‘She’s one of the girls who have been in
trouble since the youth group and choir started?’
‘Yes. Her father banned her from the choir,
took her out of the local school and she started in a private
Catholic school two weeks ago. Her mother drives her across town to
the new school and drives her home. Father is refusing us access.
We’re going through procedures to interview her.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Thirteen.’
‘The brothers?’
‘Ten and eight.’
‘They in trouble?’
‘No. Still at primary school, no problems
reported. It’s just Keely that’s gone off the rails.’
‘Does it make sense to you, Shahrukh, the
gangs targeting these girls through the Church?’
He thought about it. ‘No, actually. From
what I understand from the briefings I’ve had, the girls that join
gangs are the ones already in trouble. They come from broken
families with histories of abuse. The girls in the choir don’t tend
to follow that pattern. Much more work for the gang, bringing them
in. Gang meat is usually easy prey. Girls on the edge, already in
trouble... they drift towards the gangs. The gang gives them family
and safety. If you are in one of the stronger gangs, you never have
any trouble at school or on the streets again as long as you are
with your pack. If you are being bullied, the gang will dish out
punishment. We had one girl who was being raped by her step-father:
she got into a gang in order to get them to beat him half to death.
She had to put up with worse than he was doing to her from the rest
of the gang, but she took it. I was always confused by that.’
‘It was on her own terms.’
‘What?’
‘The gang treatment, it was on her own
terms. She knew what was going to happen, didn’t want it, but she’d
agreed in her mind. You don’t look convinced.’
He shook his head.
‘It’s not something I can make sense of in
any way. The women here, on the streets and the estates, often
allow themselves to be treated very badly.’
Maryam studied Shahrukh. His expensive suit
cut to fit him, the pressed linen shirt collar and easy clean silk
tie. His hands were soft, his fingernails manicured so discreetly
that you had to really look. He’d worked hard at dressing to
conform to his plain clothed superiors, but quality always shone
through. Like his Italian shoes. Yes, she could see that he would
have some problem understanding Peckham.
‘What brought you into the police, Shahrukh,
if you don’t mind me asking?’
His smile lit up his face. ‘Somebody’s got
to catch the bad guys.’
They set themselves to catching the bad guys
the old fashioned way: hard slog. They sifted through all the
evidence, twice. The coroner had constructed a timeline on the
presumed time of death being at approximately four a.m. Blood flow
would suggest that meant Jason had been cut for the first time at
approximately one a.m. Toxicology still hadn’t returned results on
what drugs, if any, had kept Jason lying down whilst he bled to
death, so times could be out by a couple of hours, depending on
what might have been in his blood.
‘What time does the CCTV show him entering
the Church ahead of Father Jones?’
‘21.43. Father Jones went in at 21.55, came
out at 22.20. Locked the door as he left.’
‘So, even if he had attacked Jason, then the
coroner doesn’t think the cutting started for another two hours,
maybe three?’
‘Correct.’
‘So what was he doing in there?’
‘The timeline is why Father Jones has not
been charged yet. He can’t have attacked Jason and started the cuts
that early, nor did he have enough time. Equally, no one else went
in.’
‘What if there was someone else in there at
the same time?’
‘It is possible. The cameras are not 24
hour, they come on at twilight.’
‘If Wyn didn’t do it before he locked up,
what’s the thinking back at the office?’
‘That Father Jones knew the cameras didn’t
pick up the outer door to the Sacristy and went in later using his
key. Only he and Father Edwards had keys, and Father Edwards is too
old and infirm to be considered as a suspect.’
She mused on the two or three hours of
‘dead’ time for Jason Briggs.
‘Didn’t the coroner’s report say that Jason
had eaten and drunk alcohol?’
‘Yes. They wondered if there was a drug, it
might have been given in wine. But still no tox report as of yet,
as I said.’
‘Show me the bit in the file.’
He handed it to her and she read out loud.
‘Stomach partially full. Strong smell of alcohol. Meal of chicken,
rice and peas had been ingested but was not fully digested. Meal
probably eaten within two to three hours of death.’
She looked at Shahrukh. ‘Where had he eaten
chicken, rice and peas if he’d been in the Church since ten
o’clock?’
Shahrukh’s phone call to Barham about the
stomach contents had two immediate effects. Wyn Jones, who had been
en route for more questioning, was sent back to Westminster with a
polite request he stay there for a few more days. Barham then
phoned Keely Curtis’s father and read the riot act to him in a most
convincing manner. Keely could, she promised, be taken into care if
Inspector Barham thought she was in danger of significant harm; did
Mr Curtis want to push that, given his thirteen year old daughter
had been found in the gutter, unconscious in her own vomit, just
four weeks ago? He agreed to her being interviewed as long as a
lawyer was present.
Shahrukh drove Maryam to the local mosque in
his own car, which was gleaming, small and city-use compact. She
marvelled that it had both its wing mirrors and no dents as he
negotiated the tightly packed streets with the huge buses and
trucks and constant double parking in every nook and cranny. He
drove neatly but with just a hint of aggression. It seemed to
work.
Parking down the street, walking up to the
mosque, Maryam observed that it was an old building that had been
bought and made over into a Mosque. She read the plaque outside as
she took a grey Hermes silk scarf from her coat pocket and covered
her hair neatly. The plaque stated it was six years since the
former Anglican Church had been converted. Maryam studied the
arched windows where stained glass had been stripped out and
replaced by plain and then looked up to the steeple, now used as a
minaret, calling the faithful to prayer.
Imam Abdhul-Rahemm Malik was a gracious
host. Maryam, for her part, was a gracious and respectful guest.
When tea was offered, she accepted it with appropriate gratitude
and she sat neatly to one side of the Imam, making no attempt to
shake his hand. The meeting had been arranged in the lull between
afternoon and evening prayer and Maryam knew her time was very
limited. The Imam had begun by thanking Maryam for ensuring that
the Holy pages of the Qur’an had been treated with respect, and by
offering his aid in any way. Maryam thanked him, then diverted the
conversation to the Mosque in a way that disconcerted both the
men.
‘Imam Malik, may I ask you if you were part
of the organising committee that oversaw the buying of this
property and the conversion?’
‘Yes, I was. We spent many years raising the
funds for it. Why do you ask?’
‘I presume it had been abandoned and
deconsecrated by the Anglican community before you took over?’
‘Yes. That is correct. This building had
been empty for many years before we began negotiations to buy it.
It came out of a meeting at an inter-faith council. The Church that
was, even abandoned, was costing the Anglican authorities a fortune
to maintain. But they could not demolish it or have it assigned to
any other purpose.’
‘So a transfer to your community, whilst
maintaining it as a place of worship, was suggested?’
‘Yes. We paid a token sum and made a
contract that all the Christian elements we removed would be passed
on to the Church, or the profit from their sale was. The stained
glass windows went to a new Church being built somewhere else, I
believe. The font and their altar were removed before we took
possession.’ Malik was starting to look a little uncomfortable.
Shahrukh spoke up.
‘Miss Michael, are you suggesting the mosque
and the events at the Church are connected after all?’
‘Not in that sense, no, Detective Iqbal. As
I’ve stated, I firmly believe that attacks are aimed only at the
Catholic Church. That the use of Islamic elements is about causing
trouble, not an actual part of the crime.’
‘Then why are you asking about this
mosque?’
‘Because I suspect that whoever killed that
young man and wrote upon his body knew a great deal, not only about
Islam, but about Catholic beliefs. They knew how to instruct a
young man from the streets on how to act in a Catholic Church. They
could write Arabic with a sure hand. The person is educated about
faith and highly knowledgeable.’
‘And...?’
‘When planning permission for the conversion
of the Church here was undertaken, did you have any serious
objections? And when I say serious, did you have objections lodged
by someone who argued time and again, perhaps using lawyers or
sending in many letters, or generally using the legal argument as
well as a religious one?’
‘We had several objections, obviously.’
‘But did you have anyone that seemed to
be... out of place? Out of the normal, expected response?’ It was
Shahrukh who had picked up the thread and pushed forward. ‘Did you
have any vandalism during the conversion? Anything unusual?’
Malik nodded. ‘Yes, we did. How did you know
that?’
Maryam felt the knot in her chest loosen.
Shahrukh’s voice betrayed that the same had happened with him.
There was a chance that Wyn could be saved.
Whilst Maryam was searching through records
of the Mosque with Imam Malik, a young mother from the community by
her side, Shahrukh had returned to New Scotland Yard to examine the
police records about the same events. The usual stupid and everyday
obscenities had occurred, such as slices of bacon being nailed to
the doors. However, there had also been some more adept vandalism.
A section from the bible had been carved into a wood panel
alongside quotes from the Qur’an, on the inside of the former
church. That had had to be removed and stored safely. The files
contained a photograph of the panel before it was removed. Someone
had spent a long time carving Deuteronomy 32.17 into the wood:
They sacrificed to devils and not to God: to
gods whom they knew not: that were newly come up, whom their
fathers worshipped not.
The Arabic was much shorter but beautifully
carved. Very sure and clear on the swoops and curves. It was Sura
26.221 and translated as:
Shall I inform you upon whom do the devils
descend?
Maryam wrote down both quotes, being careful
to replicate them exactly.
‘Is the panel still in good condition? Do
you have it?’
‘I would have to inquire. It may have been
buried, I do not know.’
Maryam turned to the file on the objections
to the transfer. Among the usual deluge of complaints about
anything changing in any way in someone’s beloved ‘community’, one
complainant stood out. A man who had been voracious in his
protests; he’d even chained the front gates, repeatedly. He’d tried
to stop diggers and workmen going in and had protested vigorously
the removal of the windows. He’d lodged dozens of complaints with
the local council and the police. He’d ended up being given an
exclusion order under an anti-social behaviour order, forbidding
him from entering the street the building was on. In the five years
since the order there had never been any more trouble from him. She
noted everything down, thanked the Imam and the woman who had
chaperoned them, and left.
At the same time, a tearful Keely Curtis was
detailing all the areas in the local Church that Jason Briggs had
forced her to have sex with him. She’d thought he loved her, she
explained, and had bought her gold earrings and a gold cross. Why
would he buy her a cross if he didn’t love her? During the break in
choir rehearsals, Jason had tried to find somewhere private for
them to go and chat, but as the only place they could meet was the
Church during choir practice, it was impossible. Her parents didn’t
let her out of their sight apart from when she was at the Church,
and she was never out of sight of the priest or a parish helper
then. Jason finally persuaded her to meet in the Sacristy during a
Sunday service. She was attending with her family and excused
herself, saying she felt sick. She went out the Church doors and
went round to the Sacristy, where Jason was waiting for her. He
took her in and raped her with two of his gang whilst the Mass was
being said through the wall. Jason used his mobile phone to film
the other two having sex with her and threatened to send it to the
whole school, and her father, if she said a word. Then they threw
her back out into the graveyard. She’d gone home, showered, thrown
her clothes into the washing machine and told her parents she was
sick and stayed in bed for three days. She was too scared to do
anything else, and when Jason started texting her to tell her to
sneak out and meet up with the gang, she did as she was told. When
Jason was thrown out of the choir and the new door and locks were
put in the Church, Keely was ordered to make copies of the keys.
She worked in the shop every Saturday and knew how to access the
secure codes. She had been trained in making keys: it was how she
earned her pocket money.
Keely had continued to be raped by Jason and
some of his gang, in various places in the Church. All the girls
who’d been recruited from the choir had been involved in sex in the
Church, usually either the confessional box or on the Altar. It was
a ‘thing’ of Jason’s. He’d told her he only did it there with
‘special’ girls. In fact, there had been jealousy with some of the
other gang girls, which Jason had solved by smashing the face of
one of the trouble makers. He’d taken her into the Church with
Keely and some of the other choir recruits and smashed the girl’s
face open on the Altar stone as he’d raped her from behind. This
had pleased Keely as the girl had been having a go at her
personally. None of the other regular girls had complained about
the ‘Church’ girls again. Keely had also been given a lot of
jewellery and a bunch of girls at school who were bullying her had
been ‘sorted’ by the gang. She had begun to like running with them
and had started to take part in the drinking. It was only when she
was caught paralytic in the streets when her father had thought she
was fast asleep in bed, that her family had realised she was out of
control and locked her down, literally. Dad had changed all the
door locks in the house and installed security shutters on her
bedroom window. She’d got out once from the bathroom window, but
her dad had caught her in the garden and had knocked the living
daylights out of her. She’d threatened to have him arrested for
assault and they’d kept her in her bedroom until the bruises had
healed a bit.