The Disappeared (27 page)

She
locked and bolted the front door.

Hostile
rap music with a window-shaking bass boomed out of Ross's room. She called up
to say hi, but there was no answer. It was nearly eleven, too late to eat. She
needed to calm down. What she would have given for a drink. She stepped into
her study, resolving to release her tension onto the page.

She
switched on the light and saw that the papers on her desk had been disturbed
and that the drawer where she kept her journal wasn't fully closed. She
wrenched it open. It was there beneath the jumble of envelopes and writing
paper - the black cover clasped shut by the band of elastic - but had she left
it that way, with the spine to the left?

'Hi.
You're late.'

She
spun round to see Ross in the doorway dressed in a hooded sweat top and baggy
Indian trousers.

'Have
you been touching my things?'

'No
...'

'Tell
me the truth.'

'There
was no food in the house. I was looking for money to go down to the pub and get
some.'

'Don't
lie to me.'

'I
didn't touch anything.'

'You
must never go through my desk. My personal things are in there.'

'Yeah,
a lot of crap.' He turned and went up the stairs.

She
chased after him. 'Ross, I'm sorry . . .'

'You're
a mess,' he said, more in pity than anger.

'Ross,
please—'

He
crashed into his bedroom and slammed the door.

She
woke at five, drained by the fitful dreams that had disturbed her shallow
sleep. Her body was exhausted but her brain was firing, making wild connections
and hurling itself into crazy speculation: a confusion of police and government
agents, secret deals and concealed evidence; and, hovering in the shadows, the
faintly smiling figure of McAvoy. Where did he fit in? Was he genuine or was
he, as Alison feared, using her? As if in answer, two images presented
themselves at once: an angel and a demon. One of them was him, she was sure,
but which she couldn't tell. Perhaps he was both.

The
initial shock of Mrs Jamal's sudden death had dulled to a low ache that
contained within it several different sources of pain. There were guilt and
pity, but beneath them a sense of the shame that she must have carried with her
in the moments before her death leap. Jenny still couldn't relate the
well-dressed woman who had arrived in her office, and who had sat with such
quiet dignity in court, with the i rumpled remains she had viewed on the grass
the previous afternoon. She climbed out of bed, pulled on a jumper over her
pyjamas and went downstairs to make a pot of coffee, which she took through to
her study. She sifted through the notes and papers she had brought home, now
searching for another piece in the jigsaw: the thing that Mrs Jamal hadn't
told, the thing that had pushed her over the edge.

She
read and reread the original police statements, then picked over every word
that had been said in court. Apart from the fact that Mrs Jamal had reacted so
violently to Dani James's evidence, there was no clue. She tried to recall the
conversation with her at her flat, wishing now she had made notes. Mrs Jamal
had been distressed when she heard about Madog's evidence but mistrustful of
both McAvoy and his investigator friend: there had been tears, but Madog's
story had felt like more mud in the same waters. It was only when Jenny had
asked her whether there had been another girl that she had reacted differently
and reached a state beyond tears. She had remembered the voice of the girl who
telephoned as if it were yesterday - she was Nazim's age, well spoken and
white. It couldn't have been Dani James, Mrs Jamal would have noticed her
Mancunian accent. Their exchange had been brief, yet it had affected her
profoundly. Jenny groped for possible explanations. It was more than mere
disapproval. Was there a scandal - had the girl been pregnant? Had Mrs Jamal
caught them together in her apartment perhaps? Had she driven the girl away and
forced such a rift with her son that he never forgave her? And if that was the
case, why had the girl never come forward?

Apart
from Dani James, the only young female to have given a formal statement to the
police was Sarah Levin, now Dr Levin in the department of physics. She was
another pending witness, whom Jenny should not contact before the resumed
hearing; her instinct told her it was a further occasion on which the rules
should be stretched. Besides, she was in desperate need of a lead, anything to
unlock the past.

Too
much grumbling and protest, Jenny dragged Ross from his bed at seven and
dropped him at a cafe near the sixth- form college, still groaning, before
eight. She had planned to apologize for her outburst the previous evening, but
he had insisted on sleeping for the entire forty-minute journey. It was
becoming a pattern: during their increasingly rare moments together he would do
anything but communicate with her.

Sarah
Levin's home address, gleaned from a sequence of early-morning phone calls to
obstructive university officials, was a second-floor apartment in a large
Victorian terraced house close to Bristol Downs: an expensive piece of property
for a young woman. The label next to the doorbell said Spencer-Levin, and it
was a man's voice that came over the intercom.

Jenny
announced herself and said that she needed to speak to Dr Levin immediately.

'She's
in the shower. And she's got a class at nine,' he said, with the self-important
tone she associated with corporate lawyers or investment bankers.

Irritable
following her bad night, Jenny said, 'Didn't I make myself clear? I'm a coroner
conducting an official inquiry.'

There
was a brief pause.

'Don't
you have to have a warrant or something?'

'No.
Now are you going to help me out or make this difficult?'

She
heard him curse. The buzzer sounded angrily.

He
didn't look like a lawyer or any sort of professional for that matter. He was
wearing a T-shirt under a canvas jacket and trainers. His shoulder-length hair
was tweaked and gelled and his jeans slung just-so across hips that were
starting to fill out. Advertising or TV, Jenny guessed, a dress-down business
that seems like a good idea when you're twenty-one but becomes embarrassing by
forty. Spencer - she assumed that was his surname and he didn't have the
manners to introduce himself - showed her into an open-plan kitchen- diner. It
was a self-consciously stark affair: a polished wood floor and everything
white, a single abstract print on the wall.

'I've
got to go. She'll be out in a minute.'

He
picked up a designer shoulder bag and headed out to ply his uncertain trade.

Sarah
Levin came in towelling her long blonde hair. She was tall and slim,
effortlessly attractive in a way Jenny could only describe as refined. Spencer
had struck exceptionally lucky.

'Hi.
What can I do for you?' she said, guardedly. 'It's Mrs Cooper, isn't it?'

'Yes.
Sorry to disturb you at home,' Jenny said, aware Sarah Levin's arresting beauty
had temporarily distracted her. 'There are a few questions I'd like to ask you
. . .'

'Your
office called the other day. I was told the inquest had been adjourned.'

'Only
until next week. I'm trying to fill in some detail on Nazim Jamal's first term
at Bristol. I understand you and he were both studying physics?'

'We
were.' She placed the towel on the counter and pushed her hair back from her
face. It reached nearly down to her waist.

'Did
you talk? Were you friends?'

'
Not
particularly
. Can I get you some coffee?'

'No
thanks. You go ahead.'

Sarah
flicked the switch on an electric espresso maker and fetched a stylish white
cup and saucer from a glass-fronted cupboard. Jenny watched for a moment,
sensing her tension. Not particularly. What did that mean?

Jenny
said, 'His mother died yesterday.'

'Oh
. . .' Sarah turned, unscrewing a jar of coffee, 'I'm sorry.'

'I
don't suppose you ever met her?'

'No.'

'She
told me that she suspected Nazim had become friendly with a girl towards the
end of that first term.'

'I
can't say I remember.'

'So
you were close enough that you'd have noticed?'

'Not
really . . . Obviously I've thought more about him since than I did at the
time.' She leaned back against the counter waiting for the coffee maker to heat
up. She seemed uncomfortable, on edge.

'Did
you ever call Nazim on his mobile?'

She
shook her head. 'I don't think so.'

'Mrs
Jamal answered a call on his phone that December. It was a girl - well spoken,
English. She acted as if she'd been caught out, as if she knew Nazim's mother
wouldn't approve. Any idea who she might have been?'

'Sounds
like half the girls at Bristol. Sorry. Not a clue.'

'How
close to him were you?'

'We
went to the same lectures and seminars. We partnered up in a few practicals. He
was just one of the crowd, not a friend of mine, especially ... or of anyone's
for that matter. He was pretty determined to set himself apart, as far as I
remember.'

'Because
of his faith?'

'The
Muslim boys tended to hang out together. Still do.' She turned round to check
the machine.

Jenny
said, 'So he was in your class, he set himself up as religious, separate -
wouldn't you find it odd that he had a white girlfriend?'

'Did
his mother see her? There were plenty of Muslim girls who spoke without an
Asian accent.' She pressed a button that noisily filled her cup. 'I hardly knew
him, but people like me weren't exactly going to throw themselves at a guy with
a beard and whatever you call those clothes.'

Jenny
watched her tap the spent grains into the waste disposal and wipe up the drips
on the counter, thinking she didn't look much like a physicist. Back in her
student days the scientists had been mostly lank-haired guys with bad skin. The
few women among them were the kind that always looked as if they were about to
set off on a hiking trip.

Jenny
said, 'What's your specialism, if you don't mind my asking?'

'Particle
physics, theoretical stuff. Looking for new forms of energy - that's the Holy
Grail.'

'Must
be quite a man's world.'

'My
family were all scientists. I never thought of it that way.'

But
I bet you like the attention, Jenny thought unkindly.

'You
gave a statement to the police after Nazim and the other boy disappeared,'
Jenny prompted. 'You said you'd once heard him in the canteen talking about
"brothers" who'd gone to Afghanistan.'

'That's
right. . . He was with a group of friends. It seemed like a bit of bravado at
the time. I only heard snatches - boys talking about how cool it would be to
fire guns and kill people, that sort of thing. They were laughing, showing off
to each other.'

'You
don't remember anything more specific?'

'If
I had, I would have told the police.' She sipped her coffee with a steady hand.
'It was a hell of a long time ago.'

'No
gossip around the department? Rumours, speculation?'

'No.'
Sarah Levin frowned and shook her pretty head. 'It seems just as weird now as
it did then. He just. . . vanished.'

Alison
was in one of her tense, frosty moods, which had been become an increasingly
regular feature in recent weeks. Annoyed and refusing to say why, she bustled
noisily around her office and banged the cupboard doors in the kitchenette.
Jenny had put them down to menopausal mood swings or the usual tussles with her
husband - and doubtless the issue with her daughter was part of it - but this
morning's atmosphere was unusually thick. The more Jenny tried to ignore her,
the heavier Alison's footsteps became. Reading through the latest batch of
post-mortem reports she tolerated it for nearly an hour. She was switching her
attention to the list of black Toyotas when Alison entered without knocking and
dumped a pile of mail on top of the document she was reading.

'Your
post. And some of yesterday's, too.'

Holding
her temper, Jenny said, 'Is something the matter?'

'I'm
sorry, Mrs Cooper?'

'You
seem out of sorts.'

Alison
forced a tight, patient smile, 'I'll be out of your hair in a minute. I've
arranged to take a statement from Mr Madog.'

The
game was following its usual pattern: Alison would repeatedly deny anything was
wrong until finally, as if she were conceding only to satisfy some irrational
need of Jenny's, she would tell her what it was.

'I'll
get through all the outstanding files this weekend,' Jenny said. 'If there are
consultants at the Vale hassling you for decisions you can tell them Monday at
the latest.'