You see, I've met someone I love very much. There's no reason why we shouldn't marry and that's what we intend to do. You've been so busy with your work, which I admire, that I don't think you've noticed how much Father has been pressuring me to go home with him when I graduate and marry our cousin Ahmed. But even before I met the man I love I'd decided I didn't want that. It's difficult enough to live in two cultures without constantly being pulled back into the old one by traditions that my English friends regard as unacceptable. I know you'll think I'm very wrong but I want an English marriage between equals. I've thought and thought about this, and can't accept anything else. I don't believe any more that this is immoral. don't believe I've been immodest in getting to know my lover, although I know you'll think that. I do admire your decision to live a more traditional life, but I can't do that.
I won't tell you where I am going, and I won't contact you. I know Papa and Sayeed will want to seek me out and punish me and I hope we'll be far enough away to prevent that.
Don't think too badly of me, my dearest sister. I wish we could have stayed close together for the rest of our lives as we always imagined we would when we were little girls.
Your loving sister,
Saira
“I suppose you sympathise,” Amina said angrily when she saw that Laura had finished reading and was staring into her coffee cup.
“I sympathise with you both,” Laura said. “I think trying to live in one culture while surrounded by a quite different one must be incredibly hard.”
“Not if you live according to our faith,” Amina said. “But I didn't come here to talk about that. I just wanted to ask you to forget that we ever talked about Saira. I've talked to her friends at college and we all agree that it's best if our parents, the mosque, the rest of them, don't know anything about all this. It's safer that way. Let them go and never be found. That's all.”
“There's just one problem with that,” Laura said. “You obviously don't know, but I'm afraid the police are looking for Saira too. I'm surprised they haven't been to see you by now.”
“But why?” Amina protested. “Did you tell them about her? How can they be looking for her when no one has reported her missing? What have you done?”
Laura took hold of the agitated young woman's hand.
“It wasn't me,” she said. “And it's worse than you think. Far worse. The police have discovered that Saira's boyfriend was Simon Earnshaw, the student who was found dead in Broadley a few days ago. They want to talk to Saira and I don't think they're going to take no for an answer.”
“He's dead?” Amina said, almost to herself, but the horror stark in her face. “What will she do now? Whatever will she do now?”
“If she's any sense she'll come back to Bradfield and talk to the police,” Laura said.
“You don't understand,” Amina said. “You don't understand anything. You liberals think you do, but you don't.”
“So tell me,” Laura said more gently.
“She can't come back here â ever. She's had a love affair and the family is dishonoured. She has no future here now. She's on her own. She'll never be forgiven. And it may be even worse than that. There'll be people who will want her punished. She can never never come back.”
“Do you know how to contact her?” Laura asked.
“You've seen the letter. There's no address.” Amina's face was pale and closed now, as if the news Laura had given her had sealed her own fate in some way as well as her sister's.
“No mobile phone number?”
“No.”
Laura signalled to the waitress for a bill for their coffees and her lunch.
“You know you'll have to show the letter to the police, don't you?” she said.
“No, I can't,” Amina said, her voice determined.
“You must, Amina. If you don't go to them yourself, I'll have to tell them what's happened. This is a murder they're investigating. You could get into a lot of trouble if you don't pass on information.”
“No,” Amina said again.
“Look, I'll give you twenty-four hours to talk to DCI Thackeray. After that, I'll have to tell him myself.”
Amina shrugged, pushed back her chair with a noisy scrape on the tiled floor and stood up, which Laura could
only interpret as another no. She took a two pound coin from her bag and put it on the table.
“For my coffee,” she said, and walked out of the café without a backward glance.
Â
As Laura was driving home that evening along Aysgarth Lane, the busy heart of Bradfield's Asian community, she was startled to be overtaken by four or five powerful motorbikes with riders in full black leathers moving fast round the slow stream of traffic making its way out of town towards the suburbs.
“Idiots,” she muttered to herself as the last of the convoy squeezed between her car and an on-coming van, forcing her towards the kerb and an Asian family innocently doing their shopping at one of the greengrocers which had spread its wares across the pavement. A man in shalwar kameez stepped back from the edge of the road and shouted a protest at Laura which she could not hear. She raised her hands to indicate her helplessness and glared ahead at the motorbikes which seemed to have caused more mayhem further up the road by unexpectedly swinging right into one of the tightly packed sidestreets leading up the hill towards Earnshaws mill. There had been something menacing about the string of heavy bikes and their presence had evidently been noted by some of the Asian men who tended to gather in Aysgarth Lane to chat at the end of the working day. Laura watched for a moment as the traffic inched slowly forward, and saw several groups of bystanders gesticulating angrily and a number of younger men beginning to run in the direction of the bikes - up streets almost exclusively occupied by Asian families.
Spurred on by curiosity and a sense that something bad was about to happen, Laura flicked on her indicator and took the same right turn that the bikes had done, although the
traffic jam meant that she was now some five minutes behind them. She glanced at the passenger seat where her mobile phone lay beside her handbag and pushed the door locks on with her elbow as she noticed more young men running along the pavement beside the car. She accelerated slightly to outpace them but as she reached a crossroads just a street away from the tall brick façade of the mill, she had to brake hard as the bikes cut across the car and swung away down the hill again the way they had come.
Cautiously she glanced down the street to her left before deciding whether or not to turn into it and quickly realised that it was already blocked by a crowd of people which was growing by the minute as front doors opened and more of the residents looked cautiously in both directions before venturing out. She did a U-turn and parked on the opposite side of the road she was in, locked her bag in the glove-box and with her mobile phone firmly clutched in her pocket, got out of the car and began to walk towards the centre of the disturbance, one of only a handful of white faces amongst the growing throng of brown.
By the time Laura had wormed her way to the front of the crowd, the mood was already becoming angry and in the distance she could hear the sound of approaching sirens. It was obvious that someone had been hurt but she was unable to get close enough to see who the victim was or exactly what had happened. Within minutes an ambulance with blue lights flashing began inching its way through the press of people. From the excited chatter, some in English and some in Punjabi, she gathered that the motorcyclists were being held responsible for whatever had gone wrong and that the victim was a man, but whether what had happened was an accident or an assault was impossible to glean. She caught no more than a glimpse of paramedics in green
coveralls leaping out of their cab to be greeted by angry shouts before deciding that she had seen as much as it was safe to see. She edged her way back to her car, through the shoving, jostling crowd which grew with alarming speed as men and boys came racing from surrounding streets. Slamming and locking the doors, she pulled out her mobile and called her editor and then Michael Thackeray. Even as she spoke she could see the outrage growing in the street around her and she pulled very cautiously away from the kerb, attracting angry glances as she went. It was not until she had driven safely home that Michael called her back, by which time he already knew that the man lying in intensive care in Bradfield Infirmary with his life in the balance was the trade union convenor from Earnshaws, Mohammed Iqbal, and that in Aysgarth Lane the petrol bombs had begun to fly.
“I saw the bikes go up there,” Laura said. There was a long silence at the other end of the phone.
“And you followed them?” Thackeray asked, his voice chilly.
“I was curious,” Laura said. “It's my job to be curious.”
“You were lucky not to be hurt.”
“I know,” Laura conceded and realised that her hands were still trembling.
“I won't be home for a while,” Thackeray said. “There's all hell broken loose up there. Could you identify any of the riders, or the bikes?”
“No,” Laura said. “Not with their big helmets, and it all happened too quickly to catch number plates or anything like that. Will this man Iqbal survive?”
“Unlikely,” Thackeray said flatly. “It looks like another murder. And a race-related one at that. I have to go, Laura. I'll see you when I see you, and Laura ⦔
“Michael?” she said.
“Don't do anything silly.”
“I'll try not to,” she said soberly.
Superintendent Jack Longley thumped his fist on his desk and glared at his assembled senior officers.
“I'll not have no-go areas in this town,” he said. “I don't give a damn who's at death's door and how strongly the Muslim community feels about it. The streets will be policed and people will walk in them without any hindrance from vigilantes of any colour. You'll make that clear at your community relations meeting this afternoon, Brian?”
Chief Inspector Brian Butler, in charge of Bradfield's uniformed officers, nodded, his dour expression giving nothing away.
“Any progress on tracing the bikes?” Longley asked but Butler, always a man of few words, shrugged slightly.
“Nowt,” he said. “No one's come up with registration numbers. Witnesses say that when the gang got back down to Aysgarth Lane they peeled off and went their separate ways. After about five minutes from the assault I've had no sightings. We may get more when the
Gazette
comes out with an appeal for witnesses later on.”
“And how's Iqbal?” Longley asked, offering Michael Thackeray the same fierce glare that he had bestowed on Butler.
“I've got Mower waiting for a call to his bedside on the offchance he comes round,” DCI Michael Thackeray said. “But the doctors aren't hopeful. He suffered a massive head injury and he's on life-support.”
“Wonderful,” Longley said. “You know what sort of conspiracy theories that'll have whizzing around Aysgarth Lane, don't you? Earnshaws can't afford a strike so they put this
gang up to attacking Iqbal after the fire-bombing of the union offices didn't scare the union off. Anything in that for a line of inquiry, do you think, Michael?”
It was Thackeray's turn to shrug and look slightly blank.
“It's worth giving some thought,” he said doubtfully. “It's pretty clear from the witness statements we've been able to get overnight â which is not a lot because of the rioting â that the gang were intent on finding Iqbal in particular. They went straight to his house and unfortunately he was outside on the street talking to some of his union members. They were pushed aside and they set on Iqbal with iron bars. He was obviously the target, but it may be very difficult to prove they were put up to it by anything other than sheer bloody malevolence. It could just be that the local Nazis have worked themselves up because of the strike threat. Ricky Pickles is at the top of my interview list and anyone else on the loony racist fringes, so we'll take it from there.”
“But you'll talk to the Earnshaws?”
“If you say so, sir,” Thackeray said cautiously.
“I bloody say so,” Longley said. “You don't pussyfoot around in this situation whatever ACC Ellison suggests.”
“Sir,” Thackeray said, wondering if Longley's dislike of Ellison was affecting his judgement, but Longley had already switched his attention back to Butler.
“So how many casualties last night?” he asked.
“Two officers with minor burns,” Butler said. “About a dozen Asian lads treated at the Infirmary, two detained overnight with burns, half a dozen white lads, none detained.”
“Where the hell did they come from?” Longley asked.
“Oh, I think they heard there was a bit of a rumble going down and thought they'd join in,” Butler said sourly. “Most were from Wuthering and reckoned they were on our side when we interviewed a couple we arrested. Bloody fools.”
“And how many arrests altogether?”
“Fourteen â ten Asian, four white. I doubt we'll be able to make charges stick. They'll all have mothers who'll swear they just slipped out for five minutes to see what all the fuss was about. The Fire Brigade reckons the damage to the car showrooms at the bottom of Market Street alone'll be about half a million. Then there's the Lamb pub burned out and a couple of houses next to it badly damaged. Fire engines couldn't get near for about an hour.”
“So what happens if Iqbal snuffs it?” Longley asked no one in particular.
“Take to the lifeboats,” Butler said. “I think I'll put in for a spot of leave.”
“You'll do nothing of the sort,” Longley growled. “In fact you'd best cancel all leave for the duration. If Michael's right and this Iqbal lad's on his way out, we're going to need every officer we've got on duty twenty-four-seven.”
“My little joke, sir,” Butler said, but neither Longley nor Thackeray smiled.
Â
While the police were assessing the damage to people and property caused by the previous night's riot around Aysgarth Lane, Frank Earnshaw and his father were engaged in a similar stock-taking at the family mill. Frank had been only slightly surprised when his father had appeared at eight that morning and presented himself in the office looking haggard and leaning heavily on a stick. George had evidently been even less surprised by the news that the vast majority of the mill workers had failed to turn up at all for work that morning.
“There's nothing you can do here, Dad,” Earnshaw said eventually in exasperation as the two men stood at the office window and gazed down at the empty yard and the slate
roofs of tightly packed terraced houses gleaming almost black in the morning drizzle. “When I get through to Jim Watson I may be able to make some progress but as things stand the beggars are on unofficial strike and we'll get no production today, and maybe not for some while.”
“Is Watson even in bloody Bradfield?” George asked, stepping away and sinking into the single comfortable chair in the managing director's office with what sounded to his son more like a groan rather than a grunt.
“You shouldn't have come,” Frank said, glancing at George's stick-thin frame which was hunched over his knees, head down. “You're not well enough to be driving, let alone worrying about this mess. You're retired, for God's sake, and you're not a fit man. Why don't you bugger off and get some rest.”
George glanced up at his son and although his face was grey and deeply lined his eyes were still bright and very angry.
“This mess would never have happened if I'd been fit,” he said. “Where's bloody Watson? Why isn't he here sorting these Paki beggars out?”
“He's not likely to be in Bradfield with the union office burned out, is he?” Frank said. “I've got Rita trying his mobile every fifteen minutes, we've left messages at his regional office and on his voicemail. There's nowt else I can do. No one seems to know where he is.”
“Rita's not out on bloody strike then?” George asked. “More sense, has she?”
“No, the office staff are all in. Of course, they're not in a union.”
“And most of them are white,” George said. “Just goes to show.”
Frank sighed and returned to his vantage point. The
streets leading down to Aysgarth Lane appeared deserted this morning, but a haze of smoke still hung over the cluster of buildings on the major junction close to the town centre which had been the focal point of the wrath of the crowd of young Asians who had run amok within minutes of the attack on Mohammed Iqbal the night before, taking the police and emergency services completely by surprise. He could see blue lights still flashing through the gloom.
“We should never have let the union back in. We never had all this trouble when Maggie gave us the option,” George said.
“Yes, well you know there's no possibility of that now. We'll sink or swim together with the men,” Frank said. “And if this stoppage goes on long we'll be sunk by the end of next week.”
“Bloody nonsense,” George said, consumed by his anger again. “We'll be nowt of the sort. They'll come crawling back to work as soon as they realise there'll be no wage packets if they don't. You'll see. It's all hot air, this sort of wild cat strike. Watson'll sort them out.”
“I hope so,” Frank said. “This looks like his car coming into the yard now. He must have got one of my messages after all.”
But if the Earnshaws had hoped for reassuring news from the union's regional officer they were to be quickly disappointed.
“I was at the Infirmary,” Watson said, breathing heavily from the climb up stone stairs to the top floor as soon as the usual pleasantries were over. “Had to turn my mobile off. I came as quick as I could.”
“How's Iqbal?” Frank Earnshaw asked.
“Critical,” Watson said, his voice flat and unemotional. “You think you've got problems now, Frank, but I tell you, if
Iqbal snuffs it there'll be all hell let loose. I should think the last thing on anyone's mind will be getting production here up and running again.”
“The attack on Iqbal was nowt to do with us,” Frank Earnshaw said angrily.
“That's not how the Asian lads see it,” Watson said. “A fire bomb at t'union office and a vicious attack on their convenor just at the moment when you're trying to cut wages and possibly lay people off? Come off it, Frank. Who the hell d'you think they'll blame?”
“Well, they'll be wrong. We need the unions on side if we're to get any sort of restructuring plan through. I need bolshie workers and inexperienced convenors like I need a hole in the head. This is all part of some neo-Nazi campaign that's been going on a while now. Christ, some little lass had acid thrown at her in the street only the other day. They don't think we organised that an'all, do they? It's politics they want to blame, not us. You know as well as I do that the right wingers are planning to stand in the local elections. That's what all this is about: show the Pakis up as trouble-makers, get the police to crack a few heads, put them in their place and win a few votes up on Wuthering Heights.”
“Nice try, Frank, but I don't reckon there's a man down there'll believe you,” Jim Watson said, nodding at the tightly packed streets below the mill. “They know you've been pushing Mohammed Iqbal to deliver what he can't possibly deliver and now he's out of it they'll put two and two together and make a hundred and five â in petrol bombs, most like â and there's nowt I can do to make them think any different.”
“Well, you're a great help. I must say,” Frank said while George mumbled something incomprehensible as he lay back in his chair with his eyes half closed.
“Is your dad all right?” Watson asked. “I heard he weren't so good ⦔
“I'll run him home in a bit,” Frank said dismissively. “He's no right to be out of his bed. So what do you propose to do about your members, then, Jim? They're out of order walking out without a ballot, you know that. I could take you to court, you know.”
“And that'd cost you,” Jim Watson said easily. “I'll read them târiot act, though I'm not sure it'll do much more good today than it did last night when a lot of them were out on t'streets. But I'll give it a go. I'll call a meeting this afternoon if we can use t'yard.”
“Use anything you want if you can get them back for tomorrow morning,” Frank Earnshaw said. “If this goes on any longer it'll put all our plans for this place back to square one, or scupper them altogether. I don't think you realise quite what a knife-edge we're on here.”
“Flaming nonsense,” George Earnshaw said, half-opening his eyes.
“Aye, well, we'll see about that,” Frank said. As father and son glared at each other there was a knock on the door and the young receptionist put her head round.
“There's Chief Inspector Thackeray to see you, sir,” she said. All three men glanced at each other.
“He chooses his moments,” Frank Earnshaw said at last. “I suppose you'd better show him in. Let us know what goes off at the meeting, will you, Jim?”
The union official nodded and left the office as Michael Thackeray came in. If he was surprised to find George Earnshaw there as well as his son he disguised it well.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said quietly. “I'm sorry to bother you when I know you've got other things on your mind but there's a couple of things I need to discuss with you.”
“You've made some progress?” Frank Earnshaw asked quickly. “Have you found out who killed Simon?” Thackeray was conscious of the old man's eyes glittering from beneath half-closed lids.
“No, I'm afraid we haven't,” he said. “There's still a lot of routine work to do before we even have a clear picture of who the likely suspects might be. But we have confirmed the identity of his elusive girlfriend. He's apparently had a fairly long-standing relationship with a young woman called Saira Khan. She's a fellow student at the university and, as I suggested might be the case last time I saw you, she's an Asian Muslim. Did either of you have any idea that Simon had an Asian girlfriend?”
George Earnshaw was wide awake now, leaning forward in his chair, his cheeks flushed, but it was his son who spoke first.
“We had no idea,” Frank Earnshaw said.