The Disappeared

'Could you please tell us, then, whether Nazim ever said anything to you which might have indicated what happened to him.'

Sarah considered her answer carefully. 'It wasn't anything he said at the time, but looking back I can see that he was angry. I'm not even sure he knew what he was angry with. He channelled it into his religion - it gave him a sense of purpose, of specialness perhaps - but he was also intelligent, sensitive . . .'

'Do you believe that he went abroad?'

'I can believe it,' she said. 'It would have seemed like an adventure.'

'Did he ever talk to you about Rafi Hassan?'

'I didn't even know who he was until they both vanished. Nazim never spoke about him. Looking back, I suppose he was leading two very separate lives. I didn't see the other one.'

Jenny ended her examination with her niggling sense of doubt unresolved. As Havilland rose to confirm with Sarah Levin that all her contact with the police had been at her own initiative, Jenny wrestled with the fact that McAvoy had kept his inkling of an affair between her and Nazim to himself. She didn't buy his explanation that he'd wanted to protect Mrs Jamal from shame and scandal. He had pushed her towards a complex and sinister conspiracy theory and away from the person with whom Nazim had been most intimate. It was as if he didn't want Nazim and Rafi to have gone abroad. He wanted a grand struggle between good and evil; he wanted to place himself on the side of the angels and bid for redemption.

When Havilland had finished polishing the reputation of the police, Martha Denton stood to cross-examine for the first time that day.

'Dr Levin, I'm sure we all understand your motives in not mentioning your intimate association with Nazim Jamal before now, but I'm sure you understand the importance of telling this court everything that could possibly cast light on what became of him.' She spoke with a reassuring softness, without a trace of threat or impatience.

'Absolutely.'

'And, of course, any insight we can gain into his state of mind will help to shore up or indeed weaken the case for him having left the country for political or religious motives.'

'If I could tell you, I would. I don't know what Nazim was thinking.'

'Did he not talk to you about his religious beliefs?'

'Not in any detail. I knew he went to mosque, I saw that he had books on politics and history, but to be honest I wasn't that interested.'

'You didn't get a sense that he was using you?'

'Not really.'

'You sound unsure . . . He was a young radical Muslim having sex with an unbeliever. That was a very compromising situation for him.'

'I suppose it was.'

'Did he suffer from feelings of guilt?'

Sarah Levin glanced at Mr Jamal, whose face was finally beginning to show signs of strain. After so many years of unanswered questions he was being forced to peer into the troubled mind of his son. 'Yes, I think he probably did, but he was too considerate to share that with me. There was obviously a conflict.'

'A conflict between extremes - was that your impression?'

'He was a passionate person . . . You don't appreciate the full depth of these things at such a young age, but thinking about it now I can see that's what he was.'

'And when he dropped you, did he end all contact?'

'Completely.'

'Why did you think he did that?'

'His religion must have won out... I was hurt, but I tried to move on.'

'You've been most helpful, Dr Levin,' Martha Denton said.

As if to demonstrate his own immunity to Sarah Levin's now wounded beauty, Khan proceeded to question her aggressively, seeking to attack the notion that Nazim suppressed sexual passion and transformed it into a zealot's anger, even suggesting that the affair was a figment of her imagination. It was as if the Nazim Jamal he had imagined was beyond corruption, but at the very least - as a direct consequence of his spiritual purity - innocent enough to have been cruelly seduced.

Hearing Sarah Levin's pained replies, it occurred to Jenny for the first time that she may have been genuinely in love with Nazim: the more battered she was by Khan's invective, the more she seemed to expose her hurt. Perhaps she felt responsible for his disappearance; a beautiful and unwitting siren who'd propelled him onto a fatal course.

Chapter 24

Jenny was picking at a soggy cheese sandwich in the small upstairs room when Alison knocked and delivered the news that their missing witnesses, Tathum and Maitland, had arrived. Maitland had requested to be heard early as he was due out on a flight to the Middle East the next morning. Jenny said she'd get to him that afternoon. She had decided to follow the chain of evidence from Elizabeth Murray's sighting of the Toyota back to Maitland's office before calling McAvoy. Only then would she call Pironi and Skene. The morning's testimony had exposed a number of cracks in the official version of events: she wanted them to be as wide as possible before the detective and the MI5 officer were called to account.

'I've also got a request from Detective Inspector Pironi,' Alison said, a little embarrassed. 'He's asked if Mr McAvoy can wait somewhere other than the committee room - he's behaving oddly, apparently.'

'I can imagine it's rather intense in there,' Jenny said. 'Fine. As long as he's kept away from the hall while the others are giving evidence.'

'Thank you, Mrs Cooper,' Alison said and dithered for a moment as if she wanted to say more.

Jenny gave her a look. 'What is it?'

'Nothing.' Alison turned to the door.

'You've not been speaking to Dave Pironi?'

'No ... I haven't, honestly.'

'But?'

'I shouldn't be giving you my opinions. He'll give an account of himself. I just hope that worm from MI5 does the same.' She hurried away before Jenny could push her further.

But there was nothing more Jenny needed to know: Alison was convinced that whatever shortcomings there had been in Pironi's investigation were not down to him. Like all good policemen he'd only been obeying orders. He wasn't brave enough to say so in court, so he'd filtered the message back through his old friend. Spineless bastard, Jenny thought, and cowardly with it. Being locked in the same room as McAvoy all morning must have been hell for him, like seeing his conscience in human form.

Madog stuttered through the oath and fidgeted with his glasses as Jenny led him through a few preliminary questions, a number of which she had to repeat. After several attempts she established that he was fifty-nine years old and had worked as a toll collector on the Severn Bridge for twenty- three years.

'I appreciate it's a long time ago, Mr Madog, but can you tell us if you remember witnessing anything unusual on the night of 28 June 2002?'

He glanced apprehensively at the lawyers, then back at Jenny. 'The black car, you mean?'

'If you could just take us through what you have already said in your statement.'

'Well it was late, about eleven at night, like,' he began uncertainly. 'I was in the booth there when a black car pulled up. There were two white fellas in the front and two Asian lads in the back.'

His answer was met with a flurry of whispers amongst the lawyers. Martha Denton and Havilland turned to confer with their respective solicitors, then briefly formed into a larger, collective huddle. Alun Rhys, however, did not react.

Jenny said, 'What kind of vehicle was it?'

'A big seven-seater type. A Toyota I think. A black one.'

'Can you describe the occupants in any more detail?'

With a little prompting, Madog limped through a description of the crew-cut driver, the man with the ponytail and the two frightened passengers cowering in the back seat. During this, Jenny noticed Mr Jamal's eyes widen in alarm, his resolute composure giving way to an expression of outrage.