Babel

by Barry Maitland

  Without a word he stepped back into the room to let them in. A monk’s cell it was, Kathy thought, with barely enough possessions to fill a small suitcase, and cold, as if to test his resolve and his faith.

  ‘Mr Khadra?’ Kathy asked, continuing to smile at him. ‘Mr Abu Khadra?’

  He was an extremely attractive young man, she thought, lean and svelte like a colt, with delicate, sensitive features and large dark eyes. His hair was cut short, his ears tight against his skull emphasising the impression of intense alertness, and he was wearing a white T-shirt, black jeans and a pair of old trainers, once white but now worn and grey. Behind him, on a small wooden table, a book lay open.

  He answered her questions with barely more words than the Iraqis had used, but with a calm that brought back to Kathy the word that the student Briony Kidd had used about Max Springer, ‘serene’.

  He went to mosque in Shadwell Road, he said, and Kathy wasn’t in the least surprised. She was about to ask him if he’d ever met a Pakistani boy there, by the name of Ahmed Sharif, when her phone began to ring. She frowned with annoyance and turned away to answer it. It was Brock, sounding tense and short of time. She excused herself and went out into the deserted corridor.

  ‘Kathy, how far have you got?’

  ‘We’re on number four, the Lebanese.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘This one’s promising. Definitely a possible.’ She was conscious of her voice sounding loud in the empty corridor.

  ‘Nothing more concrete?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got a problem. Just had a call from Haygill. Dr Darr’s been onto him, complaining that your questions are personal and intrusive and insulting to their faith, and now Haygill’s denying that he gave us permission to interview his staff individually. Says he’d meant for him to approve the questions first and to be present. Darr’s obviously put the wind up him, told him he’s got another Christmas e-mail situation on his hands, and he says he’ll get the University President to kick us off the campus if we don’t stop what we’re doing immediately and wait for him to come over to mediate.’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘He’s at home in Enfield, in his pyjamas. Darr caught him just as he was going to bed, exhausted from his trip. He’s very agitated and wanted us to leave it until morning. When I refused he said I’d have to meet him at the university to negotiate with him, but I’m tied up with this bloody meeting for at least another half hour.’

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Leave.’

  ‘Can I take this one with me? I think . . .’

  ‘Definitely not. If Haygill gets too stroppy we’ll go back in with warrants, but for the moment we’ll do it his way. I promised him you two would get off the campus right away.’

  Kathy returned to room C-210 where Abu Khadra and Greg Talbot were standing exactly where she had left them, in silence. She gave the Arab a big warm smile. ‘Well, that’ll be all, Mr Khadra. We’ll leave you in peace now.’

  ‘You’re going?’ He looked mystified.

  ‘Yes, we’re quite satisfied, thank you.’ Her eyes met his and she knew immediately that he didn’t believe it for a minute. ‘If I have forgotten anything, will you be staying here for the rest of the evening?’

  He nodded, still mystified, and they left. When Greg started to say something outside in the corridor she put a finger to her lips and led him away. Not until they were well clear of the building did she explain what had happened.

  ‘That’s too bad,’ he said, ‘I was beginning to enjoy it. That last one was promising, I reckon. I know I’ve seen him around.’

  Kathy nodded agreement. More than promising, she thought, trying to put aside her sense of misgiving. She wondered how Wayne O’Brien’s research was going, but couldn’t reach him on her phone and left a message. Then she and Greg bought some fish and chips and settled down in her car beneath the track of the Docklands Light Rail to wait for Brock’s instructions.

  They got Brock’s call to meet him at Haygill’s office at 8:15 p.m., sooner than Kathy had expected. Darr had adopted a defensive position behind the director’s right side, and scowled at them as they entered the room. His boss looked grey and exhausted, and it was this that got things moving. Once the initial conciliatory sentiments had been expressed, Haygill and Brock quickly agreed that they should jointly witness the remaining interviews, and when Darr began to repeat all his grounds for objecting to Kathy’s questions Haygill silenced him by asking him to get Abu Khadra.

  While they waited, Brock passed Kathy a note. She opened it and read the fax, from Wayne O’Brien to Brock.

  ‘One result only so far. Abu Khadra was arrested by Israeli army in south Lebanon under emergency powers in 1989. Then aged fifteen years. Held for twenty-one days. No further record.’

  Darr returned shortly to say that Abu wasn’t answering his phone, and that he’d sent the two Iraqis over to his room to fetch him. They rang back a few minutes later with the news that there was a light on in C-210 but the door was locked and there was no response to their knocks.

  ‘He’s probably just popped out to visit someone,’ Darr suggested huffily, but Kathy knew otherwise and Brock saw the look on her face and said quietly to Haygill, ‘Maybe it would be wise to go over there, and get security to meet us there with a key. What do you think?’

  For a moment Haygill looked confused and uncomprehending, then Brock’s tone registered and anxiety brought him to his feet. ‘Yes . . . Yes, you’re right.’

  They hurried across the windswept campus, heels clattering on the wet concrete paving slabs, to find the corridor to room C-210 now filled with people. Other CAB-Tech team members had joined the Iraqis, and a number of residents had been attracted out of their rooms by their shouts and the banging on Abu’s door. Two of Mr Truck’s security men were there too, bulky in thickly padded jackets and military style caps. Haygill exchanged a few terse words with them, and the gathering fell silent as one of them pulled out a bunch of keys.

  Whatever worse fears the spectators might have had didn’t just evaporate when the door swung open and they saw into the empty room, for although there was no Abu lying unconscious on the little bed or slumped with a rope around his neck, there was still something immediately disconcerting about the room’s bareness which gave an almost supernatural dimension to his vanishing. There were no postcards on the pinboard, no creases on the bedcover, and no curtains on the window to hide the sinister blackness of the river beyond. Only the book lying open on the bare table confirmed that he had once been there.

  Brock stepped forward to examine it. No one else seemed inclined to follow him into the room. After a moment he called back over his shoulder, ‘Dr Darr. Do you or one of your colleagues read Arabic?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Darr declared, and waved one of the Iraqis to step with him to Brock’s side.

  ‘It is the Qur’an, sir.’

  ‘Yes. He’s underlined one of the verses, here. What does it say?’

  The Iraqi stooped to read, then straightened and stared meaningfully at Darr and murmured something. Darr whispered in return, then took a deep breath.

  ‘It concerns the fate of martyrs, sir,’ he said at last, reluctantly, clinging to the formal mode of address like a shield.

  ‘Could you translate it, please?’

  Darr muttered to the Iraqi, who began to recite.

  ‘‘‘Don’t think that those who are slain in the cause of Allah are dead. They are alive and in the presence of their Lord, who looks after them and heaps gifts upon them. They are happy that those they have left behind suffer neither fear nor grief. They rejoice in Allah’s grace and bounty . . .’’’

  A murmuring broke out among the people in the corridor as they picked this up, and phrases were repeated for those who hadn’t heard. Some men began to press forward into the room to see the book for themselves. Brock spoke to the security guards, asking them to clear the crowd, which they began to try
to do, with some difficulty. He turned to Darr and the Iraqi again. ‘Where could he have gone?’ he demanded.

  They shook their heads. Abu was always the outsider in the team, Darr explained, because of his work, in computers rather than the science. He worked to a different pattern, a different timetable. He attended a different mosque.

  ‘In Shadwell Road? Why there? Did he know people there? Friends?’

  They shook their heads, uncertain.

  ‘’Ang on.’ PC Talbot spoke up. ‘I’ve got ’im now. He drove a motorbike, didn’t he? A little yellow Yamaha.’

  They nodded, yes. His pride and joy.

  ‘Yeah, I can picture ’im now. With a black helmet. I’ve seen ’im down the Road a lot. I thought he lived there.’

  Brock turned to Haygill, who was hovering just inside the door to the room as if he wanted to be anywhere but there. ‘Anything you can add, Professor?’

  The scientist cleared his throat. ‘Er . . . Excellent worker. Good computer people are like hen’s teeth these days, and Abu is outstanding. A brilliant young man. He’s had offers from other places, but he’s stayed with us. Believes in the work.’

  ‘Any relatives in this country?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. His family is all in Lebanon, I understand. He went to the Gulf to study. University of Qatar.’

  That seemed to be all that they knew of Abu, or were prepared to tell, and Brock asked them to leave while he and Kathy carried out a search of the room. Its emptiness extended into all its corners, no hangers in the wardrobe, no fluff beneath the bed.

  ‘I don’t think he did live here,’ Kathy said finally. ‘He didn’t have enough time to clean it out this thoroughly.’

  Only the book seemed to bear any signs of vital human life, its pages interleaved with small fragments of Abu’s past, an old postcard of the Roman ruins at Ba’albek in the Beqa’a Valley of Lebanon, some letters in spidery Arabic, some photographs, an elderly smiling woman wearing traditional headdress, a family group at a table, two little girls, a middle-aged European.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Brock said, lifting up the last picture for Kathy to see.

  It had been cut from a glossy printed page, and the face was younger by ten or fifteen years, the unruly bush of hair thicker and darker, the face plumper, but it was certainly him.

  ‘Springer?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Springer,’ Brock nodded. ‘Our victim.’

  He turned the paper over but the back was blank.

  ‘Looks like it’s come from the dust-cover of a book,’ Brock suggested. ‘His autobiography maybe.’

  He put the picture back between the leaves and stared at Kathy. ‘The book of his life.’

  11

  They went first to Shadwell Road police station and made arrangements with the duty inspector to call in additional officers from surrounding divisional stations. Soon they were joined by Bren Gurney and a carload of people from Serious Crime, including Leon Desai.

  Bren cornered Kathy soon after he arrived. ‘Leon insisted on coming over with us, Kathy. What do you want me to do? Send him off somewhere?’

  Kathy’s heart sank. So her break-up with Leon was common knowledge. And she had fondly hoped that people didn’t even know they’d been having an affair. Some hope.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said, aiming for total indifference but hearing herself sound snappy. ‘Not an issue.’

  Leon himself appeared shortly after. ‘Kathy, can I have a word?’

  ‘I’m very busy, Leon,’ she said, although embarrassingly she suddenly found herself with nothing particular to do.

  ‘Yes, but why?’ He was pressing too close to her, trying to keep his voice low as people passed by in the narrow corridor.

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why are you involved in this? You’re supposed to be on stress leave. Did Brock make you come back?’

  She turned on him then. ‘It’s none of your bloody business, Leon. Just bugger off and leave me alone.’

  ‘Kathy, I’m concerned!’ He choked off whatever he’d been going to add as two men newly arrived from the Divisional Intelligence Unit called out a greeting to a small black woman from the Race Hate Unit at Rotherhithe.

  ‘You were told to take time off. And you shouldn’t be involved in this,’ he hissed under his breath. ‘This Special Branch stuff, it’s not even your area. I’m going to speak to Brock.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing!’ Her yell startled the others, who turned to see what was going on.

  ‘Let’s talk about it, then.’ He was pleading now, and she hated it more than his high-handedness.

  ‘Leave—me—alone,’ she said, slowly and deliberately. ‘I don’t want your advice. Do you understand?’

  He stared at her, and she saw his dark eyes filled with hurt, and understood finally what was going on. This Special Branch stuff . . . She thought, some undercover man Wayne O’Brien turned out to be. I should start my own ‘Kathy’s love-life’ website, just in case some distant outpost of the Met isn’t quite up to date.

  Brock padded up the stairs, Bren at his shoulder, wondering if anyone had actually made an arrest before in their stockinged feet. No doubt they had, and in frogmen’s suits and tails and long johns too, but there was something peculiarly subversive about being made shoeless, as if the whole ominous dignity of the occasion might be punctured by a pin dropped on the carpet. His hope was that the place would be as quiet as the last time he’d come here, but his optimism began to fade as he picked up sounds filtering down from the upstairs hall, and died altogether when they reached the top and opened the doors. There were maybe two dozen men on their knees in prayer, another dozen in small huddles squatting on the carpet, and one larger group, like an adult class—nearly fifty men in all, enough to start a riot or a massacre.

  He scanned their faces, aware of a number of them looking suspiciously at the two of them in their coats and socks. He couldn’t spot anyone resembling Abu, but he did recognise Imam Hashimi, who appeared to be leading the adult education group. The imam caught sight of him at the same instant, and a look of alarm appeared on his face. He gave some kind of instruction to his group, jumped to his feet and hurried over.

  ‘What do you want here?’ he demanded, voice low.

  ‘Your help, Imam Hashimi,’ Brock said.

  ‘No!’ the man said, agitated. ‘Please go at once. You are not welcome here.’

  At the same time another man came sidling over, trying to hear what was being said. He must have caught the tone of anger in the imam’s voice, for he said, ‘Is everything all right? Are you in need of assistance, Imam?’

  ‘No, no. Everything is fine.’

  Several more men approached, and Brock recognised Manzoor, the owner of the clothes shop next to the police station, looking particularly dapper in dark business suit and silk polka dot tie. Manzoor recognised Brock too and hurried forward eagerly. ‘This is the police, Imam! This is Scotland Yard!’

  ‘It’s all right, Sanjeev!’ Imam Hashimi anxiously flapped both hands at him in an attempt at a calming gesture. ‘They want my assistance. I will have to talk to them.’

  But Manzoor wasn’t ready to be put off. ‘Is it about the Sharif boy, Superintendent? Have you arrested him? Did he murder the professor?’

  A small crowd was gathering now, and the men who had been at prayer were beginning to sit up, looking round in bewilderment.

  ‘No, Mr Manzoor,’ Brock said firmly. ‘We haven’t charged anyone in connection with that case. I want to speak to the Imam about a private matter. There’s no need for concern.’

  Manzoor looked disappointed and the imam took advantage of his hesitation to guide the two policemen away to the door to his office, which he shut firmly behind them.

  ‘You see? You see how troubled they all are? You shouldn’t have just walked in here. You should have phoned.’ He spoke in a kind of strangled whisper for fear of ears at the door, but his extreme agitation needed an outlet and he paced back and f
orward in the small space, gesturing with his hands. ‘You should have made an appointment!’

  ‘I’m sorry, but there hasn’t been time for that. This is a very urgent matter we need your help with.’

  ‘No! No, no, no! I helped you once and what happened? Three of our young people are in your hands for over twenty-four hours now, and you say you haven’t charged them with any offence? How is this possible? Their families come and ask my advice, and what can I say to them? That I was the one who delivered them up to you?’

  ‘Everything is being done according to the law, Imam Hashimi. Tell them to get legal advice.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t do that? But what happens when they find out that I supplied the addresses?’

  ‘I haven’t told anyone that, and I have no intention of doing so.’

  ‘All the same, you were seen here, before the boys were arrested . . .’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, but time is very short. We came here to try to prevent a death, Imam. One of your parishioners has disappeared and we fear the worst. He left us a message. I think you will understand my concern when I tell you what it was.’

  The imam stopped pacing and faced Brock. ‘Yes?’

  ‘A verse from the Qur’an, Chapter Three.’

  ‘The Imrans? Yes?’

  ‘Verse one hundred and seventy.’

  He frowned in thought, and then his eyes widened and he whispered, ‘“Do not account those who are slain in the cause of Allah, as dead” . . . Who is this person?’

  ‘A young man by the name of Abu Khadra, a Lebanese, who works at the university. He worships here with you.’