M.R. Hall - The Disappeared

He held her gaze, unblinking. 'Do you honestly think I would not have told their families if I did?'

'Did they ever they mention going abroad to you, to Afghanistan perhaps?' 'No.'

'You know they were allegedly seen on a London train the next morning.'

'If that was so, I knew nothing about it.'

'The police think you were some sort of recruiter, that you hooked in idealistic young men and passed them down the line to dangerous fanatics.'

'They think a lot of things, but understand very few.'

'So tell me. You must have a theory.'

He glanced down for a moment, considering his response carefully. 'I've had many years to think, and I can conclude only two things. Firstly, that even those we believe we know we may not; and secondly, that even in this country a Muslim life is cheap.'

'Are you telling me the whole truth, Mr Ali?'

'Those two young men weren't just friends to me, they were my brothers . Why would I lie?'

For all sorts of reasons, she thought, but knew there was little point in forcing the issue. The best she could do was appeal to his conscience and leave it with him. 'I'll ask just one thing of you,' she said, 'that you'll think about Mrs Jamal. Nazim was her only child.' She took out a business card and placed it on his desk. 'She has a right to know even if the public doesn't.'

He didn't get up to show her out. As she laid a hand on the door, he said, 'Be careful whom you trust, Mrs Cooper – when a friend cuts your throat, you don't see him coming.'

Ali's parting words remained with her. She hadn't known what to make of him, except that he inhabited a world she didn't understand and that he had made her slightly nervous. She could believe that he had been a young radical, a fanatic even, but she struggled with the thought that a Muslim mother would not have been told by someone on the inside, even anonymously, if her devout son had volunteered to fight for a religious cause. And if Nazim and Rafi hadn't gone to fight or train with the mujahedin, where else could they have gone? They were scarcely more than schoolboys, only nine months into their university careers. Several dark scenarios presented themselves to her: perhaps they were lured to London and press-ganged into an organization against their will? Perhaps they were still very much alive, zealous and fanatical; or perhaps they were fugitives, living underground, running scared.

Only one thing was now certain: if Ali was connected with their disappearance, whoever he was involved with would already know about her and her investigation. Common sense told her to pull back now while she still could, but every time she entertained the thought something deep inside her rebelled.

She had felt like this before. It was as if she had no choice.

Chapter 5

In order to obtain the Home Secretary's permission to hold an inquest into the case of a missing person presumed dead, Jenny needed to convince him that there was at least a strong likelihood that Nazim Jamal was in fact deceased. Strictly speaking, she also needed reason to believe that the death had occurred in or near her district - which could be impossible to prove - but she hoped to argue by analogy with bodies flown home from abroad, that if the body were ever to be repatriated it would be to within her jurisdiction. It was a weak argument, and viewed in the cold light of day the arguments against holding an inquest seemed even flimsier. It was clearly within the public interest to know why two bright young British citizens had vanished. To refuse to inquire would smack of official cover up, and the one-and-a- half million British Muslims were too big a constituency for any government to risk alienating.

Held steady by her morning combination of beta blockers to calm her physical symptoms of anxiety and anti-depressants to level her mood, she was ready to face the world again. She wanted to write her report to the Home Office as soon as possible, but first needed to carry out the two most logical lines of inquiry: to discover what, if anything, was known about the missing boys at the university, and what other documents the police still held from their original investigation.

She called through to the university offices during her morning commute while Ross slouched half asleep in the passenger seat plugged into his iPod. She was passed on to the office of Professor Rhydian Brightman, head of the department of physics. His none-too-helpful secretary claimed he was booked solid for the next week, but Jenny stood her ground and calmly reminded her that failure to assist with a coroner's inquiry could land the obstructing party in jail.

Ross looked round during this exchange and pulled out one of his headphones to catch the result: a meeting was swiftly arranged for late morning.

He said, 'Wow. Is that true? Can you really throw people in prison?'

'If I have to.'

'Have you ever?'

'Last summer. Two witnesses in the same inquest. Caused quite a stir.' She glanced over with a smile, but he was already plugged back in, his head bouncing to the music.

Alison greeted her with the usual stack of paperwork and a clutch of requests from other families with missing daughters wanting to look at the Jane Doe.

'What about the lab tests from the last lot? Shouldn't we rule them out first?' Jenny said.

'If I know anything they'll take at least a fortnight. Don't worry, I'll fix a viewing for later in the week. Probably have them queuing round the block by then.'

Jenny skimmed through the list of requests. It was unbelievable how many apparently well-adjusted young people there were who had vanished from their previous lives. Where did they go? Alison assured her there were hundreds if not thousands of cases every year, mostly people who'd had breakdowns or who were escaping from debts or bad relationships. The good news was that all but a fraction turned up eventually.

Jenny handed Alison a letter she had written to the Bristol and Avon Chief Constable. It requested that she be given access to all their archived files relating to the boys' disappearance and their observation of the A1 Rahma mosque and Marlowes Road halaqah.

Alison glanced at it dismissively. 'You'll be wasting your time, Mrs Cooper. They haven't got them any more.'

How do you know?'

'I spoke to Dave Pironi last night. A couple of suits came up from London yesterday afternoon with a certificate from the Minister and took them away.'

'Do we know who these people were?'

'He can't tell me that.'

'He must have given you some idea.'

Guardedly Alison said, 'I didn't get the impression they were police.'

'Then they'll have been MI5.' Jenny clicked onto her internet browser and started to search for a phone number.

Alison stood watching her from the doorway.

'What?' Jenny said.

'I wouldn't normally say anything like this, Mrs Cooper, but Dave doesn't think you should get involved.'

'Oh, really?' She found the number for MI5's central switchboard and scribbled it down. 'What's he got to hide?'

'Nothing. The fact is the police got pushed aside more or less straight after they went missing. The people who do know, if there are any, are so far up the food chain it's pointless even trying to go after them. All you'll do is make trouble for yourself.'

'He told you this?'

'Not in so many words, but if he says don't go there, it's for a reason.'

'Maybe he'd like to share that with my inquest.'

Alison sighed in frustration. 'I'll grant you there wasn't much sympathy around for those two boys, but even in CID they weren't happy with the way the investigation ended. I know you think all the police are closet racists, but as far as they were concerned they had a major investigation stepped on. For all they knew at the time, those lads could have disappeared to a safe house to strap bombs to themselves. They weren't even allowed to put pictures—' She stopped herself mid-sentence, realizing that she had said too much.