Splinter the Silence

  So he was disappointed when his phone rang a couple of hours after he’d left and the screen showed it was Carol calling. As soon as he picked up, she was off. ‘How dare you?’ she began. ‘Who died and made you God? What the fuck do you think you’re doing, walking out of here with my car keys?’

  ‘I just thought—’

  ‘No, you didn’t think. You made a decision about me with no authority. You decided I couldn’t be trusted to keep my word. You decided I needed to be kept prisoner in my own home. You’re supposed to be the one who’s full of empathy, so where was your fucking empathy this afternoon? You didn’t think for a nanosecond how I would feel, to be treated like someone who can’t be trusted.’

  ‘I thought about how you’d feel if you failed.’

  She snorted. ‘You think that’s a defence? To tell me you have so little faith in me? That you thought I was more likely to fall off the wagon than hold my nerve? Have you any idea how hard this is for me? My body and my brain are screaming for a drink and I am absolutely not listening and it’s tearing me apart but I. Am. Not. Giving in. Fuck you, Tony.’

  ‘I was trying to help.’

  ‘Brilliant. So here I am, stuck in the middle of nowhere with no transport and a new job to start in the morning.’

  ‘I know that, I was planning to bring the keys back first thing so you could get to work.’

  Now her voice went deadly calm and cold. ‘And that would be perfect if I had some clothes to wear. I can drive into work but all I’ll be wearing under my jacket is a bra. And a pretty functional bra at that. Tony, my shirts don’t fit me properly any more. I was going to go late-night shopping at the outlet mall for tops. Not down to the supermarket for cut-price booze.’

  His stomach felt like he’d descended thirty swift floors in a lift. He’d thought he was being so clever; that although she’d be angry at first, in the long run she’d thank him. He was supposed to be good at making choices like that to help patients understand how to make positive choices for themselves in future. And he’d blown it comprehensively with the person who meant most to him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, angry at the inadequacy of the words. ‘I could come out right away with the keys?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s time for that. I’m going to get a cab to the mall. You can meet me there with my Land Rover keys then drive me back after I’ve finished shopping.’ She didn’t sound in the least mollified, but at least she was still talking to him. There had been times in the recent past where not a word had passed between them for weeks on end and it had been the hardest emotional loss he’d ever endured.

  ‘I’ll text you when I get there,’ he said. But he was talking to dead air. How the hell was he going to redeem himself this time?

  26

  The top floor of Skenfrith Street police station had an unrivalled view of the multi-storey car park opposite. That was probably its finest feature. Right now, it was an empty rectangular space with grey industrial carpeting and pale grey painted walls. The dropped ceiling had banks of fluorescent lighting that stripped everything of its humanity, including the humans. John Brandon sucked his teeth and frowned a question at the man from Building Services.

  An eager-looking hipster with a waxed moustache, skinny jeans and a canvas jacket, he tapped his tablet and held it out to reveal a bare floor plan. ‘We’ve got a team standing by to knock it into whatever configuration you want with a view to being ready to roll on Monday,’ he said, fingering his quiff with his free hand.

  Carol looked around, considering. ‘I want a corner office over there,’ she said. ‘With a window. Six metres by six.’

  The hipster drew a box with his finger on the floor plan. Black lines appeared. ‘That sort of size?’

  Carol nodded. ‘A desk, two four-drawer filing cabinets, a proper ergonomic chair and two visitor chairs. And a coat stand.’

  More tapping and suddenly, there it all was from a bird’s-eye view. ‘You’ll want a waste paper bin,’ he said.

  And so it continued. A separate office for Stacey with enough electrical outlets for a small factory, enclosed so prying eyes couldn’t see what illegalities she might be perpetrating. Open plan for everyone else, with a couple of small meeting rooms where private conversations could be conducted when necessary. Whiteboards for displaying case progress. A flip chart. A long run of desks in the middle of the room and a few scattered on the periphery. Computers, obviously. And the coffee area.

  ‘We need a proper coffee machine. From bean to cup. We’re very particular about our brew in this MIT. I don’t care what you call it on the official requisitions, but it’s a necessity.’ Carol’s chin came up in a challenge but she was tilting at the wrong windmill.

  The young man grinned and nodded. ‘That is an excellent call. It’s yours, provided I can stop by when I’m in the building.’ He started to say something then stopped.

  ‘Go on?’ Carol said.

  ‘There’s a new roaster opened on Bellwether Square, Coffee Temple? Everywhere else is third wave but they’re proper old school, you know? Mellow and chocolatey.’ He shrugged. ‘If that’s the way you roll, it’s as good as it gets. You might want to pick up your beans from there.’

  Carol smiled and thanked him. ‘What do you say, John? Will we try the new coffee shop and let the guys get on with their work?’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ he said, leading the way to the lifts. As the doors closed, Brandon said, ‘I suppose you understood every word of that? About the coffee?’ he grumbled.

  ‘Pretty much. When it comes to my team, I think I can safely say that as far as coffee is concerned, we’re old school. Trust me, John, you don’t want to go down the acidic and fruity route.’

  ‘I remember when coffee was just coffee. Sometimes frothy,’ he muttered as he followed her out of the building. The sky was low and lowering, the air damp and sour as they walked briskly through half-empty back streets to Bellwether Square. Five minutes later, they were huddled over their drinks at a corner table in Coffee Temple, where the aroma of roasted coffee mingled with fresh scones. Carol thought it was going to be hard to resist escaping there whenever she could sneak out.

  ‘So,’ Brandon said. ‘No second thoughts?’

  Carol shook her head. ‘No. For the first time in ages I’m excited about the idea of working cases.’ She twisted her mouth in a wry expression. ‘Working with Blake knocked a lot of the satisfaction out of the job, to be honest. I’m looking forward to having a bit more control over how we manage our budget.’

  ‘It will be your responsibility,’ he said. ‘You’ve got pretty tight constraints, but at least you get to decide your priorities. So, who have you set your heart on?’

  ‘DS Paula McIntyre, DC Stacey Chen and a young DC, Karim Hussain from BMP. I’d like DS Alvin Ambrose from West Mercia. And I’d like to bring Kevin Matthews back out of retirement.’

  Brandon frowned. ‘I don’t see any problem with the serving officers. But why would Kevin want to come back?’

  ‘I’ve given that some thought. You remember years ago he got bumped down from inspector to sergeant?’

  A grim look settled on Brandon’s face. ‘I remember. He leaked details to the press. He was having an affair with that hack Penny Burgess, wasn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right. But it was a long time ago.’

  ‘That was the first case where we used Tony, wasn’t it?’

  Carol’s eyes clouded at the memory. ‘Anyway, Kevin paid the price. He dropped a rank and he stayed there. He could have tried to get back to inspector, but he wanted to stay on the MIT and I didn’t have the budget for a DI. So I’m proposing we not only bring him back into the fold but we bring him back as an inspector. Ideally, every MIT should carry an officer at that rank anyway. And Paula’s not ready.’

  ‘You’re going with a very small team,’ Brandon said.

  ‘You promised us local back-up for all the routine tasks, so I’d rather keep the team small and tight so we can use our budget where it
matters. On the forensic experts. Tony, for one.’

  Brandon stared into his coffee, considering. It was a bold set-up, but bold was what they’d asked for. If it all went horribly wrong, all he had to lose was some lucrative Home Office work. They wouldn’t starve, him and Maggie, if they had to fall back on a chief constable’s pension. The only one taking a risk here was Carol, and that would be a hell of a spur to make things work well. He looked up and gave a curt nod. ‘I think we can live with that arrangement,’ he said. ‘The beardie weirdie said you’d have the office up and running by Monday. I’ll do my best to make sure the paperwork’s in place for you to have your team then. It’ll be tight, but I haven’t forgotten how to wave a big stick.’

  ‘How about tomorrow? If I can get them on board?’

  Brandon was surprised and it showed. ‘Why do you want them tomorrow? There’s no case for you yet. You’ll have a few days to bed down before anything gets punted your way.’

  ‘The sooner the better,’ she said. ‘I think they might need an exercise to get back up to speed, given they’ve none of them been working exclusively on major cases.’

  ‘An exercise?’ Brandon looked nonplussed. ‘What sort of exercise?’

  ‘A little something Tony and I are putting together that will get them working as a team and set their brains ticking over,’ she said with a nonchalance that could only have fooled someone who didn’t know her.

  Brandon sighed. He knew he couldn’t complain. He was the one who had unleashed the juggernaut. ‘Why don’t you have an unofficial word with them, see what they have to say? I’ll see what I can do to make those transfers immediately effective.’

  Carol’s face lit up in a way he hadn’t seen for a very long time. ‘Thank you, John. And thank you for having the confidence in me to give me this chance. I needed something to kickstart my life after what happened to Michael. I just didn’t know what it was.’

  Shakila Bain had an air of apparently effortless glamour that Paula knew a lifetime of practice would never grant her. Her glossy hair hung in blunt lines without a split end in sight, her make-up was striking without being grotesque, her nails were perfectly shaped and without a single chip. She looked both younger and more mature than the twenty-eight years her website credited her with. She was wearing a silky plaid tunic over skinny-leg trousers made from some shimmering black fabric. Paula, who had made the effort of clean black jeans and lightweight layered T-shirts under her Puffa jacket, came under a critical gaze and felt wanting.

  She’d invited Paula to meet her at her studio in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. The area was clearly trying to brand itself as edgy and stylish but it had quite a way to go, Paula thought. Tired wholesalers with windows full of cheap clothes and second-hand jewellery shops rubbed shoulders with juice bars and craft workers’ outlets. Shakila’s studio occupied the entire second floor of a shabby brick building in a scruffy back street. It was surprisingly bright, which was probably a good thing for the eyesight of the dozen women hunched over industrial sewing machines amidst a riot of colourful fabrics. Large sketches of tunics and shirts were loosely pinned to the walls, adding to the blitz of colour.

  Shakila led her into a small white cube of a meeting room where she was the only splash of colour. When she closed the door the clatter of machinery subsided to a low mutter that was quieter than the buzz of the CID office Paula had left. ‘Thanks for making the time to see me. You’re obviously busy,’ Paula said, settling on a white leather ottoman.

  Shakila shrugged. ‘I’m kind of surprised to see you, to be honest. Because I didn’t get a whole lot of interest from your colleagues when the shitstorm hit. I don’t know whether it was because I’m a Muslim or because I’m a woman, but I so didn’t feel the love.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. All I can say is that this is a relatively new crime and some of my colleagues don’t quite grasp how serious it can be for people like you on the receiving end. It’s no excuse, I know. But that’s why I’m here now. I’ve been doing case reviews and I thought you deserved better from BMP than we delivered.’ Paula meant what she said. The hardest part was knowing that the only reason she was there was because another investigation interested her more than what had happened to Shakila. Without Kate and Jasmine and Daisy, nobody would ever have come near the designer again.

  Shakila shrugged. ‘I appreciate what you’re saying but it doesn’t change the facts. I was threatened and frightened and I came to the police for help and you guys didn’t help. If they hadn’t lost interest in me because something more tasty came along, if they’d acted on those threats, it wouldn’t be any consolation to me that you’re here now.’

  Shakila was, Paula thought, a lot less confrontational than she’d have been in her shoes. ‘I’ve read the file, and I do sympathise. Would you mind talking me through what happened?’

  ‘One of the reporters on the local news channel went to the same school as me. He said he was looking for somebody who confounded expectations of what a Muslim woman looks like to talk about the alienation of young men and why they go off to become jihadis.’ She sighed. ‘I didn’t think it was that controversial. I mean, you only have to think about it for five minutes. Teenagers, they’re always looking for a cause. If your average white boy had the equivalent of jihad to nail his idealism to, they’d be signing up round the block. It’s the kind of stupid thing that appeals to boys when they’re at their most stupid age, it’s not a Muslim thing. It’s the reason half of them join the army.’

  ‘And then the sky fell in?’

  Shakila’s expression took on a wry twist. ‘You could say that. For the first couple of days, it was just a local thing. But then what I like to think of as anti-social media got hold of it. Before I knew it, I was getting abuse by the bucketload.’

  ‘What were they saying?’

  ‘Nothing very original. I needed to have some sense raped into me, I was a dirty Muslim terrorist-lover, I should go back to where I came from. Not bloody likely, I said, I’m not going back to Bingley.’ A forced smile. ‘It was pretty horrible. When it got to “We know where you live and we’re coming for you”, my brother persuaded me to go to you lot.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  She spread her hands. ‘Nothing much. I made a report, somebody took some notes and I went home. And then that woman MP went on Question Time and said more or less the same thing I’d said and they all lost interest in me.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m prettier than her but she gets more attention in the media, so there’s more traction in trying to terrorise her.’

  ‘And nobody turned up at your house?’

  Shakila shook her head. ‘That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have, if some other bright shiny thing hadn’t caught their eye. These people are scum, you know?’

  Paula knew. ‘I expect you were very upset.’

  ‘Upset doesn’t begin to touch it. I was frightened for my life. And for the women who work for me. What if one of those bastards had set fire to this place? What if a bunch of them had taken it into their heads to attack me on my way home? I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. I had a couple of weeks of absolute hell. I’m a tough woman, Sergeant. You have to be tough to make it in the rag trade. But I was buckling under the stress of it all. Thank God I have a strong family around me.’ For a moment, her composure slipped and Paula caught a glimpse of the unravelling that had threatened her.

  ‘This might sound like a strange question, but I’m asking because we’re looking at other women who’ve had similar experiences to you. Was there anyone suggesting you should kill yourself?’

  Shakila gave a shaky laugh. ‘There was all sorts. To tell you the truth, I stopped reading them after a couple of days. I decided I didn’t need that shit in my head. I didn’t delete them, in case anything happened and your lot finally decided to do something. But I didn’t go through them. If you want to take a look, send somebody over, they can go through what’s on my laptop. They’ll have to do it here, though. My life, my
business, they’re all on that machine, I’m not letting it out of my hands.’

  Paula smiled. ‘That’s OK. I have a colleague who can make a shadow copy of your hard drive in next to no time. Then she can take it away and analyse all that crap. But you don’t remember anyone specifically encouraging you to kill yourself?’

  ‘Plenty telling me the world would be a better place if I was dead, quite a few saying if I loved jihad so much why didn’t I become a suicide bomber. You can see for yourselves.’

  ‘I’ll arrange for DC Chen to come over and copy your hard drive,’ Paula said. ‘And we’ll see whether we can track down any of the men who have been harassing you.’

  ‘I’m happy to press charges,’ Shakila said. ‘Even if it means I get more of the same. All I did was express an opinion. Somebody has to show these people they don’t get to shut the rest of us up because they don’t like what we have to say.’

  27

  Everybody seemed to like Skype except him, Tony thought, closing his office door then settling in front of his screen. His dislike was both personal and professional. Everybody looked weird on Skype. Everyone, frankly, looked like a potential patient. There was something very unsettling about that fish-eyed stare. Even people he liked looked deranged. From a professional perspective, the trouble was you could never see enough of the person you were in conversation with to gauge their body language. They might be giving off all sorts of signals you’d be aware of in what his boss had taken to calling ‘F2F encounters’, but the Skype interface could hide a multitude of clues.

  But sometimes it was impossible to avoid. Like this morning. Paula was in Manchester, interviewing Shakila Bain, the British Asian fashion designer who’d been a recent victim of harassment. Stacey was in the digital forensics unit of BMP grinding her way through routine analyses of the hard drives of suspected fraudsters. And he was seeing patients at Bradfield Cross. They’d settled on a time; all he had to do now was get his Skype up and running.