The Inquiry Read online

‘Up to him. As long he’s protecting ours.’

  ‘Did he ever have to deliver any of “our” actual guys to maintain his credentials with them?’

  ‘Come on, woman, don’t expect me to answer that.’

  ‘OK,’ said Sara, not bridling. ‘He “delivers” a little Baba Ali. What happens next?’

  ‘That’s between Kareem and his jihadi mates.’

  ‘What if jihadi mate asks Kareem to get rid of little Baba Ali? Or Kareem decides that might be the thing to do. Mete out justice on the spot.’

  ‘That’s down to him. Nothing to do with HMG.’

  ‘Though HMG gave him his contract,’ said Sara. ‘And his indemnities.’

  ‘Yes,’ said J. ‘That was Isobel’s call, not mine. But don’t be so legalistic. Just a bit of paper.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Sara as quietly as she could against the shrieking wind.

  J looked towards the shore again. ‘I won’t discuss that so don’t waste time.’

  ‘But you took one of the copies.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘Can I at least ask what you did with it?’

  ‘No you fucking well can’t. Move on,’ growled J. ‘But if you seriously think I’d ever have allowed my copy of that to see the light of day…’ He allowed the thought to linger.

  ‘OK,’ continued Sara, ‘the Blackburn files. Why are they significant?’

  J chuckled hoarsely and spat into the sea. ‘You must have worked that one out.’

  Sara recalled what Morahan had been told by Sayyid. ‘The inception? The tip of the iceberg?’

  ‘Hooray. Yes – despite the silly words. Pull on the thread, find the ball of wool.’ He stopped again to cough. ‘It was the first op. You don’t get any bloody rehearsals. Had to succeed.’

  ‘Succeed?’

  ‘Yes, prove his bona fides to both sides. Us, though we were sure of him. More importantly them. The jihadists. Expose an informer for them.’

  ‘How did Blackburn end?’

  ‘You don’t need to know that.’

  ‘OK, I’ll put it another way. Was the contract a means that justified the ends?’

  ‘Careful,’ said J, ‘you’re on the cliff edge.’ Sara kept silent, waiting for him. ‘As far as I was concerned – and for as long as I was there – this was a legitimate intelligence operation which brought results.’

  ‘What results?’

  ‘One, we could concentrate on the genuinely bad boys at home, identified for us by Kareem. Two, he could give us the names of young warriors planning to head East for a slice of jihad. Names, departure dates and times – sometimes he even arranged their tickets – and therefore arrival times. Istanbul airport usually. Where there might be people to meet and greet. Like MIT.’

  ‘MIT?’ asked Sara. J rolled his eyes.

  ‘Turkish intelligence,’ interjected Patrick.

  ‘Yes. Maybe other interested parties too. Nothing to do with HMG.’

  ‘How many of these warriors were “disappeared”?’ continued Sara.

  ‘You should watch your grammar,’ said J. ‘It’s another jurisdiction. I’ve no idea. That’s if there were any.’

  ‘You know there must have been. Didn’t Kareem ever tell you?’

  ‘Why on God’s earth would I ask him?’ This time, he made a 360-degree scan. ‘Ten more minutes.’

  ‘Did you know Maryam/Marion?’ asked Sara.

  ‘Knew of.’

  ‘What was her role?’

  ‘Ornamental. Kareem wanted her there. I doubt she saw much.’

  ‘And after she left?’

  ‘We kept an eye on her for a while. I understand she was unwell.’

  ‘Do you know where she is?’

  ‘That’s enough on her.’ His reply triggered a few seconds’ break. Waves crashing around them, it was like boxers preparing for the final round.

  ‘How long did you continue on Operation Pitchfork?’ asked Sara.

  ‘I retired – say again, I was retired – in 2011.’ J raised a handkerchief to his mouth and spat into it. ‘By then Isobel was pretty much running Kareem solo. Even though it was my idea. She’d brought in a new sidekick. Middle-ranker called John Donald. I understand he’s now her new head of counter-terror.’ Patrick momentarily froze, hunching his shoulders against the wind to cover up the shock. That was the name. ‘John Donald’. The man who’d greeted him so warmly outside his flat, aided by his muscled friend with karate skills.

  ‘Did you stay in touch with Kareem?’ continued Sara. Patrick relaxed; she and J were too locked in their quick-fire exchange to notice his reaction.

  ‘Occasional calls maybe. Twice a year. Nothing of consequence. Just to check we were both on this earth.’

  ‘Still in touch?’ asked Patrick.

  ‘No. No calls since 2016. No answer to my calls, that is.’

  ‘Any whispers?’

  ‘Nothing. Silence of the damned,’ he rasped.

  ‘What about after you retired?’

  ‘You’ll have to speak to Isobel.’

  ‘Please, J,’ interceded Patrick.

  J turned slowly to Patrick, then stared at the sea beyond. The sky had darkened, a storm brewing in the channel. His own face seemed to cloud over in sympathy. ‘Think about it,’ he finally said. ‘What’s going on with our jihadist friends?’

  ‘They’re returning,’ replied Sara.

  ‘Good girl. Yes, the returners. Kareem has another important service to offer. The returners need vetting. Who’s still loyal and wants to go on performing on the Carry On Jihad film set? Who’s had enough? Who’s seen the evil and wants to change sides? And who’d like to know the answers to all those questions? Obviously the string-pullers of terror. And… and…’ He was leaning in towards both of them, his cheeks and lips livid.

  ‘HMG,’ said Patrick.

  ‘Precisely. Particularly the Carry On Brothers, the future enemy within.’

  ‘So that they can be monitored – or somehow got rid of?’

  ‘Ask Isobel. Ask Kareem. If you can find him. Let me know if you do.’ He began to walk towards the end of the pier; they fell in line either side of him. ‘They’ve arrived.’ Patrick and Sara flicked looks behind. ‘You won’t see them, they’re sat on a bench at the end of the pier. Nice-looking young couple. Not kissing and cuddling quite as much as one might expect on a lovers’ day out to the seaside. Useless tradecraft these days, all done by bloody gizmo.’

  ‘If I had the chance to ask Isobel and Kareem,’ said Sara, refusing to allow his deflection, ‘in an imaginary parallel world of truth not lies, what would they say?’

  J stopped and rounded on her. ‘I don’t know what Kareem fucking well ended up doing. Or how many. In my time, there was precision. Afterwards, who knows? I was out, the brakes were off. Have you ever seen what the power over life and death does to people? I don’t know what she was fucking well allowing him to do. I don’t know if she even knew. Or wanted to know. He was her triumph. The woman who’d planted at the heart of British jihad the one truly successful mole we’d ever had. She was one step away from the top job, for Christ’s sake, he was her ticket.’

  ‘One last thing,’ said Sara coolly.

  ‘You’re bloody right.’

  ‘Kareem and Isobel. Were they lovers?’

  He softened, looking at her with an astonishment that turned slowly to a gaunt smile. ‘What on earth makes you ask that?’

  ‘Because I think I understand him,’ she replied. ‘But I know nothing of her.’

  J considered the question for a few seconds; she sensed him recalling images, faces, expressions, body language. ‘If he fucked her – and if she was happy to be fucked by him, whether for trade advancement or personal pleasure – then I suspect we might all understand a great deal more.’

  ‘But did they?’ insisted Sara.

  ‘How would I know? Put a camera into their bedrooms?’

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t,’ she said, unabashed.


  Her cheek elicited a momentary grin. ‘That’s enough, lady lawyer. Now bugger off, both of you. And don’t take a peep at the young couple.’ With that, he stalked away, right to the end of the pier.

  ‘Goodbye, J. And thank you,’ said Patrick, not bothering to raise his voice. The brown-corduroyed figure was already well out of earshot, leaning over a railing and hawking into the gurgling sea.

  ‘Do you ever feel someone’s orchestrating this?’ Sara asked.

  ‘You’re ahead of me again,’ said Patrick.

  Once past Ashford on the direct route to London, after Patrick walked up and down their coach, inspected the toilets each end and returned to his seat with a nod of the head, they’d begun to talk.

  ‘It’s like those clouds gathering over the sea,’ said Sara. ‘I sometimes think someone’s whipping up a storm, pitching you and me into it, and then waiting for it to blow itself out. Don’t you ever feel that?’

  He smiled gently. ‘To be honest, I don’t. Must be lack of imagination.’

  ‘It all starts with Sayyid. But who is Sayyid?’

  ‘I guess we can shortlist – though I don’t see it gets us anywhere.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Someone who’s obtained a sample of unredacted MI5 files from two separate periods. Who had access to your dinner with Kareem and its transcript. Who’s motivated by conscience and believes there’s something rotten in the British secret state that the Morahan Inquiry offers a unique opportunity to investigate.’

  ‘It may be a whistleblower we’ve never heard of and never will. But imagine,’ she said, her eyes lighting up, wanting him to play her game, ‘it’s someone we know…’

  ‘There are only two,’ replied Patrick flatly. ‘Aren’t there?’

  Her eyes dulled. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘J himself. And…’

  ‘Sylvia. Now that I understand her.’

  ‘Correct. Perhaps even working together.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps.’

  They fell into silence. As they emerged from the long tunnel cutting through the monotony of east London’s suburbia, she stared out of the window at the curved concrete shapes of its 2012 Olympics. She thought of that triumphal event; then, however bristling with security it might have been, the city felt safe. No one believed they could be part of a crowd leaving stadiums with a suicide bomber in their midst about to blow himself up. For the four years that followed, Britain and Europe seemed a nation and a continent at relative peace. Then came Paris, Brussels, Manchester, London, political upheaval and burning tower blocks, not to mention refugees, mass drownings in the Mediterranean, that sense of a country and a world soured by menace.

  She smelt the sea twisting beneath Deal pier’s concrete legs, above them the parting image of J leaning over the end railing. She heard the smoker’s cough and hoarse voice of Sylvia; and saw the outline of her back shaped in the window as she made that brief phone call to J.

  ‘J’s a sick man, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Patrick. ‘He was too angry when I asked him if he was OK. Too out of character. He was never angry before. Big-voiced, loud exclamations, fruity language. But never anger. This was his raging against the dying of the light.’

  ‘And Sylvia?’

  ‘Oh she’s one of those smokers who’ll live till she’s a hundred. I said before she hates them. That’s not quite right. It’s pure, unvarnished contempt.’

  ‘They got rid of her, didn’t they? You’re a single woman with decades of service and then they shaft you. What’s left but revenge?’

  Patrick didn’t answer and now it was his turn to stare out. Sara watched him; that elegant clean-shaven profile and funnily squashed nose. She realised that she’d never asked him what he’d done with his copy of the contract. There had been just the three signed copies; his, J’s, and Kareem’s. It was a document that Sayyid had not produced. Because he was unable to or chose not to? A step too far or a hold-back for the final play?

  ‘Patrick,’ she murmured.

  ‘Yes?’ He turned, a slight smile of some distant memory playing around lips and perfectly white, straight teeth.

  ‘You remember when you drove down to London to see your son’s football night?’

  ‘Ye-es.’

  ‘And the match was cancelled.’

  ‘Ever more mystifying, Sara.’

  ‘It was late that night that Morahan went for his drive with Sayyid.’

  ‘I don’t have the chronology with me but I’ll believe you.’

  She summoned up the courage. ‘You know something? Occasionally I’ve wondered if you happen to be “Sayyid”. Or have a share in him.’

  He looked at her in shock. ‘Christ, Sara, how could you imagine that?’

  ‘You were there. You had access. You knew – know – people.’ She wished she’d held back. A question too many, a bridge too far. ‘You’re a good man too. A very good man. And I’d understand that you’d never have told me.’

  He smiled. ‘It’s all right. I’m not that good a man. Though if I’d known when this all began what I know now… ’ Her phone rang to rescue him.

  She murmured the occasional ‘yes’, then covered the mouthpiece with her hand. ‘It’s the surgeon. He thinks they should operate. Now. He says his vital signs are declining and the only real solution is removing the haematoma.’

  ‘What’s the chances with the op?’ asked Patrick.

  She repeated the question into the phone and covered the mouthpiece again as she listened. ‘He won’t give me odds but feels if we don’t he may slip away. It will be peaceful but it will be the end.’

  ‘Then there’s no choice, is there?’

  She spoke into the mouthpiece. ‘Go ahead. I’ll be there soon after six to sign the permissions. Don’t delay.’

  She looked at Patrick, a plea in her eyes. ‘If he dies on me, I’ll kill him.’

  26

  She arrived at the hospital to find that he’d not yet gone in. Preparing the theatre, gathering the team for a hurriedly accelerated operation still took time. She realised his decline must have been sharp and unexpected. The ward sister said they’d be working through the night; she could stay in the family room if she wanted.

  Her phone rang at 6.30 a.m., soon after Fajr.

  ‘It’s Azhar Mahmoud. I hope it’s OK to call now.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She held her breath.

  ‘We’ve completed the operation successfully.’

  ‘Oh good.’ She said it uncertainly, knowing there was more.

  ‘By which I mean that we’ve reduced the haematoma and his vital signs are still functioning.’

  ‘But that’s not the end of the story.’

  ‘No. But it’s a start. He’ll stay in intensive care and we’ll make no attempt to disturb him for some time yet. I suggest you leave it till the afternoon before coming in.’

  She phoned Patrick. ‘They’ve operated and he’s not dead,’ she said brutally.

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ he replied softly.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m putting him through.’

  He sensed the tears she was repressing. ‘You had no choice.’

  ‘The surgeon said not to come back till the afternoon. Home doesn’t feel too great right now, so I think I’ll go to work.’

  Patrick, his back to the door as she entered the Legal office, was staring out at the American Embassy. He turned.

  ‘There’s someone waiting to see us.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. In Pamela’s office. A VIP.’

  Sara followed him into the open-plan area towards the Secretary’s office. Clovis, guarding its door, looked up at them, eyes flickering nervously. ‘I’d better check.’ He dialled an internal number, listened for a few seconds and put the phone down. ‘You can go in.’

  A tall, slender woman rose from one of four designer wood-backed chairs around the circular glass meeting table. She stuck out a thin, prominently veined forearm from a loose-fit
ting white blouse and offered a similarly lined hand to shake. ‘Patrick, we’ve met.’ The voice was oddly deep.

  ‘Yes, Dame Isobel. Fourteen years ago, to be precise.’

  ‘Just Isobel, please. And you must be Sara Shah.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I should congratulate you on such a successful career. Meteoric, one might say.’ Sara returned a formal smile. The beakiness was what struck her. A narrow, flat body – skeletal even, a reminder of Marion – wearing the loose-fitting blouse and black trousers to disguise it. A matching black jacket hung on the back of her chair. It was her nose more than anything – longish, with a distinct kink halfway down, sunken grey eyes behind contact lenses, thin lips, imperfect teeth she seemed anxious not to reveal, a hard chin but not out of proportion to her overall bone structure. It was possible that, as a younger woman, the emaciated angularity could have been attractive; if so, that had worn off and she presented a forbidding figure, kept lean by an excess of nervous energy. Sara tried to picture her and Kareem standing together when they first encountered each other thirteen years ago, she some ten years older than him. He might have seen her as a challenge – a white-skinned woman in a position of secret power, a conquest in waiting.

  They sat, Isobel on one side, Patrick and Sara opposite.

  ‘This is not an official visit,’ she began. ‘I particularly didn’t want to invite you to Thames House.’ Patrick and Sara exchanged a glance, a silent acquiescence to let her make the running. ‘If you would prefer that we go out of this office, perhaps for a coffee…’

  ‘There appears to be coffee here,’ said Patrick tersely, as the door opened to reveal Clovis bearing a tray.

  ‘I realise this… this situation may seem odd.’

  ‘Could I get one thing clear, Dame Isobel?’ said Sara. She couldn’t imagine calling this woman by her first name only. ‘Unofficial or official, is this meeting on the record or off it?’

  ‘I would like to give you some guidance which will save you both time and resources. But I must ask you to keep any information I give to yourselves.’

  ‘So this is a meeting that didn’t happen,’ said Patrick. ‘A discussion that didn’t take place.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Are you intending to impart information involving potentially illegal activities?’