Death Row - Mark Pearson [74]
‘Your boys just redressing the balance, are they?’
‘I told you. Matt had nothing to do with that stabbing.’
‘You’ll forgive us if we don’t just take your word for that. Come on, Henson. There’s some people want to talk to you.’
Bennett nodded to the uniformed officer who led Henson to the door. He stopped and called back to Kate. ‘If I’m wrong … you tell me why there are over seven times more black people in prison, proportionately speaking, than there are white.’
‘I can guess.’
‘Don’t guess, just look at the facts. That Irish scum Jack Delaney puts my eldest boy in prison for defending himself against a vicious attack from a gang of Paki terrorists.’
Kate kept her face impassive.
‘My other boy goes in the frame for something he didn’t do and everyone involved is going to suffer for it. Mark my words.’
Bennett laughed. ‘What are you going to do, Henson? Sit on us?’
The uniform led Henson out of the office.
‘Nice family,’ said Kate.
‘The apple doesn’t seem to have fallen far from the tree, that’s for sure.’
‘You didn’t tell me that Jack had arrested the Henson boys.’
‘I didn’t know. And it’s not exactly relevant, is it?’
Kate shrugged. ‘Any sign of Henson junior?’
‘Not yet. We’ve got what our American cousins call an APB out on him.’
‘He should be fairly easy to spot.’
‘True – not many people go round with their GCSE woodwork grade tattooed on the back of their head.’
Kate noded. ‘What I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘While you were off arresting Big Daddy I did a little bit of research on the internet.’
‘Go on.’
‘B-minus isn’t just a grade, is it?’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘What else, then?’
‘A blood type.’
Bennett nodded thoughtfully. ‘True.’
‘As a doctor, I should have thought of it before.’
‘What’s the point of that? Bit like having a tag saying you are a diabetic, that kind of thing?’
‘Well, kind of.’
‘You telling me that doctors take tattoos on the back of the head as a legitimate indicator of blood type, so that in emergencies they can just go ahead without testing and whack in a pint of B-minus as required?’
‘Well, not any more.’
‘Not any more? You’re telling me they used to?’ Bennett was genuinely taken aback.
Kate picked up some pages from her desk and handed them to him. ‘I printed off some material from the internet.’
Bennett took the papers. ‘Why don’t you summarise?’
‘You ever heard the word Lebensborn?’
‘Nope.’
‘It translates as “fount of life” in Old German. Set up by Heinrich Himmler originally in Germany, as part of their programme to create a master race.’
‘Aryans?’
‘Exactly. Tall, muscular, blue-eyed, fair-haired men and women.’
‘Which is odd when you consider that Hitler was a short, dark-haired, brown-eyed man.’
‘Anyway, it started off as a sort of orphanage setup but when the war was in its full stride it took on a more sinister note.’
‘Like?’
‘They set up a Lebensborn operation in Norway because they wanted to mingle German blood with the pure Aryan bloodstock that they believed came from Scandinavia.’
‘I heard something about that.’
‘Some claim there were brothels – Norwegian women forced to breed with SS officers. There is a lot of controversy on the issue to this day. Anyway, remember that the Henson surname is an anglicised version of the Scandinavian name Hansen.’
‘Yeah, Henson senior seemed to be quite proud of his heritage.’
‘A lot of the children born in that era suffered dreadfully.’
‘At Nazi hands, you mean?’
‘No. After the war. From their own people. The women who consorted with the SS officers were vilified, their heads shaved, drummed out of town. There have been claims of the children born being used in child prostitution. The worthy and the good lining up in the street to abuse and rape them.’
‘But no