The Mello Code

Mello drove to the police station on his own. As they had entered Hampshire, Mello had casually asked Matt if he was coming with him or not. The redhead had reacted with that highly annoying stance, where he winced and said nothing, hoping that Mello would just decide for him to go alone. Mello just wished that Matt would just state openly, \'I don\'t want to come. It\'s your code. You messed the case up in the first place. You deal with it.\' He hated the wishy-washy nothingness of Matt\'s loaded silences. Mello could have argued the point, reminded his husband that he too had just had a long, arduous journey from the north and would also rather be going straight home now. It wasn\'t worth the hassle of Matt going into a mood for the rest of the night. Instead, Mello dropped him off at their gate, with all the bags, then reversed to retrace his way back to Winchester. He hated the inefficiency of it all, but that was just the way it was.



The blond strode into the police station now and smiled at the duty officer. Mello\'s whole body language communicated eloquently the message, \'hurry up\'. He didn\'t speak though, beyond a cursory, "Good evening." He pushed a note across the counter which read, \'I\'m M. Your Chief Superintendent is waiting to speak with me.\' The duty officer had obviously been warned. He raced to pick up a telephone and a sergeant was down within a couple of minutes to usher Mello through to the inner sanctum. Mello smiled inwardly. He could get used to this treatment.



This Chief Superintendent was no CS Bennett. She introduced herself as Pauline Doughty and, though smartly dressed in her uniform, there was an air of femininity about her that made Mello wonder how she\'d smashed through the glass ceiling into this traditionally male role. He found himself comparing her unfavourably to Hal. But CS Doughty had fine art in frames and flowers on her cabinet shelf. Hal was basically a refined street fighter in a suit. This woman gave the impression of being more at home in an art gallery than in her actual environment of a police station. She spoke with such a pronounced Estuary accent, that Mello found himself carefully enunciating the Home Counties received English of his Wammy\'s House youth. His unconscious reaction to her told him immediately that he had to watch her like a hawk.



"M, how delightful to meet you. May I offer you refreshments?"



"A coffee would be wonderful. Thank you." Mello replied, with no intention of actually drinking it. He listened to his own words, trying to catch the Slavic edge on his vowels that Matt maintained was there. Mello couldn\'t hear it at all. He realised that he was being distracted again and that was very unlike him. He wished he could blame it on the stress of the journey here, but he had remained focused and sharp in far more trying situations than this. His piercing self-analysis threw up the fact that this woman presented such a picture of upper middle class English deportment, that it made Mello feel inferior. He blinked inwardly at that. None of the Wammy alumni were English. The class system so rife in this country was a subject of academic investigation, not reality in their lives. Mello didn\'t even understand emotionally why the English appeared so ready to subscribe themselves to set categories, though he intellectually perceived the social reasons that it happened. He had never even tried to work out where he might have fallen in the hierarchy, had he been English. A second thought pierced the rest, that he would have been middle class, with reference to his education and cultural taste. There was no good reason to feel cowed by this woman for instinctual reasons of post-feudal social structures. That determined, Mello watched her rise from her seat to order the coffee delivered. He was grateful that his moment of rationalising had evidently only taken a few seconds.



CS Doughty directed him to one of two easy chairs situated by a window and flanked by an enormous pot plant. She sat in one herself. Mello glanced sharply out of the window. He had a dislike, born of both instinct and experience, of sitting in strange windows. Someone could have your head off with a sniper rifle with behaviour like that. Politeness dogged his conscience, telling him to sit down right now, but politeness wasn\'t a recipe for survival. He disdained the easy chair for another, harder one, further back in the room. Mello sat on it with a smirking confidence that dared her to comment. She couldn\'t, of course, she was English and they had been taught how to use the manners of the English against them; and the French; and the Americans; and a list of other cultures. Mello had forgotten how much fun it was to put that learning into practice.



Predictably, CS Doughty did not refer to it. She frowned slightly, but then simply adjusted her chair to face him again. "I\'m sorry it\'s so inclement today." She said instead, as if she could somehow control the weather. "I hope it hasn\'t sullied your impression of our country." She was blatantly watching Mello\'s reaction. He stared back and smiled. "Otherwise, how are you finding your visit to the United Kingdom?"



"Wet." Mello tried to calculate the distance between the police station and Wammy\'s House. He decided that it was roughly 0.23 miles. His mind also threw up a memory of Matt recounting one of Century\'s excuses for walking out of the institution. Not that the Welshman needed any. It had been a class where the country that they were in was referred to as the United Kingdom rather than Great Britain. Century had apparently ranted about semetics of terminology, overturned a chair and disappeared for a week. Mello was half sad that he\'d left Wammy\'s House when he did. It sounded like it got much more interesting after he\'d gone in pursuit of Kira.



"Oh dear." CS Doughty looked sympathetic. "And how was your journey here?"



"From Manchester?" Mello smirked, knowing well enough that she was fishing to find out where his homebase was. "Wet with traffic problems." For no other reason than she was boring him now, he decided to call her bluff. "The Home Office have asked you to pump me for information about the letters. They should contact Watari."



She flushed almost imperceptively. If he hadn\'t been looking for it, he would have missed it. She laughed and it didn\'t sound fake. "Those old fusspots, we don\'t have to worry about them. Let us be honest with each other. I did expect you to be older. You were under the tutelage of L? You must have started very young."



Mello laughed. "Brilliant." His expression became more serious, just a hint of danger. "Let\'s discuss the reason I\'m here. You have arrested Rajan Singh. Has he been charged?"



"He is currently in our cells and has been read his rights. He is helping us with our inquiries concerning a car theft." She fixed him with a penetrating stare. "Hardly a crime worthy of a letter. What is the bigger picture, M?"



"The bigger picture is that I have to interview him tonight so that Greater Manchester don\'t break the law on retaining his father." Mello stood, making it quite clear that that was about to happen. CS Doughty appeared distinctly unbemused by his response. Her mouth tightened into a thin line, but she rose. "I will be interviewing him myself. It will take too long to brief your people."



CS Doughty frowned. "There is much more to this than meets the eye, M. Watari wouldn\'t have sent someone from L\'s stable if that wasn\'t the case. I do hope that it is not a matter of national security. For your information, M15 have been informed of your involvement."



Mello blinked, inwardly sinking. It seemed that he could do nothing without it snowballing out of control. He wouldn\'t have minded if he was sure himself that this was an important case. He would probably have got off on it if it was part of the Kira case. As it was, Mello half-fancied he could hear the ghost of L laughing at him. Outwardly though, Mello did not react. He acted as though he was used to the intelligence agencies of nations turning their spotlight onto him. A second thought told him that that probably all had a casefile on him anyway. If not alone, he would certainly be part of a \'letter\' file. Alarm snagged at his consciousness and Mello wondered just how paranoid he should be. He followed CS Doughty down to the interview rooms. It was only as he waited for Rajan Singh to be brought to him that Mello realised he\'d not really thought through his own strategy. He\'d been too busy being annoyed with Matt on the way here to concentrate. Mello sighed. He was more tired than he\'d thought.



Rajan Singh arrived flanked by policemen. He was a small man with a baby-face. He looked about fourteen, though his file had stated that he was nineteen. He appeared already flustered and cowed. Out of his depth with silver-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose. Mello revised all of the questions he had just been rapidly forming and just asked straight out, "Why did you steal your father\'s car, with the surveillance equipment that you had built in the back of it, and park it outside a local Children\'s Home?"



Rajan appeared about to tell all, but the duty solicitor intervened. "Is there evidence to support these claims?"



"Navinder Singh is your father, yes?" Mello found himself impatient with legal questioning. He knew that he could have got any information out of this kid that he wanted, if he had just played it off the record. He barely registered the quiet \'yes\'. "We have him held in our Greater Manchester HQ. He\'s already been questioned. What do you think he told us?"



"I don\'t know."



Mello took in all the subtle signs of body language. He didn\'t need to threaten. This wasn\'t a Mafia family get together. The teenager was on the brink of tears as it was. "Ok, I\'m going to give you a break. We suspect that you are involved in a global, snatch-to-order, paedophilia ring." Mello watched Rajan\'s eyes open wide in panicked indignation. Mello didn\'t consider this technically lying. After all, Matt had mentioned it. The constables in the room were watching Mello with stoically blank concern. He leaned on the table and took out his chocolate. "Mr Singh, why don\'t you make this easy for all of us and tell us your side of the story?" Silence. "What were you doing in Norwich? Where is Amanda Carr?"



Rajan was sweating, turning pale and agitated. "I swear I\'m nothing to do with all that! I took the car, yes! I\'m not no paedophile!"



Mello registered the double negative. "So you are involved?"



The solicitor spoke up, "We wish to be presented with the evidence that you have against my client."



"All in good time." Mello smirked. "Mr Singh, which child in the Wammy\'s House orphanage did you have your eye on? There was an order for a child matching that description, yes?"



"No! Yes, I mean, no, it was nothing to do with paedophilia! She\'s eighteen!" His handprints were left on the table when he lifted his hands away. "She told Nathan that he didn\'t have half her intelligence and until he could find out something to astound her, then she wasn\'t giving him the time of day, let alone going out with him!"



Mello frowned. "Who\'s Nathan?"



"My friend. I was there! She said he was beneath her. She\'s really smart. Grade A student." Rajan stared at Mello in fright. The blond didn\'t say a word, waiting for him to hang himself. "She said that her name is Jamboree. She wouldn\'t give us any more information about herself. But she was flirting with him. Honestly."



Mello bit off a block of chocolate. The sound of its snapping bounced off the walls. "Go on."



"It was all a bit of a laugh really." Rajan finished, weakly.



The crunching of the chocolate went on for a long minute. Mello eventually cleared his mouth. "You are telling me that you went all the way to Manchester to steal your father\'s car for the equipment inside it. You did this so you could spy on a girl for your friend, in order to get information on her so that your friend could continue chatting her up."



"Yes."



"Bullshit." Mello stared deeply into his eyes. "Tell me the real reason you were spying on that orphanage."



Rajan flinched. "It is the truth, man, I\'m telling you."



"But it\'s not the whole truth." Mello did not blink. His expression caused the teenager to lean back in his chair and the constables to shuffle uncomfortably. "How about you tell me the whole truth?"



"I already had the car." Rajan squeaked. "I\'d already stolen it and taken it to London. We had it in Demmy\'s brother\'s lock up."



"Who\'s Demmy?"



"My friend."



There were half a dozen places that Mello could have been right now. Foremost amongst them was home. Matt had had the right idea. "Mr Singh..."



He didn\'t need to ask more. The teenager just gabbled, even when his solicitor raised a hand to gesture silence. "I took the car for Merissa. My Dad\'s a detective. He deals with matters of," Rajan paused, finding the word, "honour. Merissa\'s got a boyfriend and her family found out. She wasn\'t allowed out, but she sneaked out. They had her passport and everything. She was going to be sent to Pakistan. She\'s in hiding. My Dad thinks he knows where she is, but without the surveillance, he couldn\'t prove it. She called me, because she and Ruth had sat in silence for eight hours because my Dad was parked outside their house. He called it fifteen times and looked in all the downstairs windows. Me and Demmy went up in his car and I drove my Dad\'s car back. We kept it in Demmy\'s brother\'s lock-up. Then all that with Jamboree and, well, ways and means, so we fetched the car and," Rajan bit his lip, "listened. It wasn\'t no paedophile ring, I promise!"



Mello stared. He believed him. "How very noble. Merissa\'s boyfriend, namely, would be you."



"Yes." Rajan\'s forehead creased. His big brown eyes had a sheen of tears.



"And did you find out anything about Jamboree?"



"No."



Mello narrowed his eyes. "You, Nathan and Demmy listened to..."



"No, just me."



"Just you." Mello stared. He didn\'t need the man to take a polygraph test, his body language spoke of the truth of this. "Can anyone confirm your story?"



"Nathan, Demmy, Merissa and Ruth can. So can Jamboree."



Mello rose from where he had been leaning on the table. "We\'ll just have to bring them in then. Thank you for your time, Mr Singh." He strode to the door, leaving a constable to have to call out the date and time for the interview termination into the recorder. Mello waited until he was finished. "Mr Singh, give the officer their full names and addresses." He left the room. CS Doughty appeared in the corridor before he was halfway along it. She had obviously been alerted. Mello fixed his brightest smile and turned to wait for her to catch up. "I\'ve finished with the suspect. If his story checks out with the four friends, then see if his father wants to press charges for the theft. Check to see if Merissa wants to charge her family with false imprisonment." Mello had been wondering what L would do in this situation. The original L. Lawliet. Mello thought he knew and so smoothly added, "Release Rajan Singh and tell Manchester to release Navinder Singh. It was a red herring and not subject to my wider case. I will, however, stop by the orphanage myself and speak to the warden. Could you provide me with directions to this Wammy\'s House please?"



The chief superintendent reached out to touch his arm. Mello stepped back. She affected not to notice, but didn\'t attempt to touch him again. "We can send officers around to the orphanage. They will be our best, I can assure you. We have a great team here." She smiled. "M..."



"Thank you." Mello took out his mobile \'phone and pointedly looked at the time, before slotting it back into his pocket. "I do have somewhere to be. Is this important?"



"Perhaps you would like to take coffee..."



"Perhaps I wouldn\'t." Mello smiled. "I apologise for my rushed attitude, but I do need to catch a flight later on tonight. For my own piece of mind, I would also like to speak with the warden of the orphanage. You can direct me?"



"You believe that a paedophilia ring is operating in Winchester?" CS Doughty prompted firmly. Mello inwardly sighed, regretting the half-lie. "That naturally concerns me."



Mello retained the smile. "You will be informed if our investigation throws up anything on your patch." He started walking back down the corridor, mentally retracing his route from the entrance, via her office, to the interview rooms. He knew how to get out. "Ah!" He turned on his heel again. "You were going to direct me to Wammy\'s House."