The Disappeared

Irritable following her bad night, Jenny said, 'Didn't I make myself clear? I'm a coroner conducting an official inquiry.'

There was a brief pause.

'Don't you have to have a warrant or something?'

'No. Now are you going to help me out or make this difficult?'

She heard him curse. The buzzer sounded angrily.

He didn't look like a lawyer or any sort of professional for that matter. He was wearing a T-shirt under a canvas jacket and trainers. His shoulder-length hair was tweaked and gelled and his jeans slung just-so across hips that were starting to fill out. Advertising or TV, Jenny guessed, a dress-down business that seems like a good idea when you're twenty-one but becomes embarrassing by forty. Spencer - she assumed that was his surname and he didn't have the manners to introduce himself - showed her into an open-plan kitchen- diner. It was a self-consciously stark affair: a polished wood floor and everything white, a single abstract print on the wall.

'I've got to go. She'll be out in a minute.'

He picked up a designer shoulder bag and headed out to ply his uncertain trade.

Sarah Levin came in towelling her long blonde hair. She was tall and slim, effortlessly attractive in a way Jenny could only describe as refined. Spencer had struck exceptionally lucky.

'Hi. What can I do for you?' she said, guardedly. 'It's Mrs Cooper, isn't it?'

'Yes. Sorry to disturb you at home,' Jenny said, aware Sarah Levin's arresting beauty had temporarily distracted her. 'There are a few questions I'd like to ask you . . .'

'Your office called the other day. I was told the inquest had been adjourned.'

'Only until next week. I'm trying to fill in some detail on Nazim Jamal's first term at Bristol. I understand you and he were both studying physics?'

'We were.' She placed the towel on the counter and pushed her hair back from her face. It reached nearly down to her waist.

'Did you talk? Were you friends?'

'Not particularly. Can I get you some coffee?'

'No thanks. You go ahead.'

Sarah flicked the switch on an electric espresso maker and fetched a stylish white cup and saucer from a glass-fronted cupboard. Jenny watched for a moment, sensing her tension. Not particularly. What did that mean?

Jenny said, 'His mother died yesterday.'

'Oh . . .' Sarah turned, unscrewing a jar of coffee, 'I'm sorry.'

'I don't suppose you ever met her?'

'No.'

'She told me that she suspected Nazim had become friendly with a girl towards the end of that first term.'

'I can't say I remember.'

'So you were close enough that you'd have noticed?'

'Not really . . . Obviously I've thought more about him since than I did at the time.' She leaned back against the counter waiting for the coffee maker to heat up. She seemed uncomfortable, on edge.

'Did you ever call Nazim on his mobile?'

She shook her head. 'I don't think so.'

'Mrs Jamal answered a call on his phone that December. It was a girl - well spoken, English. She acted as if she'd been caught out, as if she knew Nazim's mother wouldn't approve. Any idea who she might have been?'

'Sounds like half the girls at Bristol. Sorry. Not a clue.'

'How close to him were you?'

'We went to the same lectures and seminars. We partnered up in a few practicals. He was just one of the crowd, not a friend of mine, especially ... or of anyone's for that matter. He was pretty determined to set himself apart, as far as I remember.'

'Because of his faith?'

'The Muslim boys tended to hang out together. Still do.' She turned round to check the machine.

Jenny said, 'So he was in your class, he set himself up as religious, separate - wouldn't you find it odd that he had a white girlfriend?'

'Did his mother see her? There were plenty of Muslim girls who spoke without an Asian accent.' She pressed a button that noisily filled her cup. 'I hardly knew him, but people like me weren't exactly going to throw themselves at a guy with a beard and whatever you call those clothes.'

Jenny watched her tap the spent grains into the waste disposal and wipe up the drips on the counter, thinking she didn't look much like a physicist. Back in her student days the scientists had been mostly lank-haired guys with bad skin. The few women among them were the kind that always looked as if they were about to set off on a hiking trip.

Jenny said, 'What's your specialism, if you don't mind my asking?'

'Particle physics, theoretical stuff. Looking for new forms of energy - that's the Holy Grail.'

'Must be quite a man's world.'

'My family were all scientists. I never thought of it that way.'

But I bet you like the attention, Jenny thought unkindly.

'You gave a statement to the police after Nazim and the other boy disappeared,' Jenny prompted. 'You said you'd once heard him in the canteen talking about "brothers" who'd gone to Afghanistan.'

'That's right. . . He was with a group of friends. It seemed like a bit of bravado at the time. I only heard snatches - boys talking about how cool it would be to fire guns and kill people, that sort of thing. They were laughing, showing off to each other.'

'You don't remember anything more specific?'

'If I had, I would have told the police.' She sipped her coffee with a steady hand. 'It was a hell of a long time ago.'

'No gossip around the department? Rumours, speculation?'

'No.' Sarah Levin frowned and shook her pretty head. 'It seems just as weird now as it did then. He just. . . vanished.'

Alison was in one of her tense, frosty moods, which had been become an increasingly regular feature in recent weeks. Annoyed and refusing to say why, she bustled noisily around her office and banged the cupboard doors in the kitchenette. Jenny had put them down to menopausal mood swings or the usual tussles with her husband - and doubtless the issue with her daughter was part of it - but this morning's atmosphere was unusually thick. The more Jenny tried to ignore her, the heavier Alison's footsteps became. Reading through the latest batch of post-mortem reports she tolerated it for nearly an hour. She was switching her attention to the list of black Toyotas when Alison entered without knocking and dumped a pile of mail on top of the document she was reading.

'Your post. And some of yesterday's, too.'

Holding her temper, Jenny said, 'Is something the matter?'

'I'm sorry, Mrs Cooper?'

'You seem out of sorts.'

Alison forced a tight, patient smile, 'I'll be out of your hair in a minute. I've arranged to take a statement from Mr Madog.'

The game was following its usual pattern: Alison would repeatedly deny anything was wrong until finally, as if she were conceding only to satisfy some irrational need of Jenny's, she would tell her what it was.

'I'll get through all the outstanding files this weekend,' Jenny said. 'If there are consultants at the Vale hassling you for decisions you can tell them Monday at the latest.'

'Last time I checked we were no more behind than normal.'

'Then is there something I've overlooked?'

'I don't think so.'

'Anything I've done?'

Alison's frown hardened.

Jenny said, 'I sense I'm getting warmer.'

Alison sighed. 'It's not for me to tell you how to do your job, Mrs Cooper, but I do sometimes get a little tired of being piggy in the middle.'

'Between whom, exactly?' Jenny said.

'I had Dave Pironi calling me at home last night asking what a coroner was doing interfering with a police investigation.'

'Mrs Jamal's death impacts on my inquest.'

'It's not just him. Gillian Golder has phoned more than once this week demanding to know what on earth is going on during this adjournment.'