by Roger Pearce
Late into the night, an English student, one of the most boorish offenders, had fallen to his death from the second-floor balcony. As everyone screamed and panicked around him, Abdul Malik had felt a quiet sense of justice. An hour before he had fallen, the victim had been kissing another man. Malik saw the tragedy as Allah’s punishment for his decadence.
Back in the privacy of his loft room he had reached out for the Koran, which had opened at the story of the Fall of Adam. It was a moment of revelation. The accident was a sign. Here was a modern allegory of the wickedness of man through which Allah had spoken to him. From that night he had withdrawn from student social life into the shell of his private thoughts, studying the Koran and praying regularly. His housemates grew impatient with his shyness, which they misread as aloofness, and academic excellence, which made him a swot. They began to call him Shish Kebab, mocking his Turkish roots. The Turkish boy who should have protected him was especially vindictive, because he was a product of the age: Istanbul might be a cool city, they said, but boys with ambition sprinted across Turkey’s cultural bridge to the West.
One night, as he was reading the Koran, his housemates had started throwing stones at his window. Peering through a chink in the curtain he had seen them crowding the pavement, drunk and shouting up at him. The men had been carrying takeaways and the women were passing round a bottle of vodka. When he had switched his light out he had heard them barge into the house, falling up the narrow stairs.
As he had trembled on the bed they had crashed through his locked door and stormed into his room. The noise had been unbearable. His most violent oppressor, a third-year physics student from the ground floor, had helped Dimitri tear away his duvet and hold him down on the bed. As he had screamed and struggled they had torn off his underpants and covered his genitals with chilli sauce. One of the women had masturbated him while they all chanted, ‘Shish Kebab! Shish Kebab!’ at the tops of their voices. As he had endured the shame of his erection, another woman had poured vodka over his penis and sucked him until the chilli had made her throw up. They had let him cover his face with his hands and Dimitri had laid the Koran over the vomit, chilli and semen. It had been his first sexual experience.
The next day Dimitri had glared at him with contempt. A couple of the British guys had tried to laugh it off. None of it had mattered for, by the end of his second year, Malik’s economics tutors were encouraging him to take a doctorate in econometric theory. By this time he had had few friends but a sound knowledge of the Koran. Then he had met a young Turkish woman studying chemical engineering. Her name was Jumaima and she was the only Turkish girl he knew to wear a hijab and dress modestly in jeans and dark tops, concealing her arms and breasts. They had begun to hang out around Edgware Road, searching for literature about Islam, and in restaurants behind Warren Street. She had taught him to embrace the Wahhabi tradition and put into words his innermost feelings about the decadence of the West.
Jumaima’s home was in Istanbul, where her father was a wealthy industrialist manufacturing agricultural machinery for export around Europe. When Malik had graduated with his predicted first-class honours degree, she had introduced him to her father and asked him to take Malik under his wing.
Malik had quickly shown commercial promise and helped Jumaima’s father set up a combined finance house and export business. The young couple had married as soon as Jumaima graduated. He had bought a house in a prestigious area of Istanbul and, over the next decade, she had given him three healthy children. Malik had quickly become an entrepreneur to match his father-in-law, expanding his businesses to include chemical plants, property, cement, fertiliser, trucks and carpets.
When Malik’s new family had encouraged him to invest in a property portfolio in London, alongside his other investments, he had searched for houses and apartments in the capital’s wealthiest districts.
The two men worked in silence for twenty minutes, then Malik reopened the photographic folder and examined the images of Sandpiper again. ‘As for this high-flown pervert,’ he said, looking across at his partner, ‘when will you make the approach?’
‘As soon as he takes the boy,’ replied Hussain, quick as a flash.
Fifteen
Friday, 14 September, 08.30, S015 investigations unit
Derek Finch’s team was located three floors down from Weatherall’s intelligence branch. Created in the seventies to investigate extremist crimes, the unit had become famous for its expertise in recovering forensic traces from bomb scenes and building the evidential case.
Avoiding the lift, Kerr walked to the end of the corridor and took the fire escape. He spotted Detective Superintendent Jim Metcalfe, Finch’s senior investigating officer, the moment he entered the main office. He needed to find out exactly what Metcalfe had discovered about Ahmed Jibril, but knew he had a job on his hands. Resentful by nature, Metcalfe had regularly allowed skirmishes between the two sides of SO15 to spiral into civil war. Jacketless, dressed for action with tie loosened and double cuffs turned back, he looked as if he wanted to punch someone. For a second Kerr imagined him on the floor, being thrashed by Jack Langton.
‘What are you doing here?’ demanded Metcalfe, a Liverpudlian and champion of the get-your-retaliation-in-first philosophy. He was a leather-belt-and-loud-braces man, and both were too tight, drawing attention to his pot-belly. Close-cropped greying hair receding into a V accentuated his ferrety nose and made him appear permanently stressed. He was taller than Kerr and meaner-looking, and as they shook hands his close-set, hooded eyes leaked the hostility Kerr remembered from a decade ago. ‘Come to apologise for your surveillance fuck-up?’
‘Nice to see you again, too,’ said Kerr.
‘Welcome to the real police,’ Metcalfe whined.
Kerr said nothing. This was one of Metcalfe’s standard gibes, a clumsy reminder that his investigators had a background in regular CID offices. About fifteen officers were working the phones and desktops designated to Holmes, the standardised national database for any major criminal investigation. They were mostly twenty-year men, paunchy, with ties loosened and shirt cuffs folded back, glasses perched on the ends of their noses. Kerr was surprised that they were already occupied in such routine work. The hours immediately following a terrorist arrest were crucial and the place should have been buzzing as they chased leads to track down other cells and disrupt further attacks.
Years ago, when detectives regularly drank at lunchtime, Special Branch officers had nicknamed investigators on this floor ‘the Bellies’. These days the pub had mostly been abandoned for a sandwich at the desk, but the name had stuck. Among these middle-aged veterans Kerr detected a serious lack of energy, as if someone had told them the case was going nowhere.
‘You’ve caused us a lot of grief,’ Metcalfe said.
Kerr smiled to himself as he remembered the Branch surveillance photographs showing Metcalfe naked in a suburban bedroom in west London, his white, humping arse filling the lens. Kerr had been a detective sergeant in Tech Ops at the time. The Branch team had assigned Metcalfe the code name Stubby, in recognition of his shrunken, post-coital dick.
Metcalfe was obviously going to keep him in the noisy squad office rather than take him back to his cubicle, so Kerr leant against a vacant desk. ‘Why are you blocking our access to Jibril’s passport?’ he asked evenly.
‘Why did you put surveillance on a man who wasn’t even on the SO15 tasking list?’
‘We need to work together on this, Jim.’
‘You mean we need to cover your arse. No way. You screwed up, you find your own way out.’
‘As SO15. One command.’
‘Ah, I see. Your boss sent you down. Very corporate.’
‘Do you object to that?’
Metcalfe crossed his arms. ‘Letting you lot interfere in my investigation? Yeah, I do, actually.’
‘No,’ said Kerr, levelly. ‘I mean to women holding senior positions.’
Their paths had not crossed since 1997. Kerr rem
embered Metcalfe as if it were yesterday. The Branch had been running an operation against an IRA active-service unit over from Dublin. The unwitting girlfriend of the main terrorist was a divorced special-needs teacher who had regularly entertained Metcalfe at her neat three-bed semi, every move being captured by Branch cameras. And because she’d had special needs of her own, it had been his misfortune to be the married cop with whom she was two-timing the Irishman every Tuesday.
By discreetly warning him off, the Branch had probably saved Metcalfe’s marriage and career, perhaps even his life. But he’d guessed what they must have seen and had never forgiven them for this humiliation.
‘Thing is, Jim, I’ve got a nasty suspicion we’re all working blind here. Did you recover anything interesting from the safe-house? Like a laptop?’
‘Still searching,’ said Metcalfe.
‘Of course,’ said Kerr, impassively, registering the lie. ‘Any idea when you’ll be done?’
A shrug.
‘So, what’s happening at Paddington Green? His lawyer OK?’
‘The usual.’
‘Anything juicy from the interviews?’
‘Enough.’
‘When are you going to charge him?’
‘You’ll get what you need to know when I’m good and ready.’
‘Have to say, Jim, you’re acting like a man who’s been gagged. And that doesn’t seem right.’
A couple of detectives from the inquiry team were drifting past to eavesdrop, so Kerr led the way into Metcalfe’s workstation, a rectangle separated from the main office by glass partitions. There was the usual ‘ego wall’, with crests from American and European police forces, and the floor was littered with court-case papers. ‘Look, I’m offering to bring a couple of our officers down here to share the load.’
Metcalfe sat behind his desk to regain the initiative. ‘What – the analyst geeks in 1830?’ He smirked, logging on to his computer. ‘Don’t think so.’
‘Someone from the terrorist finance side.’
‘Not necessary. It’s all being progressed,’ Metcalfe said, looking vague, ‘through channels.’
‘Well, we’re doing some work through our liaison in Pakistan to tie down the entry documentation,’ bluffed Kerr, ‘so we should compare notes.’
Metcalfe looked up sharply. ‘That’s a complete no-no.’
‘You what?’ shot back Kerr, his antennae moving to action stations.
‘Anything to do with visas and passports is actioned to us. I’m the officer in the case, and MI5 don’t want Jibril’s passport released outside my department.’
‘Why is that?’
‘You don’t ask MI5 why.’
‘Don’t you?’ Kerr waited for a couple of seconds, then gave up. ‘Right, here’s our position. Alan Fargo in 1830 needs every scrap of information for the database, and if you won’t co-operate we’ll go to the Immigration Service and Home Office direct. We want to assist you on this, Jim . . .’
‘It’s “sir” to you, Chief Inspector.’
‘. . . to add value, so let’s stop pissing about, shall we? We should be operating as a team, as one SO15, so we can support you in the criminal investigation. We have to work in parallel.’
Metcalfe screwed up his eyes as he scrolled down the screen. ‘We don’t, actually. Things are different now. We’re the ones with the need to know.’ He pressed ‘Print’. ‘I have everything I require on there,’ he said, nodding at his desktop as the printer whirred to life. ‘MI5 are tasking us direct.’
‘I bet they are.’
‘And sometimes MI6.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘So here’s something you can do to make yourself useful,’ Metcalfe sneered, holding out the printed sheet. ‘That’s a list of current Islamic organisations.’ Kerr scanned the paper, which was an old schedule cut and pasted from MI5 research documents. ‘You can ignore Hizb-ut-Tahrir,’ said Metcalfe. ‘We’ve already got everything on those crazies. I want more on the Islamic Jihad Union, stuff like that. Mozzie bookshops in East Ham, Newham, Ealing, et cetera, et cetera. It’ll give your people something to do.’ He sifted through his papers, located a thin booklet and threw it across the desk. Hands in pockets, Kerr let it drop to the floor. ‘Latest research from the Centre for Social Cohesion. I want anything about ragheads in London, local stuff. We’ll cover the global ourselves.’
‘So tell them to Google.’ Kerr glanced through the glass. ‘I’ll try again. How soon do you intend to charge Ahmed Jibril?’
‘Who said anything about charging?’
Kerr laughed. ‘What? You’re thinking of releasing him? After twenty-four hours in the bin?’
‘We’re looking at all the options.’
‘With MI5 looking over your shoulder in Paddington Green, feeding your boys the script, you mean? You’ve got to be joking.’ That Metcalfe might actually be contemplating releasing a terrorist back onto the streets had never occurred to Kerr. Senses at red alert, he stared at him in disbelief. Metcalfe’s eyes showed a dangerous mix of arrogance and stupidity, and Kerr wondered if the ridiculous oaf even half realised he was being manipulated.
‘OK, let me spell it out for you again,’ said Kerr. ‘We need an update on the investigation for 1830. A record of the information you’ve entered onto Holmes. So we can add the intelligence to strengthen the interviews.’
‘Well, you’re not getting it, so tough.’ Metcalfe’s phone rang and he picked up. ‘I’ll take it out there,’ he answered, peering into the main office, where a detective was signalling through the glass. He brushed past Kerr. ‘Like I said, leave it to the real detectives and piss off back to the library.’
Kerr waited until Metcalfe snatched the phone from the cop outside and went to the window. Kerr then moved quickly to the desktop. He searched Metcalfe’s personal folders in the C drive until he found the record marked ‘Dragstone’. He scrolled down to the folder marked ‘CHIL’, short for ‘Current Holmes Investigative Leads’, pressed ‘Forward’ and typed in his own email address. Through the glass he saw the DC tug his boss’s arm and point. Kerr waited for Metcalfe to charge back into the office before tapping ‘Send’.
‘I’ll fucking have you for that.’
‘Leaving your workstation unlocked is a serious breach of IT security, Jim,’ said Kerr, ruefully shaking his head.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’
‘I’m the unlucky guy who’s seen your fat, naked, pimply arse,’ said Kerr, as he walked past Metcalfe. By the door he leant against the partition, legs and arms crossed, taking in Metcalfe’s sudden look of realisation. The door was open and Kerr spoke within earshot of the main office. ‘And I’d really love to know how long it took you . . .’
‘What?’
‘Well, you’ve always been a bit of a twat,’ said Kerr, seeming genuinely curious, ‘but how many years did it take you to become such a sexist and racist prick?’
‘Get out of my office,’ hissed Metcalfe, looking nervous for the first time.
‘Nice to see you again, Jim,’ smiled Kerr, giving Metcalfe a casual wave on the way out, ‘or is it still Stubby?’
Sixteen
2005, Istanbul, Turkey
Abdul Malik never doubted that Allah had brought Rashid Hussain into his world.
In 2005 he had begun developing business opportunities in Syria and visited Damascus in connection with the Turkey–Syria Interregional Co-operation Programme. One of the largest deals was a road-building scheme, which had brought Malik into contact with Syrian government officials. Hussain already knew about Malik’s unhappy time in London, his religious conversion and burgeoning property interests. They shared a hatred of Britain that bordered on the fanatical.
Rashid Hussain was also a Sunni Muslim and an economist. Renowned for his interpersonal skills, Hussain found there was a chemistry between them and used all his weapons of charm and flattery. On the evening of his return to Istanbul he invited Malik to a private dinner at his home.
Over bob chorba and tikvenik, with garish cake for dessert, Hussain quietly evaluated his guest. He listened with care as Malik castigated the depravity, greed and godlessness of the West, then reminded him that nations which rejected Allah were vulnerable from the devil within. ‘The British infidel is sexually dissolute, with no control over his base animal instincts,’ said Hussain, with a smile. ‘You have seen it with your own eyes, my friend, and I believe we share a similar view of life, a broken image of this godless world. We should speak again of these things.’
By the time Hussain had manipulated an invitation to Malik’s home for dinner the following week, he had thoroughly absorbed the business profile of his promising new partner. Towards the end of a convivial evening, as Jumaima served coffee, Hussain’s conversation acquired a sharper edge. He questioned Malik about his property portfolio in London and the offshore companies holding the various titles. ‘You are an entrepreneur of great energy and business acumen who thinks on a grand scale.’ He smiled, eyes twinkling at Malik’s plump wife, thinking that the photograph in his case file flattered her. ‘I believe I can help unleash the religious potential that lies deep within you.’
‘You overestimate me, Rashid. I am a humble businessman.’
‘On the contrary,’ purred Hussain. While Jumaima attended to them and the children slept upstairs, he delivered his carefully prepared pitch. Towards the end he leant across and took Malik’s hand. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, with fierce intensity. ‘I believe you are an instrument of Allah, sent by him to work with us. I will assist you in acquiring a house for this work, a secret place, a club within a club as familiar and safe as Pall Mall.’
‘And who is this link man in London? The man you call Harold?’ asked Malik. ‘I must know everything about him.’
Hussain was smiling. ‘Harold is a British pervert of high birth and low morality, who belongs to me. He is willing and compliant, a creature for whom the demand is also the reward. A spider, who will entice these flies into your web. And tonight I present him to you as a gift, a weapon.’ He beamed, now gripping Malik’s arm. ‘As your tarantula!’