The Disappeared (23 page)

'It's
no disgrace, really it isn't. It's what young people do.'

'Not
my people.'

'Mrs
Jamal, I can't conduct an inquest without all the information . . . You do have
a legal duty to assist me.'

'You've
come here to threaten me?'

'Of
course not.'

Mrs
Jamal blew her nose loudly. 'All these questions. What's the point? You don't
know who's lying. None of us can.' She lifted her gaze to a portrait photo of
Nazim aged sixteen or thereabouts: a boy posing as a man. He had wide, soulful
eyes and smooth, dark, unblemished skin. He was almost seraphic.

'I'd
have fallen for him, so other girls must have,' Jenny said.

She
waited for Mrs Jamal to recover herself.

There
was a long, unbroken stretch of silence before Mrs Jamal said, 'I don't know
what she was to Nazim. It was near the end of his first term. He'd left his
phone here. A girl called and asked for him.'

'Did
she say her name?'

'No.'

'What
did she sound like?'

'About
his age. Well spoken. White.'

'You
could tell she was white?'

'Of
course.'

'How
do you know she wasn't just a friend?'

'When
she heard my voice, she sounded guilty, as if I'd caught her out. She ended the
call very quickly.'

'Did
you ever mention this to Nazim?'

Mrs
Jamal shook her head. Jenny saw in her face something almost bleaker than grief
- the thought of her son loving another woman more than her.

'I'm
going to need to find out more about Nazim's life at that time. Do you think
Rafi Hassan might have told his family anything?'

'They
won't help you. They blame Nazim. I know they do. The looks his mother gave me,
she might as well have spat in my face.'

'I
think I'll go there this afternoon. I'll let you know if they have anything to
say.'

Mrs
Jamal shrugged.

Jenny
sensed that the meeting had reached an end. The air was growing thicker with
emotion with every passing second. But there was one more question, ridiculous
as it seemed, that she felt obliged to ask. 'When you gave evidence, you claim
to have been followed in the street—'

'You
don't believe me?'

'Tell
me what happened.' Jenny gave a comforting smile. 'Please.'

'It
started about two months ago when I filed the case with the County Court to get
Nazim declared dead. A car would come and sit across the road. There were two
men inside it, sometimes just one. Young men, in suits. I could see their faces
from there.' She pointed over her shoulder to the French window that opened
onto a small balcony at the side of the building. 'They were there when I left
the house. Sometimes they'd follow in their car, sometimes on foot.'

Keeping
her scepticism hidden, Jenny said, 'What did they look like?'

'Twenty-five
to thirty. White. Both tall and with short hair, shaved at the sides - like the
army.'

'Could
you tell them apart?'

'Not
really.'

'Have
you seen them recently?'

Mrs
Jamal shook her head. 'Not this week. But I still have phone calls in the
night. It rings four, five times, then goes off. If I answer, there's no one
there . . . Who do you think they are, Mrs Cooper?'

Imaginary
demons, Jenny thought: white devils that look like soldiers.

Instead
of the usual battle with rising, claustrophobic anxiety she fought when driving
along a motorway, she felt at once removed from herself. Detached. It wasn't
just the chemical veil of her medication still lying heavily across her halfway
through the day; it was a sense of building unreality. There were so many
unanswered questions, so many bizarre and alarming possibilities, that she
couldn't make sufficient sense of things to find her way through them. Why
would Nazim have been sleeping with a white girl at the height of his religious
enthusiasm? Who was the man with the ponytail? Did he even exist? Was Mrs Jamal
a fantasist? Was McAvoy? And why did he cast such a long shadow over her, his
face hovering constantly at the back of her mind?

What
was he
saying
to her?

She
didn't have answers to any of it. It was as if she had stepped onto a moving
walkway from which there was no exit, only a destination that remained an
indistinct pinprick in the far distance. The spirit was moving her, as McAvoy
might have said, and she had no choice in the matter.

Hassan's
Grocery and Off-Licence had grown into a small supermarket specializing in
Asian and West Indian foods. It was housed in what had once been a filling
station, the forecourt now a customer car park. The dowdy area of Kings Heath,
a sprawl of identical, faintly grubby Victorian terraces, was showing signs of
going up-market. Jenny parked next to a shiny Mercedes, out of which climbed an
Asian couple in matching his and hers leather jackets. Their infant daughter
wore a pink one in the same style.

Jenny
approached a teenage employee carting cases of cheap beer and asked him where
she could find Mr Hassan. Only once she'd convinced him that she wasn't a tax
inspector did he go in search of his boss. He reappeared shortly afterwards
with the unconvincing explanation that Mr Hassan had gone out to a meeting and
wasn't expected back until much later. Jenny glanced along the aisle to an
office at the back, which was shielded from the shoppers by a pane of one-way
glass, and told the assistant fine, but insisted he leave her card on Mr
Hassan's desk with instructions to call her as soon as he returned. In the
meantime she'd see if she couldn't speak to Mrs Hassan at home.

The
young man's expression sharpened. 'What's this about exactly?'

'Something
that happened eight years ago - his son went missing.'

'You
mean Rafi?'

'Did
you know him?'

'I'll
give Mr Hassan the message,' he said, quickly adding, 'when he gets back.'

She
hadn't yet turned the key in the ignition when her phone rang. She waited for
several seconds before answering, letting him sweat.

'Hello,
Jenny Cooper.'

'Imran
Hassan. What can I do for you?'

'Would
you rather not talk in front of your staff? If possible, I'd like to speak to
your wife, too.'

The
Hassans had made money. Their home was a large detached property in the
affluent suburb of Solihull with a tarmac drive and electric gates flanked by a
pair of stone lions. Mr Hassan, a man in his mid-sixties, drove a Jaguar.
Quiet, well spoken and faultlessly polite, he led her inside to meet his wife,
a still handsome woman dressed in an elegant black and gold embroidered salwar
kameez. After formal introductions they sat in a warm conservatory surrounded
by half an acre of formal garden, in the middle of which stood an ornate
fountain fringed with palms: a golden carp spewed water into a pool lit with
coloured lights.

Mrs
Hassan said, 'We've been expecting this, Mrs Cooper, but we have nothing of any
use to tell you. We have long ago resigned ourselves to never knowing what
became of our son.'

Her
husband nodded in uncertain agreement.

'I've
no wish to stir up painful memories without good cause,' Jenny said, 'and I
appreciate it's not your son's disappearance I'm investigating, but I'd be
grateful if you would tolerate a few questions.'

'Certainly,'
Mr Hassan said before his wife could protest.

Mrs
Hassan glowered. 'The police said Rafi went abroad. I'm happy to take their
word. But it was not his idea. He was a good student and a loyal son.'

Jenny
said, 'Did you notice any change in him after he went to university? His
religious beliefs, his appearance?'

'I'm
sure Mrs Jamal has told you all this. It was her son who took him to that
mosque. This is a Sufi family. Politics has no place in religion - that's what
he was brought up to believe.'

Mr
Hassan nodded. Dressed in a dark business suit and clean shaven, he showed no
outward signs of observance. His store sold alcohol; they lived in a white
neighbourhood.

'When
did this change in him occur?' Jenny said. 'Was it during his first term at
Bristol?'

'They
put ideas in his head,' Mrs Hassan said sharply. 'He was going to be a lawyer —
'

'Yes,'
her husband interjected, 'it was during the first term. We believed it would be
a phase. All young men need ideals, mine was creating a business. We hoped it
would pass.'

'But
it didn't?'

'Whoever
these people were he'd been involved with, they poisoned them against their
families, Mrs Cooper,' Mrs Hassan said. 'They convinced him our values were
wrong. He came home for a week before Christmas and that was it. He stayed at
college the rest of the time.'

'Where?
Weren't the student halls closed out of term time?'

'With
friends was all he'd tell us.'

'You
must have been worried.'

'We
have six children,' Mr Hassan said. 'We worry about each of them.'

Jenny
noticed the couple exchange a glance, which she interpreted as Mr Hassan urging
his wife not to let emotion overcome her. There was anger in her face, a need
to cast blame.

'What
did your son say about Nazim?' Jenny said.

'Until
they disappeared, we hadn't even heard his name,' Mr Hassan said.

She
aimed her next question directly at his wife. 'So why do you say that he was
the one who led your son astray?'

'They
were friends - that's what the police found out. They went to mosque together,
and these meetings.'

Jenny
pushed Mrs Hassan for further explanation but she could offer none. She had it
fixed in her mind that Rafi had gravitated towards a fellow Muslim and fallen
under his negative spell. Jenny asked for more detail of Rafi's behaviour
during his time at university but was met with shrugs and shakes of the head.
There had obviously been a confrontation in the early part of the Christmas
vacation which still remained painfully unresolved.

'How
often did you speak to your son between January and June?' Jenny asked them
both.

Mr
Hassan stared at the tabletop, leaving his wife to respond.

'I
telephoned him a few times,' she said. 'Every week or two, to tell him we loved
him, that we were still here for him.'

'It
sounds almost as if he'd disowned you.'

'He
was simply rebelling. That's what the young do in this country, isn't it? It
comes with the luxury of not having to go out to work each day.'

Her
husband nodded solemnly in agreement.

'This
was new to us, Mrs Cooper,' Mrs Hassan continued. 'We knew he had the right
values underneath - we had spent eighteen years giving them to him.' For the
first time, her voice cracked. 'We assumed we had simply to wait for him to
come back . . .'

'You
didn't go to anyone for advice?'

Both
shook their heads.

'Did
Rafi ever mention any other friends or associates by name, anyone at the
mosque, perhaps?'

'No,'
Mrs Hassan said. 'He was very secretive on the matter. He talked a little about
his studies, and he had a tutor, Tariq Miah, whom he mentioned once or twice.'

Jenny
made a note of the name.

'Is
there anything else I should know about your son - his hobbies, interests? Was
he a sportsman?'

Mrs
Hassan looked at her husband, then got up from the table and went into the next
room. She came back with a folder which she handed to Jenny. She opened it to
find a collection of examination certificates. Rafi Hassan had scored top marks
in his A levels: Latin, Greek, Arabic and History.

'He
was a gifted scholar,' Mrs Hassan said. 'Since he was eight years old he spent
all his spare time studying and reading. He played cricket, but not like his
brothers. No, not like them. Rafi was an intellectual.'

'Which
must have made the change in him all the more shocking?' Jenny said.

Neither
parent replied.

As
she was leaving, Jenny overhead Mr Hassan whisper comfortingly to his wife that
he would spend the rest of the afternoon at home. Making her way out between
the stone lions, Jenny turned left and headed back towards Kings Heath.

Pulling
into the forecourt of Mr Hassan's store for the second time that day, she saw
the young assistant carrying a heavy load of shopping to the car of an elderly
customer. Her memory was correct - he did look like the photograph of Rafi she
had in her files. She caught him on his way back inside.

'Excuse
me.' He turned with a polite smile. 'Hello again. Could we have a word?'

He
pointed inside. 'I'm due to go on the till.'