Page 101 of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
AB:So he was more outdoorsy than academic?
GF:Yes. A people-person. He and Clem did the Duke of Edinburgh Award together. Harry went for gold, but fell behind in maths and English. I think Clem helped him as much as he could. This was years before I arrived. They were eleven years older than me.
AB:Which uni did Harry go to?
GF:I can’t recall. It wasn’t Oxford or Cambridge. Ithinkhe read law somewhere, but Clem went to Edinburgh. He was studying medicine and had no time to keep up with friends. They lost touch and so did we … the rest of the family.
AB:How did youknowthe Harpinder Singh found dead in Alperton in 2003 was the same friend of your brother’s from so many years before?
GF:The picture they used. As soon as I saw it … You know the one?
AB:This?
GF:Yes. He’s standing with his head in a towel. It looks like a Sikh turban, but Harry never wore one. His hair was short, all the years we knew him, anyway. The picture is cropped very closely around his face and head.Thisis the photograph it comes from.
[He shows you something. EC]
AB:Oh. [You sound surprised. EC]
GF:It’s a group shot of the boys from his house; that’s the accommodation where they live in term time. They’d been wild swimming and this was taken just after they’d climbed out of the river. You can see Harry is holding the towel on his head. That’s my brother, Clem. They’d be seventeen or eighteen here, not long before they left.
AB:It’s definitely the same picture. It seems a strange one to use. Ifhe went to Harrow there’d be formal pictures of him in uniform with his class.
GF:Likethisone. That’s Clem, that’s Harry … taken no more than a year before the other picture. It’s always seemed to me they wanted him to appear more …Indianwhen they reported his death. As if he’d only just arrived in the UK as an economic migrant. He’d lived here all his life. The family were wealthy, with businesses all over the world. He was very … and I hope this isn’t an offensive thing to say: he was veryEnglish. Very western.
AB:This is a small, grainy picture. How did you recognise your brother’s old friend, someone much older than you, who you hadn’t seen in a decade?
GF:That’s a favourite picture in my family. We’ve all got one, framed. I know every pixel of it. [He pauses. EC] Clem is right in the centre. The summer after this, he taught street kids in Peru on an exchange. He was academic, sporty and good with people. What else is there?
AB:When did Clem die? [He pauses again. How did you know he was dead? EC]
GF:In 2000. He was twenty-six. It happened overnight. He had a heart condition we didn’t know about …
AB:I’m sorry. [Silence. EC]
AB:Did Harry get in touch then? He’d been so close …
GF:I understand my parents messaged him through the contact details they had, as did other friends. His family seemed to have moved abroad. If any of those messages reached him, he didn’t reply. Which wasn’t so unusual. No one knows what to say in a situation like that. Some people just say nothing.
AB:True.
GF:I was actually here, at school myself, when they told me. [A long pause. EC] And I’mstillhere.
[I cut out your goodbyes. EC]
WhatsApp messages between Oliver Menzies and me, 21 July 2021:
Oliver Menzies
Wrong name, wrong age, wrong biographical details. The only thing that links penniless immigrant Harpinder Singh to posh Harry Singh is this blurred picture. It could be that all the details they released about the dead man are correct – they just used the wrong photograph.
Amanda Bailey
You could be right. But Galen went to Posh Harry’s funeral. And Posh Harry’s family were in court for Gabriel’s trial and sentencing. You can google his sister’s statement afterwards. Get tissues. Moving stuff.
Oliver Menzies
In that case I’ll watch it AFTER my meeting with Jo at Green Street
