Blood of the Innocents (11 page)

‘White.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes, he seemed to have a very high colour, from the little I could see. He had this cap pulled down low so I couldn’t really see his eyes, but his cheeks and his chin were—’

‘What?’

‘Sunburnt, I think. His chin was very red.’

‘What colour was the cap?’

‘Dark. Blue or green, I think. One of those that most young men seem to wear these days.’

A baseball cap. ‘How tall was he? Same as me?’

She looked Knox up and down. ‘Taller, I think. And thinner.’

Knox pulled in his stomach. This was better than he’d expected. ‘You’re doing well,’ he told her. The other overriding image, she said, was the powerful smell of his cologne. ‘It smelled sort of cheap and nasty. It was much too strong.’

 

Taking the statement and getting back to the car took Knox around an hour. A couple of times he’d had to ask Helen Greenwood to repeat what she’d said because he’d missed it. Now, back in the office, he was finding it difficult to concentrate on what was on the screen in front of him. He’d some detective work of his own to do and wouldn’t be able to settle until he’d done it. The office was quiet, everyone taken up with the two investigations. Knox reached for the thermos he’d brought with him. He needed a bit of Dutch courage for this.

Minimising the program he was in, he connected to the Internet.

‘It’s someone I’ve known for years,’ Theresa had told him during that painfully brief conversation on the phone.

‘Do I know him?’ he’d asked. She hadn’t answered, which meant that maybe he did.

‘Where did you meet?’

‘It’s not important.’ But Knox had already worked it out. The only someone she could have known a long time who they both knew could be someone from school. Theresa used the computer all the time. She’d been on courses and could find her way round it better than he could. He also knew that she visited the various school reunion sites that were springing up. Once she’d urged him to have a look.

‘It’s fun,’ she’d said. ‘You get to find out what’s happened to all those spotty oiks.’ But Knox had declined. He didn’t have the same enthusiasm for the past as Theresa did. It must be a woman thing.

There were half a dozen sites offering to put people in contact with old acquaintances. Knox logged on to the first and typed in the name of the secondary school they’d gone to and the year they’d both left. By the time he clicked to proceed, his palms were sweating and his heart pounding. Would he know who it was? Would he recognise the name?

‘Anything?’ Mariner’s voice behind him sent the mouse skidding across the desk. He hadn’t heard anyone come in.

‘No. Nothing yet, boss.’ Knox minimised the screen but Mariner was already looking over his shoulder.

‘Are we sure we’re looking in the right place?’ But it was curiosity more than anything else.

Knox fumbled for the notes he’d made. ‘Checking back over the indecent exposure incidents in the south of the city during the last six months, there have been two others as well as the unreported ones at the university, bringing the total to six,’ he said. ‘All occurred at different times of the day, and on the surface there seems little to connect them.’ He’d plotted the incidents on a map, which they now pored over. ‘As you can see, boss, they all happened in secluded areas, but then the flasher is hardly likely to strike in the middle of a busy shopping centre, is he?’

‘It would be a first.’

‘One common thread seems to be that a lot of them take place fairly near railway stations.’

‘Like Kingsmead. OK. How did you get on with Helen Greenwood?’

Knox reported what she’d told him.

‘Sunburnt, eh,’ said Mariner. ‘That might be helpful.’

 

Calling in at the incident centre revealed that the news bulletin had been less fruitful. Although there were a handful of possible sightings of Yasmin to follow up, the descriptions were vague and there didn’t appear to be anything that held any great significance. Mariner could safely leave Knox to follow those up. As the search of the university campus had turned up nothing either, apart from a handful of spent spliffs, the logical thing to do was to widen the search to the stretch of railway track between Kingsmead Station and the point at which Yasmin left the train. That would be a much bigger operation requiring far more manpower, which Mariner didn’t like to think about just yet. As far as he was concerned, they were already jumping the gun. Instead, he wanted to concentrate on the information they had got. On an investigation like this it was important to be systematic, starting at the core and working gradually outwards, making sure not to miss anything.

DCI Fiske, however, was like a dog with a bone and any decision on how to prioritise this was all but taken out of Mariner’s hands. Now that Yasmin’s disappearance had been on TV, the press were on to it, presenting exactly the sort of case that would capture the public’s imagination. Always on the lookout for an ‘angle’, the media were playing up the possibility of a racially motivated abduction and, ever helpful, Fiske was equally taken with the idea and was making noises about a press conference for the parents.

‘What about this letter?’ he demanded at the daily update he’d insisted on. ‘If it’s genuine, it was a pretty open threat.’

‘Forensics have found nothing on it,’ said Mariner. ‘And it’s hard to tell how genuine it is, given that it’s such an indistinguishable note. The Akrams have had similar stuff in the past.’

‘But this follows the consortium letter to the press: a provocative act if ever there was one. If the initial campaign has failed to subdue them - which it patently has - then the perpetrators might feel that it’s time to do something more dramatic. And so far, you don’t seem to have come up with any other logical reason why Yasmin should have gone missing.’

‘We’re still exploring all the possibilities.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, for one thing we’ve learned that everything in the Akram household wasn’t as rosy as we’d been led to believe. Mr Akram and his daughter had disagreed.’

‘I’m not saying you shouldn’t keep the family under scrutiny, but you can do that while following up other avenues. The racist incidents have to be examined. Mohammed Akram has sent us a list of dates and occurrences going back over three years.’

‘I haven’t seen that.’

‘It was passed directly to the superintendent. This is a copy.’

Mariner took the sheet. The incidents were as Akram had described them to him yesterday, fairly low level: excreta through the letterbox, windows broken, graffiti sprayed, sometimes as often as weekly and usually at night. Up until now the school had always been the target. Attached to the list was a copy of the letter written to the local press, by Akram and several other business owners in the area, denouncing what they called ‘terrorism by stealth’ perpetrated by ‘those too weak to reveal themselves’. It described The Right Way as a club for cowards who indulged in covert, petty crime instead of openly confronting the issues. The question was whether it was enough to prompt such drastic action from The Right Way and, if so, could they expect a ransom note at any time?

‘And that, Inspector, should be your next line of enquiry.’

Mariner opened his mouth to complain, but stopped himself. It was a valid route that would have to be pursued at some time. They may as well do it now and with any luck, his deference would keep Fiske off his back for a few hours.

 

But before entering the lion’s den, Mariner wanted a bit more information about the man they might be dealing with. Detective Sergeant Bev Jordan came over from the Racial Crimes Unit at Lloyd House to talk to him and Millie.

‘What do you need to know?’ she asked when they were installed in Mariner’s office.

‘Everything there is to know about Peter Cox.’

Jordan grimaced. ‘He’s a nasty piece of work in every respect. He runs a very active cell of The Right Way who hold extreme views on repatriation, birth control programmes and all the rest of it. He’s denounced the BNP for being too moderate.’

‘What a charmer.’

‘You said it.’

Mariner handed Jordan the leaflet Mohammed Akram had given him. ‘Is this one of his?’

Jordan nodded. ‘This is exactly the sort of stuff he writes. In the past there have been various threats against groups and individuals. And he has his own little band of fanatically loyal followers in the south of the city and beyond, mainly recruited via the Internet, though not exclusively. He spreads the word in local pubs, particularly those on white, working class housing estates: areas of high social deprivation where white kids are pretty frustrated with their lot, but generally powerless to do anything about it. One of his main themes is the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Muslims taking over jobs, local businesses—’

‘And schools.’

‘Particularly schools, because that’s where it’s all seen to be taught. He’d be encouraged by the current climate, too. Since September eleventh there’s been a huge rise in the membership of these types of organisation.’

‘And beyond the leafleting and general incitement?’

‘Oh, the usual petty harassment: damage to property, disgusting things sent through the post. We have a couple of informants on the inside, but Cox is clever, he’s very careful not to be directly involved. He relies mainly on the mental instability of his recruits. He provides the ideas, they carry them out. So far we’ve only ever been able to charge a few individuals with criminal damage. There’s one in particular, David Waldron, who’s a real fall guy for Cox.’

‘Are you aware of the antagonism with the Asian business consortium?’

‘Oh yes. That’s been brewing for a couple of years and the letter to the press won’t have helped the situation, but again, Cox is too smart to let something like that get to him. It was only a letter, after all. It’s his followers who would be more upset by it.’

‘Do you think any of them would go as far as abduction?’

‘Up until recently I’d have said no, but there has been a worrying trend lately, which is that - thanks to the Internet - these groups are developing international links and are being increasingly influenced by their counterparts across the pond.’

‘In what way?’

‘A spate of letter bomb attacks in the South of the US was followed, weeks later, by the letter bomb attacks here, in Manchester and Leeds last month, remember?’

‘And?’

‘Three weeks ago there was a high profile abduction of a black senator’s daughter by right-wing activists in Savannah, Georgia. The senator was proposing legislation to curb the distribution of certain right-wing propaganda.’

‘And has the girl been found?’ asked Knox.

‘Oh yes. Strangled and dumped in a garbage skip. It’s believed that there was no intention to release her alive.’

‘Christ Almighty. Do you think there’s anyone in The Right Way who would go that far?’

‘It only takes one. We know that the case has been discussed among them and Cox likes his followers to “prove themselves” by using their initiative, so it would only take one of them with a particular bent for this kind of activity, and we have our abduction.’

‘And Waldron?’

‘He’s on remand at present, so effectively out of the picture. It might be worth a chat with Peter Cox, though. Find out if he’s hired any new recruits lately. Yasmin was last seen at four forty-five on Tuesday afternoon, wasn’t she? It would be interesting to know what Cox was doing then, too.’

‘I can’t wait to meet the animal who causes so much misery.’

‘He’s not what you’d expect,’ said Jordan. ‘He might not put it to any great use by working for a living, but he’s bright; a graduate. He just prefers to utilise his talents for stirring up trouble.’

 

The other surprise was that Peter Cox lived in a smart neighbourhood in a homely 1930s semi with bay windows and a porch. Given what Jordan had told them, Mariner guessed that it was his parents’ house, the one he’d been born and raised in. What set it apart from its neighbours was the jungle of a garden and the limp, discoloured curtains hanging behind grimy windows. It was a neighbourhood for young families. As there were no garages, Mariner drove the length of the street, looking in vain for a parking place, and was eventually compelled to settle for a neighbouring street.

He craned his neck to concentrate on a reverse park, which he executed smoothly.

‘Very neat,’ said Knox. It was the only time he’d spoken on the entire journey. His words seemed to sweeten the air somehow, but Mariner dismissed the sensation as his own over-active imagination. They climbed out of the car and walked back to number forty-eight, where the warm smell of decaying refuse became stronger.

The doorbell showed little indication of being connected to anything, but Mariner pressed it anyway and beside them at the bay window the faded velvet drape was pulled aside and a round, white face peered at them.

‘Mr Cox?’ Mariner called out, politely, holding up his warrant card. ‘Could you spare us a few minutes?’

The face regarded them with distaste, but the curtain dropped back and moments later the door was opened.

‘Can we come in?’ Mariner asked. It was obviously the last thing Peter Cox wanted, but he nevertheless stepped back to allow them in.

What sprang out first at Mariner from the gloomy hallway were the framed posters on the walls. From his limited knowledge of the Third Reich, Mariner thought one of them might have been Rudolf Hess. The other was unmistakable: Adolf Hitler’s eyes focused purposefully on something in the middle distance, one hand on his hip in a pose which, in Mariner’s opinion, made the Führer look rather camp. He thought it best not to mention this. The atmosphere inside the house was acrid: stale cigarette smoke with an underlying feral smell. Cox took them into a small, front living room that was piled high with books and papers, in the centre of which was an old battered sofa. A computer monitor hummed gently from the corner of the room.