Never Dead

by Wonny Lea

  ‘I feel like a pervert,’ laughed one of the officers. ‘I don’t really want to watch their antics but I can’t look away in case what we’re really looking for pops up on the screen. Oh come on, kids, give it a rest.’

  His blushes were saved as the man with the dog returned and the couple moved on. Soon after, something more interesting caught the officers’ attention and all eyes were on the monitor as a lone male figure was seen approaching. The man was unsteady on his feet as he walked over some uneven ground, but he managed to hang on to the vodka bottle he was holding and didn’t even look in the direction of the shrine.

  Throughout the night officers handed over to colleagues and were in regular contact with those that were manning the cars in the streets surrounding Roath Park. Nothing at all happened. Martin drank more coffee than was good for him and by 6 a.m. he was feeling punch drunk. His longshot was getting longer with every passing minute.

  As the night disappeared Martin stretched his legs and looked out of one of the windows. The traffic was already building up and he’d always had concerns about getting from the Bay to Roath in rush hour. Not that he would need to be first on the scene when the target appeared, as there were officers close by, but he would like to be the initial contact. He still believed that it had been necessary to mount a twenty-four hour operation, but he’d always considered that if a stone was going to be placed it would be at the time the body had been discovered. That time was approaching and he had everything crossed.

  He splashed his face with cold water and then walked away from the building and towards his car. It was a clear, dry morning but there was a chilling wind and he didn’t hang about in the car park. It was unusual to see the place so empty. The clock on his dashboard showed 07.38 and he reminded himself that barely a third of the operation time had been covered so there was plenty of time for the desired outcome.

  Cardiff was by now very much awake although some of the drivers still looked half asleep. The cold morning air and the cumulative result of so much coffee had achieved the desired effect of waking up all his senses. Although the roads were busy there were no holdups and he was soon parked in one of the side-roads near the shrine.

  Groups of schoolchildren passed his car, as would no doubt have happened eleven years ago to the day. As nine o’clock approached the general bustle subsided, with just a few hurrying kids still around, obviously already late for school. There was still nothing to report and Martin had his first real low of the night. The timeslot he had pinned his hopes on had passed, and he knew that the other officers were aware of that fact. It was up to him to keep up the morale of the team and not let their attention to detail drop with more than half the surveillance time still ahead.

  He realised that he was really hungry and got out of his car and walked in the direction of the nearby shops, making sure everyone knew of his whereabouts.

  A familiar voice greeted him when he made contact with the monitoring team back at base.

  ‘What are you doing there?’ he asked.

  ‘Sometimes it’s easier to do something yourself than make more complicated arrangements,’ Sergeant Evans said. ‘Two of my staff on your rota called in sick, and then there were another two calls from officers who should’ve been on other duties. They’ve all got the same symptoms so there’s probably some bug or other doing the rounds. So I’m filling this slot for the next couple of hours or until I can get a replacement.’

  ‘You will have heard that nothing’s happened so far.’

  ‘I have but I’m still with you in thinking that today could be the day – it makes sense.’

  Martin suddenly felt much more confident as he ended the call. He knew that the operation was now in the safest of hands, and set off on a quest to satisfy his rumbling stomach. He could almost taste the hot buttered toast as he set foot in the café but at that moment his phone sprang to life and he could see two calls waiting.

  ‘Is something happening, John?’

  Evans was looking at the screen in front of him as he answered Martin’s question.

  ‘Could be nothing – but I don’t think it is! I’ve just picked up someone walking, slowly but very deliberately, towards the area where the shrine is. I’m watching him as I speak … I say “him” but it could be a woman, they’re wearing a hoodie and not once have they looked up towards any of our cameras.’

  All thoughts of hot buttered toast melted and now the feeling in Martin’s stomach was one of nervous anticipation. The second call was from the officers in the car nearest the shrine. They also reported a sighting and were pretty sure that it was the person they’d all been waiting for.

  ‘I’m no more than ten minutes away on foot, so I’ll be there as quickly as I can. Do absolutely nothing to make him think he’s being watched, and don’t interfere with anything he does. You needn’t move in too close because everything is being captured on camera, but if he appears to be moving off before I get there then you’ll have to stop him.’

  After only a few minutes Martin stood with his back against the side wall of one of the nearby houses, watching the activity at the shrine. He’d had a vague idea of what might happen and the reality almost perfectly matched it.

  The stones had all been stacked carefully and a new one had been placed to one side. The creator of the shrine was altering the design to accommodate the extra stone, taking care not to disturb the central one.

  He was kneeling on the cold, damp ground but there was no sense of hurry. Were they following ethical or religious rules, or was it a personal ritual? Martin felt he was intruding on something sacred, but he had no choice. Not wanting to disturb the moment he ensured his phone was on silent and waited. The hooded figure stood up and stepped back, then knelt back down and made some further adjustments. Finally he bowed his head slightly before getting up again and turning away from his handiwork.

  Martin didn’t move until he was face to face with the person he had been watching. As the two of them made eye contact Martin introduced himself.

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Phelps and I would very much like to speak to you.’

  Martin was surprised as the mourner removed their hood – revealing the face of a young woman.

  ‘Of course – I’ve been waiting for you!’

  Chapter Seventeen

  There was no fuss as the woman accompanied Martin to the nearest unmarked police car. She had introduced herself to Martin as Basra Shimbir, but had added that she would say nothing more without her solicitor being present.

  Martin assured her that she was not under arrest and as far as he knew not even in any trouble. He explained that all he wanted to do was speak to her in the hope that she could help him find out the truth behind a young man’s murder.

  ‘If it’s the truth you want, I can give it to you, but first I need to know that you are different from the men who wanted anything but the truth eleven years ago. Over time I’ve convinced myself that if anyone ever came looking for answers then I’d be able to trust them – but now I’m not so sure. The woman who has been like a mother to me here was treated dismissively by the police and warned off from contacting them again. The people involved with my brother’s murder left her in no doubt what would happen to her if she spoke out. Does that make you understand why I’m finding it difficult to trust you?’

  Martin recognised the turmoil that was in the woman’s eyes and made a simple suggestion.

  ‘Why don’t we just talk? I can tell you what I think happened and you can tell me as little or as much as you want to. It would be easier if we went to the station but if that makes you uncomfortable then anywhere of your choice will be fine with me.’

  Martin didn’t know if Basra heard the genuine feeling of concern in his voice or had recognised a real desire for the truth in his eyes, but whatever it was she accepted the lift to Goleudy and got into the car with the uniformed officers.

  Walking back to his car and driving to the Bay gave Martin time to think of how
he would handle questioning Basra. What had she meant when she said she had been expecting him? There had always been the possibility that the person he had hoped to see would be a woman although conceptually he’d only ever imagined a man. He tried not to speculate about her relationship with Geedi and just briefly wondered if she would be able to reunite the youngster with his real name.

  Not wanting to scare her with the formal setup of the interview rooms, he agreed they should use his substantive office and asked the PC who had travelled in the car with Basra to sit in. Ideally Martin would have liked the interview taped, but he was walking a fine line with this woman’s trust and couldn’t risk it.

  They sat down on the two comfortable chairs at the far end of the room, with just a small coffee table between them, whilst PC Woodland made herself at home behind Martin’s desk.

  Martin needed have worried about adopting the best way of finding out what he wanted to know because almost without pausing for breath Basra got years of stifled emotion off her chest.

  ‘Dalmar! That was his name … Dalmar. He was my baby brother and when we left Somalia, nearly twelve years ago, he was just thirteen and in every way he was still a child.

  ‘He wasn’t really my brother – he was taken in by my parents when his family were wiped out and he’d been left for dead. But I will always think of him as my brother and I was his big sister. My role was to look after him, but I didn’t do a very good job, did I?’

  Martin knew the question wasn’t meant for him. He could see the effort Basra was making to keep her emotions in check and silently willed her to continue.

  ‘You have no idea what it was like growing up in my country. It was tolerable for families who simply accepted the corruption, but my father was constantly being locked up, and worse, for speaking his mind. One day we were told that our mother had met with an accident, and after that our father became concerned for the safety of me and my brother. He wasn’t worried about his own life, and he was still adamant that nothing was going to stop him standing up for what he believed in.

  ‘I come from a very large extended family and there was enormous support for my father and a shared concern about the potential danger to his children’s lives. A man who represented a British charity organisation offered the chance to get me and Dalmar to a place of safety. They offered the same chance to my father but he didn’t want it. The offer didn’t come cheap and our whole family sold property and possessions to secure a passage for us. We had to leave the country with false papers to hide who we really were.

  ‘I know now that our final destination was somewhere on the coast in the south-east of England but I have no idea what route we took to get there. I remember a relay of boats. We were put ashore several times and then after a few days, and once after several weeks, another boat showed up and our journey continued.

  ‘We had precious little to eat and our numbers dwindled. There were about twenty people, of all ages, on the first boat that took us from our country, but just eight of us at the end of the journey.’

  Martin wanted to ask if she knew what had happened to the others but he dreaded the answer; it would have to come later. Instead he offered her a drink and she accepted some water.

  ‘Please take your time,’ he told her. ‘You were right when you started by saying there are things I couldn’t imagine – it must have been terrible for you.’

  Basra bit her lip hard and then continued. ‘If you think what I’ve told you so far is terrible then …’ she hesitated. ‘I’ll let you be the judge on the rest. I was approaching my fifteenth birthday when we left, and so it may even have been on the day of my birthday that I was raped for the first time. I cried for days but that didn’t stop it happening again. When I tried to resist it was suggested that if I didn’t make myself available then Dalmar would be at risk. I couldn’t let that happen so I accepted my fate.’

  Basra shook her head as if to shake away the memory and her mind went back to Somalia.

  ‘I doubt if there are many members of my family still alive, as my father was always too outspoken for his own good and attracted what my mother once called “the wrong sort”. Some people that stayed with us were really nice, and for almost a year we had two Australian businessmen living with us. They spoke English to one another and taught me a bit. I wasn’t proficient but I could pick up the gist of what was being said on the boats. The people responsible for moving us always spoke in English, and from some of the things I heard I didn’t think any of us would make it.

  ‘Then all of a sudden everything changed and it seemed as if the eight of us had actually got to the end of our journey. But only six of us were allowed off the boat and I’ve no idea what happened to the two women who were kept on board. It left me and Dalmar, a young child with her mother, and a couple who were probably no more than sixty but looked much older.

  ‘We were transferred to a truck and driven for what seemed like hours. I remember being able to hear the noise of heavy traffic initially but then there was only the occasional passing vehicle and finally a short period of silence. The driver and his mate, who reminded me of one of my uncles, seemed to have taken over responsibility for us. We stopped outside a large building and were quickly ushered inside. Strong metal doors were closed behind us.

  ‘We were in a bleak room. There were six mattresses on the floor at one end, with empty buckets and bowls of water for our personal use. Sounds primitive, doesn’t it? But compared with what we had endured it was almost luxury, and our spirits were raised even more when we started getting regular meals and some fresh fruit and vegetables.

  ‘After we’d been in our new “home” for a few days we were given fresh clothes and toiletries – even toothpaste! We all speculated that at last we were going to be taken to the homes of people we believed were ready to take care of us, but all that happened was photographs. A woman with her head and face wrapped in a scarf pointed a camera at us and told us to smile. She was obviously looking for particular shots and was keen that my brother and I held hands and looked happy. The man who looked like my uncle was in fact originally from my country and could speak to us in our own language, so he passed on her instructions. I wanted to ask him what the photographs were all about but instinctively I didn’t trust him.

  ‘I constantly though about escaping but I didn’t know where we were and I had a definite feeling that any attempts to make trouble would be severely dealt with by our minder. The first time I’d heard him speak I’d been filled with the joy of any traveller hearing their own language in a strange country, but his words were never kind and I was so right not to consider him a friend!’

  Basra gulped down a mouthful of water as if she was trying to get rid of a nasty taste in her mouth.

  ‘The metal doors were kept slightly ajar during the day as there was no other light source but all I ever saw outside was trees and very grey skies.’ She managed a faint smile. ‘I’ve learned since that grey skies are the norm in the UK at this time of the year. We occasionally heard a car being driven from somewhere close by and returning hours later, often in the middle of the night. One afternoon when our guard was standing near the door, he was confronted by a younger man who started shouting at him. I could only understand a bit of what they were saying, but it was clear that the man didn’t know who we were or what we were doing in that place.

  ‘He forced his way into our living space and just stared at us – that is until he saw Dalmar. I followed his gaze as it rested on my brother who I then realised was growing into a very handsome young man. He was far too skinny, of course, but he had dark eyes and an air of innocence that was completely enchanting.

  ‘The guard had also noticed the gaze, and I guess he made some derogatory remark because the man stormed out and we heard that car drive away. The following day the woman who had previously photographed us returned and the man was with her. I can only assume she had explained about us and he seemed to have accepted the situation. I don’t really know, but af
ter that he was a regular visitor. My stomach churned whenever he appeared. I didn’t really know anything about homosexuality or paedophilia at that time but I did know that this man had a strange attraction to my brother and I could see it made Dalmar uncomfortable.’

  Basra suddenly stopped and covered her eyes with her hands.

  ‘I wish it was as easy as that to blind myself of the images that I’m now going to tell you about. Maybe when I have told you I will be able to start laying the past to rest – God, I hope so!’

  Martin could see that PC Woodland was perched on the edge of the chair he normally swivelled on and already looked horrified by what she had heard. How would she cope with what was to come?

  ‘The man’s obsession with my brother became more obvious with every visit and he became very tactile. He’d take Dalmar’s hand and stroke it across his own face and he’d caress my brother’s shoulders and neck. I could see Dalmar squirming but he was afraid to say or do anything. It only took a few visits before things got really out of hand.’

  She stopped to regain her composure.

  ‘Between visits Dalmar had asked me about what I thought the man wanted from him and I was unable to give him an answer. It sounds incredible that I was so naïve at fifteen but you can’t compare my upbringing with that of a fifteen-year-old in Wales today. All I knew then was the baby brother I’d been asked to look after was in the sort of danger I didn’t have the experience to help him with.

  ‘I could only watch on the next occasion that the fondling started, and you must remember there were four others, including a child, witnessing this unwanted attention. The man was clearly becoming frustrated with getting no response from Dalmar and he became more forceful. I saw him stroke my brother’s buttocks and then slide his hand down the front of Dalmar’s trousers. I freaked out!

  ‘I leapt at the man and clawed at his face. He lashed out and with one huge blow he knocked me to the ground. Dalmar tried to defend me – I don’t know where he got his strength from, he was like someone possessed by the devil, but I will never forget the way my brother fought the man who had dared to hurt his sister. He managed to get his hands around the man’s throat, and despite the difference in their size and build he was almost squeezing the life out of him. Then the big guard intervened, and the last I saw of my brother was when he was lying at my feet with his throat cut.’