DCI Grace Swan Thrillers - Books 1-3

Excerpt from DCI Grace Swan Thrillers - Books 1-3

Mohammed Khan eased his new car, a Mercedes Benz S-Class saloon, through the tightly packed traffic on Midland Road in central West Garside, a small Yorkshire industrial town some sixteen or so miles to the north-west of Sheffield, huddled close and pushing up into the Pennine hills.

The autumn afternoon was clear but there was a hint in the air that the evening could turn chill and misty, with a forecast for rain before morning.

Khan had bought the car, gleaming and a highly polished black, only the week before and it was his pride and joy, costing the best part of £75,000. It was a car he had coveted for a long time and although a successful and wealthy businessman, he had previously disdained ostentatious displays of wealth, considering it vulgar. But now, with his business well-established and financially secure, he felt that he could at last indulge his passion, even though he told his friends and fellow worshippers at his mosque that it was really his wife Farida who wanted the car.

‘For myself, I was very happy with the Volvo, but she insisted, what can you do, eh? You have to indulge your wife sometimes.’ He would say. And his friends would smile and nod in agreement, knowing full well who had really coveted the S-Class.

Roadworks on Midland Road had forced all traffic, coming in either direction, into a narrow strip of highway and to one side, for about fifty yards the pavement was under repair, impassable, forcing pedestrians out into the road.

Mohammed Khan was in no hurry, but he was concerned how close cars and especially buses were to the Mercedes as they passed in the opposite direction, several times he feared his wing mirror would be clipped.

The junction of Midland Road and Chapelgate seemed gridlocked and even when the traffic lights were at green, only one or two cars managed to get through the lights.

Mohammed, aged 53, lightly drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Not that he was impatient, but he hated to be idle. All his life he had worked hard long hours, long stressful hours as he built up his businesses, importing high quality silks and other fabrics from Asia, particularly from Pakistan.

Born in West Garside, at the age of 15 with the aid of a loan from his uncle, Mohammed had rented a stall in Garside market and began selling lengths of cloth and cheap imported cotton dresses. From that humble start, he had built up his business with fabric shops throughout Yorkshire, Lancashire, and the North-East, branched out into clothing stores, rental property, the import of Asian foodstuffs, and money transfer outlets serving Pakistanis and the wider Islamic community.

He served on the local council as a Liberal Democrat and was on the board of several charities. As a devout Muslim, blessed by Allah, he believed it was his duty, zakat, to give back to those less fortunate, the giving of alms being the Third Pillar of Faith in Islam.

He was a family man with three sons and two daughters with another child on the way. He was well-respected in his community and was a prominent member at his local mosque.

The traffic moved forward two cars and Mohammed slowly edged onwards, put the handbrake on and shifted into neutral as he waited for the next snail crawl towards the lights, still several cars ahead. From the mirror he lifted down his misbaha, the prayer beads that he always carried with him. The rosary contained ninety-nine beads, one for every name for Allah, with two smaller beads separating every thirty-three beads. He passed the beads through his fingers as he mentally recited the prayers, thirty-three times ‘subhan Allah’(Glory be to God) thirty-three times Al-hamdu-lihah (Praise be to God) and was just commencing with the thirty-three times recital of ‘Allahu Akbar (God is the greatest) when he heard the scrape of metal towards the back of the car. Swiftly unbuckling his seat belt, he opened his door.

A youth pushing a bicycle between the tightly packed rows of cars had scraped the Mercedes, caused a 12” scrape to the rear, just behind the rear passenger door. He tried to push on, but Mohammed ran and swiftly seized the handlebars of the bike, preventing the youth from getting away.

‘Look at the damage,’ Mohammed said to the youth, pointing to the scratch.

‘Nah, not me pal. Must have been there before.’

‘No, I heard you, I heard you scrape the bicycle across the back of the car.’

‘Nah, told you, not me,’ the youth answered belligerently.

‘I heard it, I heard you scrape the bicycle, this bicycle, against the car.’

‘How many more fucking times, it weren’t me. Now fuck off Paki and let me pass.’ But Mohamed held onto the handlebars, determined that the youth accept responsibility for the damage.

In Mohammed’s world, you accept accountability for your actions. The youth had damaged the car and should say so and apologise. At this point, Mohammed was not even looking for the youth to pay for the repairs, but he must accept what he had done.

‘You, tell me your name, apologise, and that will be the end,’

The youth, aged maybe eighteen or nineteen, wore jeans, a grey sweatshirt with the hood up and tied tightly to his head by the drawstrings, making it difficult for Mohammed to fully see his face. All he could see were hate-filled eyes and thin lips turned up in a sneer.

‘Apologise to a fucking Paki, you must be joking. I’m saying it again, it weren’t me, so let me fucking get past.’

The traffic lights had now twice turned green but the cars behind Mohammed’s Mercedes had been unable to move and there was a cacophony of blaring horns as the youth again tried to get past. Khan kept hold of the handlebars, still demanding that he accept responsibility for damage to the car.

‘Who is going to pay for this?’ he shouted, pointing to the scratch again, his temper flaring. He had tried to be reasonable, if the youth had apologised that would be the end of it, and he could have moved on. But no longer, the youth’s racism and refusal to accept blame had exacerbated the situation well beyond the point of rationality.

‘Not me, you fucking Paki, if you’d stayed in Pakiland, where you belong, this wouldn’t have happened, now would it? So, fuck off out of my way!’ and he pushed the bike into Mohammed’s knees, determined to get way.

But Khan still held onto the handlebars, equally determined not to let go until the issue had been resolved. There had been damage to his new car, and somebody had to accept the blame.

The youth struggled again to wrench the bike away from Mohammed’s grasp, but then he suddenly pulled a knife from his belt, stabbed Mohammed Khan once in the chest and, as Khan collapsed, he pushed past, mounted the bike, and sped off, bloody knife in hand.

A driver from one of the backed-up cars rushed and tried to assist Mohammed, taking off his jacket and wrapping it across his chest, pressing it to the wound and then turned the heavily bleeding man onto the recovery position as another motorist called 999, urgently requesting police and an ambulance following a violent stabbing in Midland Road.

Although the ambulance crew responded as a Category 1 call, the most serious call, and were on the scene within eight minutes, the paramedics were unable to save him, and Mohammed Khan was declared dead at the scene.

The police were on the scene shortly afterwards and the first responders reported to CID that the incident was an apparent murder scene and that an SIO - Senior Investigating Officer - and detectives from West Garside CID were urgently required.

Meanwhile police took control of the situation, diverting cars, buses, and vans away from Midland Road whilst uniformed officers took brief statements from all the vehicles in the vicinity of the murder, only allowing the backed-up traffic to move after registration numbers and names and addresses had been taken.