Heartbreaker: Love, secrets and terror

by Nick Louth

  ‘We’d help put a stop to it. Let you put your side,’ Karena said. ‘It won’t go away otherwise.’

  ‘Okay, but only once the police have finished with me. If I go on camera, I want to set boundaries to your questions.’

  She laughed, gently. ‘The fearless Radio Four interviewer scurries for the bunker. How delicious!’

  Wyrecliffe grunted, but carried on. ‘One, I’ll talk about what I knew about Cantara’s life and history. Two, the foundation’s involvement in getting her to Britain. Three, my decision to recruit her.’

  There was a long pause. ‘Come on, Chris. What about a number four?’ Karena said, cocking her head. ‘Your affair with her.’

  Wyrecliffe laughed and looked heavenward.

  ‘Chris. It’s obvious. It’s who you are. I knew, I just knew the moment I saw her picture, that you would have been sleeping with her.’

  ‘You know nothing about her, or about what happened.’

  ‘Ah, but I know you.’

  ‘You’re working on the same thirty-year-old script. It seems I’m wasting my time giving you anything that doesn’t fit it.’ He stood up, set down a sheaf of twenties for the bill and said. ‘So much for hard fact-based reporting.’

  ‘We need the whole of Cantara’s story, Chris, not edited highlights. One way or another it will come out.’

  As he strode out, he heard Karena call behind him. ‘This isn’t just my hunch, you know. We have other sources about what happened between you.’

  It was ten days after the bombing. And Tina had finally weighed in.

  Book Four

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cantara

  London

  November 2009

  The day that Chris Wyrecliffe left her flat was the day that Cantara al-Mansoor’s life changed for ever. She called in sick to the BBC, and then spent the morning in tears, hemmed in by the dark walls of her tiny flat. Chris had rung her mobile several times, but she had refused to answer, and turned it off. She looked through the small collection of items she had brought with her from Lebanon. The pictures of her family brought little comfort. Her mother, now in an institution. Her grandfather, dead. Hakim her brother, dead. Her father, little more than a memory. She looked at an old schoolbook, in which a few of her childish drawings were still folded. And the battered Koran that her father had given her. She opened it and began to read.

  After a while she did something she hadn’t done for months. She looked through her drawers, and found a simple dark hijab. She hadn’t worn it since the meeting in Red Lion Square. Then it had somehow offered protection as she sought the man who had helped her escape from the camps. Now she tied it firmly around her hair so barely a trace escaped. It gave her a feeling of comfort and asserted an identity, a belonging that was somehow warming. She left the flat, and emerged into the bustle of Mile End Road. She then took the Underground heading to South Kensington to Imperial College, where she had almost a year ago started a course in biology. She had abandoned the course not because she wasn’t enjoying it, but because she had been given a chance at the BBC. Now everything was different. The BBC had looked to be a wonderful career opportunity, but she wanted no part of it any more.

  It was a beautiful autumn day, and she got off the Piccadilly Line at Hyde Park Corner, and walked a mile or so across the park to South Kensington. As she walked underneath the sun-dappled leaves, watching happy families, dog walkers and joggers, she felt alone and desolate. The one person she had come to trust in Britain had abused that trust. The one figure she had looked up to. Almost as a father. Well, not now. The lump of hurt sat in her heart like ice, and she didn’t know what to do about it. Didn’t know where to turn, who to talk to. It takes something like this, she realised, to show how few friends she had. The British students she had met at Imperial had seemed shallow and young. They had never seen a dead body, never lost a relative to a bullet, never had to dodge crossfire just to buy bread, never had their sleep shattered night after night by fighting, by screams, by wails of grief. She envied them their certainty, their comfortable homes, their secure families. The biggest crisis these privileged Brits could envisage was losing a credit card or being asked to attend lectures before 10am. Many were very friendly, though she’d shied away from the boys. Alan, the medical student, had attempted to kiss her within an hour of meeting. Despite a subsequent apology, he had continued to be amorous. Like most of the rest, he possessed no insight into the life she had led prior to coming to London. One person who did was the very first person she had spoken to on her first day at the fresher’s week, more than a year ago. That was Dr Mary Finch, the undergraduate dean, and bursar at Berwick Hall. Dr Finch had worked for the UN High Commission for Refugees, though never in Lebanon. But she seemed to understand exactly how lost foreign students could be in London. It was she who Cantara hoped to find now.

  The new term had just started, and there were dozens of nervous-looking students milling around the entrance to the Student Union Shop on Exhibition Road. Then she saw that a gallery close to the college was running an Islamic cultural exhibition, covering everything from calligraphy to photography. It was sponsored by the Saudi embassy, and was free to enter. Apart from a receptionist and a security guard there was no one else there. She wandered among the exhibits, and was drawn to a glass case in which a 400-year-old manuscript of the Koran was exhibited. The graceful perfect calligraphy fascinated her, so it only gradually dawned on her that she was not alone. Standing close by was a young Middle Eastern-looking man, in a business suit, wearing gloves. Something about him seemed familiar, especially those expensive-looking black leather gloves. For a few minutes, as he walked around the exhibition, she watched him intermittently. As he looked up, she looked down. It was a little game. He seemed aware that he was being observed, and looked in her direction. When their eyes met, he gave a shy smile. Yes, she thought. This was the young man who also spoke out at the Red Lion Square talk in May, and who had tried to stop her being ejected from the discussion. He was a year or two her junior, perhaps twenty. He projected a rather delicate quality, a poise and self-consciousness. He was certainly an Arab, perhaps from the Gulf, maybe Saudi. When she went into the student union bar next door to get a coffee, he followed her. She sat at a table and looked down at her exhibition booklet, but was aware that he was approaching. ‘Salaam aleikum,’ he said. Peace be upon you.

  ‘Aleikum as salaam,’ she responded.

  ‘May I share your table?’ he asked, in English.

  She nodded, a little surprised by his directness. He had the longest eyelashes she had ever seen in a man and very dark eyes, which seemed to be widely open as if surprised. Aware that she might be staring, she looked down at her nails whose purple varnish was chipped where she had bitten them.

  ‘I remember you from the meeting about Afghanistan,’ he said. ‘You were very courageous to speak out.’

  ‘Thank you for trying to stop them throwing me out,’ she smiled, realising that she was fiddling nervously with her phone.

  ‘Westerners do not like the truth,’ he said simply. He told her he was a student at Imperial, but had come in today purely to see the exhibition. He asked about her studies, and she gradually revealed that she was no longer at Imperial, and was probably going to leave her trainee post at the BBC.

  ‘You have such a job?’ he whispered in surprise. ‘And you want to leave it?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ she said. In truth she hadn’t decided what to do. She certainly wanted nothing to do with Chris Wyrecliffe any more, and didn’t want to appear in any way indebted to him. It was hard to see how she could retain the post without appearing to give that impression. ‘It’s something I have to think about very hard.’

  ‘Sister, may the Prophet, peace be upon him, guide your hand and your heart.’

  She smiled and asked where he was from. He explained that he was a Saudi from Medina, and this was his first term. He had just begun studying electrical and mechanical enginee
ring. ‘What do you think of London?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t it cold!’

  She laughed. ‘Compared to Medina, of course. Are you hands always cold?’ she nodded at his gloves.

  ‘Here I always feel the chill, in my bones,’ he answered, moving his hands away and into his lap. ‘They say the weather in Britain is different every day, but to me it is simply one million variations on not warm enough.’

  She laughed. ‘So how come you were in London back in May?’

  ‘My father is a trade official within the Saudi embassy. I came over from time to time. He has an apartment in Curzon Street, near the embassy, which I can use.’

  For Cantara, being in London had been a real financial struggle even with the Foundation’s help. This man, she could see, had always had money. The well-cut suit, the silk tie, and the crisp white shirt were all clear enough. Someone else, she was sure, did his ironing. She had never before seen an undergraduate who dressed so formally. Many of the British students looked like they had dressed from charity shops even though most could afford to do better.

  ‘My name is Rifat,’ he said. ‘May I ask yours?’

  She told him, and his eyes flicked wider, as if some new level of alertness had been triggered. When he asked where she was from she simply said: Lebanon. She didn’t want to have to make any explanations, provide any personal history or deal with any preconceptions. She had soon learned in London that to say she was a Palestinian Arab from a refugee camp brought either revulsion, curiosity, or a charmless ideological solidarity. Quiet acceptance would be nice, but it was rare.

  Rifat gave no apparent reaction to her statement, but set off on a different tack. ‘I see you are devout, sister. Have you taqwa?’

  Cantara was surprised. ‘I think I have an awareness of God, yes.’ Taqwa was a term she had rarely heard used in conversation. ‘

  ‘Do you study the Koran?’

  She sighed. ‘I haven’t read a single sura since I was a child.’ She felt guilty admitting this in front of Rifat, who seemed to radiate a clear and direct piety.

  ‘Don’t worry, this is common because we all lead such busy lives,’ he said with a smile. ‘The Prophet, peace be upon him, is a faultless guide in times of indecision. The college chaplaincy centre may not be a proper musallah, but a place of worship is defined by the act that takes place there. There is a women’s prayer session and study group tonight.’

  Cantara was going to refuse this oblique invitation, but then she thought: why not go? I am confused. I am uncertain. And I am very, very angry. That was something that had only gradually dawned on her today. Just how much anger she had. Wasn’t it always this way? Men with power take what they want. They despoil nations, they steal natural resources and they occupy, with their military might and with their bodies, that which does not belong to them. If Chris Wyrecliffe was here now, she felt she could slap him, hit him, even stab him, for the casual and violent abuse of the precious innocence she had offered him. It was something he took that could now never be given to another more gentle person.

  ‘Yes, I will take a look. Thank you for pointing it out to me.’ She realised that this would also give her time to track down Dr Mary Finch. She needed to talk this through with someone. Dr Finch would listen to her and understand.

  * * *

  Cantara was disappointed to discover from the hall warden that Dr Finch was away on sabbatical. That left her with several spare hours before the study class began at 7pm. Rifat suggested they go to Regent’s Park mosque. Rifat was keen to pray, and thought they would be able to get there in time for the mid-afternoon Asr prayers at 4pm. The early evening prayer, Maghrib would be too late. Rifat hailed a taxi, and they travelled up to Regent’s Park in style. She hoped he was going to pay, and was relieved to see he did so, pulling a twenty pound note from a thick wallet and leaving a substantial tip.

  The mosque looked fabulous in the full afternoon sun. She had seen pictures of the sparkling minaret, gold dome and sweep of alabaster, but the grace of the building was greater than she had expected, especially set against the greenery of the park. Rifat explained that Regent’s Park mosque, unlike some of the smaller unconsecrated musallahs, encouraged women to play a full part not only in prayer, but in voluntary activities. While Rifat slipped off his shoes by one entrance to the prayer hall, Cantara joined a group of women at the farther end who were waiting to use the wudu facilities, to wash their faces, arms and feet. She couldn’t remember when she had last performed a religious ablution. Her worship in her years at Ain al-Hilweh was always conducted in the cramped squalor of home. Here, the clean chill water, and the shock of it on her face and feet reminded her of the unity of her body. Despite the three showers she had taken since Chris left this morning, she had still felt soiled. Now she felt cleaner, if still very sore. Once she’d dried herself, enjoying the tingling on her skin, she walked into the ethereal light of the prayer hall. The many pillars in this echoing musallah and the great space above somehow lifted her spirit, and as she kneeled for Asr she felt a oneness, and a warmth growing inside her. Maybe now there was some new direction, some calling, in her life.

  * * *

  Christmas Day 2009. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab flew from Lagos to Amsterdam and then boarded a plane bound for Detroit with explosives sewn into his underwear. He was caught before he could detonate them. He was later convicted of eight criminal counts, including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder of two hundred and eighty nine people.

  * * *

  London

  December 2009

  The trips to the mosque became a weekly event for Cantara, usually with Rifat, but sometimes alone. It was Friday, the holy day, when she most wanted to visit the mosque that Rifat was at another masjid which didn’t admit women. She had tried a mosque closer to her home, but found it a little unkempt and forbidding, full of argumentative old men who had bits of food in their beards. Women were not welcome there either. So she went alone back to Regent’s Park, and got talking with a number of other women there. One very friendly woman had invited her to visit her family in Tooting. In the end she felt too shy to accept, and made an excuse. Giving up the BBC job hadn’t in the end seemed too difficult, because she couldn’t see herself building a career here in Britain. Money, though, remained an issue. She had only a few hundred pounds left of her foundation bursary, and since giving up the course at Imperial had missed out on other payments to which she might have been entitled. The rent was due soon, and she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Worse still, if she didn’t complete the course, her visa would probably be revoked.

  Chris Wyrecliffe had been trying to contact her. In the first week or two he’d phoned and left messages, some chatty and some sorrowful, but she hadn’t felt like speaking to him. More recently he’d sent a few texts, asking why she’d left the BBC, and to her embarrassment, one of them arrived during prayers. The loud beep-beep earned her a tut from the imam.

  Rifat had taken to e-mailing her too, and now she’d got to know him, he had revealed a playful, even juvenile, side as well as a pious one. He smoked, had an addiction to awful video and Internet combat games, and seemed to have an enormous collection of mobile phones which he enjoyed tinkering with. But there was one respect in which a friendship with Rifat was very easy. She saw nothing about him that looked at her in any sexual way. Was it just her? No. When they were passing a bus stop near Regent’s Park she watched where his eyes looked when a noisy party of mini-skirted schoolgirls rushed past them to catch a bus. One or two were very pretty, but at no time did she see his eyes flick down to their breasts or legs. Perhaps he was homosexual, perhaps not. Either way it confirmed that within the friendship she could let trust grow. There was space for her to heal, air enough for her to breathe. A recovery of gentleness, and time to sort herself out. That was what she needed. Only after she had exhaled the horror and pain would she feel right to talk about it, to let the hurt out.

  But then Irfan Tiwana came
into her life. And everything changed.

  * * *

  London

  January 2010

  Irfan Tiwana was a firebrand preacher, very short, quite fat and often breathless, with a ruddy face, a sparse beard but almost shaven head, and small round spectacles. Cantara sat with Rifat upstairs in the packed auditorium of a civic centre in Hounslow, and listened spellbound to the fast-talking, hyperactive imam. Tiwana walked back and forwards on the stage, making jokes in his broad Lancashire accent, doing impersonations of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and George Bush, asking questions of the audience, and turning snippets of people’s lives into allegories with resonances in the teaching of the Prophet. It was hard to think that this was the same person the Daily Mail had referred to as a ‘wholesaler of hatred.’ He was more like a stand-up comedian, and a very funny one at that.

  He pointed to a young woman in a hijab in the front row. ‘So sister, can I ask you, as a Muslim woman, how you are treated in this country?’

  The reply was inaudible to Cantara, and perhaps even to Tiwana because he knelt on the edge of the stage and spoke to her. ‘What is your name, young lady?’ He held out the microphone so she could be heard.

  ‘Roshana.’

  ‘And where are you from, Roshana?’

  ‘Doncaster, originally, but now I live here in Hounslow.’

  Irfan Tiwana stood up, and spread his arms wide. ‘Do you hear, Mr Brown? Oh, oh, oh, Mr Brown, do you HEAR? This young Muslim lady say she comes from Doncaster, originally. Not Pakistan, originally not Bangladesh originally, but Doncaster. Originally. And if she enjoyed cricket – Do you enjoy cricket Roshana – no? Well, duck, perhaps you should watch it, because it is a microcosm of fairness, of principle and honesty all bound up in a game – but anyway brothers and sisters, if she did enjoy cricket, I bet she would pass Norman Tebbit’s cricket test. You remember that, everyone?’

  Tiwana then spun out a tale of the veteran Conservative politician about the test of loyalty to the United Kingdom, based on whether an immigrant would cheer a team from their new country, or their old one. He rounded off the anecdote with a vigorous impression of a fast bowler smashing through the ‘wickets of prejudice and misunderstanding.’