The Disappeared

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.

'We've gathered a list of possibles,' she said.

'Well done. I was worried the cops would stymie you.'

'I've got ways round them.'

'I'd like to hear.'

'Trade secret, I'm afraid.' God, what did she sound like?

As she stepped out onto the pavement she dimly heard the office phone start ringing again: Mrs Jamal refusing to take no for an answer.

McAvoy said, 'I was wondering if you might let me buy you that drink later, toss around a few ideas.'

'Oh? What drink was that?' She couldn't help herself. She was flirting with him like a simpering schoolgirl.

'The coffee you didn't have time for, but come evening it'll be a wee glass of something I shouldn't wonder.'

She got a grip. 'Thanks, but I really shouldn't until you've given evidence.'

'It's a bit late to stand on that rule, isn't it?'

'Alec, you know the issues — '

'I've been reading my law books, come up with a few ideas for you - like how to make those MI5 bastards cough up their files. If you get before the right High Court judge you might just swing it - there are still a few good ones left.'

'Friends of yours, are they?'

'I have my methods too.'

Jenny imagined the brown paper bag passing to the minor official in the Court Service in exchange for a favourable listing. McAvoy would take the credit and doubtless call in the favour. And what would he want in return? she wondered.

She knew she should put him off, have nothing to do with him until after the inquest, but couldn't summon the words to turn him down. Ignoring the chorus of warning voices in her head, she agreed to meet him at five-thirty in a wine bar by the law courts.

'I promise I'll behave myself,' he said.

Tariq Miah met Jenny outside the School of Law and took her behind the building into a formal garden - stark and bare in early February with a hint of frost still hanging in the air - but free from prying eyes. He was in his late thirties, the first threads of grey showing in his black hair and closely trimmed beard. His features were Middle Eastern: copper skin and dark eyes. From a brief glance at the faculty's website Jenny had learned that he was working his way steadily through the hierarchy. A specialist in constitutional law, he had joined as a junior research fellow in the late 1990s.

As they strolled along the narrow gravel paths, she explained that she was looking for an insight, anything to shed light on who or what Rafi Hassan and Nazim Jamal had become involved with. She mentioned Anwar Ali and the elusive mullah at the A1 Rahma mosque, Sayeed Faruq, and asked if he knew them.

'Only by reputation,' he said, speaking in the overly precise manner of academic lawyers shieldeded from the day-to-day stresses of practice.

'And what was that?'

'I heard it said the mosque was a recruiting ground for Hizb ut-Tahrir. You're familiar with that organization?'

'I've read a little, but I'm still confused. The Security Services seem to associate it with terrorism, but it claims to be peaceful.'

'It doesn't advocate violence, but individuals within it obviously do.'

'Are you thinking of anyone in particular?'

'No. It's just to say that I wouldn't be surprised if the A1 Rahma mosque acted as a conduit to others without a public profile.'

'You think it was a base for recruiters?'

'Perhaps.' He stopped to admire a bank of snowdrops. 'I would be surprised at Jamal and Hassan being assimilated so quickly, however. Hizb tends to indoctrinate new members over several years before asking them to swear an oath of allegiance.'

'Allegiance to what, exactly?'

'The organization. The cause of bringing into existence a global caliphate. It's not a conventional political party working for the short term, it sees itself as doing God's will over as many generations as it takes. It has a three-stage plan: to establish cells and networks of members, to build opinion amongst the Muslim population in favour of an Islamic state, and finally to infiltrate the institutions and governments of target countries to effect a revolution from within.'

Jenny said, 'One thing that puzzles me is why young men, let alone women, are drawn to these ideas. I mean, who'd want to live in Iran?'

'We all fantasize about removing the mess from our lives, cutting a swathe through the chaos and replacing it with certainties,' Miah said. 'What more fearful time is there in life than the threshold of adulthood? If someone were to offer you a free pass to status and security and make you feel morally superior into the bargain, it would be hard to resist, would it not? And if you already believe yourself to be a stranger in your own land it would become almost impossible not to be seduced: all men are conquerors by instinct, it's in our DNA. One's own seed must prevail. All our complex Western political institutions have evolved out of the need to check such impulses.'

'Both these boys came from good families. Integrated, established, English-speaking—'

'The parents were under no illusions about who they were - outsiders. It's their offspring, neither outsiders or insiders who have to fight for their identity.'

'Did you see that in Rafi Hassan?'

Having had his fill of the snowdrops, Miah resumed his meander. 'I had very little to do with him. I make clear to Asian students that I'm there for them if they need me, but he never approached me privately.'

Jenny tried to read him. There was something coded in his careful manner, a vague sense that he was inviting a conclusion that he wasn't prepared to spell out.

'I don't know if you've read about my inquest,' Jenny said. 'I've granted rights of audience to an outfit called the British Society for Islamic Change. I think Anwar Ali's involved with them.'