The Disappeared (43 page)

Several
of the jurors smiled.

Havilland
remained po-faced. 'It's called good practice, ma'am.'

'I'm
amenable but no pushover, Mr Havilland,' Jenny said, feeling a swell of anger
which she struggled to dampen. 'You'll get what you've a right to, no more.'

Havilland
thought about retaliating. He was pre-empted by his instructing solicitor, who
tugged at his sleeve and whispered to him to back down. 'Very well, ma'am,'
Havilland said, and resumed his seat.

Martha
Denton's deadpan gaze didn't waver. She was studying Jenny's face, probing for
her weaknesses, biding her time.

Elizabeth
Murray was the first witness to make her way from the committee room to sit at
the small table on Jenny's left which served as a witness box. The
eighty-six-year-old was frail and stooped but walked determinedly and unaided.
Wearing a smart navy suit, her hair set for the occasion, she was determined to
make the most of her moment in the spotlight. She read the oath clearly and
solemnly. No one doubted she intended to tell the truth.

'Mrs
Murray,' Jenny said, 'do you have any reason to remember the night of 28 June
2002?'

'I
do,' she said adamantly. 'There was a large black car parked outside my house
all evening, with two men in the front seats. The longer they were there the
more suspicious ! became. At about ten-thirty p.m. I decided to call the
police. I'd just picked up the telephone when I heard the engine start up. I
went to the window and saw they'd moved off.'

'What
sort of car was is it, do you remember?'

'A
people carrier, I think you call it.'

'And
did you call the police?'

'No,
I didn't think it was worth bothering them.'

'But
you had a visit later in the year?' Jenny prompted.

'That's
right. A man knocked on my door in the December as I recall. He said he was
representing the family of a young man who'd last been seen leaving a property
further along my road that night. He was going from house to house trying to
find witnesses. I told him about the car.'

'You
remembered the precise date you saw it, even after six months had elapsed?'

'Yes.
It was the last Friday in June. It must have been something about the two men -
it just seemed to stick.'

'What
about them?'

'They
looked threatening somehow. I could see the one in the driver's seat quite
clearly. He was stocky with a shaved head.'

'What
about the passenger?'

'I
didn't get a good look at him. I think he might have had longer hair.'

Jenny
noticed Alun Rhys making a note - this seemed to be news to him.

Jenny
said, 'Did you see in which direction the car went when it moved off?'

'The
way it was facing - to the right.'

Jenny
indicated to Alison, who distributed copies of a large- scale map to the jurors
and lawyers. It showed Marlowes Road, the street where both Mrs Murray and
Anwar Ali had lived at the time. Mrs Murray confirmed that she lived at number
102 on the south side of the street. Anwar Ali's flat, where he hosted the
halaqah, was approximately two hundred yards to the west of her house on the
north side at number 35. The stop at which Nazim and Jamal would have caught
the bus back to campus was thirty yards to the west of her house on the south
side. Mrs Murray confirmed that an east- bound bus would have passed the parked
car as it left the stop; however, when she was asked if a bus had indeed come
past shortly before the car pulled off, she couldn't remember.

'Could
you see how many people were in the car as it drove away?' Jenny asked.

'No.
I was out of sight of the window at that point,' Mrs Murray said.

'And
apart from the private investigator, has anyone else asked you about the events
of that night?'

'Never.'

'You've
never had a detective knock on your door?'

'No.'

Neither
Fraser Havilland or Martha Denton had any questions for the witness. Trevor
Collins also declined to cross- examine. Khan, who had grown increasingly
excited during her testimony, grilled her for several minutes attempting to
extract any identifying detail of the mysterious occupants of the car.
Elizabeth Murray did her best, though she said little that Jenny hadn't already
gleaned. After fifteen minutes of fruitlessly repeating the same questions,
Khan sat down disappointed. He'd had a taste of conspiracy and was hungry for
more.

Detective
Sergeant Watkins (retired) was the next in the witness box. A grey-haired man
who looked older than his fifty-seven years, his beer drinker's stomach sagged
over the waistband of his suit trousers. He read the oath card with the tired
resignation of a long-serving officer for whom the world could offer few more
surprises.

'Mr
Watkins, you made a statement on 3 July 2002 following your inspection of the
rooms of Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan. Have you read that recently?'

'Yes.
Your officer gave me a copy.' Watkins spoke in a thick Bristol accent, and
nodded to Alison in recognition.

'Do
you recall making those inspections?'

'Vaguely.
I'd been on the obbo with DI Pironi, so he asked me to pop over when we'd had
word the boys had gone missing.'

Jenny
referred to his statement. 'And you found signs of forced entry. Laptops and
mobiles were missing from both rooms, but other valuable items such as an MP3
player in Rafi Hassan's room were still there.'

'Yes,
ma'am.'

'What
did that indicate to you?'

Watkins
breathed out heavily through closed lips, making a noise like a weary old
carthorse. 'Could have been a break- in, I suppose, but the impressions on the
door frames were the same on both rooms. It was a bit of a coincidence. Could
be they were trying to make it look as if the doors had been forced.'

'On
the day you wrote your statement you had no idea what had happened to the two
boys - the witness who claims to have seen them on the London train didn't come
forward until 20 July.'

'That's
right.'

'So
what was the police response to your discoveries?'

'I
gave my statement to the DI, that was it.'

'Detective
Inspector Pironi?'

'Yes.'

'You
weren't asked to investigate a potential break-in?'

'No,
ma'am.'

'Were
you aware that on 8 July another student living in Manor Hall, Miss Dani James,
gave a statement saying she'd seen a man in man in a puffy anorak and baseball
cap leaving Manor Hall quickly on 28 June at around midnight - the evening the
boys went missing?'

'A
couple of colleagues and myself had been going round the halls speaking to the
students, so I'd heard it mentioned.'

'What
steps were taken to find this man?'

Watkins
shook his head. 'I couldn't tell you, ma'am. It wasn't much of a description,
so I don't suppose very many.'

'Enlighten
me, Mr Watkins, was there a sense that this was a major investigation? Were you
concerned for the whereabouts of these two young men?'

'As
far as I knew there'd been no crime as such. Of course, we knew they'd been
keeping bad company if you like - we probably thought it was more likely they'd
hopped off somewhere.'

'Did
you form that opinion, or was it suggested to you?'

'I
think DI Pironi might've said it. We were still on the obbo like, seeing who
was coming and going down at the mosque and at Anwar Ali's place.'

'When
you say "bad company", what exactly did you think Nazim Jamal and
Rafi Hassan had been exposed to?'

Watkins
shrugged. 'The DI would have been the one reading the intelligence reports. My
colleagues and I were just keeping a note of the movements.'

'Did
you believe you were observing potential criminals?'

'Yes.
Especially at that time. We didn't know what might go off.'

'All
the more strange, then, that there wasn't a major manhunt.'

With
a half-smile and a glance at Alison, Watkins said, 'I'll leave that one to the
DI, I think. I was just one of the foot soldiers.'

Not
content, Jenny pressed him. 'What reason were you given for there not being a
more concerted effort to find them?'

'I
wasn't, ma'am.' He hesitated. 'I don't think it's any secret that MI5 got
involved, but I never had anything to do with them.'

Jenny
reached for the file containing the police observation logs. She turned to the
page she had already flagged. 'Were you on observation in Marlowes Road on the
night of 28 June?'

'No,
ma'am.'

'There's
an entry saying: "Subjects NJ and RH seen leaving 35 Marlowes Road 10.22
p.m. Subjects walk off in easterly direction towards bus stop." It's not
initialled.'

'Not
on the transcript, maybe - there would have been initials on the handwritten
originals.'

'Long
since destroyed, I suppose.'

'I
wouldn't know, ma'am. You'd have to ask the DI.'

'I
will.' Jenny had many questions for Pironi. 'Thank you, Mr Watkins. Wait there,
please.'

Fraser
Havilland rose with a look of weary sympathy for the witness. 'Mr Watkins, when
an adult is reported missing and there is no immediate evidence of any criminal
activity surrounding their disappearance, what is the usual police response?'

'There's
very little we can do.'

Havilland
gave the jury a patient, isn't it obvious look as he asked his next question:
'And was there evidence of such a crime?'

Watkins
shook his head. 'No signs of violence.'

'So
you might say your response was unusually thorough?'

'I'd
say so, yes.'

'That's
all.' Havilland glanced sympathetically at the jury as if to say that Watkins's
entire spell in the witness box had been an unnecessary waste of everybody's
time.

Martha
Denton once again didn't deign to ask any questions, but this time Collins got
his nod in before Khan, and the quiet solicitor, more at home conveyancing than
cross- examining, rose nervously to his feet.

'Mr
Watkins,' Collins said, swallowing his words, then coughing nervously. 'Your
statement describing the damage to the door frames of the two boys' student
rooms wasn't released to my client, the late Mrs Jamal, until nearly a year
afterwards, and then only when her then solicitor requested it. Why was that?'

'I
wouldn't know, sir.'

Collins
tugged awkwardly at the flaps of his jacket pockets, 'That damage could have
been interpreted as evidence of violence,' he said, as a statement rather than
as a question. 'Why on earth wasn't a full-scale investigation launched?'

'It
was, sir.'

'None
that was worth the name. There were no forensic tests done on the room, no
dusting for fingerprints.'

'It
was a missing persons, not a criminal investigation. They're two different
things.'

'You
seemed very uninterested in the whereabouts of two young men you had spent
months observing going to and from supposedly seditious political meetings.'

'Like
I said, I just did what I was asked.'

'Which,
it seems, was not to try too hard,' Collins said with a forthrightness which
seemed to take the other lawyers by surprise. He raised his voice even louder.
'You and your colleagues were ordered not to look for Nazim Jamal and Rafi
Hassan. That's the unpalatable truth, isn't it, Mr Watkins?'

Watkins
glanced uneasily at the jury. 'Those are your words, sir, not mine.'

'You
have no answer - is that it, Mr Watkins? Would you have been satisfied with the
police response if it had been your son or daughter who had gone missing?'

Watkins
looked to Jenny, hoping to be rescued.

'It's
a perfectly proper question,' Jenny said.

After
a pause, in which Watkins seem to toy with the idea of going off message, he
said, 'I was a detective sergeant, sir. An NCO. You're better off asking those
questions of the officers.'

Fraser
Havilland and Martha Denton traded a glance and went into a huddle with their
instructing solicitors. The two legal teams were planning something in concert.

Khan
shook his head, giving Watkins a look of undisguised disdain when Jenny invited
him to cross-examine. The witness he wanted was DI Pironi. Jenny wanted him,
too, but he could wait for the moment. There were others she needed to hear
from first.

'You
may stand down, Mr Watkins.' She turned to Alison. 'Simon Donovan, please.'

Donovan
came to the witness box for the second time. He looked jaded; what little
muscle tone there had once been had gone from his plump face, which sagged
unhealthily from his cheek and jawbones.