Page 16 of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
AB:Harpinder Singh. I’ve read everything I can get hold of on the case and I don’t know …
DM:What?
AB:The evidence that put Gabriel behind bars seems flimsy at best.
DM:Does that mean he didn’t do it?
AB:No.
DM:His fingerprints were found in the derelict flat alongside the body, I think?
AB:A partial fingerprint, on a leaflet on the floor.
DM:Yes. He was forensically aware enough to avoid leaving prints but plucked the leaflet from the letterbox at some point. Probably an automatic reflex on the way out, when the adrenalin was fading.
AB:Singh was a penniless waiter. He worked fourteen-hour days. There’s no evidence he’d joined the cult even if he’d had time to. Why would they kill him?
DM:Why do people like that do anything?
AB:Was his murder ritualistic? [He doesn’t seem to answer. Your lunch arrives here. I ignored bits where you talk to the waiter and discuss the food. Blackened cod. Sounds overdone. EC]
DM:…We weren’t involved much beyond that.
AB:So, Gabriel is convicted of Singh’s murder and the post-mortem mutilation of the other three angels. Holly and Jonah give evidence about how he ensnared them in the cult and he’s sentenced to a whole-life tariff. But the teenagers were never held accountable.
DM:Given what they’d been through there was no appetite to charge them with anything. Rightly or wrongly. Are seventeen-year-olds responsible for their actions? Given their extreme vulnerability? We focused on him. He was the only adult angel left alive.
AB:But they could’ve been …
DM:It was a tricky one. They were both victims, drawn into a cult and used by it. But they’d extricated themselves and saved a baby. The CPS weren’t comfortable blaming them. Certainly not while Gabriel was alive and kicking.
AB:And they were minors, after all.
DM:Uh-huh. Although seventeen … above the age of consent, so … If adults want to create their own fantasy world and live in it … [He doesn’t finish this sentence. EC] Theirs was out there, it wasn’t illegal.
AB:But when a cult leads its members to kill themselves—
DM:You’ve seen the coroner’s reports? The angels died from single knife wounds to the throat. Self-inflicted. [Silence while you – and now me – contemplate this grisly thought. EC]
AB:A whole-life tariff is unusual for someone found guilty of just one murder. I wonder if the judge suspected Gabriel of killing the others, too?
DM:Indeed, look at the circumstances, Amanda. Gabriel may nothave wielded the knife, but he convinced those men to kill themselves then eviscerated their bodies post-mortem, and posed them in a satanic circle. He’s insane and yes, we could indeed say he’s responsible for the other deaths, so …
AB:Strange case.
DM:Mmmm. Nutcase.
AB:Where does Harpinder Singh fit in?
DM:[His mouth is full, ew. I can’t hear the first part of his sentence. EC] … it’s heroic.
AB:Not for Harpinder Singh.
DM:Of course, I mean the baddies died or were caught and the baby survived.
AB:Poetic, maybe. Do you know a police officer called Jonathan Childs?
DM:No, I don’t think so.
