EXCEPT THAT HE’S A NASTY BASTARD,
PC Percy Copper was the first on the scene but could get little sense of the situation. There had been a robbery, he gathered that much. He could see the damage to the glass counter and an open till, but beyond that, he could get no sense from the family. The elder woman, the mother, slinked away into the back of the shop as soon as he appeared. The owner of the shop shouted angrily every time one of the girls tried to speak, pointing at the damaged glass, “Who’s going to pay for this? Tell me, who? Such expensive glass. Very much damage. Who to pay? I want to know.”
The frightened girl, in obvious pain, tried to speak but the shopkeeper, the girl’s father, kept shouting her down. “Idiot girl. She allowed this to happen. Idiot, donkey.”
A black Wolseley patrol car pulled up, and PCs Alan Edgeley and Keith Balderstone entered the shop to see an angry Indian gentleman waving his arms about and shouting in a foreign language at a frightened girl huddled in a corner and clutching an obviously injured arm to her chest.
Percy led the other two coppers out back into the street, where a crowd of curious onlookers were beginning to gather, attracted by the shouted arguments from inside the shop and the police presence, and hoping for some juicy titbits of gossip or scandal. The three police huddled together so as not to let the onlookers hear. “As far as I can make out, some bloke came in, smacked the girl with a bat, and made off with a few quid from the till. The old fella must be her dad, god help her, keeps blaming her and shouting the odds at her. Poor thing is terrified of him. I reckon it’s best to get her out of there, get her injuries looked at, and then interview her down at the nick. A WPC would be best, Suzanne Fillmore, perhaps; she’ll be good at that.”
Edgeley and Balderstone quickly grasped the situation and, once back inside the shop, persuaded Amit to allow Maleha to be taken to Garside General Hospital to have her arm treated. Purika and Nabiha were to accompany her, Amit was to remain behind with Percy whilst he made out his report and tried to determine how much had been stolen.
As Balderstone and Edgeley led the Patel women to the police car, a hubbub of talk swirled about them. “What’s up, Mrs Patel? What’s happened to Maleha?” somebody shouted but got no reply. “She under arrest, got her dirty little Paki fingers in the till, eh?” someone else shouted.
Fortunately, Maleha’s arm was not broken, merely very badly bruised. After the doctor had examined her, causing her pain as he manipulated her arm, a nurse bound her arm with crepe bandage from upper arm to midway down her lower arm and then carefully placed the injured arm into a sling and tied it about her neck, using a reef knot, and then pinned back the triangular point of the sling to prevent her arm from slipping out.
Afterwards, she sat nervously in the interview room, her mother and sister with her, as WPC Suzanne Fillmore tried to coax from her the story of what had happened in the robbery. But first, she attempted to put the apprehensive little girl at ease.
“You do speak English, don’t you?” And got a nod in reply.
“Can you answer me verbally, Maleha? Is that right, Maleha?”
“Yes, Maleha.”
“Thank you. And you are from where? India?”
“Actually, Pakistan, but my father, Baba, he does not recognise Pakistan as a country. He does not acknowledge the Partition; he says we are from Greater India.”
Suzanne had only a vague geographical knowledge of where India might be and could not envisage how India might be divided into separate countries; all she could say, if asked, was that India was east of Suez but not as far as China or Australia. Her cousin David had taken a £10 assisted passage to Australia and had written to his parents describing the journey and how long it had taken.
But none of that was of any use now as she tried to coax the robbery details from the traumatised and frightened little girl.
Suzanne asked Maleha about her school, did she enjoy school, and got an enthusiastic nod.
“And what are you going to do when you leave school, Maleha? Do you know yet?”
“Yes, I want to be a doctor.”
That would be wonderful, but you have to work hard to pass all your exams.’
‘Maleha, she’s the top in every class.’ interjected Nabiha, proudly, in awe of her big sister’s cleverness.
‘Well then, if that’s true, then you can become a doctor.’
Sadly, Maleha shook her head. ‘Baba won’t allow, he says I have to work in the shop’
‘Do you like working in the shop?’
Maleha looked at her mother who had understood enough of the conversation to give her daughter a frown and Suzanne could sense the underlying tension; to Purika, Amit’s word was absolute and any dissent from his stated intentions for Maleha was beyond comprehension, a daughter should obey her father, and later her husband, without question, why would Maleha not wish to work in the shop if that was what Baba wanted? Maleha looked back at Suzanne and gave a resigned shrug. ‘Don’t care’
‘Never mind, I’m sure it will work out, after all, every father wants the best for their children,’ said Suzanne soothingly, ‘and your father will come around once he sees how clever you are and how much you want to be a doctor. But maybe when you are a bit older you might change your mind anyway,’ but Maleha shook her head. Baba’s word was absolute – he would not change his mind in a hundred years. Her mother, Maleha and Nabiha were free labour, which was all that Baba cared for.
‘So, Maleha, can you tell me what happened earlier, about the robbery and how you came to be hurt?’
Slowly Maleha told her tale, how she was in the shop on her own (and Suzanne made a mental note to check on the legality of a twelve-year old working in a shop, even if it was a family run concern), the masked man, the attack on her with the bat, the theft of the money.
‘You’ve been very brave. Maleha,’ complimented Suzanne. ‘Very brave.’
Maleha nodded, looking down at her bandaged arm and Suzanne could sense, once again, some underlying tension.
‘Was there something else, love? Something else you want to tell me?’
Without looking up Maleha slowly nodded, yes.
‘It’s alright, Maleha, you can tell me. You can tell me anything.’
Very quietly, her head sunk onto her chest in shame, she whispered. ‘He touched me, here’ and she touched her own young not-quite-teenage breast. ‘Squeezed and hurt me.’ Purika, understanding the gesture if not the words spoke out angrily in Urdu, gesticulating wildly with her hands, the only word that was comprehensible to Suzanne was Baba, repeated several times.
Maleha said nothing, but sat there quietly, tears trickling down her face.
Suzanne now called for a senior officer to attend the interview, but she gave a sigh of despair and resignation when DC Harry Rawlings, the only CID officer on duty at that time, joined her. Rubber hoses time, she thought sourly; Harry’s reputation preceded him. However, Rawlings, the father of two young girls, was surprisingly gentle and sympathetic with her, gradually coaxing from Maleha yet more details of the robbery and assault, especially the sexual attack while her mother sat quietly, wringing her hands in anguish, for sure Amit would take out his anger on her for allowing Maleha to so dishonour him with her shameful tale.
Gradually, Harry and Suzanne were able to build up a description of the attacker. To Maleha’s eyes, he was very tall as he towered over her, but by comparison with his own height, Harry could establish that the robber was between 5’10” and 6’0”, slightly taller than average for the time.
Maleha described a leather jacket, “like a man riding a motorcycle might wear,” the scarf which covered his face was grey wool, it looked, she said, “home-knitted,” and his wild, staring eyes and his dark, greasy hair, Brylcreemed to a high quiff.
“Well done, love,” Harry commented. “You’ve done just great. Now don’t you worry, we’ll catch the scum that did this and make sure he goes away for a good long time.”
A police car was arranged to take them back to the shop, a prospect all three of them dreaded; Baba was going to be very angry. Very angry indeed.
After they had left, Harry Rawlings turned to Suzanne Fillmore. “This has got ‘Nasty Bastard’ written all over it.”
“Yeah, it is pretty nasty, attacking a young girl like that.”
“No. I mean ‘Nasty Bastard.’ I reckon our man is a sex offender; he had no reason to grope the poor lass like that, except that he’s a Nasty Bastard, them as ‘ave form for sex offences. I reckon me and Marcus Harding must ‘ave already come across ‘im. We’ll have a chat when he gets in.”