She meant operations that involved national security. No one really knew the full facts, they kept those to themselves. Tony did know that SO15 had been deployed, but he didn’t know where. He also didn’t know why Vakeel Uddin, who had been under surveillance for months, had finally had his collar felt.
It had to do with the al’Barri family. That Tony did know. But how and why … As far as he was concerned the eldest son had fucked off to ISIS for reasons best known to himself. But he’d surmised there was more to it than that. Vi knew, but Tony knew better than to ask.
The mother had wept and screamed fit to wake up her whole street. Understandable given she’d just lost her husband and her daughter. How, Tony didn’t know. He could tell her nothing, but then that had been the idea. She wasn’t supposed to know. Or rather, that was how he interpreted it.
Her two youngest kids had just stared. One, the boy, had flashed Tony a bitter look. But only once and who could blame him? He’d lost his dad and his sister and Tony, the only ‘authority’ figure in the kid’s house, wasn’t saying anything useful.
And what of the eldest son, the ISIS boy, Fayyad? Tony remembered when he’d been all over the papers as a missing person. Weeks later they’d found out he’d rocked up in Syria. As far as Tony could remember, the al’Barris were friends of Lee Arnold’s.
He’d be mortified when he found out what had happened to them.
Mr Dugdale looked as if he’d just smelt someone else’s fart.
Ricky ignored him and sat down. He looked at Dugdale’s client.
‘So?’
Amir Charleston glanced at his solicitor who opened his hands in a gesture of submission.
‘I hit him,’ his client said.
‘Hit who?’
‘Banergee,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘He disgusted me,’ he said. ‘I’d seen him swanning about on Brick Lane behaving like a woman. Such people are an abomination.’
Ricky crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Those your words or Taha Mirza’s?’
He shook his head. ‘Religion is a rational choice,’ he said. ‘It imbues meaning.’
‘What meaning?’
‘To life!’ he said. ‘What are possessions or money if we don’t have an overarching narrative that guides our thoughts and our actions? A fit body can engender a fit mind. That was my aim. Every week I was becoming fitter, stronger, more secure in my religion. Those other guys were only playing at it.’
‘Lewis and Cranmer?’
‘Yes. I think they just wanted to have the odd ruck to get rid of their frustrations. Working in the City isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There are pressures that can make you sick, behaviours you’re expected to conform to that rot your soul.’
‘Like?’
‘Like drinking until you pass out, doing so much coke you’re awake for a week.’
Ricky tried to imagine how much cocaine that would take and how much it might cost.
‘My life had become nothing. I’m not alone. There are many in the City who feel the lack of any sort of genuine meaning in their lives. The pursuit of money is entirely hollow.’
‘Only if you don’t have it.’
‘Admittedly …’
‘So why didn’t you get yourself a colouring book and do this Mindfulness thing everybody’s doing?’ Ricky asked.
Charleston shot him a vicious glance. ‘You think that because I’m rich, I’m silly? Such fads are simply more money-making scams. I have a connection to Islam through my mother. I was brought up a Muslim, it has meaning for me.’
‘And Islam teaches that you have to go out and kick the crap out of people, does it?’
‘No!’
‘But Taha Mirza did?’
He lowered his head. ‘The aim was to get fit for jihad,’ he said. ‘We fought each other.’
‘And defenceless men on the street.’
‘One has to get combat experience.’
‘Before you fuck off to Syria.’
He said nothing.
‘Taha Mirza approved this?’
Mr Dugdale looked uncomfortable. Instructed by Charleston’s powerful father to get the young man off, he was rapidly losing interest whilst developing considerable disgust.
‘He called it “hunting”,’ Charleston said. ‘He’d done it. Looking for legitimate targets and making sure they stayed off the streets. Not killing, protecting the wider public. We, Cranmer, Lewis and myself, weren’t Taha’s only pupils.’
Ricky leant back in his chair. A fucking upmarket version of the Briks Boyz.
‘Who were the others?’
‘I don’t know. I never met them. I think they might have been Asian lads. I’ll come to that.’
‘You went hunting that night?’
‘Taha felt I was ready.’
‘He go with you?’
‘No.’
‘What about Lewis and Cranmer?’
‘They’d already gone,’ he said. ‘When we first met at the study day in south London I felt that they were only there because they were looking for something.’
‘Like you.’
‘Yes, but they were looking for anything. Something that made them feel alive. I don’t think it mattered what it was. They wanted to be excited and challenged and …’
‘Get rid of a load of adrenaline and act manly.’
‘Yes. Whatever you think of them, modern jihadis are manly,’ he said. ‘They are ultimately manly. And if they have genuine belief they are like supermen. That was what attracted Lewis and Cranmer.’
‘But you’ve got faith too, yeah?’
‘I have.’
‘Talk me through what happened.’
He took a deep breath. He said, ‘I ran from the office to Taha’s place. Cranmer and Lewis were already there.’
‘You fought.’
‘It wasn’t like it had ever been before. We had bout after bout. Just on and on. It was exhausting but also – electrifying. We all got injured but it didn’t matter. Cranmer had a really deep cut above one eye but he still carried on. There was blood on the canvass, but he only noticed later.’
‘Why?’
‘I knocked Lewis down and I was so elated I began to cheer. When I finished, the others were all standing in the ring watching me. I felt exposed. It was as if a spell had been broken. Lewis and Cranmer left soon after. I had a feeling they wouldn’t be back. We talked.’
‘You and Mirza.’
‘Yes. He was a good man. He didn’t like killing. He was a poor boy whose parents had come here from Pakistan and taken a lot of abuse. His dad had been a doctor back home but here he was a taxi driver. Islamophobia kills people. It does. It’s been doing it for centuries. And whatever we do it never gets any better. Violence is now the only way. We get you off the streets just as you insist upon our invisibility if we don’t conform to your idea of what we should be. If it’s a choice between being subjugated and subjugating, the latter course is the only rational one. I was still buzzing from the bouts. Taha said I was ready.’
‘To do what?’
‘To hunt,’ he said.
‘And you found Rajiv Banergee.’
‘Walking towards Arnold Circus. They go there to meet sometimes at night.’
‘Who?’
‘Perverts.’
‘Is that your way of talking about gay men?’
‘He smiled at me,’ Charleston said.
‘And so you punched him.’
‘He provoked me.’
‘A man on a self-confessed “hunt”,’ Ricky said. ‘What did he have to do to not attract your attention? Hide under a bench?’
Charleston swallowed. ‘I felled him with one blow,’ he said. ‘I grabbed him by his collar and told him to keep his filthy pursuits to himself in the future. He was alive when I left him.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because he laughed at me,’ he said.
‘Which made you go back and kill him.’
�
��No!’ He looked at his lawyer, then back at Ricky. ‘I swear. I left him. I’d done what I set out to do.’
‘And the blood on your T-shirt?’ Ricky asked.
‘When I held him by his collar, his mouth was close to my body and … It was bleeding.’
‘And so you left?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’ Ricky said. ‘If it’s true.’
‘It is!’
‘Thought Mr Dugdale could get you off without you having to reveal how insecure you are in your own masculinity …’
‘How …’
‘Oh come on!’ Ricky said. ‘Blokes who have to beat up other blokes because they choose to wear eyeliner are fucking inadequate. I don’t care how religious you are, if you’re threatened by that, you have problems.’ He shook his head. ‘So you ran away, leaving Mr Banergee alive on the ground, then what?’
‘Then I saw them kill him,’ Charleston said.
‘Who?’
Her looked down at the floor again and breathed deeply.
‘Bobby Moore! Geoff Hurst! Clyde Best!’
Lee rubbed the mynah bird’s silky head and said, ‘Wind it in will you, Chronus?’
Weirdly the bird did. Usually when he was on a roll with West Ham United team lists, he was at it ceaselessly for hours. But then Chronus was Lee’s baby. Spoilt, overfed and petted, he knew his master well enough to realise when he needed some quiet. He settled down on his perch and closed his eyes while Lee continued to stroke his head.
All Lee really wanted to do was sleep. But his mind wouldn’t let him. He knew that had he been able to talk to Mumtaz maybe it would have helped. But she was back with her family on Brick Lane – with her broken ribs.
How had he allowed Abbas to put them all in harm’s way like that? But then it hadn’t been Abbas who had, it had been him. His guilt, his sense of being in another’s debt … Why couldn’t he deal with that? Being in any sort of debt to anyone drove him crazy. But he was in debt to Mumtaz.
Until he could talk to her, Lee wouldn’t know what she’d been told. The woman who had interrogated him at Forest Gate had told him nothing about Fayyad al’Barri except that he’d been radicalised by his sister. Djamila! He’d thought she’d been all about fashion and boyfriends. Obviously not. But then his previous view of her had done her a disservice. In spite of reality television, galloping consumerism and epic levels of media narcissism, anyone with half a brain looked for meaning in life. Djamila had been a smart girl. Obviously she’d been misguided too. But then equally obvious was the fact that the radical narrative she’d become entranced with had filled a gap in her life. Maybe she felt disconnected as an exile? Abbas and Shereen had been very keen to fit in when they’d come to the UK. Perhaps they’d taken that too far?
Lee really wanted a drink. That or a handful of co-codamol. But what would being out of it achieve?
He lit up yet another fag and tried to concentrate on Bargain Hunt. But he couldn’t. He’d always known that once Fayyad was in the country he’d have to be handed over to the authorities. But he’d just disappeared. What were they doing with him? Was he even alive? And what had the change of plan from Amsterdam to Essex really been about?
Had Fayyad turned himself in or hadn’t he? And if he had, what had Djamila known about that? If anything?
For the first time since he’d served in Iraq in ’91, Lee felt actively scared. Things done to and by people who thought they knew best for that country and its people always ended up exploding into violence.
TWENTY-FOUR
They looked just like any other teenagers playing football. Each trying to get the ball off the other. But if Amir Charleston was right then these kids had killed Rajiv Banergee in cold blood. While he was still down on the ground after Charleston’s single, mighty punch, they’d stabbed him.
Charleston said he’d not wanted to drop two ‘very decent’ kids in it. But Ricky Montalban knew that was bullshit. If he’d seen those kids that night, and it was a big if, how had he known they were ‘decent’ kids? How had he known them at all? And what did the obvious fact that he knew of them, mean?
There was no evidence against the boys and in fact they still had an outstanding case against Ali Huq. But Ricky was also aware that Qasim and Nabil had come to the Lane via Aziz the tailor. At a level far higher than himself, Ricky knew that Tower Hamlets and Newham were now co-operating on what had been a no-go area for any coppers who didn’t work for Newham – as well as many who did. This involved Aziz as well as the Forest Gate lawyer, Vakeel Uddin. Word was that others were involved in what was actually a counterterrorism investigation too. Bob Khan had heard that a whole family had been arrested in Newham.
Bringing people into the country with the intention of disrupting British life or for recruitment purposes was nothing new. Back in the seventies the IRA had slotted operatives inside perfectly peaceful, law-abiding communities with some success. But given the level of secrecy around this operation, Ricky had a feeling this was something different.
Ricky walked into the garden and the boys stopped playing.
‘Lee.’
‘Mumtaz.’
It was a relief to hear her voice even though he knew she was safe. He sat up and rubbed his face. He’d smoked so much he had to look like shit. It was a good job she couldn’t see him.
‘They took my phone,’ she said. ‘So I figured they’d taken yours too. Good thing we still have landlines, eh? How are you?’
He thought about pimping it up for her, but then he said, ‘Shit. You?’
‘On far too many painkillers,’ she said.
He smiled. He was jealous.
‘You still at your mum and dad’s?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Mum’s looking after me. It’s driving me nuts. Lee, we need to talk.’
‘I know.’
‘Can you come over here?’
‘Is that OK?’
‘Of course it is,’ she said. ‘We’ve a full house, what with Shazia and Ali …’
‘Your brother.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But we can talk in the garden. I don’t know if you want to drive but Dad’s got visitors’ permits here.’ She paused. ‘I need to tell you some things.’
Lee lit another fag. ‘I’ll be about an hour,’ he said.
‘OK.’
There was something else he needed to do first.
He just stood outside the house on the pavement. He didn’t knock or call the house phone. He just stared.
Shereen called up to the kids to be quiet. Hasan in particular had been crashing around up there. Packing was hard when you couldn’t take everything you wanted. It was harder still when you were in grief.
What was Lee Arnold doing? They’d told her he was to have no more contact with the family. No one was. Shereen’s emotions moved to their own ever-changing beat. One minute she felt tainted by what her daughter had done, the next she cried uncontrollably for her husband – and for Djamila. Whatever she’d done, she had been her child. She didn’t even know how she’d died. Or Abbas.
She looked at Lee Arnold out in the street. Did he know something? Surely he had to. Had he come to tell her?
She’d wanted to tell Fazil’s parents about Djamila but they’d told her she couldn’t. The poor boy had to be worried sick. Unless, of course, he’d been with her when she died?
Something else that occurred to Shereen was the familiarity of the situation. The police coming to get them, the police handing them over to other people who didn’t give their names. It was like Saddam’s regime reborn. Her eldest brother Rauf had been taken back in the 1980s in just such a fashion. He’d never been seen again.
And what about Fayyad? The nameless people hadn’t spoken about him. She’d asked but they’d said nothing. Why had he joined ISIS? He’d always been such a good, caring boy. What had happened to make him ally himself with the enemies of his own family? Living in the UK hadn’t been so bad for him. In fact all the
children had done well. What had she and Abbas done wrong? All she could think of was that they hadn’t addressed their children’s religion. But for good reasons she’d always felt. Back home, adherence to a religion had been everything, even if that ‘religion’ was that of the secular Baa’thists who supported Saddam. They’d both wanted their kids to be free of all that. But had that been wrong? Had their rejection of religion actually made it more attractive to their children?
She remembered how Hasan had begged and pleaded with Abbas to let him fast during Ramadan the previous year. But Abbas had been adamant. No son of his was going to fast for what he considered to be no good reason. After that argument, just like every argument any of them had had in recent years, Abbas had got howling drunk. Muslims didn’t drink. Maybe that had been the attraction?
She looked out of the window again and saw that Lee Arnold had gone. Shereen shouted up the stairs, ‘Finish up as quickly as you can now.’
Her own bags were packed. Just some clothes, toiletries, medicines, photographs. They’d come to the UK with so little, there were few things of sentimental value to consider. Also, what was the point? It was far more important for the children to take as much as they could. They, after all, had a future. She hoped.
Hafez, the translator, had been a documentary-maker back in his native Damascus. He’d tried not to upset the Assad regime with his films about wildlife and history. But he’d eventually fallen foul of some odious government yes-man and had finally only managed to escape after the regime had rendered him sexually impotent. Now he did everything he could to oppose both Assad and those groups, like ISIS, who threatened to replace him with something even worse.
Nabil refuted what DI Montalban said. Hafez had seen many dead eyes like his in Syria and on his way into Europe.
‘He says the man is lying.’
‘And the man says he is,’ Ricky Montalban said.
‘Qasim is wondering what you are doing with the man who raped them,’ Hafez translated.
‘Nothing yet,’ Montalban said. ‘We need evidence. We found no evidence for any wrongdoing – apart from some jihadi propaganda – by either your boys or Mr Huq at his house.’
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