The Disappeared

'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.