Turn a Blind Eye: A gripping and tense crime thriller with a brand new detective for 2018

They waved and he cut the call.

Emptiness seeped back into the confines of his tiny room, silence back into the yawning space. And on his phone, from the background image, Aroona and the girls beamed at him.

Thursday – Maya

During the night it had snowed and, when I left the flat at 7 a.m., a dusting of white crystals lay on the path by the canal and on the lock. It was as though the world at the water’s edge had been cleaned. From there, my walk to the car took me past the graffiti tags on the bridge at Ben Johnson Road, and the burned-out shell of a warehouse, with its blackened brickwork and boarded-up windows. Overhead, bulging black snow clouds hung over Mile End like baggy trousers.

All night I’d been unable to shift the idea that there may have been a murder before Linda’s. I’d emailed the team and asked Alexej to check all suspicious deaths from the last three months, involving calling cards or anything ritualistic.

I was soon in Stepney, outside the block of flats where the Allens lived; an ugly, seventies-built, three-storey building. Paint was flaking off tired metal windows. On both sides of the entrance the recent snow was melting on mud, and discarded fag butts were leaking brown into the white slush. I rang the buzzer. Nearby, a yellow crane was lowering a vast steel structure onto what used to be playing fields, and I had to raise my voice over the drone and beeping of the site JCBs.

‘I’m DI Rahman,’ I shouted into the intercom.

Roger Allen buzzed me in and met me at the door of his flat. Stale alcohol fumes wafted towards me. I recognised him from the staff photos but hadn’t absorbed quite how skinny he was. Speckled stubble growth clung to his face. Shirt tails trailed over his trousers and his jumper was lopsided.

‘Did you get the messages to contact us?’ It was more of an accusation than a question. ‘We came round here yesterday and rang several times.’

A startled look swept over his features. ‘Sorry. My wife did tell me. I’ve been . . .’ He broke off; looked over his shoulder into the flat and then back to me.

‘I assume you know that Linda Gibson was murdered yesterday?’ People who wasted police time really pushed my buttons. It was one of my most regular rants to the team.

Roger opened his mouth to speak and closed it, as if weighing up what to say. ‘Yes, I do. But I don’t know anything about it, I’m afraid.’

A draught was making its way down my collar. ‘May I come in?’ I gestured to the flat and moved towards the open door.

Roger glanced at his watch.

‘Got to be somewhere?’ My patience was withering.

He rubbed his balding head and stepped reluctantly back inside, gesturing for me to enter.

Down the hallway a television was blaring. There was something familiar about the output. In the hall, a holdall stood up against the wall and a man’s jacket hung on the bannisters. A pair of pink wellies nestled on the laminate next to an assortment of family shoes. The hall table was cluttered with toys and a toddler’s trike had been parked under the hall table. The smell of toast wafted out from the kitchen. So, he was in the middle of his breakfast – but why did he look like he’d spent the night on the sofa?

Roger led me into the lounge where the television was on.

Of course. It was the school video. I pointed at the source of the noise, and raised my voice over it. ‘Could you mute that?’

He scanned the room for the remote control and zapped the TV off.

‘Do you usually watch the school video before you go to work?’

He jutted his chin in defiance and slid the remote control onto the coffee table. ‘Course not. I was just checking something.’

‘Checking what?’

‘The . . . the sound.’

I stared at him in disbelief. ‘Alright to sit down?’ I perched on an armchair and took out my notepad. I needed to change tack; get Allen off the defensive. Attempting to make my tone of voice less impatient, I said, ‘An officer came round here yesterday afternoon. I called round on my way home last night. On both occasions your wife said you were out.’ I raised my voice at the end of the sentence, to imply the question rather than state it. He was a bright man. He knew what I wanted to know.

‘Yeah, I popped out for some fresh air.’ He cocked his head and stared at me.

‘Both times? Did you get the messages to call us urgently?’

‘I . . .’ He was standing in front of the fireplace, his attention fixed on his hands, pulling at them as if they were lumps of dough.

In that moment, I felt sorry for him. I tried to imagine this man, in his scruffy clothes, conducting management meetings at school, leading working parties and standing in front of assemblies. I changed the subject. ‘Who’s off on their travels?’

‘Eh?’ Roger’s eyes darted round the room.

‘The bag in the hall?’

‘Oh, that.’ He waved his hand in the air dismissively. ‘We haven’t put it away yet. A Christmas trip.’ He was fiddling with his wedding ring now, twisting it round his finger as though he were trying it on for size.

That was about as convincing as his account of why he’d been out when the police came round. I surveyed the room.

Family-worn furniture.

Drinks tables.

Several lamps.

Cheap sound system. Nothing out of the ordinary so far.

Large plasma screen. Telly clearly important to the Allen family.

Wait. ‘Do you normally clean your teeth in the living room?’

‘You what?’ He traced my glance to the toothbrush and tube of toothpaste on the table.

That was it. He’d just arrived home. His wife was out. And he’d been having breakfast. ‘Where have you been, Mr Allen?’

He reddened. ‘Nowhere,’ he snapped. ‘I told you, I wasn’t well.’ He paced the length of the room. Up. Down. Hands in his pockets.

I waited. Let his reply hang in the air, all the while fixing my gaze on him.

‘How did you get on with Mrs Gibson?’

His bored shrug came too quickly – more a nervous tic than a genuine I don’t know. ‘I was less of a fan of hers than lots of other people but I never wanted her dead.’ There was a weight to his quietly spoken words. ‘If you lot did your job properly, you’d find that there are a few people at the school who were keen to get Linda out of the picture.’

My voice came as quiet as an echo, eyes locked on his. ‘Like who?’

Thursday – Steve

Steve was still absorbing Lucy’s news as he walked to Mile End to catch the bus. She’d met someone. Why hadn’t she told him when he was in New York? At least then they could have discussed it. Giving a message to Jane was cowardly. He turned up the collar of his jacket. On the ground, blobs of rain were washing away the recent snow flurry.

At the bus stop, school kids elbowed and shoved their way onto the double-decker bus, before clattering upstairs to claim their position in the pecking order. Steve waited with the workers, the knackered mums with buggies, the pensioners and this week’s reject kids. On the ground floor, an élite group of boys stood in a huddle, too cool to bother with the scrum of the top deck, their voices barely broken and their hormones in a spiral. Steve watched them posture and prance as they sniffed round two girls from another school.

Still feeling delicate this morning, he cursed his decision to get the bus. Had he known he would be cooped up with so much perfume and giggling, he would have walked the mile to school and spared his senses the onslaught.

When he alighted the bus at Bow Road tube station, the cool air was a relief, like stepping into the shade on a summer’s day. Momentarily, it soothed his lungs and cheeks before starting to bite. It was not fully light, and traffic chugged along Mile End Road, headlights glaring, carrying jangly city dwellers and bulging haulage loads to their destinations.

On parts of broken pavement the rain had collected in dirty puddles. Beside the cash point in the station wall, Steve saw a homeless man sitting in a dirt-slicked sleeping bag. Only a piece of cardboard lay between him and the concrete slabs. Desperation clung to his hollowed cheeks. Lowered eyelids kept his eyes on the ground in front of him, as though he doubted life would ever be good again, and even looking people in the eye required too much energy. In his lap, out of his vision, lay a sign. ‘I hope spring comes soon,’ it said.

No request for money, for food or a hostel bed.

What a self-pitying prick Steve was being. Yes, his own life was a mess at the moment. Yes, Lucy had a new bloke, but at least he had a job and somewhere warm to sleep. He looked at the guy’s thin sleeping bag, his filthy, cold-ravaged fingers in mittens, and Steve knew he wouldn’t survive sleeping rough for more than a couple of days. He changed course and strode over. The closer he got, he saw that the man, whose misfortune-bedraggled appearance suggested he was in his thirties, was probably in his early twenties.

‘There you go, mate.’ Steve dropped three pound coins in the pot. ‘I hope spring comes soon too.’

Hearing the chink of change, the man looked up. His eyes were dead but he managed a thumbs-up. A bluey-brown bruise encircled one eye socket and a scabby graze clung to the cheek below.

A few minutes later, Steve was at the pedestrian crossing, waiting for the lights. An empty Red Bull can ricocheted in the wind. On the horizon the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf and the City boasted of wealth and progress. As he crossed the busy road, the unyielding cityscape seemed such a contrast to the sleepy town of Midhurst. There, the lollipop lady steered school kids safely across the high street, with the castle ruins, the River Rother and Cowdray polo fields in the distance. Had he seen any homeless people there? He couldn’t remember. Threads of panic rose inside him. What if coming back to East London was a mistake? What if he couldn’t settle back into noisy, crowded Tower Hamlets?

Fuck’s sake. Get a grip. Give it your best and if it doesn’t work, you can re-think things. At least you won’t be bored in London. He sucked in a huge breath and hurried in the direction of Mile End High School.

The Bow backstreets, which were quiet yesterday when Steve walked to school, were thrumming with noise. The closer he got, a mêlée of voices floated towards him, increasingly loud. Someone was shouting instructions into a loud speaker. It reminded Steve of a tuition fee rally when he was at university. Over the tops of houses, blue lights sliced through the grey. This was different from yesterday. Something must’ve happened. The police presence at the school had been stepped up overnight. His pulse quickened and his shattered body galvanised itself.

Metres away now, voices bellowed warnings. Vehicle engines roared and their doors slammed. Ring tones rode the bitter January wind, and through the tree-lined streets, satellite connections transmitted the news of Linda’s death into unsuspecting skies.

When Steve neared the school premises, he saw that the cordon had been enlarged. Crime scene tape flapped in the wind. Half a dozen marked cars were positioned at intervals around the area, and several officers huddled round each vehicle, solemn-faced and urgent in their high-visibility jackets. Scattered around the scene were twenty or so other people, some in work suits, others in forensic clothing. Liveried vans had arrived from the BBC and Sky, and people bustled round these hubs, lugging photographic paraphernalia, recording equipment and microphones. A rangy, pale-skinned man with red hair stood in front of a scrum of journalists and reporters. His arms made determined gestures as he tried to silence their questions long enough to be able to speak.

Steve scanned the scene for a colleague, someone he might recognise from yesterday, but saw no-one familiar. Shit. He’d forgotten to check his email this morning. He’d call Andrea. She’d know where they were meant to be. Before he could dial, a woman clocked him and sped over, waving and grinning and calling out. Long tendrils of black hair bobbed as she ran.

Before he had time to escape, she’d pinned him down. ‘I’m Suzie James . . . from the . . . Stepney Gazette,’ she stammered, out of breath from running but still able to flash her teeth, her head on one side in the sort of coquettish pose that Steve’s fifteen-year-old students adopted sometimes when they were late with their homework.

He stifled a groan. This was all he needed. To commit some dreadful faux pas to the press just to make his start at the school even better.

‘Are you staff?’ she simpered.

He got a waft of her minty breath. ‘You need to speak to someone from school management or the police.’ Steve felt flustered and cornered. ‘We’ve all been asked not to speak to anyone.’ He was just about to walk away when –

‘So you are staff then?’

He’d fallen into that one. ‘Sorry,’ he said, using his hand to indicate he wanted her to back off. ‘I don’t want to be rude but . . .’ and he accelerated his pace away from her.

Undeterred, she was running alongside him. ‘Do you know who found the head teacher?’

‘No comment.’

‘Do you think this has anything to do with the Pakistani girl who committed suicide last term? Or the boy who was stabbed on Christmas Eve?’ She was alongside him, almost running now, and puffing as she moved. ‘Thing is . . . if there’s a link . . . we have a duty . . . to keep the community . . . informed.’

Steve heaved in a breath. This woman was testing his patience. She was like a dog with a bloody bone. He was desperate for a fag.

‘Right, that’s enough.’ He wheeled round to face her. Leaned over so he was at her height and pressed his face near hers. ‘I’ve tried to be polite and you won’t take a hint. Now – piss off.’ He sped away, just catching her say, ‘Can I quote you on that?’

He shifted his thoughts to today. And school. He’d been about to ring Andrea.

Suddenly the reporter was at his side again, making him jump. ‘Here’s my business card. If you decide you want to talk to the paper, give me a bell. Yeah? I can make it worth your while.’ She pushed her hand at him.

Freaked out at the arrogance of her renewed approach, Steve stepped backwards and the fancy business card fell to the pavement. ‘Oops. Sorry,’ he said. ‘Clumsy me.’ And this time he thought about Lucy with her new boyfriend, and channelled as much menace into his stare as he could summon.

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