M.R. Hall - The Disappeared

Jenny sipped her tepid coffee. There was so much she wanted to be told, and she trusted them so little.

'Who is Silverman?'

Golder answered. 'As far as we can ascertain he was an American agent operating outside the usual channels of cooperation. He appeared to have access to our intelligence, but we knew nothing of him or his activities.'

'You're denying all knowledge of him?'

'They were fearful times. The Americans were understandably jumpy and we had let the grass grow under our feet rather. Not that that's any justification for summary killing, I grant you.'

Jenny remained sceptical. 'If they thought they'd identified terrorists, why not just hand them over to you or fly them out of the country?'

Golder and Rhys exchanged a look. Golder said, 'We're still working on that. All we have at present is the little Alec McAvoy told us. Apparently Tathum confessed that he and his colleague - since killed in Iraq, if that's any consolation - brought the two boys straight from Bristol to the woods, where they were met by Silverman. He interrogated them for most of the night, extracted nothing except denials, then shot Hassan as an incentive to Jamal. Seemingly it didn't have the desired effect.'

'You're in contact with McAvoy?' Jenny tried not to show her excitement.

'He made a single call to the police. There's been no other communication.'

'Will he be prosecuted?'

The loyal Crown servants exchanged another glance. 'That's a decision that depends on many factors,' Rhys said, 'not least of which is whether he's still alive. The police found a vehicle yesterday which we think may be his.'

'Where?'

'Just along the estuary from here, at Aust, near the bridge.'

Jenny gazed out at the birds and told herself it was a ruse on McAvoy's part. He was buying time, that was all, throwing them off the scent while he worked out his next move. He wouldn't leave her now, he had promised . . .

Golder's harsh, businesslike voice interrupted her thoughts. 'We're informed by the police that he's also wanted in connection with another suspected killing. He recently orchestrated the defence of a Czech nightclub owner by the name of Marek Stich, who shot dead a young traffic policeman but got a miraculous not guilty. Stich's girlfriend went missing shortly before his trial. She was Ukrainian. Apparently CID are working on the theory that hers was the body that was famously stolen from your local mortuary last week.'

'That can't be right. . .'

'I couldn't possibly comment,' Gillian Golder said, 'I suggest you talk to the police.'

He wouldn't. He couldn't have . . . But why else would he have come to view the Jane Doe that day? She remembered now: he had told her a story about a client with a missing daughter which he never repeated again. It was a fiction - his client was Stich. He must have sent McAvoy to identify the corpse that had unkindly washed back up on the tide. But that wasn't illegal, it wasn't complicity, it was just what criminal lawyers did for their clients. McAvoy would have had nothing to do with the murder or with the theft of a body.

'I presume you'd like our thoughts on Mrs Jamal?' Golder interrupted her reverie.

'Yes,' Jenny said, distracted.

'We're assuming Silverman was involved in her death. Our best guess is that the prospect of a public inquest rattled him somewhat. From what we gather he's not the most stable of individuals. We've no concrete evidence that he forced her to strip naked and drink half a bottle of whisky, but it seems as likely an explanation as any.'

'Why? She didn't know anything.'

'She might have known about Dr Levin. She might have approached her, prodded her conscience, got her to talk.'

'But he knew Levin. He could have talked to her directly.'

'We assume he probably did,' Rhys said. 'Disposing of Mrs Jamal was merely a housekeeping exercise, if you like.'

'What about Anna Rose?'

Rhys deferred to Gillian Golder, who considered her words carefully. 'As far as we know, Silverman resurfaced early last year after an extended period in the Middle East. He came back to Sarah Levin, looking for another young woman to work for him.'

'In the same university?'

'That's where he had the contacts,' Golder said. 'But we think his big idea this time was rather different.' She paused for a moment to weigh her words. 'Let's just say that, despite outward appearances, certain of our American cousins still harbour a residual frustration with Britistan, as they like to call us. They think we still need shocking out of what they see as our complacency over the radical elements among our Muslim population. Anna Rose was to be less of an informer and more of an agent provocateur.'

Golder gave Jenny a look as if to say that was as far as she was prepared to go.

Jenny wasn't satisfied. 'He was using her to set up Salim Hussain. She was to pretend she could get hold of the ingredients for a dirty bomb, but they actually came from Silverman. Then what . . . she took fright and ran?'

'You understand that we're not at liberty to disclose.'

'What does Silverman want? What's his agenda? He surely wasn't going to let a radioactive bomb go off?'

I wouldn't have thought so, no, but the propaganda value would have been, well . . . immeasurable. And I'm sure our American colleagues would have been more than happy to advise us on the necessary cleansing measures to prevent any future occurrence.'

'What's happened to him? Have you got him, too?'

Gillian Golder glanced at her watch. 'I'm afraid we have to go.' She gulped a mouthful of tea and stood up from the table. She told Rhys she'd see him outside and headed for the ladies' room.

Faintly embarrassed, Rhys said, 'Regarding Mr McAvoy, you wouldn't know who this might be for, would you? It was found in his car.'

He produced a clear plastic evidence bag from his jacket pocket which contained a folded scrap of lined paper. Written in an elegant cursive hand in ink that might have been spattered by rain or teardrops, were the words, 'My Dark Rosaleen'.

'May I?'

'Of course,' Rhys said, awkwardly. He opened the bag and handed her the note.

She turned away from him, pretending to need the vestiges of daylight afforded by the window to read it. The verses were set out with copybook neatness:

Roll forth, my love, like the rushing river,

That sweeps along to the mighty sea;

God will inspire me while I deliver,

My soul of thee!

Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening

Amid the last homes of youth and eld,

That once there was whose veins ran lightning

No eye beheld.

Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble,

Deep in your bosoms: there let him dwell.

He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble,

Here and in hell.

'Does it mean anything to you, Mrs Cooper?' Rhys said. 'Mrs Cooper . . . ?'

Throughout Saturday Alison drip-fed Jenny snippets of information gleaned from ex-colleagues in CID. She learned that photographs of Marek Stich's missing girlfriend appeared to match those of the Jane Doe, and that Stich himself had been arrested on suspicion of murder and conspiracy to commit arson. McAvoy was being sought as an accomplice to the 'unlawful concealment, disposal or destruction' of a corpse. There had been no activity on his credit cards or bank account for forty-eight hours and his phone hadn't been used since his final call to Pironi. There were unconfirmed reports of a smartly dressed middle-aged man seen walking along the public walkway at the edge of the Severn Bridge late on Friday morning, but no one had witnessed a suicide. The clever money in CID was still on him turning up in a few weeks' time to cut a deal: immunity from prosecution in exchange for giving evidence against Stich.