by Mark Pearson
‘You can’t go in there. You’ve got no right.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Bennett, smiling affably. ‘I brought a skeleton key.’
He raised his foot and kicked the door at the level of the lock. There was a loud crack and the door flew open. ‘Fits all locks,’ he said and headed into the darkened room.
‘You’re going to pay for that.’
‘Don’t bet on it.’
Adam Henson looked back at Danny Vine as he came out of Henson’s bedroom. ‘Just keep your hands off his stuff,’ he said to the young constable, clearly conflicted about which way to go. Finally he followed Bennett into the darkened room. ‘It’s not illegal,’ he muttered as the detective inspector flicked on the light switch.
Black drapes hung over the front window. The walls were painted black and there was a red carpet underfoot. On the wall opposite DI Bennett was a flag: a red rectangle with a white circle in the middle of it and in the centre of the circle a black swastika. On the adjoining wall were pictures of Hitler and other high-ranking members of the Nazi party. Bennett shook his head at the clichéd stupidity of it all and then stopped and laughed out loud, despite himself. Among the black-and-white photos of Hitler and his generals was also a signed and framed picture of a well-known and glamorous personality.
Bennett looked at the photo more closely, slightly puzzled.
‘That’s Mariella Frostrup,’ said Henson proudly. ‘I reckon we’re related.’
Bennett looked at the squat, bloated man, thinking that they were probably related in the same way that a toad is related to a human being. Actually, the more he thought about it, Henson had more in common with a toad than he did with a human being.
‘And how do you reckon that?’ he asked.
‘Henson is a Scandinavian name, isn’t it?’ Henson said.
Bennett shook his head, bemused. ‘Yeah – must be true, then.’
There were a number of display cases in the room and the detective inspector crossed the red carpet to look at them. Some with paperwork, others with more photos, one had a hat with a card reading Early 1932 Schutzstaffel/SS Cap with Death’s Head and Eagle. In the long display case under the flag was a long dress sword, sitting slightly out of its groove, a pair of brass knuckledusters and a knife-shaped depression in the red velvet lining of the case. Danny Vine came into the room. Bennett threw him a questioning look but he shook his head. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said, as he looked around the room. ‘Not only does the fat frig look like Goebbels, he thinks he bloody is him.’
‘Your day will come, Sambo,’ said Henson, not even attempting to hide the curl to his lip as he said it.
‘Sambo?’ replied the constable, flashing a wide grin. ‘How delightfully retro.’
‘You can put a monkey in a suit and train it to dance for a banana. Doesn’t make him a human. Just a monkey in a suit—’
‘Shut your fucking mouth, Henson!’ said Bennett, cutting him short. ‘Where’s the knife that’s missing from this cabinet?’
Henson shrugged, his jowls wobbling but with a definite sheen of sweat on them now.
‘I bought the case as a piece. There never was a knife in it.’
‘And where’s your son? Where’s Matt?’
The portly man shrugged again. ‘He’s free to come and go as he pleases.’
‘Not any more.’
‘Right, well, do you two want to fuck off now?’ Henson looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got an appointment with a pint of lager, if that’s all the same to you.’
Bennett shook his head. ‘Well, it’s not all the same to me. You’re coming down the nick. We can discuss things a bit more down there.’
‘On what charge?’
Bennett tapped the back of a knuckle on the glass of the display case.
‘You have some illegal weapons here.’
‘That’s genuine memorabilia.’
‘The sword, maybe,’ Bennett said. ‘But, and I quote, Section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 dealing with offensive weapons lists among other items, “a band of metal or other hard material worn on one or more fingers, and designed to cause injury”.’ He tapped the display case again. ‘To wit, a knuckleduster.’ He smiled humourlessly. ‘You, my fat friend, are nicked!’
Henson looked at Bennett and across at PC Vine. Then he pushed Bennett, knocking him back against the display cabinet, and charged towards the open doorway. The young constable, however, had the presence of mind to leave a foot strategically placed and the sixteen stone of Adam Henson crashed like a felled log in the corridor beyond, his head slapping against the dividing wall with a sound like a walrus landing on ice.
*
Kate Walker held her index finger up and moved it from left to right. ‘Just follow the finger.’
The large man held up a finger of his own and Kate, ignoring it, jotted down some notes. She turned to the uniformed officer standing in the doorway of the police surgeon’s office. ‘Fit to be interviewed.’
Henson shook his head, an ugly bruise clear on the right-hand side of his swollen head. ‘I want a second opinion.’
‘Okay, my second opinion is that you need to start eating more healthily, do some exercise, lose four or five stone.’
‘You think you’re funny?’
‘No, I think I’m bored looking at you. Take him away, constable.’
The uniform stepped into the room, followed by DI Bennett. Henson stood up and glared down at her. ‘Nobody is getting away with this.’ He looked back at the detective inspector. ‘I have been assaulted.’
‘The incident will be thoroughly investigated.’
Henson snorted dismissively. ‘I have been the victim of a racially based assault and I will get justice.’
Kate smiled despite herself.
Henson stood up. ‘You think that’s funny? You think Enoch Powell’s rivers-of-blood speech was science fiction? It was a prediction that has come true, and you know it. People turn on the television and see every day another knifing, another shooting, another gang-related murder. Black gangs. You tell me it’s right for a white man to feel scared to walk the streets of his own town because of them. Scared for his life.’
‘Your boys just redressing the balance, are they?’
‘I told you. Matt had nothing to do with that stabbing.’
‘You’ll forgive us if we don’t just take your word for that. Come on, Henson. There’s some people want to talk to you.’
Bennett nodded to the uniformed officer who led Henson to the door. He stopped and called back to Kate. ‘If I’m wrong … you tell me why there are over seven times more black people in prison, proportionately speaking, than there are white.’
‘I can guess.’
‘Don’t guess, just look at the facts. That Irish scum Jack Delaney puts my eldest boy in prison for defending himself against a vicious attack from a gang of Paki terrorists.’
Kate kept her face impassive.
‘My other boy goes in the frame for something he didn’t do and everyone involved is going to suffer for it. Mark my words.’
Bennett laughed. ‘What are you going to do, Henson? Sit on us?’
The uniform led Henson out of the office.
‘Nice family,’ said Kate.
‘The apple doesn’t seem to have fallen far from the tree, that’s for sure.’
‘You didn’t tell me that Jack had arrested the Henson boys.’
‘I didn’t know. And it’s not exactly relevant, is it?’
Kate shrugged. ‘Any sign of Henson junior?’
‘Not yet. We’ve got what our American cousins call an APB out on him.’
‘He should be fairly easy to spot.’
‘True – not many people go round with their GCSE woodwork grade tattooed on the back of their head.’
Kate noded. ‘What I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘While you were off arresting Big Daddy I did a little bit of research on the internet.’
‘B-minus isn’t just a grade, is it?’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘What else, then?’
‘A blood type.’
Bennett nodded thoughtfully. ‘True.’
‘As a doctor, I should have thought of it before.’
‘What’s the point of that? Bit like having a tag saying you are a diabetic, that kind of thing?’
‘Well, kind of.’
‘You telling me that doctors take tattoos on the back of the head as a legitimate indicator of blood type, so that in emergencies they can just go ahead without testing and whack in a pint of B-minus as required?’
‘Well, not any more.’
‘Not any more? You’re telling me they used to?’ Bennett was genuinely taken aback.
Kate picked up some pages from her desk and handed them to him. ‘I printed off some material from the internet.’
Bennett took the papers. ‘Why don’t you summarise?’
‘You ever heard the word Lebensborn?’
‘Nope.’
‘It translates as “fount of life” in Old German. Set up by Heinrich Himmler originally in Germany, as part of their programme to create a master race.’
‘Aryans?’
‘Exactly. Tall, muscular, blue-eyed, fair-haired men and women.’
‘Which is odd when you consider that Hitler was a short, dark-haired, brown-eyed man.’
‘Anyway, it started off as a sort of orphanage setup but when the war was in its full stride it took on a more sinister note.’
‘Like?’
‘They set up a Lebensborn operation in Norway because they wanted to mingle German blood with the pure Aryan bloodstock that they believed came from Scandinavia.’
‘I heard something about that.’
‘Some claim there were brothels – Norwegian women forced to breed with SS officers. There is a lot of controversy on the issue to this day. Anyway, remember that the Henson surname is an anglicised version of the Scandinavian name Hansen.’
‘Yeah, Henson senior seemed to be quite proud of his heritage.’
‘A lot of the children born in that era suffered dreadfully.’
‘At Nazi hands, you mean?’
‘No. After the war. From their own people. The women who consorted with the SS officers were vilified, their heads shaved, drummed out of town. There have been claims of the children born being used in child prostitution. The worthy and the good lining up in the street to abuse and rape them.’
‘But no proof?’
Kate sighed. ‘Many of the children were sent to lunatic asylums, where they were tortured or raped. They were officially called rats. Even today, as elderly adults, some still get spat at on the streets. Witnesses say that the Norwegian military experimented on them, making them take LSD and mescaline among other drugs.’
‘Are you saying the Hensons are tied up in this somehow?’
‘They’re too young. Maybe Henson senior’s father might have been one of the children sent overseas. The Norwegian government tried to send eight thousand to Australia.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yeah – last year a group of Lebensborn brought an action in the European Court of Human Rights, seeking compensation from the Norwegian government of up to two hundred thousand pounds apiece.’
‘And did they get it?’
Kate snorted derisively. ‘No. They were offered a two-thousand-pound token settlement. And do you know another thing …?’
‘Go on.’
‘Priests in the country recommended that the Norwegian Lebensborn should be sterilised so that they couldn’t father any future Nazi children.’
Bennett shook his head. ‘Sounds like they were as bad as the Nazis themselves.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I still don’t see what this has to do with Matt Henson, though. The family are neo-Nazi skinheads themselves.’
‘Exactly! That’s what the B-negative tattoo is all about. The Nazis thought that that was the purest blood group. SS officers had their blood group tattooed onto them. The B-negative tattoo was highly prized. Encouraged in the breeding programme with blonde-haired blue-eyed German and Norwegian women particularly.’
‘I didn’t know about the blood-group thing. I know they wanted to create a master race.’
‘The thing is, they got it wrong again, apparently. Most Nordic people are type A. I remember coming across a book in the Bodleian that was banned by the Nazis. It was a study into Aryanism written by a German and it concluded that the British and Nordic peoples were more Aryan than the Germans, who had too many Slavic genes.’
‘So the upshot is that Matt Henson is a neo-Nazi, maybe a descendant of the offspring of a German SS officer and a Norwegian woman.’
‘Possibly.’
‘And Jamil Azeez is an Iranian British national studying law.’
‘With a father who is an international human-rights lawyer.’
‘Correct. Who will be here any day demanding answers.’
‘Exactly.’
Bennett collected the papers. ‘Thanks for these. Not sure if any of it is relevant …’
‘We never can be, can we, until we fit all the pieces together.’
Bennett looked at Kate thoughtfully. ‘Jack Delaney must have you well trained.’
‘I hope that’s not some kind of prurient joke, Detective Inspector Bennett.’
‘Not at all. In fact …’ He grinned a little sheepishly and sat on the corner of her desk. ‘Jack Delaney is the reason I joined the police force.’
‘Really?’ said Kate, a sceptical smile playing on her lips.
‘Really!’ Bennett held her gaze, his dark eyes suddenly very serious. ‘I remember seeing that photo of him holding the child rescued from the boot of a car, the whole nation cheering him on as a modern-day hero, and thinking … yeah, that’s what I want to do with my life.’
‘You surprise me.’
‘See, my heroes when I was growing up were Sir Lancelot and Galahad, rescuing damsels in distress, King Arthur, Robin Hood. Not much call for them nowadays.’
‘I’m not at all sure of that.’
‘Which is why I went for a squad car rather than a white charger. And your boyfriend was my inspiration. Seems that way to me, anyway.’
Kate looked into Bennett’s eyes and couldn’t read them – there certainly didn’t seem to be any humour in them now. ‘You’re not joking, are you?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said. And then he blinked and shook his head. ‘So are you up for a bit more detecting?’
‘What you got in mind?’
‘Another of your observations …’
‘Go on.’
‘Jamil’s coat. Why don’t we go and find it?’
*
Doctor Derek Bowman slowly turned the wheel on the device he had inserted between the dead woman’s teeth. Rigor mortis had set in and hadn’t subsided yet. As he turned the wheel the uppermost plate rose, forcing the jaw open. A few more turns and he had a one-inch gap between the teeth. He picked up his tweezers, inserted them carefully into the aperture, and a few moments later removed them. There was an object clamped between them. He put it on the desk and studied it, confused.
‘Coffee to go, I am afraid, doctor,’ said Lorraine as she came into the office, her hat and coat still on.
‘What?’
‘There’s been some developments.’
‘Hang on a moment,’ said the pathologist, picking up his digital camera and firing off some shots.
‘What is it?’
Bowman put down his camera and looked over at her. ‘It’s a watch, Lorraine. A Mickey Mouse watch.’
*
Kate Walker walked out of The Australian, a pub on Camden High Street, fastening her scarf around her neck and buttoning up her coat. There was a definite chill in the air and it was getting colder by the minute. Across the road and further up ahead she saw DI Bennett going i
nto The Star and Garter. She walked, heading in the same direction, towards The Pitcher and Piano, a few yards further on. Camden was turning into the new Islington, she thought, the number of bars and pubs in it. Maybe it always had been, she realised – she didn’t really know the area, it had never been her stomping ground. Maybe Islington was the new Camden.
She opened the door of the pub and threaded her way through the crowds of people fortifying themselves with a warming glass or two before heading home for Sunday lunch. The accents in the air were as polished as the new pine floor and the bar glittered with chrome and glass. The young staff in black trousers and crisp white shirts served the customers with smiles that dazzled. Jack Delaney would bloody hate it, she thought.
Five minutes later a twenty-eight-year-old would-be Lothario called Jeremy, his black hair in a ponytail, informed her that he’d been the duty manager on Friday night and could confirm that no one had left a jacket. He was also fairly sure that the man in the photo had not come into the pub that night. He did offer her his phone number but Kate declined. She didn’t smile.
*
Outside, Kate was standing for a moment to do up her belt when a young, slightly built woman charged past her, nearly knocking her over. She instinctively put a hand to her stomach and was catching her breath when an older woman with dark hair, Middle Eastern features and a furious look in her brown eyes raced past her as well and caught up with the first woman, slamming her against a wall. She was shouting something at the girl in a language that Kate didn’t recognise and had her hand around her throat.
Kate ran up to them, grabbed the older woman’s arms and pulled her away. The woman hissed through her teeth at Kate and threw a roundhouse punch at her. Kate let the punch come, lifting her head back as the fist passed. Swinging the woman around, Kate planted her shoe in her backside and kicked, sending her sprawling and shrieking to the pavement.
‘Hey!’ Bennett shouted from across the street and tried to cross. But the traffic at that moment was too busy. The dark-haired woman picked herself up and ran up the street away from them. Kate turned to the younger woman but she had flipped her hoodie over her head and was running fast in the opposite direction.
‘Oi!’ Kate called after her but she was already disappearing, weaving amongst the tourists and locals who turned Camden busy whatever the weather was like.