“How’s Woodley doing?”
“It would have been nice if you’d told me that we were both walking wounded.”
I shouldn’t snap at a senior officer, especially when I’m only two days back on the job, but I’m pissed off that I’m on the D team. She doesn’t flinch.
“I haven’t elucidated DC Woodley on the finer points of your leave of absence, and I don’t think you need to know every detail about him, either. A sort of quid pro quo, if you like, for the ‘walking wounded.’” She stares me down. “Is that okay with you, DI Clemo?”
“Sorry, boss.” I strolled right into that bollocking.
“You’ve been in and out like a yo-yo, so please tell me there’s some good news.”
“To be honest, so far it’s messy. Every time we get a hint that things might have played out in one way, we learn something different from somebody else, but I’ve got a few lines of investigation going. We’re getting there.”
“Uh-huh. Did it occur to you to put some more serious pressure on this lad who won’t talk?”
“I thought you wanted kid gloves.”
“I want you to work carefully, but unless I’m mistaken, you have a firm witness who alleges that there was some funny business going on in the scrapyard.”
“I don’t think her account is very firm.”
“Why not?”
“She didn’t witness the moment the lad fell into the water. That’s a problem for me.”
“That’s not what she’s been telling the papers.”
“What?”
She has a copy of the Bristol Echo facedown on her desk. She flips it over and pushes it toward me.
The front page is almost fully occupied with a single photograph. It shows a boy in a hospital bed. I know instantly that it’s Noah Sadler. It looks like a candid shot, taken by somebody standing a few feet away. It’s impossible to see his face, but it’s unmistakably the scene I witnessed when we were at his bedside.
The headline screams below it:
TERROR IN OUR CITY!
Noah Sadler isn’t named, but the caption underneath the photograph states: A fifteen-year-old boy fights for his life at Bristol Children’s Hospital after a suspected racially motivated attack in the city center.
The brief bit of text tells a breathy, highly speculative story about Noah’s fall into the canal. There’s a statement from our witness: “I was terrified. I saw the perpetrator hunt down the boy and push him in the canal and I thought he was going to turn on me next.”
The rest is just as damaging:
Sources indicate that police have identified the suspect but haven’t questioned or arrested him. This journalist wonders if they’re afraid to do so just days after the White Nation march. Could the police be putting residents of this city at risk in order to avoid upsetting an ethnic community? Are we victims of reverse prejudice?
Now I understand why Fraser’s behaving like a pit bull.
She knows every expletive it’s possible to know if you grew up on a Glasgow council estate in the seventies, and I don’t think she spares me a single one as she delivers a tirade about the morals of both the witness and the press.
“And do you see who wrote it?” she asks. The article’s creasing where she’s stabbing it with her finger. I don’t even need to look at it to know that the author is almost certainly Emma Zhang, once again.
Fraser doesn’t wait for me to reply before launching into another tirade. “How could she do this? If I had a poor opinion of that woman before, it’s just reached depths so unbelievably low that even Dante would struggle to imagine them. How dare she?”
I take the paper from her as she’s venting, and read the article. Emma’s known exactly which buttons to press. Of course she has.
“Come with me,” Fraser says when I’m done.
I follow her out of the incident room and down a corridor to the office of Janie Green, our press officer.
Fraser drops the paper on her desk and Janie looks up at her with an expression that’s admirably calm.
“I’ve just seen it,” she says. “I was about to come and find you. It’s a shit storm. They gave me no warning in spite of my repeated attempts to speak to Emma Zhang and the editor today. I think they’ve got an agenda on this one.”
“Who would publish a photograph like that?” Fraser says.
“I know. That’s why I think there’s an agenda.”
“What can we do?”
“I think the horse has well and truly bolted, but I’ll do my very best to limit the damage.”
On Janie’s desk there’s a photograph of three pink-cheeked young children, all with red ringlets identical to hers. I’m fairly sure they won’t be seeing much of their mother this evening.
As we walk back to her office Fraser says, “Get that Somali boy to speak. He’s got the answers, so it’s time to stop pussyfooting around and put some pressure on him. If he is innocent or has just done something stupid, it’s his only hope of getting out of this relatively unscathed. The press are going to savage him if they get hold of his identity and find out that he’s clammed up.”
“Should I see him tonight?”
“No. It’s too late. First thing in the morning.”
“And if he still won’t talk?”
“Play hardball. Threaten him with arrest. You know what to do. We need his story. It’s the only way we can throw a bucket of water on this. And then pay a bloody visit to that bloody witness and give her a talking-to about getting cozy with the press. Threaten her with arrest, too, if you have to.”
She pauses before opening the double doors that lead into the investigation room.
“Get control of this, Jim.”
“I will.”
“How’s the other kid doing?”
“Stable, but still critical.”
“Stable’s something at least.”
She slams opens the double doors and heads turn.
“Don’t anybody bloody say the words Emma Zhang to me unless you want to lose your bloody job tonight,” she says as she marches between the desks.
Her office door slams behind her and the window blinds shudder.
When Sofia emerges from her bedroom, her assignment drafted, ears aching from the earbuds she embedded in them tightly to block out distractions, she finds her mother loading Abdi’s bedding into the washing machine.
“He’s just got up!” Maryam tells her in a whisper. “He’s washing. He drank some tea.”
“Did he say anything?” Sofia asks.
“No! But he looked much better.”
When Abdi emerges from the bathroom and flops onto the sofa, Sofia tries to act casual.
“Abdi?” She takes a seat, too, but keeps her distance, wary of his reaction.
He gives her some eye contact, but it makes her uneasy because his expression is still vacant.
“Are you ready to talk?” she asks.
No reply.