Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set

by Tony Hutchinson

  Ed pulled away from Sanderson’s bloated face.

  ‘You want to sort this garden out, give the bairn somewhere nice to play.’

  He walked, almost skipped, down the scruffy path, smiling so wide his cheeks burned.

  Sanderson remained at the door, watching, silent.

  ‘Carver’s downstairs,’ Sam said, as Ed walked into the office.

  ‘Let’s crack on. Who we doing first?’

  ‘The brother,’ Sam told him. ‘Bit aggressive when he got locked up. Looks like he has a problem with women.’

  ‘But represented by one,’ Ed said.

  ‘That’ll be his dad,’ Sam reasoned. ‘Let’s see if I can rattle his cage.’

  Jill Carver was sitting at the front desk, Paul Smith ‘Kennington’ glasses, a £500 touch with ultra-thin varifocal lenses, perched on top of her head, a loose-fitting blouse fastened to her neck, and shapeless trousers.

  ‘No tight, revealing gear today,’ Ed whispered in Sam’s ear. ‘She must have got changed. Doesn’t want to offend her clients.’

  ‘Ms Carver, if you’d like to come through,’ Sam said when they were close. ‘We’ll interview Baljit first.’

  ‘On suspicion of theft of a motor vehicle?’ Carver was walking behind them.

  ‘That’s right,’ Sam said.

  Sam led Carver into an empty interview room in the cell block and put two tapes into the machine.

  ‘I am now handing Ms Carver a piece of paper on which is written the pre-interview disclosure.’

  Carver snatched it and read.

  Pre Interview disclosure

  A Ford Fiesta motor vehicle was found in a lock-up garage in Plymouth. It had been stripped down. The car was owned by Sukhvinder Sahota. The police wish to interview Baljit Bhandal with regard to his knowledge of the vehicle, to which he is forensically linked.’

  ‘What is the forensic evidence?’ Carver demanded.

  ‘He is forensically linked to the vehicle,’ Sam told her. ‘As for what the forensic evidence is, I’m not prepared to tell you at this stage.’

  Carver shook her head and started tutting, a stroppy teenager who’d just been told she couldn’t go to the all-night party.

  ‘Let me speak with my client.’

  Twenty minutes later, the private consultation between Carver and Baljit finished, Sam and Ed walked into the interview room.

  Sam turned on the tapes, completed the introductions and reminded him that he was still under caution.

  ‘I want to ask you about your knowledge of a Ford Fiesta motor vehicle owned by Sukhvinder Sahota.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Sukhi?’ Baljit asked. ‘Where is he? Top lad.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Course I do. He’s my sister’s bloke.’

  ‘How long have you known him?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Since my sister started going out with him,’ Baljit was almost cocky. ‘She asked me to meet him. Check he was alright. She couldn’t ask my parents… You know what it’s like.’

  He smirked.

  ‘No I don’t,’ Sam said. ‘Tell me.’

  Baljit looked from Sam to Ed as if they were beyond stupid.

  ‘My parents believe in the old ways,’ he said. ‘There’s no way they’d let Aisha go out with a lad she’d chosen. She asked me to check him out. I met him. Decent guy. I gave my sister my approval.’

  ‘Your approval?’ Sam snapped. ‘What gives you the right to...’

  Baljit shot forward in his seat.

  ‘I’m her brother!’ he barked. ‘She’s my responsibility.’

  Sam leaned in to him, their noses almost touching.

  ‘Your responsibility? Can’t she choose for herself?’

  Baljit sat back and looked at Ed.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll understand better,’ he said, holding Ed’s stare. ‘Perhaps if your girls were kept in check, had to seek approval, there wouldn’t be so many unwanted pregnancies. Does nobody in this country want to marry a virgin?’

  Carver, silent so far, took her eyes off the pad on her knee and looked up.

  ‘Perhaps we could stick to the matter in hand, i.e. my client’s knowledge of a stolen motor vehicle.’

  ‘Yeah that.’ Baljit was enjoying himself, lapping up the attention. ‘As I said, Sukhi was sound. We got on. I don’t know how many times I’ve been in his car, I’ve lost count, so you’ll definitely find forensics off me. I don’t know anything about Plymouth, though. Is that where you think he and my sister ran away to?’

  Sam and Ed stood whispering outside the interview room, their conversation inaudible to others above the ringing telephones and prisoners shouting from their cells.

  ‘Convenient, wasn’t it?’ Sam said.

  ‘Of course,’ Ed agreed. ‘Carver’s told him about the forensic. He’s put himself in the car. But, and this is the big but, he knows Sukhi’s not going to contradict him. He knows that because Sukhi’s dead. They’re both dead, Sam, trust me.’

  The custody sergeant looked up from his computer screen and shouted across to them: ‘Interpreter’s here boss.’

  ‘This pre-interview disclosure is a joke,’ Carver said. ‘You want to ask my client about a trip to London and the use of her daughter’s bank card. Have you got the bank card?’

  ‘Let’s just leave it for the interview, shall we?’ Sam said. ‘I have given you what I consider to be sufficient information with which to advise your client.’

  ‘So you keep saying,’ Carver glowered. ‘I’ll advise her to go no reply.’

  ‘A matter for you. Now shall we get started?’

  Ed took them into a different interview room, one where he could dictate the seating arrangements. The interpreter was next to Parkash, leaving Carver to sit in the only remaining seat, slightly behind and to the left of her client.

  Ed turned on the tape, Sam again explained the procedure, everyone introduced themselves and the interview began.

  ‘What was the purpose of your visit to London today?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Tell her not to answer that,’ Carver ordered the interpreter.

  ‘Which train did you catch?’

  ‘Tell her not to answer any questions,’ Carver said.

  Sam looked at the interpreter.

  ‘Please tell Mrs Bhandal that she doesn’t have to follow the legal advice offered by Ms Carver. It is advice, not instructions, and it will be her, not her solicitor, who may have to explain her no replies at court.’

  Sam turned to Carver. ‘You’ve given your client your advice. Now I suggest you stop interrupting the interview.’

  Imaginary daggers were flying from Carver’s eyes.

  The interview would last longer than normal; each question translated into Punjabi, any answer then translated into English.

  ‘During the course of the morning a withdrawal was attempted from your daughter’s bank account at a machine in London. Was that you?’

  Silence.

  ‘Do you have possession of your daughter’s bank card?’

  Silence.

  ‘Do you know her pin number?’

  Silence.

  Carver spoke.

  ‘Did my client have possession of the bank card when she was arrested? When you searched her?’

  Sam looked at Aisha’s mother.

  ‘As you are aware, we did not find a bank card on your person when we searched you.’

  A smug smile appeared on Carver’s face.

  ‘But what you are unaware of is that I went back on to the platform and searched where you fell... ’

  Carver jumped in, the smile history.

  ‘I have not been informed of this.’

  ‘I’m informing you now,’ Sam told her.

  Carver was barely holding back her fury.

  ‘You’re trying to hijack this interview.’

  ‘No,’ Sam answered. ‘I am trying to get the truth.’

  Ed covered his mouth with his hand, thinking it best to hide his smirk as Sam continued, her voice
calm.

  ‘Your client has, on your advice, gone no reply. Now I wish to ask her about her fall in the station.’

  Carver slumped against the chair.

  ‘Do you remember falling over?’

  Bhandal glanced at Carver who shook her head.

  Silence.

  ‘Well, let me remind you. It’s all captured on the station CCTV. You fell near a coffee stand. I went back there while you were in our car. Underneath the stand I found this.’

  Sam pulled out a plastic bag from her pocket.

  ‘I am now showing Mrs Bhandal a plastic bag, marked Witness Reference SP1.’

  Nobody moved as Sam held it up.

  Aisha’s HSBC debit card slipped to the bottom of the bag and nestled in the corner, the embossed details catching the light.

  Carver broke the silence, her voice flat.

  ‘I need to speak with my client.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Ten minutes later, Sam and Ed were back in the interview room.

  ‘Before you had a private consultation with your solicitor I showed you a debit card in your daughter’s name that I found on the station platform where you fell. Do you know how it got there?’

  Parkash’s hands were clasped together on her knees, her eyes staring at the floor. Her words were slow, measured, barely audible and translated into English by the interpreter.

  ‘It must have fallen out of my purse, when I fell…you saw me fall.’

  ‘Mrs Bhandal, can you speak up please?’ Sam said.

  ‘I did use it this morning in London, by accident. At the tube station. Embankment. I was meeting a friend. I withdrew £30. I always looked after Aisha’s card and we both had the same PIN number. It was a horrible mistake. I’d forgotten I had it.’

  ‘Which friend?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘You can’t have spent much time with them?’ Sam pressed her.

  ‘As soon as I realised I’d used Aisha’s card, I broke down,’ Parkash said. ‘I just wanted to get home to my husband…’

  She started to cry.

  ‘These last few months have been awful. You won’t know what it’s like to lose a child.’

  Ed and Sam stood outside, drawing in the evening air, doing their best to rid their nostrils and clothes of the stink of the custody office; a windowless space regularly sprayed with a giant aerosol of human sweat.

  Sam was the first to speak. ‘How the hell people work down there day in, day out, never seeing the light of day, the noise, prisoners shouting for solicitors, cigarettes, their freedom… it’s beyond me. And the stink.’

  ‘Some of them enjoy it,’ Ed told her. ‘Keeps them off the streets.’

  Sam was pulling a cigarette from the packet. ‘Like HG Wells’s Warlocks in the Time Machine, living underground.’

  ‘Warlocks?’ Ed smiled. ‘Now there’s a good name for the custody office vitamin D dodgers.’

  Sam lit a cigarette.

  ‘Two down, one to go. All very neat and tidy so far.’

  ‘Yep, the Butcher’s doing her thing,’ Ed said. ‘Let her think she’s winning.’

  Ed glanced at his watch – 8.25pm.

  ‘Interview the father then call it a night?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Carver had finished her private consultation.

  Sam led the interview.

  ‘Mr Bhandal. I want to ask you about a settee you bought from Karan Singh in December.’ Her nose twitched. The stench-thermometer in the interview room had risen.

  Sam and Ed believed Bhandal’s attitude towards women, his sense of superiority, would make it difficult for him to sit there and go no reply. They hoped he would disregard Jill Carver if that had been her advice.

  If the son had a problem with women, it was likely he had learned those beliefs and behaviours from somewhere... or someone.

  So they weren’t surprised when Bhandal, unlike his wife, spoke loudly and clearly.

  ‘We’ve all heard of the fashion police, but none of us have heard of the furniture police,’ he sneered. ‘Is it an offence to buy a settee in England now?’ He smirked and relaxed back in his chair, in control and confident.

  ‘How many settees did you buy in December?’

  Carver coughed. Bhandal looked at her, theatrically raising his hand, pushing his palm towards her face.

  ‘Two.’ He turned back to Sam and Ed. ‘I bought one which my wife didn’t like, so I bought another one.’

  ‘And what did you do with the first one?’ Sam asked.

  He raised both hands, palms facing the ceiling. ‘My old one, or the one I bought and my wife didn’t like?’

  ‘The one your wife didn’t like.’

  ‘I sold it.’

  ‘Who to?’ Sam asked, the exchange gathering speed.

  ‘I don’t know his name. Just a man I met in a pub.’

  ‘Which pub?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘So you sold it to the proverbial unknown man in a pub you cannot remember.’

  ‘I’m a busy man,’ Bhandal protested. ‘I cannot remember everything.’

  He stretched his legs out in front of him.

  ‘How long did you have the settee before you sold it?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Not long. My wife didn’t want it in the house. She thought I’d made a bad choice. And as you know, Inspector... ’

  He paused and flashed a smile.

  ‘... if you’ve upset the wife, you rectify it as quickly as possible.’

  To Sam, the smile was one of utter disregard for her and the circumstances surrounding their conversation.

  ‘And how long was it before you got another one?’ she asked, masking her contempt.

  ‘Oh, just a couple of days. Mr Singh was very good.’

  ‘Can you remember the exact date?’

  ‘The exact date?’ Another smile. ‘I don’t know about you, Inspector... ’ each syllable was pronounced for maximum effect, reminding her he’d deliberately got her rank wrong, ‘... but I couldn’t begin to remember the exact date when I bought something in December.’

  The interview was turning into a game of chess, a head to head that Sam always somehow enjoyed.

  ‘Okay, let’s see if we can whittle it down,’ she said now. ‘Was it before Christmas?’

  ‘Most definitely.’ Bhandal shuffled forward, rested his elbows on the table, and steepled his fingers in what Sam saw as a mocking sign of concentration and sincerity.

  Sam wanted to pull him across the table and punch him. ‘What day was it delivered?’

  ‘Monday,’ Bhandal said after a pause. ‘The second one was delivered on a Monday.’

  ‘And the first one?’

  ‘Umm, I believe it was a Saturday. Yes, a Saturday.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sam said, trying to shape the game her way. ‘Did they arrive before Aisha went missing.’

  Bhandal dropped his head at the mention of his daughter’s name.

  ‘No. I think that’s why my wife didn’t like the first one. It came the day after Aisha disappeared.’

  ‘So the first one was delivered on Saturday 14th December.’

  Bhandal sat back, looked up, scratched his cheek, and looked back at Sam. When he spoke it was quiet, slow. ‘Yes, I suppose it was now you put it like that.’

  ‘Well, Mr Singh agrees. So Saturday it is.’

  Carver looked up and pushed her glasses from her eyes to her head. ‘Is there any purpose to this line of questioning?’

  ‘Indeed there is,’ Sam told her, turning her gaze again to Bhandal. ‘The first settee, the one you gave to a man in the pub.’

  Bhandal and Carver both stared at her.

  ‘That man is Joey Sanderson,’ Sam continued. ‘We have a statement from him saying you paid him to burn that settee.’

  Bhandal was rigid. This time his words were neither quiet nor slow.

  ‘Who? I’ve never heard of him. He’s lying.’ The knuckles on his right hand were white,
his grip on the desk tighter now than his grip on the interview.

  Sam seemed almost serene. ‘He says he and another collected the settee from your house, but here’s the thing. He didn’t burn it. He sold it.’

  When Bhandal glared at Sam, she saw defiance not surrender. Neither looked away.

  Sam blinked first, the involuntary movement a trigger to speak.

  ‘And now we have it,’ she paused, allowing the significance of her words to register with Bhandal and Carver. ‘I presume you want a word with your solicitor. Interview terminated at... ’ she glanced at her watch ‘... 8.53pm.’

  Sam turned off the tapes and took her time packaging them, enjoying the moment, savouring a trap well sprung.

  She pushed the chair back, the legs screeching across the floor. She nodded at Bhandal, turned and walked out. Ed followed, fighting the urge to smile. He didn’t want the cameras recording his glee.

  He didn’t hide it once they stepped through the custody door into the corridor. ‘Marvellous, bloody marvellous!’ Ed said. ‘Couldn’t have gone better... I knew the little shit would ignore the Butcher’s advice.’

  Sam was also feeling elated.

  ‘He was so arrogant, it played right into our hands,’ she said. ‘He had to show who was boss. I want his balls on a plate. If that poor girl is dead, I want him to rot.’

  She glanced at her watch. ‘I need to ring Bev, check on Mia.’

  She made the call on speaker phone, Ed listening at her side.

  ‘How did you get on?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Nightmare.’ Bev’s voice was weary. ‘Social Services are bad enough Monday to Friday but on a Saturday? More life in a tramp’s vest. When they eventually got their arses in gear, they wanted to put her somewhere culturally appropriate... ’

  Sam dived in. ‘She hasn’t gone to Asians has she?’

  ‘No,’ Bev reassured her. ‘I remembered what Ed said.’

  Ed nodded.

  Bev went on. ‘I argued for Mia go to a white family, somewhere where she wouldn’t be asked all sorts of awkward questions. They weren’t happy, but I pointed out if they chose a so-called culturally acceptable placement and something happened to her, we... well, you... would crucify them in the media. She’s with a white family.’