Dead end 

It had been three years since Inspector Fatima Dieng had received that plain brown envelope containing a one-line cryptic message: We never forget. She had quite put it out of her mind, but somehow it flittered back as she was walking home after an evening spent in the company of her two best friends: Kamala Peiris and Anna Kaboré. Kamala was formerly the manager of the Western Provincial Bank in Silbury but had now moved on to a similar position at the bank’s Bridge Street branch in Sowdon. Sowdon was only ten miles away, and Kamala still lived in Silbury. She had been very keen for her children to stay at Silbury Grammar School, which, though smaller, had always been reckoned to be far superior to the schools in the nearby big city. Anna was the proprietor of the Red Cow Inn in School Lane and a Borough Councillor. Some were now speaking of her as the next Mayor of Silbury. 

The three friends had dined together at the restaurant of the Bourne Arms Hotel at the eastern end of the High Street. During their dinner, they had talked about goings on in their town, where there had been a number of strange occurrences in the course of that year. They were also catching up on family news. Kamala had asked Fatima if her daughter, Hadi, had put in her application to Bronsnock College at Camford University for which there was a scholarship from Silbury Grammar School. 

“Finally, she was allowed to make the application on her UCCA form,” Fatima had said, “but it was a bit of a fight. The Senior Master, who coordinates all of that type of thing, Mstr Mehta, had told her she was not sufficiently gifted for Camford, and the school would only allow applications that would be taken seriously. I had to appeal to the Headmistress, Mrs Wek. Luckily, Hadi’s teachers were adamant in their glowing assessments of her, so Mstr Mehta’s poor decision was overturned. I still don’t know why he did it.” 

“My children have complained about both the Mehtas on a number of occasions,” Kamala had put in. “Apparently the Deputy Headmistress and Senior Master aren’t related, though they have the same surname. But Chitra and Ranil both claim they act as if they are almost the same person.” 

The conversation had gone in much the same vein for another quarter of an hour or so. Then at the end of their dinner, they had made yet another vow to get to a performance of the Didi Bahini Opera Company, after their failed attempt to do so in Brigstow in December 1966. They all hoped that the company would soon be touring Britain again. These days they seemed to spend so much of their time abroad. 

They parted ways at the hotel entrance. Kamala walked westward along the High Street towards her home on the corner of Mabel Lane and Vale Road. Fatima accompanied Anna back to the Red Cow and then continued into Kabeya Square and on to the narrow and winding footpath that led to the other end of Mabel Lane, where were situated the police station and Fatima’s house. 

The lane was darker than usual. It seemed that a number of the lamps that normally lit the footpath needed replacing; she’d be sure to flag that to the Borough Council, probably via Anna, in the morning. There was some noise ahead, and Fatima noticed two young women dressed in black leather jackets and black pants walking purposely towards her. Though they looked somewhat menacing, Fatima was not in the least afraid. She could more than easily deal with two youths, provided they were not armed, which would be most unlikely in this sleepy little town. When they were about ten yards from her, they separated, and each walked close to the two walls that flanked the footpath, making a space between them wide enough for one person to pass. Fatima walked into this space and as she did so the two youths spoke quietly to her before passing and then running off toward Kabeya Square. 

“You should be careful, Inspector,” said the young woman on Fatima’s right side. Her accent was not local, but Fatima could not place it immediately. Somewhere up north. 

“Bad things can happen in dark alleyways,” said the other. The accent was identical. 

Fatima turned to watch them as they ran away. What a curious encounter, she thought. Then she turned back, and suddenly there was a loud bang and a flash in front of her and a horrendous pain in her chest. As she fell to the ground, she lost consciousness, but she did also recall another sound coming through the fog of her brain. It was like a police whistle. 

The next thing she remembered was a very bright light shining directly into her face. At first, remembering her national service training with Army Intelligence, she thought that she must be involved in some sort of interrogation by hostile forces. That might also explain the throbbing pain she continued to feel in her chest, also elsewhere on her body. The voice she heard though was soothing and, she detected, a little fearful. After some minutes she put a name to the voice - Adama - and she opened her eyes to see the tearful face of her husband, who now also smiled. 

He turned his head then and shouted: “Sergeant! Constable!” 

Two other people, women, entered from where she knew not, at least not as yet. More names came to her: Sergeant Joyce Banda and Constable Nguyen Chi Man. They were her…, yes, colleagues. 

“Where am I?” Fatima asked. 

“You’re in Forest Hospital, my love.” That was Adama. “You’ve been shot, and I was so afraid you were going to die.” 

“Now now,” said one of the others. Her mind said Banda, who was leading her husband out of the area where she was lying. The other one came close to the bed and talked quietly to her. 

“Ma’am, Mr Dieng do be right. You was shot almost directly in front of the police station. I seen it myself and raised the alarm. We has not caught the one what fired on you, because we was concentrated on saving you; you was bleeding a lot. I did get a bit of a look at the woman what done it though. Tall, well built, well dressed, it did seem to me, but all in black and it were dark. Unfortunately, I never saw her face. I did hear her hissing something at you though just before I blew my whistle and she did scarper. It sounded something like not got it all your own way or words to that effect, and then she did say your name, just your surname.” 

Fatima smiled for the first time since she had lost consciousness. It was the juxtaposition of Nguyen’s use of strong local dialect with the odd sprinkle of erudition. Now she remembered why she valued her so much. 

Banda came back, without Adama Dieng, and started to reprimand Nguyen. Fatima intervened. 

“Sergeant, it’s all right. Constable Nguyen was not taxing or tiring me at all. And please don’t worry. I’m not going to try and get involved in the case right now. That is in your capable hands until I’m fully recovered. Please send Adama back in now. He needs to know that I’m going to be OK. 

“Adama, love,” she continued when her husband was back with her, “you know that I had special training when I was doing my national service, don’t you? Well part of that was understanding messages that your body is giving you. And right now, my body says I’m very sick and weak, but it also tells me I’m going to get better in time. You don’t need to worry now. You do need to make sure our daughter also is not worrying. I’ll get better much quicker if you can go home and look after Hadi, dear. Bring her to see me tomorrow, but only after she’s been to school. 

“Please give Kamala and Anna a ring too. They’ll want to know that I’m all right. I’m going to sleep for a bit now.” 

And, with that, Fatima promptly closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep. She even snored a little, which Adama Dieng took as a good sign. 

Fatima was home again after only one week spent in the hospital. Of course, she wasn’t ready to resume work, but she did receive frequent reports from the police station. Sergeant Banda had nominal charge during Fatima’s absence. She also headed the investigation into the shooting incident. Accompanied by Constable Nguyen, she would come over to Fatima’s home at the end of every day to report on progress, or rather the lack of it, for which she was predictably happy to share responsibility with her colleague. There were indeed no leads at all in uncovering who was involved. It had been dark, and the sole witness had been Nguyen, who had only seen the back of the woman presumed to have fired the shot. 

One morning, as she sat in her living room listening to a play on the wireless, the doorbell rang, and her husband hastened from the kitchen to open the door. He came back in accompanied by a woman in her thirties, who looked vaguely familiar. Of course, this was the young woman who called herself Major. She was a member of the group that provided security services among the travellers operating fairs and carnivals around the country, including the annual Statute Fairs in Silbury. It was she who in 1966 had physically stopped an MI5 agent, who had been surreptitiously following Fatima. None of the travellers ever used their names in the presence of outsiders but instead referred to themselves by their function or, in the case of traveller security, their rank. 

“Inspector, the General asked me to come and help you in your recovery. We are very familiar with the kind of injury that you have suffered. We’ve found that a strict regime of appropriate exercise and other therapies can accelerate recovery, and indeed may leave you stronger than you were before you were wounded. 

“Our programme takes about a month, depending on the degree of effort you yourself are willing to put into it. During that time the General would like me to stay in your home, and she hopes that this will be convenient.” 

Fatima smiled: “Do I have a choice? Adama, dear, could you please make up a bed for the Major in the spare room?” 

“Yes, love,” her husband responded. “Should I also put his equipment up there?” 

“No,” interjected Major, “we shall put it in your garage.” 

And so the garage became a makeshift gymnasium, with their car temporarily parked in the drive, and Fatima would spend two hours every morning and another two in the afternoon in strenuous exercise interspersed with periods of vigorous massage at the expert hands of Major. During these sessions, as needed, Major would provide instructions for what Fatima was expected to do but otherwise said nothing. At five o’clock every afternoon on the dot she left the house to return only at ten, knowing somehow that during these hours Fatima was likely to receive visitors and not wanting to be a party to those visits. 

Major never said where she had gone, and Fatima knew better than to ask. 

About four weeks later, on a Thursday, a black transit van pulled up to the Diengs’ house and removed all of the equipment that Major had brought with her. 

“You are ready to resume your full duties now, Inspector. I shall leave. The General will be in touch, I believe.” 

With that, and not waiting for any response from Fatima, or her husband and daughter, who were also at the time having breakfast with her at the kitchen table, she turned on her heel and left. 

“Well that was strange,” said Adama Dieng, “but then it would be stranger still if a traveller weren’t strange, wouldn’t it?” 

Indeed, thought Fatima, that makes perfect sense. 

“You want strange?” Hadi Dieng interjected. “Then take a look at this, though, if you were not pronounced fully fit by Doctor Major, I’d be hesitating to show it to you. You’re not going to like it.” 

Hadi pushed across the table the edition of the Shoatshire Gazette and Herald that had been delivered that morning. The newspaper was habitually divided into a number of sections with news from the various towns in the county. Hadi had opened it to the News from Silbury section, contributed every week by the paper’s resident correspondent. It was titled What is wrong with our police in Silbury? And what are we going to do about it? The byline was From Our Own Correspondent. Hadi was right that her mother was not going to like what was written there. 

Our glorious country is rapidly coming to a crossroads, where we must decide how we are going to deal with the rising tide of violent crime that is sweeping the land. In Britain’s major cities decent people are no longer sure that it is safe to walk the streets without being subjected to insults, threats and theft from the idle masses that now line the thoroughfares. Even our homes and property are no longer sacrosanct. This situation can be directly ascribed to the misguided policies of Prime Minister Sangeeta Gandhi and the Home Secretaries that have served under her. They practise softness where a firm hand is needed. They call such policy progressive. Well the very backbone of our country has become progressively pliable. Our young people do not need more mollycoddling. They need the return of national service. Those tempted into a life of crime do not need our sympathy for their so-called social problems. They need to know that they could face the ultimate sanction; we must restore the death penalty. 

That is the situation today in our country. What of our beloved Silbury? 

Here we may not face the dangers of our fellow citizens living in Britain’s larger cities. At least not yet. But the signs are ample that we face the very same risks. And such will be our fate if current policing methods remain unchanged. What are these signs? 

The first of these is that the youth in our town, and those in the surrounding villages, are completely out of control, allowed to do whatever they want whenever and however they want to do it. Look at the spate of vandalism we saw earlier this year. Look at the ugly protests faced by loyal landowners every time they engage in the age-old rural sport of foxhunting. Look at the masses of drunken teenagers filling our historic High Street during the Statute Fairs (about which we have more to say below). 

What has been the response of our local police force, and in particular its leader, Inspector Fatima Dieng? They let those responsible for vandalism get off scot free with so-called ‘warnings’, apparently on the grounds that they come from underprivileged backgrounds and have few avenues for ‘self-expression’. This apparently explains their behaviours. No, it doesn’t, Inspector. They are loathsome layabouts. Since they won’t spend their time in respectable pursuits, such as reading books (for which we taxpayers are obliged to provide public libraries), they should have the book thrown at them. They ought to have been prosecuted and condemned with the full force of the law. There are no excuses for such antisocial behaviour. 

Naturally Inspector Dieng doesn’t see this, because she is on a social crusade of her own. We have just seen who gets away with law breaking. Now let’s examine her record of who does get brought before the magistrate. It seems, to this correspondent, that her arrest and conviction record is heavily weighted towards those otherwise good people that make up the very fabric of our great country. Yes, if you are a Borough Councillor (of course, excepting any that may be one of the Inspector’s intimate friends), then you are at immediate risk of being suspected of major crime. The same has been true of a prominent local landowner and even a senior officer of our country’s security service. 

And this brings us back to the Statute Fairs. These are an important part of our heritage, no doubt. But today they bear no relation whatsoever to their original purpose. Now they are merely opportunities for largely young people, many the same as those youths who have engaged in antisocial behaviour with impunity, to indulge their often drunken and, no doubt, drug ridden fantasies on entertainments offered by carnies whose origins lead us to suspect that they have no love at all for our country. Indeed, it has been said that they are the avant garde for Soviet infiltration. And how does our police force react to this potential threat? It collaborates with the carnies, abdicating its own responsibilities by allowing them to run their own security operations. Our readers may not know that this was not the case until Inspector Dieng took charge of our town’s police force. Have we allowed a fifth columnist to gain charge of our public safety? 

Some of you may be asking now how fair we are in presenting our misgivings about the leadership of the police in Silbury. How could you do this just weeks after Inspector Dieng was shot and hospitalised? It is precisely these facts that first animated this newspaper to consider the state of law and order in Silbury. We contend that, in a very real sense, Inspector Dieng brought this incident on herself. It is her own reluctance to pursue the real dangerous elements in our society that has left them at liberty to threaten our town’s chief police officer. This, of course, potentially puts our police force out of commission for long periods of time, whilst its chief is recuperating. We the people of Silbury should not be put in jeopardy in this way. 

Now we know the nature of the problem we are facing, what can we do about it? The answer is clear. Inspector Fatima Dieng has to go. Unfortunately, we cannot expect any such action from the Home Secretary, who, like her boss, the Prime Minister, is a supporter of the likes of Inspector Dieng, and of her methods. Nor can we expect any action from Chief Constable Mwasaa Mogwanja, another fan of Inspector Dieng. Normally we should take our case to the Shoatshire Police Authority, but we know that the current Chairwoman of the Authority is Councillor Anna Kaboré, one of Inspector Dieng’s most intimate friends. Quite a corrupt circle, some might say. 

We hope, however, that other members of the Police Authority might consider doing the right thing and overrule their Chairwoman. At the very least a suspension should be called for, with the excellent Sergeant Joyce Banda, a police officer in the good old mould, elevated to take permanent charge of Silbury’s police force, continuing the outstanding work of which she has already shown herself eminently capable during her chief’s most recent absence. 

The people of this town have had enough. The Shoatshire Gazette and Herald calls on those in positions of trust and responsibility to act, and to act now. 

Fatima passed the paper to her husband, who also read it, looking progressively more worried as he proceeded. 

“Who is this correspondent?” he asked, when he got to the end. 

“I’ve met her a number of times,” Fatima responded. “For someone who is so concerned about her town, she’s a very recent newcomer. She’s one of the people that moved into River Park last spring. She never before struck me as someone that had it in for me personally, though I have noted her poor grasp of logic and truth. Just as in this article, she’s never one to let evidence get in the way of what she wanted to say.” 

“Aren’t you angry about this, Mum? Doesn’t it worry you?” asked Hadi. 

“Yes, and yes,” her mother answered, “but we have to approach this with calmness. If I let this get under my skin, I’ve lost right from the start.” 

The Dieng family were not the only ones to read this article, and it appeared to have the effect of bringing out of the woodwork a whole world of detractors of Inspector Fatima Dieng, who set to writing their own complaints. These they addressed variously to the Home Secretary, the Chief Constable, and the Chairwoman of the Shoatshire Police Authority, as well as in letters to the press, not only local but also national. Although none bore a name - they were all signed off by A Concerned Citizen or A Worried Shoatshirian or simply Disgusted - one or two did get published by national newspapers, and this made waves, and not of the pleasant, gentle type one might encounter on a south coast beach, more like a tsunami hitting a tropical coastline. 

Fatima was summoned to the Home Office. She learned of this from a telephone call she received from the Chief Constable. 

“The Home Secretary herself has instructed that we are to present ourselves tomorrow at eleven o’clock,” the Chief told her. “I’m heading up to London this afternoon, and I’d like you to do the same. That way at least we can sit down and work out together how we are going to handle this meeting. I’m bringing Superintendent Mirchandani with me to help us in our own deliberations. 

“We are staying at the Prince’s Park Hotel in Empress Street. A booking has also been made there in your name. We’ll see you later today.” 

Stopping only to convey instructions to Sergeant Banda regarding matters to be dealt with her absence, Fatima ran home and packed an overnight bag. Then she caught the next London bound coach, making sure on the way to look up the location of her hotel in the London A-Z. She saw she would be able to get there on foot from the coach terminus, and that it would be only a further fifteen minutes’ walk to go from the hotel to the Home Office. 

As Fatima was proceeding on foot from the coach terminus to her hotel, she was still lost in thought about what the Home Secretary might have to say and what that could mean for her and her family. At the same time, her senses were as keen as usual, and they told her that something was wrong. She had the overwhelming impression that she was being followed. That would not have been a tall order in the crowded and dirty London streets, but Fatima was also skilled in detecting any potential tail. In this instance though, despite the fact that she stopped and started, that she ducked into a tobacconists and bought an evening paper she had no interest in reading, that she did quite a bit of window shopping to search for suspicious reflections, she could not locate the person or persons who were watching her. Even so, she was convinced that they were there, and, that being the case, she also knew that they were consummate professionals. 

As she arrived at the entrance to her hotel, she went three times round the revolving door, much to the amusement of the doorwoman stood outside, but still her tail remained elusive. She gave up and went in to register, then up to her room to unpack and take stock. 

Chief Constable Mogwanja and Superintendent Mirchandani arrived just over an hour later than did Fatima, having taken the train from Westborough and then a taxi from Bear Station. Shortly after their arrival, they telephoned to Fatima’s room to invite her to join them for a nightcap in the hotel lounge. When she got there, she saw that the lounge was very full, and it was difficult, across the haze of cigar smoke, to discern exactly where her colleagues were seated. Hema Mirchandani waved from the other side of the room, and she made her way to join them at their table. They had wisely chosen one that was situated in quite a secluded alcove. They already had drinks sitting in front of them, and they now called over a waitress to order one for Fatima. She opted for her usual blackcurrant and lemonade. 

“Well, Inspector, I would have wished our first meeting in nearly three years could have been more propitious,” the Chief Constable began, “but here we are. Let me start by asking how you are. How are you coping with the twin strike of a bullet wound followed by this tirade in the press?” 

“Thank you, Ma’am for your concern,” Fatima answered her. “I’m really quite well. I’m fully recovered from the shooting, and actually feeling quite as strong as I was before that incident. This attention in the press though is affecting me, and not in a positive way, if I can put it like that. I understand that my approach to policing might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I do think it is the right approach for our little town, which has many of the same social problems that you could find right here in the capital. I’ve had to deal with critics, for instance, in the Borough Council, but I never expected it to overflow into the press.” 

“Well that’s what we have to deal with now that it’s come to the attention of the powers that be,” the Chief Constable went on. “Do you have any idea what might be behind it all?” 

“I’m afraid I don’t, Ma’am,” Fatima replied. “As I said, there are those that don’t agree with my methods, but none of them appears to be behind that vitriolic article in the Gazette and Herald, and I have no idea who have been writing these anonymous letters to the papers. My approach for the moment has been to ignore it all in the hope that it will eventually run out of steam.” 

“I’m sure that that is the right strategy,” said the Chief Constable. “Don’t throw more coals on the fire, as it were.” 

“Do you have any idea, Ma’am, about how the Home Secretary is going to handle the matter?” Superintendent Mirchandani put in. “I'm sure you know, Fatima, that this isn’t the same person with whom we dealt in that case at Silbury College. Ifunanya Olusanmi was made Chancellor of the Exchequer two years ago, they say because the nation’s finances were so poorly managed by her predecessor there, Nkandu Kaunda. It’s Mrs Kaunda who is now the Home Secretary.” 

“I have to say that I don’t know this Home Secretary at all,” Chief Constable Mogwanja responded. “Mrs Olusanmi had the habit of speaking directly on the telephone with all Chief Constables a couple of times every year. She would ask me to update her on the priorities in the county and for any advice on policing generally in the country. But I’ve never once heard from Mrs Kaunda, at least as long as you don’t count the odd memorandum addressed to all Chief Constables and containing some general guidance on things that we already know perfectly well. 

“What I’ve heard from my peers, especially the ones that are more experienced than I am, is that she is very risk averse. Never give her any bad news, is what they say.” 

“Well then, Ma’am, would you say that our approach should be to assure the Home Secretary that there is no substance to the views expressed in the article itself, or in the letters it has spawned? We can back that up with pertinent facts, can’t we? And should we then go on to say that we have the situation under control?” Superintendent Mirchandani said, continuing to try and steer the conversation in a practical direction. 

“Yes, I think that should be our general strategy, Superintendent,” the Chief Constable agreed. “I would have wished that you could go with us to the meeting tomorrow, but the order was only for Inspector Dieng and myself to be present. 

“Anything you would like to add, Inspector?” 

“No, Ma’am,” said Fatima. “I do think Superintendent Mirchandani has the right strategy.” 

The Chief Constable drained her glass of whisky and said: “Well, then I think we have covered everything. Let’s get in a good night’s sleep, so we are fresh tomorrow morning to face the music.” 

She laughed at her own joke, and they all stood. The Chief Constable led the way out of the lounge, followed by the other two. As they came to the staircase leading up to the hotel rooms above, Fatima drew Superintendent Mirchandani to one side. 

“Hema,” she said, “there’s one other thing that is bothering me. When I was walking here earlier in the evening from the coach terminus, I was certain that I was being followed and watched. I don’t know if it was one sole follower or a team working in tandem. Whoever it was, they were very good at it. Tomorrow, when the chief and I walk over to the Home Office, could you keep an eye out, just in case?” 

“You’re sure about this, Fatima?” Hema Mirchandani asked her friend. “You haven’t dreamt it up with all this attention on you?” 

“Well I don’t mind you asking, because I’d have probably had the same reaction in someone else,” Fatima replied. “But no, I had a lot of training in covert surveillance, when I was with military intelligence during my national service. I know how to do it and how to detect it. This is real.” 

“All right. I’ll do my best,” Superintendent Mirchandani agreed. And, with that, they went to their respective rooms with a promise to take breakfast together the next morning. 

At the Home Office, a janitor took Chief Constable Mogwanja and Fatima’s coats and umbrellas, issuing each with a ticket, and they were then shown up to an antechamber, adjoining the office of the Home Secretary, and asked to wait. They had arrived a quarter of an hour before the time anointed for their audience, but they were made to wait a further half hour. Then a young woman came to usher them in. 

“We apologise for the delay,” she said. “The Home Secretary was on the telephone with the PM.” 

“Quite,” Chief Constable Mogwanja replied. “Affairs of state must take precedence, of course.” 

The room they entered was long with windows down all of one side, though these were draped with such heavy curtains that they admitted scant light. The walls were all panelled in dark wood. At the far end of the room, Home Secretary Nkanda Kaunda was rising from the chair behind her voluminous desk. She waved the Chief Constable and Fatima to a suite of leather armchairs, situated quite close the door from which they had entered, walking towards them to shake hands. 

“A very good morning to you,” she said, consulting a paper, which she held in her left hand, “Chief Constable Mogwanja and Inspector Dieng. I trust your journey from the good county of Shoatshire was agreeable and that your accommodations here in London are to your liking. I’m sorry the weather has not been cooperative.” 

It had been raining heavily that morning, which, Fatima thought, would make surveillance a bit more difficult, though it would also not greatly facilitate surveillance of surveillance. 

The Home Secretary continued: “We’ll sit here in this slightly less formal setting, because I do hope we’re going to have an agreeable conversation.” She went on to indicate the two women now stood to her left and right one pace behind her. “This is my Private Secretary, Mrs Lama, who showed you in just now. And this is my Press Officer, Mrs Ambani. They are going to help us review some of the unfortunate difficulties into which we seem to have got ourselves, and to suggest some avenues through which we might extricate ourselves. 

“Tsering, is the Permanent Secretary going to be joining us at all?” 

“Ma’am, Mrs Ngabirano is presently at the Cabinet Office. I’m not sure when she will be able to return, but I do understand that she will join this meeting as soon as she may be available.” 

The Home Secretary scowled but did not comment on the answer she had just received. 

“Let us continue,” she said, again consulting the paper in her hand. “First, we should review the facts, yes, the facts of the matter. What exactly happened in this case?” 

She looked at Fatima, but it was Mrs Ambani who immediately began to speak. 

“Home Secretary, I gave your Private Secretary a very full brief on the matter, including a succinct summary for your eyes. What started as a small story in a minor weekly newspaper in the West Country is poised to assume national importance, if we don’t nip this thing in the bud. My telephone has been ringing off the hook over the past two days, with the national press - and you know who would be the obvious candidates here - the right-wing press is what I mean - asking for an official comment - by which I mean baying for our blood. On top of everything that is happening with decimalisation, Europe, race relations and so on, this could prove highly embarrassing for the government. 

“I can see only two courses of action, Ma’am. One, you can move to dismiss Inspector Dieng here, or to transfer her far away from the town in which she now works - Silbury, I believe it is called. Our story will then be that mistakes have been made by an incompetent individual police officer. We have identified those mistakes and the person responsible, and we have taken action. A Labour government is a decisive government that is responsive to local opinion, or something of that nature.” 

She paused for effect looking from one bewildered face, that of Fatima, who wondered if she had entered some kind of fantasy world, to another, that of the Home Secretary, who was just having difficulty keeping up. Then she pressed on. 

“Two, we see what we can do to repair our reputation in Silbury itself. This would certainly not be as easy as our first option, but it is much more subtle, and I like that very much. Inspector Dieng here will be given one week in which time she is to assure that a new, more positive piece on policing in Silbury is written up in this rag, the Shoatshire Gazette and Herald. This I can then make sure gets passed on to the rabid press pack in London. 

“And, if she doesn’t succeed,” she continued as though Fatima were not even in the room, “we just fall back on our first option.” 

She stopped, looking pointedly at the Home Secretary, who had maintained the same confused expression on her face. 

And at this point one other person, an immaculately dressed woman in her fifties, entered the room, without knocking, and strode confidently to the area where they were all seated. The Home Secretary shot out of her seat, and the others all stood too. 

“Permanent Secretary,” blurted out the Home Secretary, “Mrs Ngabirano.” 

Mrs Ngabirano shook hands warmly with the Chief Constable and Fatima, and nodded to the other women in the room. 

“I’m so sorry to be late,” she said. “I was called to the Cabinet Office about this very subject. The Cabinet Secretary told me that the PM herself is seized of the matter and has given explicit instructions that we are to support Inspector Dieng, in whom the government has every trust. And, yes, those were the very words used. And they were re-emphasized by a Brigadier Konté, who was at the meeting and who was introduced to me as some sort of hush-hush adviser to the PM. 

“I do hope this doesn’t throw a spanner into whatever you had in the works here. Our orders, and I use the word advisedly, are, however, crystal clear, I think. Do you not agree, Ma’am?” 

“Of course, of course,” the Home Secretary spluttered. “And I believe that Mrs Ambani was outlining just such a course of action, isn’t that so? What was it again?” 

The Home Office Press Officer reacted with admirable swiftness, outlining what she had earlier suggested as her second option but omitting any mention of the first and also stretching her tight time limit with an assurance that she could quite easily handle the press at her end. 

“With your permission then, Ma’am,” Mrs Ngabirano said, looking at the Home Secretary, “I shall sum up. We have agreed today that we can deal locally with the reputational position of the government, brought about by this unfortunate article in the Shoatshire Gazette and Herald, and by the further comment that it has apparently provoked. I have to say though that I am quite suspicious of a body of so-called commentary that has no names attached to it. 

“We have full confidence in the judgement of our chief police officer in Silbury, Inspector Dieng, and we shall leave it to her to determine how best she ameliorate her press coverage. 

“Is that a fair summary, and does everyone understand their individual responsibilities going forward? I think that means you, Inspector.” 

Again, Fatima was preparing to speak, when someone else cut in. This time it was Chief Constable Mogwanja. 

“You can be assured, Ma’am, that the Shoatshire County Constabulary will provide every guidance and support.” 

The Home Secretary stood up with a broad, and clearly relieved, smile on her face. 

“Excellent!” she exclaimed. “Thank you again for coming up to London, Chief Constable, Inspector. And I wish you a most pleasant journey home.” 

The meeting broke up, with Fatima feeling highly frustrated that she had come all this way without ever being asked to give her side of the story. Still she dutifully followed her Chief Constable out of the room and into the antechamber where they had earlier waited. She found that the Permanent Secretary, Mrs Ngabirano, was just behind her. 

“Inspector Dieng,” she said, presenting her with a card on which were her name and a telephone number, but nothing else, “I’m sorry if you found our little exchange there a bit on the surreal side. It’s what passes for government, I’m afraid. I just wanted to say that, should you ever feel the need, you should not hesitate to pick up the telephone.” 

“Thank you, Ma’am,” said Fatima in the first words she had uttered since entering the Home Office, not counting her thank you to the janitor who on arrival had taken her coat and umbrella. 

“No,” said Mrs Ngabirano, “it is I who should thank you.” 

Back at their hotel, Chief Constable Mogwanja, Superintendent Mirchandani and Fatima again sat in the lounge to take stock of what had just happened. 

“Well,” the Chief Constable began, “that was quite an escape act you just performed, Inspector. I was very worried at one point that I would be ordered to carry out your dismissal from the force.” 

“I can’t say that I disagree with you, Ma’am,” Fatima responded, “though I don’t think the outcome had anything to do with me. The only words I used in all the time we were in the Home Office were thank you.” 

“Quite, quite,” the Chief Constable went on. “Now, have you decided what you are going to do, when you return to Silbury?” 

“My plan is not fully formed yet, Ma’am,” said Fatima, “but I think the first thing would be seek to meet privately with the correspondent that wrote the original piece. I would propose to ask her to tell me the story from her perspective and then see if there is an opening for me to provide my side of the story. I probably need to think it all through in a little more detail, but that would be the outline.” 

“That seems sensible to me,” put in Superintendent Mirchandani, and the Chief Constable nodded. 

“Well,” she said, “we should prepare to return to Scowbridge, shouldn’t we, Superintendent? I think I’ll go and attend to my packing.” 

“I’ve already got my suitcase all packed,” Superintendent Mirchandani responded. “I’m just going to chat a little more with Inspector Dieng, and when you’re ready, Ma’am, I’ll have the doorwoman hail us a taxi.” 

The Chief Constable left, and she turned to Fatima. 

“I did what you asked, Fatima, and you were right. You were followed both from the hotel to the Home Office and back again. From what I could see, there were three of them. One was behind you on the same side of the street as you were, and another was also behind you but on the opposite side of the street. Then the third one, also on the opposite side of the street came from in front and relieved the second one, who crossed the street and relieved the first one, who peeled off whither I don’t know. It was very complex, but it could only work if they knew where you were going.” 

“Yes, the one in front would not be able to do the relay without having at least an outline of the route I was to follow,” Fatima agreed. “Did you get a look at their faces, or would there be any other way of identifying them?” 

“As you know, it was raining quite heavily, and almost everyone was carrying an umbrella,” Superintendent Mirchandani replied, “so you couldn’t see anyone’s face at all. Then they had on long mackintoshes, again just like over half the people on those streets, dark coloured and on an overcast day, black shoes. The only thing that really distinguished them is that they all looked identical, same clothing, same height, same build. 

“You know, in all that rain, with all those umbrellas, if you had wanted to lose your tail, it should have been quite easy. Of course, you couldn’t very well do that with the chief in tow.” 

They both laughed, just as the Chief Constable herself arrived. 

“Good joke?” she asked. “Anything you can share, or is it too racy?” 

“Just some local gossip,” Fatima assured her. “Ma’am, have a good trip home. I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve had my first meeting with the correspondent from the Gazette and Herald, so I can benefit further from your advice.” 

“Yes, advice,” the Chief Constable responded. “We must go, Superintendent. We mustn’t be late for our train. Bon voyage, Inspector.” 

They left in their taxi, and Fatima walked back to the coach terminus. It was still raining heavily, and she was still being followed. Who was this, and why were they doing it? 

They fed her quite well, a mix of rice and vegetable curries that were tasty, though not as spicy as Fatima would have liked. The food was brought down only twice every day by one of the two young women Fatima had arrested some months ago following a brawl at the Second Row public house. It was served on a metal plate with a single spoon, and came with just a mug of tepid water. I could kill for a nice cup of hot, sweet, strong tea, she thought, and perhaps I may have to. For the moment though, she knew very well, she needed to conserve her strength and to try to think as clearly as possible. 

The very day following her strange visit to the Home Office in London, Fatima had set in motion her still half-formed plan to reverse some of the negative publicity the police in general, and she in particular, had been receiving in the press. She had telephoned the Silbury correspondent of the Shoatshire Gazette and Herald to ask for a meeting, and Mrs Jaisnavi Parekh had readily agreed. 

“You know, Inspector, I don’t really have an office to speak of. I type up my copy at home and then post it over to the head office in Divisas. Why don’t you come over to my place at the end of the day? Shall we say half past five? We can pop the kettle on and have a nice cup of tea. The address is 2 River Park. I’m sure you know where that is. See you later.” 

The tone of the invitation had been quite remarkable given that used in the original article written by the self-same correspondent, calling, metaphorically, for Inspector Dieng’s head on a platter. Fatima went through the paces during her day, as she awaited the anointed hour of her meeting with Mrs Parekh. She knew that she should put it out of her mind, but she could not. With the government involved at its highest level, Fatima could not help but feel there was a great deal of pressure on her. 

At ten past five exactly she had set out on foot along Mabel Lane. As she left the police station, she had the thought that she should tell Sergeant Banda or Constable Nguyen, or both, where she was going, but this was something of a personal quest, and she left it at that. At the corner of Vale Road, she noticed Gamini Peiris taking in laundry from the clothes line in his garden. After two days of heavy rain, they had had one where the sun shone, and there was a strong breeze, with quite a chill in the air. Fatima waved and shouted hello but did not stop to talk.  

She came to the gate house of River Park just before five twenty-five. The youth on duty asked whom she wanted to see and wrote it down in some sort of register, at least that is what Fatima assumed she must have written. Then she told her to go on in. There was no acknowledgement of anything that had previously passed between them. Fatima decided that this was perhaps a good sign. Number two was the first house on the right, just past the gate house, almost directly opposite number one, where, she understood, Mstr Mehta, Senior Master at Silbury Grammar School, had his house. Number three, just next door, was the house of Mrs Mehta, Deputy Headmistress, and, so they continually said, no relation. 

The door to 2 River Park had lain open. When she rang the bell, she heard a voice, which she took to be that of Mrs Parekh, calling for her to come in. 

“I’m just through here getting the kettle on. My husband is away visiting his parents up north, so I’m having to do everything for myself.” 

Fatima pushed open the front door and then another immediately opposite that lay half ajar, behind which she had heard the voice. She found herself descending a staircase. The stairs themselves had no illumination, but there was enough light behind and in front of her to see where she was going. How strange that the kitchen of this house was apparently in a basement. And, once again, common sense had deserted her in her rush to put things right, following that disturbing experience at the Home Office in London. She had walked straight into a trap.  

Through the door at the bottom of the stairs, the door that now banged shut behind her, and that she now saw was made of solid steel, there was some kind of cell. It was very similar to those she was used to seeing in American television shows with metal bars to her front and left. The other two sides were blank walls, broken only by the doorway through which she had entered. On the other side of the steel bars she could see six figures, five of whom she recognised. They were Mrs Nutan Mehta, Deputy Headmistress of Silbury Grammar School, Mstr Mukund Mehta, Senior Master at the same school, Mrs Havya Joshi, Manager of the Silbury branch of the Western Provincial Bank, Mrs Poonam Modi, Silbury and district representative of Sitwells Brewery, and finally Mrs Jaisnavi Parekh, Silbury correspondent of the Shoatshire Gazette and Herald, the person she had come here to meet, with whom she had hoped the broker a peace. 

It was the person she did not recognise, who spoke for this otherwise silent group. 

“Good evening, Inspector Dieng. I don’t believe we have met before. I am Minaxi Desai. I am the owner of Silbury Bookmakers and Turf Accountants. I think you know the place.” 

No one else said a word. Fatima herself, having already committed a series of errors, decided that, for the present at least, silence was also her best policy. 

“No questions?” Mrs Desai went on. “That’s just as well, because we couldn’t give you any answers either. You’ll just have to wait for the boss to arrive. 

“Oh, and I’m afraid there won’t be any tea. Mr Parekh is at home, just above you, but he hasn’t put on the kettle. One of the girls may be by shortly though with something to eat and a cup of water.” 

With that, they all left, going through a series of doors beyond the bars of her cell, all of which, just like the one now behind her, had no visible handle. Clearly all of the houses on this estate were linked to this large basement area in which she found herself. Clearly too, the doors giving access to the basement could only be opened from the other side. She noticed a wide wooden bench along one of the walls of her cell, where she went to sit and think. 

In the course of the following week a clear pattern began to emerge. Though she had been relieved of her watch, as well as her police whistle and other personal belongings, although too the lights in the basement were kept on at all times, Fatima was able to judge roughly the time and passage of days. She was given meals at about noon and midnight. Her captors were clearly trying to weaken her through insufficient provision of food and to disorient her with the constant barrage of light, and through her isolation. She saw only one or other of the two youths that normally occupied the gate house, when they brought her meals, a task which they carried out swiftly and silently. Initially Fatima had tried to engage them in conversation. Having seen, in the course of her first two days of captivity, that this was fruitless, she abandoned these attempts. Instead she maximised her opportunities for rest, and for meditation, just as she had learned in the training she had received working with military intelligence during her national service. Focusing on abstract ideas, she was able to withdraw herself from, and to a great extent completely ignore, her present predicament. She realised that there was nothing to be done for the present and that she needed to reserve energy for the moment, sure to come, when there would be a change in circumstances, and perhaps an opportunity for productive action. 

At the end of that first week, a new face appeared in front of her cell, though, in fact, the face was not new at all. It was that of the former Shoatshire Chief Constable, Meena Desai, who had been forced to resign three years ago in circumstances with which Fatima was very familiar. As she came out of the trance into which she had put herself, Fatima found Mrs Desai staring silently at her and flanked by the very same two youths that had passed her in the alleyway leading from Kabeya Square to Mabel Lane on the night that she was shot. Things were beginning to come into perspective. But she did not put any of her present thoughts into words. She waited. 

“Inspector Fatima Dieng, what a unique pleasure it is to meet you again, especially in these circumstances. I do hope you are finding everything to your complete dissatisfaction. My apologies for not being able to greet you in person on your arrival at our little facility. I was regrettably detained elsewhere. Not, of course, detained in the sense that you must now comprehend so well. I was engaged in another aspect of our business in the northeast of the country.” 

Fatima, now fully awake and aware, decided to venture a few words just to see what might be her adversary’s reaction. 

“Let me guess. It was Fortress business?” she asked citing the common name of the companies that had built and was now managing the River Park estate. 

In previous times, Chief Constable Meena Desai would have answered this with an angry outburst, but now she just chuckled. 

“Oh, you are so good, Inspector, indeed too good. That was why I had to work so hard to clip your wings, when I was still on the force. That is why I now have to be rid of you once and for all. Do you know what a thorn you have been in my side? 

“Being Chief Constable of a relatively minor county police force was the perfect cover for me, as I developed a web of organised crime in various parts of the country. It wasn’t just for me, of course. I’m your ultimate family woman. The point was to amass wealth for my family through the actions of my family, and thereby also to combat some of the social ills we see invading the natural order of this country. Everything was chugging along perfectly until somehow you came into the picture. 

“First of all, my greedy cousin, former Councillor Priyanka Patel, decided to branch off into a little private practice by counterfeiting currency and spreading that about in Silbury. It was quite amateur, but most plodding policewomen would still not have rumbled it. Unfortunately, you had your friend, that bank manager, who noticed the false bank notes, and you quickly solved that particular case, before I could intervene. And you sent my cousin to prison, not just once but twice, which I cannot forgive, however much it was her own fault that she got caught. The counterfeiting operation was not part of our plan, was not authorised by me. I want you to understand that. Do you, Dieng?” 

Mrs Desai seemed badly to need this point to be acknowledged before she could continue with her story. Fatima said simply: “Yes, I understand.” 

“Good,” she went on. “Good. What happened next? Ah yes. 

“Then there was the death of Home Secretary’s daughter at Silbury College. No, I wasn’t involved in that, though Aïcha Sy and I are acquainted, and we share common, let’s say, social goals. But this, I thought, would be a good opportunity to discredit you by replacing you on the case with someone I had thought trustworthy but not terribly astute, Superintendent Hema Mirchandani. My strategy was for her bungle the case, which she seemed to do so well in arresting the first obvious suspect to come along, that white boy, and then to engineer things so that the blame would fall back on you. Yes, I made an error of judgement there. Superintendent Mirchandani was both more intelligent than I had thought, and she was cooperative, especially with you, when I needed her to be competitive, in the very worst sense of that word, of course. I also didn’t realise the extent to which she was connected in London. 

“I’d have done better to send that bungling Deputy of mine, wouldn’t I?” 

She paused now, having broken into laughter at her own remark. She was no doubt thinking of the irony that that very bungling Deputy was now Chief Constable Mwasaa Mogwanja. 

“And then again,” she continued, having taken a sip from the mug of tea she was holding, and which Fatima greatly coveted, “we had a wonderful scheme going to extort money from small businesses, appealing to the patriotic sentiments of good English traders. Unfortunately, one or two of them, perhaps more, were not quite so patriotic, and they sent my agent, who also happened to be my own younger sister, packing. Well there had to be retribution, so we burned down first one business, the Longbarrow Tea Rooms, and then prepared to do the same at the Second Row public house. That’s where you stepped in, along with that nasty piece of work, Ros Saveth. She’s next on my list to deal with. Yes, I know she was responsible for my sister’s death, whatever rot you had put out, when you found her body at the home of that stupid horse owner, Vicdan Yilmaz.” 

Fatima put in: “Your sister was shot by Captain Yilmaz. And I’m not sure I would dignify the racket she was involved in as patriotic in any way. Its purpose was apparently to stoke up hatred of immigrants.” 

“Yes, exactly!” Mrs Desai did now lose her temper. “Immigrants are poisoning our society, debasing the natural order. And people like you and your daughter are just helping that to happen. Well that’s all going to change!” 

She took another sip of her tea, which she seemed to find calming. Fatima was sure that it was and wished again that the mug were in her hands and the liquid trickling gently, if scaldingly, down her own throat. 

“Finally, I thought I had you, when I found that you had been consorting with that woman running the protection racket in Brigstow, Vitiana Radaveta. Little did I know - perhaps I should have paid a bit more attention to the devil in the detail - that she was more or less an authorised agent of the Brigstow police. But I thought that my little kangaroo court could result in your humiliation and dismissal. It almost did work, but for the interference of Superintendent Mirchandani, her contacts and the influence and knowledge of your insufferable friends. 

“Well, after you and your friends engineered my own departure from the police force, I knew that I had to do something different. It’s taken me and my family three years to get there, but here we are. We - yes, everyone presently living in this estate is my relative and is involved in the enterprise that I direct - now have you where we want you. And, as someone that I admire very much once said, it’s almost time for the final solution.” 

“Is that why you are telling me all of this?” asked Fatima. “You know that I won’t be able to do anything about it, because you plan to kill me?” 

“You’ll see, Dieng, you’ll see,” Mrs Desai answered, taking another sip of her tea. “Oh, sorry I didn’t bring another cup for you. It is the tradition to serve a condemned woman a hearty breakfast, isn’t it?” 

She thought this very funny indeed and went into another paroxysm of laughter. Then abruptly, along with her two acolytes, she left through the door from which she had come. Fatima was alone again and remained so for, as far as she could judge, the next three days, this time with no meal service to break up the monotony of her present existence. 

They came back in the morning of what Fatima thought must the fourth day after her encounter with Meena Desai. Six women and one man, whom she now knew all to be related, came in procession through one of the five doors Fatima knew were set into the walls beyond her cell, a sixth one being in the wall at the back of the cell. Through another came the two youths from the alleyway. Were they there as bodyguards?  

By this time, she felt so weak from lack of food and water that she was doubtful she would be able to take advantage of any unintended opportunity that might arise for her to escape. She had done her best to conserve strength by remaining completely inert, and by sleeping as much as she could, but now suffered acute abdominal pains due to the regime of deprivation through which she had been put. 

A chair was produced, Fatima did not see from where, and Meena Desai issued a command. 

“Bring her out. There’s nothing we have to fear from her now.” 

The cell door was unlocked and Fatima was dragged by the two youths to the chair, where she was forced to sit, her hands secured behind her by her own police handcuffs. Her captors all formed a circle around her. 

“There will be a process,” declared Meena Desai. “Let it not be said that we act indiscriminately.” 

“We’re all about discrimination,” said one of the others, to universal laughter. 

“Mukund,” Mrs Desai continued, referring to Mstr Mehta, “you shall speak for the prosecution.” 

Mstr Mehta drew himself up and began to declaim. 

“Dear Cousin, Sisters and Cousins all, we are come here today to judge this, our foremost enemy. It is our duty to act, as the institutions of this country have become so corrupted that they cannot be trusted either in their determination of guilt or in their execution of due sentence.” 

“... which should be execution,” put in one of the others, and again there was laughter. 

Mstr Mehta continued: “Cousin, I believe you have already laid before this miserable wretch the charges with which she is faced, and that you have given her ample opportunity to respond to those charges with points of fact, should any exist. Is that so, Cousin?” 

“Yes, that is the case,” Meena Desai responded. 

“Then,” Mstr Mehta said, turning to Fatima, “how do you plead, wretch?” 

If she hadn’t been feeling so utterly uncomfortable, Fatima would have wanted to laugh out loud. She confined herself to two croaked words. She physically could not utter more. 

“I don’t.” 

“We shall take that as an admission of guilt,” Mstr Mehta continued with increasing pomposity, “not that there shall be any mitigation. 

“Does anyone else present have anything to say, either in corroboration of guilt, or otherwise?” 

“Let us proceed to sentence, get on with the rest of our agenda, and then be able to be rid of this little rat hole of a town. I hate it here.” This was Mrs Modi. The others all nodded in agreement. 

“Enough then,” cried Meena Desai. “The Parliament of this country, guided by the foolish Labour so-called government of Sangeeta Gandhi, whom it pains me to admit is a distant relative, has decreed an end to capital punishment. I have hopes that we shall see that decision overturned once we have a proper Conservative government back in power. In the meantime, however, it behoves us to impose the appropriate sentence on this woman, who, at every turn, has frustrated us in our noble enterprise, and has been instrumental in promoting ideas inimical to the natural social order of this beautiful country. 

“I sentence you, Fatima Dieng, to death. The sentence will be carried out by our cousin, Jaisnavi Parekh. Who has the pistol?” 

The six women and one man now came together in one line behind Fatima. Mrs Mehta passed a pistol to Mrs Parekh, who removed the safety catch and held it to the back of Fatima’s head. She felt it there but realised there was now nothing she could do about it. She closed her eyes and let pleasant thoughts of her family and friends flood her being. She could think of no better way to come to her end. 

Fatima now heard a very large bang and she fell, with her chair, to the ground. The thing was though that she was still conscious, and she felt no pain in her head. 

The subterranean chamber was now awash with sound, as a group of about ten highly purposeful women, all dressed alike in long dark raincoats and all with their faces covered, came pouring in from all six doors. There was also white smoke billowing everywhere. Mrs Parekh did manage to squeeze off one shot, but it only hit Mrs Modi in her left leg. Then the pistol was abruptly snatched from her and she was forced to the ground by a devastating blow to her neck. Fatima’s other captors were similarly subdued. 

At this point, two other figures entered, one old but upright and tall, the other diminutive. The taller of the two barked a series of orders in a language that Fatima did not understand, even though she recognised it. Fatima was gently unshackled and help to a seated position. She was also given a warm cup of strong sweet tea and a bowl of something she couldn’t place but that tasted absolutely delicious and seemed to give her strength with each small spoonful she was able to eat. 

The tall lady squatted down next to Fatima. 

“How are you feeling, Inspector?” 

“To tell you the truth, General, I’ve felt better. Is that Jamila Ansari with you?” 

“Indeed, it is. But we’ll all talk a little later. Just now my compatriots and I are going to step aside. We’ve secured the scene, and those who took you hostage, not to mention some other crimes that they have committed, so I think this might be an opportune moment to let the police do their work. Sergeant Banda and Constables Nguyen and Senanayake are on their way. 

“As I said, we, that is Magician and myself, and perhaps Major will also join us, shall come and see you anon. We’ll also make sure you are furnished with any additional evidence that you might need for these people’s prosecution.” 

“Thank you, General. I think I owe you my life.” 

“Later, Inspector, later.” 

The General, her fellow members of traveller security, and Mrs Ansari now all disappeared to be replaced by three policewomen. Two ambulancewomen also appeared and began to put Fatima onto a stretcher. She complained that she was all right, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

“Ma’am, we do need to get you checked up at the hospital.” It was Constable Nguyen speaking, whilst Sergeant Banda tried to sort out how to deal with the very large number of prisoners they had just netted. “You looks like you have gone through quite an ordeal. If I did have a mirror, I should show you for yourself. You would not like what you would see, if I can be so bold.” 

Fatima allowed herself to be taken out of the basement chamber and into an ambulance parked just outside 3 River Park, alongside another that into which the wounded figure of the brewery representative was being loaded. As her ambulance pulled onto Vale Road, en route towards Forest Hospital, Fatima fell into a deep sleep from which she awoke only on the next day. 

“I’m so sorry, love. You must have been sick with worry,” she said on waking to the face in front of her. And her husband, Adama Dieng, burst into tears. 

One week later, Fatima was feeling well enough to begin to contemplate going back to work, though her husband and daughter still had their doubts. She had disappeared suddenly one evening, and they had no idea where she might be, whether even she was alive, until Major had come to the house to alert Adama Dieng - Hadi was at school - to the police raid in progress at River Park. She had driven a distraught Mr Dieng to Forest Hospital, where he sat in vigil, as his wife remained in a deep sleep following her ordeal. Major also waited at the Diengs’ house until Hadi came home from school, and took her too to the hospital. She remained there briefly, but her father insisted that she should return home to get a good night’s sleep. Major had remained at the house that night, as Mr Dieng was still fearful, despite Major’s assurance to the contrary, that something bad might yet befall them. 

It was mid-morning, and Fatima and her husband sat in the kitchen of their house drinking tea and listening to the wireless. The indictment of the River Park Seven, as they had been dubbed in the press, was national news. BBC Radio Four was reporting that they had been arraigned before a magistrate on the previous day and remanded in custody pending trial at the Crown Court. The list of charges they faced was, said the BBC crime correspondent, so long that there might not be time to cite it all in one bulletin, but prominent among them was kidnap and intent to murder a police officer. If found guilty, extremely long custodial sentences could be expected, she said. 

It was at this point that the doorbell rang. Fatima herself went to answer it and came back in with her friend, the head of traveller security, known only as the General. She was accompanied by the diminutive Jamila Ansari, owner of Jamila’s Japes, magic and joke shop in Sowdon. Fatima and she had met there for the first time some six months earlier. And with them was the ever-faithful Major, one of the General’s most trusted subordinates. 

“We’ll have to move to the dining table,” said Fatima. “There isn’t enough room in the kitchen for us all. 

“Adama love, could you make a fresh pot of tea, good and strong, please? I think we might also need some sandwiches and cake. The General may not be planning on staying long, but I’m not letting her leave until we have got the whole story out of her, and learned of the part no doubt played by my friend Jamila.” 

Mrs Ansari beamed at Fatima’s mention of her being a friend. She liked that. 

After everyone was seated, Fatima invited the General to lead proceedings. 

“There is indeed a lot to say, Inspector, not just about what has transpired over the past few weeks, but also what is behind it. But I think first I should offer you an apology. We have intruded into your business, and perhaps also your personal life, without consulting you. This was, in our view, necessary, but it is nonetheless distasteful for us to operate in this way. It offends the philosophy by which we live.” 

“There’s no need to apologise, General,” Fatima assured her. “You saved my life, and it would be churlish of me to complain about niceties of privacy in those circumstances, at least as of the present. 

“Please go on. Which will you cover first, the events or their causes?” 

The General, as was her wont, thought for a while before speaking again. Then she said: “Let me think how Inspector Dieng would approach this. Yes. We shall start with the facts, and then we shall analyse the factors involved. 

“We were very concerned when we learned last month that you had been shot. We were, of course, gladdened that you survived this attempt to kill you, but it was my firm belief that this was no random event and that it needed further, deeper investigation. I went to London to consult with our mutual friend, the Brigadier, who received me at her club. Of course, one does not deal with such matters over the telephone, only in person. And the Brigadier could hardly have invited me into 10 Upping Street for our discussion. We would not want to disturb the business of the Prime Minister, would we? 

“Well, the Brigadier agreed completely with me that we should seek to help you in what we both saw as your hour of need. We both also agreed that this went much wider than an attempted assassination, but I shall come to that later under the factors heading.” 

The General paused to take a sip of her tea, possibly also to formulate the next part of her oration. 

“I immediately dispatched Major here to help in your recovery. We needed you fit and active again, and, I think you will agree, Major excels at this particular part of her duties, not to mention other aspects of her responsibilities in traveller security. At the same time, we were concerned that there could be further attempts on your life, so we put you under covert surveillance. We also took care to keep an eye out for members of your family, your closest friends and confidantes, and so on. We could not risk something malicious happening, for instance, to your daughter or your husband.” 

“You had me tailed in London, didn’t you?” Fatima said evenly. “There were three watchers keeping tabs on the Chief Constable and me, when we went for our meeting at the Home Office.” 

“Four,” Major put in, and then she said something hurriedly to the General, which, though she didn’t understand the language, sounded to Fatima like an apology. 

“That is all right, Major,” the General assured her. “We don’t need to worry about giving away tradecraft to our friend, the Inspector. 

“Yes, there were actually four of our comrades keeping an eye on you and your colleagues in London. You noticed three of them, or perhaps I should say your Superintendent noticed three of them, but there was a fourth who was watching the Superintendent. 

“We knew that this meeting with the Home Secretary, after the unfortunate press coverage that you had suffered, would be important, and we did not trust her to do the right thing. This Home Secretary is not at all of the same calibre as her predecessor, and we have some doubts about some members of her staff, especially her Press Officer. Again, we shall come back to that. 

“Luckily the Brigadier was able to influence the conclusion of that meeting through the good offices of the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, a woman of impeccable character by the way.” 

Another pause, during which Adama Dieng refilled the General’s cup and offered a sandwich. She took one with cucumber and anchovy paste, took a bite and nodded approvingly at Fatima’s husband. Another sip of tea. 

“Then you disappeared, and I am afraid it took us quite a while to find out where you had gone. That was almost a disastrous lapse on our part.” 

“How did you find out where I was?” Fatima asked. 

“There were two decisive clues,” the General answered her. “Firstly, our dear friend Magician had been in touch with your friend, the Bank Manager in Sowdon. At the mention of your name, she said she hadn’t seen you for quite some time, that your husband was very worried and had been around to talk to hers about it, and that her husband last remembered seeing you on your way across the bridge over the River Forge on Vale Road about a week earlier. We had a first indication of what might be your whereabouts. 

“The second indication was an alert that your former Chief Constable had been sighted in Silbury; it was Major who identified her. We had her followed and established that she was staying in the estate behind gates known as River Park. We guessed then that this was where you were being held. But where? We needed a proper plan to be able to rescue you. Just barging into the estate and banging on every door would not work at all. 

“I went back to the Brigadier, and she found out very quickly, through her own sources, that there was much about this River Park estate that was strange, to say the least. She pointed us in the direction of Fortress Developments Ltd in Gatesforth. We visited their offices, after hours, and found and photographed the architectural plans for the River Park estate. The most surprising thing that we found in those plans was that every one of the six houses on the estate has a staircase going down to one large common basement. We were not one hundred per cent sure, but, for the purpose of military operations, one uses the best available intelligence. That told us you were being held in that basement. 

“The next thing was to plan our operation, which required precision, speed, and multiple diversions.” 

“And that’s where I came in.” Mrs Ansari had been waiting for the opportunity to explain her presence at this gathering. “I provided the General with a quantity of my very best fireworks, home made by the way, that make a lot of noise, produce a good quantity of smoke, at least when used in a relatively confined space, but do a minimum of damage.”  

“Indeed,” the General now continued, “and very effective they were. We came into River Park, first disabling the two guards, and then swiftly making our way to the underground chamber via the nearest two houses, setting off the fireworks simultaneously as we entered. Meanwhile one of our other comrades was making a 999 call to alert both the police and ambulance services. 

“It seems that we came just in the nick of time. One minute later and it all might have been in vain. I hope you will not hold that against us, Inspector. I admit that we made a number of errors in our management of this particular operation. But we are only human and cannot get everything right.” 

“Please don’t worry,” Fatima assured her. “The biggest errors were all mine. I never let anyone know where I was going, and that is fundamental for a police officer, not to mention one who has intelligence training. Then I just went through open doors, not knowing where they might lead. I waited too long for my opportunity to act, by which time I was too weak to do anything. The litany goes on and on. If I had just been more sensible, things should not have become quite so complicated. 

“But let’s move on from mutual embarrassment, shall we? What did you want to tell me about has been behind the events you’ve described?” 

The General smiled at these remarks. And she took another sip of her tea. 

“Yes, it is time for us to move on to the factorial side of our story. When we visited the offices of Fortress Developments Ltd in Gatesforth, it was not only architectural plans that we found. There were also a number of files detailing operations past, present and future, criminal operations. By the way, we had to get into a strong room to access these files. Luckily, some of my comrades are skilled in tasks of this kind. They left no trace that the strong room had been broken into. We photographed a number of the papers in these files to give the police a sample of what they should expect to find, once they had obtained a search warrant. 

“Among these files was one that was labelled Silbury. It contained plans to infiltrate the community by having members of the former Chief Constable’s extended family take up prominent positions, also a plan for each of them to take a house in the new River Park estate. Then there was a list of operations to be carried, some partly to generate income for the group’s nefarious activities, but mostly with the primary objective of embarrassing the police, especially you, Inspector.” 

“Let me guess,” put in Fatima. “The list included intimidation of Mrs Ros Saveth at the Second Row public house, some incidents of youth vandalism targetting prominent Silburians, attempts to fix horse races, and suggestions that so-called deviant teachers at Silbury Grammar School are dealing in illegal drugs.” 

“Precisely,” the General answered, “and, of course, there was, as we have seen, a deliberate scheme of disinformation regarding earlier cases of yours. Some of these, I think you already know, were indeed perpetrated by the former Chief Constable and members of her family. 

“The ultimate aim of all of their operations in Silbury was your own removal. First, they attempted to kill you. When that did not work, they were preparing to arrange your dismissal or transfer, the goal of the meeting with the Home Secretary, orchestrated by her Press Officer, who is yet another relative of the former Chief Constable. And, when that too was frustrated through the intervention of the Brigadier, they resolved to carry out an execution in the chamber below their homes. It is up to the police now to find out what they intended next, how to dispose of your body, and so on.” 

“And fortunately, as my husband keeps reminding me,” said Fatima, with a look towards Adama Dieng, “I can leave all of that to Superintendent Mirchandani, who has been deployed by the Chief Constable to lead the conclusion of this investigation. Adama wants me to rest and recuperate. The fact that I have a conflict of interest in this case conspires with his desires. 

“But I do have one more question. If, as you suggest, the timeline for your involvement, General, began with the first attempt to kill me, then who was following Mrs Saveth and myself back in April at the Forge-Abona Canal?” 

The General looked almost embarrassed. 

“There is,” she said, “a very famous American jazz musician. It is said of her that her brilliance lies not in the notes that she plays, but in the notes that she does not play. Yes, you were being observed that day by one of my comrades, not Major, I might add, whom you should not so readily have noticed. If you were to ask me why, at that time, I was sufficiently concerned about the safety of yourself, and indeed also the lady publican, another brave soldier, I could not explain it exactly. I sensed that something could be amiss, and I acted on that sense. Then I realised that, in the normal course of events, you are perfectly capable of looking after yourself. Thus, until things came to a head, I decided to desist from further interference. As I said earlier, it runs counter to our philosophy to interfere in the lives of others.” 

And, with that, the General rose, bowed deeply, and left with Mrs Ansari and Major in tow. 

Two weeks later, Fatima and her family sat at the breakfast table in their kitchen. It was a Thursday, and the latest edition of the Shoatshire Gazette and Herald sat on the table. They had all read the story splashed across the front page detailing the litany of charges faced by a host of those who had until recently been local luminaries but were now arraigned before the Crown Court in Brigstow. 

On page eight, the page that contains news about Silbury, there was another brief piece that the Dieng family had also read with interest. 

In our edition of 13 November this newspaper carried an article, written by our former Silbury correspondent. The article dwelt principally on the state of policing in the town and made a number of negative references to Silbury’s chief police officer, Inspector Fatima Dieng. We accept and recognise that these assertions were false and offer our apologies both to Inspector Dieng herself and to our readership at large. 

Of much more interest to Fatima Dieng was the advertisement at the bottom of the page. The Didi Bahini Opera Company was touring Britain and again they were performing the Cornwellian Privateers. And they would be at the Mistry Hall in Brigstow on Saturday the 20th of December. She would have to telephone her friends, Kamala Peiris and Anna Kaboré. This time they should not miss the show.