‘He likes wine. But never more than two glasses.’
‘And he doesn’t ask you to cover your head when you go out?’
Jamila laughed, quickly covering her mouth with her hand. ‘Of course not.’ She laughed again. ‘Just the thought of it.’ She shook her head. ‘My dad’s not like that. He’s been in the UK since he was ten. And my mum was born here. I’ve never seen her wear so much as a headscarf.’
‘What about when she goes back to Pakistan?’
‘She’s never been,’ said Jamila. Glasgow’s her home. If you think I’ve got an accent, you should hear Mum. You couldn’t get her to Pakistan if you paid her.’
The waiter returned with Jamila’s wine. Chaudhry caught him smiling at Jamila in a way that made him want to grab him by the throat and slam him against the wall. He shook his head, wondering how she’d managed to provoke such strong feelings in such a short space of time. He’d been in her company for barely ten minutes and he was already jealous when another man even looked at her.
‘You’ve been to Pakistan, my dad says.’
‘Over the Christmas holiday,’ he said, nodding.
‘On a health programme, right? That must have been really interesting.’
Chaudhry’s mouth had gone dry and he swallowed awkwardly. This was the first time he’d met her and he didn’t want to start their relationship with a lie but he didn’t have a choice. ‘It was hard work,’ he said. ‘My dad said you worked in an orphanage.’ He hoped that the change of subject wasn’t too obvious but he was very uncomfortable lying to her and much preferred to be talking about her.
She nodded enthusiastically. ‘I did a gap year before I went to uni,’ she said. ‘I spent most of it in a city called Murree, in the Punjab. They’d had over twelve inches of rainfall and it was a real mess. A lot of people were killed, thousands of homes were destroyed and a lot of kids were abandoned so the number of orphans had gone through the roof. And food was in short supply; there were no medicines. It was horrible, Raj. It really made me appreciate what we have in this country. We moan about the NHS but at the end of the day at least you get to see a GP and if necessary you go to hospital for treatment.’ She smiled. ‘Why am I telling you that? You’ll be a doctor soon.’
‘No, I know what you mean. I hate the poverty out there. My dad’s always telling me how well Pakistan has done, how at independence in 1974 it inherited one jute factory, one textile mill and one university. But when I was there all I saw was the poverty.’
‘Where were you?’
‘Karachi,’ said Chaudhry. At least that much was true. He and Malik had flown there from London before being transported to an al-Qaeda training camp close to the border with Afghanistan. ‘It was a small clinic in a deprived area. I was giving them vaccinations and offering basic healthcare advice.’ He felt his heart race as he lied, and his hands were damp with sweat. He wiped them on his trousers. He liked Jamila, really liked her, and he hated the fact that any relationship he had with her would be based on untruths. He felt a wave of shame and he looked round for their waiter. ‘I could do with a Coke,’ he said. ‘Where’s our waiter gone?’
Jamila lifted her head and the Australian waiter rushed over, eager to please. She rewarded him with a beaming smile and nodded at Chaudhry. The waiter took Chaudhry’s order and then they both chose their pizzas. Chaudhry was a little annoyed that Jamila asked the waiter for his opinion on what was good and even more annoyed when she took his advice and had the Padana with its goat’s cheese, spinach, red and caramelised onions and garlic oil. It did sound good but Chaudhry couldn’t force himself to follow the waiter’s suggestion. His favourite was the Diavolo, but he figured that if there was any chance of a goodnight kiss then he’d be better avoiding the Tabasco, jalapeno peppers and hot spiced beef that gave it its kick, and so he went for a classic Margherita.
‘Good choice, sir,’ said the waiter, with what Chaudhry took to be a sarcastic tone, and then he flashed Jamila another beaming smile before heading off to the kitchen.
‘I didn’t see any pictures of your volunteer work,’ said Jamila.
‘Sorry?’ said Chaudhry, confused.
‘On your Facebook page. There weren’t any photographs of you in Karachi. At the medical centre.’
‘I’m not a great one for taking pictures,’ said Chaudhry, hating himself for yet another lie. ‘And I was worked off my feet.’
‘Will you go back, do you think?’ she asked.
‘Probably not,’ said Chaudhry, and at least that was the truth.
‘I’m definitely going back,’ said Jamila. She sipped her wine. ‘I thought of taking another year off and spending it at the orphanage but my dad says I should graduate first.’
‘Definitely,’ said Chaudhry quickly. Too quickly, he realised. ‘I mean, you’d find it much harder to get back into studying. Better to get your degree first and then take another year off before you start work.’
‘That’s what my dad says.’
The meal flew by. They ate their pizzas, Jamila ordered a second glass of wine, they shared a dessert, they had coffee, and all the time they talked and laughed as if they had known each other for years. She was the prettiest girl Chaudhry had ever seen, and he was all too well aware of how men’s heads turned as they walked past their table. When the bill came she offered to split it with him but Chaudhry insisted that she allow him to pay. She agreed but made him promise that on their next date he would let her pay. His heart raced when she said that, and he couldn’t stop grinning as they stood on the pavement looking for a taxi.
It turned out that he could have eaten the Diavolo pizza after all because he didn’t get a kiss. But he did get a peck on the cheek and she squeezed his arm before she got into the back of a black cab. He stood rubbing his cheek as the taxi drove off. He’d had an amazing evening, and he knew that his father was right: she was the perfect girl for him. But he also knew that no matter how the relationship progressed it had started with him lying to her, not once but several times. He’d looked into her beautiful, sexy, wonderful eyes and he’d lied. His stomach lurched and before he could stop himself he was vomiting in the gutter.
Hargrove arrived at Thames House immaculately dressed as always. He was wearing a black pinstriped suit, a crisp white shirt and a blue and yellow striped tie, and was carrying a black leather briefcase, looking more like a stockbroker or merchant banker than a chief superintendent with the Metropolitan Police. Shepherd met him outside. He was also wearing a suit, but a black one that had probably cost less than Hargrove’s trousers alone.
‘Any idea what this is about, Spider?’ asked Hargrove as they headed for the entrance.
‘I know as much as you do,’ said Shepherd. Button had phoned him the previous evening and asked him to come in for a 10 a.m. meeting with Hargrove and to walk him into the building.
‘Is that because it’s need-to-know or because she hasn’t told you either?’
‘The latter,’ said Shepherd.
Hargrove smiled thinly. ‘Of course you’d say that anyway, wouldn’t you?’
‘Charlie tends to play her cards close to her chest,’ said Shepherd. They walked into the reception area where Hargrove showed his warrant card and Shepherd signed him in. They walked through a metal detector and took a lift up to the third floor. Button was waiting for them in a windowless meeting room. She was sitting halfway down a large oak table with a pale-blue file in front of her.
She stood up, shook hands with Hargrove and waved him to a seat on the opposite side of the table. Shepherd hesitated as he wondered on which side of the table he should sit. His instincts were to sit next to Hargrove as they were working together on the arms case and Button had called the meeting, but he was still employed by MI5 and Button was his boss.
Button saw his indecision and nodded at the seat to Hargrove’s left. ‘Why don’t you sit yourself there? It’ll be easier for me to show you what I’ve got.’
Shepherd sat down next to Hargrove.
‘Coffee?’ asked Button.
Both men shook their heads.
‘Okay, so I’ll dive straight in. Basically there are some interesting developments in the Kettering and Thompson case that I need to run by you.’
‘That’s a West Midlands case,’ said Hargrove quietly. ‘I didn’t realise there was any MI5 involvement.’
‘Any case where terrorism is involved falls within our brief,’ said Button.
‘Terrorism? We’re talking about a group of Brummie villains purchasing weapons,’ said Hargrove.
Button nodded. ‘I’m afraid there seems to be more to it than that,’ she said. She flipped open the file on the table. Inside were a couple of dozen printed sheets topped by a photograph.
‘We’re all familiar with Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, of course. He detonated a car bomb in central Oslo killing eight people and went on to murder another sixty-nine at a youth camp.’
Shepherd and Hargrove frowned. Button smiled at their confusion. ‘What Operation Excalibur seems to have missed is that three of the men they’ve been looking at met with Breivik just six months before the attacks.’
The colour drained from Hargrove’s face. ‘How could West Midlands Police not know this?’ he said.
‘They’ve been treating it as a purely criminal case,’ said Button. ‘I assume no one there thought of looking at the bigger picture.’
‘But why didn’t a check on Kettering and Thompson throw up the link to the Norwegian?’ asked Hargrove.
‘Because that intel isn’t on the Police National Computer,’ said Button.
‘I know that,’ said Hargrove. ‘I ran the checks myself when we were first approached about the case. I don’t understand this, Charlotte. A British group with links to a Norwegian mass murderer discuss acquiring high-powered weapons and alarm bells don’t start ringing?’
‘Well, they’re ringing now, Sam. Loud and clear.’
‘That’s what you think?’ asked Shepherd. ‘You think this Brummie group is planning some sort of public attack?’
‘All we know is that Kettering and Thompson met with the Norwegian in 2002 and were in email contact with him right up until the attacks. Six months ago Kettering, Thompson and another man flew to Olso and met with him again.’ She flicked through the papers in the file, then tapped one. ‘During interrogation Breivik claimed that he was a member of a new Christian military order. He called it the new Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici. Effectively a new order of the Knights Templar. He told his interrogators that this group was formed in April 2002 by nine men — two from England, a Frenchman, a German, a Dutchman, a Greek, a Russian and a Serb. And himself. He says that there are now eighty of these knights and that they are preparing to seize political power in Western Europe with the aim of expelling all the Muslims.’
She smiled thinly.
‘How much of this is the fantasy of a deluded mind and how much is a serious terrorist threat has yet to be determined. I don’t think we’ve uncovered anything that suggests a coup or revolution is on the cards. But the link with Breivik is a red flag. A very big red flag.’ She took out a surveillance photograph and slid it across the table to Hargrove. ‘This is the third man from the UK who was at that meeting. Roger McLean. I gather he doesn’t appear on Operation Excalibur’s watch list?’
Hargrove studied the picture and then handed it to Shepherd. McLean was a big man with a shaved head and a St George’s Cross tattooed on his right forearm.
Shepherd shook his head. ‘They’re not looking at him,’ he said.
‘McLean’s been around right-wing groups for more than twenty years. He was initially with the National Front, then switched to the British National Party, then just before he met Breivik he moved to the EDL. In 2003 he went off the grid.’
‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ asked Hargrove.
‘He didn’t attend any party meetings of any of the groups, didn’t go to any demonstrations, disappeared from the electoral roll, isn’t registered with a GP, doesn’t pay tax, doesn’t, so far as we can see, have a bank account. But he does appear to be involved in several right-wing and anti-Islamic websites.’
Button took back the photograph from Shepherd and handed Hargrove a printed screenshot of a website. ‘The Truth About The Muslim Menace’.
‘The nightmare scenario is that we have a group of British citizens who are set to emulate Breivik,’ said Button. ‘We’ve had our psych people run profiles of Kettering and Thompson but we don’t have enough information to decide whether or not they are capable of mounting a suicide attack. But we’re told that they are the type who would go on a killing spree if they thought they had a reasonable chance of getting away with it.’ She sighed. ‘You can imagine the havoc a group with automatic weapons could cause in the city centre. The Bullring alone gets a hundred thousand visitors on an average day. It could all be over in a couple of minutes and the death toll would be horrendous. Hundreds, certainly. That’s before we even start talking about grenades.’
At the mention of grenades Hargrove turned to look at Shepherd, and Shepherd winced inwardly. Hargrove had realised that the intelligence on grenades could only have come from Shepherd.
‘And with it being Birmingham, many of the victims would be Asian and Muslim,’ continued Button. ‘We’ve always considered that the high percentage of Muslims in the community meant that the West Midlands are less likely to suffer a terrorist attack. But the nature of these terrorists changes everything.’
‘We don’t know that they are terrorists,’ said Hargrove. ‘They’re saying that they want the guns for self-protection.’
‘Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?’ said Button. ‘They’re unlikely to go shopping for weapons on the basis that they’re going on a killing spree.’ She took back the website screenshot and slid it into the file. ‘Birmingham is the UK’s second biggest city and if it is in the firing line there are plenty of targets, from the Council House in Victoria Square to tower blocks, department stores, stations, hotels. And, as the city is slap bang in the middle of the country, there are plenty of escape routes. They could go on a killing spree and be on a motorway at seventy miles an hour before the police even get to the scene.’
She shuffled her papers and smiled at Hargrove. ‘I realise that this puts you in something of an awkward position, Sam.’
‘That’s putting it mildly,’ said Hargrove quietly. ‘You’re going to take Operation Excalibur off West Midlands Police and they’re going to blame me.’
‘Actually, that’s not what I was going to suggest,’ said Button. ‘Your agent is in place and Dan here is on attachment to COG so if anything we’d be looking for the operation to be brought under the Met’s jurisdiction. But I don’t think that’s necessary either. Basically we’d like you to continue running your undercover operation but to share any intelligence with us. I’d be happy to do that through Dan, but if you’d rather be the point of contact that would be perfectly acceptable.’
‘And would West Midlands Police be privy to the fact that we’re sharing their intel?’ asked Hargrove.
‘Best not,’ said Button. ‘And frankly whether or not they knew that MI5 had a watching brief is immaterial to the way that they would handle the case.’
Hargrove leaned forward. ‘That’s not strictly speaking true, though, is it? They’re treating it as if it were a straightforward criminal investigation but you believe there are terrorist implications.’
‘If West Midlands Police get a conviction for buying automatic weapons then Kettering, Thompson and the rest will go down for ten years. I think we’d regard that as a successful outcome. We’ll just be monitoring to check that the investigation proceeds smoothly.’
‘And if I’m asked directly whether or not I’m passing intel on to the Security Services? What do I say?’
‘I really don’t see that happening,’ said Button. ‘But that would be one very good reason for using D
an as the conduit.’
‘Plausible deniability,’ said Hargrove.
‘Exactly.’
‘And I’m assuming Ray Fenby doesn’t get told?’
‘I don’t see any reason why he needs to know,’ said Button. ‘But there is one thing that perhaps we’d like to handle a little differently. West Midlands Police are treating this very much as a local crime issue. We would be very interested to see if there’s any overseas connection. In particular, anything connecting Kettering and Thompson and the other members of this Knights Templar group — the German, the Frenchman, the Dutchman and the rest. We’re running an investigation at this end following phone and email traffic, but if we can get Kettering or Thompson to reveal anything, that would be a bonus.’
‘I’ll talk to Ray,’ said Hargrove. ‘But that’s a tough one. Kettering and Thompson aren’t stupid so he won’t be able to push it.’
‘Understood,’ said Button. ‘But if you could perhaps ask him to keep his ears open for any Continental connection it’d be much appreciated.’
Hargrove nodded but he looked uncomfortable.
‘And again, it’s important that Fenby isn’t aware of our interest. I’d rather that stayed between the three of us.’
Shepherd looked over at Hargrove and saw from the look on his face that the same thought had occurred to the chief superintendent. ‘Does that include Inspector Sharpe?’ said Hargrove.
‘I think we have to keep our involvement on a need-to-know basis,’ said Button. ‘And the fewer people that know, the better. The last thing we need is canteen talk leading to a blown operation.’
Hargrove raised his eyebrows. ‘I can’t see him opening his heart to the Birmingham cops over a cup of coffee,’ he said.
Button put up her hands. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘But I wouldn’t want the Birmingham police to get all territorial and move in precipitously. So I’d rather that Razor wasn’t aware of the new arrangement.’
‘Understood,’ said Hargrove, though Shepherd could tell that the chief superintendent wasn’t happy.
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