Blood Money by Maureen Carter

Author:Maureen Carter [Carter, Maureen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780955707872
Publisher: Creative Content Ltd

19

Google honour killings UK, and you get over four hundred thousand hits in 0.29 seconds. Slice of quattro formaggio pizza in one hand, can of Red Bull pending, Bev was tapping into some of the more credible posts. After the Charlotte Masters interview, she’d dropped Mac at the Prince, managed a pit stop for food and air freshener at Sainsbury, and was now taking a crash course in a subject she knew too little about. To have any chance of connecting with Fareeda she needed at least an idea where the girl was coming from. She sniffed. Probably overdone the air spray; office smelt like a cheesy pine forest. Better than cow heart though. Taking a slug of Red Bull, she glanced at the clock on the monitor. Ten minutes before Sumi was due – best make the most of it.

Elbow on desk, chin in hand she focused on the current screen. The Independent article should be pukka given its source. According to ACPO, the association of chief police officers, seventeen thousand women a year were subjected to honour related violence. And they were talking iceberg tips. Bev took another slug, tossed the fringe from her eyes, hit another link. Young women with Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi backgrounds were three times more likely to kill themselves than the national average. Then another link. Victims of violence are likely to suffer thirty-five attacks before reporting to the authorities. And yet another. Police estimate there could be up to twelve honour killings a year in the UK. And the hits kept coming...

She blew her cheeks out on a sigh, rolled back the chair, drained the can. Stats and facts; people and pain. The figures didn’t tell a fraction of the real story, didn’t show livid bruises, shattered bones, broken spirits. Or dead bodies. Closing her eyes, she recalled a Met inquiry she’d been on the periphery of a few years back. A young Kurdish-born woman raped and strangled, body crammed in a suitcase, driven to Birmingham for burial. In a Handsworth back garden. Killing ordered by her own father. Why? She’d walked out on an arranged marriage, fallen in love with another man. Bev sniffed. So why’d all the reports carry quote marks round the phrase, honour killing? Like there was any doubt. The cops hadn’t exactly covered themselves with glory either. Bev could still see the grainy mobile phone footage of the victim warning police she was in danger. The media had dubbed the video evidence from beyond the grave. Much fucking good it did the victim. Bev’s fingers crushed the can. God, she needed a smoke. If Sumi didn’t show soon, she might nip...

Or not. There was a tentative tap on the door. It certainly wasn’t Mac.

“Sorry I’m late, sarge,” Sumi said. “I couldn’t get away.” The young DC had been fielding calls in the squad room, the lines were going crazy.

“No prob.” Bev was the same, couldn’t resist a ringing phone. Never knew if it was the big one, the witness with the case-cracker.

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