Peter Robinson - Blood At The Root

Josie Fox frowned. “Disturbing? Like what?”

“Did you know about Jason’s racist views?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did he never talk about his opinions to you?”

“He never really talked about anything much,” she said. “Especially not these past few years.”

“Were you aware of what he thought about Asians and blacks?”

“Well,” said Josie Fox, “let’s put it this way. I knew he had some opinions that might be unpopular, you know, about foreigners, immigrants and such, but I wouldn’t say they were particularly extreme. Lots of people think the way Jason does and it doesn’t make them racists.”

That was a new one on Susan: having racist views doesn’t make you a racist? “Did Jason ever mention belonging to any sort of an organization?” she asked. “A group of like-minded people?”

It was Maureen Fox who broke the silence. “No. Jason never mentioned it, but he did. Belong to a group, that is. We only found out about it yesterday.”

“Maureen!”

“Oh, Mother. Jason was a creep and you know it. That’s why he could never keep a girlfriend. I don’t care if I am speaking ill of the dead. I could never stomach him even when he was at school back in Halifax. All his talk about bloody racial purity making the country great again. It made me want to puke. It was those skins he hung around with at school, you know, them and their masters, the ones who prey on schoolkids in depressed areas. You should have done something, you and Dad.”

“Like what?” Josie Fox beseeched her. “What could we have done to change him?”

“How do I know what you should have done? But you’re his parents. You should have done something .” She turned to Susan. “Yesterday we went to visit my granddad,” she said. “He showed us a pamphlet he thought Jason had sent him in the post. He was very upset about it.”

“The Albion League?”

“You know?”

Susan nodded. “Your grandfather told DCI Banks yesterday evening.”

Maureen looked at her mother. “There. I told you Granddad wouldn’t be able to keep it to himself.” She turned to Susan. “Mum thought we should keep it in the family, to protect the family name, but…” She shrugged. “Well, the cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it?”

“I still don’t see what this has to do with anything,” Josie Fox protested. “Now you’re making out my Jason was the villain, but he was the victim. Are you suggesting those boys might have killed him because of his beliefs?”

“Could they have known?”

“What do you mean?”

Susan paused for a moment, then continued softly, “Jason wasn’t here very often, Mrs. Fox. He didn’t put down roots, didn’t get to know people. Could those boys have known about him, about what he… believed?”

“They could have found out somehow, I suppose. They’re Asians, so I suppose they have their own gangs, their own networks, don’t they? Maybe he did talk to one of them, that one in the shop.”

“Do you know if he ever shopped there?”

“I don’t know, but he might have done. It’s not far away, especially if you go to the bus stop down on Cardigan Drive.”

“But Jason had a car.”

“Doesn’t mean he never took the bus, does it? Anyway, all I’m saying is he might have gone in the shop. It wasn’t far away. That’s all.”

“Do you remember about a month ago, when someone threw a brick-”

“Now, wait a minute,” said Josie. “You’re not going to blame that on our Jason. Oh, no. Be nice and easy for you, that, wouldn’t it, blaming a crime on someone who can’t answer for himself, just so you can make your crime figures look better, write it off your books.”

Susan took a deep breath. “That’s not my intention, Mrs. Fox. I’m trying to establish a link between Jason and George Mahmood, if there is one. Given Jason’s feelings about Asians, it doesn’t seem entirely beyond the realm of possibility that he chucked the brick and George knew about it.”

“Well, you’ll never know, will you?”

Susan sighed. “Perhaps not. Do you know if Jason gave out any of those pamphlets to anyone on the estate?”

Josie Fox shook her head. “I shouldn’t think so. No, I’m fairly certain he didn’t. I’d have heard about it.”

I’ll bet you would, Susan thought. “Did any of Jason’s colleagues ever call here?”

“I told you the other day. No. We didn’t know his friends.” For a moment, Susan had imagined a scene like the one in the Krays’ east London home, the boys upstairs planning murder and mayhem while good old mum comes in with a tray of tea and biscuits, beaming at them. Obviously not. “You’d almost think he was ashamed of us,” Josie Fox added.

“Or of them,” said Susan. “Look, he was seen drinking with this lad in the Jubilee on Saturday night.” She turned to face Maureen again and showed her the picture. “We’re trying to trace him. He might be able to help us find out what happened. Have you ever seen Jason with anyone like that?”

Maureen shook her head. “No.”

“Mrs. Fox?”

“No.”

“You told us Jason was working at a plastics factory in Leeds. Did you know that he left there two years ago, that he was asked to leave because of his racist views?”

Josie Fox’s jaw dropped and she could only shake her head slowly, eyes disbelieving. Even Maureen paled.

“Do you know where he went after that?” Susan pressed on.

“No,” said Mrs. Fox, her voice flat, defeated. “As far as we knew, that’s where he worked.”

“Did he ever mention anything about studying computers?”

“Not to me, no.”

“Do you know where Jason lived in Leeds?”

“I gave you the address.”

Susan shook her head. “He hasn’t been living there in eighteen months. He moved to Rawdon. Did you never visit him?”

Again she shook her head. “No. How could we? We were both working during the week. Jason, too. Besides, he came to visit us at weekends.”

“Did you never telephone him?”

“No. He said it was a shared telephone, out on the landing, and the people in the other flats didn’t like to be disturbed. He’d usually ring us if he wanted to tell us he was coming up.”

“What about at work?”

“No. His boss didn’t like it. Jason would always ring us. I don’t understand. This is all… Why didn’t he tell us?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Fox,” said Susan.

Tears welled in Josie Fox’s eyes. “How could he? I mean, where did it come from, him joining such a group, not telling us anything? We used to be such a close family. We always tried to bring him up properly, decently. Where did we go wrong?”

Maureen raised her eyes and sat rigidly, arms folded over her breast, staring at a spot high on the wall, as if she were both embarrassed and disgusted by her mother’s display of emotion.

Where did we go wrong ? It was a question Susan had heard many times, both in the course of her work and from her own parents when they complained about her chosen career. She knew better than to try to answer it.

A lot of prejudices were inherited. Her father, for example: to all outside appearances, he was a decent and intelligent man, a regular churchgoer, a respected member of the community, yet he would never eat in an Indian restaurant because he thought he was being served horse meat, dog or cat, and that the hot spices were used to mask the taste of decay.

Susan had inherited some of his attitudes, she knew, but she also knew she could fight against them; she didn’t have to be stuck with them forever. So she went to lots of Indian restaurants and got to love the food. That was why Superintendent Gristhorpe’s crack about having lunch at the Himalaya had made her blush. It was exactly what she had been thinking at the time: onion bhaji and vegetable samosas. Mmmm .