Inspector Singh Investigates: A Frightfully English Execution

Book 7: Inspector Singh Investigates

by Shamini Flint

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Inspector Singh is irate. He's been instructed to attend a Commonwealth conference on policing in London: a job for paper pushers, not real cops, as far as he is concerned. And as if that isn't bad enough, his wife is determined to come along to shop for souvenirs and visit previously unknown relatives. But it isn't long before the cold case that lands on Singh's ample lap turns into a hot potato and he has to outwit Scotland Yard, his wife and London's finest criminals to prevent more frightful executions from occurring on his watch - or indeed, from being added to their number.

Release date: April 7, 2016

Publisher: Piatkus

Print pages: 272

Sample

‘We know what we’ve got to do, right, lads?’

The three men around the wobbly Ikea dining table were pumped on adrenaline. They fidgeted on their three-legged stools like children after too much chocolate. Especially Ahmad. For good reason too as it was his house, his family that was asleep upstairs.

Their leader, Hassan, leaned against a wall, arms folded, the calmest among them because he had the most experience. He studied his men, his troops. There was a sameness about them. Not in their physical appearance although all three were dressed in black leather jackets and cargo pants; one was tall, good-looking, unshaven, another short, portly, gap-toothed and the third nondescript to the point of anonymity. It was their absorption in the moment, the expression on their faces and the tension across the shoulders, which created a likeness.

‘How long does it have to be?’ asked Ahmad.

‘Two minutes.’

‘Isn’t that a bit short for a Wasiya? And the lighting in here isn’t great either.’

‘What does that matter? There’s not much chance of a sequel to a martyrdom video, is there?’

This drew laughter from two of them and a sheepish grin from the speaker. ‘Awright then, I just want it to be good. So that the family’s proud of what I done.’

‘They will be proud. You need have no doubt about that.’

The men wolfed down the rest of their takeaway from the Indian down the road, wiping the remnants of vindaloo with naan.

There was something valedictory about this meal because it was their last one together.

‘And you’re sure we have everything we need?’ asked Ahmad.

‘Of course.’

‘Even the explosives?’

‘Courtesy of the Americans,’ explained Hassan. ‘Their Iraqi lackeys fled so fast, they left enough ordnance to last a generation.’

‘That’s brilliant, man!’

Revenge with a dollop of irony was better than just revenge. Hassan allowed them a few seconds of merriment and then raised a finger.

‘C’mon, let’s get to work.’

On his instructions, they pushed the table against a wall. The stools were arranged in a row facing the sink. The leader produced the regulation black flag and with some difficulty, because the tape would not adhere to the wallpaper, they stuck it up as a backdrop. And then all three changed into the robes he had prepared while he went to check that the doors were locked and the curtains tightly drawn. Small errors undermined big plans and Hassan was known for being meticulous, and therefore successful.

Solemnity descended.

Hassan arranged them on the stools, tall to short and then changed his mind and placed the tallest in the middle, stopped to contemplate his handiwork, and decided it would work well enough. He retrieved his iPad from the rucksack on the table. It was the latest model; funds were not a problem these days. Not with ransom payments, donations from Saudis and Qatari sheiks and oil and weapons sales on the black market. The only difficulty was getting the cash out of the Middle East and into the financial centres, freshly laundered and smelling sweet.

‘All right you know what to do, left to right. Make sure you introduce yourself, they must know that the enemy is everywhere, that no one is safe from brother, neighbour, friend. And don’t worry if you get it wrong, we can do it again or I can edit out any mistakes.’

‘What happens if we abort?’

‘Why would we do that?’

‘I dunno, but shit happens, right.’

‘Not when I’m in charge.’

This statement of confidence seemed to soothe Ahmad for a moment but then his head popped up again. ‘If something goes wrong, this kind of thing is just evidence.’

‘What is your point?’ Hassan’s heavy brows were lowered.

‘Look, I’m in, right. I’m ready. But I don’t want to be picked up one cold January morning when I ain’t even done nothing yet just because of some video.’

The other two were watching Hassan, eyes glinting like creatures of the forest.

‘I will keep the tape – it will not be released until our plans have been executed.’

‘You swear it?’

‘I swear it on the Holy Book.’

They all nodded; backs straightened, eyes shone, they were ready.

He held up the iPad and nodded to Ahmad to go first.

‘Know without doubt that the Muslims who die due to your attacks will be in paradise. But the infidels we kill…’

The front door was kicked down. The men leaped to their feet as one. Hassan made a dash for the back exit but it was too late. Heavily armed men burst in, fanned out, guns trained on them with the precision of the highly trained and the highly motivated.

‘Put your hands where I can see them,’ barked the leader. ‘You’re all under arrest.’

Upstairs, a child began to cry.

Despite the presence of the armed response team, Hassan’s anger was directed at his fellow conspirators.

‘We have been betrayed. Which of you has let down our cause?’

Only Ahmad’s eyes dropped.

Shaheed Muhammad waited outside the kindergarten in Finsbury Park for his daughter. It was around the corner from the station and he could hear the trains rumble past. It was almost four, the end of the school day. There was a lot of laughter from within, that high-pitched, uncontrolled delight that children exhibit over small things. No doubt one of them had fallen over his feet or snorted orange juice up his nose. A teacher cajoled them to identify their lunch boxes.

‘Adrian, I’m quite sure that is not yours.’

‘But I like this one better.’

‘It belongs to Harry.’

‘But I want it.’

‘We can’t just take things that don’t belong to us.’

Shaheed grimaced. Wasn’t the correct lesson the exact opposite in this capitalist feeding frenzy masquerading as society?

A brisk breeze caused a pink plastic bag to swirl on the quiet street and he watched it dance. A few other parents drifted up. Mostly mothers.

His Bollywood good looks: square jaw, straight nose, high cheekbones, melting brown eyes, immediately attracted a few of the women.

‘Mr Shaheed, you’re so helpful with Emma.’ The speaker was a frumpy creature with a chubby, blond son.

‘I do what I can.’

Regina, the mother of his child, his beautiful four-year-old girl, had gone back to work when Emma was not yet a year old.

‘There’s no rush,’ he’d said. ‘She needs you at home.’

‘Now don’t go all Indian sub-continent on me,’ she said, giving him a hug.

‘Women these days don’t have to give up their life for a child,’ she added when she sensed his hesitation.

‘Isn’t our life this child now?’

‘I’d drive her nuts if I was at home all the time.’

Shaheed had been cajoled into agreeing that she couldn’t be expected to give up her job. He stepped in, did his best for the child. He attended concerts when Regina was stuck at work, picked Emma up at nursery when his wife was running late, made himself dinner and hers too. Listened to the floorboards creak as she went straight to the spare room ‘so as not to wake you’, she’d say in the morning, dropping a kiss on his tousled hair as she rushed back out to work – ‘Please be a dear and drop Emma at school? I have an early meeting.’

‘I think you should speak to them, explain that you’re… not home enough.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’d be out on my ear!’

Shaheed bit his tongue so often it had become an alternative food source.

It galled him to admit it but his mother had been right. No good came of marrying outside one’s kind. They had sent him to London to wed within the community but instead he found Regina.

He cast his mind back to the conversation he’d had with his mother earlier that day. Thanks to Skype, he could see their airy Lahore home, the old furniture, everything going to seed now that his father was dead and his mother losing her strength.

‘Are you not the man in this household of yours?’

‘It’s the twenty-first century – there’s nothing wrong with helping out with the child.’

‘With the child, with the housework, with the cooking – is that how I brought you up? To be a slave to a woman?’

They spoke in Urdu.

‘They are all the same, the young women in that country. They have no respect for tradition, for family.’

Over his mother’s shoulder he could see the row of china figurines, farmers and milkmaids, pink-cheeked and plump. He didn’t have to be there to know that she would be using the fireplace to store old newspapers. He grimaced. He’d read the Urdu headlines online just before calling home. More drones. Dead civilians, dead children.

‘And is this the sort of example you want for Emma?’

His mother rose to her feet with difficulty, leaning on her cane, salwar kameez stretched across her broad hips. She hobbled over to the dining table, picked up a plate of sweetmeats and took one, holding it up to show him.

‘You are so thin, Shaheed. You must eat.’

Since he’d been a child, she would temper her criticism, show her affection, with food; a samosa or something sweet – ‘Sweet desserts for a sweet boy.’

He did his best to teach Emma the ways of his home in Lahore, said to her sometimes, ‘Sweet desserts for a sweet girl.’

‘Then I can’t eat any nasty vegetables, can I?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Because I’m not a “nasty girl”, am I?’

Was that sharp wit inherited from her mother?

Shaheed was dragged back to the present as the brightly painted blue front door opened and tiny tots streamed down the path.

He spotted Emma and his heart turned over. She was so beautiful. The long silky hair tied into two plaits with a fringe that brushed her eyebrows. The big brown eyes framed with dark lashes, the button nose and pink cheeks. Her sturdy form was dressed in a polka dot red dress, white leggings and a red jacket buttoned neatly down the front.

‘You’re picking up Emma today, Mr Shaheed?’

‘Yes, her mother was held up.’

‘That’s all right then, it was good of you to step in.’

‘I do what I can.’

He took a step forward. ‘Emma?’

She flung herself into his arms and he tickled her vigorously, her shrieks drawing smiles from the other adults.

‘Where’s Mamma?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘She’s busy…’

‘She’s always busy.’

‘… so I’ve come to get you today.’

 

‘London?’

‘Yes, you can learn policing methods from English bobbies.’

This almost sounded appealing to Inspector Singh. Maybe the British police would lend him one of those big helmets to perch on top of his turban. Or he’d buy himself a deerstalker and a pipe. But not that furry egg-hat the fellows outside Buckingham Palace wore – he had some dignity.

‘It’s a Commonwealth task force on policing in a multiracial, multi-religious context,’ continued his superior.

Singh’s face fell. ‘Let me guess, you told them I was an expert?’

‘Our senior man with a delicate touch…’

Delicate touch? He, who stepped on toes so often?

‘They’re sending us an expert on terrorist infiltration of in-country communities,’ he continued. He clearly felt it was an exchange in which he came off the better. One overweight, opinionated policeman in exchange for Scotland Yard’s best.

His subordinate pulled a face. Inspector Singh of the Singapore police had no gripe with a policeman’s lot when he was demonstrating yet again that he was Singapore’s finest investigator with the best solve rate on the force, a statistic that kept him in employment despite the hearty antipathy of his superiors. What he disliked was being sent on irrelevant matters to faraway countries with poor food, poor heating and strict smoking laws.

‘Why me?’ he asked, unable to keep the plaintive note out of his voice.

‘It’s not just you – policemen from other Commonwealth countries will be present too.’

‘But we have nothing in common with them.’

‘Nonsense, we share a common language, institutions and heritage.’

‘Despots, extremists and bureaucrats.’

‘I hope you plan to keep that opinion to yourself.’

Singh stuck out his bottom lip. ‘I’m surprised they can spare their experts,’ he said. The arrest of four men, caught in the midst of making suicide videos, the London Underground their target again, had been in the news for days.

‘Maybe they’ve caught all their terrorists…’

Singh, familiar with the hydra-like ability of terrorist organisations to grow new heads to plan and limbs to execute those plans, shook his head.

‘… and so they can help us catch ours.’

‘Tell me the truth – why am I being punished?’ he asked.

‘If you must know, because of that diplomatic kerfuffle you caused in China.’

‘I identified a murderer!’

‘You undermined the authority of the Communist Party.’

‘Isn’t that a good thing?’

‘The Beijing authorities don’t like to lose face.’

It was a trait that the Chinese immigrants had brought with them to Singapore – at least as far as the higher echelons of the police department were concerned.

Chen slipped a file across the table and Singh flicked through it, licking his thumb to give him the right amount of adhesiveness to turn the pages of the shiny document. ‘Apparently, “We are to maximise the use of cultural intelligence, utilise faith organisations in policing communities and share best practices to place the public at the heart of better decision making and policing.”’

‘Worthy goals,’ said Chen.

Singh snorted. ‘You know this sort of thing is for paper-pushers, not real cops.’

‘Someone like me?’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Singh, self-preservation cast to the four winds in his desperate desire to avoid the trip.

‘Most policemen would jump at the chance,’ pointed out Chen.

‘Most policemen can jump,’ retorted the corpulent copper, folding his hands over his ballooning stomach like a resting Buddha.

Chen remained unmoved so Singh played his last card.

‘Aren’t you concerned I’ll cause a diplomatic incident in England?’

‘Of course not – they have real policemen who combine investigative ability with observance of the rules and regulations. You might be able to cause a stir in the Far East but not in the home of modern policing.’

Who would have thought that Superintendent Chen was a closet Anglophile?

‘There you’ll be a tiny fish —’ Chen held up thumb and forefinger an inch apart to indicate just how minuscule Singh in Piscean form would be ‘— in an enormous pond.’

 

Martin Bradley helped an old woman into a seat on the train. The creature’s hand felt like a small bag of dry bones. Did age have to be quite so awful? Martin arranged her shopping bags at her feet and wondered again whether it was possible to atone for a big sin by doing lots of small good things.

If there was a hierarchy of good deeds, helping an old woman find a seat on a train must be right at the bottom. Still, he could only seize the opportunities available. Ever since it had happened, he’d been on the lookout for good deeds. He always thought of the incident as ‘it’, sometimes in capitals, ‘IT’, or with exclamation points, ‘IT!!’ He’d done time for IT, of course, and some would say that was sufficient redress to society but Martin didn’t think so.

He’d quite like to do a big good deed, save a family from drowning, or a child, or a dog. He’d even taken a weekend trip to Brighton and walked along the pier, hoping for the chance to be a hero, but everyone had been remarkably careful and sober and it had turned out to be a waste of time. Mind you, even a big good deed might not be sufficient restitution. But it would be better than nothing and a lot better than giving up his seat on a train and seeing some youth mouth ‘wanker’ at him for being such a sucker.

His reflection shimmered against the big glass panes of the train. Nondescript. Mousy hair, glasses (but without frames, which he hoped made them look invisible or at the very least chic). He couldn’t see his eyes but he knew they were brown. Not hazel or chocolate or anything like that. Just brown. Puppy eyes, his one and only previous girlfriend had called them. Could he still refer to her as a girlfriend after everything that had happened? He’d smiled but hadn’t been sure it was a compliment. Were men supposed to look like puppies? Not real men. The train turned a corner and he disappeared for a few moments before solidifying in the glass once more. Medium height. Light trench coat that looked like a flasher mac. Note to self: bin coat.

The train came to a juddering halt and the lights went out. There were a few muffled exclamations and one shriek but on the whole the British stiff upper lip kicked in and there was a silence thick with resignation. Martin wondered if it was a terrorist attack. There might be hope of restitution in such an event. He could break the windows before they all suffocated. Or provide first aid to a victim. Perhaps he would have the opportunity to fling himself on a suicide bomber, absorb the explosion, save dozens and get an obituary in The Times.

Except, of course, he didn’t want to die. Not now, when he had found true love. Indeed, that was probably the greatest irony of his present existence, the conviction that he was living on borrowed time just when he’d developed this almost melodramatic desire to live.

The train began to reverse slowly. He looked around for the suicide bomber who might require a heroic effort from him – he knew the drill: spot the sweaty, swarthy (but you couldn’t make it obvious in case people thought you were racially stereotyping), young male; backpack on lap, held tight. No such individual was visible, which was a relief really.

The train drew into a station, the one they had just passed, Victoria. ‘This train terminates at Victoria. All change to the train on Platform Four.’

All change? If only life were that simple.

 

Bottom line, Hanif hadn’t expected the place to be such a dump. Which just showed how naïve he was really. The background of the recruitment videos had the same dusty lack of features, bullet-ridden cement structures, dirt tracks and scrubby outskirts. It was not like they lied to the recruits or anything. But of course one focused on the training and the martial arts, the camaraderie and the sacrifice, not the dust that got up the nose and down the throat and into the eyes. Not the faces of the hungry children, not the soldiers of Assad screaming for mercy, not the women on their hands and knees begging that their lives be spared, that their children’s lives be spared, that their menfolk – husbands and brothers and fathers – be spared.

They weren’t spared, of course.

It wasn’t what he’d expected when he left with a rucksack, as much cash as he could muster and a note to his mother that he’d gone to do the right thing. He regretted that he couldn’t be clearer than that but there were eyes and ears of the enemy everywhere – trying to stop the youth from doing their duty by their people, painting them as the enemy while planes rained down death on innocents throughout the lands that belonged to his brothers. His real brothers, not the sons of his parents, who might as well be infidels for all their awareness or concern about the suffering of their people.

He’d taken a British Airways flight to Turkey; there was something amusing about being able to fly Economy Class to jihad, passport in hand and a rucksack with minimal possessions. From Turkey he’d slipped over the Syrian border at night where he’d been met as promised and shipped to a camp in the back of a pickup truck with a whole bunch of other Western recruits with soft hands.

At first, everything had gone to plan. He’d made friends, turned out to be adept at tactics and caught a glimpse of their red-haired leader about whom so many rumours abounded. It was said that he’d killed six men in a fight once, disarmed every one of them with his bare hands and torn their heads from their shoulders with brute force. Hanif assumed the stories were apocryphal; he was a martyr, not an idiot. But brothers from as far away as Sweden and Canada lapped up these tales of battle prowess, repeating them in whispers over campfires, their bright beards and pale faces catching the light of the fire and demonstrating to one and all that this was a global war against the crusaders.

He’d been spotted soon enough as someone with potential. Perhaps it was because he maintained his composure in battle, perhaps it was his adaptation to the harsh surroundings – he never complained out loud about the dust and the rocks and the bone-chilling cold. His biggest coup was capturing a massive cache of American weapons that the Iraqi soldiers abandoned on their flight from Mosul. To be frank, it was as easy as taking candy from a baby.

He was glad that he was too valuable to be risked in those convoys who rode through villages far from the cities to attack infidels, whether Christians or idol-worshippers, sawing off their heads when they refused to convert. Hanif was not convinced that conversion under duress was valid in the eyes of God.

He’d raised his doubts round the campfire. ‘But there is no telling whether they mean it, right?’

A Malaysian, who had taken the name Ibn Anfal, loosely translated into ‘the spoils of war’, said, ‘Allah will know what is in their hearts.’

And then the Americans came, not on foot, but raining death from the sky with their drones and their F-16s.

The Islamic State took severe losses and the red-haired leader’s face was grave – but also triumphant.

‘The enemies of our people see the threat posed by a just army,’ he explained. ‘And so they come with their bombs and their missiles, giving us only the added victory of martyrdom.’

‘But we have also lost Mosul,’ said Hanif, who was now sufficiently senior – partly because of the decimation of the ranks in recent days – that he could occasionally speak his mind. ‘And many soldiers.’

‘For every martyr, more flock to the cause.’

This was true enough – the most recent was an influx of Turkish fighters, looking forward to being joined in battle with their old enemy, the Kurds. More score settling than jihad, but still useful.

‘The armies of Allah will rise up and defeat the Americans,’ continued Ibn Anfal, his eyes lighting up in his dust-caked face as if he was privy to a vision of victory. There were shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ and a waving of guns in the air. A few idiots fired off rounds into the sky, as if they had ammunition to spare.

‘The armies of Allah will only defeat the Americans if we can get our hands on more surface to air missiles,’ said Hanif, the party pooper. ‘Otherwise, they will eventually wear us down and limit our capacity to engage or expand our territory.’

‘That is true, brother, and the Americans and their lap dogs must be taught a lesson not to interfere with the establishment of our Islamic caliphate.’

Hanif had learned to read the other man’s moods – manic, quiet, exultant. He recognised this one too. ‘You have a plan, I think?’

‘I have a plan.’

‘Am I a part of it?’

‘Insha Allah, you are the point of the sword.’

 

Mrs Singh, when he had brought the news home of his impending London trip, had been enthusiastic. ‘You can go to Harrods!’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘It’s what everyone does!’

‘There’s a Harrods at Changi Airport.’

She shrugged bony shoulders and caused her gaudy caftan to flutter like a pennant in the wind to indicate what she thought of franchise outlets in faraway destinations. ‘It’s not the same.’

His wife continued to slap dishes of food down in front of him while ticking off further points in favour of a London trip. ‘Selfridges, Oxford Street, Buckingham Palace, Prince George.’

‘Is the Prince George a pub?’

‘He’s the heir to the throne.’

‘I thought he was called Prince Charles.’

‘That’s the son.’

‘Prince William?’

‘That’s the grandson, I’m talking about the Queen’s great-grandson.’

‘He’s not the heir then, is he?’

‘He will be when the rest die.’

Singh was not convinced. If the Royal Family had one abiding trait, it appeared to be a reluctance to meet their Maker. This George fellow would need to learn some patience or start bumping off the competition.

‘All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Nothing, nothing,’ he said hastily. ‘Anyway, I don’t expect I will have much opportunity to consort with future kings.’

‘And there’s Big Ben and Kew Gardens and Piccadilly Circus.’

Why was his wife a walking A–Z on London? As far as he was aware she had only been once, on a short package tour with her sisters. She’d come back with dishcloths featuring London landmarks and a snow globe containing a London bobby. She still gave it a vigorous shake from time to time as if she wished her policeman husband was within.

‘Have you been to England since your student days?’ she asked.

The inspector. . .