‘Hello?’
‘Hello! Sean Denton speaking.’
‘Did I wake you?’
‘No, I … No, sir, I’m awake.’
‘You sound like you’re having a fight in a shoebox.’
‘Dropped the phone. Hang on … there, that’s better.’
‘Can you meet me at Doncaster Royal Infirmary as soon as possible? A stab victim came in late last night. At the moment the hospital doesn’t have a name. All we know is that he was found behind the shops on Winston Grove, on the edge of the Chasebridge estate. The ward sister’s just phoned to say he’s woken up, and he’s all ours.’
‘Is the victim Asian or white?’ Sean said, upright now and half-dressed.
‘Sorry?’
‘Asian or white, or black, even?’
‘Asian, since you ask. And he’s refusing to give his name.’
‘OK. I just …’
‘Denton?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
He put Saleem’s veiled threat to the back of his mind. ‘They take one of ours; we’ll have to take one of theirs.’ Not this time. He made a mental note: don’t jump to conclusions.
At the hospital they found their way to the ward and stopped at the nurses’ station to ask where their patient was. A student nurse waved them towards a bay, but Khan turned back.
‘Do you have any details from the ambulance crew that brought him in?’
‘I’ve just come on shift. Look, sorry, I’ll try and find out, but I’ve got to sort out a leaking catheter bag.’
DCI Khan was breathing hard through his nose.
‘Are you all right, sir?’
‘Fine, but hospitals don’t agree with me.’
They walked along the corridor, glancing into the bays until they came to the one they were looking for. A thin figure was lying in a bed near the window. The other occupants of the bay were finishing their breakfast, but their target was lying on his side with his back turned. The toast was cold on his plate and his cup of tea untouched.
‘Morning, son,’ Khan said.
‘I’m not your son.’ He didn’t turn his gaze from the window.
Khan gave Sean a nod and he walked round the other side of the bed and pulled up a chair.
‘Hello, Saleem,’ Sean said. ‘Are you going to tell us what happened?’
The other patients had stopped talking and Sean suspected they’d stopped chewing too. Saleem Asaf turned on his back, wincing.
‘I ain’t talking to you lot.’
‘We want to find out who did this to you. You’re the victim of a crime. But you’ll have to help us,’ Sean said quietly.
The boy continued to stare above his head, trying not to blink. A muscle pulsed in his cheek.
‘Do you have the clothes you were wearing when you came in?’ Khan’s voice was quiet too, but more insistent. ‘We’ll need to take them for forensic testing, to see if your attackers left any evidence. Are they in here?’
Khan opened the cupboard by the bed and the boy tried to turn towards him, but the pain forced him back.
‘Fuck off! You can’t touch my stuff.’
The man in the bed opposite paused with a spoonful of Rice Krispies suspended in mid-air.
‘I can take what I want, especially if what I want will help us find out who hurt you.’ The cold steel in Khan’s voice made Sean’s skin prickle. ‘And I don’t need a warrant, if that’s what you’re thinking, because this is a public place. Now, why don’t you calm down and I’ll see if the nurse can give you something for the pain.’
Sean looked at the tense face, eyes fixed on a light fitting above him. It was the first time he’d seen the boy so still. Khan went to find a nurse.
‘Saleem,’ Sean said, ‘who was it?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see them. They jumped me and that was it.’
Sean thought about the conversation they’d had at the college. Not just a wind-up merchant then. Someone really was out to get Saleem. Perhaps he could have stopped this from happening, but if Saleem was too stubborn, or too scared, to give them anything, there was a limit to what he or Khan could do. He got up and looked out of the window. There was a sepia haze hanging over the town; and out there someone was going about their business, someone who had attacked a teenage boy, perhaps the same someone who had murdered his cousin.
In the call room, Sandy Schofield, a middle-aged civilian whom Sean had known since his days as a PCSO, handed him the transcript of Mrs Armley’s 999 call.
‘It’s odd that she doesn’t describe the victim as a man or a woman,’ she said, ‘just as a body.’
‘I know, it’s been bothering me, too.’
‘Do you want to hear the original?’
‘It’s OK, another time. I’d better get back up to DCI Khan. There’s a briefing in five minutes.’
‘No problem.’ Sandy peered over her reading glasses at him. ‘You all right? You look a bit worried.’
‘I’m OK. But I need to keep on my toes around DCI Khan.’
‘You’ll be fine. You’re a people person.’
‘Er, thanks.’
‘Any time, pet!’
He dragged his feet on the way back to the incident room. The grit in the treads of his trainers pulled against the concrete. It had been a relief when Khan told him to leave the suit at home.
‘Can’t have us both looking like loan sharks,’ he’d said on the phone.
Sean had shuddered, inwardly. He wished Khan had never clapped eyes on his father.
The board in the incident room had Mohammad Asaf’s picture in the centre, next to an aerial photograph of the estate, the dates and estimated time of the assault. To the right, Khan had written ‘College’ and three bullet points, one for ‘teachers’, one for ‘other customers’ and one which read: ‘Saleem Asaf, first cousin of deceased. Non-fatal stab victim’. As the room filled up with officers, Sean hung back by the door. Khan saw him and gestured for him to take a seat at the front. As he worked his way through the tangle of chairs he heard someone quietly, but distinctly, say ‘Paki lover’ as he passed. He turned, but no one was looking in his direction. The colour rose up his neck and into his cheeks.
Khan called the room to order and talked through the events so far. He explained what had happened to Saleem.
‘This lad,’ Khan said, ‘referred to his cousin by the nickname, “Mocat”.’
The pen squeaked on the whiteboard as Khan began to write it up.
‘He also made an overt threat against young white males on the Chasebridge estate,’ he continued.
‘Sean, did he say “Mocat”?’ The voice came from behind him. Sean turned to face Lizzie Morrison.
‘Hi Lizzie.’ Casual. Or so he hoped.
‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a picture on my phone which might be interesting. Oh, flip, how do I …’
‘Shall we continue while Miss Morrison sorts out how to operate her mobile phone?’ Khan’s tone was icy. Any laughter that threatened to start up was quickly muffled.
Sean felt a hand squeeze his elbow and Lizzie’s lips almost brushed his cheek, as she whispered: ‘Here, look.’
Don’t touch me. For God’s sake. His cheek burnt and he could feel the pressure of her hand long after she’d taken it away.
‘This was on the wall outside the Keepmoat Stadium,’ she said. ‘It’s fresh.’
The screen showed an image of green and purple lettering sprayed onto a concrete wall. ‘MOCAT RIP’.
‘What’s the point of media silence now?’ Sean wondered out loud.
‘Denton?’
‘Graffiti, sir.’ He passed the phone to Khan. ‘Saleem knew about Mohammad’s death, even before we told the family, didn’t he? So maybe this is his work.’
He wondered what Lizzie was doing at the stadium, but then he remembered that her dad was on the board of the football club. She used to go out with the marketing manager there, before she went down south.
‘Is your friend Guy still working at the Rovers?’ He whispered back to her. She didn’t reply.