Blood at the Root (10 page)

Steven Fox clearly wasn’t expecting Susan, and his face showed surprise and suspicion when she turned up in his office at the building society.

“Time for a word?” she asked, smiling.

He looked at his watch. “I suppose so. It’s almost lunchtime anyway.”

“My treat,” said Susan. She sighed inwardly, realizing she’d have to forgo the Himalaya.

Steven Fox put on his raincoat, and they walked along York Road to the El Toro coffee bar on the opposite side of the market square from the police station. The El Toro, with its dim lighting, castanet-clicking Muzak, bullfight posters and smell of espresso, wasn’t renowned for its food, but the sandwiches were decent enough: Susan treated herself to prawn and tomato and Steven Fox settled for ham and cheese.

Once they had taken a bite or two and sipped some coffee, Susan began: “Would you be surprised to hear that Jason was no longer working where you told us he was?”

Steven Fox paused and rubbed his glasses, steamed up by the coffee. “To be honest,” he said, “nothing much would surprise me about Jason. He was a law unto himself.”

“His mother was surprised.”

“Maybe she had more illusions.”

That might explain, Susan thought, why Steven Fox had seemed quicker to accept that Jason might have met a violent end than Josie had been.

“And you?” she asked.

“Jason was a peculiar lad. We never had a very close relationship. I don’t know why.”

“Did you know anything about his affiliation with the Albion League?”

“Not until yesterday, no.” Steven Fox shook his head slowly. “When Jason left home,” he said, “that was it. We never really knew what he was up to after then. Still, I don’t suppose it’s the kind of thing you do tell your parents, is it? I mean, can you imagine your son sitting down at the dinner table one night and saying, ‘Guess what, Mum, Dad. I joined a neo-Nazi party today’?”

“Not unless he thought you shared his views.”

Steven banged his coffee cup down on the saucer, spilling some. “Now, hold on a minute, that’s quite an allegation. I resent that. I’m not a racist.”

Susan held her hand up. “I’m not alleging anything, Mr. Fox. I simply want to know.”

“Well, he didn’t get it from me or his mother.”

“Do you have any ideas as to where he did get it from?”

“Well, that kind of thing… Do you really think it’s as simple as… you know, just picking up or imitating someone’s mannerisms or figures of speech?”

“No, I don’t. But he had to start somewhere. What about this promotion business?”

“Josie told you about that?”

“Maureen, actually.”

Steven Fox shrugged. “Back in Halifax, I lost out on a promotion to a fellow from Bengal. Nice chap, but… It was that, what do you call it…?”

“Positive discrimination?”

“Aye, only giving jobs to immigrants and women. Sorry. But I had more experience. And I’d put in more years. Anyway, it gave us some hard times, not enough money coming in, that sort of thing. I think Jason took it more to heart than I did, maybe because he already had some problems of his own at school. There were a lot of Asians there, recent immigrants for the most part, some of them with poor language skills, and Jason got into trouble once for suggesting to a teacher that they were holding back the rest and ought to be put together in a special class.”

“How long ago was that?”

“In his last year there. Just before we moved.”

“Didn’t that concern you?”

“Well, it… I mean, in a way, I suppose, he was right, wasn’t he? Maybe he should have put it more diplomatically. Lord knows, as I said, I’m no racist, but it seems to me that if you keep on catering to the demands of foreign cultures and other religions over your own, then you do sort of… weaken… your own, don’t you? For crying out loud, they don’t even sing a hymn and say the Lord’s Prayer at morning assembly anymore.”

Susan moved on quickly. “Do you know the people who run the shop on Gallows View? The Mahmoods?”

“I know who you mean – I’ve nipped in there for a tin of soup from time to time – but I can’t say I
know
them.”

“Remember about a month ago when someone chucked a brick though their window?”

“I read about it in the local paper. Why?”

“Was Jason up that weekend?”

“Oh, come on,” said Steven. “Surely you can’t imagine he’d do something like that?”

“Why not?”

“He wasn’t a hooligan.”

“But he
was
a racist.”

“Still… anyway, I don’t remember if he was here or not. And aren’t you supposed to be looking for his killers?”

“Every little bit helps, Mr. Fox. He wasn’t living at the address you gave us in Leeds. Did you know that?”

“Not living there?” Steven Fox shook his head. “Bloody hell, no. I just assumed… I mean, why would he lie about that?”

“I don’t think he lied. He just omitted to let you know. Maybe he thought you weren’t interested.”

Steven Fox frowned. “You must think us terribly neglectful parents.”

Susan said nothing.

“But Jason was over eighteen,” he went on. “He led his own life.”

“So you said. He still visited home, though.”

“He came home on weekends to get his washing done and get a free meal, like lots of kids do.”

“You said earlier that you and Jason were never close. Why was that?”

“I don’t know really. When he was younger, he was always more of a mother’s boy. Then, in his teens, he got involved in football. I’ve never been much interested in sports myself. I was never very good at games at school. Always the last one to be picked, that sort of thing. I suppose I should have gone to watch him play, you know, shown more support… enthusiasm. It’s not that I wasn’t proud of him.” He shook his head. “Maybe I was selfish. I had my record collection to catalog. Jason had his football. We just didn’t seem to have anything in common. But I couldn’t see where any of it was leading. How could I know?” He looked at his watch. “Look, I really do have to get back. I can’t tell you anything more, honestly. If those boys really did kill Jason, you know, those immigrants you had to let go, I hope you find some evidence against them. If there’s anything else I can do…?”

And he got up to leave. Susan nodded, more than happy to see the back of him. For the second time that day she’d had to restrain herself from screaming that George, Asim and Kobir weren’t immigrants, that they’d been bloody well born here, and their fathers before them. But she didn’t. What was the point?

And now she had to go to the Himalaya and talk to Asim Nazur and his parents. They would certainly be thrilled to see her. Still, wicked though it sounded, maybe she still had room for a small samosa, after all. Just the one. For a simple pub fight gone wrong, she thought, this case was turning into a hell of a confusing affair.

The little pane of glass in the front door smashed easily enough when Banks applied his elbow. He stuck his hand through carefully and turned the lock. He had a warrant to search the place and, as Jason’s pockets had been emptied of everything, including his house keys, this seemed the easiest way to get in.

Inside, the house was so quiet that all he could hear was the hissing of blood in his ears. There wasn’t even a clock ticking. He imagined it wasn’t always like that, not with the twins next door.

He started in the living room, to his right. Three-piece suite, upholstered in tan corduroy, wallpaper with thin green and brown stripes, mirror over the mantelpiece, fake-coal electric fire. Television and video. Selection of tapes, mostly science fiction and horror by the look of them. A few paperbacks: Ayn Rand, Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton. And that was it. There was a sideboard against one wall and in one of the drawers Banks found a couple of bills addressed to Jason Fox. Nothing else.

The kitchen was spotless, dishes all in cupboards, mugs hanging from hooks over the counter. Very little in the fridge: a tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter; cheddar cheese turning blue at the edges, sliced white bread, boiled ham, limp celery, lettuce, tomatoes. More the kind of stuff for sandwiches than hot meals. Maybe Jason did most of his eating out.

There were three bedrooms, one no bigger than a cupboard really. That one was completely empty, the other two showed some signs of occupation. Just as at the house in Eastvale, Jason’s bed was tightly made, and a similar selection of clothes hung in the wardrobe. The dresser drawers were full of socks, underwear and T-shirts, along with an unopened box of condoms and a bottle of aspirin. The third bedroom looked like a guest room, with single bed, empty drawers and not much else.

Except the computer.

But Banks didn’t trust himself not to screw something up if he started messing around with that, so he made a note to get someone else in to give it the once-over.

Back in the hall, Banks could only marvel at the sheer
emptiness
of the place. There was no personality. You’d expect, if Jason was a member of a white power organization, at least a few Skrewdriver CDs and maybe one or two copies of
The Order
strewn around the place. But it was as if someone had been there and stripped away all signs of character, if there had been any. And maybe someone had.

Two men, Liza Williams had said, and they had left with some cardboard boxes. Unfortunately, it had been raining in Leeds that Sunday morning, and they had both been wearing flat caps. Black or navy blue. One of them wore a black leather jacket and jeans, the other a donkey jacket. The one in the leather jacket was taller than the other.

No, Liza admitted, they weren’t particularly well dressed, but then she watched a lot of police programs on telly, so she didn’t expect real policemen to be any better dressed than their fictional counterparts. No, she couldn’t say how old they were, hadn’t seen their faces, but she got the impression by the way they moved that they were probably fairly young and fit.

And that was about all she could say, she was sorry. She had, after all, only glimpsed them, and as she noticed they used a key to get in, she didn’t worry about them being burglars or rapists. She first thought they were friends of Jason’s – he sometimes had friends to stay – and then, after she heard of his death, she just assumed they’d been policemen come to return his belongings to his family or something. No, her husband hadn’t seen them; he had already settled down with the Sunday papers, and once he did that…

The only thing she
had
noticed was a blue car parked outside, which she thought belonged to the men. But she didn’t know what make it was, let alone the number. She did say it was clean, though.

Banks sighed as he closed the door behind him. He would have to get someone from West Yorkshire to fix the pane of glass he’d broken, and perhaps to question some of the other people in the street. Whatever they’d noticed, it had to be more than Liza Williams had.

By mid-afternoon, Susan was wet, tired and no further ahead than she had been in the morning. The Nazurs and the Mahmoods had been sullen and uncommunicative, as expected, and she had flinched at the clear accusations of racism in their eyes. No, Jason Fox had never been in the Mahmoods’ shop, as far as they knew, and the Nazurs had never seen him in their restaurant. And they knew nothing about any Albion League.

Sergeant Hatchley was still out pounding the streets, so at least she got the opportunity to warm herself up with a cup of coffee and take a little quiet time for herself.

She had just put her cold wet feet on the radiator to warm them when one of the staff from the murder room came in bearing a fax. “Just arrived,” he said.

Susan thanked him and looked at the single sheet. All it said was:

THE ALBION LEAGUE

along with a telephone number. A London number.

Curious, Susan picked up the phone and dialed. She remembered that Banks had faxed a request for information about the Albion League to Scotland Yard, so she wasn’t surprised when someone there answered. After a bit of shuttling around and a lot of waiting, she finally got to someone who knew what she was talking about when she mentioned the Albion League. His name, he said, was Crawley.

“Is your boss there, love?” he asked.

Susan bristled, gripping the receiver tightly, but she said nothing.

“Well?” Crawley repeated.

“I’m afraid Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe is out of the office at the moment,” Susan finally managed between gritted teeth.

“And you’re DC Gay?”

“Yes.” At least he didn’t make any cracks about her name.

“I suppose you’ll have to do then.”

Not her day. “Thanks a lot,” she said.

“Don’t take offense, love.”

“I’ll try not to, sweetie pie. Now how about the Albion League?”

She heard Crawley laugh at the end of the line, then he cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, it’s a neo-Nazi organization, white power. That’s why we’re interested, see, in why you want to know.”

“I’d have thought it was a simple enough inquiry,” Susan said.

“True enough, love, but nothing to do with those bastards is simple. They’re flagged.”

“Flagged?”

“Any time their name comes up, certain people have to be informed.”

“That sounds very mysterious.”

“Does it?”

“Yes. Anyway, don’t worry. I’m sure DCI Banks will send you a full report – he’s heading the field investigation – but would you mind, just for the moment, humoring a poor DC? Could you give me some general idea of what this particular neo-Nazi organization is all about, what they want?”

She heard another brief chuckle down the line, then Crawley said, “Want? That’s easy. Same as all the rest of them, really. The usual things. Racial purity. Repatriation of immigrants and all ethnics. Keep Britain white. Oh, and they want the trains to run on time, too.”

“Some hope of that.”

“Tell me about it. Seriously, though, love, it’s not so much what these people
want
– that’s usually predictable enough – but what they’re willing to do to get it – what means they’ll use, how they’re organized, what connections they have with other groups, whether they’re armed, what international links they have, if any. That sort of thing. See what I mean?”

“Yes,” said Susan. “And the Albion League, how do they fit into all that?”

There was a pause. Then Crawley said, “I’m sorry, but I’m really not authorized to tell you any more than that. Have your boss give me a bell when he comes in, will you, love?”

And the line went dead.