‘For goodness’ sake, leave that, sis,’ said Raffy.
‘Someone might hurt themselves,’ she murmured, and continued to clear the shards.
‘I said fucking leave it,’ he snapped.
Lilly tried to clear her head. This was all wrong. She’d feared the family would be devastated but not like this.
‘I truly don’t believe your religion has any bearing on this matter,’ she said.
‘Religion has a bearing on every matter,’ said Mohamed, a dangerous darkness in his tone.
‘Miss Valentine’s correct, of course.’
Everyone turned to see a man in the doorway, his waspish frame incongruous in a charcoal pinstripe suit.
He held out his police badge in front of him. ‘DI Bell,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you could hear me knocking.’
Anwar stood to offer his hand. ‘I’m sorry for that.’
‘Don’t apologise to him,’ spat Raffy.
DI Bell slid his badge into his breast pocket and looked Raffy up and down. A lone wolf, eyeing up his supper.
‘How can we help you, Inspector?’ asked Anwar.
‘I came to inform you that Yasmeen was murdered but I see Miss Valentine got here first.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ Mohamed asked Bell.
‘The only thing he’s sure of is that he wants to make our lives a misery,’ said Raffy.
Bell’s lips formed a slight smile. ‘I can’t go into the evidence at this time.’
‘Because you don’t have any,’ said Raffy.
Lilly could see that Raffy was pushing it too far.
She
might be able to excuse an angry grieving young man but DI Bell would not. If she didn’t defuse the situation he might get himself arrested for threatening behaviour.
‘Do you have a suspect?’ she asked.
The inspector turned to her with unconcealed satisfaction. ‘Indeed I do.’
‘Who?’ demanded Raffy.
DI Bell licked his lips, the proverbial cat who had got the cream.
‘Raffique Khan, I am arresting you for the murder of Yasmeen Khan. You do not have to say anything but it
may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court…’
Jack parked outside Denleigh Secondary School. He drained a bottle of Evian and threw the empty plastic bottle over his shoulder. It landed on the back seat of his car amid fourteen others. Lilly kept nagging him to recycle them.
He snorted. Lilly recycled everything. Bottles, tins, cereal packets—you couldn’t get into the cottage for bags and boxes of the stuff piled up in the hallway.
‘It’s like one of those strikes in the seventies,’ he’d complained one evening when he’d nearly broken his ankle trying to leap over a month’s worth of newspapers.
‘I’m just trying to make sure this baby has a planet left to live on,’ she’d said, pointing at her swelling belly.
He’d laughed, like he always did. Said she was right, like he always did.
He thought about all those Coke cans, milk cartons and unwanted Christmas cards being collected, crushed, cleaned and used again. Maybe more than once, maybe lots of times. Maybe the same tin got used again and again and again, each time filled with something different, last time beans, this time peas, next time, who knows? But it was the same tin going round and round.
He knew how it felt. He’d been doing the same job for over ten years, living in the same flat, drinking in the same pubs. It was like Groundhog Day.
He had tried so hard to change things and thought Lilly’s pregnancy might be just the catalyst. A fresh
start for them both, a proper relationship. But no. He and Lilly were dancing the same dance they had always done.
He’d met her years ago, when one of her clients had been caught nicking tins of sweets in Woolies. He’d thought she was gorgeous and had impressed her by giving the lad a fiver and letting him go. Her smile had been worth the bollocking he’d got from the shop manager and it had kept him warm throughout a Christmas dinner of beans on toast. Lilly’s admiration of Jack seemed to have gone the same way as Woolworths since then.
She did what she felt she had to do, regardless of the consequences to him or his career. He wasn’t so stupid to think that if it wasn’t for Lilly he’d be in the murder team now, but she hadn’t helped.
During his last review, which had taken place, unhelpfully, a week after he and Lilly had ‘lost’ one of her clients on the way to the immigration authorities, the chief super had confirmed what Jack already knew.
‘Your choice of girlfriend is not especially helpful.’
And here they were again.
Jack scratched his scalp and tried to remind himself that Lilly’s commitment to her work was one of the things that he had always admired. The children she represented had no one else. Often she was all that stood between them and Armageddon. A lone voice in the chaos. Had he really thought she’d stay quiet just because she was pregnant?
He looked up at the sign at the school gate.
No man is an Island.
Together we are strong
‘Try telling that to Lilly bloody Valentine,’ he said aloud.
The secretary’s hair was cropped so short, Jack could see patches of pink scalp peeping through. In fact, the hairs on her chin were longer.
‘Sign, here, here and here.’ She pointed at three spidery crosses.
‘Jesus,’ said Jack, ‘you’ve more security than the nick.’
‘We had a lot of trouble a year ago.’
‘Oh, aye?’
She leaned towards Jack so that her beard was inches from his nose. ‘Some of the Asian pupils have difficult family members.’
‘Difficult how?’
‘Storming into the classrooms, dragging the girls out of their lessons,’ said the secretary.
Jack scratched his signature across the form. ‘That doesn’t sound good.’
A voice came from behind. ‘Ancient history.’
The secretary blushed and filed her paperwork.
Jack turned and got to his feet.
A tall blonde with long tanned legs strode towards him.
‘Mara Blake,’ she smiled. ‘Head Teacher.’ Her accent was South African, clipped.
Jack smiled back. Jesus, teachers had never looked this good when he was at school.
‘Sergeant Jack McNally,’ he said. ‘I made an appointment to discuss race relations.’
‘Indeed you did. Shall we walk while we talk?’ She had already set off, leaving Jack to trot after her firm thighs.
The corridors were strewn with rucksacks and footballs but Mara picked her way through in dangerously high heels without a second’s pause.
‘We pride ourselves on discipline,’ she said. ‘You get caught with drugs, you’re out. The same goes for weapons.’
Jack stifled a laugh. Zero tolerance or not, he would bet that a random spot check of the students’ pockets would furnish enough flick knives and bags of weed to send the
Daily Mail
into meltdown.
‘The children are here to learn and they know it,’ she said.
Again Jack smiled. Denleigh Secondary School had one of the worst academic records in the country. In the League Tables the government insisted on publishing each year it usually came somewhere between West Brom and Sunderland.
Mara gave him a hard look. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’
‘You do?’
‘That our results are terrible.’
Jack shrugged. He could scarcely deny it.
‘Just bear in mind that some of these children are incredibly disadvantaged. Over a quarter don’t have English as their first language, the rate of divorce within families is high, as is unemployment,’ she said.
He passed through to the art rooms and was hit by the familiar smell of acrylic paint. He scanned the walls covered in batik prints of Chinese dragons.
‘We try to incorporate as many cultures as possible
into the curriculum,’ said Mara. ‘Art is a great way to express mutual respect.’
Jack hovered next to a particularly well-crafted design. The dragon’s eyes narrowed menacingly, his teeth appeared ready to bite.
‘Over half the kids here are Muslim, right?’
Mara joined him with a smile. ‘At least.’
‘Is there any racial tension?’ Jack asked.
She rattled her answer like a gun. ‘We don’t tolerate any form of discrimination.’
Jack put up his hand. ‘I know the policy. What I’m asking is if there’s an undercurrent. Your secretary mentioned some problems with parents.’
Mara sighed, her breath escaping in a minty rush. ‘Not parents so much,’ she said. ‘Older brothers.’
Jack raised an eyebrow for her to continue.
‘We tried to put on a musical last year,
Grease
.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Jack, ‘there were riots over who was going to play Sandy.’
Mara laughed and put her hand on his arm. ‘I wish. To begin with none of the Asian pupils would take part and we knew we couldn’t go ahead with half the school unrepresented in the cast.’
‘So what did you do?’ asked Jack.
‘We had a chat with some of the more integrated students, made them see how great it would be.’
‘Something tells me it didn’t end up being that great.’
Mara removed her hand from his arm. It immediately felt cold.
‘Two of the girls involved didn’t tell their families and when they found out they were not happy,’ she said.
‘Certain brothers and uncles arrived en masse and made a scene.’
‘Did you call the police?’
Mara shook her head. ‘To be honest, I felt we’d caused the girls involved enough stress without making matters official.’
‘And no more musicals?’
Mara laughed again. ‘Definitely not.’
‘Something funny, miss?’ A boy had entered the studio. He was in his mid-teens, his trainers muddy.
Mara nodded at the batik dragon. ‘We were just admiring your work, Ryan.’
Ryan bounced back and forth on his heels. ‘It’s alright, innit?’
Jack traced the dragon’s tail with his finger. ‘It’s excellent.’
‘You can buy it for a tenner,’ said Ryan.
‘Don’t you need it for your assessment?’ asked Mara.
Ryan shrugged. ‘I’d rather have the tenner.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Jack, ‘do me another just like it and you can have the cash.’
Ryan watched Jack, his slits of eyes mirroring his dragon. ‘You’re on,’ he said, and headed for the door.
‘Don’t you want to know where to find Mr McNally?’ asked Mara.
Ryan gave her a pitying look. ‘Down the nick, innit?’
‘Am I that transparent?’ asked Jack.
Ryan laughed and closed the door behind him.
Jack took a last look at the print. The fire and rage seemed even stronger now he had met the artist.
‘The boy has a real talent.’
Mara smiled but there was a sadness to it.
‘Problem?’ asked Jack.
‘He’s easily our most talented student,’ she said. ‘He should apply for a scholarship to art school.’
‘But he won’t?’
She shook her head. ‘He’s often absent, always scruffy. His attitude will let him down.’
‘Teenagers, eh? They’re all cocky little so-and-sos.’
‘It’s more than that,’ she said. ‘He’s a very angry young man.’
‘What’s the family like?’
‘They’ve never set foot in the place, not even for parents’ evening,’ she sighed. ‘I fear it’s going to end badly for Ryan.’
‘What a waste.’
‘I don’t know what else to do,’ said Mara.
‘If you’re worried, I could make a few enquiries,’ said Jack, ‘discreetly, of course.’
Mara’s face lit up. ‘That’s very, very kind of you.’
Jack nodded. It was totally beyond his remit, but what was the good of being a copper if you could only stick to the script? Jesus, you may as well work for the Inland Revenue.
DI Bell’s office was extraordinarily tidy. Lilly wondered how people did that—put things away, kept papers in files. Every office she had ever worked in ended up like a homeless person’s squat. Her old boss, Rupinder, had occasionally ordered a clear-up on the grounds of health and safety.
Lilly looked down at her scribbled notes. ‘Is that it?’
DI Bell showed his open palms. ‘What more do you need?’
‘How about some evidence?’ she said.
‘You’ll find plenty of evidence in what I’ve told you,’ he said.
She threw her notebook on the table in disgust. ‘You say Yasmeen died from an overdose of OxyContin and Perocet.’
Bell nodded. ‘The pills were ground down and placed in a can of Coke to hide the taste. The can was found by Yasmeen’s bed. The dregs showed traces of both drugs.’
‘Enough to kill her?’
Bell nodded. ‘Even small amounts can prove fatal. Perocet should never be taken with other drugs and OxyContin should never be ground down.’
‘Because?’
‘They’re designed for slow release; crushing them makes the effects far too strong.’
‘Maybe she did that herself.’
DI Bell folded his arms. ‘Why on earth would she do that?’
‘Maybe she didn’t like the taste. Who knows what goes on in someone’s mind before they take their own life?’
‘There was no suicide note and no suggestion that anything was wrong.’ He eyed Lilly coolly. ‘She didn’t kill herself.’
Lilly waved him away with her hand. ‘Perhaps it was an accident.’
‘There’s no evidence she had either drug in her possession,’ said Bell. ‘She wasn’t in receipt of a prescription.’
‘I’ll bet you can buy them on the net,’ said Lilly.
‘Indeed you can. But there’s no record that Yasmeen ever did that and no packaging was found in her room.’
Lilly had to admit it didn’t sound like suicide.
‘That still doesn’t mean that Raffy had anything to do with it,’ she said.
‘There were two sets of prints on that can. Yasmeen’s and your client’s.’
‘That only means he touched the can, not that he put the drugs inside it.’
DI Bell licked his lips. ‘We obtained a warrant to search your client’s school locker and guess what we found?’
Lilly watched Bell open his drawer and pull out a clear evidence bag. Inside were two small boxes. Even before Bell put them on the table between them, Lilly could read the word ‘OxyContin’. Her heart sank.
‘When were you going to tell me about this?’ she asked. ‘Or were you going to spring it on us in the interview?’
DI Bell dazzled Lilly with the whiteness of his smile. ‘I’m telling you now.’