The Disappeared

by M. R. Hall

  She fell silent and held a Kleenex to her eyes.

  'It's no disgrace, really it isn't. It's what young people do.'

  'Not my people.'

  'Mrs Jamal, I can't conduct an inquest without all the information . . . You do have a legal duty to assist me.'

  'You've come here to threaten me?'

  'Of course not.'

  Mrs Jamal blew her nose loudly. 'All these questions. What's the point? You don't know who's lying. None of us can.' She lifted her gaze to a portrait photo of Nazim aged sixteen or thereabouts: a boy posing as a man. He had wide, soulful eyes and smooth, dark, unblemished skin. He was almost seraphic.

  'I'd have fallen for him, so other girls must have,' Jenny said.

  She waited for Mrs Jamal to recover herself.

  There was a long, unbroken stretch of silence before Mrs Jamal said, 'I don't know what she was to Nazim. It was near the end of his first term. He'd left his phone here. A girl called and asked for him.'

  'Did she say her name?'

  'No.'

  'What did she sound like?'

  'About his age. Well spoken. White.'

  'You could tell she was white?'

  'Of course.'

  'How do you know she wasn't just a friend?'

  'When she heard my voice, she sounded guilty, as if I'd caught her out. She ended the call very quickly.'

  'Did you ever mention this to Nazim?'

  Mrs Jamal shook her head. Jenny saw in her face something almost bleaker than grief - the thought of her son loving another woman more than her.

  'I'm going to need to find out more about Nazim's life at that time. Do you think Rafi Hassan might have told his family anything?'

  'They won't help you. They blame Nazim. I know they do. The looks his mother gave me, she might as well have spat in my face.'

  'I think I'll go there this afternoon. I'll let you know if they have anything to say.'

  Mrs Jamal shrugged.

  Jenny sensed that the meeting had reached an end. The air was growing thicker with emotion with every passing second. But there was one more question, ridiculous as it seemed, that she felt obliged to ask. 'When you gave evidence, you claim to have been followed in the street—'

  'You don't believe me?'

  'Tell me what happened.' Jenny gave a comforting smile. 'Please.'

  'It started about two months ago when I filed the case with the County Court to get Nazim declared dead. A car would come and sit across the road. There were two men inside it, sometimes just one. Young men, in suits. I could see their faces from there.' She pointed over her shoulder to the French window that opened onto a small balcony at the side of the building. 'They were there when I left the house. Sometimes they'd follow in their car, sometimes on foot.'

  Keeping her scepticism hidden, Jenny said, 'What did they look like?'

  'Twenty-five to thirty. White. Both tall and with short hair, shaved at the sides - like the army.'

  'Could you tell them apart?'

  'Not really.'

  'Have you seen them recently?'

  Mrs Jamal shook her head. 'Not this week. But I still have phone calls in the night. It rings four, five times, then goes off. If I answer, there's no one there . . . Who do you think they are, Mrs Cooper?'

  Imaginary demons, Jenny thought: white devils that look like soldiers.

  Instead of the usual battle with rising, claustrophobic anxiety she fought when driving along a motorway, she felt at once removed from herself. Detached. It wasn't just the chemical veil of her medication still lying heavily across her halfway through the day; it was a sense of building unreality. There were so many unanswered questions, so many bizarre and alarming possibilities, that she couldn't make sufficient sense of things to find her way through them. Why would Nazim have been sleeping with a white girl at the height of his religious enthusiasm? Who was the man with the ponytail? Did he even exist? Was Mrs Jamal a fantasist? Was McAvoy? And why did he cast such a long shadow over her, his face hovering constantly at the back of her mind?

  What was he saying to her?

  She didn't have answers to any of it. It was as if she had stepped onto a moving walkway from which there was no exit, only a destination that remained an indistinct pinprick in the far distance. The spirit was moving her, as McAvoy might have said, and she had no choice in the matter.

  Hassan's Grocery and Off-Licence had grown into a small supermarket specializing in Asian and West Indian foods. It was housed in what had once been a filling station, the forecourt now a customer car park. The dowdy area of Kings Heath, a sprawl of identical, faintly grubby Victorian terraces, was showing signs of going up-market. Jenny parked next to a shiny Mercedes, out of which climbed an Asian couple in matching his and hers leather jackets. Their infant daughter wore a pink one in the same style.

  Jenny approached a teenage employee carting cases of cheap beer and asked him where she could find Mr Hassan. Only once she'd convinced him that she wasn't a tax inspector did he go in search of his boss. He reappeared shortly afterwards with the unconvincing explanation that Mr Hassan had gone out to a meeting and wasn't expected back until much later. Jenny glanced along the aisle to an office at the back, which was shielded from the shoppers by a pane of one-way glass, and told the assistant fine, but insisted he leave her card on Mr Hassan's desk with instructions to call her as soon as he returned. In the meantime she'd see if she couldn't speak to Mrs Hassan at home.

  The young man's expression sharpened. 'What's this about exactly?'

  'Something that happened eight years ago - his son went missing.'

  'You mean Rafi?'

  'Did you know him?'

  'I'll give Mr Hassan the message,' he said, quickly adding, 'when he gets back.'

  She hadn't yet turned the key in the ignition when her phone rang. She waited for several seconds before answering, letting him sweat.

  'Hello, Jenny Cooper.'

  'Imran Hassan. What can I do for you?'

  'Would you rather not talk in front of your staff? If possible, I'd like to speak to your wife, too.'

  The Hassans had made money. Their home was a large detached property in the affluent suburb of Solihull with a tarmac drive and electric gates flanked by a pair of stone lions. Mr Hassan, a man in his mid-sixties, drove a Jaguar. Quiet, well spoken and faultlessly polite, he led her inside to meet his wife, a still handsome woman dressed in an elegant black and gold embroidered salwar kameez. After formal introductions they sat in a warm conservatory surrounded by half an acre of formal garden, in the middle of which stood an ornate fountain fringed with palms: a golden carp spewed water into a pool lit with coloured lights.

  Mrs Hassan said, 'We've been expecting this, Mrs Cooper, but we have nothing of any use to tell you. We have long ago resigned ourselves to never knowing what became of our son.'

  Her husband nodded in uncertain agreement.

  'I've no wish to stir up painful memories without good cause,' Jenny said, 'and I appreciate it's not your son's disappearance I'm investigating, but I'd be grateful if you would tolerate a few questions.'

  'Certainly,' Mr Hassan said before his wife could protest.

  Mrs Hassan glowered. 'The police said Rafi went abroad. I'm happy to take their word. But it was not his idea. He was a good student and a loyal son.'

  Jenny said, 'Did you notice any change in him after he went to university? His religious beliefs, his appearance?'

  'I'm sure Mrs Jamal has told you all this. It was her son who took him to that mosque. This is a Sufi family. Politics has no place in religion - that's what he was brought up to believe.'

  Mr Hassan nodded. Dressed in a dark business suit and clean shaven, he showed no outward signs of observance. His store sold alcohol; they lived in a white neighbourhood.

  'When did this change in him occur?' Jenny said. 'Was it during his first term at Bristol?'

  'They put ideas in his head,' Mrs Hassan said sharply. 'He was going to be a lawyer — '
/>   'Yes,' her husband interjected, 'it was during the first term. We believed it would be a phase. All young men need ideals, mine was creating a business. We hoped it would pass.'

  'But it didn't?'

  'Whoever these people were he'd been involved with, they poisoned them against their families, Mrs Cooper,' Mrs Hassan said. 'They convinced him our values were wrong. He came home for a week before Christmas and that was it. He stayed at college the rest of the time.'

  'Where? Weren't the student halls closed out of term time?'

  'With friends was all he'd tell us.'

  'You must have been worried.'

  'We have six children,' Mr Hassan said. 'We worry about each of them.'

  Jenny noticed the couple exchange a glance, which she interpreted as Mr Hassan urging his wife not to let emotion overcome her. There was anger in her face, a need to cast blame.

  'What did your son say about Nazim?' Jenny said.

  'Until they disappeared, we hadn't even heard his name,' Mr Hassan said.

  She aimed her next question directly at his wife. 'So why do you say that he was the one who led your son astray?'

  'They were friends - that's what the police found out. They went to mosque together, and these meetings.'

  Jenny pushed Mrs Hassan for further explanation but she could offer none. She had it fixed in her mind that Rafi had gravitated towards a fellow Muslim and fallen under his negative spell. Jenny asked for more detail of Rafi's behaviour during his time at university but was met with shrugs and shakes of the head. There had obviously been a confrontation in the early part of the Christmas vacation which still remained painfully unresolved.

  'How often did you speak to your son between January and June?' Jenny asked them both.

  Mr Hassan stared at the tabletop, leaving his wife to respond.

  'I telephoned him a few times,' she said. 'Every week or two, to tell him we loved him, that we were still here for him.'

  'It sounds almost as if he'd disowned you.'

  'He was simply rebelling. That's what the young do in this country, isn't it? It comes with the luxury of not having to go out to work each day.'

  Her husband nodded solemnly in agreement.

  'This was new to us, Mrs Cooper,' Mrs Hassan continued. 'We knew he had the right values underneath - we had spent eighteen years giving them to him.' For the first time, her voice cracked. 'We assumed we had simply to wait for him to come back . . .'

  'You didn't go to anyone for advice?'

  Both shook their heads.

  'Did Rafi ever mention any other friends or associates by name, anyone at the mosque, perhaps?'

  'No,' Mrs Hassan said. 'He was very secretive on the matter. He talked a little about his studies, and he had a tutor, Tariq Miah, whom he mentioned once or twice.'

  Jenny made a note of the name.

  'Is there anything else I should know about your son - his hobbies, interests? Was he a sportsman?'

  Mrs Hassan looked at her husband, then got up from the table and went into the next room. She came back with a folder which she handed to Jenny. She opened it to find a collection of examination certificates. Rafi Hassan had scored top marks in his A levels: Latin, Greek, Arabic and History.

  'He was a gifted scholar,' Mrs Hassan said. 'Since he was eight years old he spent all his spare time studying and reading. He played cricket, but not like his brothers. No, not like them. Rafi was an intellectual.'

  'Which must have made the change in him all the more shocking?' Jenny said.

  Neither parent replied.

  As she was leaving, Jenny overhead Mr Hassan whisper comfortingly to his wife that he would spend the rest of the afternoon at home. Making her way out between the stone lions, Jenny turned left and headed back towards Kings Heath.

  Pulling into the forecourt of Mr Hassan's store for the second time that day, she saw the young assistant carrying a heavy load of shopping to the car of an elderly customer. Her memory was correct - he did look like the photograph of Rafi she had in her files. She caught him on his way back inside.

  'Excuse me.' He turned with a polite smile. 'Hello again. Could we have a word?'

  He pointed inside. 'I'm due to go on the till.'

  'It won't take a minute.'

  'I can't—'

  'Do you know what a coroner is?' Jenny said. 'You can talk to me now or receive a summons to come to court. Your choice.'

  The assistant glanced nervously through the shop window at a colleague who was busy serving a customer. 'I can't talk here.'

  'No problem. We'll go to my car.'

  His name was Fazad, one of Mr Hassan's many nephews. He was eleven when Rafi went missing and said the family hardly mentioned him after that. He had never heard anything about his cousin's disappearance other than the official explanation that he'd gone abroad, nor had he ever been aware of any of his relations speculating where he had gone to, or with whom. The subject was off-limits, he said, as if it were somehow shameful. He remembered how as a kid Rafi was always held up as the model student, the kind of young man he and his other cousins should aspire to be.

  Jenny asked if he knew what had happened during the Christmas vacation.

  A queasy look came over Fazad's face. 'I don't want to disrespect my uncle. He's my boss, too.'

  'Just between us,' Jenny said. 'It won't go any further.'

  With another nervous glance into the shop, Fazad said, 'Rafi gave me a ride in his car when he came back from college, it was a little Audi A3. A few years old but tidy. I asked did his dad buy it for him. He said no, he'd bought it himself with his savings, but he didn't pay insurance or register it in his name because those were all kafir rules that didn't apply to Muslims.'

  'Kafirs are non-believers, right?'

  'Yeah ... I thought it sounded kind of cool, but looking back it was strange. He had the beard and the prayer cap, but he was driving like a maniac, seeing how many cameras could flash him because he wouldn't get a ticket.'

  'What did his father say?'

  'That's what the fight was about.'

  'Fight?'

  'It's what I heard from my cousins - my uncle didn't like the way he was driving and took the keys away. Rafi beat him up so bad he broke his jaw and busted three of his ribs. His two older brothers took the car down the road that afternoon and set fire to it . . . That was the end of Rafi's car.'

  Chapter 13

  Anna Rose Crosby was officially a missing person. Her picture was on page two of the Post, together with an article stating that the 'brilliant young nuclear scientist' had been missing for a little over a fortnight. Her mother was described as having been tearful and desperate as she made a moving plea from the front steps of her exclusive Cheltenham home. Jenny found herself unwittingly sucked into the dark, yet somehow thrilling, fantasy the picture editor had created. The colour photograph showed Anna Rose beaming, blonde and innocent: the perfect, unsuspecting bait for a violent sexual predator.

  A document landed on her desk. 'The Toyotas,' Alison said. 'Forty-three of them registered in the areas you were interested in. What do you want to do with them?'

  'I'll have a look through, tick the ones I'd like you to follow up.'

  'The police haven't got anywhere with those poor Africans in the refrigerated trailer. That'll be back here tomorrow needing a full inquest. I can't imagine how I'm going to manage - all the witnesses in Nigeria or wherever they came from.'

  'We'll cope. Did you get a statement from Madog yet?'

  Alison raised her eyebrows.

  'Well, could you do it today?' Jenny said, straining to remain calm.

  'I can try, but if you remember I've got a meeting today - I did tell you.'

  'You did?'

  'Last week. It's a church event.'

  'Oh—'

  Alison said, 'Don't worry, I'm not deserting you. I'll be back by two.'

  Curiosity got the better of her. Once Alison had left the room, Jenny clicked onto a search engine and typed in
New Dawn Evangelical Church, Bristol. She followed the link and brought up an expensively produced website complete with a news ticker: 'Over four hundred attend family Eucharist - a new record!' The church proclaimed itself ordained by the Holy Spirit to carry God's word to the people of Bristol. Beneath his grinning photograph, Pastor Matt Mitchell wrote that New Dawn had been newly anointed to perform the ministry of healing. A number of miracles had taken place in recent months: a heroin addict had been made clean, a woman with multiple sclerosis had risen from her wheelchair, a child with leukaemia was in remission and a teenage schizophrenic had been completely cured. Dedicated healing services were being held every Sunday evening and Thursday lunchtime.

  At the foot of Pastor Matt's inspiring message was a link to a page on which church members were invited to leave their prayer requests. Jenny clicked. One of the posts leaped out at her the instant the page appeared. It read: 'Please pray for my daughter, who has fallen into a "relationship" with a woman. Her father and I love her very much.'

  She heard Alison's footsteps on the other side of the door and fumbled with her mouse to collapse the page. Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment as her officer reappeared in the doorway.

  'Rafi Hassan's law tutor emailed back,' Alison said. 'He's on study leave. He can see you at one.'

  Jenny was pulling on her coat and heading out for her appointment at the campus when the phone on Alison's desk rang. She craned round to glance at the caller display on the sleek new console: Mrs Jamal. Jenny hovered in an agony of indecision, struggling with her conscience. Alison had already left for church, so it was down to her. Resolving to make it quick, she was reaching for the receiver when her mobile chimed. An instinctive reflex made her answer it first.

  'Hello?'

  'Mrs Cooper,' a familiar voice said. 'I was wondering how you were getting on looking for that car.' It was McAvoy.

  'Oh, hi,' Jenny said, surprised at the flutter she felt on hearing his voice.

  The landline stopped ringing. Relieved, Jenny went out into the hall and locked the door behind her, fielding the call on the move. Mrs Jamal could leave a message.