by David Menon
‘Marcus?’
‘Hello, Jeff’.
There were a couple of uniformed police officers standing about along with two or three other members of Marcus Walters’ forensic team. Their eyes were darting all over the place so as to avoid looking at the body. It was always the same when the murder of a child was involved. You could take the most hardened officers with years of experience but when faced with a crime committed against a child and all the black humour that was characteristic of the profession was dropped. It twisted the heart of the best of them.
‘She’s only been dead for about an hour, Jeff’ said Marcus.
‘So we’re only talking about a very short timeframe that the killer had to carry out his evil deed and the local boys arriving’ said Barton. ‘And the cause of death, Marcus?’
‘I think that this time, Jeff, we are looking at a combination of the shock at having her feet cut off, which was probably the scream I understand you heard on the phone, and then she was battered senseless which is why there was blood coming out of her head as well as the stumps of her legs’.
‘Well we know she was thirteen because the poor little mite told us’ said Barton who was trying to detach himself from the awful sight of Manals mutilated body but it was difficult. This abysmal boarded up room that was so dark and shabby was where a little girl had been dragged halfway across the world, after having been born into a war zone, only to be used for sex. And they call this the developed, civilised part of the world? Barton wondered what the fuck had happened to humanity.
‘This was punishment’ said DCI Ollie Wright. ‘She was punished for contacting us and trying to get help to get out of here’.
‘Or someone used her to play with us?’ said Barton.
‘Sir?’
‘Well what if Wayne Carpenter’s phone was deliberately planted in this room for her to find? They knew what she would do. They knew that she would use it to get help. She’d have used any means to get out of here. I think that if I’m right then they had someone listening at the door waiting for her to find and use the phone. Remember Margaret Reynolds said that Carpenter rang her and said he had to go and do something? They got him in here knowing he’d be able to get away quickly. Wayne Carpenter probably doesn’t mean anything to the people he no doubt slavishly obeys but to him it’s gone beyond asking him to jump and he asks how high. Ollie, they wanted to show us that they have the power to commit heinous crimes against children and not leave a trail that’s strong enough for us to pick up and work on’.
‘That’s if Carpenter really is our man, sir’ said Wright. ‘I mean we are putting two and two together here’.
‘So what’s your alternative theory?’
‘That Carpenter genuinely lost his phone and has got nothing to do with this’ said Wright. ‘It’s just a thought, sir, that I think we should keep out there, you know’.
‘No, I take your point, Ollie’ said Barton as he looked once more around the disgusting room. ‘What I’m also wondering is where does any of this leave Bernie Connelly’
Barton and Wright then went downstairs where DS Adrian Bradshaw and DC Joe Alexander had been interviewing the four women dressed in traditional African clothes.
‘They’re not giving us much beyond the obvious, sir’ said Bradshaw. ‘We’ve got names, home addresses and they all claim to be in this country legally’.
‘So what are they doing in this house?’
‘They say that this is where they prepare all the catering for events at the John the Baptist church, sir and where visitors to the church are put up’.
‘Really? Now isn’t that interesting. So does the church own this house then?’
‘Louisa is checking on that back at the station, sir’.
‘Thanks, Adrian’ said Barton. ‘Have the four women been here all morning?’
‘They said not but it didn’t look like they’d just shown up, sir’ said DC Alexander. ‘They were busy preparing food for something or someone’.
‘So they must’ve seen something’.
‘But again they say not’.
‘Right. Well we’ll see about that. Where are they?’
’Through there in the living room, sir’.
Barton went through and stood in the middle of the room. The women were all late middle-aged and he’d put them in their mid to late fifties. They were probably mothers and even grandmothers. How could they have stood by and let that little girl suffer so much?
‘When can we go home?’ one of them asked. She looked like the strongest, sitting upright and looking like she’d take no prisoners. Unless they happened to be underage girls being used for sex of course.
‘Go home?’ Barton questioned. ‘And when was the little girl upstairs going to be allowed to go home?’
‘We don’t know anything about some little girl’.
‘And I think you’re lying’.
‘We don’t lie! We are women who follow the word of Jesus’.
‘Well I think you may have got a few interpretations of the word of Jesus wrong’ said Barton. ‘We are going to arrest you all on suspicion of being accessories in the murder of as yet an unidentified young girl. You’ll be taken down to the station where you will be questioned. DS Bradshaw and DC Alexander? Please do the honours’.
There were howls of protest from the women who had to be virtually dragged through the house and into the waiting police cars whilst screaming about their human rights being violated and the entire police force being made up of racist scum who God will punish by sending them all to Hell.
‘You have so got all of this wrong, detective!’ raged Pastor Gabriel after stepping out of his car and making a beeline for Barton. ‘Release these women immediately! They have done nothing wrong’.
‘With all due respect, Pastor, I and the public prosecutions office will be the judges of that’.
‘God is the only judge! And with one hand he saves and with the other he strikes and you will feel his wrath very soon believe me’.
‘Pastor, does this house belong to your church?’
Gabriel paused before answering. ‘Yes’.
‘Well a young girl was murdered in this house earlier this morning’ said Barton. ‘So I’ll need for you to give us a DNA sample. We have a pathologist here who can do it for you so you don’t need to come to the station. I’m sure you’ll co-operate because you wouldn’t want to impede a police investigation now would you?’
‘I have got nothing to hide but whatever happens, God will be with me’.
Barton knew he shouldn’t react but he couldn’t help it. ‘Pastor, where was God when a little girl who’d done no harm to anyone but who’d had her innocence stolen from her by evil men and ended up being brutally murdered in a room directly above the one we’re standing in right now?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Where was your God then, Pastor?’
The four women who’d been at the house at 10, Rosebud Street had been taken down to the cells protesting loudly but they could protest all they liked as far as Barton was concerned. He just wasn’t prepared to accept that these women knew nothing of what had happened to little Manal. It just wasn’t credible that they didn’t know she was there and, more importantly, they had to know what had happened in the house this morning. He didn’t care if they were lying to protect someone or because they were scared of someone, he would get it out of them one way or another. For tonight he was going to let them sweat in the cells. Hopefully that would loosen their tongues by the morning.
He’d also told the team to go home just after six but be back to start again at eight in the morning. They had quite a few things to work on but they needed a rest.
Barton called Rita on his mobile before leaving the office and found she was already at his place. He was running late but said he’d be there in about an hour. He had a call to make on the way and told her it was police business.
But it wasn’t anything to do with police business. It did have everything to do with Rita and that�
�s why he didn’t reveal all to her.
The early evening trade down at the Rice Bowl restaurant was swift just like it always was at this time. People who worked in the city and decided to eat before going home to the suburbs, or people who’d been out shopping all day and were dead on their feet in need of culinary therapy after the retail kind, then there were those who liked to eat early and put a lining on their stomach before hitting the bars and clubs for the night. The sight of all the food being served and the accompanying aromas were making Barton feel decidedly hungry but he wasn’t there to eat.
‘Hello, Jeff!’ greeted Betty the owner in her usual long black tunic with black trousers underneath. Her black hair cut to her shoulders and the minimal amount of make-up on her slightly shaded face made her look like some femme fatale from a 1930’s melodrama. They kissed on each cheek like they always did. ‘Do you want a table? Is it just you?’
‘No, not tonight thanks, Betty’ said Barton. ‘And I can see you’re busy but I would appreciate a moment of your time’.
Betty led him to the small table next to the bar where she sat and supervised and did whatever paperwork was necessary. She gestured for him to sit down in the spare chair. She sat down in her own next to it.
‘I know why you’re here, Jeff’ said Betty in her lightly accented Chinese voice. She’d been over here so long that she was beginning to pick up traces of Mancunian in the way she spoke. ‘You want to talk about Rita’.
‘I want to know why she seems to be so universally disliked by members of her own community’ said Barton. ‘And I’m not going to leave here without a good enough answer’.
‘Jeff, you know how the Chinese community in Manchester is very tight-knit. Everyone knows everyone’.
‘Well I’m not really in the loop much these days, Betty’ said Barton. ‘Lillie Mae’s parents tell me stuff but it’s not the same as when she was here’.
‘But you know enough to know that it means something when the Chinese turn on one of their own’ said Betty.
‘Yes’ said Barton. ‘I do. So why have you all turned on Rita?’
‘Jeff, there are many projects currently being negotiated between the Chinese government and local firms here in the northwest that will provide a lot of very valuable jobs to people here’.
‘And Rita’s job is to act a mediator in negotiating those agreements’.
‘Yes, but she takes it a step further by claiming all the credit for herself in whatever deal is done’ Betty explained. ‘She makes sure that Beijing can only identify her with the project. and though she’s done nothing to put the actual nuts and bolts together, she swans in at the end as if everything had been down to her. That’s why people don’t like her, Jeff, and why they turn their back because they’re fed up with her stamping on their day in the sun’.
‘So why don’t they do something about it? Make representations of some kind to her? Confront her with it all?’
‘Many people in the community have tried, Jeff, believe me. But it’s like when they tried to tell the tennis player Maria Sharapova that her grunts and screams every time she hits the ball is distracting to her opponent and she just shrugged her shoulders and didn’t give a damn. And she carried on grunting and screaming every time she hit the ball. Well Rita Chung is like that, Jeff. She’s so arrogant that she really doesn’t care about what other people think. Do Lillie Mae’s parents know that you’re seeing her?’
‘I don’t think so, no’.
‘Well they won’t be impressed, believe me and you don’t want to offend them or any of your other many friends in the Chinese community. We almost see you as one of us, Jeff, and that’s why anyone would be warning you against Rita Chung just like I am because, it may not really be any of our business, but we care about you and we care about Toby. You can’t compare Rita to Lillie Mae, Jeff. They’re like chalk and cheese’.
Jeff sighed heavily. ‘But Lillie Mae isn’t here, Betty’.
‘Yes and I know that you miss her madly and that you want that closeness back that you had with her. I get that, Jeff. I really do. But you can’t replace Lillie Mae with Rita’.
DS Adrian Bradshaw’s entire family consisting of his three kids and his mother were all in the lounge watching TV after having eaten dinner that had been prepared in their newly completed kitchen when the front door bell rang. Adrian opened it and a woman in her early thirties with short brown hair, a fresh face with little make-up and dressed in a denim jacket with light blue jeans and a white t-shirt, asked him if he was Adrian Bradshaw.
‘Yes?’
‘You’re a police officer, aren’t you?’
‘Yes I am. Sorry but who are you and what is it you want because I’m off duty right now’.
‘I’m sorry’ she said. ‘I’m Muriel. Muriel Adams? Tim the builder’s wife?’
Oh fuck a flaming duck, thought Adrian. With a quick sideways glance towards the noise of his family and the TV coming from the lounge, Adrian feared the absolute worst. Tim had no doubt blurted it all out to Muriel about his night of passion with Adrian and now the spurned wife had come to confront him on his own doorstep. This couldn’t be happening. Surely she wasn’t going to hang the dirty washing out in front of his family? He accepted that she had every right to be angry with him but this wasn’t appropriate.
‘Look, I .... ‘
‘.... its in your capacity as a police officer that I’ve come to see you’.
Adrian felt the sense of relief pass through him like water flowing down a mountain stream but he was no less intrigued by what it was she did want from him.
‘How do you mean, Muriel?’
‘I’m almost at my wit’s end’ she went on, her face having suddenly become angst ridden. ‘I know I shouldn’t call on you at home like this but I didn’t know what else to do. When Tim said he was doing some work for a police officer I couldn’t resist. It’s about our daughter, you see. She was taken away by the Pastor at our church to some kind of retreat because she expressed what he called were unnatural feelings for her friend Amber’.
‘Yes, Tim told me about that actually’ said Adrian.
‘And what do you think about it?’
‘Well I wouldn’t have let either of my daughters, or my son for that matter, go off with some religious fanatics to a location that’s being kept secret from me, their father’.
‘Exactly! You see, you get it. You get that it’s wrong because you’re a normal father who hasn’t been brainwashed to the point when you let your daughter go. And that was nearly two weeks ago and she should’ve been back last weekend to start back at school after the mid-term break. I haven’t been able to phone her because they’ve taken her phone off her and all Tim keeps saying is that it’s all God’s will and that the Pastor will take care of her and we don’t need to involve anyone else especially not the police. But it isn’t right. I’m really scared about what might have happened to her and I’m getting desperate. Tim just doesn’t want to know. He says he has absolute faith in the Pastor’.
‘Is this Pastor Gabriel from the Church of John the Baptist on Hatton Road?’
‘Yes. Do you know him?’
‘Let’s say I’ve begun to know of him recently’ said Adrian who’d been trying to get hold of Tim to warn him that they were investigating Pastor Gabriel and that he should demand to know where his daughter was being held because it was clearly against her own will. But he also couldn’t help feeling as guilty as Hell knowing that he’d been gaining carnal pleasure from the husband of this poor woman standing in front of him who was going out of her mind with worry. Well he certainly wasn’t going to tell her about the good time they’d shared or that it had been somewhat soured by Tim breaking down in tears afterwards when guilt and self-loathing had risen up to replace the feelings of joy and contentment. Adrian had been through that stage himself and was glad he was through it now. ‘Now come on in and sit down. You must tell me everything you know and I can’t promise anything but we’ll do our best
to get your daughter back to you’.
By the time Barton had driven home he’d decided that he was going to finish things with Rita. He wasn’t doing it because of what Betty or anybody else had said or indicated but all of that had added to the doubts he’d been beginning to feel. She was a great girl in some respects but for her to be so universally disliked by members of her own community meant that there had to be something in it. And not only did he have his position as a police officer to think about but he had to protect his son Toby’s position in his mother’s community. Barton had always been determined that Toby would grow up knowing both sides of his heritage equally and looking way down the line if things got serious between him and Rita then he couldn’t risk Toby perhaps being isolated by his father’s choice of lover.
The first thing Barton noticed when he got home was how quiet it was. No TV, no computer games being played. He called out ‘Toby! Brendan!’ He walked through to the kitchen with a growing sense of unease. Rita was sitting at the table with a glass of wine. The bottle was on the table next to her.
‘They’re not here, Jeff’ she said, calmly. ‘Toby and Brendan are not here’.
‘Well where are they?’
‘Don’t worry they’re safe’.
‘Rita, what are you talking about?’
‘They’re both in the custody of some associates of mine’.
Barton was starting to lose it. He crossed the space between them and demanded. ‘What the fuck is going on? Where’s my son?’
‘I told you. My associates are taking care of both him and Brendan. Now sit down, Jeff, and listen carefully to what I’ve got to say. Otherwise you’ll never see your precious son alive again’.
LANDSLIDE ELEVEN
‘Is this some kind of joke?’ asked Barton. ‘Because if it is I’m not seeing the funny side’.