Risk of Harm

by Lucie Whitehouse

  And maybe you’d look at him and see someone you wanted to be: assured, angry, ready to put his head above the parapet. And charismatic, because he was. Neither she nor Samir had taken their eyes off him since she walked in and they’d barely said a word to each other. Tyrell knew that about himself. He knew he could hold an audience. He had three in the room, hanging on his every word, he’d probably guessed there were others behind the glass, and he was loving it. The very fact that they’d got him in so quickly this morning had let him know they’d been watching him already. He’d like that – people sitting up, paying attention, giving him the limelight.

  And much as you’d love to write him off as a troglodyte escaped from a cave, dressed in khakis and somehow holding down a job as commander-in-chief of a bunch of company cars, he had a good brain, as they knew, and as she could tell now by the light in his eyes and his diction. Opprobrium? He hadn’t been educated entirely by computer games.

  ‘Mr Tyrell,’ said Webster, ‘yesterday morning on your site you posted a video in which you told your audience we’d arrested a suspect for the murder in Digbeth.’

  ‘True. On two counts: one) you did arrest a suspect, that was public record, and two) I said it.’

  ‘Right. You then went on to say we’d released him.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And that that had to be for one of two reasons: either we were claiming to have arrested someone in order to look like we were making progress when we weren’t or, “more likely”,’ Webster looked down and read from his papers, ‘“they’ve made a big mistake” because “People, he was there when she died.”’

  Tyrell nodded, foot bouncing. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Just over an hour before you posted that video of yourself, you posted one of Dhanesh Gupta’s arrest in Sparkbrook, taken from an upstairs window by Tariq Abdul, who lives in the street and who started filming when he heard the commotion.’

  ‘He’s gutted, apparently,’ Samir muttered to Robin. ‘He’s in the room next door, they had a quick word with him first. We called it – he took the film because when he saw Gupta hit the ground, he thought he’d bear witness to a bit of police brutality. He’d never heard of Tyrell – hadn’t even twigged he’d used his footage until he was told a few minutes ago.’

  ‘As I believe you know,’ said Webster on the other side of the glass, ‘Dhanesh Gupta was killed this morning. Murdered’s the more accurate word.’

  ‘I do know,’ said Tyrell, ‘but only because I saw it online right before you knocked on my door. I didn’t know anything about it before then, so don’t try and pin it on me.’

  ‘We’re not suggesting you personally killed Mr Gupta, though obviously we’ll need details of your whereabouts this morning and of anyone who can confirm them.’

  Tyrell smirked. ‘There’s a woman in Barnt Green who’ll be happy to oblige you there.’

  ‘Eva Braun, the sequel. I think I’m going to puke,’ Robin murmured. Samir frowned, Sssh, then grinned to himself.

  ‘Mr Tyrell, how do you think Mr Gupta’s assailant – his murderer – knew where to find him this morning?’

  He shrugged again, Like I give a shit. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Mr Abdul’s video of the arrest gives a clear view of the shops in the street, in particular a travel agent. Yes?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do,’ said Webster, and Robin and Samir both heard the tremor of frustration and anger in his voice. ‘I do say so. Anyone who saw the video would be able to Google the businesses and find the address in a matter of seconds.’

  Another shrug.

  ‘So you broadcast the picture of a man you claimed had killed a young woman and a video that showed where he was picked up for work.’

  ‘First off, I didn’t post the two together,’ Tyrell said. ‘Did I? The arrest video was first – how was I to know that anyone would put the two things together?’

  ‘Oh, give us a break. How stupid do you think we are?’

  Tyrell smirked again. ‘Also, even if it does tell you where he was picked up, it doesn’t say when, does it?’

  ‘It’s timestamped, Mr Tyrell,’ said Webster, dry. ‘It wouldn’t be too much of an intellectual leap even for your followers to see that and deduce that a van marked Lissom’s Farms might pick up their workers at roughly the same time every day.’

  ‘“Even for my followers”,’ Tyrell spat back with sudden energy. ‘You see, you lot say you want to know why my followers are angry. There’s your answer right there.’ He stabbed his finger in front of him as Robin had seen him do in the webcasts. ‘You call us stupid. You call us uneducated. You treat us like shit on your shoe. You want to know why we’re angry? Look at the way we’ve been treated – look at the way that you’ve talked to us. No jobs, no services, NHS falling apart and all this while thousands of immigrants pour in, year after year, and you smug lefty pricks laugh at us. You destroy our way of life, call it globalization, then kick us in the nuts and laugh as we lie writhing on the ground.’

  ‘You’ve got a job, Mr Tyrell,’ Webster said evenly. ‘A decent job.’ For now.

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m one of the lucky ones. My brother doesn’t, or my best mate. Good working men, both of them, useful, left to rust in the long grass.’ He sat back, resuming the foot-bouncing. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong. This is what I think, my opinion, and I should be allowed to express it in the country where I was born and my father was born before me.’

  ‘And Jehosephat begat Jehosephat, who begat Jeremiah …’ muttered Robin.

  ‘Ssssh.’

  ‘I’ve been in touch with Counter Terrorism this morning,’ Webster told Tyrell, straightening his papers.

  ‘Counter terrorism? You going to tell me he was fucking Al Qaeda now?’

  ‘Dhanesh Gupta was a Hindu,’ said Webster. ‘Not generally known for their membership of Islamic extremist groups. No, I rang them about you.’

  ‘Me?’ Incredulity.

  ‘Inciting racial hatred,’ Webster glanced at his papers. ‘Sending communications with intent to cause distress contrary to Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. Both charges that fall under the remit of Counter Terrorism. Both charges,’ he said, almost conversational now, ‘that can carry significant custodial sentences.’

  ‘What? You’re having a laugh.’

  ‘No one round here feels much like laughing today, Mr Tyrell. So there’s those two, potentially.’ He tapped the papers. ‘There’s also the question – especially if it turns out that someone who saw your site is responsible; especially if we find anything corroborating in your phone or email – of how to deal with what could be incitement to murder.’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  ‘Okay, so Webster’s awesome,’ Robin said when he and Leena took a break, leaving Tyrell to try not to look intimidated by Tim Horrocks while he pondered the idea of jail.

  ‘One of these days,’ said Samir, ‘you’re going to take my word for something.’

  ‘What? I’d never seen him interview anyone before.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Something else occurred to me, though. Webster should have a word with Martin Engel.’

  Samir frowned slightly then retrieved Engel from mental storage. ‘Victoria Engel’s father?’

  ‘Thinking about who might particularly want to hurt someone they thought had killed a girl.’ She told Samir about Engel’s lurking in the car park, waiting for her. I follow you. On the news. Social media. Maybe he’d also been following Tyrell while he’d been taking such a lively interest in their case.

  ‘No one’s suggesting Gupta killed Victoria, though,’ said Samir. ‘I mean, apart from anything else, he’d only been in the country a few weeks and she vanished years ago.’

  ‘No, I’m not saying that. Just, if you’d had years of frustration and not knowing, if you were a bit unbalanced, it might seem like a way of getting some kind of result. Justice for someone’s daughter, if not your own.’

  ‘Yo
u think he is unbalanced? That unbalanced?’

  She considered. ‘I don’t know. No, maybe not. But it’s damaged him, definitely, and the fact that he waited for me in the dark like that, then stood there on the pavement as I drove away … I actually thought he was following me in person, watching me, when I was having the bloody avocado on toast and outside my house at night. I kept feeling like there were eyes on me.’ She cringed inwardly, remembering the photo of her and Kev in the car.

  ‘Well, at least that worry’s been addressed,’ said Samir, neutral.

  ‘Anyway, it might be worth having a word with him, that’s all I’m saying. Maybe he knows someone who might be unhinged enough, someone in a support group who’s starting to lose it …’ She looked at Ben Tyrell through the glass and remembered Austin in her kitchen the other night, his talk of rogue nutters and vigilantes among the neighbourhood watch groups. ‘It worries me,’ she said, ‘it worries me a lot, this trend of people taking matters into their own hands. People losing faith in the system, the law, and deciding to sort things out themselves.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Which is why I’m hesitating about our next step on Lara Meikle.’

  ‘Which is what, you’re thinking?’

  She moved away to the table against the wall and pulled herself up on to it. ‘I want to release the CCTV of Lara and her attacker to the public. The whole thing.’

  ‘But you’re afraid of this happening again. Gupta mark 2.’

  ‘Hm.’

  Samir considered. ‘We can’t worry about that – well, we can and we will – but we can’t let fear of this sort of thing’ – he gestured at the glass – ‘get in the way. It’s standard police work. And at least this new guy actually is a suspect. You’re on solid ground there, aren’t you? She’s scared and he reaches out to grab her?’

  ‘Yes. And you’re right. I don’t know, this is going to take some getting over. I know I didn’t kill Gupta, but I still feel culpable.’

  ‘But you’re not,’ he said gently. ‘And you’re far from alone in feeling like that, believe me.’ He tipped his head at Tyrell. ‘Ironically, about the only person who doesn’t seem to feel culpable.’

  ‘There’s another element to it, too, though. I really don’t want to do a Kilmartin. I don’t want to look like we’ve been forced into releasing it by the media or people weighing in online. I don’t want anyone to think they’re calling the shots here or that there’s some kind of … dialogue going on and we’re scrambling to justify ourselves. “We might not have got him that time but look, look, we’ve got a new suspect now!”’

  ‘It’s what we were talking about the other day: we need to be seen to lead. We call the shots, we have the authority.’

  ‘Yes, but not Authority, capital A. Not the state, the iron fist of the law.’

  ‘Moral authority,’ said Samir. ‘Doing the right thing, in the right way.’ He walked back to the glass and looked at Tyrell. ‘Integrity.’

  Robin clicked on the link in Lennie’s email, saw the photograph and let her face drop into her hands. After a few seconds, she took a deep breath and straightened up: her team could see her through the glass.

  Corinna had taken the picture, she remembered her doing it. She’d always been the documentarian, the holder-on. She’d been trying to preserve a bit of those last few weeks, stick it in a bottle and put a lid on: she’d known things were about to change. That afternoon, before she and Samir had gone travelling, they were still a gang who’d grown up together and never been apart for longer than a family holiday.

  They’d gone to Stratford for the day in Morris’s car, an old Bentley that he’d bought a couple of weeks previously at an auction in north Wales. After a significant campaign, Kev had been allowed to borrow it and he’d driven it out of town like Pop Larkin, Samir riding shotgun, she, Josh and Corinna sliding round on the slippery, seatbelt-less back seat.

  They’d taken rowing boats out on the river, splashing past in the cool shadow of the theatre balcony, had ice creams from a floating barge, then walked up the road to the Dirty Duck where they’d bought pints served in plastic glasses that they could take across the road to gardens overlooking the river. They’d found a swan-muck-free area of grass big enough for five and settled down for the afternoon. There were three half-empty pint pots in the picture and two packets of Marlboro Lights.

  It had been hot, much hotter than they’d expected when they’d set out, and disinhibited after a couple of pints, Robin had taken off the shirt she’d had on top and gone with the white vest top underneath. It had been one with ‘in-built support’, no bra necessary, but she’d had her doubts about that at the time and as she could see now, she’d been right to: her boobs, albeit eighteen and enviably firm, were all over the place, bulging with the pressure of Samir’s arms round her and spilling over the top as if she were an Elizabethan bar-wench.

  Samir was sitting behind her, legs bracketing hers, his face buried in the angle between her shoulder and neck. Corinna had called his name just before she’d hit the button and he’d raised his eyes but left his lips on her skin so that he looked like a vampire. ‘God, look at you two,’ Rin had said when she got the prints back from Boots. ‘Dracula Does Dallas.’

  BLOODY MAYHEM

  Already reeling from the brutal murders of two young women in the city this week, residents of Birmingham received another blow today when a man identified as a suspect in the case was stabbed to death in the street.

  The attack on the man, named today by police as Dhanesh Gupta, 32, happened early in the morning in Sparkbrook, an area of the city with a large Asian population. It is believed Gupta was waiting to be collected for casual agricultural work when he was approached by a man in dark clothing. Moments later, he collapsed to the pavement with multiple stab wounds to the abdomen. He died before he could receive medical attention.

  News of the death spread quickly in a city increasingly concerned that its police force is losing control. Residents expressed alarm. ‘It feels lawless,’ said Lynette Barber, 42. ‘Like no one’s safe.’ Mohammed Hussein, 29, who lives on the street where Gupta died, said, ‘The police arrested that poor man as a suspect then let him go to be killed on the streets like an animal. There needs to be an official enquiry. Things like this can’t be allowed to happen in a country that calls itself civilized.’

  DCI Robin Lyons, leading the enquiry into the murders of the two women, was unavailable for comment but some feel her record speaks for itself. She was removed from her previous role as head of a Murder Investigation Team in Homicide Command at the Met after going against orders from a senior officer to release Jamie Hinton, previously arrested for the murder of Jay Farrell. Hinton was cleared of suspicion in the case but has not been seen since his release, leading some to speculate that he, like Gupta, might have fallen victim to someone seeking vengeance.

  Going against the orders of her senior officer might not be as much of an issue in her current position, however. It emerged this week that DCI Lyons and the Head of Force Homicide, Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jafferi, are former lovers (below, right). The pair are now said to ‘enjoy a close working relationship’.

  She picked up the phone and dialled Samir’s extension. It was busy so she called Rhona. ‘Is he there?’ she asked pointlessly.

  ‘He’s on the phone to ACC Kilmartin.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m so sorry, love.’

  She felt sick – dirty. It was so … sleazy. ‘Lovers’ – technically they had been, yes, they’d used to sleep together, of course, but they’d been lovers in the non-tabloid sense, too: they’d just loved each other. The piece – with help from the photo – made it sound like they’d met in a strip club and conducted some sordid affair of cheap nylon underwear and by-the-hour hotels round the ring road. In fact, they’d got together when they’d been in the sixth form at their respective single-sex grammar schools and they’d been each other’s first loves. Until Luke had got involved, she’d honestly thought they�
��d be together for ever.

  She felt another rush of fury: how dare they? On top of all the innuendo about her professional failures, their sensationalist handling of Gupta’s death, how dare they pour their dirt over her relationship with Samir? It was over, long gone, but it had been theirs and it was precious.

  And what was Liz going to make of their ‘enjoying a close working relationship’ now? How was she going to feel when she saw the picture of her husband and the father of her children kissing Robin’s neck, his body fitted around hers like a sleeve on a coffee cup, her boobs everywhere? She knew there was nothing going on and Samir had been totally straight with her when he’d offered Robin the job – in fact, he’d checked with Liz before he’d even asked her to apply – but seeing this wasn’t going to feel good. And it wouldn’t only be her who saw it, of course, but her friends and her family, her parents. Harry and Leila might hear about it.

  And her team. Though it was common knowledge round Homicide that she and Samir had been together years ago, the photograph was next-level, as was the dig about their current relationship. Well, she thought, not addressing it would only make it worse – it’d make them look guilty. She’d have to bite the bullet, and try to do it with a bit of grace.

  She read the piece again. This time it was the bit about Jamie Hinton that incensed her. In the other article they’d made it sound as if Hinton had disappeared off for a life of ease on the Costa del Crime after she’d let him go but today, same facts, she’d released him to be prey for vengeance-seekers, the poor lamb.

  Her mobile rang, pulling her out of her own revenge fantasies. Kevin Y. Oh God. And then there was what he was going to make of all this. She thought about not answering but that was too cowardly.

  ‘Kev?’

  ‘Take it you’ve seen it?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Why can’t the bastards leave you alone?’ he huffed. ‘You’re only doing your job. And raking up the past like that, trying to make out there’s something going on between you and Samir now …’