‘You believed the reporting.’
‘We had no reason to disbelieve it at the time,’ the officer said.
‘Well well. You placed your faith in what your shadowy colleagues told you?’
‘If you put it like that. I wouldn’t. In any case, we had provision with armed officers on the scene to intervene if it was deemed necessary.’
‘But, with tragic consequences, it never was deemed necessary.’
‘That’s right. The bag was checked by one of my officers just before Abu Omar headed to the station. Witness T brought my officer to the meeting and a thorough visual and technical examination took place. It’s in the logs.’
‘We’ve read the logs. But then everything went wrong. Did you at least apprehend the other suspects?’
‘They died in the explosion too. They were watching Abu Omar’s back in the station.’
‘And this fifth man, shall we call him? What became of him?’
‘No trace.’
‘So Abu Omar set the explosion off under your very noses.’
‘We’re not entirely sure he did. It could have been triggered remotely. Or there may have been some kind of timer device. The fact that the other terrorists died in the same explosion would seem to suggest that, or that there was a technical malfunction.’
‘He was also carrying an initiator.’
‘He was carrying something in his hand that resembled a switch, yes. It may not have been to trigger the device. Fragments of a smartphone were also recovered. That could have been used as a timer or as a remote initiator.’
‘This was supposed to be a dry run, without explosive.’
‘That’s what the reporting said.’
The counsel for the victims had been more aggressive still. Mr Masoud had not liked the man when he’d met him along with the other families. He was well known, Mr Masoud had found out when he’d googled him after the meeting, a celebrity barrister with dyed blondish hair and a tan that seemed to accentuate his wrinkles and his age. He was vain and rude, and impatient with Mr Masoud’s wife in particular. These qualities he brought to bear with the witnesses as well. No doubt it was his stock-in-trade and could be useful, but Mr Masoud couldn’t help thinking that a more subtle approach might bring greater rewards. Do not show your rage so blatantly, he longed to say. Or was it fake, theatrical rage, quite unlike Mr Masoud’s silent, hidden version? Softly-softly, as Kipling – or someone – had said. There was little softly-softly about Mr Kerr. Mr Masoud had felt sorry for the police officer.
Not, however, for the spy. After lunch that day they’d returned to the inquiry room to find that a system of elaborate screens had been erected, purely in order that the public should be unable to see the witness. The public; he and his wife and the other family members and the survivors were no longer intimately involved in this, they were members of the public now. Mr Kerr, however, could see him.
The man, Witness T, had spoken quietly and the Chair of the inquiry had asked him to speak up. He had given answers as brief and unemotional as he could. He felt terrible, shattered, numbed, but it didn’t sound like it. It sounded as if these were words he’d thought of afterwards, to cover his absence of feeling. He didn’t feel guilty but he felt responsible. He wasn’t at liberty to say certain things. He related what he could say in almost robotic tones. How could this heartless man be given such responsibility, the responsibility to play with Aisha and Samir’s lives, to lose the gamble and lose them too?
4
‘We’re calling him the sheikh, like,’ said Rashid. ‘Adnan thought it was funny.’
‘Can you describe him?’ said Jake.
‘Like I say, nothing to describe. He wouldn’t let us close to him.’
‘Was he tall?’ asked Leila. ‘Fat? Thin?’
‘Couldn’t tell. He was sitting. And wearing robes.’
‘What colour robes?’
‘Dark. Probably black. A checked keffiyeh.’
‘What colour? Red or black?’
‘What difference does it make?’
‘I’m just trying to get you to focus. To imagine yourself back there.’
‘No thanks,’ said Rashid with a darting smile. ‘Couldn’t tell in the dark.’
She was good, thought Jake, but ever so slightly too pushy. Too definite. He felt like yawning. It’d been a long day and it wasn’t over. They’d waited for hours while the meeting took place, blind as bats, reliant on Rashid’s eventual reporting. Now he was tired too, irritable, wanting his bed. Join the club, thought Jake, and glanced at the clock behind Rashid’s head. One fifteen. Good grief. Time was, he’d have taken everything in his stride. And a second day of deep joy to come at the inquiry in a few hours.
As ever, the mechanics of the meeting had been complicated. They’d had to wait until Rashid had reached his parents’ house before signalling the start of the long process. First they’d needed confirmation that the other three were safely tucked up in bed, then they’d set in motion the long sequence of events that ensured Rashid was safe and that they were safe from Rashid, should he be bad. These measures weren’t as elaborate as had been required with Abu Omar – none of the technical testing for explosives upon which the Americans insisted – but on one of the first relays Jake had had to frisk him thoroughly. At first Rashid had been amused at this process; latterly he’d become resentful. Haven’t we come to trust each other? seemed to be the subtext. Difficult to say to him: that’s the point, we never will trust you, not after what we’ve been through, not after what you’ve been through, not even if you served up Baghdadi’s head on a plate. Especially if you did: we’d be looking for the angle, the pound of TATP inside his skull.
On the other hand, he was a thoroughly likeable young man; trapped, so he said, by his foolishness; remorseful, haunted by his actions in battle and out of it; wanting out and a way to assuage his sense of sin and make amends with Allah and his family. Jake felt an urge to believe him.
‘Age?’ persisted Leila.
‘No idea. His beard was long and thick. Dark. Maybe a bit of grey. Look, I’m having seconds about this.’
‘You know you’re doing the right thing.’
Jake thought he might be even more tired than he’d thought. He was letting this meeting slip by. Of course Rashid didn’t know that he was doing the right thing. He looked terrified.
‘We’re here to give you security and safety,’ Leila continued. ‘Certainty.’
Whoa there, thought Jake.
‘How you doing, mate?’ he said.
Rashid looked at him as if he hadn’t been there. ‘I’m doing all right, man.’
‘Don’t be too tough on yourself. Take a nap if you need to. There’s a room at the back. We’ll get you home for morning.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Listen, I’ve got no answers. We’ve got no answers. Nothing’s for sure. We’re all just doing our best. What we can say is that we’re watching your back. We’re on your side.’
Rashid nodded.
‘Let’s just get through this, eh? Then you can get home and get some sleep.’
‘OK.’
Leila picked up where he’d left off, altering her tone. ‘Any idea where the van took you, Rashid?’
‘No. I was listening out and trying to work out …’
‘I’m sure you were. Nothing stood out?’
‘Nothing. We were on the ring road for a bit. It was difficult, you know. We were being thrown about in there.’
‘It must have been,’ she said.
‘And when we got there it was just an old warehouse with loading bays. I couldn’t see any signs or anything.’
‘It’s all right. Don’t worry.’
‘And the van. I never got to see the number plate.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘We’ll get there in the end.’
‘That guy frightened me,’ said Rashid. ‘It was like being back there. Smiling, friendly, but … I don’t know what. That evil kind o
f grin.’
‘You could see him grinning in the dark.’
‘Kind of. Adnan didn’t like him either.’
‘Did you get the sense Adnan knew him?’ asked Jake.
‘No. He told Adnan he wasn’t the leader. We were all leaders, or some such.’
‘Do you remember his exact words?’
‘It was something like, “You’re equals. There aren’t any leaders among you.” Is it important?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure what’s important. Anything and everything could be. You know we have to get this right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So we have to know as clearly as possible what this sheikh says, and Adnan and the others. You had enough for tonight?’
‘I’m all right,’ said Rashid.
‘We’ll get you back home in a minute. Did you have the feeling that this stuff about there being no leaders was genuine?’
‘I think so. Adnan was pissed off.’
‘He wasn’t play-acting?’
‘How do I know? I don’t think so. He’s not that great at pretending. Unless he is, of course.’
It was nearly two thirty by the time they got back to the office, having dropped Rashid off. She knew that Jake had a meet the next morning and then was due at the inquiry again, so suggested they skip the wash-up.
‘We can’t,’ he’d said.
‘Why not?’ she’d asked.
‘Something might get lost between the cracks of our minds. Something that’s there and may come out if we talk now. Something that’ll vanish if we leave it too long.’
So here they were.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘It’s OK.’
‘No. It was stupid. How many times did you say it in training? You may have some idea of right and wrong. Don’t expect your clients to.’
‘My very words. Rehearsed and regurgitated for every course. It’s true, though. Rashid’s not looking for moral certainty. He’s had a bellyful of that. He’s looking for us to save his life.’
Jake had always struck her as imperturbable – until recently, that was. Ever since she’d arrived in the section they’d double-teamed on casework. He was a kind of mentor, had trained her in the first place, though he was the opposite of pushy. She wondered how he’d ever got into this: the orthodoxy was that to be successful you had to be outgoing and forceful. There was with Jake, though, a kind of core of stillness. She felt she hardly knew him. She knew he wasn’t married and didn’t have children. But whether he had a partner, whether he was straight or gay, where he lived or what he did in his spare time, these were unknown. The odd thing was that despite all this he didn’t seem withholding, or unduly jealous of his privacy. He’d always seemed complete in a way she never would be, with her restless ambition.
No longer, however. No one who’d known him before could fail to notice. That unfailing courtesy had gone or only showed itself patchily. He’d become prone to irritated outbursts about the weather, about HR, about the car they were driving. About anything.
And the optimism he normally exuded. Gone, too. There’d always been something vaguely un-English about him. He could rediscover that positivity, enough to put it on for the likes of Rashid, but that too took its toll. After meetings he looked spent, as if it were fatigue as much of the soul as of the body.
Back in the day he’d been the training supervisor for her intake. Back in the day: it wasn’t that long ago. She’d ended up in this line of work more as a result of stubbornness and a streak of perversity than by accident. Unlike her peers she’d never wanted a career in medicine or the law, or a marriage to a wealthy businessman. She’d wanted something different. She’d dreamt of becoming a police officer, specifically a detective who unravelled the tightest mysteries to deliver astounding results. This wasn’t so far from that, but her chosen career wasn’t one she’d contemplated in childhood.
Her parents had had conventional expectations. When she’d studied politics at Oxford the law seemed most likely. It was a shock to them when – as they’d thought at the time – she’d decided to become a mere functionary in the Home Office, a policy wonk. She’d been told by overzealous recruiters not to tell her parents what she’d signed up for, but after a year or so she thought better of it. Her father, a great fan of the James Bond films he’d half-heartedly forbidden her to watch, was delighted. It isn’t like that, she told him. Her mother simply thought that, all those years after fleeing Uganda, this was the true point of arrival in this country.
It wasn’t as her father dreamed. Nowhere near. Jake had made that clear from the outset, with his little sermons about ethics and the mission that others on the course found pompous. He was conceited, of course he was, in that curiously self-effacing way. But at the same time she felt she was in the right place.
The bond, he’d kept saying. You can’t buy anyone, whatever people say. People don’t sell their souls for sixpence or six million quid. If you’re lucky you get to lease a tiny part of their souls briefly, like a room in a hotel that rents by the hour. Don’t squander it; use that time to build something more real and durable. Something resembling respect. Something resembling trust. Something resembling love. Don’t think, either, that you can snow them, other than for a split second. No one in this room is capable of doing that, not with the people we deal with. We’re not dealing with idiots who’ll fall, hook line and sinker. It’s a tougher game. You can force people to cooperate, and they will to a certain point, that crucial point when they suddenly turn on you, probably without you even realizing. You need something more real. The bond.
She could remember the exact words now, hear him saying them.
This the gospel according to St Jake? someone whispered, none too quietly.
He blinked. Yes, if you like. And finally, find something to like in them. There always is.
And if your subject is a paedophile or a racist?
I don’t know. I really don’t know. Give it a go, I’d say, because it’s the only way you’ll get what you need. Just trust your instincts.
No wonder he was so strung out. He’d broken all his rules with Abu Omar. Hell, she was shattered too. Her mind was wandering.
‘Do you think this sheikh guy is the same as the one with Abu Omar?’ she asked. ‘The one they called the boss?’
‘I don’t know. Probably. If so, it’s an interesting way of working. Not seen it before. How are we doing on the van?’
‘None of the CCTV near the meeting place picked it up.’
‘Interesting in its own right.’
‘They’re going through the traffic cameras all over the city as we speak. But at ten in the evening on a Monday night white vans are ten a penny.’
‘We have a time when they returned, though. That should help. They may strike lucky. How did Rashid seem to you?’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘He seems to be coping. Why? Did you see anything amiss?’
‘No, not at all. You may have picked up something that I didn’t, though.’
Rashid was a strange boy. He wasn’t so different from her. Her parents had considered her a peculiar child and obligingly and frequently told her so. She’d known for herself, too.
Jake had known Rashid far longer than she had, nurtured the case from its inception when he’d still been at university and popped up in radical circles only during the vacations. Somehow Jake had eased alongside Rashid without pretending to be anything other than what he was. According to the terse version of events Jake had given her when she first became his oppo, Rashid had accepted it without a word and for a while they’d simply talked, about college, about the weather, about anything but the circles in which Rashid moved. Then it had stopped. Rashid had completed his studies and disappeared from the radar.
Other reporting later had it that he was at the battlefront, then that he’d come back via Turkey. Jake hadn’t had to make contact again. Within two weeks Rashid phoned in.
It was possible, of course, that it
was a dangle. ‘No idea,’ said Jake when she’d asked him, but she knew that if he’d harboured true suspicion he’d surely have played the case differently. Rashid, so his story went, had been told to lie low and would later be called upon, with three boys he’d met out there. There were, meanwhile, other jobs in the pipeline.
Motivation? she’d asked when they were preparing for her first introduction.
He’d drawn breath. ‘Sorry. Not much good at that. I know that’s what they say we should think about but I find it clouds things. There’s rarely a single reason why anyone does anything. These aren’t method actors, they’re vulnerable, imperfect human beings. If you try to unravel all the things that are going on in their heads you can go crazy. For me, I just focus on what seems to be real. Don’t overthink it, don’t force it, would be my advice. But no doubt I’m wrong. You’ll have your own way of doing things.’ He’d cast a self-deprecatory smile. She hadn’t forced it.
Rashid had surprised her when they’d first met. He was polite and well mannered, for starters, unlike many of the other joes she’d run. He must cultivate a different persona when running with the jihadis. With her and Jake he was docile and showed no signs of resentful chips on the shoulder.
Nor had he been remotely fazed by her presence.
‘This is Leila,’ Jake had said in that matter-of-fact fashion he’d said he’d employ.
‘Hello, Leila,’ Rashid had said. ‘How you doing?’
‘Fine,’ she’d said, and it was.
Abu Omar had hoved into view, and she could tell at the time that despite his cheerfulness Jake didn’t like it at all. ‘I’m no good with the Americans,’ was all he’d said to her at the time, laughing. As a consequence she’d had to do various solo meetings with Rashid which at least enabled her to establish a rapport with him. Sometimes Jake deliberately skipped meetings so that she could develop the bond further. The bond, again.
They’d liked each other. He was a nice boy, taciturn but pleasant with it, even if she couldn’t fathom how he’d become caught up in this.
‘You from round here?’ he’d asked once.
A Fatal Game Page 5