When the Music's Over (41 page)

Melanie's father worked in a bookie's office, and her mother was a housewife, like mine. I think my mother always looked down on Mr. Vernon a bit because of his job. She wasn't a gambler, and if pushed she would probably say she thought gambling was a sin. Or at least a particularly low form of vice. But Mr. Vernon and my father had something in common. Both were white-collar workers, and therefore scoffed at by some of the rougher factory workers who lived on our estate, who thought of themselves as real men doing real men's work. They were the true working class, while we were the soft underbelly of the middle class. Back then most people actually had jobs, and it wasn't being on benefits that defined your class, but the sort of work you did. My father worked in an office as a shipping clerk. It was a menial job, as was Mr. Vernon's—all he did was fill in forms all day, and was paid a pittance for it—but they had to wear a suit and tie to work instead of dirty overalls, so lots of the locals thought them posh and stuck-up without even knowing them.

In some ways, Melanie seemed so much more mature than me. Her breasts were bigger, for a start, and had started to develop by that holiday. Mine had hardly grown much at all, and it had been like squeezing the water out of a lump of granite trying to get my mother to buy me my first bra. Finally, she relented, but only because I put on a tight, slightly damp T-shirt and
pinched my nipples to go out one day, making sure I went into the kitchen to say good-bye, though I didn't usually. It worked. Breasts or no breasts, there was no going out without wearing a bra for me after that.

But Melanie had real breasts. You would have liked Melanie's breasts. Most men did. I saw them that week in Blackpool because we had to dress and undress together in the same room. They weren't huge or anything, but hillocks compared to my pathetic little drumlins. Firm little hillocks. Don't get me wrong. We weren't lesbians or anything like that; you just notice things like breasts and pubic hair when you're reaching puberty. I should imagine boys were the same comparing penis size. When I think of what happened, the cancer eating away at them and spreading to her lymph nodes, her liver, I still can't help but cry. One of her children, Carolyn, is an English teacher. We met at the funeral, and she visits me sometimes to chat about poetry and drink wine. Sometimes when I look at her, I think she's the spitting image of Melanie.

So in Blackpool that summer, it was going to be the terrible two. The whole town was at our feet, and we were set to grab what we could. Including boys. Melanie was more sophisticated about the opposite sex than I was. She had told me about her last boyfriend, who had tried to tit her up when she was babysitting for Mr. and Mrs. Delaware down the street. She said she moved his hand away gently, but she remembered that it felt nice and sent a shiver right through her. Perhaps next time, she had thought, she would let him touch her there, but he lost patience and moved on to Sally Hargreaves, who had a reputation for doing it with anyone, even though she wasn't as beautiful as Melanie. People like Sally Hargreaves excepted, it was an age when good girls mostly didn't. And we were good girls. We knew some girls who did. Sally had to leave school and we all knew why. We also knew you shouldn't give in to boys, or they'd look down on you and tell their friends what you let them do to you. Then you became a slut. Or worse, you'd get pregnant and have to get married. You had to save yourself, we believed
, preferably till marriage, of course, but failing that, at least until you were genuinely in love.

I wasn't sure whether I was willing to go as far as letting a boy touch my breasts as I had only done a bit of French kissing so far and wasn't even sure I liked the feel of a tongue in my mouth, but I was keen for new experiences and we certainly intended to team up with some likely lads and get them to take us on rides at the Pleasure Beach. It wasn't as expensive then, and you didn't have to pay to get in. A kiss on the Big Dipper, perhaps, or the Ghost Train. Now that might be fun, especially when the spiderwebs brush across your cheek in the dark and a phosphorus skeleton jumps out of nowhere right beside you. Or in the funhouse, where all the paths are constantly changing angles and direction and you see yourself in distorting mirrors.

I remember we did meet two boys from Doncaster in the Coffee Cellar one morning and they wanted to walk on the beach with us after dark. The first night we went to the Pleasure Beach with them and went on a few rides and ate some cotton candy but we wouldn't walk on the beach with them. We arranged to meet them the next day. After we'd been to the funfair we walked with them across the prom. It was a lovely evening, I remember, and the sun was setting out on the Irish Sea, the waves rolling in, but there was still a broad-enough swath of beach to walk on.

I took my sandals off and felt the warm, moist sand under my feet, digging my toes in as we walked. He—I can't remember his name—took hold of my hand at some point and I let him. It felt nice. Melanie's boy already had his arm around her. We just walked like that and soon we came to one of the piers—I can't remember which one—and I remember it surprised me to see two or three courting couples under there, leaning against the pillars or the base of the sea wall and kissing or perhaps even more. We sat on some rocks under the pier and he kissed me. It was a gentle kiss, I remember, not a thrusting, probing one. He never tried to touch my breasts or anything. A real gentleman. Melanie told me she felt her boy's penis pressing hard against
her tummy as they kissed but I don't remember anything like that. It was a sweet kiss, a soft kiss, and the last good kiss I remember having for a very long time. We arranged to meet in two days at the same spot, by the Laughing Policeman, but it was too late by then.

SUNNY WAS
still sulking in the interview room when Banks and Annie joined him, along with his legal aid solicitor, Haroon Malik, later that morning. Sunny had been allowed to consult with the lawyer earlier, but it remained to be seen what his position would be when they started to question him. There was going to be no good cop, bad cop, Banks and Annie had decided. Just two cops.

They arranged their papers on the table, went through the formalities of setting the recorder going, and informed Sunny that the interview would also be filmed. He didn't seem to care. He was hunched down in his chair, a slight figure, hardly the sort of man you'd expect to play such a cruel and despotic role over a number of young girls in his thrall. But appearances could be deceptive.

The room was hot and stuffy, and Haroon Malik requested fresh air. There were no windows to open, and no air conditioning, so Banks sent for a fan, which slowly swiveled back and forth on a shelf throughout the interview, making an irritating clicking sound every time it reached the end of its arc and started to swing back. But at least it stirred up the warm air a bit. Sunny asked if he could smoke, but Banks said no, and pointed to the sign on the back of the door. He loosened his tie before starting.

“OK, Sunny,” he said. “You know why you're here.”

Sunny folded his arms. “No, I don't. I've done nothing wrong. This is racial persecution.”

“Did you know a girl called Mimosa Moffat?”

“No comment.”

“Jade? Carol Fisher?”

“No comment.”

“Kirsty McVie, Rebecca Bramley, Melissa Sandbrook, Susan Williams and Kathleen Nielson?”

“No comment.”

“They are all girls between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, and we have information that you used them for sex and for purposes of prostitution. Do you have anything to say to that?”

“No comment.”

“Is this going to be a no-comment interview?” Annie asked.

“No comment.”

Haroon Malik had a brief word in his client's ear.

“Did Mimosa Moffat leave your flat on the night of Tuesday, the twenty-first of July with three men, cousins of yours from Dewsbury, in a white van?” Banks asked.

“No.”

Banks cupped his hand to his ear. “Sorry. Was that ‘no,' or the beginning of another ‘no comment'?”

“The answer's no. I don't know no Mimosa what's her name, and she didn't leave my flat in a van.”

“I think you're lying,” said Annie. “What were Mimosa's drawings doing on your wall?”

“I bought them down the market. I don't know who drew them, did I?”

“Do you know a young man named Tariq Jinnah?”

“No.”

“We think he and some of his mates attacked one of our female officers near the corner of Leinster and Mill Street last night. She's suffering from a cracked collarbone.”

“Tough for her,” said Sunny. “I don't know him.”

“Again,” said Annie. “We think you do. We think you'd told him and his mates to keep an eye out for both her and me after we visited your takeaway. She's ‘Ginger.' Rattled you, did it, that comment about the DNA? Stop lying, Sunny. It won't do you any good in the long run.”

“No comment.”

Banks shuffled his papers. “We have statements from three of the girls already who claim that you seduced them first with presents—cigarettes, drink and drugs, mobile phones and top-ups, food and free taxi rides specifically—had sex with them, then threatened them with
violence and used them for the purposes of prostitution, telling them it was payback time, actually using violence against them if they dared to refuse. What do you say to that?”

“No comment.”

“There'll be evidence of their presence in your flat, you know. It's being thoroughly searched right now. It'll be a lot worse for you if it turns out you've been lying to us about knowing them.”

Sunny half rose from his chair and grabbed the edges of the table. “What's that you say? They're in my flat? Now? But I gave no permission.”

“You don't have to, Sunny. We have a judge's warrant. It's perfectly legal. Your solicitor will tell you.”

Haroon Malik asked for a moment alone with his client, and Banks and Annie paused the recording equipment and left the room. When they came back and resumed, Sunny seemed more relaxed. Sometimes interviews went this way, Annie reflected. The suspect lied and denied everything up to a point, then decided that a slightly sanitized version of the truth might be more acceptable. Next thing, maybe Sunny would be wanting to make a deal.

“The girls whose statements we have are all under the age of consent,” said Banks. “What do you say to that?”

“How would I know what age they are? They all look the same to me.”

“I take it by that you've decided to admit you
do
know the girls, but you're claiming you didn't know how young they were. Am I right?”

“That's right. Can I help it if girls like me? Think I'm handsome. And there was no prostitution. These girls like to party. You don't have to pay them.”

“Now we're getting somewhere. But I thought it was you who got paid?”

“There's no call for that. And I want to make it perfectly clear that I had nothing—nothing at all—to do with Mimsy's death.”

“But you did know her, and the details of her death?”

“Yes. Of course. I read the papers.” He gave Annie a scathing glance. “And that one came round the takeaway along with her friend
and tried to fool us into believing they could tie our food to her stomach contents. No way.”

“No way she's had your food, or no way we could tie it to your takeaway?”

“I Googled it. It's not possible. Scientifically. So you've got nothing on me.”

“Why did you Google it?” Annie asked.

“What?”

“About the stomach contents. Why did you Google it?”

“I was curious.”

“Sure you weren't worried?”

“I have nothing to be worried about.”

“But you admit you were lying a few minutes ago when you denied all knowledge of these girls?”

Sunny looked down at his hands on the desk. “Yes. All right. I thought you were going to blame me for something I didn't do just because of the color of my skin.”

“And now?”

Sunny turned to Haroon Malik. “I know I didn't do anything wrong, so I've nothing to fear. I have no reason to lie.”

“Good decision, Sunny,” said Banks. “Maybe we don't have any forensic evidence. Yet. But we do have plenty of witnesses and victims who are willing to testify against you and your friends. Your girls are starting to talk, Sunny. What you did to Mimosa has got them really upset with you. Some of them claim you beat them up if they refused to go with men you brought to the flat. They want us to put you and your friends in jail so they can get on with their lives.”

“I didn't kill Mimsy. Why would I do that? And our girlfriends were all well treated. Better than they deserved. Do you think I don't know what's going on?”

“Enlighten me, Sunny,” said Annie.

“They're trying to paint a different picture. Nobody got raped or beaten. And we didn't know anything about the girls being underage. Far as we knew, they were all willing to do everything they did. More than willing. They liked to party. We partied with them.”

“Did you supply them with drink and drugs?”

“You have a drink at a party, don't you? It's only natural.”

“So you're not a practicing Muslim, then?”

“I never said I was, did I? What's that got to do with anything? That stuff's got nothing to do with me. I'm British, I am. I was born here. My father was born here.”

“No one's saying you're not British, Sunny, just that you tend to be a bit less so when it suits you. Like earlier.”

“What do you mean?”

“What Americans call the race card.”

“I don't expect no special treatment because I'm brown.”

“But that's just it, Sunny. You do. When you think you can get it. You seem to think being of Pakistani origin exempts you from the rules the rest of us have to play by. And it works the other way. Whenever we call you on anything, you'll call foul and say it's because you're of Pakistani origin, saying we're out to get you because of the color of your skin.”