'You can wait until she's given evidence or be committed for contempt,' Jenny snapped.
'Do it,' Rhys ordered.
The two police officers marched up to the witness box.
Jenny unleashed her fury at them: 'Don't you dare interfere with the proceedings of this court.'
Behind the emotionless masks of uniformed men obeying orders, the two policemen took hold of a terrified Sarah Levin and led her from the witness box. Rendered speechless with impotent rage, Jenny watched them take her from the hall. As they left, it was DI Pironi who held the door open for them.
'Mr Pironi,' Jenny said, in scarcely more than a whisper, 'are you going to tell me what's going on?'
From the crummy depths of her handbag she fished out the two Xanax tablets covered in fluff and grime which she'd kept - pretending to herself they weren't there - for dire emergencies. She swallowed them both and waited a clear two minutes for them to hit her system before summoning Pironi. Alison traipsed in behind him. Jenny was beyond objecting. No breach of protocol could make the situation any more absurd.
Jenny glared at him. 'Well?'
'I've no idea, Mrs Cooper,' he said, deadpan. 'What just happened in there was nothing to do with me. I think you can pin that one on MI5. And what I've got to tell you is nothing to do with them. Not yet.'
Jenny pressed her hands to her aching head. 'What are you talking about?'
'About an hour ago I had a call from Mr McAvoy ... He claims to have found the remains of Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan. He's given a location in north Herefordshire.' Pironi swallowed. 'And to quote him, he said, "That black-hearted bastard Tathum held onto it until his last God-forsaken breath."'
Pironi called Jenny with the news about Tathum as she and Alison hiked up a steep muddy track. It was located over a mile from the nearest road through a plantation of dense, oppressive pines. His body had been found in an outbuilding at his farm with holes the size of pudding bowls in both his thighs where the shotgun blasts had ripped away the flesh. One side of his face was staved in and his right arm was broken in several places. The weapon was found outside in the yard. McAvoy was being hunted on suspicion of murder. Jenny could think of nothing to say and rang off with a muted, 'Thank you.'
They arrived at the tiny clearing which had been formed by several fallen trees. Jenny and Alison watched in silence as two scene of crime officers gently brushed away the earth to reveal the heel of a shoe, a white shin bone, shreds of semi-decomposed clothing, a wristwatch around a wrist hone. As more soil was removed, the pelvis of a second body gradually emerged, also laid face down. Vertebra by vertebra, the painstaking work uncovered the spine and finally the curve of the skull.
'Jesus Christ,' the sergeant said under his breath, 'look at this.' He pointed a gloved finger at the base of the skull, just above the junction with the spine.
Jenny stooped forward in the fading light to see a neat, round entry wound.
'At least it would have been quick,' Alison said without conviction.
The moment of dispatch might have been, but the preamble would have been protracted. It was a ninety-minute drive from Bristol and a long, lonely trek up the hill to the place of execution.
Something stirred in Jenny: a bitter sense of satisfaction that Tathum had suffered as much, if not more, than his victims. She was glad for what McAvoy had done. She pictured him standing outside the village hall on the very first day of her inquest, his hair tossed in the wind, the lines he had recited:
'Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer, To heal your many ills . . . My Dark Rosaleen.'
She would see him again. She had to.
Chapter 28
It was Friday morning. Gillian Golder and Simon More- ton sat alongside Alun Rhys at the reconvened secret inquest. They had come to ensure that the deal stuck. Only after lengthy and ill-tempered negotiations and having secured the personal approval of Mr Jamal and the Hassans, had Jenny grudgingly agreed to the terms: there would be no mention of Anna Rose Crosby or the ongoing investigation surrounding her; neither would there be any mention of Mrs Jamal or the continuing police inquiry into her suspected murder; and finally, as Dr Sarah Levin was in protective custody while she assisted the Security Services with their inquiries, her evidence was to be delivered by way of a statement to be read aloud to the jury. In return Golder had agreed that at the conclusion of the inquest Jenny would be fully briefed on why the secrecy measures had been necessary, and on what had become of Alec McAvoy.
Dr Andy Kerr produced detailed photographs of two complete skeletons, copies of which were shown to the horrified jury. He stated that DNA tests and dental records had confirmed that the remains were those of Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan. Both young men had met their deaths in a similar fashion: they had been shot through the base of the skull with a single nine-millimetre bullet. Each had an identical three-inch diameter exit wound on his forehead.
A ballistics expert, Dr Keith Dallas, confirmed that the same firearm had been used to kill both men. Two spent Corbon 115 gram DPX rounds had been recovered from the area near the bodies. These were hollow-tipped bullets designed to expand on impact: Nazim and Rafi's brains would have been quite literally blown out of their skulls.
Neither Denton nor Havilland asked any questions of these witnesses, leaving Collins and Khan to extract every last gruesome detail. When there were no more physical horrors left to be exposed, Alison read Sarah Levin's statement to the jury.
I am Dr Sarah Elizabeth Levin of 18C Ashwell Road, Bristol. This statement is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and I make it knowing that if it is tendered in evidence I shall be liable to prosecution if I have wilfully stated in it anything I know to be false or do not believe to be true.
In October 2001 I was a first-year undergraduate student at Bristol university studying physics. Towards the end of that month I was attending a faculty drinks party when I was approached by an American man who introduced himself as Henry Silverman. Silverman said he was a Professor of Chemistry carrying out confidential research for an Anglo-American defence company. I would estimate he was in his early to mid- forties at the time. He was polite and charming and I was flattered by his attention.
Several days later Silverman telephoned me to ask if I could meet him to discuss a 'professional matter'. He said my head of department, Professor Rhydian Brightman, had given him my number. I met him on a Friday evening after lectures in a cafe near Goldney Hall, where I was living at the time. It was during this meeting that he told me he was also helping to collect intelligence for the American government on British Muslim students suspected of being engaged in extremist activity. He said he was looking for a 'bright young woman' to work with, and that his employers could help me a great deal. He claimed to have helped other students gain scholarships to top American universities and said he could do the same for me. At that time my education was being funded through loans and I was tempted by the prospect of being able to pay off my debts and study abroad. I told Silverman I would think about it, and met him on one further occasion - at the Hotel du Vin restaurant in central Bristol - before agreeing to work for him.
During our third meeting, this time at a cafe in Whiteladies Road, he told me that he wanted me to pay special attention to Nazim Jamal, one of the students in my year group. He said that Nazim was involved with an organization called Hizb ut-Tahrir and that, along with other students, he was attending a radical mosque. I was told their mullah was a man named Sayeed Faruq, who was suspected of being a recruiting agent for terrorist groups. Silverman claimed that emails had been intercepted in which Nazim and a close friend of his - a law student by the name of Rafi Hassan - had discussed ways of 'bringing off a British 9/11'. He admitted that it might just have been a case of young men fantasizing, but emphasized that they both exactly fitted the profile of those al-Qaeda was known to be recruiting. When I asked Silverman why he thought I could get close to Nazim, he replied that he liked to look at pretty blonde girls on the internet. I told Silverman right then that I had no intention of prostituting myself, but he assured me that wasn't what he was asking of me - I was just to try to talk to and befriend him. He offered me £500 in cash and promised there would be more payments as and when I came up with information.