last year. I set out the summary of the case which I incorporated into my recommendation to the Home Secretary.”

  He paused and adjusted his glasses once more and looked up to make sure everyone was listening. He had a rather docile face for a judge. He looked more like an ageing farmer than a judge. When he was sure everyone was paying attention to him, he continued.

  “The Defendant was a heterosexual heroin addict. The deceased was an outwardly reputable Hindu priest, who as well known to his family and associates led also the life of a promiscuous homosexual, who habitually picked up strangers for sexual purposes and who relished the danger of attracting heterosexual men, particularly when drunk, for the purpose of seducing them.”

  There was a gasp from someone in the audience where the priest, Dev’s family were sitting. They were quite shocked by the brutal description of him. The judge stopped again and looked disapprovingly at their corner.

  “Late at night in the centre of Leicester, in an area well known for casual homosexual encounters, the Defendant allowed himself to be picked up by the deceased, who was kerb crawling for homosexual activity. The Defendant must have known the purpose for which the deceased approached him. He permitted himself to be driven to a house kept by the deceased for inter alia such encounters. There the Defendant stabbed the deceased approximately fifteen times, chiefly in the neck and back, with a knife which he habitually carried as a weapon. He stole money from the deceased and took his car to escape. Before he left he started a fire in the terraced house and left the gas on. Fortuitously the fire burned itself out causing appreciable interior damage and it did not spread to adjoining houses.”