Читать книгу The Inquiry - Will Caine - Страница 13
ОглавлениеHeading north out of King’s Cross, they exchanged idle chitchat before burying themselves behind laptops. Sara forced herself to act naturally with Patrick; the anonymous text preyed on her every waking moment, distorting the lens through which she grabbed occasional glances at him, in touching distance across the table, peering down at his screen.
She tried to convince herself there could be another explanation. It was more than a decade since that last text, sent in precisely the same form of language from an unknown number, had cast its shadow over her life. But people texted all the time, she told herself, without bothering with names. Except, as she well knew, the receiver would know the name from the number – or at least have a number that responded when they checked.
She’d repeatedly gone over the core words: ‘… A colleague may not be what they seem…’ They were too vague to be meaningful. A nothing. Anyone could have made that up.
She needed to stop kidding herself – this was not a random coincidence. Either it was the same sender or someone who knew about, or once had some contact with that sender, and knew their modus operandi. But for what? To scare her? To help her? To undermine her?
She grabbed another look at Patrick, then found herself seeing those other faces in the Inquiry office floating by.
If only she could discuss it with someone. But she understood all too well the logic of her position. The text was a dagger only to her because of the message that July morning fourteen years ago. Unless she owned up to that, anyone looking at this message would simply tell her to ignore it. Some joker trying to wind her up, they’d say. Or the detritus of office politics and rivalries.
Perhaps, when she next saw Morahan, she might ask him whether he had reason to suspect that anyone on his staff was operating to a different agenda. He’d probably look at her with mystification. If he did, she could just about imagine herself showing him the text. She could already hear his reaction – don’t worry, some idiot…
She was going round in circles. She could never, and would never, tell a single soul about the 2005 text. She had set that in concrete when the Met detective called on her a few weeks after 7/7. He knew only that she, like many others, had attended meetings where people now of interest to the police might have been present. She said she couldn’t help him; she recognised none of the names he raised. He had no reason to doubt her.
The questions the text raised, the guilt it ignited were impossible, unthinkable to admit to anyone but herself. At that crucial moment, however much she could be forgiven for not instantly interpreting it, she had, as it turned out, failed in the most devastating possible way – a failure she’d carried like a death row prisoner’s shackles ever since. The texts, past and present, were a weight she must bear alone. The only means of sidelining them was to focus single-mindedly on the task ahead.
Trying not to catch Patrick’s eye she retrieved from her bag the Sayyid folder Morahan had given her. Wherever they now were – if they were even still alive – the five individuals named in the files all hailed from the town of Blackburn in East Lancashire. The files shared the same template, headings running vertically down the left column. The left heading was TOP SECRET, right side OPERATION with the following word blacked out. The next line began KV2 followed by a further redaction. The headings below ran: PICTURE; NAME; DOB; LOCATION; PHONE; HOME ADDRESS; FAMILY ADDRESS; FIRST CONTACT; CURRENT STATUS; NOTES; HUMINT; COMINT; LAST CONTACT; FILE STATUS.
One name was Samir Mohammed. His photograph showed a young Asian, probably taken in his late teens. Date of birth was 12 October 1987; home and family addresses the same number and street in Blackburn; current status ‘inactive’; file status ‘Closed 31 December 2006’. One entry withstood clear interpretation. Humint read ‘Contacts not pursued after closure.’
Assuming he was alive – and had not since been involved in anything of interest to the police or intelligence services – Sara judged that he might be the easiest to approach. Whether or not he still lived in Blackburn was unknown. There was no hint of what story he, or any of the other four, might have to tell.
Announcing herself as a lawyer working for a government inquiry would guarantee doors slammed in her face. Tempting though it was – and even though she suspected it was the easiest way to get a foot in the door – she decided against presenting herself as an ambulance-chasing lawyer on the lookout for Muslim clients seeking financial redress against the police (a role she was all too familiar with). Instead she would introduce herself as a market researcher working on a project seeking to learn lessons on the past twenty years of governmental relationships with the young Muslim community.
She told Patrick her protocol. Despite that moment when he’d seen her returning with the folder from Morahan’s office, she stuck to the line that she was following up cases from Rainbow.
‘Maybe when you arrive in the street of one of the addresses, you should knock on every tenth door,’ suggested Patrick. ‘Then if someone answers and is willing, do the survey with them. Just for show. It might protect not just you but your target.’ He paused. ‘Whoever they are.’ He was grinning; there was no edge, just a hint of playfulness.
She smiled back. ‘That’s a great idea, thanks.’ She’d already planned something similar but his helpfulness pleased her and she didn’t want to discourage him. She’d been worried that their professional relationship, even without the anonymous text, would be uneasy after her show of resistance to him accompanying her. She had a further card up her sleeve but, for the moment, kept it to herself. She might not need to play it.
In the time left on the train, she checked websites on Blackburn and its environs, accumulating small details of local knowledge. At Preston, they picked up a hire car, Patrick easing into his promised role as driver.
‘Do you sit in the back or the front?’ he asked with the customary grin.
As they headed south out of Preston, she found herself glancing at him. Assuming, as she told herself she must, that things were as they seemed, she wondered what he was thinking about his role as bit-part player. She also noted his perfectly angled jaw-line and broad but straight nose. The edges of his black hair were touched with a few flecks of grey; otherwise there were no signs of age or sag and, even seated in the driving position, no bulge at the waist.
‘You’re inspecting me,’ he said abruptly.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I do it to everyone.’ She paused. ‘Including Morahan. I can give you a precise facial description if you want.’
‘I can manage without.’ The grin returned.
‘I know it’s not easy, this,’ she said.
‘It’s fine.’
‘You’re not a fool. You must want me to share.’
‘It’s OK. You’ll tell me what you want when you want. Though I’d like you to know this: you can trust me. If you speak to me in confidence, it remains between you and me.’ They turned off the motorway to a sign marked ‘City Centre’. ‘But there’s one thing you do have to tell me right now. Where are we going?’
‘Straight to the hotel, please. And if it’s a dump, take me home.’ Patrick set the SatNav for the out of town ‘Savoy Inn’ into which Clovis, with a blind loyalty to the name, had booked them. It turned out to border an industrial estate filled with garages and self-storage units. Ten minutes after checking in, Patrick opened the passenger door to a Sara dressed in a long broad black skirt which gathered by her ankles, dark brown jacket and marginally lighter brown hijab replacing the usual blue scarf. He cast a fleeting look of amusement and was reprimanded by a silent raise of her eyebrows.
Even if the Asian and white population split was similar, Blackburn seemed a different world from her part of south London. Though the people were the same, here there was just a distinct lack of bustle. She imagined the place in its Victorian prime; a boom town of the industrial revolution. Then it had been the weaving capital of the world; dotted with textile mills, over a hundred and forty of them according to her recent research, driving a massive churn of activity within the green fold of the hills where they lay. Granted, there had been little joy there for the sweating workers, lungs saturated by fine clouds of cotton dust, particularly the hand weavers who would eventually be overtaken by mechanisation. But there must have been a surge of energy. Now, except for civic relics like the museum, and one half of the town hall incongruously attached to its modern glass and steel extension, the great Victorian buildings had largely gone – except for the foul-smelling brewery – and the streets appeared lifeless, tinged with sadness. Shops and pubs were boarded up. People seemed to move more slowly, with less purpose.
The demarcation between the neighbourhoods housing the South Asian Muslims, and the two-thirds of the population who were white English, was stark and discomforting. Patrick, a black Briton, was out of place. He would have to maintain a low profile.
Samir Mohammed’s home address in the twelve-year-old file was given as 59 Gent Street. Patrick dropped her at the low number end of the street and assured her that his watch would be discreet. She made her way up, knocking or ringing on numbers 9, 19, 29, 39, 49. Only one, number 29, answered. Her market research questionnaire was devised to last no more than ten minutes and she was soon sounding the bell of No. 59. A single chime responded, followed by a late middle-aged Asian woman still in the process of covering her head with a black scarf.
‘Yes?’
Before Sara had time to answer, there was a shout from a male voice above. ‘What is it, Mum?’
The woman looked at Sara with her clipboard and retreated to the bottom of the stairs. ‘You come down, it’s a lady wanting something.’ Sara felt the excited flutter of the hunter closing on its potential prey.
She heard footsteps, then trainers and jeans appeared down the stairs followed by a tracksuit top and the face of a tall man a year or two either side of thirty. The age fitted.
‘Yes?’ His expression was sullen.
‘Hello, my name’s Sara Shah and I’m doing a survey of young Muslims’ views of different government agencies–’
‘Don’t have time for that,’ he interrupted.
She tried to engage him, her eyes enlarged with pleading. ‘I know, I understand,’ she said, ‘but I’ve been walking up and down these streets all morning. There’s no one who’s in or will give me the time of day. If I don’t do my numbers, I don’t get paid.’
‘You won’t get paid?’ He looked at her more closely, seeing the attractive face within the cotton surround.
‘Yes, it’s piecework.’ She held up the questionnaires. ‘No completed forms, no money.’
‘Can’t you make it up?’
‘They’ll find out. I’ll be sacked.’ He looked her up and down, his shoulders slumping, face peering up and down the street. Her chest tightened, cramped by his wavering. ‘Please, I’m getting desperate. Won’t take long.’
He hesitated. ‘Nah, don’t fancy it, to be honest.’ She thought she had him but he wasn’t shifting. He made to close the door. She had to play her last card.
‘Wait a minute,’ she said, keeping one foot over the threshold. ‘There’s a budget I’m allowed to use.’
Suspicion and interest competed in his eyes. He looked up and down the street. ‘A budget?’
‘Yes, I can offer you something. To help me reach my target.’
‘What something?’
She took a purse out of her bag. ‘A hundred. It’ll only be a few minutes.’ He was wavering; she crossed the fingers of her other hand.
‘Nah. Not worth it.’
‘Hundred and fifty?’
He eyed her closely. Until now, she hadn’t decided how far she’d go. ‘Nah.’
She couldn’t lose him now. One final throw. ‘I’m not really allowed to do this. Two hundred.’
His frown slowly turned to a smirk of victory. ‘Go on then, come in.’
Sara made a mental note. There was something venal about Samir Mohammed.
He signalled to the front room. ‘You wanna sit in there?’ He disappeared into the kitchen. She overheard him telling his mother that it was something about a survey and his mother asking if the lady wanted a cup of tea. ‘Yeah, she looks like she needs it.’
He came back with a tray holding a teapot, two china cups on saucers, and some biscuits. ‘Mum likes it done proper,’ he said.
‘It’s kind of her,’ she said. He poured. ‘As I said, it won’t take long.’
‘I’m not in a hurry,’ he said. ‘Not now anyway.’
‘That’s great. First up, I should ask you your name,’ she smiled.
He hesitated, frowning. She held both smile and silence. ‘Samir. That enough?’ She said nothing. ‘Most people call me Sami.’
‘That’s lovely, Sami, thank you. What’s your line of work? Don’t worry, nothing to do with this,’ she said, glancing down at her clipboard, ‘I’d just be interested.’
‘Security. Down at the Rovers. Mainly evenings and nights. Match days too. That’s why I’m home now.’
‘Blackburn Rovers?’
His face spread into a broad, innocent smile. ‘How d’you know that?’
‘Well, they’re a big team, aren’t they?’ Sara blessed the width of her research.
‘Yeah, once.’
‘The Championship’s not a bad place to be.’
‘Maybe we’ll get back into the Premiership sometime.’
‘Do you play?’
‘Used to. Not much now. Tend to keep myself to myself.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah, easier, know what I mean?’
‘Yes,’ she said with soft sympathy, ‘I know exactly what you mean, Sami.’
She sipped her cup of tea and looked happily at him, waiting. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘What’s this all about?’
‘Just want to ask you a few questions for the survey,’ she said.
‘Survey?’
‘Yes. Governments do them all the time. All anonymous. Just trying to find out what people think of their lives, what can be done to improve them, what their experiences have been.’
‘Sounds all right.’
‘Shall I start?’ Sara laid the clipboard on her lap and began a list of questions with multiple choice answers. She’d designed it to be innocuous without sounding pointless – ranges of satisfaction or dissatisfaction over dealings with employers, council officials, education service and the like. Ten minutes or so in, she came to the final question. Omitting it would appear odd – it might also provide clues.
‘OK, Sami, last one. The police.’
‘Police?’
‘Yes. Can’t leave them out, can we?’ Was there an anxious flicker of the eye or did she imagine it? If there was, it lasted just a millisecond. He was either sufficiently settled not to bridle further or cool enough not to react.
She went through the choices. Number of dealings over the past five years: 0, 1–5, 6–10…
‘Can’t say I’ve really had any,’ he said shortly.
‘OK. In that case, that’s it,’ she said.
‘You mean we’re done.’
‘Yes.’ She began to rise.
‘No hurry. Have another cup of tea.’
She sank back and sighed. ‘Are you sure? Your mum won’t mind?’
‘Nah.’
Sami disappeared with the tray into the kitchen. Sara wasn’t sure whether he was lonely or looking for female company. Maybe, now that he appeared to trust her, she was a break from boredom. What, in any case, was she hoping to find? The trail that had led her to his door stemmed from something in his past twelve years ago. Without knowing what it was, she couldn’t tell whether what had attracted the surveillance had even been noteworthy to Samir himself. He might simply have been an innocent link in a chain.
He swaggered in with a refilled teapot and, this time, cake.
‘Mum insisted. She’s always baking cakes. Watching too much Nadiya, I reckon.’
‘I won’t be able to move!’
‘You’ll need stamina.’ He poured tea and looked at her awkwardly. ‘You do this all the time?’
‘No, just part-time,’ she said. ‘But it can be interesting. You get to know people. Sometimes they have stories to tell you wouldn’t believe. You know, like, in this one we’re looking at how Muslims are treated here and everything that’s happened. ’Course, I treat everything in confidence but sometimes I can really help people.’
‘Is that right? What sort of things?’
Sara looked at him as if she were in deep thought – buying time to calculate how far to push it. ‘I can’t say details of what people told me privately. But… you know… bad things happened. Sometimes there’s a need to tell someone…’
He stared down at his hands, slowly rubbing them together. ‘Yeah, suppose they did.’ Maybe her prior knowledge was influencing her but she sensed a memory floating by him. She held the silence, hoping he would fill it. He looked up. ‘Yeah well, stuff happens, don’t it?’ Then no more. Closure. Any further pushing could clam him up completely. She mustn’t show disappointment. She quickly drained her cup of tea.
‘That was lovely, Sami, thanks so much. And so nice to meet you.’
‘You going?’ She detected disappointment.
‘Yes, better get back to it.’ He rose too. ‘I’ll be here for another couple of days if you fancy another tea. My treat this time.’
‘Dunno what I’m doing.’
Sara pulled a card from one of two sets in her handbag. It read, ‘Sara Shah. Market researcher.’ And a mobile number.
He read it quickly. ‘Yeah, OK.’
‘Give me a ring if you’d like to meet up.’ She gave him the most intense look she dared. ‘Be good to see you again.’ Quickly she pulled back and smiled. ‘Will you thank your mum for me?’
‘Yeah.’ He came to the door as she walked back onto the pavement. So great was the combination of expectation and frustration that she only remembered just in time that she was a market researcher knocking on every tenth number of Gent Street. He was still watching as she pressed the bell of No. 69. Reaching the end of the street, she chanced a final look-back. No sign of him. Or anyone else.
The car drew alongside as she turned the corner.
‘Well?’
‘Hang on a minute.’ She settled herself in her seat, fastened the belt, and foraged in her bag for her make-up mirror as he moved off down the street. She removed it and checked her face, applying tiny pats of powder. Buying time again.
This was going to be impossible unless, to some extent at least, she levelled with him, whatever the wariness now infecting her. What was there to lose anyway? He could see that she had case histories – it would be perverse not to share. To test trust, maybe you had to give it.
‘OK. Morahan gave me some files.’
‘That was pretty obvious, Sara.’
‘Was it that bad?’ She remembered his expression. ‘Did you have a peek in the folder when I was with Sylvia?’
He slapped his foot on the brake and pulled in to the roadside. ‘For f— Sorry, I’ll start that again. What do you take me for?’
She was consumed by embarrassment, wanting to tell him about the text so that he’d understand. She mustn’t. Not till she really knew him – if she ever did. And still that horrible, sinking feeling – what if he was the one she had to look out for?
‘I’m sorry, Patrick.’
He softened. ‘It’s OK. Go on.’
‘I don’t know where they came from, MI5, Special Branch, your guess is as good as mine.’ The half-truth was weak; she needed to be better at this. ‘They relate to five young Muslims with family addresses in Blackburn. Two appear to have been closed by the end of 2006.’
‘2006? Long time ago.’
‘Yes. But the other three remained open.’
‘And one of the five lived, or lives, in Gent Street.’
‘I found him. He was at home. Still lives with his mum. I could hardly believe it. I finally got inside…’
‘Well done.’
‘I had to use a last resort.’
‘Oh?’
‘Used fivers.’
Patrick frowned. ‘How many?’
‘Actually, more like twenties. Ten of them.’ Though he said nothing, Patrick’s eyebrows shot up. ‘He’s smart,’ she continued. ‘Greedy too. He’d never have done it for nothing.’
He was silent for a few seconds. ‘Good call,’ he finally said. ‘I’ll find a way of putting it through the books.’
She felt her shoulders sag with relief. ‘I didn’t feel especially proud of myself. Anyway, he warmed up, Mum was friendly, tea on saucers, he did the survey. I could see he liked the look of me.’
‘Of course.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘Didn’t want me to go. We chatted more. Then I truly thought he might just be about to cough something.’
‘But he didn’t.’
‘No. Don’t know why he baulked. Or what I did.’
‘Stop beating yourself. You did well to get that far.’
She winced. ‘I left him my number. But I think he’s slipped the hook. So onto the next.’
He was circling streets with no particular aim, listening. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a bite. These neighbourhoods are chatty. You carry on walking their streets and word will get around about you and your survey. Not bad words, just words. Give it twenty-four hours. Stay out of sight and mind.’
‘Won’t it be time wasted?’
‘I’ve a better idea. Fancy climbing a hill?’ Without awaiting her reply, he put his foot on the accelerator and sped without exceeding the limit too blatantly in the direction of the Savoy Inn.
She wondered why he hadn’t asked to see the actual files – it was such an obvious request. The good manners to wait until she offered? Or a man who knew how to bide his time?
Sami Mohammed, concealed inside the porch, watched until she turned the corner. She reached the end of the street quickly. Either there really was no one in at the further ten doors she’d approached or she hadn’t bothered to ring any bells.
Who was she? Why had she seemed so desperate to get into his house? The old terror was creeping back. Was she part of them, testing him out? Or part of something else, wanting to rake over the coals? Perhaps embers still flickered and, even now, the fire hadn’t gone out. He went inside, closed the door, and shot upstairs to his bedroom, bypassing the inquisitive stare of his mother.
He retrieved from its hiding place in his chest the card they’d left with him. Time froze as he stared at it – plain, three by two inches, now yellowed at the corners with a crease down the middle like the depression in an old man’s back. On it a number, nothing more. The threat that came with it didn’t need to be written down – he’d never forget it. ‘If anyone ever starts asking questions, anyone at all, anytime at all, even years ahead, phone this. You don’t, you’re dead.’
He tried to work out the risks. If she’d been sent by them – what the reason might be this many years later he couldn’t begin to fathom – he could end up dead meat if he didn’t at least try to phone it. If she’d come from someone trying to go after them, he could still end up dead if he didn’t warn them.
Or, if she was what she said she was, he’d do better to let things lie. Reflecting on it, he became ever more sure that she wasn’t. It was as if she’d wanted him to suspect – know even – that she was more than she first seemed.
She’d wanted him to spill something.
Even thinking of those times – the times leading up to when he’d been given that little card and the lifetime warning – made his guts churn and his pulse quicken.
He picked up his phone.
He didn’t expect the call to be answered so fast.
