Nick Oldham - Backlash

Henry had often had dealings with the Khan family, but had only ever caught glimpses of the daughter. She never seemed to be involved in any of the business, legit or otherwise, and Henry had never really given her much thought. Except for now — he had to agree that Dave Seymour’s grudging accolade of her looks was spot on.

Naseema was an exceptionally beautiful young woman, exotically so, with dusky mysterious eyes, a wonderfully smooth complexion the colour of milk chocolate, and a small mouth shaped like a heart. She was dressed in a stunning red Indian trouser suit. Her slim legs were crossed, displaying finely boned ankles and petite feet in sandals. Henry knew she was twenty-three and unmarried. He did not know enough about her culture or religion to be certain as to whether this was an unusual state of affairs.

He introduced himself and offered her his hand which she shook with such delicate fingers that he could easily have crushed them. ‘I’ll be running the identification parade, so there’s just a few things I need to go through with you beforehand, OK?’

She nodded and looked past Henry towards her brother. Her face clouded over with annoyance as Saeed pushed himself away from the filing cabinet and said, ‘No, not OK. You’ll talk to her through me — is that understood?’

Henry bristled. He pursed his lips and slowly reappraised Saeed, a young man he had arrested twice previously for quite serious assaults. He had a quick temper and was always ready with a fist or a knife to ram home his point of view.

‘It’s our custom,’ Saeed stated.

‘And it’s a necessity for me to talk directly to witnesses — unless they don’t speak English, in which case I’ll use an official interpreter. And I know that your sister speaks English, so while I respect your customs, I have a job to do here and not much time to do it in — so we’ll achieve more, quickly, if you let me get on without interruption, OK?’ He spoke to Naseema, ‘If that’s OK with you?’

Throughout the exchange Henry had noticed that she had been glowering stonily at Saeed. Henry knew, therefore, he was on to a winner. She smiled radiantly, if falsely, at Henry. ‘That will be just fine, Inspector,’ she said with a hint of triumph.

Henry shot Saeed a quick warning glance and he backed down with an angry snarl of his lips, eyes blazing at his sister.

Henry wondered what the undercurrent of tension was all about; maybe Dave Seymour had hit the nail on the head with the Shakespearean scenario. It was obvious there was a sparking friction between the two siblings and Henry began to suspect that maybe the family had lost control of Naseema. Was she a wild child? Was she seeing one of the Costains? If so, this whole job could be a tricky one to handle. For the most transient of moments Henry was glad that his only involvement was the ID parade. . but it was only a passing shiver of thought: secretly he would have given his back teeth to be the Officer in Charge.

‘Good,’ said Henry. ‘You’ve already made a statement, I believe.’

‘Yes, she has,’ Saeed interrupted rudely, ‘which says that Joey Costain assaulted our father in her presence in an unprovoked racist attack. This parade will just confirm that.’

‘Saeed!’ Naseema clucked with hostility. ‘Let me speak, please.’

‘And don’t give me the pleasure of showing you out of the police station. Just let her answer — OK?’ Henry had had enough of Saeed now.

Saeed’s nostrils flared wide.

Henry turned slowly back to Naseema. ‘Did you actually see Joey Costain assaulting your father?’

She thought hard for a few seconds. ‘They had a push and shove while I was there, but nothing much. I saw them walk away together towards the bus station. I knew they were going to fight. Next time I saw my father he was being put in an ambulance.’

Henry nodded. He was about to say something when suddenly the office door burst open, no knock. A huffing and puffing Dave Seymour stood there, his bulk filling the doorway, tie askew, shirt stretched over his expanding gut. But for the hair — Seymour’s was short, neatly trimmed — he reminded Henry of Kojak’s sidekick, Stavros. The journey from the CID office, with his insides recently filled with kebab and cola, had exhausted him. ‘Henry. . can I have a quick word?’ His eyes took in the Khan brother and sister, then returned to Henry. ‘In private. . urgent.’

‘I’ll be back in a moment.’ Henry smiled at Naseema, stared coldly at Saeed, then followed Seymour outside. As he closed the door, Saeed launched a verbal assault on his sister in Urdu.

‘What is it, Dave?’

‘Bit of bad news, actually.’ Seymour flinched. ‘Mo Khan clocked out about half an hour ago. We’ve now got a murder investigation on our hands.’

‘Fuck,’ said Henry eloquently.

‘How would you feel,’ Henry demanded, ‘if I knew your father was dead and I didn’t tell you?’ He raised his eyebrows, daring a response. ‘If we don’t tell them, they’ll have good grounds for a complaint and we will look completely and utterly stupid and insensitive. We have no justification for it at all.’

Detective Inspector Roscoe swallowed and stared coldly at Henry. Roscoe had been the one who had decided that Naseema and Saeed Khan should not be informed about their father’s death before the ID parade took place.

‘Despite that,’ Roscoe said stubbornly, ‘I still don’t think we should tell them. That way no pressure is put on the girl — at least no more pressure than she’s already under. If we drag a hysterical, sobbing female down a line of stooges, it’s more than likely she will not perform.’

‘Perform to our standards, you mean, by picking Joey Costain out of the line-up?’

Henry saw he had momentarily hit a nerve before the DI spoke again. ‘What I mean is that she needs to be able to think straight, keep her head together and pick the little shit out.’

‘If she wants to pick him out,’ Henry observed.

‘Yeah, well, there is that to it,’ Roscoe conceded. ‘Rumour has it they’re shagging each other.’

There was a beat of silence between the two officers. They were discussing this delicate matter in a corridor — a location often used to conduct police business — both trying not to raise their voices. The atmosphere between them was fragile to start with, but when Dave Seymour had told Henry that Roscoe did not want the relatives informed of Mo Khan’s death until after the ID parade, it had smacked Henry’s ‘ethical’ button. He had immediately stormed up to the CID office and confronted Roscoe. There was a degree of devilment involved too, because he knew that if he had been in Roscoe’s position, he would probably have pushed for the same thing: a nice, clean parade at which the suspect was identified — then arrested for murder.

But he wasn’t in Roscoe’s position and the last thing Henry needed was to be the subject of a complaint, which if attached to the ‘race card’ could be very uncomfortable. As much as anything, he was watching his own back. He had enough complications in his life without taking on any further grief.

‘No easy answer,’ Roscoe admitted. She looked thoughtfully down at her wedding ring, twisting it around her finger, while making a clicking noise with her tongue. ‘I could really do with a quick result and, to be honest, I know that if we did tell them about Mo’s death, Joey Costain would probably have to be re-bailed and I’d’ve lost the element of surprise. I intended to drop it on his toes tonight, because he won’t know Mo Khan has died.’ She was pensive. Henry watched her face carefully. ‘And that estate they live on is buzzing with tension. If Joey Costain was out of the picture, the place would be a lot calmer. He’s a real shit stirrer. A riot up there — and that’s not an exaggeration — is the last thing the town needs this week with the conference starting tomorrow.’