Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set
Page 32
I screamed at her: “I don’t want to get married. I’m not some backward girl from an Indian village.”
She slapped me across the face, screamed at me in Punjabi. I’m bilingual. I have to be. My mother can’t speak a word of English. She doesn’t have to. She doesn’t know anyone white. All the years over here and she’s never tried to integrate with anybody. Multi-culturalism? Not in my world.
My mother came from the Punjab to marry my father. It’s somebody from her village who I have to marry. He’s 31. He was 13 when I was promised to him. I was a baby. Apart from him being ugly, and I mean Quasimodo ugly, I don’t want to get married. My parents want the wedding to take place next year. I want to finish college, go to university, and get a good job. My mother doesn’t believe in education. Not for girls anyway. She says I know everything I need to know... how to wash, iron, clean, and make perfectly rounded Roti. What more could I need? Err hello – how about a life?
My father was born here. I wonder what it would have been like if he’d married someone from the UK, not necessarily white, but someone born here, like me, like my sister, who’s 15 now.
We were making lentils last Sunday, mother and me. She was chopping fresh coriander. I was still in shock, still sulking. I asked her who would marry my sister, said no doubt it was already arranged. She started screaming at me, brandishing the knife in her hand. She called me a whore.
My mother, who came from a village outside Jalandhar, goes on about Izzat much more than my dad does.
We’re going to India next year. We go every three years. My mother wants to build a house there, a big house. You see plenty of them when you visit, all built by people living in England, all of them screaming “Hey, look at me, look how well I’m doing”.
It’s all about showing off. They have models on the roof, bigger than TV aerials. I’ve seen model planes on them. What’s that all about?
We’re Jats, you know, the top caste. Don’t let people tell you it’s irrelevant. My mother would go ballistic if I married someone from a lower caste. She constantly reminds people of our ranking down at the Gurdwara.
My brother’s car registration number even ends in JAT; my mother bought it for her prodigal son.
It’s about skin tone as well. I’m fairly light skinned. Chamars, the lowest caste, the lowest of the low who pick the shit up off the street in India according to my mother, are invariably dark skinned – a bad sign as far as my mother’s concerned.
Next time you’re out in an Asian area, keep an eye out for different skin tones, and check out how many JAT number plates you can spot.
I was looking forward to seeing my maternal grandparents next year. They have a farm – another thing my mother brags about – but now I’m worried that when I’m out there, my parents will force me to marry. You hear it happening to girls.
My friends at college said I should just say no to the marriage… yeah right, like it was that easy. They have no idea. Even saying no brings shame, Behsti, on the family. My friends have freedoms and choices I can only dream about.
They say if I’m out there and something bad happens, I should go the British Embassy. How? They have no idea how big the country is, and everybody would be out looking for me. Not just family, but the whole community.
They say I should run away and hide in the UK. I told my friends about the bounty hunters. They didn’t believe me. Why would they? Who would believe that parents pay members of our community to hunt us down here in the UK? Read the papers, I tell them.
Everybody just open your eyes. Look around. It’s not unusual for South Asian girls to be taken out of school, taken to India and Pakistan, forced to marry. It happened to Shazia down our street. She was left in Pakistan until she was pregnant. Came back with a kid. She was 16 when she came back. She was out there for over a year; only 14 when she went out. None of the authorities looked for her. She married a bloke who was 32. None of the authorities batted an eyelid when she turned up with a four-month-old baby. No one asked how old she was when it was conceived. All terrified of being called a racist so they look the other way. Racist? If I was white, they’d call it child abuse but I’m not, so they call it “cultural”.
One girl was only 13 when she married. Thirteen! Married a man in his late 20s. Some of these girls are five. Yes, you heard me, five years old when they go out and get engaged. Some white people have an idea what goes on, but most haven’t got a clue. As I said, those who have an idea don’t want to get involved; hiding behind an “it’s what they do” attitude. Think what would happen if white girls were taken out of school and married off... child protection and all that. Not us. We have to get on with it because “it’s what they do”.
I met Sukhvinder this afternoon. Sukhi to his friends. He’s gorgeous. Drop dead. He’s told me he loves me. His parents are dead. Killed in a car smash when he was 16. They were from the Punjab and they’re Chamar. He lives in a rented flat. He’s 22. I told him I love him, too. I think I do. He knows about my marriage. He says I should run away with him. Really? Where would we go?
He wants to hold my hand in town, but I always tell him no. Someone might see us. He wants to kiss, to kiss in public. I want to but I wouldn’t dare.
Sukhi has a car so perhaps we could run but they would never stop hunting us down.
It’s not like what Walter Cannon, that American physiologist I read about, said in the 1920s: fight or flight. We can try the flight, but we’d have no chance of winning the fight. I’ve come up with another phrase if I don’t run: comply or die.
You probably think that sounds a bit over-dramatic. Check out the Internet. See how many honour killings there are.
Some people – politicians, women’s groups, lawyers – don’t like the ‘honour crime’ label. There’s no honour in violence, no honour in murder, they say. Of course there’s not, but they miss the point. What drives the violence is the honour code; how women are supposed to behave. They’d be better challenging the behaviour than arguing about what it should be called.
When we’re told we have to marry, we have few choices. You heard me right the first time... run, comply or die. You don’t believe me? As I said, read the papers.
Shopping was great this afternoon, walking around with Sukhi. I was just like the white girls at college. Well, for those two-and-a-half hours anyway. I didn’t buy anything, any clothes or make-up. What would be the point? I’d never get to wear the clothes and, as I’ve already told you, I don’t know how to put on make-up. Besides, taking things like that into the house would only lead to one thing.
My mother would go mental if I went home with a pair of jeans. Sukhi says if we were together, he would buy me jeans. I don’t know how. He’d have to get a proper job first. He’s got one here, part-time, but he’d have to give that up.
He walked me to the bus stop. It was cold and getting dark. As my bus came he bent down and kissed me on the lips. I forgot where I was. I stood on my tiptoes, put my hands around the back of his neck, pulled him into me, and pushed my tongue into his mouth. It was incredible but almost immediately I pushed him away.
Insanity. Absolute insanity. I had just snogged Sukhi at the bus stop!!
I giggled as I got on the bus and waved goodbye. I was grinning, blushing, giddy. It was true – I was floating on air. I dropped into the seat behind the driver.
Then I saw him standing under a lamp post staring at me. I locked my eyes on the floor. Shit shit shit!
My mum’s brother. Uncle Gurmej.
He had followed my mother to the UK. One arranged marriage, in this case my mother’s, and loads of family members end up coming. Control immigration? Dream on.
I took my phone out of my bag. My hands were shaking as I tapped out a text to Sukhi. If he wanted to run away with me, it had to be today. I would never be let out of the house again. Next week college finished for Christmas, but I wouldn’t be there. They’d lock me in my room, keep me off college.
Then India and the wedding fa
st-forwarded.
I had to get home fast, had to pack. I didn’t have much. Take a few clothes, a couple of photographs, one or two books, kiss my little sister one more time, get away before my dad came back, get away before my uncle got there and told them what he’d seen.
Run but run where? Other than going to India every three years I’d never left Seaton St George. I’d never been camping or in a caravan like the girls from school, never set foot in a hotel. I’d never even been in English restaurants. I had been to a few weddings: Sikh weddings, of course, with hundreds of people, but even then there was always the invisible code. Izzat. It dominates our lives.
Running away to a strange town with no money, no family or friends?
The fingers of my left hand had curled hard around the bright yellow pole below the red ‘stop’ button and squeezed until they went white.
Maybe I would be better off getting married.
I leaned forward and stared at the floor again.
Why couldn’t I have the life other girls in this country have? I wouldn’t go around getting drunk, being sick, that sort of thing. I’d be good, I told myself, like most of the English girls.
I am an English girl.
I just happen to be of Asian descent so I would never get the same freedom. I desperately wanted everything this country has to offer, but it would never happen.
I didn’t want to run away from my family, but what choice did I have? I didn’t want to marry Quasimodo. And my uncle had just seen me kissing a boy in the street.
This was going to be the longest bus ride of my life.
Chapter Two
Saturday 12th April 2014
‘We just want you to come home. Whatever it is, we still love you. Please, we are begging you, come home.’
Detective Chief Inspector Sam Parker and Detective Sergeant Ed Whelan were watching the TV in the corner of the Major Incident Room, a huge deep black TV, a throwback to an earlier time. Nobody could remember who brought it into the office.
The father, dressed in a black shirt and black turban, spoke to the camera. ‘We are worried about you. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Please get in touch, please come home.’
He wiped his tears with a blue handkerchief.
‘How long she’s been missing now?’ Sam said, her eyes shifting from the TV, glancing at the detectives watching the screen, tin-foil containers on their desks, the remains of chicken fried rice, beef satay, beef curry, floating in a sea of reddish oil, the lingering aromatic smell a clue to what they’d eaten.
‘Four months,’ Ed said. ‘Look at him. All tears, head down. And her, the wife, been in the UK what, 20 years, still doesn’t speak English. Look at her dress, totally traditional. And they’d have you believe that all’s well, the daughter’s got nothing to be afraid of, that they’ve integrated, that she can have her own life. Bollocks.’
The top of Mrs Bhandal’s head filled the screen, thick black hair with streaks of grey. Not once had she looked up since she sat on one of the three chairs behind the long table.
The family solicitor, Jill Carver, had organised the press conference in a small hotel on the sea front of Seaton St George. Starting the conference at 11am made sure it was featured on the lunchtime news, but more importantly, it gave Carver an element of control; the bar had to be vacated by 11.30am in preparation for the Saturday lunches.
‘As usual Carver thinks she’s pulling all the strings,’ Sam said. ‘Organising it for a Saturday, typical slow news day. Maximum coverage for her clients.’
They watched the husband again, listened to him as he read from a piece of paper, his index finger following the words like a small child learning to read.
‘Some of the reports by the media, fuelled by the inept police investigation into our daughter’s disappearance, have been hurtful. We would never harm our children and to say such things is terrible. I was born in this country. My wife came here when we married. We love our children dearly. We just want our daughter to come home, to enjoy all the things the UK has to offer.’
‘Yeah right,’ Ed said, rolling his eyes.
‘What’s up?’ asked Sam.
‘I’ll tell you after this has finished.’
‘Please, please, just come home.’ The father buried his hands in his head. Cameras flashed.
Jill Carver spoke. ‘This is a very emotional time for Mr and Mrs Bhandal, a very stressful time. You heard their appeal today.’
Flashlights bounced off her dark hair.
‘All they want is for their daughter to return home. She has been missing for four months now. They cling to the hope that she is alive and well.’
She paused, looked around the room, picked up her Montblanc pen and pointed it at the assembled media. Aggressive authority replaced the tones of empathy.
‘They have answered all questions asked by Eastern Police, but they feel that the police investigation is focussing on the family and not investigating Aisha’s…’
‘Finally somebody mentions her name,’ Ed pushed his chair away from the desk.
‘... disappearance,’ Carver continued. ‘My clients are peaceful, loving people who abhor the suggestion that has been played out in the media, fuelled, to use my client’s phrase, by the inept police investigation, that this is an honour crime. This is a case of a young 18-year-old who has gone missing…’
‘And was missing for three days before they reported it,’ Ed shouted, jumping out of the chair.
‘And my clients are as desperate as any other parents would be to have their daughter safely returned to the love and support of her family,’ Carver finished.
The father spoke again.
‘Please, please, Aisha, just come home.’
Jill Carver stood up.
‘Thank you everybody. As you can see my clients are very distressed, and answering any questions that you may have would just add to that. Thank you once again for coming.’
Despite the barrage of questions that followed, she ushered the couple out of a side door.
‘Well Carver wrote that speech for him,’ Sam stood up.
‘Absolutely every word,’ Ed added, following her to her office.
‘Go on then,’ Sam said, sitting at her desk. ‘Enlighten me.’
Ed pulled out a chair.
‘He talks about Aisha being able to do what she wants. You saw them. They’re traditional Sikhs. No way will she be able to do what she wants. Let’s see if there’s an arranged marriage in the background. He’s obviously had one.’
‘How do you know?’
‘C’mon. He’s born here. She’s been here 20 years. They’re in their 40s. Aisha’s 18. Wife comes over from rural Punjab. Probably arranged when they were kids, maybe even when they were babies. Families like that stick to the traditional way. Arranged marriages. Bring someone over from India, guaranteed entry to the UK, the better life.’
‘What’s it like over there, over in India?’
‘Where they come from? Rural Punjab. Best way to describe it is how I imagine England to have been in the days of Robin Hood, only less rain and more heat: oxen pulling ploughs, life very slow, water drawn from wells. It’s different to the cities, different to Delhi, Mumbai, different to Goa. The wife’s family, from what I remember, lived in a small village about an hour from Jalandhar. Next to the village where his family come from.’
‘It’s a place Tristram and I always fancied,’ Sam said. ‘Before…you know?’
‘I know.’ Ed paused, waiting for Sam’s glassy eyes to lose the film of water. ‘There’s no doubt it’s a fascinating place.’
He slowly shook his head from side to side as he recalled his visits to India. ‘Delhi’s packed. Every time you turn a corner it’s like St James’ Park emptying, people flashing their white teeth, brown eyes staring at you, curious about you. Then there are the smells... spices, curry… and the bright clothing, a Picasso on a canvas of thick, grey exhaust fumes.’
‘Very poetic,’ Sam smiled.
‘Like Chris Rea’s ‘Road to Hell’.’
‘Trust me,’ Ed said. ‘No way does the M1 compare to that road. Any girl born in this country, sat in the back of a car, looking out of the window, driving up there with family for an arranged marriage, must be absolutely terrified.’
Ed looked away, picturing the scene: the three lane Grand Trunk road, cars overtaking, undertaking, braking for carts pulled by cows, scooters carrying father, wife, and as many kids as they had. The heat. The dust. The never-ending road bordered by fields and occasional petrol stations and food outlets, the sense of enormity. A British-born girl taken there for a forced marriage had no chance. Where would they go? He was a well-travelled middle-aged detective, not some girl shy of her 19th birthday, who’d never been out of her home town, other than to visit relatives in either England or India. These girls would be overwhelmed, helpless.
Sam leaned back in her chair and stretched her legs.
‘Is that your opinion? Forced marriage?’
‘Been at the back of mind since the day she went missing,’ Ed told her. ‘She’s the eldest of two daughters. Mum and dad must have had arranged marriage. If people are happy with that arrangement, fine. Let’s be right, it’s no more of a lottery than meeting someone at work or in a pub.
‘But when the girl doesn’t want to go through with it, when she is forced, that’s a different issue. There’ll be so many pointers in the family. I wouldn’t mind having a look at the file to be honest.’
Sam thrust herself upright, coming to ‘attention’ in the chair.
‘Well that’s good. We’ve been asked by Monica Teal, our new ACC, to have a look at it and I’m reckoning you can provide some investigative pointers. You’ve been on national working parties, plus there’s your personal insight. Giving the investigation another coat of looking at is not going to hurt. And be honest, you love getting one over Jill Carver as much as I do.’