“Probably,” I said. “Are any of the other doctors Muslim?”
“I hope you’re not suggesting- ” Chetsi began sharply.
“I’m not suggesting anything,” I said abruptly. “I’m just trying to see it from the point of view of a frightened young girl. What are the other doctors like?”
There was a short silence. “Well the Consultant’s a late middle aged white bloke – typical – you know…”
“No I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, minor public school educated, bit condescending, dicky bow, time to retire but he’s not showing any signs of getting out…”
“Ok, well a young girl ain’t gonna tell him anything,” I summed up robustly.
“And the Senior Houseman is male, fortyish, and- ” she hesitated, “ –of Pakistani origin.”
“Hmmm,” I said. “And then there’s you, ideal – young and female but- ”
“But brown,” she finished for me.
“Yep brown,” I agreed. “You can’t suddenly start dropping in your Indian Hinduness into the conversations can you?”
“No I can’t!” Chetsi was adamant. “We’re not allowed to talk about ourselves, and definitely not about religion…”
“Ok, so what are you going to do?” I queried.
She sighed. “I’ve arranged a full case conference with her social worker and psychiatric nurse in attendance. We’ll have to see what comes out of that.”
“Ok, well, at least you know now,” I said.
“Yes, thanks, Eve,” and she signed off.
I relaxed a bit. Chetsi could sort it now. She was the professional and soon the social worker and everyone else would be informed and Jessica would be getting some help.
Next weekend and Cody was sitting in the passenger seat on the way to Barford. She was a bit subdued.
“Have you seen Jessica since last week?” I asked.
She shook her head. “She hasn’t been in school.” There was a short silence. “Did she tell you anything?”
“Yes,” I said.
She looked at me.
“I’m not going to tell you anything about it,” I said firmly. “It’ll be up to her to tell you when she’s ready.”
“Alright,” she said reluctantly, sounding like it wasn’t alright. Then she said suddenly. “I’m sorry about what Jessica did. I’d have never asked for her to come along if I’d known she was going to act up like that! And I’m sorry about messing up the first week. I just keep embarrassing you don’t I? I’m worried you’ll tell Dad you don’t want me anymore.”
I knew that feeling. I remembered the agonising fear I had that the Satterthwaites would cast me off when they realised how much trouble I was. That’s why I was going to persevere with Cody.
“You just have to stop giving it the constant yippity-yap,” I told her, making the yacking sign with one hand, “and shut up and listen to what you’re being told.”
“That’s what they’re always telling me at school,” Cody admitted with a sigh.
“I guess it’s exam year is it?” I surmised. “What are you going to do next?”
“What did you do?” She asked curiously.
“Oh I just gave up and left and got a job, but I hope you’re behaving better at school than I did!”
“It seemed impossibly glamorous, you three all living on your own in that flat when you were so young,” she said, looking sideways at me, referring to the documentary.
“Well it wasn’t,” I said abruptly. “It was scary and hard work, and difficult to manage financially. And at least two of us were there because it wasn’t so hot at home at the time. If you’ve got a nice family, you should stay on with them as long as you can. It wouldn’t have turned out so well for me if the Satterthwaites hadn’t taken me on and Sue become a bit of a surrogate mother…”
She was silent.
“What’s your mother like?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Oh, you know…”
“No I don’t. I don’t have a mother.”
She glanced at me. “Well…”
“On your back nagging you all the time but loves you really?” I hazarded.
“She and Dad really argued about him spending the money to put me with you two,” she said miserably. “She calls me a ‘Daddy’s girl’ and says he spoils me. So I really mustn’t mess this up. Dad said it was a test to see whether I was serious.”
“Ok,” I said. “Then you’d better not mess up then, had you?”
Jo and I stopped off at the George after dropping the cars off up at theirs. I noticed she often wanted to do that now. I had a feeling she was putting off going back to the flat where Zanna would immediately demand all her attention.
“God, Cody’s hard work isn’t she?” I groaned. “We should have charged her Dad twice the fee because she’s twice the work and we’re earning every penny of it at the moment!”
Jo nodded. “Fay was a walk in the park compared to this.”
Fay was thirty-five and very self-possessed. She hadn’t liked me though. She’d stuck her nose in the air if I ever said anything to her. Jo had ended up managing her.
“And I got the impression that Lizzie last year was just doing it for her brother,” I commented.
Lizzie’s brother had epilepsy and wasn’t allowed a driving licence but was mad about cars. We’d spent most of the year training him up on the management of the cars and leaving twenty-three year old Lizzie to just get on with the driving side of it. She was obviously just doing it for a bit of fun. We’d asked Tom, one of Tyler’s mechanics if he’d support them this year, just to give Barney a bit of a lift. But we hadn’t spotted them at any of the tracks yet.
I sighed. “I kind of imagined finding the next female F2 star and wowing the stadiums with all the female talent out there that they’ve been missing out on, but for Fay it was just a bit of a passing fad, and I suspect that as soon as Barney gets his knees under the table of one of the other teams, Lizzie will just quietly bow out…”
Jo nodded. She was spinning a beer mat round and round abstractedly.
“What’s up?” I asked.
She gave me a brief glance from under her lowered brows. “I’m really missing having a room of my own.” She admitted. “I’ve had a room of my own all my life. You know what a grumpy cow I am!” She gave a slight smile. “And don’t you dare agree too enthusiastically with that!”
I smiled back at her.
“I’m just naturally solitary. As long as I can go somewhere and hole up on my own for a bit, I can get out of my black moods. I just feel so suffocated at the moment! And now with Mum using my room as a guest room when she has her dressage training courses on, I can’t even be sure of being able to retreat there some nights. And anyway, whenever I do, Zanna gets offended and I have to make some reason up.” She looked unhappy.
She’d resisted Zanna’s attempts to have them get a flat together for ages, preferring to stay independent with me, and then Zanna had forced her hand by turning up one day with all her stuff claiming her lease had run out. She’d installed herself in Jo’s room and been there ever since.
“Do you need me to move out so you can have a room each?” I asked. I felt my stomach clench at the thought. I didn’t want to have to find somewhere else.
She looked a bit panicked. “No!” She said sharply.
No, please don’t leave me alone with Zanna, I thought. I was her buffer. Her safety net. I reached across the table and just touched the tips of her fingers with my own. We exchanged a glance. No, I won’t abandon you, I thought. Not while you need me. Wearing though it was.
I rang Chetsi. “How did the Case Conference go?”
“It’s confidential,” she said abruptly.
“Just give me a clue,” I begged.
There was a short silence. “The social worker dismissed it out of hand. Said Jessica had been googling the Rotherham case and was gilding the lily to get attention. She didn’t believe a word of it.”
&nbs
p; I suddenly felt stupid. Had I been completely taken in? “She seemed very genuine to me.”
“Well these girls can be very plausible. She’s been in the mental health system since she was thirteen. They start to do copy-cat things. Learn things off the internet and egg each other on. They can be quite manipulative.”
“Ok,” I said. “Well thanks,” and I pressed the button to finish the call.
I felt really confused. Jessica had seemed so genuine to me. It had all rung true. But if the girl was mentally ill? I didn’t know much about these things.
I was very quiet at work, mulling it all over. Chetsi was right. The Rochdale and Rotherham cases were widely documented on the net. Easy to find out about. I’d come straight off that first phone call with Chetsi and looked it up myself. Gangs of mainly Muslim men, in the case of Rotherham mostly taxi drivers, often from one specific area of Pakistan, grooming little girls as young as twelve, who were mostly white and mostly from vulnerable backgrounds, plying them with drink and drugs and then using them for sex and ‘trafficking’ them to other towns for other groups of men to use them. The race element had been so explosive, authorities had turned a blind eye, not wanting to admit to it. I queried my own motives in wanting to believe Jessica. Just because Quinn and I had suspected Hussein of being either a customer or a pimp of those trafficked girls in the flat underneath us the other year? And just because I’d finally remembered that that shop keeper was the driver of that car that had curb-crawled me and Daisy at about the same time? We’d been palpably adults, as had the two prostitutes downstairs. White blokes had been visiting too. White blokes had been kerb crawling Daisy too. Just because Nasim’s brother Tariq was a bit misogynist and violent and she’d had to run away from home to avoid an arranged marriage and he’d ended up in prison for running a cannabis farm… That didn’t mean that all Muslim men were bad news. Most of them would be honourable family men who loved their children.
“Penny for ‘em,” Steve Bolton, one of the other mechanics said with a laugh as he passed me staring into space.
I didn’t tell him. I felt humiliated that I’d been made such a fool of, and that because of me Chetsi had been made to look a naïve fool too in front of her professional work colleagues. I bit my lip and got on with my work.
Paul had driven my car in its first race. “Don’t worry,” he said with a slight laugh, “I took it very gently!”
“Footage?” I demanded.
He shook his head. “Pete was in the same heat as me so there was no-one to film it.”
“How’d it go?” I held my breath.
“Excellent. Very promising.” He rewarded me.
“Adjustments?”
“I’ve come up with a few…”
“Did you go again in the Consolation?” I asked.
Pete pulled a face at me from behind his Dad. “I see you’re assuming he didn’t get through on the first heat. He qualified for the final in eighth place!”
I stared at him. “I thought you said you were taking it gently?”
He smiled at me. “I was.”
“And this was your first race after how many years..?” I established.
“About a decade.” His eyes were laughing at me.
“So is it because you’re good, or my car’s good?” I said.
Pete pulled another face. “Don’t be so rude, Eve!” But I saw him swallowing a laugh.
“It’s an important question,” I defended.
“Maybe it’s a bit of both…” Paul suggested with lidded eyes.
“Placing in the Final?” I demanded.
“I pushed it a bit more. Sixth.”
“Grand National?”
“Fifth.”
I digested that. “Hmm, maybe the car’s going to be good,” I announced. “How much was there left in reserve?”
“Plenty, I’d say,” Paul proffered with a smile.
I went over to my pride and joy, stalking round it, looking for dints and scratches, ignoring him.
“I’ll leave you to look after your baby then shall I?” Paul said.
I said nothing so he turned and walked towards the door. I glanced up. “Oh sorry, Paul,” I said casually, “I should have said thanks for testing it for me.”
“Any time,” he said with matching sang froid, and walked out.
I straightened up and looked at Pete. “Just check he’s really gone will you?” I whispered.
Pete walked ever so casual out of the barn door and back in again. “Yup, just disappeared into the house,” he confirmed.
“Ok, Pete,” I admitted. “Now I’m shitting myself. Are you?”
“A bit,” he agreed pulling a face.
“I’ve just gone and given a really good car to a really good driver and he’s bloody well going to use it to try and take all the titles off us isn’t he?”
“Guess so,” Pete agreed.
“When he walked out I felt like a panther who’s just started stalking us had retreated for a moment!”
“Yeah he’s winding us up something rotten isn’t he?” Pete looked like he felt helpless.
“We might have to start talking tactics, you and I…” I suggested.
“What, me and you gang up against my own Dad?”
“Do you want to keep some shiny stuff on your roof or not?” I demanded.
He took a deep breath.
“Come on Pete, you’re going to have to up your testosterone and your aggression levels,” I paused and frowned. “While at the same time remembering not to trash my beautiful new car!”
Pete began to look amused again. “So not too much conflict of interest then?” He drawled sarcastically.
I sighed. “I’m going to try not to drive against him for as long as I can. Then he can’t have advance warning of what we’re planning. Unfortunately you’re going to have to put up with him breathing down your neck in every race… Please promise me to bust a gut to keep ahead of him won’t you? Don’t just give up and roll over?”
“In the Stocks that can be taken quite literally,” he joked.
“But I’ll have to turn out in all the World Qualifiers and he’s bound to really go for it then, and the Final is on tarmac this year,” I mused.
“We’re doomed!” Pete predicted gloomily.
“Man up, Pete!” I urged. “Don’t let him intimidate you!”
“You’re the one talking about stalking panthers!” He reminded me.
A couple of nights later I was driving back on my bike along the Ring Road when I saw a car pulled over to the side of the dual carriageway with its bonnet up and someone peering under it. I drew up behind it to see if I could help. I kept a basic tool kit in the back of my bike. I got off and walked alongside. The guy bending over the bonnet was an Asian man in his mid-twenties.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
He didn’t smile. Just shrugged.
I peered into the engine space. “What did it do?”
“Everything just stopped working, including the brakes, they suddenly wouldn’t respond, I had to go down the gears to stop.”
“Probably the back engine. With power-assisted brakes you’re buggered if the back engine fails. Nothing I can do about that, it’s a major job. You’ll have to ring a recovery service.”
As I went to leave them I glanced into the back of the car and froze. Sitting in the back between two other Asian men, was a small dark haired figure.
I yanked the back door open and peered in. “Jessica is that you?” She stared at me. I hadn’t taken my helmet off, just flipped up the visor because it was a cold, wet night and I couldn’t be bothered. Now I was really glad I hadn’t. I glanced obviously at my watch. “Out at eleven pm on a school night? Tut tut!”
None of them said anything. Jessica stayed silent, her eyes fixed on my own, and the two men looked unwelcoming.
“I’ll give you a lift home Jessica, because you’re gonna be stuck here quite some time by the look of it!”
The men stared a
t me. Jessica stared at me. No-one moved a muscle.
“Come on Jessica,” I said authoratively. “Chop, chop! I expect to see you in class tomorrow!” I tried to sound a bit condescending.
“Jessica wants to stay with us, don’t you Jessica?” The man on the further side said in a threatening tone, a hand just resting warningly on her thigh.
My heart was beating hard in my chest. “Well tough!” I exclaimed. “I’m not giving her that option. I’m a teacher from her school and it’s not acceptable to be out so late on a school night. Come along, Jessica!”
The man reluctantly removed his hand. “Ok Jessica,” he put a mocking note on the word Jessica as though that’s not what they called her. “See you tomorrow night instead…” His tone was unpleasant.
Jessica very slowly unwound herself and clambered out over the guy nearest me who just let her go, his eyes lowered away from my own. I grabbed her wrist as soon as she’d got fully out of the car and firmly marched her back to my bike.
“Get on,” I ordered.
Reluctantly she did as I said. I got on in front of her and told her to hang on tight and then I shot us off. There was no way of doing a ‘U’ turn on the dual carriageway so I had to go ahead of them and risk them memorising my number plate. If they compared it with Hussein… I pulled myself mentally up short. There was no reason to imagine that he was involved.
For future reference, I’d asked Cody for Jessica’s address, so she wasn’t given any power this time to sabotage her return home. When we stopped outside her house she got off and muttered, “I hate you, I really hate you!”
Since normally that kind of utterance in teenagers would be accompanied by a storm off, and she just stood there, I reckoned that it was actually just a disguised invitation to talk.
I took my helmet off and put up with the light drizzle on my hair. “Why’s that then?” I asked coolly.
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