Getting close to Nazim proved easier than I had anticipated. I teamed up with him during a practical exercise in the lab and struck up a rapport. He wasn't at all how I had expected. He'd been to a good school and it turned out that we had many interests in common. During the following weeks we worked a lot together and became genuinely fond of each other, although Nazim was uncomfortable about being seen with me in public. During the last week of term, at the beginning of December 2001, he invited me back to his room and we ended up spending the night together.
We kept in touch during the vacation and our relationship continued into the following term. By this time I had become extremely attached to Nazim and had almost allowed myself to forget how the relationship had started. But Silverman began calling me in January and pressing me for information. Over the course of the spring term Nazim and I became closer. We spent several nights a week together, although he was very conflicted over this and would get up to pray at dawn, even when I was in the room. He didn't talk much to me about religion or politics, but I could see from the books he read and by checking the sites he visited on the internet that he had become very committed to the Islamist cause. Several times I overheard him talking to Asian friends about Israel and Palestine and the war in Afghanistan. On the few occasions I tried to speak to him about his beliefs, he would invariably change the subject and say that it was irrelevant or that I wouldn't be interested. Increasingly, I got the feeling that he had two lives: one he shared with me, the other with his Asian friends, and he never allowed them to cross. As a result I didn't have much to tell Silverman, who became frustrated by my lack of progress. He started phoning me most days, suggesting ways I could ask more questions. He even said I should talk to Nazim about converting to Islam.
I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the situation, and quite frankly I was looking for a way out when, at the very end of term Nazim announced that he wanted to end our relationship. He wouldn't give any reasons, but he was visibly upset. I remember thinking that it was almost as if he'd been found out and had been ordered to stay away from me.
I told Silverman what had happened and he was furious. He said he had other information that Nazim and several friends had been discussing an attack on one of the four nuclear power stations along the Severn estuary. They'd been followed one weekend driving to Hinkley Point, then on to Maybury. He ordered me not to take no for an answer. By this time I was really frightened of him and had no one to turn to for help.
At the start of the summer term I tried to get back with Nazim, but he became hostile towards me, telling me to stay away from him. Silverman responded by giving me several miniature listening devices and told me I had to hide them in Nazim's room. That was the one time I did prostitute myself. I went to see him late in the evening and begged him to let me in. We spent the night together, but he made me swear not to tell anyone. The next morning he was in tears: he'd missed his dawn prayers and he blamed me. He said I was a whore and had been sent by the devil to tempt him. He was very emotional and left the room while I got dressed. I was angry with him and disgusted with myself. I locked the door and searched though his papers. I found a pad on which he'd taken down notes at one of his religious meetings and discovered that at the back of it he'd written a list of times and places. I remember the first entry: it was Avonmouth fuel depot. I photographed the page with a miniature digital camera Silverman had given me.
He was delighted with the list and said it was evidence that Nazim and his friends were planning to hijack a fuel tanker and crash it into one of the four power stations. He even speculated that they were planning multiple hijacks and hoping to blow a hole in the side of a reactor. He wanted to know more. I told him the relationship had broken down, but he insisted I get as close to Nazim as I could. No detail was too small - changes in mood, the slightest alteration in appearance - he wanted to know everything.
I did what I was asked. Throughout June I contacted Silverman nearly every day. I observed Nazim become increasingly distracted and withdrawn. He missed lectures and classes. He wouldn't speak to me or any of the other students. I became concerned and asked Silverman what was going to happen to Nazim. He wouldn't answer. He just told me to keep reporting.
By mid-June I had convinced myself that Nazim was genuinely involved in a terrorist conspiracy. Then something happened to change my mind. Out of the blue he stopped me in the corridor - I think it was on the 24th - and said that he was sorry he had behaved so badly towards me. His mood had completely altered: it was the first time I'd seen him smile in weeks. I asked if he was OK. He said he was fine. He touched my hand and then walked away. We never spoke again.
On Saturday 29 June 2002 Silverman phoned and arranged to pick me up outside Goldney Hall. He drove me up to Bristol Downs and handed me an envelope containing £5,000. He told me that Nazim and Rafi Hassan had been arrested - he didn't say by whom - and that I wasn't to say a word to anyone. He didn't make any specific threats, but he didn't need to: his manner told me everything I needed to know.
About a week later he called again and instructed me to give a statement to the police, saying that I had overheard Nazim talking to Asian friends in the canteen about going to fight in Afghanistan. He told me to keep it short. I didn't dare disobey him.
He contacted me once more in late July. He said he was leaving the country to work abroad but that he'd hold good to his promise. In the first term of my third year I was sent an application form to apply for a Stevenson scholarship to Harvard. I was successfuclass="underline" I studied there for three years and gained a doctorate in 2007.
I have no knowledge of what happened to Nazim Jamal or Rafi Hassan. From the little that Silverman told me, I formed the impression that they had been arrested by the Security Services. As I became better informed about the political situation, I speculated that they had been taken into custody by the US authorities and removed to a foreign country, but I have no evidence for this.
I am now in the protective custody of the British Security Services and make this statement freely, willingly and am receiving no reward or favour in exchange.
Khan shot to his feet.
'Ma'am,' he said, with an expression of complete incredulity, 'are you honestly proposing that the contents of this statement cannot be reported or made known to anyone outside the immediate families of the deceased? If what Dr Levin says is true, words cannot describe the depth of corruption that this represents.'
Collins, sitting alongside him, nodded in agreement. Havilland shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Martha Denton wore an expression of impassive detachment.