Liz shook her head. ‘From what she said, I don’t think so.’
‘Then she won’t be leaving home for a bit. But anyway the teams are all ready, on her house and the café, so we’re OK whatever she does. We’ll be working with two police teams when Malik appears, in case there’s any need for an arrest. ‘
Liz nodded her thanks to Lamb and looked at Fontana.
‘This pop concert’s taking a lot of police resources,’ he said. ‘They’ve put twenty-five crowd-control and drugs officers in the park and just outside it. In addition to the two surveillance teams out with your guys, we’ve got an armed team standing by and ready to go.’
‘OK, thanks. There’s not much more we can do till Tahira appears.’ Liz walked across to the table at the end of the room where a jug of coffee was standing on a warmer beside a plate of Danish pastries. Yet another unhealthy breakfast, she thought to herself, as she selected a large cinnamon bun.
Chapter 58
‘You keep an eye on that little monkey Nazir,’ warned Tahira’s father. ‘He daydreams, that boy. Anyone could steal us blind when he’s behind the till.’
‘Don’t worry, Papa. I always watch him very carefully.’
Tahira closed the front door behind her, then walked quickly down the road. If her father was standing in the sitting-room window to watch her go, he’d see that she was heading for the shop. It wasn’t until she knew she was out of his sight that she turned up a side street, cutting across the hill towards the café where she’d agreed to meet Malik.
She’d asked her cousin Chunna to stand in for her today, though she hadn’t told her father that. Chunna would keep an eye on Nazir and was glad of the work – it would give her a bit of pin money to spend on herself. Her husband was a bully and mean with it; he only gave her the barest housekeeping. But he’d gone on a trip to Pakistan, so Chunna was off the hook for a few weeks, though her mother-in-law was a mean old cow too and kept a very close eye on her. Tahira had sworn Chunna to secrecy. If her father ever found out she’d gone to a pop concert, let alone taken a day off work at the shop for it, he’d be furious.
Tahira was nobody’s fool, but she’d trusted the MI5 woman from London as soon as she’d met her. Not that she believed she was called Jane Forrester, but that didn’t matter – Tahira wasn’t surprised that she didn’t use her real name in her line of work. But she’d seemed very straight and she’d spoken kindly about Amir, not blaming him as though he was some kind of criminal – though it did seem from what she’d said that he had got himself into something dreadful. Jane had seemed anxious about Tahira too, particularly when she’d told her she was meeting Malik again this morning. Jane had made her promise to ring as soon as he’d gone, and tell her what had happened.
Tahira didn’t know Malik very well, but it was hard to believe that someone like him, who’d lived all his life just a few streets away and who’d been to the same school as her, would want to kill people, though Jane had said he did. In his way he was quite attractive, and when you talked to him he could be interesting and even funny sometimes – in a different world they might have had a real friendship. But he had shown another side too, when he’d started lecturing her about the Islamic duty to fight the West and defend Islam. Why should defending Islam mean hurting people? She didn’t get it. It was men like Malik who’d led her brother astray. She was sure it was him and the others at the New Springfield Mosque who’d arranged Amir’s trip to Pakistan and put him in the hands of other extremists, so that he’d ended up in prison in Paris. She’d never forgive Malik for that, and that was why she’d agreed to tell the MI5 woman everything that he said.
Tahira was hurrying now; she didn’t want to be late at the café and start the conversation on the wrong foot. There was something rigid about Malik that made her sure he’d be angry if she wasn’t on time. In that way he reminded her of her father. Were all Pakistani men tyrants? She sometimes wondered. Englishmen seemed more relaxed, not that she could speak from personal experience – she’d never got to know any. Her father, her mother, and the whole culture she had grown up in had made sure of that. So far she had managed to avoid the arranged marriage her parents wanted for her. Her father had been prepared to wait, but only because she was useful to him, being so good at running the shop. But he wouldn’t wait for ever, and it was certain that if she showed any interest in an Englishman she’d end up married to some dire cousin from Sadiquabad. Then she’d be like Chunna: bullied and tied to the house.
She crossed over the side street, noticing a couple of builders sitting eating sandwiches in a van. She wondered why anyone would work on a Saturday if they didn’t have to. Maybe they worked at something else during the week. Not that they were working now, just sitting eating and reading the paper.
‘You’re looking very lovely today, Tahira.’ The voice came from behind her; she was still a hundred yards away from the café. Tahira was used to casual comments on the street – wolf whistles from men on building sites, muttered compliments from shy teenage boys when she passed them – but this sounded different. He knew her name.
She turned around and saw a short man who looked familiar, beaming at her. She looked more closely.
‘Malik?’ she asked cautiously.
‘Don’t say you’ve forgotten me already,’ said the man with a laugh. It was Malik, she saw now, but he had shaved off his beard and he was wearing trousers and a jacket. He even had a pullover on. He’s going to be hot, thought Tahira; the forecast was for a day of sunshine and it was already warming up.
Malik came closer and shook her hand, holding it for a moment. He seemed less formal than usual, much friendlier. ‘Let’s have some tea,’ he said, taking her arm and leading her towards the café.
It was crowded with Muslim men in white shirts and skullcaps. Tahira was one of the few women there. Two men at a corner table got up to leave as they came in, so Malik and Tahira sat down there, Malik facing the door. He poured out the mint tea they had ordered, talking all the time – asking Tahira about her job in her father’s shop, telling her about his little nephew’s football team and his brother’s hopeless efforts to set up a kebab stall. He was doing his best to be charming; she might have warmed to him if she hadn’t kept in the forefront of her mind everything else she knew about him.
He stopped talking just long enough to drink his tea, then asked, ‘Are you still going to the concert?’
‘Of course. Though my cousin’s cancelled on me.’ She looked down at her watch. ‘I’ll have to go soon if I’m going to get a good place.’
She was finishing her tea when Malik said, ‘You know, I have been thinking about this group you like. Perhaps I was a bit too down on them. After all, if we live here in the West, then we have to live with the West. There is no point pretending we are in Pakistan, is there?’
Tahira nodded, but she was puzzled. Why was Malik sounding so reasonable? Where was the firebrand of their last meeting? He went on, ‘I can’t say these Chick Peas are much to my taste – bit of a girls’ band with all their fancy clothes and hair-dos and stuff. And they’re Indian as well. But I have to admit,’ and he gave a sheepish smile, ‘that their songs are quite catchy. I heard one on the radio this morning and I’ve been humming it ever since. What’s it called?’
‘“Biryani for Two”,’ said Tahira. ‘But you ought to get their CD. Some of their other songs are better.’
‘Really? Well, perhaps I should hear them live. I’m not doing anything special today – I could come with you to the concert, especially since your cousin’s let you down. If you don’t mind, that is?’