On the drive to Framingham Earl Flint questioned Cushion as to why he was so keen to get at Shinton. At first he refused to be drawn. Yet she persisted. At some stage she must have touched a nerve because it all came tumbling out.
Cushion himself had been a victim of abuse from his father. He had been eight when it started: the same age as the boy Shinton had raped. He had thought that his father was just being friendly. What else would an eight year old boy think? The adult had made it sound like their special secret when he instructed his son to say nothing to his mother. However, he had felt slightly disturbed when his father forced him into oral acts.
Cushion had said something to a so-called friend. The shit then revealed what he had said to some of the other boys. The youngster had been teased unmercifully by his classmates, debagged in the playground and his trousers thrown over the school wall and into the road.
The whole thing had come to the attention of the teachers. No-one believed Cushion. His father had earned respect from the hierarchy with his voluntary work at the school. The headteacher severely castigated and beat the young boy for his wicked attention seeking. Not long after Cushion was bundled off to a special school. Thereafter holidays were spent with his maternal grandparents. They had never approved of his father. He finally returned home after his father had been imprisoned for molesting his sister. He had never spoken to his father again and celebrated on hearing of his death.
He asked why Flint wanted to arrest the two suspects. Her answer concerned what they had found at Riverview Heights. That, together with being a mother, made her want to put people like Shinton and Ransome away for such a long time. In fact Riverview heights made her want to kill the scumbags and all of their ilk.
They discussed how they were going to handle the two suspects. Blunt would not have been overjoyed if he could have heard them; especially not given his earlier warning.
On clambering out of the car Flint stopped and looked around at the bungalows lining each side of the street. Their mostly well tended and neatly trimmed front lawns presented a picture of suburban tranquillity. She could hear the incessant hum of an electric lawnmower in the background. In the foreground the leaves on the trees gently rustled and the birds serenaded one another for the last time before dusk descended. The juxtaposition of such an idyll with the despicable desires of two men they were after forcefully struck the policewoman and strengthened her resolve.
Flint gave the front door three sharp raps. No effect. The two police officers looked at one another. She gave the door another three but more forceful raps. If she knocked any harder the glass would break.
Eventually they heard a sound inside and a large dark shape loomed through the glass on the other side of the door. The bulk told her that the shape belonged to Shinton. He opened the door a little and peered through the gap. His eyes widened with dread and apprehension, sprinkled with not a little guilt, when he realised who stood before him. His clothes were somewhat dishevelled.
'Daniel, who is it?' Ransome's petulant voice floated from the sitting room.
Flint and Cushion wondered what he had been up to with his little friend Ransome.
He did not want to let them in. Cushion kicked the door hard enough so that it hit Shinton in the face. He grunted and took his hand off the door to grab his face. Flint seized the opportunity pushed her way past the big man and marched through the hallway. Cushion ordered the big man to stay put and closed the front door behind him as he stepped into the hallway.
On hearing the door shut Ransome shouted, 'Daniel come on it's a good bit'
Flint kicked the door open. Ransome's jaw dropped when he saw who stood at the entrance. A flurry of emotions chased one another across his ugly face. Shock, horror, fear. His hands flew to cover his excited genitalia. Then he reached for the video remote.
Flint looked at the pathetic naked little shit lying lewdly on the floor. Her eyes though were attracted to perverted filth on the video screen. It featured two young boys and five men.
Rage welled up inside the policewoman. As soon as she saw the prostrate creature reach for the remote she raced across the room and kicked his wrist hard. He yelped and the remote slipped from his grasp. She placed her foot on his inner forearm and pressed it to the floor. She ignored his yelps and snivelling.
Flint reached into her pocket and fished out a pair of surgical gloves. She put them on whilst maintaining the pressure on Ransome's forearm, all the while oblivious to his piggish squeals. Indeed she felt a strange delight in the welt her foot had caused.
She yanked him up and made him crawl on all fours to the video machine.
'Get the video out you disgusting little fucker' she kicked his bare and fat dimpled arse.
'Here' she held out her hand for the video tape and continued, 'Put your underwear on'
She watched as the pathetic creature struggled into his underpants and then ordered him into the kitchen to get some black rubbish sacks into which she could put the video.
On hearing her call Cushion brought Shinton into the sitting room. The big man's eyes were red and tears were streaming down his face. He blubbered that he was sorry, that he and Ransome did not know what was on the video. He didn't want to go back to prison. It wasn't his fault. He'd been molested as a child.
'Shut the fuck-up!' Flint screamed at him. The big man's eyes shot up in shock and his blubbing immediately ceased. The policewoman knew that child molesters used feigned tears and sadness as ways to get at vulnerable young children. Looking at the two perverts Flint's mind flooded with the mental pictures she had retained from the raid on Riverside Heights. She wanted to, she needed to make someone pay for what had been inflicted on the poor children at the building and on the videos.
When she screamed at Shinton Cushion realised that they had gone too far. They should have waited until the morning to arrest these two and taken the time to arrange back up. They were both guilty of allowing their emotions to take charge. Both of them fresh from witnessing things that would turn the stomach of sane people. He was the senior and would carry the can.
How were they going to get these two to the station? He turned to Flint and said that they needed to arrest the two of them and then call for back up.
The policewoman asked Cushion for his cuffs. She looked incredulously at him when he confessed that he never carried them. They looked at one another for a moment.
Flint was the first to come around. She ordered Ransome and Shinton to sit on the sofa and hold out their right and left hands which she then cuffed. She ordered them to stay put and motioned Cushion to follow her into the hallway. They decided that they needed to call Saeed and Leibnitz.
* * *
As soon as Ransome saw fresh faces he started with,
'She attacked me and humiliated me. Look at my arm she stood on it. Look at my bruised fingers she kicked them!' he screeched.
Ahmed couldn't deny that Ransome's inner arm had red welts and that the fingers of his hand were definitely swollen and crimson.
Shinton caught on and with his free arm he pointed at Cushion, 'And he attacked me in the hallway. Look at my face!'.
The bruising on the big man's face was rapidly growing and changing to a darker hue. They had less chance trying to explain that away.
Saeed motioned Flint and Cushion into the hallway and hissed, 'Debbie, what the fuck are the pair of you up to? No back-up, one pair of cuffs. The suspects with highly visible bruising! Blunt will do his fucking nut when he finds out about this cock-up!'
The pair looked sheepish
'Get 'em cuffed separately. Debbie you and I will take Shinton. You drive I'll sit in the back with him. Steve you do the same with Mel and she'll sit in the back. I don't want to risk either of you with those two wankers! We'll have them charged with possession and use of prohibited pornographic material. Once we have got rid of them in the station we come back here. We'll then decide what we're gonna say about the arrest. Let's go!' Ahmed ordered.
* * *
Meanwhile Blunt, oblivious to the events unfolding in Framingham Earl, had taken the country road back to Stalham, the B1152.
On arriving home he had poured himself a whisky. His thoughts were consumed with Anjii and Khan. He picked up her letter and read it again. He stood at the kitchen window looking out over his garden. He felt its presence and shuddered. A dark insidious cloud of gloom approached him from the left. He felt it insinuate itself into his mind, gradually from left to right, until it had completely and swirlingly engulfed his thoughts. The black dog had snared him again. The phone saved him from the increasing intensity of his dark thoughts. It was Lefkovitz.
The Israeli quickly picked up on Blunt's mood and asked if he was Ok. Blunt's perfunctory answer gave tiredness as an excuse. The other, not entirely convinced, put his suspicions aside and informed his friend that the Americans had moved, quickly, efficiently and effectively. He expressed admiration in the way that all their law enforcement bodies had acted in unison, for the first time that he had known.
They had apprehended eight men. Three were students doing further degrees in Engineering, Chemistry and computer science. The others had gained short term work permits in a variety of companies that had links with defence companies. All of them came from prosperous middle class backgrounds. No way were they the type that you would expect to be terrorists had been Lefkovitz's view.
There then followed some good natured banter between the men. Blunt hit the Israeli with Lenin, Trotsky, Mao Tse Tung and a host of Israelis to boot. They finally agreed that people who were regarded as the most effective terrorists were in the main educated and middle class. The Israeli then joked that perhaps people like Adams and McGuiness could one day share power in Northern Ireland. Blunt agreed that stranger things had happened. Perhaps one day Neil Kinnock may manage to say something in a hundred words rather than his usual overblown thousand! Lefkovitz asked if Pinnock, Pillock, whatever his name is, had been the leader of the Labour party. Blunt had agreed saying that Israel had Rabin as leader of the Labour party and Britain had suffered Kinnock!
Lefkovitz then described how the Americans had traced the terrorists. They had devised a computer programme to weed out all the Asian and Arab sounding names on all the internal flights into and out of New Jersey and JFK. They had also tapped into similar flight details of all the flights from mid-east countries: places that Israel also confirmed as being lax on boarding security.
They had then tapped into all the computer records of flying schools in the USA and Canada. These had then been cross referenced with the flight details to look for name matches. They had identified eight such individuals. On interrogation three of them cracked and confessed.
'John, my friend' continued the Israeli, 'if it had not been for your information then heaven knows the carnage that could have taken place. I have been instructed to invite you to Rabin's reception at the World Trade Centre. We will pay for first class travel on El Al out of Heathrow and put you up in our hotel. Are you up for it?'
'Yes, post the details to my home address. I will take some leave. Can you tell me anymore about Khan?' Blunt responded
'My friend leave that one alone. You may be treading on many toes that you do not wish to tread on. That is all I will say'.
Blunt had already decided that he would not. In the morning he would set out for an almost pre-determined meeting.