“It’s simple,” said Carver. “It’s pragmatic, a matter of simple practicalities. Let me explain. Your average whites don’t make too much of a fuss if you hassle them. The Muslim community pulls together and makes a noise about it. No matter that they’re mostly third-generation Pakistanis in Wytherton—their grandparents came over in the fifties—and that they often embrace Western culture and seem just as English as you and me. Maybe their grandparents brought the old religion with them, but it started to fade with their children. These days, they’re either westernized or . . . well, you know, attracted by the other extreme. Luckily that doesn’t happen too much around Wytherton. Either way, they feel themselves to be different, singled out, as easily demonized, especially when it suits them, and they make a noise about it. And when they do, guess who has to deal with it.” He pointed his thumb at his own chest. “Wytherton is a split community. We’ve got the Muslims mostly to the south of the Strip in Lower Wytherton, though they’re spreading slowly into the north, and Wytherton Heights is mostly white. There are also areas where whites and British Pakistanis live side by side and have done for years. The boundaries are constantly changing. If we went in and came down hard on the Muslim community for no good reason, we’d have pitched battles on Town Street. Is that what you want to see, DI Cabbot?”

“No,” said Annie. “But we didn’t go in hard, and it wasn’t for no good reason. Besides, I don’t believe the men we’re dealing with are Muslims in any real sense of the word. Muslims don’t do what was done to Mimosa. Muslims don’t rape and kill young girls. Well, they do, actually, some of them, but we’ll leave that aside for the time being. And they don’t exactly have an enlightened attitude towards women, while we’re at it, but if you point that out to some people, they just accuse you of picking on it as an excuse to demonize them because they don’t believe the same things you do. We may be wrong, but we think—I think—that Mimosa and probably some of her friends were being groomed. And we think it’s happening on your patch. Whether you simply ignored it or hadn’t a clue, I have no idea, but I should think they’ve suspended operations for the time being. What I want is justice for Mimosa Moffat, a fifteen-year-old girl from the Wytherton Heights estate who was gang-raped by three men of Pakistani descent, according to DNA evidence, and beaten to death by a person or persons unknown on my patch. If that means upsetting a few people in the community, so be it. Boo-bloody-hoo. Besides, the nearest any of that lot have been to Pakistan is the nearest Karachi Curry House.”

“Irrelevant, DI Cabbot,” said Carver. “Are you on some sort of personal vendetta? Is that what’s preventing you from seeing the bigger picture? Because if—”