The Disappeared (45 page)

'I
know what you're implying, but it's not the case.'

'Did
anyone from the Security Services ever speak to or question you?'

'Never.'

Jenny
sat back in her chair with the uneasy feeling that something was still missing,
that a question remained unanswered. If she had been an advocate she could have
grilled Sarah Levin relentlessly on her unlikely lack of malice towards the
young man who had wounded her in such an intimate way, but it would have been
inappropriate for a coroner, laying her open to accusations of heavy-handedness
and bias.

'Could
you please tell us, then, whether Nazim ever said anything to you which might
have indicated what happened to him.'

Sarah
considered her answer carefully. 'It wasn't anything he said at the time, but
looking back I can see that he was angry. I'm not even sure he knew what he was
angry with. He channelled it into his religion - it gave him a sense of purpose,
of specialness perhaps - but he was also intelligent, sensitive . . .'

'Do
you believe that he went abroad?'

'I
can believe it,' she said. 'It would have seemed like an adventure.'

'Did
he ever talk to you about Rafi Hassan?'

'I
didn't even know who he was until they both vanished. Nazim never spoke about
him. Looking back, I suppose he was leading two very separate lives. I didn't
see the other one.'

Jenny
ended her examination with her niggling sense of doubt unresolved. As Havilland
rose to confirm with Sarah Levin that all her contact with the police had been
at her own initiative, Jenny wrestled with the fact that McAvoy had kept his
inkling of an affair between her and Nazim to himself. She didn't buy his
explanation that he'd wanted to protect Mrs Jamal from shame and scandal. He
had pushed her towards a complex and sinister conspiracy theory and away from
the person with whom Nazim had been most intimate. It was as if he didn't want
Nazim and Rafi to have gone abroad. He wanted a grand struggle between good and
evil; he wanted to place himself on the side of the angels and bid for
redemption.

When
Havilland had finished polishing the reputation of the police, Martha Denton
stood to cross-examine for the first time that day.

'Dr
Levin, I'm sure we all understand your motives in not mentioning your intimate
association with Nazim Jamal before now, but I'm sure you understand the
importance of telling this court everything that could possibly cast light on
what became of him.' She spoke with a reassuring softness, without a trace of
threat or impatience.

'Absolutely.'

'And,
of course, any insight we can gain into his state of mind will help to shore up
or indeed weaken the case for him having left the country for political or
religious motives.'

'If
I could tell you, I would. I don't know what Nazim was thinking.'

'Did
he not talk to you about his religious beliefs?'

'Not
in any detail. I knew he went to mosque, I saw that he had books on politics
and history, but to be honest I wasn't that interested.'

'You
didn't get a sense that he was using you?'

'Not
really.'

'You
sound unsure . . . He was a young radical Muslim having sex with an unbeliever.
That was a very compromising situation for him.'

'I
suppose it was.'

'Did
he suffer from feelings of guilt?'

Sarah
Levin glanced at Mr Jamal, whose face was finally beginning to show signs of
strain. After so many years of unanswered questions he was being forced to peer
into the troubled mind of his son. 'Yes, I think he probably did, but he was
too considerate to share that with me. There was obviously a conflict.'

'A
conflict between extremes - was that your impression?'

'He
was a passionate person . . . You don't appreciate the full depth of these
things at such a young age, but thinking about it now I can see that's what he
was.'

'And
when he dropped you, did he end all contact?'

'Completely.'

'Why
did you think he did that?'

'His
religion must have won out... I was hurt, but I tried to move on.'

'You've
been most helpful, Dr Levin,' Martha Denton said.

As
if to demonstrate his own immunity to Sarah Levin's now wounded beauty, Khan
proceeded to question her aggressively, seeking to attack the notion that
Nazim suppressed sexual passion and transformed it into a zealot's anger, even
suggesting that the affair was a figment of her imagination. It was as if the
Nazim Jamal he had imagined was beyond corruption, but at the very least - as
a direct consequence of his spiritual purity - innocent enough to have been
cruelly seduced.

Hearing
Sarah Levin's pained replies, it occurred to Jenny for the first time that she
may have been genuinely in love with Nazim: the more battered she was by Khan's
invective, the more she seemed to expose her hurt. Perhaps she felt responsible
for his disappearance; a beautiful and unwitting siren who'd propelled him onto
a fatal course.

Jenny
was picking at a soggy cheese sandwich in the small upstairs room when Alison
knocked and delivered the news that their missing witnesses, Tathum and
Maitland, had arrived. Maitland had requested to be heard early as he was due
out on a flight to the Middle East the next morning. Jenny said she'd get to
him that afternoon. She had decided to follow the chain of evidence from
Elizabeth Murray's sighting of the Toyota back to Maitland's office before
calling McAvoy. Only then would she call Pironi and Skene. The morning's
testimony had exposed a number of cracks in the official version of events: she
wanted them to be as wide as possible before the detective and the MI5 officer
were called to account.

'I've
also got a request from Detective Inspector Pironi,' Alison said, a little
embarrassed. 'He's asked if Mr McAvoy can wait somewhere other than the
committee room - he's behaving oddly, apparently.'

'I
can imagine it's rather intense in there,' Jenny said. 'Fine. As long as he's
kept away from the hall while the others are giving evidence.'

'Thank
you, Mrs Cooper,' Alison said and dithered for a moment as if she wanted to say
more.

Jenny
gave her a look. 'What is it?'

'Nothing.'
Alison turned to the door.

'You've
not been speaking to Dave Pironi?'

'No
... I haven't, honestly.'

'But?'

'I
shouldn't be giving you my opinions. He'll give an account of himself. I just
hope that worm from MI5 does the same.' She hurried away before Jenny could
push her further.

But
there was nothing more Jenny needed to know: Alison was convinced that whatever
shortcomings there had been in Pironi's investigation were not down to him.
Like all good policemen he'd only been obeying orders. He wasn't brave enough
to say so in court, so he'd filtered the message back through his old friend.
Spineless bastard, Jenny thought, and cowardly with it. Being locked in the
same room as McAvoy all morning must have been hell for him, like seeing his
conscience in human form.

Madog
stuttered through the oath and fidgeted with his glasses as Jenny led him
through a few preliminary questions, a number of which she had to repeat. After
several attempts she established that he was fifty-nine years old and had
worked as a toll collector on the Severn Bridge for twenty- three years.

'I
appreciate it's a long time ago, Mr Madog, but can you tell us if you remember
witnessing anything unusual on the night of 28 June 2002?'

He
glanced apprehensively at the lawyers, then back at Jenny. 'The black car, you
mean?'

'If
you could just take us through what you have already said in your statement.'

'Well
it was late, about eleven at night, like,' he began uncertainly. 'I was in the
booth there when a black car pulled up. There were two white fellas in the
front and two Asian lads in the back.'

His
answer was met with a flurry of whispers amongst the lawyers. Martha Denton and
Havilland turned to confer with their respective solicitors, then briefly
formed into a larger, collective huddle. Alun Rhys, however, did not react.

Jenny
said, 'What kind of vehicle was it?'

'A
big seven-seater type. A Toyota I think. A black one.'

'Can
you describe the occupants in any more detail?'

With
a little prompting, Madog limped through a description of the crew-cut driver,
the man with the ponytail and the two frightened passengers cowering in the
back seat. During this, Jenny noticed Mr Jamal's eyes widen in alarm, his
resolute composure giving way to an expression of outrage.

Jenny
said, 'You collect tolls from hundreds of vehicles every shift. What was it
about this one that drew your attention?'

'The
driver had an attitude, you know. No please or thank you, virtually snatched
the change out of my hand. And one of the lads in the back looked at me in a
way I couldn't forget. He had a beard like, but there was something about him -
he looked much younger, like a kid.'

'Usher,
could you show Mr Madog photographs of Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan?'

Alison
left her table at the side of the room and took two large photographs across to
the witness. He peered at them both before nodding. 'Looks like them.' He
pointed to the picture on the left. 'That'd be the one I noticed.'

Alison
checked the printed label on the back of the photograph. 'That's Nazim Jamal,
ma'am.'

Mr
Jamal was looking directly at Jenny now, horrified and expectant, waiting for
the pieces to fall into place.

'Did
you ever see the occupants of this vehicle again, Mr Madog?'

'I'm
afraid I did . . .'

Still,
Jenny noticed, Alun Rhys sat tight, showing not the slightest flicker of
surprise. It was as if he knew what was coming next.

'Go
on, Mr Madog.'

Battling
his failing nerves, Madog managed to recount his encounter with the ponytailed
passenger the following Saturday. He told the jury how the man had sprayed
paint on his granddaughter's hair, and how he hadn't even looked angry as he
was doing it. He showed no feeling at all, Madog said.

'Did
you tell the police about this attack on your granddaughter?'

'Didn't
dare. I wasn't going to put her at risk, was I?'

'Have
you seen this man since?'

Madog
shook his head.

Jenny's
stomach turned over. She glanced over at Alison, who gave a slight shrug. Madog
had been sitting in the same room as Tathum for at least fifteen minutes before
he came to the witness box. He must surely have remembered his face, even if he
was now shorn of the ponytail. She could call Tathum into the court and ask
Madog to identify him, but it presented a huge risk. The higher courts frowned
on courtroom identifications - the circumstances in which they were made were
considered artificial and dangerously pressured - and were prone to ruling them
inadmissible. But unless Madog did single Tathum out, a vital link in the chain
of evidence would be broken.

She
decided to bide her time. She would ask Madog to remain in the hall after
stepping down and recall him to the witness box after he'd watched Tathum give
evidence.

Jenny
invited counsel to cross-examine. Havilland deferred to Martha Denton, who rose
to address Madog with a faintly amused smile.

'You
claim to remember the details of a single car and its occupants the best part
of a decade after the alleged event.'

'Not
exactly . . .' he glanced to Jenny. 'A fella asked me about it after, must have
been the following July.'

'Oh,
really? And who was this?'

'Mr
Dean, I think his name was. Said he was a private investigator.'

'An
investigator for whom?'

'I
can help you there, Miss Denton,' Jenny said. 'Mr Dean was instructed by Mrs
Amira Jamal's then solicitor.'

'I
see.' Martha Denton's instructing solicitor tugged at her elbow and whispered
to her. She smiled, then turned accusingly back to the witness. 'And this
solicitor would be Mr Alec McAvoy? A man who in December of 2002 was imprisoned
for an offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice? So presumably Mr
McAvoy was in prison at the time?'

'I
didn't know anything about that,' Madog said.

Wishing
she had kept her mouth shut, Jenny said, 'You'll be hearing from Mr McAvoy in
due course. You can address that issue with him directly.'

'I
certainly will, ma'am. Did this investigator take a written statement from you,
Mr Madog?'

'I
didn't like to say anything at the time - because of my granddaughter.'

'Why
did he come to you of all people?'

'He
knew what kind of car he was looking for and that there would have been a
couple of Asian lads in it. He wanted to know if any of the toll collectors had
seen it.'