The Inquiry Read online

  ‘You recognise him?’

  ‘If I’d thought for one second you’d ever set eyes on him, let alone known him, I’d never have pushed. It’s not safe, we don’t go any further.’

  ‘No, Patrick, that’s a decision we make together. First of all, you have to explain.’

  ‘You see, I was there at the beginning.’

  16

  A moment frozen in time, senses dulled, sounds stopped.

  A world tipping.

  Patrick saw it in her eyes. ‘Let’s get out,’ he said, jumping up. He glanced out of the window. A low blanket of grey. ‘Grab your coat.’ He snatched his own off a hook. ‘This is no place to talk, can’t see through the walls.’

  Without waiting for her reply, he was on his way. She gathered her bag, took her red mackintosh, and followed. As she passed the open Archives door, she peeped in, catching Sylvia Labone’s eye and the glare of her frown – should have kept her eyes ahead. She caught up with Patrick at the stairs, racing to match him. Once outside, he inhaled deeply. If they’d looked up and round, they’d have seen Sylvia watching them from her office window.

  ‘Where now?’ she asked.

  ‘Where’s the safest place to drive if you’re speeding?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Past a police station.’

  Heading in the direction of Vauxhall Bridge, traffic noise covering, he began to speak.

  2005

  ‘There’s someone who wants to meet you,’ said Keith Barron, head of the Treasury Solicitors.

  ‘Someone, sir?’ said Patrick.

  ‘It’s all right, Patrick, you don’t need to do “sir”. This someone is one of our friends from Thames House.’

  ‘The Security Service.’

  ‘Correct. MI5.’ Barron peered up at the ceiling and addressed himself to it. ‘It appears they are engaged in a negotiation with an individual who is asking for certain guarantees.’ He bore back down on Patrick. ‘They gave me a profile of this person and asked for an in-house solicitor who might be able to strike up a relationship with him. I know you’ve only just joined us but you’re the man for the job.’

  ‘I know nothing about that world,’ said Patrick, bemused.

  ‘That’s a plus, you can play the innocent. Are you up for it?’

  Patrick thought of the dull prospect of his next departmental visit. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘I’d been there literally two weeks,’ said Patrick, striding down Nine Elms. ‘Just finished my compulsory two years at the City law firm slave drivers who’d put me through articles. There was a job ad at the Treasury Solicitors. It’s the Government Legal Department now. I applied and got it. They were sending me round the departments. As I remember the next visit was to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Wales.’ His grin had been absent for the longest Sara could remember. Now he shot her one. ‘MI5 sounded more exciting.’ The grin didn’t last long. ‘Idiot that I was.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like you were being given a choice,’ said Sara.

  ‘You don’t say no two weeks in, do you?’ He paused as they stopped at the pedestrian lights to cross towards the river. ‘The someone’s name was Walter Thompson. Barron gave me his number and said he was expecting my call. He said hello, gave me a time – 12.45 – and a place. That was it.’

  ‘Where?’

  Patrick pointed airily towards Millbank Tower. ‘Over there. Not exactly St James’s, is it? They don’t do pizza in the clubs there. I arrived five minutes early – wanted to be sure – told a waitress the table was booked in the name of Thompson. She led me to a corner. There he was, reading The Times. Fifties, I guessed, roughly parted sandy hair, mud-brown corduroy jacket with brown leather patches covering the elbows. Oh… and a dark red cravat dangling down over a check shirt.’

  ‘Patrick Duke.’ The voice was gravelly – an actor’s voice, Patrick thought.

  ‘Yes, that’s me, Mr Thompson.’

  ‘J. Call me J. Everyone does.’ Patrick was bemused. ‘Walter Thompson. J Walter Thompson. Geddit?’

  ‘You mean the ad agency—’

  ‘Of course. Our organisation, adoration of initials.’ He leaned across, lowering his voice. ‘C, M, Q… so they decided to call me J. Company humour, I’m afraid. Sit down. I’m having an American Hot. I’ve asked for tap water.’ He peered over small brown-rimmed half-moon glasses. ‘Tell me about yourself. No need to hold back. This hidey-hole is the most discreet spot in London. Try bugging a conversation in the clatter of this place.’ Patrick could see that J, his back to the corner wall, had in his sights the full swathe of the restaurant and pavements lying beyond. Patrick’s only view was of J.

  He laid out the bare bones of his life: son of a rich Ghanaian; educated at English public school; law degree; City solicitor intern; now learning the ropes at the Treasury Solicitors.

  ‘That tells me nothing,’ said J brusquely. Patrick sagged, slicing slowly through his pizza. ‘Attitudes, culture, conscience, thoughts, prejudices. That’s what I want to know. Let’s start with the last.’

  ‘Prejudices?’

  ‘Yes. What are yours?’

  Patrick slapped down his knife and fork. ‘I don’t do prejudice.’

  ‘’Course you do. We all do.’

  ‘All right, if you insist. Bad-mannered, middle-aged men asking rude and intrusive questions for a start.’

  J reddened with what seemed a flush of anger, then exploded into a thunderous chuckle which subsided into a fading splutter. ‘Good chap! What else?’

  ‘Rich public school arseholes.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Arrogant overpaid city lawyers, weasel wordsmiths, puffed-up politicians—’

  ‘Pakis?’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Patrick softly.

  ‘Arabs?’

  Patrick’s voice was laced with a quiet contempt. ‘Is this some kind of sick game? Whatever’s been said to me in the course of my life, I’ve never given a fuck about the colour of another man’s skin. Or his race or culture for that matter.’

  ‘Religion?’ continued J, unabashed.

  ‘Or his religion.’ In another place at another time, Patrick felt he might have punched him in the face.

  ‘Me neither,’ said J, taking a sip of water. ‘Sorry, always good to take a fellow’s temperature. Particularly given the task in hand.’

  It was a test; he’d passed. ‘What task?’

  ‘Not for here. Let’s enjoy our lunch and find out more about each other. Are you a cricket or soccer man?’

  An hour later, pass issued, bag scanned and through the security pods, Patrick found himself closeted with J in a small barely furnished ante-room at Thames House. He had sometimes wondered whether the dull uniform grey exterior matched what was inside; so far, the answer was resoundingly yes.

  ‘How did you react to the events of July the 7th?’ began J. They sat at opposite corners of a brown leather sofa – Patrick had a mounting sense of that colour becoming his abiding memory of the day.

  ‘I was shocked. Like everyone.’

  ‘Why? Something was bound to blow, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It doesn’t soften it. The luck and arbitrariness of life. And death.’

  ‘How about the bombers? Sacrificing themselves for their God.’

  Patrick hesitated, unsure whether this was another of J’s tests. ‘I didn’t bother myself thinking about them,’ he replied.

  ‘Fair enough. But I’m asking you now.’

  ‘You’re putting me on a spot where I don’t want to be.’

  ‘Tough. Speak.’

  ‘They weren’t mad. Or sick. Or evil. Or any of the other tabloid epithets. They were sort of blinded. Blind-alley idealists.’

  ‘You can understand how they arrived at their destination.’

  ‘“Understand” may be putting it too strongly. I’ve felt anger. Destructive urges even, as a black boy at a British public school. But I could never graduate to the deed of killing.’
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  ‘What about on the battlefield?’

  ‘Never been there.’

  ‘As a soldier in uniform,’ said J, ignoring his answer.

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Isn’t that what the bombers were? Soldiers in uniform fighting for Allah.’

  Patrick frowned. ‘Where’s this leading?’

  J ignored him. ‘Enough of 7/7. What about 9/11? Rather bigger deal. Deaths in the thousands.’

  ‘What the hell do you want me to say, J? That at least it had a bit of style about it?’

  ‘That’ll do,’ said J cheerfully. ‘You’ll get along with our friend splendidly.’

  J jumped up from the sofa with surprising agility to remove two files from his bag, which, Patrick noted, was, for variety’s sake, a light tan rather than dreary brown. ‘I realise some of this may seem like an interrogation,’ he said mildly, ‘but the thing about working in intelligence is that it does pay to be intelligent. It’s all about the ability to get inside the other fellow’s head.’

  From the first slender file, J fished out three photographs, cropped to show head and shoulders. Two were fuzzy, the third in perfect focus; together, they composed not just a face but the beginnings of an expression. ‘He’s called Kareem,’ said J. ‘Full name Kareem Abdullah bin-Jilani. Well-off Gulf State family, English public school educated, good degree.’ He bowed his head to peer over his glasses at Patrick. ‘Bit like you. But somewhere along the line, the similarities end.’ J retrieved the photographs and made a show of examining them. ‘A couple of days ago we invited Kareem for a chat.’

  ‘You invited him?’

  ‘If you’ll allow an elastic interpretation,’ he replied.

  ‘Kareem,’ repeated Sara, slowly shaking her head. ‘It seems impossible. And yet…’ She left the thought unfinished.

  They’d stopped in the middle of Vauxhall Bridge on the Westminster side – to the right MI5’s cruise-liner frontage, to the left Millbank and Thames House beyond.

  ‘Yes,’ said Patrick, ‘Kareem. The man you sat next to in the restaurant. The man you already knew. Your turn to say something?’

  ‘No,’ she replied abruptly. ‘We’ll get to the end of your story first.’

  He screwed his eyes at her, his disappointment obvious. Or was it dissatisfaction? Either way, she had to download him first; only then would she know what she needed to give back.

  He sighed, turning from her to the river. ‘OK. J gave me some background. How, since 9/11, whatever happened elsewhere in the world, they’d been successful at home. Plots were intercepted, plotters imprisoned. But then came 7/7…’

  ‘You spoke of shock and the luck of life and death,’ said J. ‘My reaction to the 7th of July was anger. A fury that we didn’t stop it. That we didn’t know enough. Or, rather, that we had much of the knowledge but we didn’t know how to prioritise it. Or make the right connections. We were an army bristling with rockets and guns but without a spotter behind enemy lines. We at MI5, MI6, Special Branch, NCIS – that’s the National Criminal Intelligence Service, Patrick—’

  ‘Yes, J, I know what NCIS is—’

  ‘We all vowed better co-ordination. “Dare to share” became the new motto. Kareem was one of its first opportunities.’

  J handed the photographs to Patrick. ‘Look at him. Get to know him. Try to understand what’s inside.’

  ‘Don’t I get to meet him?’

  ‘Oh yes. You’ll meet him all right.’ J took a breath while Patrick obediently stared at the photographs. ‘In fact it began well before 7/7. Back in late 2003. During the Christmas holidays, some Pakistani post-grads from Queen Victoria College, London, boarded an Air South Asia Express flight to Islamabad. One was called Kareem Abdullah bin-Jilani, twenty-six years old and writing a thesis on the mathematics of aerodynamics. Rather than turning right into the plane and heading for economy like the other five, he turned left into first. A stewardess noted how the group had separated and thought it unusual enough to inform the captain.’

  He paused; Patrick, looking up from the photographs, was paying full attention. ‘You’ve got to remember – it was less than two years since 9/11. And there had been the attempt by the “shoe bomber” to blow up an American plane in midair. The captain took an informal stroll through the first-class and economy cabins, eyeing them up. He saw nothing amiss but took two precautions. He ordered a manual check of the group’s hold baggage and rearranged the seating plan to allow his two plain-clothes armed marshals to be in close sight of them.

  ‘But the single PhD student sitting in first class kept niggling at him. He radio’d ahead to the airport to suggest that passport and customs might like to take a look. This request itself was so out of the ordinary that the airport authorities passed it on to ISI.’

  ‘ISI?’

  ‘The Pakistani intelligence service. You don’t know everything, do you?’ he said sharply. ‘They in turn asked the local MI6 head of station if Kareem’s name was on their files. He wasn’t. From then on, he was.’

  J rose, stretching his shoulders and neck. ‘Ever been to Islamabad, Patrick?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Wouldn’t bother. Kareem lands, the MI6 man puts a cheap tail on him. Leaving the airport, he splits from the other five and takes a taxi to a four-star hotel. Day one, he doesn’t emerge from his room. Day two, he visits the HSBC bank’s local headquarters and the offices of a shipping and construction company. In the evening he stays in his hotel, ordering room service. Day three, he exits the hotel ground-floor lift – he’s carrying a packed suitcase and wearing weather-beaten jeans, hiking boots and a khaki jacket. He pays his bill and strides out with purpose. The tail notes he rudely brushes aside a commissionaire offering to summon a taxi. He walks along the main street and an earth-spattered Range Rover draws up. He jumps in. The local watcher reports the car heads north-west out of the city in the rough direction of Shangla province. The number plate’s obscured by baked mud but he says it’s far from new and has a noticeable dent in the exterior of the front passenger door. The watcher doesn’t have a car and there the tail ends. Limited intelligence which the station head sits on.

  ‘But of course,’ said J, now circling the small room, ‘what the station head does have is the time and date of Kareem’s return flight. Something intriguing happens. Again it’s a first-class ticket but Kareem doesn’t show up at the airport. The ticket’s never cancelled or changed. That means two things. First, there’s enough cash flowing around for the money to be waived. Second, it turns out after further checking that Kareem booked a completely new return flight with a different airline a week earlier than the original.’

  ‘That could have been a decision on a whim by a spoilt rich boy,’ said Patrick.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed J, eyes shining. ‘However, the flight was to Amsterdam where Kareem hung out for a couple of days before changing to a domestic European flight to London.’

  ‘Perhaps he was interested in marijuana cafés.’

  ‘Indeed. Or Rembrandt.’ They exchanged a quick grimace, a mutual understanding that the possible excuses were ceasing to add up. ‘Put it this way. A series of mild, possibly meaningless actions but, pooled together, an indication at the very least of a man who did not wish to be intercepted on his way home.’

  ‘Or, perhaps, a man who thought he was being watched already,’ said Patrick. ‘Maybe the station head asked the tail not to be so invisible for once.’

  ‘Smart, Patrick,’ said J. ‘I wondered if he did too. If so, he was too modest – or too cautious – to admit he rolled that particular dice.’ J snatched a look at his watch. ‘Good heavens, tea-time.’

  J slid out of the room, pulling the door to with a gentle click. After two or three minutes, it struck Patrick that either J was summoning something more than a cup of tea or he was using the intermission for other purposes. He had a sense of being observed; presumably no room in this building was a private space. Or if not watched, at least listened to. His ‘test�
�� had simply shifted location from the restaurant to home base. Perhaps someone’s ears had also been flapping while they had eaten their pizzas.

  The door edged open and a face appeared around it. Not J but a middle-aged, bespectacled, long-skirted woman with fair hair, greying at the edges and tied into a loose bun. She looked surprised.

  ‘Oh sorry,’ she said throatily with a friendly smile. ‘Didn’t know it was occupied.’ She paused, inspecting him. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ said Patrick. ‘He said he’ll be back in a minute.’ He sensed it would be wrong to mention that he was with J.

  ‘Good.’ She disappeared, shutting him in, without further questions.

  A foot kicked open the door to reveal J carrying a tray with a china teapot, two cups and saucers, milk jug, sugar bowl and a small round chocolate cake. ‘Supermarket fare, I’m afraid, best I could find in the kitchen. Our standards are slipping.’ Not for the first time, Patrick felt wrong-footed. ‘Milk before or after?’

  ‘Is that another of your tests, J?’ replied Patrick, recovering.

  J gave a short chuckle. ‘To continue. Kareem finally lands in London after his circuitous journey and we take an interest. Not heavy – too much manpower for a tentative lead. But we go fishing in the cash river, have a gander at bank accounts – he had two in his own name and another three via nominees which we tracked back to him. Another small indicator – why would he need them? Payments are going to three imams who are on our radar and two charities organising rural UK “adventure” holidays for young Muslims. There are irregular but significant payments to two airlines flying to the Middle East and south Asia.’

  ‘All of which could be genuine charitable and educational causes,’ said Patrick.

  ‘And there’s his own charity too,’ continued J, not answering. ‘Islam in the Community. Discreet but a means of giving Kareem a presence. Here he now is, back in Britain – a good-looking, articulate young Muslim, charismatic even – with a network of contacts. But a different creature altogether from the rabid preachers. There’s something sophisticated about him – agile, supple, lithe. And inscrutable.’