Blood Sympathy

She was looking at him like he was raving mad.

‘What is all this about immigrants?’ she demanded angrily. ‘I have been living in Birmingham for fifteen years. My children are all born here. I have a National Insurance number, and a job as part-time receptionist at the Sheldon Airlodge Hotel.’

‘Oh shoot,’ said Joe. He’d made the same kind of bonehead assumption that so irritated him when people made it about him. This was clearly his night for guilt.

He said, ‘I’m sorry, I thought when Merv mentioned the airport …’

‘We are coming back from holiday, ten days in Marbella, three star hotel. We arrive at Luton, very good flight, only ninety minutes late, and as we go through Customs green light, a man says, will you come this way, please? And he takes us to a little room … please, is there somewhere we could sit down? This has been a very tiring day.’

Joe didn’t know if it was written somewhere, never let a woman with two kids and a suitcase into your home, but he guessed it was, probably in the Dead Sea Scrolls or on a pyramid. Maybe it went on to give advice on how to keep them out, but not having the benefit of a classical education he lacked the art. And the heart.

He picked up the suitcase. It was very heavy.

‘You’d better come on up,’ he said.

CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_b0deb0d9-8cb3-5721-b0b1-f09dda25d2e7)

Whitey was still stretched out on the armchair. He kept his eyes closed but Joe knew he was watching. Mrs Bannerjee sank with a sigh of relief on to the sofa. The infant still slept in her arms and the little boy clung on to his bull with one hand and his mother’s sari with the other while his huge brown eyes took in the mysteries of this new place.

Joe didn’t disturb the cat. Standing was fine. He didn’t want this to get too cosy.

‘So what happened next, Mrs Bannerjee?’ he asked.

She said, ‘They took my husband away somewhere else, also our luggage. After a while a lady comes with a cup of tea and orange juice for the children. She asks a lot of questions about our holiday, where we have gone, who we have seen. I ask her, where is Soumitra, my husband? And she replies that he will be with me soon, and goes on asking questions. Then she leaves us alone. After a long time she comes back with my suitcase and tells me I can go with the children but Soumitra must stay. I ask why and she says to help with inquiries. I try to argue but she leads me outside. I do not know what to do. I think perhaps I will phone Mr Herringshaw, my husband’s employer in Birmingham, but I do not have his number and besides, it is very late to be disturbing such a man. Our car is in the car park but I have no key and I cannot drive. I think maybe I will take a taxi home but I do not have enough money for such a journey and in any case I do not want to go far in case they let Soumitra go. So I stand there undecided and though I try to be strong, I find that I am crying … Then your friend comes up to me …’

Good old Merv. He hated people being miserable. He’d been worth twice what he got paid at Robco just because of the job he did for shop floor morale.

‘Amal, be careful,’ said Mrs Bannerjee.

Her young son had gained sufficient confidence to detach himself from his mother’s side and kneel in front of the armchair to examine Whitey, who returned the compliment assessingly. The boy’s hand went out and touched the cat on the stomach. Joe held his breath. Whitey would claw Mother Teresa if he didn’t take to her. But now he stretched luxuriously, offering the whole range of his undercarriage to the child’s caress and began to purr like a hive of bees.

‘It’s OK,’ said Joe. ‘Look, Mrs Bannerjee. My friend Merv was right in one respect. What you need is help from the law, not my kind of law, but a real lawyer. I may be able to get someone. There’s this lady solicitor I know who works at the Bullpat Square Law Centre. If we can get her interested she’s very good. But it would help if we had some idea why they’re holding your husband …’

‘Why do you need to ask?’ she demanded scornfully. ‘Is it not obvious? They think he is smuggling something into the country.’

Sixsmith didn’t care for the scorn and in any case it wasn’t all that obvious. If they’d picked up Bannerjee on suspicion of smuggling, why on earth had they turned his wife loose without a much more thorough investigation of her possible complicity?

One reason suggested itself uncomfortably. They might have felt it worthwhile letting her loose and following her to see who she made contact with …

He went to the sliding window which opened on to a tiny balcony crowded with pot plants. Stepping carefully between them, he peered over the rail into the street below. Six storeys down he saw three police cars, sirens muted but with their roof lights still gently pulsating. A little further along was Mervyn Golightly’s taxi with Merv leaning against it, protesting loudly as a constable ran his hands up his legs.

‘Oh shoot!’ said Joe Sixsmith.

The doorbell rang.

He moved quick. He knew the Law’s way with a door when they wanted quick access. A short ring in lip service to legality, then …

Fortunately he hadn’t put the chain on. He seized the handle, turned it and pulled. The burly constable swinging the sledgehammer didn’t have time to change his mind. The weight of the hammer carried him into the flat and across the room and out of the open window on to the balcony, where the low rail caught him across his ample belly and doubled him up. For a terrible moment Joe thought he was going to go over. But he let go of the hammer and grabbed the rail with both hands as Joe dived after him and seized the seat of his pants.

Over the man’s shoulder he saw the hammer sailing through the night air with the breath-catching majesty of an Olympic medal throw.

Then, like a smart bomb, it revolved slowly as though seeking its programmed target, locked on, straightened up, and arrowed down.

Far below a constable looked up. He opened his mouth in horror, then screamed a warning. The doors of the middle of the trio of police cars flapped open left and right, and two uniformed men hurled themselves out in perfect sync a split second before the sledgehammer passed through the car roof like a cannon ball through canvas.

‘Oh shoot,’ said Joe.

‘Will you get your black hands off my white arse!’ snarled the burly man.

Joe could understand his ill temper but that gave him no entitlement to racist cracks.

He let go of the trousers and said, ‘Hey, friend, look what you’ve done to my begonias. Someone’s going to have to pay for this.’

Then he turned in search of the bossman.

There were two of them, a DI from the Drug Squad and a Senior Investigation Officer from Customs and Excise. At first they vied for control, but as Joe repeated his story, and Mrs Bannerjee repeated her story, and confirmation came from below that Merv the taxi man was repeating the same story, gradually the two men each tried to back out of the limelight, leaving centre stage to the other. The flat meanwhile had been well turned over without result and the searchers were reduced to a close examination of the balcony plants in hope of discovering some illegal growth.

‘That is a pelargonium,’ said Joe, indignantly snatching a pot from a pair of clumsy hands. ‘Who’s going to clear up this mess? I want compensation. What right you got to come in here, wrecking my flat, scaring my cat, and terrifying this poor woman and her kids?’

The men looked unimpressed and it was true that Mrs Bannerjee seemed more indignant than afraid, while her daughter hadn’t even woken up and the little boy was sitting in a corner with Whitey in his arms, both of them watching the activity with wide-eyed interest.

‘I’m going to ring my lawyer,’ said Joe. ‘But first I’m going to ring the News, tell them there’s a great story here, cops and Customs men busting an innocent man’s place up, not to mention throwing sledgehammers through police cars. Now that should really make a headline!

It was the threat of ridicule which did the trick. The searchers began to do some token clearing up, while Mrs Bannerjee, her kids and her suitcase were being ushered from the flat.

‘Where are you taking that lady?’ demanded Joe.

‘Helping with inquiries,’ said the DI who had lost the battle to shed responsibility and signalled this by grudgingly admitting his name was Yarrop. ‘Don’t worry, she’ll be well taken care of.’

Joe doubted it. Having let Mrs Bannerjee run free to see where she went, now presumably they would put her in the same room as her husband and bug their conversation. The last thing on their official minds would be genuine concern.

‘Suppose she doesn’t want to go?’ he said.

‘It is all right, Mr Sixsmith,’ said Mrs Bannerjee. ‘I never wanted to go away from my husband in the first place. Now they say I will see him. But, please, you mentioned a solicitor …’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Joe. ‘I’ll try to get hold of the woman I told you about. Her name’s Butcher.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Sixsmith,’ said the woman, smiling for the first time. She was rather pretty when she smiled. ‘You have been very kind. Amal, say thank you and goodbye to Mr Sixsmith.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Sixsmith,’ piped the little boy to Whitey whom he had released with great reluctance.

He thinks the cat’s in charge, thought Joe. Maybe he’s right.

The Bannerjees went out.

Yarrop said, ‘I’m sorry about this. Can’t win ’em all.’

‘Well,’ said Joe grudgingly, ‘at least you can admit a mistake.’