The next day dawned sunny and the forecast was for twenty-four hours without any rain. This raised Alan’s spirits as he climbed into Brutus for the journey to Leicester. It wasn’t the greatest vehicle to drive in the rain: like all old Land Rovers the wipers were rubbish and the dashboard vents let the water in. The sliding window on the driver’s side was also leaky and the heater was too feeble to de-mist the windscreen in rain or fog. All in all, it was good for combat and cross-country, but not much else. He put his tin of tobacco on the dashboard and helped himself to two cigarettes for the journey. He lit one and inhaled deeply. The rush of nicotine made him feel strangely relaxed.
He gently eased the beast into the prosperous outer suburbs of Leicester’s eastern approaches. Brutus looked very out of place here, its chipped matte khaki paint thickly spattered with mud from the quarry site. The houses belonged to senior management types. Most of the cars were hidden away in garages, but a few were out in driveways. Some were being washed by youngsters, probably students on their summer vacations. Apart from the odd Jag there was barely an English car to be seen: just Mercs, BMWs and big Volvos. Alan hadn’t visited Lane’s house in Leicester before, but he’d printed a map off the internet which was propped on the ledge behind the steering wheel. The estate had been built in the late 1920s, probably shortly before the ’29 stock market crash – and it had survived well. The gardens which had been laid-out in prosperous times were large, with mature trees and shrubs. The houses, too, were attractive, if very suburban, with big porches and fine bay windows.
He steered Brutus into a leafy cul-de-sac. Alan smiled, in Tubney they’d have called it a dead-end. Number 17 was halfway along, on the right. He drew up outside. As Alan stepped down to the pavement he spotted someone kneeling by the front door. She stood up on hearing his door slam shut. It was Lane’s wife Mary.
She pulled off a pair of rubber gloves to reveal neatly manicured fingers, which she was wiping on her Head Gardener apron. There was a small trug of weeds on the path beside her. As the rest of the garden seemed entirely weed-less, Alan couldn’t imagine where she’d managed to find any. She kissed him on both cheeks, then held him by the shoulders at arm’s length, inspecting him, like a prodigal son.
‘You haven’t changed one bit, Alan. Your life seems to suit you.’
Alan was slightly embarrassed. He wasn’t used to flattery. He should have returned the compliment, but instead said:
‘I’m sure Richard’s the same. It’s about doing a rewarding job, I suppose.’
‘I wish it was. He’s just been put in charge of an internal reorganisation of the County CID. A thankless task. Lots of backbiting and politics and very little gratitude. And that’s why he’s not here…’
Alan’s heart sunk.
‘He was called out early this morning and should be back,’ she glanced down at her watch, ‘in about half an hour. He texted me ten minutes ago.’ She picked up her trug and put it down on a bench in the porch, then opened the front door. Alan followed her in.
Alan could see at a glance that Mary was very house-proud. Everything was dust-free, neat and tidy, but the place had that slightly sad feeling of a home that once used to house children, who had now departed.
‘How are the twins?’ Alan asked, as they sat down in the kitchen.
‘Both at uni. Jane’s here at Leicester, Harry’s at Sheffield.’
‘And doing science, I assume?’
‘Yes, they’re loving it.’ She paused while she poured boiling water into a teapot.
Alan remembered the twins well. Bright, enthusiastic ten year olds, they had inherited Lane’s curiosity and Mary’s easy sociability. They used to bring him ‘finds’ from the back garden: a rusty nail, a bottle top, a broken plant pot; all had to be subject to the most thorough forensic analysis over the kitchen table. And now they were all grown up, setting out on careers of their own. Meanwhile Ali was destined to spend his best years locked up. And Sofia was dead.
Mary placed a cup of tea in front of him, breaking his reverie.
‘But you haven’t come to see Richard about his kids, have you?’
She placed a brown envelope on the table before him. This was unexpected. Alan’s pulse rate suddenly increased.
‘Are those the pictures?’
‘He said you’d want to see them as soon as you got here.’
Alan opened the envelope and tipped two colour photos onto the table. The young man’s picture was a prison mugshot, complete with date, number and name cards. He stared blankly ahead, expressionless. The young woman smiled out of the photograph at him, her bright eyes a contrast with the dead gaze of the convict. The scarf covering her hair only accentuated her striking bone structure. She was beautiful. For a moment, Alan was overwhelmed by a sharp, surprisingly painful stab of grief.
Mary let him look at the pictures for a couple of minutes. Then she spoke.
‘It’s them, isn’t it? The kids from Flax Hole?’
Alan was slow to reply, as if waking up gradually after a late night.
‘No doubt about that. None at all.’
Alan looked up to find Mary staring at him intently. For a moment the thought crossed his mind that Richard Lane had deliberately stayed away for half an hour, to give his wife time to ask him the sort of questions women are better at asking than men.
‘Had Richard told you why I wanted to see him?’
‘I must admit it does all sound most intriguing. However, if you start digging around in an old case like this, it’s going to put the county force in a difficult position…’
‘But surely not Richard, he won’t be affected – he didn’t join them till much later, did he?’
‘I know. But he has to work with the people who made the decisions. So you’re going to have to make allowances for him.’
Alan’s hackles rose. It was the same old story. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t upset the powers that be. He swallowed back his anger, for Ali’s sake. For Sofia’s. He needed Lane, and to get Lane on side, he’d need Mary too.
‘I understand. But I can’t just walk away as if nothing happened. I knew Ali quite well. I’m quite convinced nothing would have made him kill his sister. Nothing.’
‘Not even family honour? I mean, you don’t know what these Middle Eastern families can be like. Blood’s a lot thicker than water out there, you know… Families are everything.’
‘Yes, but the two kids are, were, very westernised. They had mobile phones. They went to local schools. And Turkey isn’t the same as the Middle East…’
He tailed off. It sounded feeble.
‘You obviously liked him,’ Mary said gently.
‘Yes I did. He was a nice kid and he just had so much… potential.’
Mary studied Alan closely. When she spoke, her words were quiet but insistent.
‘The thing is, Alan, how do you know he wasn’t putting on an act? The fact is he was convicted of murder. Maybe he had indeed killed his sister and needed to dupe someone like you who’d be a credible character witness in court.’
It wasn’t what Alan had expected. Mary, who had always seemed so kind, so tolerant, pushed on with her argument.
‘Richard told me the newspaper reported that the killing happened in 2002. So how come nothing happened for nearly seven years? To me that suggests an organised cover-up.’
Alan took a deep breath. Mary was just reporting the facts, as she saw them. As her husband, the policeman, had relayed them to her. Don’t shoot the messenger.
‘You didn’t meet him, Mary. He was an open and honest lad. I just don’t believe he was capable of that level of deception.’
Mary smiled and shook her head.
‘He was a teenage boy, Alan. Deception is as natural to them as breathing, believe me.’
‘There’s bunking off school and then there’s murder, Mary. Hardly the same thing.’
‘But if it was an honour killing then presumably he was acting on instructions from senior members of the family. It wouldn’t have been entirely his own idea?’
She was trying to soften the blow. Alan was having none of it.
‘The trouble is, I still don’t understand the facts of the case. All I’ve seen is that cutting. That’s why I’ve come to see Richard. For one thing, an honour killing suggests fanaticism. He didn’t seem to care about religion at all. I don’t think he even went to Mosque on Fridays.’
‘OK, so what did motivate him?’
Despite his mounting frustration, Alan had to swallow back a smile. Is this what happened when you spent twenty five years married to a policeman? Did the lingo of the job become part of everyday conversation?
‘He loved history, old things.’
Mary smiled at him sympathetically.
‘So that’s what it’s all about? The student that got away?’
For a second, Alan was back in the finds store at Flax Hole, placing artefacts in a sequence, with Ali, bright-eyed and enthusiastic, standing beside him as Alan explained how every object did indeed tell a story.
Alan shook the image from his mind and refocused on Mary.
‘It’s not that simple. His granddad was a wealthy business man. Ali was expected to follow suit. I don’t think he had a choice.’
‘Go on.’
‘Towards the end of the dig he passed his driving test. His grandfather, Mehmet, bought him an old white Marina van with “Ali’s Delivery Service” painted on the back. And that was that.’
‘So he never even had the option of going to university?’
‘Family came first. I think they saw it as a useful new branch of their rapidly growing business network. I should have been more persuasive, supported him in exploring other options.’
Mary gently took Alan’s hand in hers.
‘This isn’t your fault, Alan. Can’t you remember when you were that age? I bet you changed every few weeks. I know I did. One minute I loved my parents, the next I thought my mother was a possessive old bitch who was trying to relive her frustrated life through me… If I hadn’t been able to escape to university, make my own life… ’
As she spoke he felt his resolve stiffening. It seemed like something beyond his control. But he still chose his words carefully.
‘It’s hardly the same thing.’
‘Isn’t it? An intelligent young man, forced into a menial job by his family. He’s going to be angry, volatile…’
‘It’s all conjecture, Mary. You’ve got no proof.’
‘No, personally I haven’t. But have you? The boy was given a fair trial. The law’s started its course. He’s locked up and’ll be in prison for years. Let it be.’
And at that, the front door opened noisily. DCI Lane was back home.
Lane sat down opposite him at the table. No handshake, no small talk, just that steady even gaze.
‘So Mary showed you the pictures?’
‘It’s them.’
‘No doubts?’
‘None.’
‘We enlarged the girl’s picture from a family snap. Take a look.’
Lane unzipped a leather file case and produced a copy of the original. Alan looked at it closely. At first his eye was drawn by the smiling face of the pretty girl, but then he found he was looking at two of the men beside her: her brothers Abdul and Little Mehmet. He remembered Abdul: a stern, ever dominant presence. And their younger brother: still just a kid, but bright and lively.
‘Yes, that’s her. And the old man on her right’s Mehmet, the grandfather. That’s Ali, and her other brothers, Abdul and Little Mehmet.’
‘Again, no doubts?’
‘No, none.’
Alan, who was examining the picture closely, asked:
‘And when was it taken?’
‘According to the case notes it was found in the attic, with some other stuff of hers, when we searched the house. As you can see, this is a copy. The original one has the date “July 17th, 2001” pencilled on the back. Probably in her handwriting.’
Alan examined the picture closely. Forensically. It had been taken immediately outside Mehmet’s café and everyone was wearing their best, but nobody dared compete in magnificence with old man Mehmet, whose huge buttonhole of scarlet carnations clashed confidently with the crumpled silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. Behind this group, and at a respectful distance, were the slightly out-of-focus shapes of other suited guests.
He looked up and found himself wondering what Lane must be thinking. It was obvious from his expression and body language that he’d hoped the pictures would prove Alan’s quest a wild goose chase. No policeman wants to see the Force proved wrong. Then, and as if to confirm this, Lane opened the conversation with what sounded like a government health warning. His words seemed somehow rehearsed and unnatural.
‘There’s one other thing you should know. I’m sure you won’t go talking about this to the world, but do keep everything to yourself at this stage.’
‘Good heavens, I wasn’t planning to say a word.’
Lane brushed this aside, and continued.
‘At the time the Leicestershire force managed to keep Ali away from the press and TV cameras. It was felt at a very high level that to make him into a monster would whip up prejudice and do huge harm to community relations not just here in the city, but right across the country. And like everyone else in the force, we in the CID did our bit to calm things down. And we also knew that notoriety would make it much harder for a very young man ever to reform.’
There was a short pause. Alan knew this was important. Now was the time to make a positive response.
‘Yes, I agree. It sounds like you did exactly the right thing, considering the circumstances.’
Lane visibly relaxed and continued, his voice now lighter, more natural.
‘Despite our earlier disagreement you might like to know that I don’t always agree with high level meddling, but in this instance I think the powers that be were probably right.’
Another pause.
‘Yes, I agree. But what I don’t yet understand is quite simple…’
Alan hesitated. This needed to be phrased with care. There was nothing to be gained, and everything to be lost, by opening up old wounds.
Lane couldn’t conceal his impatience.
‘Go on,’
‘Well, how was he found out?’
‘Oh, that’s simple: he confessed. He didn’t take much persuading, either and it was a full and frank confession, too.’
Alan wasn’t expecting this. He looked again at the mugshot. Was that blank stare guilt, or fear?
He was too involved, too emotional. If this were a dig he should spend more time thinking about sequence and contexts, less with the diggers. He must step back.
‘OK, confession aside, let’s look at the facts. Can we confirm absolutely that the crime – if that’s what it was – did actually take place when the dig was under way?’
‘Of course we can’t be absolutely certain, but it fits with what we know and with the convicted man’s confession, which talked about an empty warehouse. As we understand it, that warehouse was only empty while your people were digging.’
‘Yes,’ Alan broke in, ‘something to do with Health and Safety. They were worried about things falling on us.’
Alan watched as Lane stood up and collected a folder from a desk next to the television table. He opened it. He showed Alan a black-and-white photo of a flight of stairs in the shell of a building. Alan shivered. God, that place was so cold. He remembered ice on the ground floor.
‘Yes,’ Alan said, ‘I remember those stairs. Bloody lethal they were. The banisters had been removed for scrap when we got there. The place had been gutted. Our clients couldn’t tear down the outer shell, as it was early Victorian and in the Conservation Area, but they planned to rebuild the interior entirely, leaving just the outside brickwork. I only went in it once, to see if it would do as a site store for tools and things. But you couldn’t have made it secure. So we brought in Portakabins, as usual.’
‘Then as soon as you’d moved off site, work started again?’
‘Exactly. But there’s something that puzzles me,’ Alan said. ‘The fact is, that none of the people who had worked on the dig were ever interviewed by the police. None of us were asked to give evidence at the trial. I know it was seven years later, but that doesn’t alter the fact that we weren’t called.’ He paused for a moment, searching for the right words.
‘Dammit, Richard, we’re trained observers. You know as well as I do, that working on a dig sharpens your powers of observation.’
Lane was now nodding, Alan hoped in agreement.
‘I agree, it’s odd that none of you were approached. But did any of you see anything? Is there any fresh evidence?’
It was time to appeal to Lane’s pragmatic side. To their shared history.
‘The fact is, Richard, that site might still retain forensic evidence of some sort. Don’t forget I know every inch of that place. We have hugely detailed plans, photos and drawings. We could reconstruct almost anything. But I’ll never know unless I’m given the chance to investigate. Meanwhile I’m slowly becoming convinced – I’m not certain yet – but I think it quite probable that a young man is about to serve a long sentence for something he might never have done. And that’s wrong. Very wrong. I mean, did he even have a motive?’
Lane nodded, and then slowly, carefully, drew another sheet of paper out of the folder in front of him.
‘The girl Sofia was seventeen at the time.’ Lane gestured to the notes in front of him. ‘Ali killed her because she had brought dishonour on their family by proposing to marry a Sikh. We owe Ali’s conviction almost entirely to the efforts of Sofia’s fiancé, a man called Indajit Singh.’
‘That’s interesting. Is there anything there about him?’
Lane referred back to the notes.
‘No, not that I can see; but that doesn’t matter, because I know Indajit quite well. He’s now a successful lawyer at the Crown Court here.’
‘Could you put me in touch with him?’
‘I could do, but I’d rather not. He’s in India for the first time in his life – finding his family, he told me. To be honest, I think he struggled for years to cope with his fiancée’s death. The last thing he needs now is to be reminded of it.’
Alan had to concede: he did have a point. But he wouldn’t be so easily fobbed off.
‘So how did he do it?’
‘Apparently, he knocked her unconscious and then…’
‘Not Ali, Indajit. How did he build his case against Ali?’
Lane held Alan’s gaze for a long time, and then looked back at his notes.
‘For a start, I don’t think his evidence alone fingered Ali. More like somebody in the Kabul family. It was Ali’s confession that put him in the frame.’
‘But how did he do it?’
‘Well, he’s a lawyer and a damn good one, too.’ Lane paused, then continued.
‘To be honest, I’ve no idea precisely how he assembled the evidence, but he did and it took him the best part of seven years. Slowly and meticulously he managed to construct a watertight case for her “honour” killing by a member of the Kabul family. Everyone suspected the grandfather, as it’s usually the head of the family who feels any supposed “insult” most keenly.’
‘Presumably his evidence was strong, was it?’
‘Yes, good enough to show that a crime had almost certainly been committed.’
‘So he could have gone to the press had you not co-operated?’
‘That wouldn’t have been Indajit’s style. But we also knew we couldn’t just let it rest as it was. We had to intervene. To investigate. So somebody leaked…’
‘In the police?’
‘I assume so. It’s a politicians’ trick we all use. Advance information, call it what you like. Anyhow, somebody had informally let the family know that we were planning to arrest the grandfather.’
‘That sounds a bit ill-advised.’
‘Yes, I thought so at the time. But the top brass believed it would put him under added pressure. I think the local Force reckoned an arrest wouldn’t have helped their reputation for integrity.’
‘Which was real?’
‘Oh yes, the Kabuls were highly regarded, still are.’
‘Despite Ali?’
‘Almost because of him. He was a bad apple, but he’s seen as doing the right, the honourable thing, by confessing.’
‘Meanwhile you were still in Cambridgeshire?’
Lane nodded, still deep in thought.
‘So that was it?’
Alan could see Lane’s memory was working overtime. He paused briefly, then continued.
‘The thing was, Alan, we didn’t have very much concrete to go on. Indajit’s case was very, very persuasive and I still believe that events have shown he was dead right, but at the time we lacked the hard evidence to convict any single individual. There was loads of suspicion, but that wasn’t enough to get a conviction. Ali’s confession was exactly what we needed. Who knows, maybe the top brass had been right? Pressure on the family had worked.’
Alan sat back, thinking this over for a few moments, then asked the final question, the one he had been avoiding ever since he read the newspaper article.
‘Did you find Sofia’s remains?’
‘No. And believe me we left no stone unturned.’
‘I suppose having no body made it very much harder to build up a convincing case?’
‘Oh yes, before Ali’s confession, the family claimed she’d been persuaded to return to Turkey. But searches there revealed nothing. The trouble is, large parts of rural Turkey are still remarkably remote and un-modernised. Quite unlike the cities – places like Ankara or Istanbul.’
‘So she could still be there – out in the countryside?’
‘Yes, just possibly. But it’s most unlikely. We’d surely have heard something by now. And besides, eventually, Ali told us where the body was. Is.’
‘Where?’
Alan winced at the eagerness in his voice. He’d overstepped the mark, and he knew it.
‘Any confession is confidential. It would be deeply unprofessional of me to…’
Alan held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
‘I’m sorry, I get it. It was a bloody stupid question.’
Lane began to place the papers back in the folder. Case closed.
Alan should have accepted it, but something made him try one last attempt to get his opinion across.
‘The thing is, Richard, I’ve just got this gut feeling.’ He closed his eyes to avoid his friend’s intense gaze. ‘It’s just that I know he didn’t do it. He couldn’t have.’
Alan fully expected Lane to dismiss this emotional outburst. But when he met Lane’s gaze again, his expression was softer, sympathetic even.
‘If it’s any consolation, he showed great remorse – or at least that was what several family witnesses claimed.’
He paused, before continuing.
‘They agreed that Ali had been completely devastated by what he’d done.’
‘And did the court accept all that?’
‘Yes, they did. He was given a life sentence, with a provision that he could not apply for parole for ten years. I won’t say it’s lenient, but it’s not exactly a stiff sentence, either.’
‘No,’ Alan replied, ‘certainly not for a self-confessed killer.’
But, he thought to himself, ten years off the life of an innocent young man, that’s a different matter entirely.
Lane held out his hand. Alan shook it.
‘Good to see you again, Alan. Let’s not leave it so long next time.’
‘No, absolutely not.’
As Alan reversed out of the driveway, Lane and Mary stood at the front door, waving him off. The loyal couple, protecting their family unit from any unwelcome intrusion. He could almost laugh at the irony. Almost, but not quite.