Open Arms

by Vince Cable

  Steve had already prepared his defence. ‘I did meet a few local Muslim students. But that doesn’t make them terrorists or me a sympathiser. I try to talk to all sections of the community. But the leak – absolutely not me. Nor have I said a word to them or anyone else about the confidential stuff we do here.’

  Calum was easily reassured. ‘I have never had any reason to doubt your loyalty to the company. I must believe what you tell me.’

  The man from the security services was less easily reassured. ‘If the leak wasn’t from you, who do you think it was?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Well, I do have some ideas. One possible lead is that one of the local militants, who has been on our radar for some time, was at your meeting. He happens to be the son of one of your union colleagues, a Mr Ashgar Khan, and brother of a young woman who is the chief finance officer whom I believe you also know. Could it have been them?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe it,’ Steve retorted. ‘They are totally loyal, honest people who would never have got embroiled in an extremist movement. I know about the son and they worry about him. But anyway, none of them had the inside knowledge to set up that demonstration.’

  ‘So, we come back to you. You did have the knowledge. You met some of the troublemakers. All we lack is a motive. What I need from you is a detailed account of your meetings. Who was there? Who chose the participants? Who organised the events?’

  So far Steve had managed to avoid mentioning Shaida and, as he saw the net closing fast, he judged silence to be the safest recourse.

  ‘I note your silence. As it happens you don’t need to implicate your – friend – Ms Khan as she came to us first thing this morning when she heard about the press story. She admitted that she set up the meetings. Like you, she denied any wrongdoing. I am inclined to believe both of you. The story of Islamic fanatics causing trouble and being abetted by soft-headed politicians is just a little too convenient. But I am recommending to the company’ – he glanced at Calum whose expression betrayed total confusion and powerlessness – ‘and I am sure the chief executive will agree, that you and she should be suspended pending a fuller investigation – though of course this is not my company. It may well be in your interests not to see your workmates for a while; I imagine the mood on the shop floor won’t be too friendly. And if someone else is at the heart of this, it may be helpful to give him or her the impression that you are in the frame. Let’s leave it there. Here is my card if you have anything else useful to tell me.’

  Calum shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sorry, laddie. I am sure we will be able to sort this out.’

  As the conversation drew to a close Steve realised this was an opportunity to get off his chest the uncomfortably heavy weight of confidences shared. He turned to the man from MI5 – Liam, according to his card – who hadn’t volunteered any information on his precise role, and said: ‘I don’t know if this is of any relevance to your enquiries or who exactly I should speak to. But I was told various things in confidence several days ago about some of the Muslim activists in the town.’

  ‘Go on, I am interested.’

  Steve then passed on what he had been told about Mo and the group and described the episode with the preacher at the mosque entrance. He was desperate to avoid having to admit that Shaida and her father had any knowledge of the matter, which made it appear that he had acquired the information through divine revelation.

  Calum interjected: ‘Stop messing about, laddie. He’s got a soft spot for this young woman who heads up our accounts department. That’s how he knows about this stuff,’ he added in case Liam hadn’t already worked this out.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us sooner?’ Liam responded. ‘I would have thought someone in your position would have gone straight to a senior police officer and asked for help and advice. No matter, you were trying to protect the young woman who, I have to say, appears totally professional and uncompromised. As it happens this is not new information. I obviously can’t tell you all that much. But we now know quite a lot about the local radicals. When whole families went off to Syria we knew we had a serious problem here and have been keeping tabs on worrying individuals. Ms Khan’s brother Mo is just a confused and angry young man. In our view he isn’t – yet – committed enough to do anything really dangerous. Such people become a genuine concern if they fall under the sway of a powerful personality. A potential terrorist? Not really. Strapping on a suicide vest or planting a bomb requires a higher degree of motivation and organisation than he or his close friends currently have. Sounding off about the “jihad” or watching nasty videos is a real cause for alarm, and makes them potential recruits. But they are a step away from actually doing something evil.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief. I realise I should have talked to you earlier. Sorry. But it appears no harm has been done.’

  ‘Actually, you may have helped us – unintentionally. We have been studying the pictures taken by your friends, particularly the group photos after your mosque visit.’ Liam removed a set of enlarged photographs from his briefcase.

  ‘Look carefully at this face here. It is blurred and indistinct. He was turning away and seemingly didn’t want to be caught on camera.’

  Steve picked up the image and studied it. ‘He looks familiar. But he didn’t say anything at the meeting. I didn’t really register his presence.’

  ‘That’s the point. He operates in the background. But, if it is who we think it is, we are very concerned. The name is Tariq, Tariq Ahmed. Born in Birmingham, various aliases. Became committed to the cause and terrorist methods in his late teens. We believe he has been in Iraq and Syria. He recruits. He’s an organiser. Careful not to blow himself up. There are “useful fools” who can be persuaded to do that. In fact, we believe he leads a breakaway group, a mutation of ISIL, which doesn’t support indiscriminate killing – for tactical rather than humanitarian reasons. Rather, he believes in targeted assassination – we think he organised the killing of that Egyptian general in London recently – and attacks on symbolically important sites, like the raid last year on the drone manufacturing plant in Lancashire that set back production for months. We think he’s planning a political spectacular. He is very persuasive. Your friend Mo is the kind of impressionable young man who may be sucked into joining him.

  ‘We want Tariq Ahmed badly. But he is elusive and doesn’t leave incriminating traces. Where you can help us is trying to get your friends to talk about him: where he is, what he is doing. If at all possible, get him to one of your meetings and we can put a tail on him. No heroics needed.

  ‘As for the preacher man – he is just a nuisance, absorbing a lot of police time and resources. But always very careful to stay inside the law. Like a fast downhill skier, he knows how to stay upright. And if he falls, there are expensive lawyers in the background who will help him to his feet. Frankly, we believe the community should take responsibility for policing people like that.’

  Steve started to take stock of what he was getting into. He had been in a room with a dangerous jihadist and was now being asked to help track him down. He reflected wryly on the elusive Shaida whom he had followed into this quagmire: the reward, so far, one peck on the cheek. ‘Obviously I will do what I can to help,’ he told Liam, ‘though I doubt it’s much. Quite honestly, this is a very different world from the one I’m used to.’

  For the first time Liam showed a flash of anger and Steve focused properly on this figure in the corner. Unexceptional in appearance and informally dressed, he could have been a secondary school teacher with tie askew and a well-worn jumper under his jacket. His voice rose several decibels, opening up his Brummie intonation.

  ‘You are bloody right that you are going to help us. I would say you have an obligation to help. This is as much your responsibility as mine. You chose to get involved in the politics in this town and – as you are discovering – you can’t just float above it. Actions have consequences. When we see and hear evil we have to act.’

>   Steve was too pulverised by the events of the last few days to think of any riposte beyond mute acknowledgement.

  In Mumbai, the Bharat Bombay investigative team received warm praise and hints of promotion from the editor for their latest splash: ‘Revenge’, an exclusive story based around the discovery of the body of one of the Patel killers, accompanied by a gruesome photograph of the bullet-ridden corpse that didn’t leave anything to the reader’s imagination. Bharat Bombay had now followed up the story with a weightier piece: ‘Business Empire in Trouble’, linking the killing – at one remove – to the Parrikar family company.

  The editor swallowed hard before relegating a salacious story about Miss India to accommodate a business scandal. Although his instinct was always to avoid trouble and to give pretty girls priority over price/earnings ratios, the editor had had the Parrikars in his sights for some time. His cynical, knowing mind was irritated by the new, fashionable image of the Parrikar companies and the debonair Deepak. The editor had been around long enough to have heard most of the gossip about Parrikar Senior’s exploits and knew that The Caring Corporation rested on the foundations of the less-than-caring Mumbai property business. He also knew that the best time to kick a man was when he was down and the stream of stories about the weakening grip of the Parrikars provided a safe base from which to attack. Now, thanks to his impressive young team and his squad of sleuths, there was a story and two suggestive, but usable, photos of an infamous mafia don arriving at Parrikar Senior’s office and Parrikar Junior embracing an attractive female British VIP at the company’s guest house. There would be no comeback. The Parrikars didn’t advertise with his newspaper. And any recourse to Indian libel laws would now run into hard fact. Anyway, the courts system was bogged down in cases decades old and held few real terrors.

  The editor was not the only person to see the potential of the story. Jimmy Anderson had eked out a living as a foreign correspondent in India for many years ferreting out titbits from the Indian popular press. His translation skills and eye for a good story ensured that he was able to finance a comfortable lifestyle, at the bottom of the journalistic food chain, looking for morsels passed over by loftier members of his profession. As he made his way through the day’s collection of newspapers in half a dozen vernacular languages, he spotted the Bharat Bombay story. It didn’t take long to register that the picture of the British Minister might be of some interest in London. Within an hour he had a translation of the story and a scanned picture on their way to the political editor of the Mail on Sunday.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE SCANDAL

  Press release from the Ministry of Information, Government of Pakistan, 10 July 2019:

  The Pakistani government officially welcomed a visit from Prince Abdullah Al-Saud, a close associate of the Crown Prince, to discuss closer cooperation between their intelligence agencies and training for Pakistan volunteers who were fighting against anti-Islamic forces in the Middle East. He visited a battalion that had acquitted itself with distinction in the fighting against ‘atheists and apostates’ in the Syrian civil war. He denied claims in India that the volunteers were also being infiltrated into Kashmir in preparation for a new guerrilla offensive and terrorist attacks on Indian cities. Commenting on reports of military incidents along the Indo-Pakistan border the spokesman quoted the Defence Minister as saying: ‘Pakistan is not afraid. We are not looking for a fight but Pakistan should not be underestimated. We have battle ready warheads. God forbid there is to be conflict but, if it happens, it will be, for us, a jihad.’

  After the drama of the factory visit, Kate opted for a quiet weekend at home – reacquainting herself with her daughters and husband.

  ‘Mum, are you OK?’ enquired Tilly, the youngest, over breakfast before pony club demanded her attention. ‘We saw that demo on YouTube. It was awful. That horrible man who threw things at you. Those men with beards shouting and screaming. Have they been arrested? We thought you were really brave.’

  ‘It’s the job. We can’t be liked by everyone. I wasn’t brave actually. I was quite frightened but I’m OK now.’ She turned to Penny, her middle daughter. ‘Your dad tells me that there has been some bullying at school. Penny?’

  The girl burst into tears. ‘You’re never here. I wanted to talk to you about it. A really horrid girl was talking about you – said the government was full of bad, greedy people and you were one of them. That you had taken money from her family. And now they couldn’t afford a holiday. She screamed at me. When I argued back the teacher told us both off.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, darling. But you stood up for me. I am proud of you.’ She gave Penny a big hug but a spasm of fear jolted through her that these girls, passing through adolescence, unsure of themselves and needing her, were becoming strangers. Being a minister of the crown was all absorbing. And now there was Deepak.

  Jonathan had left early for a Saturday morning round of golf with some clients from Singapore who were placing a lot of money in the central London property market and particularly liked Jonathan’s tasteful conversions. She was inwardly relieved not to have to try to act normal in his presence. She could take refuge in her ministerial box for the rest of the day and in the evening there was a dinner party: his friends rather than hers. She looked forward to it, as she would be able to hide her feelings in the hubbub of polite conversation. She was, however, dreading the return home as Jonathan was usually amorous after a few drinks and a night out. Excuses would be needed.

  In the event the excuses weren’t required. At 10pm, as the dinner party was starting to warm up, a light flashed on her mobile – a text: ‘Emergency, ring immediately. Susan.’ Kate’s private secretary knew not to disturb her unless there was a real emergency, so she slipped quietly outside to return the call, full of trepidation.

  ‘A crisis, Kate, brace yourself. I have just seen tomorrow’s headlines. You are on the front page of the Mail on Sunday with that dishy man you went out with in Mumbai.’ Hearing no reply, Susan pressed on. ‘Actually, the story is pretty thin and the picture is blurred. But you won’t like the headline – “Bonking for Britain”. Someone, goodness knows who, has said that you were out for the night. Then, inside, there is a big feature with pictures of the family and your “betrayed” husband with an unnamed “friend” expressing incredulity that you have double-crossed such an amazing hunk of manhood. The editorial is ghastly: “Minister travelling the world at tax-payers’ expense… jobs at stake… PM to blame for packing the government with under-qualified women in the interests of political correctness”.’

  Kate was too numb to reply. Eventually she asked, plaintively: ‘What do I do now?’

  ‘Turn off your mobile. Talk to your family before they hear about tomorrow’s papers. I imagine the Secretary of State, possibly the PM, will want to speak to you in the morning. I will talk to the press office about a statement… “Minister has no comment to make on press gossip. The PM has complete confidence in her”, that sort of thing. We will brief out that you are fully focused on your job, building on the success of the Mumbai visit.

  ‘One more thing. A little bird told me that you saw Deepak, privately, when he was in London. The press don’t have that. Let’s hope they won’t find out. Hopefully this is a one-off. Next week’s chip paper.’

  Kate regarded this last sally as scant consolation. She thought she had covered her tracks carefully, but she was beginning, belatedly, to understand the meaning of the phrase ‘being in the public eye’. Paranoia competed with shock, embarrassment, fear and confusion. She feared above all for the impact on the girls. But the hopes she had built up for the new man in her life could also now be dashed. She thought of herself as a confident and competent person, but this was something new, and outside of her comfort zone in every way.

  She somehow stumbled through the rest of the evening and there was some calming, easy-listening music on the car radio so that she didn’t have to make conversation with Jonathan on the way home. When they arrived
back, she sat down in the living room and said: ‘Can we talk for a few minutes?’ She told the story as coherently as she could. She reminded him how close they had been to disaster over a decade ago when she had learnt of his string of affairs and had retaliated. But now she had broken the golden rule: don’t get caught. ‘Sorry… what else can I say?’

  He normally managed to sustain his urbane charm even in the most awkward situations. But he responded with a long, angry silence. He didn’t do shouting, let alone domestic violence. His weapon of choice was non-communication. Eventually she could bear it no longer, and said: ‘So what do you want me to do? Leave? Pack my bags?’

  After another long silence he replied, very quietly: ‘If you want to run, that is up to you. I wouldn’t advise it. I assume you value your relationship with the girls, if not with me. I am not a saint, as you have just reminded me. But we seemed to have a marriage that worked. The problem this time is that, through your carelessness, we have become public property. I will have to run the gauntlet of supercilious bastards at the office, the golf club, the gym. I guess you have the bigger problem. I hope you have good media advisers. Tell me one thing: I take it you don’t actually love this Indian guy?’

  ‘That’s the problem, I think I do.’

  ‘You think! I think you need to make up your bloody mind.’

  There was nothing more to add. He went up to one of the spare bedrooms. No backward glance. No banged door. She knew he would settle into an Ice Man routine for days, even weeks. There would be polite greetings: ‘Yes, darling; no, darling.’ Forced conversations. The ball would be entirely in her court. To stay or leave. Anxious children: ‘Ask your mother.’ Queries from friends, relatives: ‘Everything is fine. Speak to Kate.’

  She felt terribly alone. She would have to tell the girls in the morning. They would need reassuring that Mummy and Daddy weren’t going to break up and abandon them. Yet that seemed a likely destination.