“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.”
British herstory circa 1965-1975: governance of the United Queendom is dominated by two diametrically opposed political ideologies. On the one hand, we have the vision of inclusive radical change offered by Labour, led by the charismatic Sangeeta Gandhi. On the other, we have reaction and, frankly, division offered by the Conservative Party of Anjali Gurung.
But what does this all represent for the ordinary citizen, whatever might be her, or indeed his, origin? How is this all seen in, for instance, a sleepy little town in the English West Country, or in one of the country's most dynamic big cities in the northwest?
One way of looking at it all might be to follow the experiences of a caring and competent police officer, Inspector Fatima Dieng, first in Silbury and later in Shechester. Her battle is not only to solve crime. In the course of her work and life, she is confronted by a microcosm of the problems faced by the country as a whole, regrettably with greed and bigotry at the forefront. The very fact that she takes them on brings with it a host of powerful, some might say evil, enemies.
But Fatima has unusual and unconventional friends and allies, who are attracted to her by her own actions, values and principles, and who help her to prevail, at least in most instances.
Cover art by Charulata Prasada https://www.charulataprasada.net/ https://www.jamesrottmanfineart.com/charulata-prasada/
“Fatima turned to watch them as they ran away. What a strange encounter, she thought. Then she turned back, and suddenly there was a loud bang and a flash in front of her and a horrendous pain in her chest. As she fell to the ground, she lost consciousness, but she did also recall another sound coming through the fog of her brain. It was like a police whistle.”
“All of her training - she had spent her national service with Army Intelligence - told her that the best interrogator is the one that listens, the one that invites her adversary to fill the silences she has created by resisting almost every temptation to speak. Certainly sometimes a degree of menace needed to be created, but even that was best understated, certainly not debased through the use of any physical force. Your adversary must tell you what she is inwardly compelled to say, the truth, not what you, the interrogator, want to hear, which is not the whole truth, only your corrupted version of it.”
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