M.R. Hall - The Disappeared

From the moment she had seen the judge's declaration Jenny had assumed that Mrs Jamal had come seeking an inquest, but the prospect threw up a raft of problems, not least the fact that there was no body and only a presumption of death. In such circumstances Section 15 of the Coroner's Act required her to get the Home Secretary's permission to hold one. That would only be granted where holding an inquest was judged to be in the public interest, which was as much a political as a legal decision. And even if that hurdle were cleared, it would be no easy task so many years after the event to cajole reluctant police officers and government officials to dust down their files and release whatever information wasn't deemed a threat to national security. Broad as they were, the coroner's powers would, in this instance, struggle against the powerful machinery of the state.

'Mrs Jamal,' Jenny said, with what she hoped was an appropriate balance of caution and concern, 'I will gladly look into your son's case, but all I can do is write a report to the Home Secretary requesting—'

'I know that. The judge told me.'

'Then you'll know that the chance of getting as far as holding an inquest is slim, probably non-existent. It's extremely unusual in cases where is there no actual proof of death.'

Mrs Jamal shook her head, her expression hardening with disappointment, 'What are you telling me - that I should give up after all this struggle?'

If she were being completely honest, Jenny would have told her that in the absence of a body, and after the passage of seven years, the best thing she could do would be to treat the court order as final proof that Nazim was dead, allow herself to grieve, and then move on. She would have told her that the main obstacle to her happiness was her obsession with her son's fate, and that an inquest was unlikely to satisfy or cure it.

'It would be wrong of me to hold out any hope of finding out what happened to your son,' Jenny said. 'I think perhaps you should ask yourself what purpose you think an inquest might serve. It won't bring him back.'

Mrs Jamal started to gather her jumble of papers. 'I'm sorry I wasted your time.'

'I'm not refusing to investigate —’

'You're obviously not a mother, Mrs Cooper, otherwise you would understand I have no choice. My life is nothing compared with my son's. I would rather die trying to find out what happened to him than live in ignorance.'

Mrs Jamal stood up from her chair as if ready to march out without another word, but seemed suddenly to lose energy and falter. She slowly placed the file back on the desk and folded her hands across her middle, her head dipping forwards as if she hadn't the strength to hold it up. 'I apologize, Mrs Cooper. I expected too much of you. I don't hope for miracles ... I know that Nazim is dead. When he came to my flat that afternoon with a fever, I had a feeling. Yes . . . when I think of waking and hearing him reciting the tajwid the next morning, I still can't be sure if it was him or his ghost.' She looked up with dry, desolate eyes. 'Maybe you are right. Too much time has passed.'

Jenny had recoiled in the face of what she had perceived as Mrs Jamal's all-encompassing self-pity, but not for the first time in their meeting she saw beyond to the deep and profound grief of a mother in search of her lost child. The last thing she needed was another fraught and time-consuming case, but her emotions were already churning, the faces of the missing boys were already vivid, their spectres already haunting her.

'Leave the file with me,' Jenny said. 'I'll look through it this afternoon and get back to you.'

'Thank you, Mrs Cooper,' Mrs Jamal replied quietly. She reached for the scarf lying across her shoulders and raised it over her hair.

'What about Rafi Hassan - are his family seeking a declaration?' Jenny asked.

'We don't speak. They were very hostile to me. They chose to believe that Nazim was responsible for what happened to their son.'

'And your husband?'

'He gave up long ago.'

Jenny detected a frostiness in Alison's demeanour as she showed Mrs Jamal out. During six months of working together she had learned to read every slight shift in her officer's mood. Alison was one of those women with an uncanny ability to let you know precisely what she was feeling without ever saying a word. What Jenny read in her reaction to Mrs Jamal was suspicion bordering on outright disapproval. When, several minutes later, she returned to the doorway to report that the police were agitating to see the post-mortem reports on the bodies in the refrigerated trailer, Jenny remarked that she seemed irritated by Mrs Jamal.

Alison crossed her arms. 'I remember her son's case. I was in CID at the time. Everyone knew he and the other lad had gone off to fight abroad.'

Another trait that Jenny had noticed: Alison's stubborn adherence to the consensus amongst her former police colleagues.

Jenny said, 'Everyone being . . . ?'

'The squad who were on the obbo for five months. The extremists were operating freely back then.'

Jenny felt a twinge of annoyance. 'His mother still has the right to know what happened to him, insofar as that's possible.'

'If I was her, I'm not sure I'd want to know. We can't exactly call witnesses from Afghanistan.'

'No. You don't happen to remember who was in charge of the observation?'

'I can probably find out. Just don't expect to get very far—the spooks are all over this sort of thing.' Alison changed the subject: 'What about these bodies in the lorry—do you want me to have a look? I expect the police will want that one for themselves as well.'

'It might be as well for you to make your own report,' Jenny said, and couldn't resist adding, 'we know how our friends in blue can see one thing and write down another.'

'I'm only telling you what I heard at the time, Mrs Cooper,' Alison retorted. 'And back then we still gave Muslims the benefit of the doubt.'

Jenny held her tongue, sensing in Alison's reaction that Mrs Jamal had stirred complicated emotions. Six months on, Jenny knew that Alison was still privately grieving for the man she'd been in love with: the late Harry Marshall, her predecessor as coroner. They had been close. The messy circumstances of his sudden and unexpected passing had left a mess of unresolved feelings which she was attempting to clear up with a dose of full-strength Christianity. When insecure, Alison cleaved to institutions - the police, the church - and resisted anything that threatened them. It was irrational, but who was Jenny to pass judgement? Without her medication she was beset by irrational fears too.

'Her son's been declared dead.' Jenny said. 'She's entitled to an investigation, however limited. I doubt very much it'll amount to anything.'

Alison's hostility hung in the air like an unwelcome presence long after she'd left the office. Jenny felt almost guilty as she arranged Mrs Jamal's papers into a semblance of order. She hadn't felt like this again since the first case she and Alison had worked on together - that of the fourteen-year- old Danny Wills, who'd been found dead in his cell at a privately run prison. Perhaps, as an ex-policewoman, Alison sensed trouble more keenly than she did.

Although numerous, Mrs Jamal's documents cast little light. There were lists of students who lived in the halls of residence at the time; statements from members of both families; statements from police officers who had searched the campus; copies of ineffective correspondence with various councillors and politicians. There was a copy of the original identification statement given by Simon Donovan, in which he described the two young men on the train, and statements from students Dani James and Sarah Levin, describing the mysterious intruder and Rafi's overheard remark about Muslim brothers heading for Afghanistan. There was a sketchy photocopy of Nazim's UK passport, confirmation from the Passport Office that Rafi Hassan had never possessed or applied for one, and a dry letter written by a DC Sarah Owens, Family Liaison Officer, explaining in patronizing tones that the police had decided to suspend their investigation until such time as further evidence came to light. The final document was a 'missing' poster put together on a home computer displaying various head shots of the young men. Jenny was struck by how handsome they both were: keen- eyed and slender featured. She stared at them for a long moment, then felt an unexpected wave of almost unbearable sadness: they weren't even dead. It was worse than that: they had simply disappeared .