“At the eastern end of Silbury High Street, adjacent to the Town Hall and Khan Antiques and Curios, the Western Provincial Bank looked exactly as you would expect. Its exterior was of dark grey stone with heavy brown doors at its entrance. Once inside the second set of glass doors, you entered a dimly lit oblong room that ran practically the full length of the building On your left was a heavy wooden counter up to waist level and glass panels from there to just above the height of one’s head. At the end, on the counter side, was a walk-in safe that protected a fair bit of cash, but more importantly the bank’s ledgers. On the customer side was a door leading to a cosy office belonging to Mrs Peiris, Manager.”
It’s 1966. We are in Silbury, a small town in the west of England with a broad High Street, a major independent school, five banks, eleven public houses, and a police station led by Inspector Fatima Dieng. It ought to be a sleepy place, and mostly it is. Yet somehow almost every month some new and significant problem arises that Fatima has to deal with.
In April there is a flood of counterfeit currency in the town.
In May the daughter of a prominent politician is found dead at Silbury College.
During the summer the Longbarrow Tea Rooms are burnt almost to the ground.
In October a prominent scientist at a nearby hush-hush government research facility goes missing.
In November the Mistress of the Silbury Hunt is shot dead.
And in December Fatima herself is the victim of a robbery, whilst she is away on an outing with her two best friends.
In resolving these these various crimes, though not always bringing them to full resolution, Fatima shows resourcefulness, humanity and humour. Together with her fellow police officers, and aided by close friends, she tackles not only crime but also ingrained greed, privilege and racism in a society that is undergoing fundamental changes.
And she makes a powerful enemy, who uses every opportunity to undermine her.
“Silbury College is a public school. This means, of course, since we are in England, that it is an independent, private, fee paying institution. Its public status places it among the top ten independent schools in the country. The girls that attend the school are children of the great and the good, that is the most privileged segment of society in Prime Minister Sangeeta Gandhi’s new socialist Britain.”
“The Silbury Hunt holds a number of meets during the season, which in England runs from November to May. The first is always one of its biggest, as hunters have spent months inactive and in preparation for the new season. In 1966 the first meet of the year fell on the 5th of November and was to be followed by a big Bonfire Night celebration. The Hunt, which was led by the wealthier landowners of the district, met at half past ten in the morning six miles northeast of Silbury at the country seat of Lady Tran Thi Tuy, Mistress of the Hounds. If the beaters followed their instructions faithfully, the meet would proceed across grazing land owned by Lady Tran, through the Roe Forest, and end in or around the village of Granham, where the fox would be killed and the Mistress blooded with its severed tail.”
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