Opposite Emma and Fiona Sadler, in a matching chair, is a local newsreader who specializes in making even the blandest everyday report sound emotionally turbulent. Between them there’s a low table with a box of tissues on it. The newsreader looks deep into the camera and begins to speak.
“We have a very special interview for you this evening, with crime reporter Emma Zhang and Fiona Sadler, the mother of Noah, a fifteen-year-old boy who tragically died earlier this week as a result of an incident in our city. Thank you both so much for being with us tonight.”
Fiona Sadler looks like a deer in the headlights, but a determined one. Her voice is croaky at first, but she pauses to take a sip of water and then the words flow from her. She describes Noah’s personality as flawless, and talks about her husband, milking his credentials as a war photographer. Then she embarks on the tale of Noah’s illness. The newsreader’s head bobs encouragement.
All of that is just a prologue for the main event, though. Prompted by the newsreader, Fiona Sadler begins to describe the genesis of what the scroll along the bottom of my TV screen calls “a doomed friendship.” Emma remains very still throughout, her hands folded on her lap, focused on Fiona Sadler, and nodding whenever sympathy is required, which means that her head, as well as the newsreader’s, is bouncing up and down for most of the interview.
It’s a coup for her. I can see that. A coup and a scoop. I’m furious.
Emma’s flagrant bending of the rules has got her here, to this: a moment of pure professional triumph. I believe what she’s done is wrong, to its core, but I can’t deny that it’s also making me question the approach I’ve taken to this case. Should I have bent the rules a bit, put more pressure on Abdi, questioned whether being methodical would be the best way to get a result? Has the Ben Finch case scared me so completely I’ve become nothing more than a detective by numbers? A dull plodder?
My phone starts buzzing. It’s Fraser. I ignore it. I don’t want to miss a word of this interview, nor am I ready to get a bollocking for somehow allowing it to happen.
“We’ve heard how they met, but how would you describe the essence of the boys’ relationship?” the interviewer asks Fiona Sadler.
“I would say that the boys had things in common, shared interests and hobbies, and they enjoyed each other’s company for the most part, but I would also say that there might have been a fundamental clash of cultures at the heart of their relationship.”
“Can you give us an example?”
Fiona Sadler begins to tear up, fighting it every step of the way. It’s a live meltdown: television gold. “No. Not really, no. Actually, I’m not sure that’s what I want to say.”
The newsreader offers her a tissue.
“But would it be true to say that you feel this clash of cultures might have led this boy to harm your son?”
“I’m just saying that you don’t know who people are. You don’t always understand them.” She begins to cry, and the newsreader turns to Emma, who manages to talk while rubbing Fiona Sadler’s back ostentatiously.
Please salvage this, I think, please.
“Perhaps you could answer this for us, Emma Zhang. You feel a crime may have been committed here, don’t you, and that the police aren’t doing their job properly?”
“I do. I think that political correctness hampers us. This is a sensitive case, involving minors, but I wonder if it’s being pursued as assiduously as it might be because the boy in question is a Somali immigrant.”
“And you say this as somebody who considers themselves a minority?”
“I’m half Chinese and half English, so I think I can talk from both sides of the fence.”
I wonder how she can stoop so low. I’m not sure she has a single thing in common with Abdi Mahad’s family.
“So you think a kind of reverse prejudice might be taking place?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“But why do you think that this boy might have hurt Noah?”
Fiona Sadler doesn’t respond. She’s weeping, and she looks as if she doesn’t want to be there any longer. The camera closes in on Emma, who’s ready to seize her moment.
“This is speculation, but I wonder if it could have been some kind of initiation.”
“What kind of initiation?”
“I don’t know. Maybe for membership in a group, to show that he would be capable of perpetrating a bigger act.”
“An act of terror?”
“Why not?”
“Isn’t that rather speculative?” Even the newsreader looks shocked at how far Emma’s pushed this. Fiona Sadler is aghast.
My phone rings again. This time I answer it.
“Did I say toxic?” It’s Fraser. “I meant something worse, but frankly I’m struggling to think of the words just now.”
“I don’t know what to say. I had no idea about this.”
“I need to talk to Janie about how we handle this. I’ll speak to you first thing in the morning.”
She hangs up, and I can’t shake the feeling that she’s cutting me out of whatever’s going to happen next.
When the doorbell to my flat rings, Becky says, “I’ll get it.”
She speaks quietly into the buzzer and then calls, “I’m going out for a bit.”
“Who with?”
She stops with her hand on the door handle.
“Who with, Becky?”
“That’s none of your business. What’s got into you?”
“Are you meeting the man who hurt you?”
She leaves, slamming the door behind her, but I follow. We clatter down the stairs together and I arrive at the front door before she does.
Outside, standing on the top of the steps, is a man with longish hair and a bunch of red roses.
That’s all I register before I swing my fist into his midriff.
Maryam’s sipping tea in her friend Amina’s kitchen when she notices Fiona Sadler on the TV. Nur’s out searching for Abdi again, and Maryam’s left the flat to try to clear her head. She’s determined that Sofia must not know about Abdi, but she doesn’t trust herself to hold it together around her daughter tonight.
Maryam and Amina watch the interview in horror. Amina has no choice but to translate the bits that Maryam doesn’t understand. She feels dirtied by the ugly words she has to pass on.
“I need to go home,” Maryam says.
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
Maryam hurries through Easton, trying to reach Nur by phone as she goes, but he’s not answering. She sees that Sofia’s tried to call her. She’s rushed away from Amina because instinct told her that she must be home, to support her daughter in the aftermath of the TV interview, but she’s suddenly overwhelmed by the terrible burden of continuing to try and protect Sofia from all of this, and she doesn’t know if she can do it any longer.
Maryam stops in the street and sits down on a low wall. Her handbag slips to her feet.
It’s time, she thinks. Time to tell everything. To protect Abdi.