The Disappeared

Donovan hesitated a fraction too long to appear completely honest. 'I can't say I had that thought before I gave the statement, no. My solicitor might have said something afterwards.'

'Yes, I'm sure he or she did,' Collins said, then, as if to himself, added, 'I certainly would have done. Yes, indeed.' He looked down at the floor for a moment, his mouth twitching as if he was suffering from an unfortunate nervous tic, then looked up again with an unexpected flash of fire. 'And even though you face no charges, even though this hearing is in secret and your words will never be broadcast, you're still not man enough to admit that your statement was extracted from you in return for favours. It was a lie, wasn't it, Mr Donovan?'

The mouse had roared. The jury sat up and paid attention. They watched Donovan closely as he tried to effect a dismissive smile, all the while his thick, fat neck growing a more livid shade of purple.

'No,' Donovan said tightly. 'I saw them. Two Asian lads. It was them. I'm sure it was.'

As he left the witness box and headed gratefully for the exit at the back of the hall, Jenny reminded herself that her job was not simply to pursue the agenda McAvoy had set for her. It was possible that Donovan was largely telling the truth. Perhaps he did see two young men Asian men on the train; they might conceivably have been Nazim and Rafi. She had to keep an open mind.

She took a deep breath. 'Stay calm,' she told herself. 'People are relying on you for the truth. Stay calm for them.'

Dr Sarah Levin managed to look both businesslike and effortlessly glamorous. She declined a religious oath and chose instead to affirm. Jenny imagined McAvoy mocking her. 'Let's see how much of an atheist you are when eternity calls,' he would have said. 'Would you rather have your long-neglected priest or your hairdresser at your bedside?'

'Dr Levin,' Jenny said, pushing the unkind thought from her mind, 'you were a physics student in the same year as Nazim Jamal, weren't you?'

'Yes, I was.'

'You went to lectures and tutorials together?'

'We did.'

'You had a room in Goldney, a different student hall of residence.'

'That's right.'

'And approximately twelve days after he disappeared you gave a statement to the police.'

'Yes.'

'Do you remember what you said?'

'I said that I had overheard him talking to some Asian friends in the canteen about "brothers" who had gone to fight in Afghanistan. Their conversation was about jihadis fighting the British and Americans. Nazim seemed impressed with the idea. Whether he was just showing off or not, I couldn't say.' She shrugged. 'They were very young.'

'When was this incident?'

'Sometime in the summer term, May probably.'

'Did he ever mention to you that he was thinking of going to Afghanistan?'

'No. Never.'

Jenny paused briefly, telling herself to rein in, take her time, tease out the truth.

'Dr Levin, your statement to the police was dated 22 July. That was three weeks after Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan's disappearance. What was happening during that period?'

'It was after the end of term. I'd stayed on for a while. Everything had been frantic, but as they quietened down I think I must have remembered overhearing that conversation.'

'Detectives had been speaking to students, had they?'

'There had been a few around, yes. None of them spoke to me directly.'

'I see. And having recalled this conversation, what was in your mind?'

'I suppose I thought telling the police was the responsible thing to do.'

'Did you go to them or did they come to you?'

'There was a notice up in the physics department. I called the number.'

'Of course, by that time Mr Donovan had given his statement to the police and it had been reported in the local press.'

'I was aware of that. It was probably what prompted me.'

Jenny looked hard at Sarah Levin. Her manner was modest, that of a witness trying to do her best, but there was a fragility about her, a tendency to address her answers in the direction of Havilland and Denton rather than the jury, as if she felt the gravitational pull of the authority they represented. Yet she didn't know who they were. She'd hadn't been at court the week before and she had been behind closed doors in the committee room when the introductions were made at the start of the session.

Jenny said, 'How well did you know Nazim Jamal, Dr Levin?'

She thought for a moment before answering. 'Not very.'

'What about in your first term at university. Were you closer to him then?'

Sarah Levin paused, a sadness stole across her face and she lowered her voice slightly. 'I know what you're going to say.'

'You had a relationship with him, didn't you?'

Sarah Levin glanced at Mr Jamal. His expression was set and unreadable.

'Nazim and I had a very brief "relationship", if you can call it that ... It was our first term, first time away from home . . .'

Jenny glanced at the lawyers. She noticed Khan looking a little bemused by the confession.

'How long did this last?'

'A week or two ... It wasn't anything serious. You know what it's like when you're a student.'

'I do. But wasn't Nazim going through a religiously orthodox phase at the time? He was wearing traditional clothing and growing a beard, wasn't he?'

Uncomfortable, Sarah Levin said, 'I really didn't want to cause any offence to his family, that's why I never mentioned it . . . We were both eighteen. You're not really sure what you believe at that age. You're still searching for your identity.'

'The point I'm making is that he didn't have any scruples about sleeping with you.'

'He didn't seem to have, no.'

'Did he talk to you about his religious beliefs?'

'Only to say that no one should find out. Not his family or his Asian friends ... It was all very illicit. Exciting, I suppose.'

'Did he seem to you to be a religious fanatic?'

'Not at the time. He was certainly observant - he would pray five times a day - but in all other respects he was just a normal young man.'

'Who ended the relationship?'

'He didn't call me over the Christmas vacation. It just sort of petered out.'

'You may or may not know that Nazim had a subsequent brief relationship with another student in your year, Dani James.'

Sarah Levin nodded. 'I heard last week. I had no idea.'

'She thinks she contracted chlamydia from him. Did you have a similar experience?'

Sarah Levin tensed, her shoulders suddenly rigid. A spontaneous reaction, Jenny thought. She groped for a response. 'Is this relevant?'

'It could be. I have had sight of your medical records, Dr Levin . . .'

The witness blinked and reeled from the unexpected blow. 'I was diagnosed with the infection a few months later, yes,' she said, acutely embarrassed. 'Whether it came from Nazim, I couldn't say.'

'Did you mention it to him?' 'No.'

'Were you angry about it?'

'Not in the sense you're suggesting.'

'Dr Levin, did the police know about your previous relationship with Nazim?'

'No. I've never mentioned it to anyone until today.'

'You see the importance of that question, don't you? This isn't a criminal trial, I'm not accusing you of anything, but if, for example, the police had got hold of that information, and if they were trying to prove that he and Rafi Hassan went abroad, they might have come to you and asked if he had ever suggested he might?'

'I know what you're implying, but it's not the case.'

'Did anyone from the Security Services ever speak to or question you?'

'Never.'

Jenny sat back in her chair with the uneasy feeling that something was still missing, that a question remained unanswered. If she had been an advocate she could have grilled Sarah Levin relentlessly on her unlikely lack of malice towards the young man who had wounded her in such an intimate way, but it would have been inappropriate for a coroner, laying her open to accusations of heavy-handedness and bias.