He’d parked a quarter of a mile away, in the car park by the launderette. ‘Mrs Masoud, are you sure you feel comfortable talking to me alone?’
‘Young man. My unease at speaking to you has nothing to do with my religion. What would concern me more is if you considered me as an informant.’
‘I hardly think that’s likely,’ he said. ‘Do you?’
‘Is that what you call the people who talk to you? Informants?’
‘It depends. Not usually. It’s a word more normally associated with the police.’
‘Well then, what? I don’t generally find your world interesting. When I can be bothered, I imagine you people getting up to all kinds of dangerous things, recruiting heads of state, other spies, things like that. Intrigue, glamour. Staying in six-star hotels, playing roulette.’
He looked at her patiently. ‘No. My life’s nothing like that. There’s a little intrigue, I grant you.’
‘It’s a grubby lifestyle, then. Dredging up all the gossip from low-lifes like this Abu Omar.’
‘I wouldn’t put it like that,’ he said mildly.
‘Then what?’
‘Why is it you wanted to see me, Mrs Masoud?’
‘You seem to me a perfectly reasonable young man, you see. Perfectly ordinary. There’s nothing exceptional about you.’
‘Many people have said the same thing.’
‘And they’re wrong?’
‘No, they’re right. It’s what I want to be, an ordinary person.’
‘In a bizarre job.’
‘I don’t want to disappoint you, Mrs Masoud, but it’s not such a strange profession.’
‘I’m curious, you see. I’ve hardly thought about it until now but you must operate constantly in a kind of moral maze.’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite so dramatically as that,’ he said. ‘Plenty of people are faced with ethical choices in their jobs. The medical profession, for instance.’
‘Your job, though, is to deceive. Your whole professional existence is based on your ability to dissemble.’
He smiled. ‘At times, yes.’
‘Are you deceiving me now?’
He pondered the question. ‘No, I’m not. Very little of what I do involves deception. And that is necessary deception, I should add.’
‘Necessary deception. What an interesting concept.’
‘Quite workaday, in fact. Lots of people engage in much more of it in their professional or personal lives than me, with less reason.’
‘You deceive for a reason, then. Patriotism? Your country?’
‘I see it in simpler terms. Maybe less emotive. If I or someone like me doesn’t do this job, the risk of bad things happening increases. Very bad things, like the attack in which your son died.’
She looked at him, steely-eyed.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘No, it’s all right,’ she replied. ‘I’ve always thought of myself as someone with unimpeded vision.’
‘I simply mean that I don’t connect my work with grand philosophies or the national anthem. I’m not sure many do.’
‘So it’s not morally ambiguous. Or politically?’
‘Perhaps it is. Perhaps I’m just a simple soul. I realize that my work does have its ambiguities, moral and otherwise. But they tend to be on an individual level. I have to decide for myself whether it’s appropriate to ask a person to do certain things, or not. If I’m ever asked to do something myself that I believe to be inappropriate, I’ll refuse.’
‘Until now that’s not happened?’
‘No.’
‘But you may not be aware of the bigger picture. You may be contributing to horrendous things without being aware of it. In fact, you probably are.’
‘That’s true. It’s a big and complex world out there. I find value in my work and I can’t solve the world’s problems, even conceptually. I just get by, day by day. Frankly, I don’t buy these larger analyses about morality. They’re very trite and claim to be authoritative with, I think, little basis for such authority or firm judgement. Or perhaps it’s fairer to say I can’t cope with them. The whole world is a series of very close calls, and fine judgements.’
‘So you become amoral.’
‘No, I like to think I am moral, but within terms I can grasp and affect. I have some sense of the wider issues – we all do – but I don’t have enough knowledge to make definitive judgements. From my position I’d find it very difficult to say with certainty this or that government decision is wrong, or it’s right. In security or any other area of policy.’
‘Surely as citizens we have a right to comment? We have a duty to take an interest in the rights and wrongs of what our government is doing.’
‘Of course. It’s just that it’s almost impossible for you or me to make informed and final judgements on these things.’
‘Because of secrecy.’
‘No. Simply because there are too many intertwined complexities of detail and nuance that it’s not possible for us to take in and process. I can never know and assimilate the whole story, even on issues related to what I do for a living. And when you don’t actually have to make the decisions, it’s relatively easy to stand on the sidelines and comment caustically. We don’t have to weigh the fine balances and make the calls. We can fall back on prejudice. So I revert to what I do know and what I can influence. If I felt that made me a mug, a pawn in some great game played for others’ hilarity, I’d be sad. But that’s not how I see things.’
‘Or maybe you’re deceiving me at the moment.’
‘To what end?’
‘I don’t know. It could just be in your genes, to lie. You may have done it for so long that you don’t know when you’re doing it. You could be the extraordinarily clever one, the one who plays the innocent so well that no one is inclined even to entertain the possibility of deception.’
‘And how do I prove that’s not the case?’
‘Do you feel the need to? I’m such a pliant customer, after all. I’m the unsophisticated wife of a Muslim businessman. I too have a role to play.’
‘You’re anything but unsophisticated, Mrs Masoud.’
‘True. I’m better educated and more intelligent than my husband. I can see through the absurdities of the zealots, violent and non-violent. I have a position in life. I was a mother, bringing up three children. My husband has standing in the community. Certain things are expected of me, and most of the time I’m not too unhappy to conform to the conventions. I run a busy GP surgery. I have to order the doctors around constantly, otherwise they’d never get a single thing done. It’s my choice outside work to play the docile wife at times. I don’t feel the need to challenge tedious assumptions. My husband knows well enough the order of things. Now I’m a grieving mother and grandmother, I owe it to no one to be polite and respectful. But I will continue to be so until I decide not to be. You seem so very defensive of your career.’
‘Do I? I suppose I may be. I don’t feel especially defensive about it. You’re right, it is a mucky business in so many ways, and we don’t always get it right. It’s just so easy to be critical of what I do, from a position of high moral certitude. I’m afraid I don’t hold with certainty. It seems so … lazy in so many ways.’
‘I can see that.’
‘Mrs Masoud, why did you ask me here?’
She chose not to hear him. ‘I think you are like me, Mr Winter. You lay considerable value on rational thought.’
‘That’s true. It’s what our society is built on, isn’t it?’
‘Perhaps.’ She looked at him. ‘I wanted to talk to you about your work. In much more specific terms.’
‘Yes?’
‘I am not an informer.’
‘No.’
‘I won’t pass you dirty gossip under the table.’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to.’
‘I won’t pass you details of names and places. If I were certain of my facts, I might. I don’t know. But I don’t even have half a suspici
on of anyone. So I’m of no use to you in that way.’ She paused to look at him. ‘Am I keeping you from something?’
‘Not at all,’ he said.
‘I must be. You have, no doubt, a weekend to look forward to. You’ll want to tidy up your desk before you finish for the day and forget about work. I know the feeling.’
He smiled thinly. ‘Busted.’
‘I’ll be quick. These people have little to do with Islam.’
‘That’s not true from my experience.’
‘I don’t mean that in the literal sense,’ she said with a note of frustration. ‘Of course they pray, of course they can quote the Quran, of course they have read Abu Sayyaf. Of course they think they’re carrying out Allah’s will. They’re religiously obedient. To them, Islam is everything. Yet Islam is not the root.’
‘I’d be accused of condescension if I said that. And it’s not true. Islam isn’t absent from this.’
‘Oh no. Islam is very much present, in every thought and every gesture. It’s much more than a pretext or a context. But if Islam didn’t exist, these boys – or boys very much like them – would still be doing these things. This time of – what do they call it? global individual consciousness – feels like the beginning of the end of the world.’
‘The alternative is to repress individual aspirations. I’m not sure about that.’
‘Nor am I. But aspiration leads to despair for most people, and then for some to rage. For everyone who fulfils their ambitions there will be a thousand thwarted. This doesn’t help you with the here and now, however. The thing that worries you most, I take it, is this individual with the beard. That at least is what I sense from the evidence from the police and yourselves at the inquiry.’
He said nothing.
‘You know very little about this person. He – let us assume it is a man for the moment – materializes suddenly and just as mysteriously disappears. He seems to have directed the activities of these boys. You must fear he’s doing the same in this city at the moment. Of course he may be elsewhere in the country, or he may have travelled – returned, shall we say – overseas.’
Still he did not speak. It did not seem to perturb her; certainly it didn’t deter her.
‘The presumption is that he must have a connection with this area?’
He gave no sign to indicate she was right.
‘If that’s true, he may well still be around, doing the same thing right now with another credulous set of individuals. He could well be a link man with those people in the Middle East, living here and carrying out their instructions in this country. That would imply communication of some kind. Your people must be scouring your sources of information and databases for confirmation. But I don’t need to tell you your business in that regard, do I? Now …’
She paused once more; he was not sure whether it was to marshal her argument or to give him space to speak. If the latter, again he did not take up the opportunity.
‘… these people are different from those you’ve confronted before. These aren’t the Russian intelligence officers with whom you have played your idle games.’
‘I don’t think any victims of the Russians these days would see it that way. We left that world years ago,’ he said pleasantly.
‘I would no more wish Putin to be determining our future than those who dream of the caliphate. But I take your point. What I wonder about, though, is the methodology that you are applying. We cannot escape our own ways of thinking, can we? So I’m not about to suggest you do. Here, though, is your problem as I see it. These people believe in destruction, fear and random actions that will cause our society to fall apart in panic and fury. They don’t build towards anything, but away from what we have. These boys who offer themselves up are nothing to them. They can die in their attacks or they can rot in our prisons: it makes little difference to their so-called leaders. There’s a plentiful supply of outraged young people. That’s a counsel of despair, though. You may not fully appreciate what is going on.’
He drew breath, tempted fleetingly to ask her to tell him something he didn’t already know, and allowed her to continue.
‘To some extent you have to abandon logic and reason. This mysterious figure, he may seem so important to you but I wonder whether he is. You may think he has a function in the structures, but what if there are no structures? It’s more likely this person’s acting independently. Less a lone wolf than a self-appointed leader who preys on groups of impressionable young men. Perhaps motivated by personal hatred and less by ideology than it may seem. He’s possibly a religious person, possibly not. It’s possible that religion is unimportant to him. He may be charismatic and intelligent, he may be venal or modest. He may wear robes and flaunt his beard, or maybe not. Of course he must have links with those who say they aspire to the caliphate, but they may not be close. He could simply be someone useful to whom new sacrificial warriors may be directed. Make no assumptions, not even that this is necessarily a man, though from the accounts I’ve heard and read it would seem difficult to imagine that it isn’t so. I’d reckon this person is closer than you think. In fact, I’d say: think less and feel more.’
‘So you’re saying: look for the least likely person?’
‘Not necessarily. When – if – you find this person, it will seem as obvious as it could be.’
‘Any ideas?’ She must know, or have an inkling of, something that he couldn’t see or imagine.
‘I’ve already told you I’m not one of your informants. If I had a vague idea, I wouldn’t pass on gossip.’
‘Well, thank you for that. But unless you have any concrete suggestions …’
‘These are concrete suggestions. I’m not sure I appreciate your dismissiveness. I’m sure it’s much simpler than you seem to believe. You know evil when you see it. We both do. You look at a group of people and you say: that person is not right. These boys weren’t evil, they were stupid and immature. You know evil.’
‘I wasn’t being dismissive. I agree with you, but it doesn’t help me discover what I need to know. I’m just …’
‘You’re a rather shapeless, shiftless person, aren’t you? I don’t mean that unkindly. I feel for you. To do your job you must need to feel some sense of belonging to this country, as I do. Yet how can you have that sense of belonging when you have so few allegiances, when you’re rootless and alone.’
Jake laughed, nervously, and looked down. ‘I don’t think that’s fair. You hardly know me.’
‘I know human beings. I’ve seen enough of you to believe that I know you to at least some extent. If I don’t, I apologize.’
He raised his eyes.
She said, ‘The refugees who come through the practice. Terrible stories. The grotesque things they’ve experienced and witnessed. Yet they bring richness, energy, joy. We should be taking more of them in.’
‘I agree.’
‘The few women I’ve met from Raqqa or Aleppo or Mosul or Yemen or Tripoli, they’ve had an immense struggle to get here. Illegally for the most part, extorted and abused, each one of them. With their children, or some of them, if they’re extraordinarily lucky. Their menfolk are usually dead. They have great dignity, and a greater sense of belonging than I see in you.’
‘Perhaps they need to belong.’
‘And you don’t?’
There was no answer to that.
‘I’ve warned you before that you need to be very careful. You’re not martyr material. You need to have a plan.’
‘I always have a plan, Mrs Masoud.’
‘I’d be grateful if you would please not patronize me, Mr Winter.’
There was no answer to that, either. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Masoud,’ he said with a shy smile.
14
Leila watched as Rashid entered the street. The street lamps illuminated the scene like spotlights and she was able to track the progress of his distinctive, lanky gait as he walked away from her. The safety signal was that he would wear his hood down. The mechanics of RV
s – routes and timings, confidence and duress signals, fallbacks and abort procedures – were second nature to Jake and, no doubt, would be to her as well one day. For now, she felt nervous each time, even after all these months. Jake had said, no, it doesn’t go away, and nor should it. This was the first of several relays. She would watch him and, if all was clear, Jake would do a rolling pick-up in the dead ground they’d identified just after the point where Corporation Street suddenly curved, and a tail would suddenly discover it was impossible to make up the distance by taking to the alternates.
No, Rashid wasn’t so different from her, she thought again. Parents without money, status or any discernible advantage; taught, however, not to agitate but to improve his lot. And to conform. Aspiration was what the politicians liked to see, and aspiration was what Rashid’s parents and her own had had in abundance. Education, education, education: they’d lapped it up.
She knew a little of what this boy, eleven years younger than her, had experienced. She recalled her own years at Manchester High School for Girls, her parents’ elation at her exam results and their optimism for her. With her marriage to a non-Muslim, her child and a job they’d initially believed to be a dead end, a glorified clerical post, she’d crushed those illusions. Her rebellion, quite unlike Rashid’s excursions into extremism. We all have our ways of disappointing our parents, of betraying them.
But focus. Now.
The hood was up and his shoulders were hunched. He moved quickly, hustling his frame along the street. He must believe there was someone with him.
She strained to look at the corner of the street behind him but could see no one. Still no one appeared. Rashid’s designated route would take him, via a small passageway on the left, to a back alley where Jake would be waiting in the car. This part of town was full of its little rat runs. Rashid, if he obeyed the drills and continued to suspect a presence, would simply walk past the passageway and wait for the fallback in ninety minutes’ time. She hoped he remembered his cover story.
She remained motionless in the car, watching from the back through the gap afforded by the headrest of the driver’s seat. They had practised this many times and she knew it was highly unlikely anyone could see her there. Yet she felt conspicuous and a chill of apprehension ran through her. It would be too dangerous to call Jake and alert him. Her mobile phone would cast light.
A Fatal Game Page 15