The Disappeared

'I'm not proposing anything, Mr Khan. How each of us behaves with a gun pressed to our heads is a matter of individual conscience.'

Khan was defiant. 'I refuse to be silenced. I intend to make the evidence we have heard public by whatever means possible.'

Jenny felt the eyes of Golder, Rhys and Moreton on her. She realized that the wall of silence that had been erected around her proceedings would never be breached. Immediate imprisonment awaited any newspaper editor or broadcaster who disobeyed the order. If Khan wanted to spread the word he would be restricted to megaphone and soapbox or an obscure extra-territorial corner of the internet, where he would compete for attention with the cranks and conspiracy theorists.

'You must do as you see fit, Mr Khan,' Jenny said, and began her summing up to the jury.

A sense of anticlimax greeted the verdict of unlawful killing. There was no sense of a blow being struck for justice, no surge of satisfaction that the truth would now be made known to a waiting world. Rather it was a guilty, furtive moment in which everyone in the room felt as if they had tacitly participated in the concealment of an evil too monstrous and powerful to confront. The uneasy feeling of complicity was completed when Jenny reminded the jury that every last word they had heard must remain absolutely secret, even from their immediate families.

She couldn't decide whether she had uncovered the truth, or buried it more deeply.

As the jurors shuffled from their seats, she looked across at Mr Jamal. He wiped tears from his cheek, gave her a brief nod of acceptance, and made his way to the back of the hall, where police officers waited to escort him to his car. It was cold comfort, but she sensed he was glad there would be no publicity.

Not so Khan. He burst outside and announced to waiting supporters that their brothers had been murdered by American and British agents. A minor riot broke out. There were scuffles and arrests, cracked heads and screams of pain, but no reporters to witness them.

Jenny met Golder and Rhys in the restaurant at the bird sanctuary. They sat by the window overlooking the pond. The light was fading from a brilliant sky and the flamingos wading in the water gleamed fluorescent pink.

'Do you like birds?' Gillian Golder asked, stirring sweetener into milky tea.

'Most kinds. Don't you?'

'As long as they're not grubby,' Golder said. 'I think all the pigeons in London should be exterminated.'

'I rather admire their tenacity.'

Alun Rhys cut in, 'What do you want to know, Mrs Cooper?'

Jenny sipped her tepid coffee. There was so much she wanted to be told, and she trusted them so little.

'Who is Silverman?'

Golder answered. 'As far as we can ascertain he was an American agent operating outside the usual channels of cooperation. He appeared to have access to our intelligence, but we knew nothing of him or his activities.'

'You're denying all knowledge of him?'

'They were fearful times. The Americans were understandably jumpy and we had let the grass grow under our feet rather. Not that that's any justification for summary killing, I grant you.'

Jenny remained sceptical. 'If they thought they'd identified terrorists, why not just hand them over to you or fly them out of the country?'

Golder and Rhys exchanged a look. Golder said, 'We're still working on that. All we have at present is the little Alec McAvoy told us. Apparently Tathum confessed that he and his colleague - since killed in Iraq, if that's any consolation - brought the two boys straight from Bristol to the woods, where they were met by Silverman. He interrogated them for most of the night, extracted nothing except denials, then shot Hassan as an incentive to Jamal. Seemingly it didn't have the desired effect.'

'You're in contact with McAvoy?' Jenny tried not to show her excitement.

'He made a single call to the police. There's been no other communication.'

'Will he be prosecuted?'

The loyal Crown servants exchanged another glance. 'That's a decision that depends on many factors,' Rhys said, 'not least of which is whether he's still alive. The police found a vehicle yesterday which we think may be his.'

'Where?'

'Just along the estuary from here, at Aust, near the bridge.'

Jenny gazed out at the birds and told herself it was a ruse on McAvoy's part. He was buying time, that was all, throwing them off the scent while he worked out his next move. He wouldn't leave her now, he had promised . . .

Golder's harsh, businesslike voice interrupted her thoughts. 'We're informed by the police that he's also wanted in connection with another suspected killing. He recently orchestrated the defence of a Czech nightclub owner by the name of Marek Stich, who shot dead a young traffic policeman but got a miraculous not guilty. Stich's girlfriend went missing shortly before his trial. She was Ukrainian. Apparently CID are working on the theory that hers was the body that was famously stolen from your local mortuary last week.'

'That can't be right. . .'

'I couldn't possibly comment,' Gillian Golder said, 'I suggest you talk to the police.'

He wouldn't. He couldn't have . . . But why else would he have come to view the Jane Doe that day? She remembered now: he had told her a story about a client with a missing daughter which he never repeated again. It was a fiction - his client was Stich. He must have sent McAvoy to identify the corpse that had unkindly washed back up on the tide. But that wasn't illegal, it wasn't complicity, it was just what criminal lawyers did for their clients. McAvoy would have had nothing to do with the murder or with the theft of a body.

'I presume you'd like our thoughts on Mrs Jamal?' Golder interrupted her reverie.

'Yes,' Jenny said, distracted.

'We're assuming Silverman was involved in her death. Our best guess is that the prospect of a public inquest rattled him somewhat. From what we gather he's not the most stable of individuals. We've no concrete evidence that he forced her to strip naked and drink half a bottle of whisky, but it seems as likely an explanation as any.'

'Why? She didn't know anything.'

'She might have known about Dr Levin. She might have approached her, prodded her conscience, got her to talk.'

'But he knew Levin. He could have talked to her directly.'

'We assume he probably did,' Rhys said. 'Disposing of Mrs Jamal was merely a housekeeping exercise, if you like.'

'What about Anna Rose?'

Rhys deferred to Gillian Golder, who considered her words carefully. 'As far as we know, Silverman resurfaced early last year after an extended period in the Middle East. He came back to Sarah Levin, looking for another young woman to work for him.'

'In the same university?'

'That's where he had the contacts,' Golder said. 'But we think his big idea this time was rather different.' She paused for a moment to weigh her words. 'Let's just say that, despite outward appearances, certain of our American cousins still harbour a residual frustration with Britistan, as they like to call us. They think we still need shocking out of what they see as our complacency over the radical elements among our Muslim population. Anna Rose was to be less of an informer and more of an agent provocateur.'

Golder gave Jenny a look as if to say that was as far as she was prepared to go.

Jenny wasn't satisfied. 'He was using her to set up Salim Hussain. She was to pretend she could get hold of the ingredients for a dirty bomb, but they actually came from Silverman. Then what . . . she took fright and ran?'

'You understand that we're not at liberty to disclose.'

'What does Silverman want? What's his agenda? He surely wasn't going to let a radioactive bomb go off?'

I wouldn't have thought so, no, but the propaganda value would have been, well . . . immeasurable. And I'm sure our American colleagues would have been more than happy to advise us on the necessary cleansing measures to prevent any future occurrence.'