The Inquiry. Will Caine

from Rainbow.

      ‘Maybe when you arrive in the street of one of the addresses, you should knock on every tenth door,’ suggested Patrick. ‘Then if someone answers and is willing, do the survey with them. Just for show. It might protect not just you but your target.’ He paused. ‘Whoever they are.’ He was grinning; there was no edge, just a hint of playfulness.

      She smiled back. ‘That’s a great idea, thanks.’ She’d already planned something similar but his helpfulness pleased her and she didn’t want to discourage him. She’d been worried that their professional relationship, even without the anonymous text, would be uneasy after her show of resistance to him accompanying her. She had a further card up her sleeve but, for the moment, kept it to herself. She might not need to play it.

      In the time left on the train, she checked websites on Blackburn and its environs, accumulating small details of local knowledge. At Preston, they picked up a hire car, Patrick easing into his promised role as driver.

      ‘Do you sit in the back or the front?’ he asked with the customary grin.

      As they headed south out of Preston, she found herself glancing at him. Assuming, as she told herself she must, that things were as they seemed, she wondered what he was thinking about his role as bit-part player. She also noted his perfectly angled jaw-line and broad but straight nose. The edges of his black hair were touched with a few flecks of grey; otherwise there were no signs of age or sag and, even seated in the driving position, no bulge at the waist.

      ‘You’re inspecting me,’ he said abruptly.

      ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I do it to everyone.’ She paused. ‘Including Morahan. I can give you a precise facial description if you want.’

      ‘I can manage without.’ The grin returned.

      ‘I know it’s not easy, this,’ she said.

      ‘It’s fine.’

      ‘You’re not a fool. You must want me to share.’

      ‘It’s OK. You’ll tell me what you want when you want. Though I’d like you to know this: you can trust me. If you speak to me in confidence, it remains between you and me.’ They turned off the motorway to a sign marked ‘City Centre’. ‘But there’s one thing you do have to tell me right now. Where are we going?’

      ‘Straight to the hotel, please. And if it’s a dump, take me home.’ Patrick set the SatNav for the out of town ‘Savoy Inn’ into which Clovis, with a blind loyalty to the name, had booked them. It turned out to border an industrial estate filled with garages and self-storage units. Ten minutes after checking in, Patrick opened the passenger door to a Sara dressed in a long broad black skirt which gathered by her ankles, dark brown jacket and marginally lighter brown hijab replacing the usual blue scarf. He cast a fleeting look of amusement and was reprimanded by a silent raise of her eyebrows.

      Even if the Asian and white population split was similar, Blackburn seemed a different world from her part of south London. Though the people were the same, here there was just a distinct lack of bustle. She imagined the place in its Victorian prime; a boom town of the industrial revolution. Then it had been the weaving capital of the world; dotted with textile mills, over a hundred and forty of them according to her recent research, driving a massive churn of activity within the green fold of the hills where they lay. Granted, there had been little joy there for the sweating workers, lungs saturated by fine clouds of cotton dust, particularly the hand weavers who would eventually be overtaken by mechanisation. But there must have been a surge of energy. Now, except for civic relics like the museum, and one half of the town hall incongruously attached to its modern glass and steel extension, the great Victorian buildings had largely gone – except for the foul-smelling brewery – and the streets appeared lifeless, tinged with sadness. Shops and pubs were boarded up. People seemed to move more slowly, with less purpose.

      The demarcation between the neighbourhoods housing the South Asian Muslims, and the two-thirds of the population who were white English, was stark and discomforting. Patrick, a black Briton, was out of place. He would have to maintain a low profile.

      Samir Mohammed’s home address in the twelve-year-old file was given as 59 Gent Street. Patrick dropped her at the low number end of the street and assured her that his watch would be discreet. She made her way up, knocking or ringing on numbers 9, 19, 29, 39, 49. Only one, number 29, answered. Her market research questionnaire was devised to last no more than ten minutes and she was soon sounding the bell of No. 59. A single chime responded, followed by a late middle-aged Asian woman still in the process of covering her head with a black scarf.

      ‘Yes?’

      Before Sara had time to answer, there was a shout from a male voice above. ‘What is it, Mum?’

      The woman looked at Sara with her clipboard and retreated to the bottom of the stairs. ‘You come down, it’s a lady wanting something.’ Sara felt the excited flutter of the hunter closing on its potential prey.

      She heard footsteps, then trainers and jeans appeared down the stairs followed by a tracksuit top and the face of a tall man a year or two either side of thirty. The age fitted.

      ‘Yes?’ His expression was sullen.

      ‘Hello, my name’s Sara Shah and I’m doing a survey of young Muslims’ views of different government agencies–’

      ‘Don’t have time for that,’ he interrupted.

      She tried to engage him, her eyes enlarged with pleading. ‘I know, I understand,’ she said, ‘but I’ve been walking up and down these streets all morning. There’s no one who’s in or will give me the time of day. If I don’t do my numbers, I don’t get paid.’

      ‘You won’t get paid?’ He looked at her more closely, seeing the attractive face within the cotton surround.

      ‘Yes, it’s piecework.’ She held up the questionnaires. ‘No completed forms, no money.’

      ‘Can’t you make it up?’

      ‘They’ll find out. I’ll be sacked.’ He looked her up and down, his shoulders slumping, face peering up and down the street. Her chest tightened, cramped by his wavering. ‘Please, I’m getting desperate. Won’t take long.’

      He hesitated. ‘Nah, don’t fancy it, to be honest.’ She thought she had him but he wasn’t shifting. He made to close the door. She had to play her last card.

      ‘Wait a minute,’ she said, keeping one foot over the threshold. ‘There’s a budget I’m allowed to use.’

      Suspicion and interest competed in his eyes. He looked up and down the street. ‘A budget?’

      ‘Yes, I can offer you something. To help me reach my target.’

      ‘What something?’

      She took a purse out of her bag. ‘A hundred. It’ll only be a few minutes.’ He was wavering; she crossed the fingers of her other hand.

      ‘Nah. Not worth it.’

      ‘Hundred and fifty?’

      He eyed her closely. Until now, she hadn’t decided how far she’d go. ‘Nah.’

      She couldn’t lose him now. One final throw. ‘I’m not really allowed to do this. Two hundred.’

      His frown slowly turned to a smirk of victory. ‘Go on then, come in.’

      Sara made a mental note. There was something venal about Samir Mohammed.

      He signalled to the front room. ‘You wanna sit in there?’ He disappeared into the kitchen. She overheard him telling his mother that it was something about a survey and his mother asking if the lady wanted a cup of tea. ‘Yeah, she looks like she needs it.’

      He came back with a tray holding a teapot, two china cups on saucers, and some biscuits. ‘Mum likes it done proper,’ he said.

      ‘It’s kind of her,’ she said.