“I always say that you have to have time for those small details that make the difference. Take, for example, a really good lemon meringue pie. Most people these days will buy a tin of lemon filling, or whatever it’s called, from their local supermarket, like Mwangi’s in Silbury. That will give you an over sweet, bland product. What’s the point of calling it lemon, if you don’t use real fruit? ”
“I know I’m not what the Inspector – of course, I means Inspector Fatima Dieng, not them others as I has had to work with – might call erudite, but I do know this place in and out. Sleepy West Country town, they do say. Yes, and there be plenty of privilege, hypocrisy and corruption too, and not just the petty kind. ”
We must by now be perfectly well aware of how Inspector Fatima Dieng might approach practically any issue under the sun. But what of others?
Here is our opportunity to find out. These are the thoughts, and stories, of ten women and men who might distinguish themselves as being among the closest to our heroine. They include colleagues in the police force in both Silbury and Shechester, close friends and confidantes, representatives and adoptees of those mysterious travellers, and even her own daughter.
As they would say – as they, in fact, write here – they are witnesses indeed to all that is The World of Inspector Fatima Dieng. But they too have their own tales to retell.
“People, at our first encounter, have a tendency to feel sorry for me. Either that, or they are repulsed. I can see it in their faces. I don’t care. I’m one of the most fortunate souls on this earth. Why? The fact is that you’re not going to know true happiness, the kind that enriches, provides total fulfillment to your life, until you’ve overcome whatever difficulties, handicaps, disabilities you’ve been living with. We all have them. It’s just that, for some of us they’re worse than they are for you run-of-the-mill hoi polloi. ”
“I have to admit that my own curiosity probably matched her own, though it would have been indecorous to admit that openly. Still, we sat in the caravan for over two hours, drinking tea and munching on sandwiches and biscuits. Constable clearly had an insatiable thirst for knowledge, which her time in a school geared more towards trades than academics had done little to assuage. Her questions were often confusing, but this did not stem from any lack of innate erudition, even articulacy. Rather, she had learned to speak a vernacular that defied all rules of grammar, throwing in a strong regional accent to boot. ”
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