Blood of the Innocents (16 page)

‘For being easy with the boys. You only have to look at her clothing; it’s indecent. She was encouraging Yasmin to behave the same way.’

‘Is that the real reason you wouldn’t let Yasmin go to Suzanne’s house?’

‘That girl is a bad influence.’

‘So did you give Yasmin a lift?’

‘Only from the university station. I went and waited for her there when she got off the train. I drove her home and we talked about it then. I didn’t want that conversation brought into the house.’

‘And what did Yasmin tell you?’

‘She told me the same thing as the receptionist, that she was on the pill to control her periods. They had been irregular and uncomfortable and that the doctor thought the pill would alleviate those symptoms. She hadn’t thought it necessary to tell her mother or me.’

‘Did you believe her?’

‘I wanted to. Yasmin is growing up. There are certain ways in which we must respect her privacy.’

‘That doesn’t answer my question. Mr Akram, what would you say if I told you that Yasmin had given the doctor a different story?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Yasmin told Dr Shah that she needed to go on the pill to protect herself. That she was in a relationship that was already physical.’ He was deliberately testing out Akram to measure the reaction, but to his credit Akram looked genuinely shocked.

‘Yasmin denied it and I believed her.’

‘So you believed that she was taking the pill for medical reasons and your anger with Yasmin passed, and yet you didn’t confront Dr Shah about this.’

‘It was the weekend. The doctor wouldn’t be available.’

‘Did you give Yasmin the impression that you were angry with her? Did you, say, raise your voice to her?’

‘I might have. I was upset.’

‘Is it possible that your behaviour could have prompted Yasmin to run away?’

‘Yes, of course it’s possible. Do you think I haven’t already thought of that?’

‘If Yasmin was seeing someone, a boy, have you any idea who that might be?’

‘When I asked her outright Yasmin denied it, and she wouldn’t lie to me. As far as I’m concerned she has no contact with any boys.’

‘Thank you, Mr Akram.’

Amira got to her feet. ‘I’ll show you out.’ She took Mariner back up the garden and round the side of the house to his car. When they were out of earshot of her father she said, ‘Inspector, it might be helpful for you to know that I can’t be as sure as my father that Yasmin wasn’t in a relationship. I know that for some months she had been coming under pressure from her friends to have some fun. She couldn’t talk to my parents about it, but she often rang me for my advice.’

‘And what did you advise her to do?’

‘I told her to relax. That virginity isn’t as important as our parents seem to think, and that if an opportunity comes along that she wants to take, then she should take it.’

‘And did an opportunity come along?’

She flashed an apologetic smile. ‘That’s what I don’t know.’

 

Millie met Mariner as he came back into the building. ‘How did it go?’

‘He certainly seemed upset by it all.’

‘Guilt.’

‘Trouble is, what kind of guilt? Is he feeling guilty because he knows what’s happened to Yasmin and he’s stringing us along, or feeling guilty because he may have caused his daughter to run away?’ Mariner fed back what Amira had told him, too.

‘It would be interesting to get Suzanne’s perspective on that story,’ said Millie. ‘If Yasmin has been seeing someone, she’ll be the one to know.’

‘We’ll talk to her on Monday.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Jamilla hesitated, about to say something else.

‘And?’ prompted Mariner.

‘Tony Knox,’ she said. ‘Is he all right?’

‘In what way?’ asked Mariner, regretting the hint of defensiveness that he knew had crept into his voice. It was enough to put her off.

‘It’s OK. Nothing, I’m sure.’

‘His mother-in-law’s ill and his wife’s away. He’s distracted, that’s all.’ Mariner hoped it was true. He wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Knox and Millie didn’t seem to have established much of a working relationship when he wasn’t there. He’d never seen Tony Knox as a racist, but then the situation had never previously arisen.

Millie shrugged. ‘Like I said, it’s nothing.’

 

Nonetheless, Mariner took the next opportunity to quiz Knox. ‘How are you getting on with Millie?’

Knox seemed surprised by the question. ‘Fine,’ he said.

‘She’s a good officer. I think she’s brought an added dimension to the investigation.’

‘Yeah.’

Mariner had successfully backed himself into a corner. The next question was: And do you have a problem with her being Asian? Instead he took the easy way out. ‘How’s Theresa’s mother?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘Theresa’s mother. I take it she’s still up there, looking after her?’

‘Oh. She’s up and down, you know, but Theresa just wants to be there.’ Knox stared into space, lost for a moment in his own thoughts, before turning his attention back to the database he was working on. That was definitely it, Mariner thought. It was Theresa’s mother that was the problem. Touching that a bloke could be so concerned about the mother-in-law.

 

A walk-through was scheduled for late Tuesday afternoon, one week after Yasmin’s disappearance, and would provide an opportunity for the press and media to assemble and publicise the event to anyone who may have been in the area on the day that Yasmin vanished. Local newspapers, radio and TV were well represented and now that the case was gathering momentum there would be national coverage too. To maximise the potential for witnesses to come forward, they had to take the most likely option, based on Yasmin getting off the train at the university station as she would normally have done, and walking home. The length and complexity of the journey turned everything into a major production, with three different camera crews on the train and at either end of the walk.

Mariner was pleased with the turn-out, though. Even considering that many of the onlookers were simply there to rubber-neck, the more people there were, the greater the chance that Yasmin would continue to be the topic of everyday conversation and the greater the chance that someone, somewhere, would recall seeing something of relevance last Tuesday afternoon. Posters of the seventeen-year-old peppered the walls of the station and officers distributed more of the flyers among the small crowd that had gathered, though Mariner couldn’t imagine anyone who hadn’t just jetted in from Mars being unfamiliar with that smiling snapshot.

The group of young girls from a neighbouring school, including the one who was to be Yasmin’s double, had been carefully primed and taken several times through each step of the journey as Yasmin would have made it. Miraculously, at the appointed time everything was ready and Mariner was able to give the instruction to begin. On cue, the girls left the high school and began the walk down towards the railway station. A small crowd followed them, supervised by uniformed constables, but despite the numbers an unnatural hush had descended, interrupted only by the staccato snapping of camera shutters.

On instruction the girls waited at the top of the road leading down to the station until the train was seen approaching so that ‘Yasmin’ could run for the train in the way that ‘she’ had done on Tuesday. Today, the train was several minutes late, causing tense moments while everyone stood about waiting for it. They’d been able to arrange for the original driver of the train to be back on duty, in the hope that his memory would be jogged, but as there was no routine ticket check on board they were relying on other passengers to have seen Yasmin. This was likely to prove difficult as, at this time of the afternoon, the trains going into the city were almost deserted; all the passenger traffic going in the opposite direction, at the beginning of the rush hour.

An additional carriage had been laid on for press only - based on the assumption that Yasmin had got on the train and continued her journey home, they followed her to the university station from where she would have walked home. The route took them along the walkway through the university grounds and past the meadow where Helen Greenwood had encountered the flasher, confirming that it would have been all too easy for Yasmin to draw attention to herself and solicit an unwelcome approach from a stranger. It seemed more implausible than ever that anyone with a gramme of common sense would attempt a random abduction in these surroundings, and in broad daylight.

A film crew from the regional TV station was there to film this part of the journey and a clip would be broadcast the following evening on the regular ‘Crimestoppers’ slot. Before long, the story would be national news, too. That would really open the floodgates to the cranks.

Mariner watched the beginning of the reconstruction before he and Knox drove across to the university to pick up the end. Despite his reservations, Mariner felt that it was going well, and that they would have done enough to stir the memories of anyone who was around that Tuesday afternoon. What they really needed was one good, solid lead.

 

Mariner’s wish was granted, but not from the expected source. The walk-through successfully concluded, he and Knox were on their way back to Granville Lane when the radio crackled into life.

‘The manager at Comet electrical superstore has just phoned. He’s got something you might be interested in.’

‘Like what?’

‘Yasmin Akram’s mobile phone.’

In a move worthy of Starsky and Hutch, Knox made an illegal U-turn at the next traffic lights and they drove to the retail park where the store was based. Even at this time on a weekday there was a steady stream of traffic in and out of the park. The garden centre next door was displaying everything to enhance the summer experience and they had to pick their way through barbecues, garden furniture and pot plants.

Inside the store, Mariner showed his warrant card and asked to speak to the manager. Mark Williams looked about fifteen, clean cut in a dazzling white shirt with the company logo on the pocket. With a dramatic flourish, he put a plastic bag down on the counter. Mariner opened the bag and removed the only item: a purple mobile phone. ‘A Nokia 3100 with a mauve oil and water removable cover,’ said Williams, though whether the pride was in the phone itself or his own professional knowledge, was hard to tell. ‘The bloke who brought it in had found it. He came in to check the registration, so that he could return it.’

‘He couldn’t get that from the phone?’

William shook his head. ‘It’s “pay as you go” so we had to track the owner on the system. Every time one of these is bought, it’s logged with the company: in this case, Nokia. You can check it out with anyone who sells the brand of phones. This one is registered to Miss Yasmin Akram,’ he said. ‘As soon as I saw that I knew whose it was, so I thought we should call you.’

‘You thought right,’ Mariner said. He looked around at the customers browsing the displays. ‘Where’s the guy who brought it in?’

‘Mr Hewitt? He couldn’t wait, but he left his address and his mobile number.’

‘You let him go?’

Williams’s face fell. ‘He had to get back to work. I’m pretty sure he’s kosher.’

‘He’d better be, for your sake.’

Mariner called the mobile number. When it was picked up, after several rings, there was noise and disturbance in the background: animals yelping.

‘Mr Hewitt?’ Mariner enquired, over the din.

‘Yes.’

‘You handed in a phone belonging to Yasmin Akram.’

‘That’s right.’

‘We need to speak to you urgently. Where are you?’

‘The animal rescue centre on Barnes Hill.’ It explained the soundtrack.

‘We’ll be with you right away. Don’t go anywhere.’

‘I wasn’t planning to.’

Meanwhile, Knox had bagged up the phone so that they could drop it in at Granville Lane to be sent on to forensics without delay. That tiny device could prove invaluable in the search for Yasmin Akram.

In this heat you could navigate the city with your eyes shut, from the acrid Longbridge paint shop to the sickly-sweet halo surrounding the Cadbury factory. The aroma that lingered over Barnes Hill was a not entirely pleasant antiseptic with a hint of dog crap. The pound was quiet, but for the persistent yapping of some kind of small breed dog. It was getting on Mariner’s nerves before they even reached the office, but he guessed the staff working there must be immune to it.

‘Be with you in a sec.’ Paul Hewitt was processing paperwork in a tiny office just behind the reception desk. As they waited, a lethargic Labrador wandered in out of the heat and plopped itself down in a basket in a corner of the room.

When Hewitt finally appeared, Mariner had a visual impression of a kind of understated Friar Tuck: medium height and rotund, his shiny bald scalp circled by a fringe that resembled a monk’s tonsure. Large, square-framed glasses rested on the bridge of his nose and his cheery smile completed the image. ‘We’ll go in the training room,’ he said. ‘It’ll be cooler in there.’

The room was indeed airier and had a table large enough to spread out the map that Mariner and Knox had brought with them.

‘So, where did you find it?’

‘Kingsmead Reservoir,’ Hewitt said. ‘Right here.’ Hewitt jabbed a finger at a spot right on the edge of the map, just beside the blue blob that symbolised water.

Although he’d heard of it, Mariner’s knowledge of Kingsmead Reservoir extended no further than a label on the incident room map: an uninhabited wilderness on the other side of the railway track to the station, between the main Birmingham to Bristol line and Birchill Lane. The reservoir itself, though once functional, had ceased to be useful after Birmingham began drawing water from the Elan Valley, storing it in the much larger Bartley Green reservoir. ‘But that’s in the middle of nowhere,’ he said.