M.R. Hall - The Disappeared

'They weren't allowed to put pictures where?'

'It doesn't matter. Just canteen gossip.'

'Are you telling me that Pironi's people were ordered not to carry out a normal missing persons investigation?'

'He's never said that.'

'Maybe you should be giving a statement. What else were they saying in the canteen?'

'I wish I hadn't said a word. You won't even be allowed to hold this inquest anyway.'

Jenny looked up from her computer screen and sensed in Alison something approaching mild panic. 'Pironi's asked you to try to steer me away from this, hasn't he?'

'He would never ask me to do such a thing. But we all know how blame gets shifted downwards, and Dave's a year away from retirement. He paid for his wife's treatment out of his own pocket and he needs his pension. If you have to get into this, I'd at least ask you to accept my word that he would never have done anything wrong.'

Alison had a history of putting men other than her husband on a pedestal - Harry Marshall, the previous coroner, eight months dead, had been one of them. Jenny didn't doubt that Dave Pironi could be perfectly charming, but she was equally aware that when it came to men she found attractive, her officer had no judgement.

Jenny said, 'I'm sure you're right, but I'd be grateful if you sent the letter anyway.' She grabbed a legal pad and dropped it into her briefcase. 'I'll see you later. I've got a meeting at the university.'

Rhydian Brightman was a tall, fidgety man with a permanently distracted expression. He could only have been a year or two older than Jenny, but had already embraced middle age and wore thick glasses that balanced in a groove halfway down his nose. They met in a busy canteen on the physics department's ground floor, Brightman claiming his office was being used by a colleague for a meeting. She assumed the real reason was that her presence had unnerved him. He looked to her like a highly strung man who was comfortable only in his own world among his own kind. That did not include prying coroners.

They sat at a small, sticky table and drank foul-tasting cups of tea purchased from a vending machine. At the next table several boisterous undergraduates were exchanging lurid stories of drunken sexual exploits, but the professor didn't seem to notice. He had one eye on Jenny and the other on the door.

'You remember Nazim Jamal - he started as an undergraduate in the autumn of 2001,' Jenny said.

'A little. He would have been to my lectures. We probably met in the seminar room once or twice.'

'You do remember his disappearance?'

'Yes, of course. We all remember that. Terrible.'

'I assume the police must have asked you a lot of questions at the time.'

'They were very busy here for a week or two. I didn't get the impression they found much to enlighten them. It all seemed to remain rather mysterious.' He gave an awkward, apologetic smile. 'The thing is, there's not that much connection between staff and undergraduates, not on a personal level. I could recognize most of our first years, but I couldn't tell you what they got up to outside the department.'

'Who was the main point of contact for the police while they were investigating?'

'Me, I suppose. I was technically responsible for our undergraduates at the time. We had a number of meetings. As I say, not a lot transpired.' He became aware of his restless fingers drumming on the table and thrust his hands selfconsciously into his lap.

' Technically ?'

'In an academic sense. Of course, if they wanted to come to me with a personal problem . . . But we do have other avenues for those sorts of things.'

'What I really want to know at this stage is what was being said amongst the students or staff. There must have been endless speculation; others who were closer to him must have had theories.'

'Surprisingly few, actually. That's what seemed so odd. The police spoke to a lot of undergraduates, but the other chap — '

'Hassan.'

'Yes. He seemed to be the only one Jamal was really close to. Even those in his seminar group knew very little about him.'

'His mother gave me the impression he was sociable - came from Clifton College, played tennis — '

'You would have thought there would have been more to go on, wouldn't you?'

Jenny recalled the student noticeboards she had parsed on the way in covered with flyers and announcements for societies and political meetings. There were several from Muslim groups organizing speaker meetings, and debates on US foreign policy and the future of Palestine.

'Was there much in the way of Islamic activity on campus at the time?'

'So the police said, but I can't say that I was aware of it as a live issue. Science students tend to be rather less politicized than others - too busy working, I assume.' He let out a burst of nervous laughter and cast an apprehensive glance at two colleagues who had seated themselves at a nearby table.

Jenny lowered her voice, attempting to bring him into her confidence. 'I'll be straight with you. I doubt there's much you could contribute to an inquest; I probably won't even have to call you as a witness -' the muscles in his forehead relaxed, smoothing the creases from his brow - 'but I do need more than this.' She paused, fixing him with a look, trying to reach the man underneath. 'Can I assume that it wasn't just the police who interviewed you and others here at the time?'

'It would be a logical assumption.'

'In which case, you were doubtless told to keep the content of your discussions secret.'

'Believe me, Mrs Cooper, there really isn't much to tell.'

'I'm not asking you to breach a confidence, but if you could just tell me whether Nazim Jamal was believed to be a member of an extremist group - Hizb ut-Tahrir, for example?'

'It may have been mentioned.'

'This one may be harder for you: were any other students, apart from Rafi Hassan, also suspected of being members?'

Brightman hurriedly shook his head. 'No one said anything to me.'

'Did you make a formal statement at the time?'

'No. There was nothing like that. Just a few "chats".'

She studied him closely for a moment, wondering what reason a professor of physics might have for withholding information. She reasoned that the university would have been the subject of close attention by the Security Services for a considerable period, that members of staff would have been issued with directives to report any students they suspected of having extremist leanings to a senior manager, that effectively all tutors were recruited as spies. And once a spy, always a spy. Professor Brightman probably still had a number in his address book that he was tempted to call periodically, if only to cover his own back. To reveal all of this to Jenny would be compromising to say the least. His MI5 contact would have stressed the vital importance of discretion: to identify radicals the university would necessarily have to tolerate a certain amount of their activity. If it was known that all staff were potential informers, the extremists would be driven underground.

She said, 'I appreciate the delicacy of your position, but perhaps you could help me make contact with some of Jamal's contemporaries. You never know, someone might remember something that didn't seem relevant at the time.'

'I can certainly put you in touch with the university offices,' he said. 'They'd have a record of that year group. Actually, one of our junior staff here was one of them, but I'm afraid she's at a conference in Germany for the next couple of days - her team discovered a new particle.' He smiled, relieved at the prospect of their interview drawing to an end.

'Great. What's her name?'

'Sarah Levin, or Dr Levin should I say. One of our rising stars.'

The name was familiar. 'Didn't she give a statement to the police at the time?'