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‘Of course not. Right, let me show you around.’
She walked Sara up and down the shelves, describing her colour coding for submissions, authors, reports and originally commissioned research. ‘Of course, this material is all digitally stored too but our distinguished panel members often prefer to read hard copies. When they read anything at all.’
‘It’s impressive,’ said Sara, trying to soothe a woman whom life seemed to have made congenitally angry. ‘What about police and intelligence files?’
‘Coming to that,’ replied Sylvia irritably. ‘Their research reports and general assessments are handled in the same way. However, since Snowden, anything classified, shall we say, is, frankly, fog and mist, subject to endless redactions. Most of them look like a sea of black waves.’
‘Surely we can get more,’ asked Sara brightly.
‘You’d better get to work on our chairman,’ she replied. ‘Names. Names, places, times, addresses. It’s all scrubbing brush without those, isn’t it?’
At 5 p.m., Sara tapped on Morahan’s half-open door.
‘Come in, Sara, come in,’ he beamed. His informality continued to surprise her.
‘I’ve looked at those files,’ she said. ‘There’s no guarantee of finding any of those five names or of them talking if we do.’
‘Let’s see. I trust your ingenuity.’
‘And I’ve no idea anyway what story they have to tell.’ She cast him a trenchant look. ‘Do you?’
‘No. Nor do I know whether Sayyid does or if he’s leaving us to find out. And we have only his word that they lead to significant wrongdoing relevant to this Inquiry’s remit.’ He gave an encouraging smile. ‘But at least there seems the one link, doesn’t there?’
‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘As you say, let’s see.’
She hesitated, wondering whether or not to raise her nagging question. He read her. ‘Is there something you want to ask?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Try me.’
‘It’s just – I know I’ve asked it before – why me? You’ve been so emphatic that it could be no one else.’ She took the plunge. ‘Is there anything you’re not telling me?’
He rubbed his eyes and looked straight into hers. ‘I promise you there is no one more suitable for this task. Every word I’ve exchanged with you since has confirmed that view.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘Yes, that’s it. We’ll be a good team. You look after yourself. And have faith in me.’ It seemed a strange choice of words from a senior figure more than thirty years older than her and with such greater experience. He was a likeable man but there remained something impenetrable about him. The niggle would not go away.
As she shut the door behind her, Morahan felt unease. The urge to confess the true reason for her recruitment had been almost irresistible. He tried to comfort himself; she would at least have Patrick’s protection and he was thereby honouring his commitment to her – though he still didn’t understand why the government solicitor had been so insistent on accompanying her. Sara agreed arrangements with Patrick for an early train in the morning and he’d left for the day. Alone, she tried to work out why the Inquiry’s office seemed somehow so unfamiliar, discomforting even. The only sound was the near inaudible hum of internal ventilation, breathing air into sealed units with sound-proofed windows and newly laid carpets. Not even the occasional click of shoe heels broke through. Nor voices.
That was it – the hush. In Knightly Court, there were interruptions of chatter, meetings along the corridors, the odd joke told in reception, a wheezing splutter from Ludo, the creaking of badly fitting doors. Here, in the open-plan office, there was silence; eyes glued to screens, only occasional murmured questions, overseen by the headmistressy figure of Pamela Bailly. Patrick, now she thought about it, bantered in their own office, not outside it; Sylvia, she suspected, gave up banter a while ago. Morahan himself, however forthcoming with her, was hardly gregarious. In this silence she detected not calmness, but tension.
Her phone sounded – a text. She clicked to view.
A colleague may not be what they seem.
Thought you should know. Take care.
Her heart racing, she checked the number. Not from her contacts. Not familiar. Her fingers burning, she hit reply and typed a single word.
Hello.
She awaited the ping, somehow sure of the worst.
Message sending failed.
5 (#ulink_3d8b2aad-d03c-5aa5-88b7-8ac4ce473282)
Heading north out of King’s Cross, they exchanged idle chitchat before burying themselves behind laptops. Sara forced herself to act naturally with Patrick; the anonymous text preyed on her every waking moment, distorting the lens through which she grabbed occasional glances at him, in touching distance across the table, peering down at his screen.
She tried to convince herself there could be another explanation. It was more than a decade since that last text, sent in precisely the same form of language from an unknown number, had cast its shadow over her life. But people texted all the time, she told herself, without bothering with names. Except, as she well knew, the receiver would know the name from the number – or at least have a number that responded when they checked.
She’d repeatedly gone over the core words: ‘… A colleague may not be what they seem…’ They were too vague to be meaningful. A nothing. Anyone could have made that up.
She needed to stop kidding herself – this was not a random coincidence. Either it was the same sender or someone who knew about, or once had some contact with that sender, and knew their modus operandi. But for what? To scare her? To help her? To undermine her?
She grabbed another look at Patrick, then found herself seeing those other faces in the Inquiry office floating by.
If only she could discuss it with someone. But she understood all too well the logic of her position. The text was a dagger only to her because of the message that July morning fourteen years ago. Unless she owned up to that, anyone looking at this message would simply tell her to ignore it. Some joker trying to wind her up, they’d say. Or the detritus of office politics and rivalries.
Perhaps, when she next saw Morahan, she might ask him whether he had reason to suspect that anyone on his staff was operating to a different agenda. He’d probably look at her with mystification. If he did, she could just about imagine herself showing him the text. She could already hear his reaction – don’t worry, some idiot…
She was going round in circles. She could never, and would never, tell a single soul about the 2005 text. She had set that in concrete when the Met detective called on her a few weeks after 7/7. He knew only that she, like many others, had attended meetings where people now of interest to the police might have been present. She said she couldn’t help him; she recognised none of the names he raised. He had no reason to doubt her.
The questions the text raised, the guilt it ignited were impossible, unthinkable to admit to anyone but herself. At that crucial moment, however much she could be forgiven for not instantly interpreting it, she had, as it turned out, failed in the most devastating possible way – a failure she’d carried like a death row prisoner’s shackles ever since. The texts, past and present, were a weight she must bear alone. The only means of sidelining them was to focus single-mindedly on the task ahead.
Trying not to catch Patrick’s eye she retrieved from her bag the Sayyid folder Morahan had given her. Wherever they now were – if they were even still alive – the five individuals named in the files all hailed from the town of Blackburn in East Lancashire. The files shared the same template, headings running vertically down the left column. The left heading was TOP SECRET, right side OPERATION with the following word blacked out. The next line began KV2 followed by a further redaction. The headings below ran: PICTURE; NAME; DOB; LOCATION; PHONE; HOME ADDRESS; FAMILY ADDRESS; FIRST CONTACT; CURRENT STATUS; NOTES; HUMINT; COMINT; LAST CONTACT; FILE STATUS.
One name was Samir Mohammed. His photograph showed a young Asian, probably taken in his late teens. Date of birth was 12 October 1987; home and family addresses the same number and street in Blackburn; current status ‘inactive’; file status ‘Closed 31 December 2006’. One entry withstood clear interpretation. Humint read ‘Contacts not pursued after closure.’
Assuming he was alive – and had not since been involved in anything of interest to the police or intelligence services – Sara judged that he might be the easiest to approach. Whether or not he still lived in Blackburn was unknown. There was no hint of what story he, or any of the other four, might have to tell.
Announcing herself as a lawyer working for a government inquiry would guarantee doors slammed in her face. Tempting though it was – and even though she suspected it was the easiest way to get a foot in the door – she decided against presenting herself as an ambulance-chasing lawyer on the lookout for Muslim clients seeking financial redress against the police (a role she was all too familiar with). Instead she would introduce herself as a market researcher working on a project seeking to learn lessons on the past twenty years of governmental relationships with the young Muslim community.
She told Patrick her protocol. Despite that moment when he’d seen her returning with the folder from Morahan’s office, she stuck to the line that she was following up cases from Rainbow.
‘Maybe when you arrive in the street of one of the addresses, you should knock on every tenth door,’ suggested Patrick. ‘Then if someone answers and is willing, do the survey with them. Just for show. It might protect not just you but your target.’ He paused. ‘Whoever they are.’ He was grinning; there was no edge, just a hint of playfulness.
She smiled back. ‘That’s a great idea, thanks.’ She’d already planned something similar but his helpfulness pleased her and she didn’t want to discourage him. She’d been worried that their professional relationship, even without the anonymous text, would be uneasy after her show of resistance to him accompanying her. She had a further card up her sleeve but, for the moment, kept it to herself. She might not need to play it.
In the time left on the train, she checked websites on Blackburn and its environs, accumulating small details of local knowledge. At Preston, they picked up a hire car, Patrick easing into his promised role as driver.
‘Do you sit in the back or the front?’ he asked with the customary grin.
As they headed south out of Preston, she found herself glancing at him. Assuming, as she told herself she must, that things were as they seemed, she wondered what he was thinking about his role as bit-part player. She also noted his perfectly angled jaw-line and broad but straight nose. The edges of his black hair were touched with a few flecks of grey; otherwise there were no signs of age or sag and, even seated in the driving position, no bulge at the waist.
‘You’re inspecting me,’ he said abruptly.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I do it to everyone.’ She paused. ‘Including Morahan. I can give you a precise facial description if you want.’
‘I can manage without.’ The grin returned.
‘I know it’s not easy, this,’ she said.
‘It’s fine.’
‘You’re not a fool. You must want me to share.’
‘It’s OK. You’ll tell me what you want when you want. Though I’d like you to know this: you can trust me. If you speak to me in confidence, it remains between you and me.’ They turned off the motorway to a sign marked ‘City Centre’. ‘But there’s one thing you do have to tell me right now. Where are we going?’
‘Straight to the hotel, please. And if it’s a dump, take me home.’ Patrick set the SatNav for the out of town ‘Savoy Inn’ into which Clovis, with a blind loyalty to the name, had booked them. It turned out to border an industrial estate filled with garages and self-storage units. Ten minutes after checking in, Patrick opened the passenger door to a Sara dressed in a long broad black skirt which gathered by her ankles, dark brown jacket and marginally lighter brown hijab replacing the usual blue scarf. He cast a fleeting look of amusement and was reprimanded by a silent raise of her eyebrows.
Even if the Asian and white population split was similar, Blackburn seemed a different world from her part of south London. Though the people were the same, here there was just a distinct lack of bustle. She imagined the place in its Victorian prime; a boom town of the industrial revolution. Then it had been the weaving capital of the world; dotted with textile mills, over a hundred and forty of them according to her recent research, driving a massive churn of activity within the green fold of the hills where they lay. Granted, there had been little joy there for the sweating workers, lungs saturated by fine clouds of cotton dust, particularly the hand weavers who would eventually be overtaken by mechanisation. But there must have been a surge of energy. Now, except for civic relics like the museum, and one half of the town hall incongruously attached to its modern glass and steel extension, the great Victorian buildings had largely gone – except for the foul-smelling brewery – and the streets appeared lifeless, tinged with sadness. Shops and pubs were boarded up. People seemed to move more slowly, with less purpose.
The demarcation between the neighbourhoods housing the South Asian Muslims, and the two-thirds of the population who were white English, was stark and discomforting. Patrick, a black Briton, was out of place. He would have to maintain a low profile.
Samir Mohammed’s home address in the twelve-year-old file was given as 59 Gent Street. Patrick dropped her at the low number end of the street and assured her that his watch would be discreet. She made her way up, knocking or ringing on numbers 9, 19, 29, 39, 49. Only one, number 29, answered. Her market research questionnaire was devised to last no more than ten minutes and she was soon sounding the bell of No. 59. A single chime responded, followed by a late middle-aged Asian woman still in the process of covering her head with a black scarf.
‘Yes?’
Before Sara had time to answer, there was a shout from a male voice above. ‘What is it, Mum?’
The woman looked at Sara with her clipboard and retreated to the bottom of the stairs. ‘You come down, it’s a lady wanting something.’ Sara felt the excited flutter of the hunter closing on its potential prey.
She heard footsteps, then trainers and jeans appeared down the stairs followed by a tracksuit top and the face of a tall man a year or two either side of thirty. The age fitted.
‘Yes?’ His expression was sullen.
‘Hello, my name’s Sara Shah and I’m doing a survey of young Muslims’ views of different government agencies–’
‘Don’t have time for that,’ he interrupted.
She tried to engage him, her eyes enlarged with pleading. ‘I know, I understand,’ she said, ‘but I’ve been walking up and down these streets all morning. There’s no one who’s in or will give me the time of day. If I don’t do my numbers, I don’t get paid.’
‘You won’t get paid?’ He looked at her more closely, seeing the attractive face within the cotton surround.
‘Yes, it’s piecework.’ She held up the questionnaires. ‘No completed forms, no money.’
‘Can’t you make it up?’
‘They’ll find out. I’ll be sacked.’ He looked her up and down, his shoulders slumping, face peering up and down the street. Her chest tightened, cramped by his wavering. ‘Please, I’m getting desperate. Won’t take long.’
He hesitated. ‘Nah, don’t fancy it, to be honest.’ She thought she had him but he wasn’t shifting. He made to close the door. She had to play her last card.
‘Wait a minute,’ she said, keeping one foot over the threshold. ‘There’s a budget I’m allowed to use.’
Suspicion and interest competed in his eyes. He looked up and down the street. ‘A budget?’
‘Yes, I can offer you something. To help me reach my target.’
‘What something?’
She took a purse out of her bag. ‘A hundred. It’ll only be a few minutes.’ He was wavering; she crossed the fingers of her other hand.
‘Nah. Not worth it.’
‘Hundred and fifty?’
He eyed her closely. Until now, she hadn’t decided how far she’d go. ‘Nah.’
She couldn’t lose him now. One final throw. ‘I’m not really allowed to do this. Two hundred.’
His frown slowly turned to a smirk of victory. ‘Go on then, come in.’
Sara made a mental note. There was something venal about Samir Mohammed.
He signalled to the front room. ‘You wanna sit in there?’ He disappeared into the kitchen. She overheard him telling his mother that it was something about a survey and his mother asking if the lady wanted a cup of tea. ‘Yeah, she looks like she needs it.’
He came back with a tray holding a teapot, two china cups on saucers, and some biscuits. ‘Mum likes it done proper,’ he said.
‘It’s kind of her,’ she said. He poured. ‘As I said, it won’t take long.’
‘I’m not in a hurry,’ he said. ‘Not now anyway.’
‘That’s great. First up, I should ask you your name,’ she smiled.
He hesitated, frowning. She held both smile and silence. ‘Samir. That enough?’ She said nothing. ‘Most people call me Sami.’
‘That’s lovely, Sami, thank you. What’s your line of work? Don’t worry, nothing to do with this,’ she said, glancing down at her clipboard, ‘I’d just be interested.’
‘Security. Down at the Rovers. Mainly evenings and nights. Match days too. That’s why I’m home now.’
‘Blackburn Rovers?’
His face spread into a broad, innocent smile. ‘How d’you know that?’
‘Well, they’re a big team, aren’t they?’ Sara blessed the width of her research.
‘Yeah, once.’
‘The Championship’s not a bad place to be.’
‘Maybe we’ll get back into the Premiership sometime.’
‘Do you play?’
‘Used to. Not much now. Tend to keep myself to myself.’
