LATENT HAZARD: On the Edge

by Piers Venmore-Rowland

  Rafi’s mind raced. He tried to recall what he had handed over. Slowly it came back to him. The man had passed him an A to Z map book and asked to be shown which underground station he should use to get to Finsbury Park. Rafi had not needed the map, and explained that Moorgate station was just round the corner, where he could catch a train straight to where he wanted to go. It had been an utter surprise to Rafi when the stranger had embraced him to show his gratitude.

  Rafi looked at the picture on the screen, bewildered.

  ‘Caught red-handed!’ beamed Andy. ‘Tell us how you know Imaad Wafeeq.’

  Rafi thought for a moment. The CCTV footage painted a very misleading picture. It made an innocent conversation look very incriminating.

  ‘I didn’t know that was his name and that was the first time I met him,’ Rafi replied. ‘I was just getting some cash for my boss, Jameel Furud.’

  ‘Cobblers!’ burst out Mike, leaning forward. ‘You can do better than that. Do you think we’re dead from the neck up?’

  Rafi saw malice in his dark eyes and sensed that the table would offer little protection.

  ‘That was the first time I’d ever seen him,’ he repeated.

  ‘Bullshit! We know that you know Imaad Wafeeq, the Bishopsgate bomber. Lying to us is pointless. Why else did he embrace you as a friend? Look at his body language.’

  Rafi was dumbstruck.

  The two interrogators fired more questions at him.

  ‘Who else was involved?’

  ‘What’s the next target?’

  They kept on at him for what seemed like hours.

  Rafi kept pleading his innocence. There was little else he could do, but it only further infuriated his interrogators. Eventually their patience ran dry. Bland answers were not what they wanted.

  Mike looked straight at Rafi; his eyes were those of a coldblooded snake. ‘Let’s get this straight: with the evidence we have against you and the new laws, you’ve next to no human rights. We can send you to Belmarsh Prison, throw the key away and leave you to rot. No one will give a toss! Foxtrot Oscar back to your cell and do some very careful thinking. When you come back, we want answers, or else…’ Mike raised his hand in the direction of the one-way glass wall. The door to the interrogation room swung open and a guard walked in.

  ‘Take him back to his cell.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ replied the guard, under his breath. He was ugly, seriously ugly. His face was pockmarked, his nose was bulbous and bent, and he made the dour interrogator look like a softy. He escorted Rafi to his cell in double quick time and slammed the door shut behind him.

  Rafi tried to come to terms with what he’d seen. It was absurd. He had never met that man before; he had just wanted directions. The implications shook him. Thoughts flooded through his head. The horrific bombing had taken place on Friday morning. It was now Saturday. There must be hundreds if not thousands of CCTV cameras in the City of London. How did they pinpoint his meeting with the terrorist so quickly? OK, the camera was only a couple of blocks away from where the bomb had gone off, but still Rafi couldn’t help wondering whether the police had managed to retrace the bomber’s movements, simply been lucky or been tipped off. It all seemed far-fetched.

  As his circumstances and plight struck home, his brain moved into panic mode. He realised that he was staring at the back of his dark brown hands. He was a secular Muslim, not a fanatical extremist. He surmised that his skin colour, religion and the misinterpreted CCTV evidence put him squarely in the frame.

  Slowly, Rafi regained control of his thoughts. He was in serious trouble. With the new draconian laws, it would be easy for them to hold him in this hellhole with no charges for weeks on end. He looked around at his surroundings: the bed was solid, the floor and walls were bare and there was a slops bucket in the corner. Superficially, the cell looked fairly clean, but there was an all-pervading smell of stale urine and the feel of grime everywhere.

  The stark overhead light gave no warmth and just provided glare. It was getting to him. Its rays penetrated remorselessly into his eyes. He closed them. The illumination did not go away. It was as if the bulb had been doctored to give maximum discomfort. He was tired, but he had to keep his brain working. He had to think carefully. The only logical conclusion he could reach was that somebody had set him up. But what might he have done to make someone go to all that trouble? Nothing in his life, neither private nor professional, sprang to mind as being particularly unusual. At work things had been pretty normal… Except for the research Callum and he had been pursuing. So by process of elimination that had to be at the top of the list.

  The thud of the cell door opening caught him by surprise.

  ‘You’re wanted again,’ growled the guard.

  ‘Jump to it you little oik! Time to be on parade!’ he shouted when he noticed that Rafi wasn’t in a hurry to follow him.

  The guard wore irritability in his brutal face and didn’t try to hide his hatred for Rafi.

  ‘Get up you little sod. I bet they want your balls for dinner.’

  Rafi winced as he was pulled forcefully to his feet and pushed back down the corridor. He was stuck in a nightmare.

  ‘You said that you didn’t know the Bishopsgate bomber, Imaad Wafeeq. So why did he have one of your £20 notes in his pocket when he died? Let’s see you wriggle your way out of this one!’ barked Mike.

  ‘Yes, go on!’ said Andy. ‘And remember, we have proof that the £20 note was from the sequence you took from the cashpoint… Three policemen so far have lost their lives and two others are in intensive care.’

  Rafi did not answer.

  ‘Speak up! You knew the bomber, didn’t you?’

  Rafi remained silent.

  ‘Playing the innocent, are we?’ interjected Mike.

  ‘Do you think that we are stupid or something?’ asked Andy. ‘I am waiting for a reply.’

  ‘Can I have a lawyer?’

  ‘No you frigging well can’t!’ came the retort from Mike. ‘The likes of you forfeit all their rights. You don’t get a lawyer until you’ve been charged, and that could be weeks away.’

  The questions rained down… ‘Who else? Why? and What are you planning next?’ Rafi’s lack of helpful answers was seriously annoying Mike and Andy.

  ‘We haven’t got all bloody day. Start talking or we will get real mean.’ Mike’s dark eyes narrowed and stared threateningly, just inches away from Rafi.

  Rafi’s brain was in turmoil.

  ‘Talk!’ ordered Mike threateningly.

  ‘We have two cast-iron pieces of evidence against you. The CCTV footage and the £20 note. Case closed! We keep you here for weeks, break you, get your confession, have the courts lock you up and then throw away the keys,’ said Andy.

  ‘With the evidence we’ve got on you, you’ve become invisible and the system doesn’t give a bloody monkeys!’ added Mike.

  ‘But I’m innocent, I tell you. All I can think of is I stumbled on something at work, which upset some people,’ said Rafi.

  ‘Like what?’ snapped Mike.

  ‘Breaking the City rules on takeovers,’ replied Rafi.

  ‘What?’ burst out Andy.

  ‘Bullshit!’ Mike’s manner was becoming increasingly intolerant.

  ‘We want to know about the bomber and what his colleagues are planning next. Not about some poncey City insider dealing scam,’ said Andy.

  ‘Be very clear there’ll be no respite. We’ll hound you night and day. We will win and you will lose,’jeered Mike.

  Rafi felt sick with fear. His stomach churned. What was he caught up in? The evidence against him was impressive and the only explanation he could find was that someone had gone to a significant amount of trouble to implicate him. But why? All he could think of was the research that Callum and he had been working on, but what the hell was the link?

  ‘Are you going to talk?’ asked Andy.

  ‘Or do we let you rot forever?’ added Mike.

  How long would it be before
they started getting really rough? Soon, thought Rafi. He sensed their physical aggression bubbling just below the surface.

  ‘Make a start and tell us how you were financing the bomber, Imaad Wafeeq,’ said Andy.

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘Get real!’ shouted Mike.

  ‘I think I’ve been set up,’ replied Rafi. ‘At least hear me out.’

  There was silence. ‘OK,’ said Andy finally, ‘But it had better be good.’

  ‘I stumbled upon some information that suggested my employers, Prima Terra, and a group of Luxembourg investors were in serious breach of the City takeover code.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Andy, looking nonplussed.

  ‘Thursday before last, I received a phone call from, Callum Burns, a financials analyst at Landin Young. He’s fantastically good at his job and I’ve been one of his best clients. He wanted to talk about Renshaw Smithers, a niche finance business in which my company, Prima Terra, is a major investor, but he didn’t want to have the discussion over the phone, so we met for a drink at a local bar that evening.’

  ‘And?’ asked Mike.

  ‘How much do you know about fund managers?’

  ‘They look after other peoples’ money,’ replied Andy.

  ‘At Prima Terra we have £30 billion of funds under management, of which I manage £4 billion of equities. It was quite a bit more, but we too got caught by the 2008 stock market crash. Have you heard of the Stock Exchange Blue Book?’ asked Rafi.

  Both Andy and Mike shook their heads.

  ‘It’s the rule book governing company shareholdings and takeovers, by which as fund managers we have to abide.’

  ‘Obviously,’ said Mike sarcastically, ‘But damn it! Why is this relevant?’

  ‘Callum thought Prima Terra had possibly broken the rules. He said he’d found something very dubious that was being hushed up.’

  ‘I still do not see how this relates to the bombing,’ said Mike, thrusting his jaw forward at Rafi. ‘If you’re taking us for a ride, remember we can make life seriously uncomfortable for you.’

  ‘Callum suspected that Renshaw Smithers and another listed company Dewoodson were being controlled by unknown offshore investors and thought there might be a connection to Prima Terra – the largest investor in these two companies.’

  Mike raised his arms and was about to cut Rafi off.

  ‘Before you throw the keys away, what’s the harm in hearing me out?’ pleaded Rafi. ‘Callum and I couldn’t come up with any reasons why these companies might be worth controlling. They are unexciting and hardly takeover candidates,’ replied Rafi. ‘But there has to be something, otherwise why incriminate me?’

  ‘You’re not making any sense and why are you pissing around wasting our time?’ Mike thumped his fist on the table centimetres away from Rafi.

  ‘So this is a red herring,’ interrupted Andy.

  No, I don’t think so. These shareholdings when added together break all the rules. And there has to be a reason why I was set up.’

  ‘You’re taking the piss,’ said Mike. ‘Sounds to me as if you’re just trying to distract us from your links to the bomber. Bullshit isn’t what we need.’

  Rafi looked at Mike’s frustrated eyes. ‘Whatever I say, you are not interested, are you?’

  ‘Sod off back to your cell. We’ll deal with you shortly,’ growled Mike irritably. ‘Your time is running out. We’ll break you and you will want to talk to us very soon.’

  Their lack of interest in his story and Mike glowering inches away from him made the knots in Rafi’s guts clench even tighter.

  Fifteen or so minutes later, Rafi’s cell door swung open. A man in catering uniform entered. ‘I’ve got some food for you. Where d’you want it?’

  To Rafi’s surprise, the tray fell to the floor. He bent down to help pick it up. With the speed and strength of a black belt, the man let fly a kick. It struck Rafi just below his left shoulder blade and was followed by a punch to the kidneys. Doubled up, Rafi slumped to the floor.

  ‘You effing murderer! Prison’s too good for your sort!’ He stepped towards Rafi, who tried to shout. He had to get the attention of the guard but only managed to let out a strangled noise. To his relief the guard stuck his head around the door.

  ‘The ’alfwit seems to have slipped on ’is food! ’E should be alright soon, when ’e gets ’is wind back. Shame ’e didn’t get to eat it. Still, no doubt it’ll do ’im good to go ’ungry.’ With that the man left.

  The guard looked at the crumpled body on the floor. ‘You silly ijut! What a waste!’ He turned and pulled the door closed.

  Rafi remained where he was: an untidy heap amongst the food. He was too sore to get up.

  His thoughts went back to his phone call with Callum on the previous Tuesday morning. Callum had been excited, as he had managed to arrange a trip to Luxembourg.

  ‘A couple of meetings have cropped up. I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss! I fly out early tomorrow from City airport and fly back from Amsterdam on Thursday evening. I’m seeing a local REIT. But it gets better: they’ve lent me a car for the drive from Luxembourg to Amsterdam. One of their directors works in Luxembourg, but has a home in Amsterdam and he’s lending me his Porsche. Isn’t that great?’ Callum had said enthusiastically.

  ‘So a bit of a detour via Germany?’ Rafi asked.

  ‘You got it in one. I’ve always wanted to take a Porsche through its paces on an Autobahn without the fear of speed cameras or blue flashing lights in the rear view mirror.’

  Rafi went cold. How the hell had he managed to forget to tell his interrogators that Callum was dead? In the interrogation room he was like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He had to think carefully. When was he going to tell them that Callum had given him a USB memory stick, with files showing the shareholders’ lists and the work that they had done on the two suspect companies?

  Rafi was jolted back to reality. There, standing in the door frame, was the ugly guard again, staring at Rafi lying in a sea of cold, inedible food.

  ‘You’re wanted again.’

  Waiting for him were the two familiar faces.

  ‘You look worse every time we see you,’ commented Andy. There was no sympathy in his voice.

  ‘At this rate we’ll need to get a move on,’ added Mike, ‘or you’ll be in no fit state to talk at all.’

  ‘You’re a slimy little bugger,’ sneered Andy. ‘Explain why you didn’t tell us Callum was dead?’

  ‘Bloody good ploy, if you ask me,’ commented Mike. ‘Stops us checking your story!’

  ‘He was murdered!’

  ‘Bullshit!’ exclaimed Mike. ‘The local police say that he was driving a Mercedes hire car and hit black ice. Are you going to tell us what’s really going on?’

  ‘But, he should have been driving a Porsche.’ Rafi hesitated. ‘Can I explain what Callum was doing in Luxembourg?’

  Andy considered this, and then nodded.

  ‘According to a colleague of his, Callum had five meetings: one with a REIT - real estate investment trust - and then a couple of tax advisers, an FCP investment fund and another meeting in the afternoon. The REIT was picking up the tab for the trip. Callum was due to fly back from Amsterdam on Thursday evening.’ Rafi paused. ‘The MD at the REIT had agreed to lend Callum his Porsche… He’d planned a detour via the German Autobahns.’

  ‘Bloody bollocks!’ burst out Mike. ‘The local police have spoken to the REIT director. Callum phoned him to cancel the offer of the Porsche, as he’d be running late.’

  ‘Good try,’ added Andy, ‘but your story doesn’t fool us!’

  ‘There’s more,’ insisted Rafi with a touch of desperation in his voice. ‘The afternoon Callum died, he phoned me. He was excited. He said he’d found some proof. He was about to tell me what it was when he was cut off. I tried calling him back but his phone went straight to voicemail.’

  Andy scowled. ‘That proves sod all!’

  ‘One of the people he saw w
as in on the shareholdings’ cover up. I’m sure of it,’ said Rafi. ‘Callum got too close…’

  ‘If you refuse to cooperate and continue to mess us around -we do have other options. We’ve an, er… understanding with the Americans,’ said Mike, in a steely voice. ‘We suggest to them that you are holding back information that they might find helpful and, magically, through the rendition process you are whisked away to some godforsaken place.’

  The knots in Rafi’s stomach tightened another notch. He started to speak. His voice was hoarse from the tension and lack of fluids. ‘If Callum had found out who was running the clandestine shareholdings and could prove that Prima Terra was involved, wouldn’t this give a motive for his murder?’ Rafi was aware that, on the surface, this seemed to have nothing to do with the bombing, but he had to keep talking about it as he could find no other reason for finding himself in this nightmare.

  ‘Bloody hell! Not that old story again,’ said an exasperated Mike. ‘Tell us about the Bishopsgate bombing first. We can get back to Callum later.’

  Rafi slumped in his chair and purposefully looked away from his interrogators.

  ‘Get real, you uncooperative little sod! You have told us the square root of nothing. If you continue to take the piss, remember that no one, I repeat, no one has the ability to come and find you. You have disappeared off the radar screen and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to help you,’ said Andy aggressively.

  ‘You’re deluding yourself,’ spat out Mike. ‘You’re trying to convince yourself that you’re innocent, but in reality you’re guilty – as guilty as hell!’ He looked like a pug that had licked a nettle.

  ‘Look at the bloody evidence,’ said Andy forcefully. ‘The CCTV footage of you conspiring with the bomber and the proof that you gave him money is more than enough… Take this bastard back to his cell while we consider whether Belmarsh is too good for him.’

  Rafi started to panic but did his best to fight back his feelings of helplessness.