Dishonour. Helen Black
of getting out of here.
‘Then humour me,’ said DI Bell. ‘Tell me in your own words why you’ve been arrested.’
Raffy laughed, the noise travelling upwards.
‘Is something funny?’ asked the inspector.
‘Not really.’
‘Then why don’t you tell me why you’ve been brought here, unless you want to share the joke?’
Raffy licked his lips and nodded. ‘OK then, I’ll tell you what I think.’
DI Bell’s smile stayed in place, his hands crossed on his lap.
‘I think there’s a war going on,’ said Raffy.
‘In Iraq?’
‘In Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, you name it.’
Anwar put a hand on Raffy’s shoulder. ‘This is not the time or place.’
‘Brother, this is exactly the place,’ he shrugged Anwar’s hand away, ‘and this is definitely the time.’
‘Powerful is he who controls himself in anger,’ said Anwar.
DI Bell leaned back in his chair, clearly enjoying the show. Lilly’s mind began to whirr. If she stopped the tape it would look as if she were preventing her client from incriminating himself. If she let him carry on he might alienate everyone who ever saw and heard this tape.
Did Raffy realise he was digging a deep hole for himself? Did he care?
‘Most of all there’s a war going on right here, and you,’ Raffy pointed at DI Bell, ‘are on one side and we are on the other.’
‘Do you see yourself as a soldier then?’ asked Bell.
Lilly had to do something. She couldn’t let Raffy condone any sort of violence. His outburst was as much about Yasmeen as a conflict thousands of miles away. Or at least in any juror’s mind it would be.
‘Could we move away from politics and stick to the matter in hand?’ she said. ‘I suggest you stop playing games, Inspector, and put the charge to my client.’
DI Bell’s disappointment darkened his face. ‘This isn’t a game,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to hear what Raffique had to say for himself.’
Lilly gave the policeman a hard stare. ‘Then put the charge to him.’
Bell paused. No doubt he was hoping the loose cannon opposite would fill the silence. Lilly tightened her grip on Raffy’s thigh, held her breath and hoped it would restrain him.
At last the inspector continued, ‘Raffique, it is my belief that you poisoned your sister. Is that true?’
‘Nope.’
‘So you didn’t crush Perocet and OxyContin tablets and put them in her drink?’
‘Nope.’
‘You didn’t leave Yasmeen to die?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think you’re a strict Muslim, Raffique,’ said DI Bell.
Raffy shrugged. ‘Not particularly.’
‘You sounded fairly extreme a few moments ago.’
‘There’s nothing extreme about my politics. Every Muslim feels the same.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
Raffy sneered at the police officer. ‘And how many Muslims do you actually know?’
They stared hard at one another. Lilly was surprised it was Bell who was the first to look away.
‘I think you expect your sisters to be good Muslim girls,’ he said.
‘My sisters are good Muslim girls,’ Raffy snapped.
‘I think you discovered Yasmeen had a boyfriend.’
Raffy shook his head furiously. ‘She did not have a boyfriend.’
‘And I think you decided to teach her a lesson.’
‘That’s rubbish.’
‘I think your family honour needed to be avenged,’ said Bell.
Raffy shrugged towards Anwar and laughed. ‘You’ve met my brother. Do you think he gives a shit about family honour?’
‘I can’t speak for Anwar but I think you care very much,’ Bell replied. ‘I think it matters to you that other people see you first and foremost as a Muslim. And your sister carrying on with her boyfriend just didn’t fit.’
‘Why don’t you stop chatting this crap and listen?’ Raffy jabbed his ear. ‘My sister didn’t have no boyfriend.’
DI Bell let the satisfaction slide across his features. What did he know that they didn’t? Lilly tensed her muscles, waiting.
‘Well, I’m not a Catholic, Raffy, and I don’t believe in the Immaculate Conception.’
Raffy pursed his brows but alarm bells were already sounding in Lilly’s brain.
DI Bell slid a folder across the desk to her. ‘Autopsy report,’ he said. ‘It says Yasmeen was ten weeks pregnant.’
Aasha calls in at a café on the way home from school. She tells herself that she’s thirsty and orders some chai but she knows it’s a delaying tactic. She doesn’t want to get home before five when starvation will force her brothers to swallow their pride and help themselves to whatever Mum’s left for them to eat.
Honestly, those boys are going to make terrible husbands. Whenever her mum and dad go out her mum leaves a pan of dahl or something in the fridge. They only have to bung it in the microwave but they moan about that.
‘Aasha will get everything ready,’ her mother assures them.
Well, not tonight. Tonight they can do it themselves.
She takes one of the plastic orange seats in the window and blows over the rim of her mug. She feels satisfied by the small stand she is making.
‘Hello, beautiful.’
Aasha nearly spills her drink when Ryan sits in the chair opposite.
‘Hi,’ she says, hoping she hasn’t turned completely beetroot.
‘What you doing here?’ he asks.
Aasha nods at her mug. ‘Take a guess.’
She immediately regrets her tone. She was trying to be funny but it came out all sarcastic and wrong.
She needn’t have worried because Ryan just laughs. That’s one of the nice things about him, actually: he doesn’t take offence. He’s always easy-going.
When Lailla calls her a geek and laughs at her, Aasha wants to punch her in the face and grinds her teeth to make the feeling go away. Ryan’s not like that. Sometimes, during art, Lailla says horrible things to him about his clothes being scruffy or cheap or whatever, and he just makes a joke of it. Aasha wishes she could do that. One time he drew a cartoon of Lailla’s face and stuck it onto the body of some porn star. He’d got into masses of trouble for that, but it had been funny.
‘So what are you doing here?’ she asks.
‘Following you, innit.’
Before Aasha can work out if he’s teasing her, he grabs the plastic menu and casts his eye along the list of specials.
‘There ain’t no sausage and chips,’ he says.
Aasha giggles and points to the stamp certifying that all meat sold on the premises is halal.
‘So why can’t I get halal sausages?’ he asks.
She shakes her head