WILL CAINE lives in South London. He is a BAFTA award-winning and highly-acclaimed investigative film-maker and journalist.

He has spent much of his life delving into the secrets of state. The Inquiry is Will Caine’s first thriller.

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Will Caine 2019

Will Caine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008325633

In memory of

my brother-in-law James

and his son Miles.

‘There were one or two big ones. That’s how we kept a lid on it for so long. But we were never fully sure about them. How could we be? They were from a different world.’

Ex-MI5 Officer, private conversation

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

2005

The ping of a phone. She jerks awake, grabs it, brings it close to her face, checks the time.

6.47 a.m.

Odd. No one messages her this early.

She lies back on her pillow, pulls up the duvet, clicks on ‘view’.

Don’t use the buses or tubes in London today.

She rubs sleep from her eyes. What the f— is this?

She scrolls down. Just a number. No name, no one in her contacts. She rechecks the number – nothing familiar about it.

She screws her eyes shut, kneads them with her knuckles, thinks. She hits reply, thumbs on keys.

Who is this?

She waits. After a few seconds, the phone pings again.

Message sending failed.

What is this? She clicks back on the message, hits ‘options’, adds the name as ‘Anon’ and the number to her contacts. She hits call. The ringtone is instantly interrupted by a woman’s voice. ‘The number you have dialled is unobtainable.’

Weird. Totally random. Has to be a mistake.

She gets up, washes, dresses, applies make-up, the everyday rhythms. The words still churn in her head. Butterflies jig in her stomach. She begins to realise she can’t get rid of the nagging thought.

What if the text is for real? And the sender’s chosen to vanish…

Stop imagining. It’s a rogue message – people get them all the time from all sorts of weirdos. She wonders how many others must have had it. Thousands probably – some madman trying to create a scare. That’s probably easy – a simple piece of code can do mass send-outs of texts.

Or just a sick joke from a sick mind.

She goes downstairs, makes her usual cup of coffee, toasts her usual slice of bread. She turns on the radio, volume low. All the chatter’s about London’s great victory the day before, winning the 2012 Olympics to be held in seven years’ time. She feels better.

The nag’s still there.

Should she show the text to her father? She goes back upstairs, creeps along the landing, peers in. Curtains drawn, no lights. He’s still asleep, she shouldn’t disturb him. Shouldn’t worry him. In her bedroom, she straightens the duvet, puffs her pillow, goes to the mirror to brush her hair. She looks out of the window. The line of terrace roofs is the same as always. A dog barks. She jumps, her heart thumps. She shakes her head violently to shift the nag.

Down in the hallway, she grabs her coat and stands stock still. The text is just… she comes back to the same word. Weird. What weirdo would send something like that?

Is there anyone she knows?

Just… just forget it. It’s a prank, some fool’s attempt to frighten.

Think. It must be nearly ten years since the last bomb went off in London, IRA, of course. Except for the nail bomber in Soho. Then there was 9/11 and the Madrid train last year. But whatever may happen in the rest of the world, this city, this country, is at peace. She’s not going to take any notice of it.

Perhaps it’s someone trying to organise a boycott, some kind of strike. Yes, her rational mind tells her, could well be that. Odd way to do it though.

She takes a deep breath, straightens her shoulders and, closing the front door behind her, strides out towards Tooting Bec underground station for the daily journey northwards to the Chambers where she’s just starting the law career that will be her life.

On the tube, it’s the same as always. Young couples chatting, eyes buried in books, ears plugged into Walkmans, mouths gaping with exhausted yawns. The carriage is filling to squeezing point. Drawing into Waterloo, she sees through the tube window a mass of faces waiting to crush her – a nightmarish canvas of every colour, scowling and grinning back at her.

The train jerks to a halt. Something hits her. She turns, sees a large rucksack on the back of a bearded young Asian. She catches his eye – he avoids hers. She goes on watching. His appearance – the neat haircut, trimmed beard – seems just like the photos of the 9/11 hijackers. She tries to remember if the Madrid train bombers used rucksacks to carry death. She has an overwhelming sense they did. Heat sears her face. She needs to get out.

The train stops, doors open. She pushes, the oncoming swarm miraculously divides to let her through. She pauses as the doors close and watches the carriages leave with their crammed human cargo. She walks, fighting for breath – the train grinds on towards King’s Cross.

It was just a young man with a rucksack, for God’s sake.

She crosses Hungerford Bridge and turns right along the river, the lightest of rain refreshing her. She looks around. Far to the west, beyond the pale grey hovering over the Thames, the sky is brighter. The day will clear. It will be the same as any other.

A bus on the opposite side of the Embankment, its passengers’ faces like polka dots, heads towards the city.

‘… buses or tubes…’

The buses and tubes are running normally. There’s no sign of any strike action – or boycott. No demonstrators or posters.

The nag becomes a throb.

At Chambers she is greeted with smiles. It seems that, even if everyone else here is white and English, they like her and want her for the youth and difference she’ll bring.

The clerk inspects her. ‘Are you OK?’ She detects his concern.

‘Yeah, fine,’ she smiles. What’s he noticed? ‘Just murder on the tube.’

What made her say that?

She wants to ask if anyone else got the same weird text that she did. But if none of them did, she can imagine them staring at her – who’s the weirdo here?

She sits at her desk, fires up her computer and begins to study her case files. She can’t concentrate, fingers sweating, slipping and sliding over keys. She feels the other three in her office watching her and looks up. Their heads are glued to screens. Instead, the face of that guy with the rucksack flashes before her.

It’s no good. It won’t go away. She looks at her watch – 9.21 am. Still most of the day to come. Surely loads of others must have got the text – the authorities probably know about it already. Even so, she should warn them, however nonsensical it might seem. But how? She’s a young Muslim woman – might that not raise questions? Cast suspicion on her? Might they want to interview her father? Even her new colleagues in Chambers?

Best if there was some kind of anonymous helpline. She’ll check for that on her computer. Head-down, concentrating on her search, she hears a distant sound. Sirens.

She hits a number for the Met’s confidential line and dials it.

She hears more sirens. She looks up – her office colleagues are hurrying towards a window. She’s seized by dread, stops dialling, puts the phone back. Is something happening?

She clicks on the BBC website. The 7th of July 2005. Nothing. The news is still all about the Olympics. The sirens are just an accident, a fire, usual thing, a day like any other, she repeats to herself.

She dials again. A recorded message tells her to hold on, someone will be with her very soon. ‘Please don’t hang up.’

Suddenly the BBC website flashes up ‘breaking news’.

First reports of a massive disturbance on London’s underground system

Slowly and silently, she puts down the phone and stares blankly ahead. A terror dawns.

Oh God. No. Surely not. Surely it couldn’t have been him.

Could it?

1

2019

Fourteen years later

Shortly before lunch on a bright, late spring day, Sir Francis Morahan, Lord Justice of Appeal, and now chair of the Inquiry into the security services’ record against terror attacks, hand-wrote a letter to Sara Shah, junior counsel at 14 Knightly Court Chambers, EC4. Despite the piercing sun, he took a grey woollen hat and matching gloves out of the bottom right drawer of his desk. Rather than his familiar grey coat, he then chose from the hooks behind his office door a waterproof yellow anorak, normally reserved for bad weather, and a broad white and red striped scarf. Carrying these under an arm, he turned right out of his office, avoiding the open-plan area housing the Inquiry’s staff, and descended by the back stairs to the underground car park. He unchained his bicycle, put on the anorak, wrapped the scarf around his nose and mouth, pulled the hat down over his forehead and extracted sunglasses from a trouser pocket.

He pedalled out of the exit, which faced the new American Embassy in Vauxhall, then two hundred yards along Nine Elms Lane before joining the Thames Path. Feeling pinpricks of sweat on skin tightly covered by his chosen clothing, he cycled past the MI6 building, through the tunnel beneath Lambeth roundabout and carried his bike up the steps to Westminster Bridge, avoiding the crowds milling around the London Eye. Across the bridge he turned onto the Embankment and, after a few hundred yards, north into Carmelite Street, just east of the Inns of Court.

The heat now stifling, and anxiety flooding his body, he turned into Knightly Court, locked the bike on the black railings, rang the bell of number fourteen, climbed the stairs and, with a mumble of ‘Letter for Miss Shah’ in his best south London accent, dropped his envelope in front of a receptionist. She hardly looked up.

Morahan scurried back down the stairs and reclaimed his bicycle; only when he had reached the south side of the river did he remove the scarf, hat and jacket. He had paused, though not by design, opposite the Houses of Parliament. For the first time in years, decades even – perhaps right back to that moment when his brief spell as an MP and then Cabinet Minister had begun with the General Election victory of 1997 – Francis Morahan buzzed with excitement and anticipation.

She was the link; the one person able to make the connection he needed. And yet, if he told her that, she would surely run away. He had shaken the dice and dared to roll them. But, for the game to start, Sara Shah must agree to play.

Later that afternoon, the addressee of Morahan’s envelope walked back from court to her Chambers with a senior QC.

‘He’s as bent as a coiled python,’ said Ludo Temple.

‘Hardly as deadly,’ said Sara Shah.

‘That’s not the point, he’s a crook.’

‘Do I really care?’ Striding side by side down Old Bailey, Sara turned sharply to the bulky, puffing figure on her right. Her bright blue Chanel scarf flicked over a shoulder and her teasing eyes cast him a look of mischief.

He stopped, caught his breath and glared. ‘A Ponzi scheme’s a Ponzi scheme.’

‘But a wine-selling Ponzi scheme…’

‘Yes, and it’s poor old buggers like… like what I’ll end up as, conned into thinking they’re buying bloody good claret without realising the pension’s going straight into the man’s pocket. And when they try to retrieve it, the whole lot’s been sold to finance his floating palace on the Med.’

‘So what? I don’t drink.’

‘I don’t say prayers five times a day.’

‘Ludovic!’

He knew that whenever she scolded him, he was near to overstepping the mark. But that was the fun of her – even if you did, she was quick to forgive; though he’d seen others shrivel under her silent raising of an eyebrow.

Over the past year, he had become ever more fond of Sara Shah – and ever more admiring. The greatest pleasure had been the change in his more cynical colleagues. ‘Let me get this clear, Ludo,’ Peter Alexander, Head of Chambers, had said at the chamber QCs’ meeting, convened to discuss her. ‘You want a Muslim human rights lawyer to join this criminal law chambers.’

‘Yes, Peter.’

‘And she wears a hijab.’

‘Yes, Peter, rather nice and expensive scarves as it happens. Blue usually.’

‘And you haven’t forgotten that our principal earnings come from fraud, in which she has little or no experience.’

‘No, Peter. She may have spent the last few years doing liberal luvvie stuff with Rainbow, but she began with criminal, including fraud, is well-grounded in all aspects of law, wants a change and is extremely clever. And extremely attractive too.’

‘Aha,’ piped up Percy Fairweather QC, rubbing his hands.

‘Stop it, Percy,’ said Amanda Fielding QC.

In fact, Amanda had been the main objector, saying she had no issue with either another woman – the more, the better – or a Muslim. But a Muslim woman covering up her hair was inappropriate for a chambers which should be seen as secular and progressive. ‘Honestly, Ludo, will she insist on looking like that for the website photo?’

‘Have a coffee with her,’ he’d said. Which Amanda had. She waived her objection almost before taking a sip.

Sara herself knew there would be undercurrents. She also knew why even the stuffier members of 14 Knightly Court might see an advantage in bringing her on board. Briefs for Serious Fraud Office and HMRC cases were by far the most lucrative Crown Prosecution activity for a top criminal QC; as the law tried to move with the times, having a visibly observant female Muslim on the team ticked useful boxes. And how helpful it was that British justice still required barristers to turn out in black robes and a wig – to dress modestly and cover their hair. In a courtroom, the secular state and the dress choice she’d made for herself happily co-existed.

‘You know me better than to expect an apology,’ smiled Ludo as they turned into Ludgate Hill.

‘I also know you well enough not to rise to it,’ said Sara.

‘But I was making a point,’ he continued. ‘I will never allow myself to feel sympathy for a man – or woman – I’m prosecuting. I couldn’t care less if they’re loveable old geezers, or if their victims deserved what was coming to them.’

‘What about when you’re defending them?’

His chuckle turned into a wheeze. ‘When I’m prosecuting, he’s a bad chap. When I’m defending, he’s a good chap.’ He paused to cough. ‘Hell’s bells, Sara, do you have to walk so darned fast?’

Knightly Court, at the eastern reaches of the Temple, lay equidistant between the Old Bailey and the Royal Courts, manageable walks even for Ludo. They entered No. 14 and climbed the gloomy, twisting stairs to the first floor, emerging into the broad light space of a modern reception. The receptionist stood to give Sara her envelope.

‘Delivered by courier, Miss Shah.’

Sara glanced at her hand-scrawled name and ‘PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL’ written large on the top left corner.

‘Expecting something?’ asked Ludo with no attempt at hiding his curiosity.

‘No,’ said Sara. ‘I’ve no idea.’ He knew she was telling the truth.

She bypassed her office and headed for the ladies. The lengthening daylight hours made it easier for Asr – mid-afternoon prayer – as it followed the court rising. Zuhr – midday prayer – was more of an interruption and once again she had missed it. She would not leave court while it was in process and today’s lunch had been earmarked for an update with the instructing Crown solicitor – an opportunity to impress a hand that fed both her and her chambers. She would try to make it up, resist the urge to flag.

She locked the door of a cubicle containing both toilet and basin and washed her hands the required three times, gargled, cleaned her nose and rinsed her face, clearing away displaced flecks of eyeshadow and liner. Wudhu offered a double soothing – the preparatory cleansing was also a relaxation of the courtroom tension. She cradled water in her left hand and washed her right arm three times up to the elbow. She repeated the actions on the other side. She passed water over her head, wetting the skin behind her ears and neck. ‘Oh lord, make my face bright on the Day when the faces will turn dark.’ Finally, she removed her tights, sliding them below her three-quarter-length black skirt to bare her feet. One at a time, she raised each foot into the basin and submerged it, cleaning between her toes with her fingers.

She stood straight, inspected her eyes, saw the fatigue and sighed before heading back down the corridor into the chambers library. The rows of bound black volumes looked as untouched as ever – in these days of online research the room was a quiet retreat, and usually deserted when she wanted it for prayers; she suspected her new colleagues had been educated in the prayer calendar. The suspicion embarrassed her.

She thought of the exchange with Ludo and asked herself again if the switch from human rights campaigner to highly paid fraud specialist was corrupting her. The fact remained that she’d fallen out of love with too much of the human rights agenda – unable to repress an inner voice that Rainbow Chambers, and therefore she, had become prone to exploiting generously intended legislation. The sad truth was that rejected asylum seekers were often turned away for good reasons. She knew that in at least one case, perhaps more, she had represented ‘victims’ making false claims of British army brutality – and won. She’d come to worry that a realism about these sad people, born of too much experience, was chipping away at her humanity. She’d even started reading The Times ahead of the Guardian!

A move to fraud had been the right thing to do. If iron was entering her soul, better to direct it against hardened criminals, though she hadn’t yet had to defend one. She remembered Ludo’s ‘good chap’ and ‘bad chap’. Cynic or wit?

Stop thinking and pray. She faced east; the slanting sun cast sienna rays above the opposite building. ‘I intend to perform the four rakat fardh of the Salat Al-Asr for Allah.’ She paused, her mind cluttered, impossibly distracted, unable to slip into an automatic empathy with the words she was about to say. Perhaps if her father had drummed discipline into her in the way she’d seen with others, it would be easier. But Tariq Shah was not like that. For him it was cultural, not spiritual – something he and his family had always done. He occasionally looked in at mosque and, however sceptical he might be, wished no offence to Islam – nor any other religion. She had inherited the scepticism but not the temperament to relax with it; self-discipline was her only answer to both.

Ultimately, she told herself, emerging from the jumble of thoughts, it was her duty to her father that justified the professional move she’d made – the money to guarantee his comfort till the day he died. The comfort of this conclusion finally cleared her mind and she raised her arms over her chest. ‘Audhu billahi min-ash-shaytan -hir-rajeem, bismillah-hir-Rahman-hir-raheem.’

Ten minutes later, she was back in the room she shared at chambers with two other junior counsel. Marty Richards was out of London but Sheila Blackstone was there, make-up mirror angled towards full lips, to which she was applying copious layers of scarlet lipstick.

‘Sara darling, you caught me at it! Good day in court?’

‘Yes, fun,’ said Sara. ‘And utterly irresponsible. A wine fraudster. Who could care?’

‘Half the QCs in this Chambers will care a very great deal about that,’ said Sheila, eyes down on her mirror.

Sara hung her coat on a hook and looked at the hand-written envelope. She was tempted to chuck it in a bin – ‘Private and Confidential’ was probably shorthand for ‘I need a free favour’. But there was an edginess in the scrawled writing that stoked her curiosity; anyone sending begging letters would write more neatly. She caught Sheila’s inquisitive eye peering around the mirror, rose and left the room. She returned with the envelope to the ladies, the one guaranteed place of uninterrupted refuge, entered a cubicle and sat on the closed seat. She ripped it open. The printed heading was followed by the same scrawling hand-writing as on the envelope.

The Rt Hon Lord Justice Morahan

45 Chelsea Place Upper

London SW3 6BY

Monday evening

Dear Ms Shah

My apologies for writing to you in such an unusual way. You may remember that we met briefly in Cambridge two years ago at the ‘Human Rights: A Judge’s Role’ conference. I was most impressed with your contribution to that and also by your formidable record in this area.

You will be aware of the government Inquiry into security service strategy against terror which the incoming administration appointed me to chair last year. There is a missing expertise in the Inquiry which I believe you are uniquely qualified to provide. Formally speaking, this approach should be coming not from me but from the Government Legal Department which administers such matters. However, I have overwhelming and powerful reasons for initially speaking to you alone.

I would therefore be most grateful if, in the first instance, you would meet me privately. I cannot impress upon you too strongly that it is vital for my sake, if not yours, that this meeting is confidential and unobserved. I leave it to you to arrange a time and place that would suit these criteria. I can travel anonymously by bicycle. Anywhere within reach of Vauxhall Cross would be suitable. The meeting would be purely exploratory and you would be making no commitment by agreeing to it. However, I do not exaggerate when I say that truly vital matters of state and possible wrong-doing are at stake.

I would ask you to deliver your reply hand-written to the address above. I hope very much to hear from you with your arrangement.

Yours most sincerely

Francis Morahan

Sara stood up with a jerk, blood rushing from her head. Both the author’s identity and the fretfulness of the letter were a shock. She took a few deep breaths. Her thumping heart began to slow and the colour returned to her face. She wondered at how such perfect, concise sentences could emerge from such an apparently shaky hand. She didn’t dare to step out of the cubicle until she’d calmed down. It was the most disconcerting letter she had ever received, prompting a scattergun of questions and images. Chambers was not the place to confront them.

She walked back to her room; for once she was relieved to find Sheila gone. She stuffed the next day’s briefs and a sheaf of articles on cybercrime into her bag, grabbed her coat and headed for the exit. Ludo’s door was open – deliberately, she suspected.

‘Go on then,’ he grinned. ‘Something interesting?’

‘Really, Ludo, is not a lady’s privacy to be protected?’

He wasn’t buying it. ‘If it’s an offer, tell them to sod off. It’s my firm intention, Sara Shah, to clamp you in chains to 14 Knightly Court until my retiring day.’

She wandered over, gave him a pat on the shoulder, and headed out into the street, making for the Embankment. The sun was dipping beyond Big Ben and the skyscrapers of the new Vauxhall megacity. She crossed Waterloo Bridge, losing herself among the swathes of homeward-bound commuters. She found herself staring at the London Eye. The memory of that day – when it was still the new, exciting addition to the capital’s skyline called the Millennium Wheel – struck her like a smack of iced water.

She must snap out of it. London, her logical mind told her, remained safe. For well over a decade after 7/7 only one death, that of Lee Rigby, the soldier drummer hacked to death outside Woolwich barracks, had been the result of terrorism. Not just in the city but in Britain itself. Then came the van and knife attacks in central London; the bombing of a pop concert at Manchester Arena, lethally shattering the calm; the reminder that terror had not, and would not, go away.

Compared with other death tolls – road accidents, fires, polluted air – the figures remained, it seemed to Sara, insignificant. The ultimate victims were ordinary Muslims, tainted by association, fearful of hate-fuelled revenge. Yet, unable to shift the strangeness of Morahan’s scrawled letter from her mind, she found herself edgily inspecting the young Asian with the blue rucksack fidgeting in the corner of the underground carriage. When he stepped out of the train at Kennington, she was, despite herself, unable to prevent a flush of relief.

Back on Tooting Broadway, her mood changed. The Islamic Centre and halal butchers stood contentedly alongside trendy brunch cafés with eager central European waitresses and antipodean chefs. In this part of London few wore the full niqab and burka, but there were plenty of hijabis like herself. Some young Muslim women dressed in figure-hugging jeans and short-sleeved shirts; that was not her own choice now, but she never forgot the time when, all too briefly, she had also enjoyed that lifestyle.

She headed up the Broadway and into Webster Road with its terraces of small 1920s bow-fronted houses. A few sagged unloved, rotting window sills and yellowing streaks from overflowing pipes discolouring their whitewashed frontages. But most were spruced-up and clean, often with recently added porches and front doors proudly displaying their panelled multi-coloured glass. Her shrewd father had bought their house three years after she was born, during the heyday of Mrs Thatcher’s right to buy, a nest for the family he’d once hoped to grow.

She had been just eight years old when her mother had died – how distant it seemed. Not old enough truly to know her; or to ask her what she really believed. Would her mother, with the conviction of a convert’s faith, have seeded in her the certainty her father lacked? Whenever Sara occasionally referred to her, her father never seemed to want to engage; the answer was always a platitude. ‘Yes, your mother was always a good woman.’ ‘Always true to God.’ ‘So beautiful.’ ‘I never stopped loving her.’ It was territory he did not want to enter. After her death, the house had become father and daughter’s sanctuary. She never thought of leaving him, whatever the pressures to marry from aunts and cousins. With him to look after, how could she? The truth was that, far from being her burden, he was her excuse.

She turned her key in the front door Yale lock and it opened. Noisily – a signal to her father that she was home – she wiped her feet, hung up her coat and after a few seconds called, ‘Dad!’ No answer; he must have forgotten to double lock on his way out. Despite such lapses, his brain was in good order and she remembered it was his bridge evening at the Working Men’s Club up in Clapham. She smiled at the thought of him – his shortness, the little sticking-out tummy and the ever-present smile. A purist might have told him that card-play was un-Islamic; he would have joyously replied that it was a great Pakistani game, and Zia Mahmood the finest player the world had ever seen.

She went into the cramped kitchen, made herself tea and headed upstairs. After her mother’s death, he had knocked through the two rooms at the back to give her a bedroom-cum-study with her own shower room. She later realised it was his way of saying he never would, nor could, remarry. No more wives, no more children. Just him and her.

She removed her scarf, jacket and tailored black skirt she wore for work, replacing them with a loose blouse, cardigan and trousers. In the shower room she stared at herself in the mirror; the unblemished pale olive skin she was blessed with stared back. The odd line was forming on her forehead but the rest of her body from high cheekbones to slender ankles, was uncreased and lean – as photographs showed, the figure of her mother not her father. She rubbed her face with soap and warm water, patted it dry and returned to the bedroom. With half a sigh, she unstrapped her black holdall and lifted out the laptop and envelope containing Morahan’s letter. From her desk she looked out at the row of neighbouring back gardens – neat flowerbeds and patches of lawn interrupted occasionally by messes of dumped detritus. She booted up her laptop and typed in the two words ‘Morahan Inquiry’.

She clicked on the official website, then ‘Chair and Panel’, and found herself lingering over the portrait photograph of Morahan himself. She tried to remember him from that Cambridge conference. He’d certainly been on the panel at one session but she couldn’t recall an actual meeting, seeing him close up, shaking his hand. It must have happened if he said so – and there’d been hundreds there.

Under the scrutiny of the camera, she detected an apprehension in the eyes, a trace of disappointment too perhaps. A figure that must be imposing peering down from the judicial bench under cover of the judge’s wig seemed unsettled. Was he an unhappy – or disenchanted – man? His biography showed the bare bones of a personal life; married Iona Chesterfield 1977, two daughters. Otherwise it outlined a seamlessly upward legal career interrupted only by a five-year stint, 1997–2002, in Parliament, ending with his resignation both as Attorney General and MP.

Or was it a lack of fulfilment those eyes betrayed? His resignation seemed never to have been fully explained. Journalists and, later, historians writing about the Iraq war, assumed Morahan had seen it coming and got out ahead. She wondered if he himself had encouraged that narrative – whether those eyes hid another story.

Press coverage of the Inquiry was patchy. On the day of its announcement by the Prime Minister the Guardian had hailed it as a ‘brave innovation to shine a chink of public light onto the security services’. The Times applauded the PM’s initiative but warned that ‘secret services must be allowed to keep secrets’.

She heard the front door lock click and footsteps below. She flinched. ‘Is that you, Dad?’ she shouted down.

‘’Course it’s me, who else are you expecting?’

Who else indeed? She collected herself, went downstairs and bound him in a close hug, tucking her chin against his ear from her greater height. They broke away and he gave her a puzzled smile.

‘Sara, you hug me tight. Are you OK?’

‘’Course I’m OK, just pleased to see you.’

He felt her relax. ‘You looked agitated to me. That’s not like my girl.’

‘Pressure, I guess.’

‘You gotta take it easy. Like me!’

‘If only,’ she laughed.

‘Anyway, I got something to celebrate. I landed a better squeeze tonight even than that one you just gave me.’

She shook her head in mock disapproval of him and handed him the sheet of paper she’d been holding. ‘You remember a while ago the government set up an Inquiry into the security services under a judge called Sir Francis Morahan?’

‘Rings some kind of bell.’ Tariq Shah was a news junkie, addicted to Channel 4 News and Newsnight. Sara was grateful for the short cuts it offered whenever she wanted to discuss something.

‘Read.’

Her father read the letter once quickly, a second time slowly. ‘I see why you’re jumpy.’

‘What should I do?’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘For once I’d like you to tell me.’

‘You know I’d never stand in your way.’

‘But would you approve?’

She could feel him trying to read her. ‘You don’t need that, Sara.’ She looked silently down at the floor. ‘See the man. Maybe he’s in trouble, needs help. Maybe it’d be good for you. For your career.’ He handed back the letter.

She raised her eyes. ‘You’ll promise never, ever even to hint about it to anyone. Anyone at all.’

‘Why would I do that? Don’t you trust me?’

‘Sorry, Dad, ’course I trust you.’ She felt a burn of shame. ‘It’s just that…’

‘I know. It’s… what’s the word? It’s peculiar.’ He inspected her with an unfamiliar curiosity. ‘You’re afraid of something, aren’t you?’ he said.

It was the enduring sadness within the love she felt for her father – far greater than for any other human being – that made her, even eighteen years later, unable to answer him.

2

Two days later at 12.55 p.m., Sara Shah arrived at the Afghan restaurant on Farnwood Road, between Tooting High Street and the Common. She’d quickly replied to the letter after discussing it with her father; he’d driven to Chelsea Place Upper that night to put it through No. 45’s front door. She’d ended the note by reminding Morahan, if he cycled, to wear a helmet; after her father set off, she wondered what on earth had possessed her to do so.

She’d proposed to Morahan a lunchtime meeting – somehow evening felt inappropriate. She was not in court that day and Ludo, as always, had happily agreed to her studying the next case files from home.

In one corner of the small restaurant, a young Asian family with two toddlers were faces down in a huge plate of sizzling mixed grill and chips. The mother and father showed traces of middle-aged bulge; she imagined the sweet slim little figures with their smooth cheeks and searching eyes going the same way. A jeans-clad boy and high-cheeked girl in a flowing red linen dress and cardigan, laced with a string of glass beads, were ordering; they must have sat down just before her. Pashtuns, she assumed. In the corner a Pakistani man sat alone munching, reading the Mirror.

Morahan had not replied to her letter; she understood that he must be nervous about communications. Her instincts told her that he would show up, even if it meant cancelling the Palace. They were correct; one minute after the designated time of 1 p.m., a tall figure strode past the window, turned through the door, and cast a wary eye over the restaurant. She rose, saying simply, ‘Hello.’

‘Hello,’ he replied. He seemed unsure whether to offer a hand to shake, finally keeping it to himself. Culturally conflicted, she noted. He sat down across the Formica table and buried himself in the menu. He cast a further eye around and behind; none of the other diners caught it.

She hesitated, wondering whether to test his humour. ‘It’s hardly the Garrick or the Temple.’

‘No.’ Expressionless, he peered back down; she couldn’t help noticing the thin prominence of the aquiline nose, with its near-perfect shallow curve. His skin was surprisingly smooth and unblemished for a man of his age; there was no sign of stray hairs emerging from nostrils or ears. His uniformly grey hair flopped elegantly over his collar edge. A good-looking man who had looked after himself. ‘What will you eat?’ he murmured.

‘Just a salad, I think.’

‘Yes, good.’ He shot another glance at their fellow customers and out of the window. ‘And then perhaps a walk. It seems too good a day to waste.’

As they made small talk, she tried to remember him as Attorney General but she had then been only in her early teens – try as she might, she couldn’t place his face among the Cabinet of that time. He had a presence, but not that of a showman; she couldn’t imagine him shouting and waving paper about in the Commons.

He rushed through his salad, a man on edge, itching for open spaces.

‘Let me get the bill,’ said Sara.

‘No, please…’

‘I insist. You have come to me. It’s the least I can do.’

They stepped outside. ‘I have my bicycle,’ he said.

‘Don’t worry, it’ll be here when you return. We’re not the badlands.’

A few yards down the pavement, he spun abruptly. She followed his eye; the Pakistani man from the restaurant was scurrying into the street. As they turned, he halted and made to study the menu in the window.

He bent towards her ear, his voice a hiss of panic. ‘It’s not my imagination,’ he said softly. ‘That man is watching us.’

She grinned. ‘That man is my father.’

He frowned, then smiled. ‘Oh dear. I feel a fool.’ For the first time, she felt him relax.

‘It’s all right, he’s just a little over-protective.’

‘I hope my presence is not too alarming.’

‘I’ll give him a wave to go home.’ She looked back at her father, shooing him away. ‘He’d make a terrible spy, wouldn’t he?’

‘I think perhaps if he wanted to achieve success in that profession, it might only be via the double-bluff.’

She looked at him; there was a twinkle in his eye. She tested him further. ‘Shall we walk to the Common and find a park bench? Isn’t that what spies do?’

They sat down, not at a park bench but an outdoor café. Morahan twisted around and, apparently satisfied they were out of ear-shot, leaned towards her.

‘Before you begin,’ said Sara, ‘I must ask you a question. This is a public Inquiry. You said in your letter that normally it would be for the Government Legal Department to hire counsel, after discussing it with the Chair of course.’ She lowered her eyes at him. ‘Why the secrecy? Why you alone?’ She paused. ‘And why me?’

‘If you allow me to tell you my story, Ms Shah, you will begin to understand.’

2018 – nine months earlier

Hooded brown eyes beneath heavy brown brows, familiar to him from television, bore in. ‘I’m going to do this,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I’m going to find out what went wrong.’

Francis Morahan had been mystified by both the summons and the secretiveness of the private secretary’s phone call. ‘All I can say, Sir Francis, is that it is to discuss a project close to the PM’s heart, and one which he considers of great importance in advancing the government’s agenda.’ He could hardly refuse the summons but it was more than a decade since he had crossed the threshold of 10 Downing Street – an address he would happily have never returned to.

At 4 p.m. precisely the policeman stationed outside No. 10 opened the black door and Morahan was faced by a young man with floppy fair hair who seemed just out of school.

‘Good afternoon, Sir Francis, I’m Andrew Lamb, assistant private secretary.’ The schoolboy stretched out a hand. ‘The PM is in the study if you’d like to follow me. Though of course you must know…’

‘No, it’s been many years.’

Robin Sandford, in charcoal grey suit trousers and a white shirt symmetrically divided by a crimson tie, rose from a stiff-backed armchair along with two other men. The sight of one sank Morahan’s heart. ‘Sir Francis, I don’t think you and I have actually met…’ the Prime Minister began.

‘I think not, Prime Minister,’ said Morahan, accepting the handshake.

Sandford turned to the fleshy figure to his right. ‘But… er…’

The figure, grinning, stretched out bulbous fingers. ‘Hello, Francis, long time.’

Morahan forced a smile. ‘Hello, Geoff.’ Feeling the same old revulsion, Morahan took in the drooping jowls, multiple chins, the roll of girth pushing into trousers held by braces, gold cuff-links glinting from a striped pink and white shirt and a purple tie. Steely hair in puffed-up waves and broad spectacles failed to mask the piggy eyes and calculating mind of Geoffrey Atkinson, Home Secretary – the enduring survivor from that distant era when the party had last been in government.

Sandford turned to the second man. ‘I imagine you two have crossed paths?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t quite put it like that,’ said Sir Kevin Long, the Cabinet Secretary and most powerful civil servant in the land, upbeat in voice, rotund in shape, razor-edged in mind.

‘Good,’ said Sandford, waving them to seats. ‘Francis – if I may…’

‘Of course,’ agreed Morahan lightly, distrusting the mutual courtesies.

‘Some context first,’ continued Sandford. ‘On winning the election, I said this government would be different. We would be open and unafraid to confront ourselves as a nation, both the good and the bad. In my view – forget Europe, forget Russia, forget the economy – there’s one bad that continues a year on to outstrip all others. And, in my time, will go on doing so. Extreme fanatical Islamism.’

For the second time, Morahan felt a sinking of the heart, a sense that he was being suborned into a morass of political game-playing.

‘And yet,’ said Sandford, ‘for nearly twelve years, between 7/7 in July 2005 to Westminster Bridge in March 2017 and all that has followed since, we kept the lid on Islamist terror. I want to know what went right for so long. And what then went wrong.’ He paused, locking eyes with Morahan. ‘And may still be wrong.’ He withdrew his gaze, eyes shifting to address a window. ‘Secondly – and related to this – I want an independent examination of our security policy with regard to the hundreds of young Britons who went abroad to fight for Islamist terror and have now returned – many of whom seem to have disappeared or gone off our radar.’

‘Are these not matters purely for the police and intelligence services?’ said Morahan, calculating how to remain at one remove.

‘You may think so, Francis,’ replied Sandford. ‘And, in different ways, over the year since we were elected, I’ve tried to ask them. I am not satisfied with their answers. There is no pattern, they say. We can’t watch every sort of “lone wolf”. At times, I have even sensed evasion. As if there’s something they don’t want to talk about. It’s not enough. Therefore, I intend that the Home Secretary,’ he nodded to Atkinson, ‘should establish a public inquiry, deploying a range of expertise, to answer these questions.’ He was edging ever closer to Morahan. ‘I – and he – would like you to chair it.’

‘Aren’t you reaching for the unknowable?’ asked Morahan softly. ‘Indeed the impossible.’

Sandford grimaced. ‘Nothing is ever unknowable. And in politics nothing should be impossible or undoable.’

‘Have you consulted the chiefs?’

‘You may recall – it was leaked to a newspaper – that the previous government attempted to have a judge inquire into the security services but they lobbied successfully against it. So no, I have not consulted the chiefs. And in anticipation of your next question, neither has this time attempted to stand in the way.’

‘I think you’ll find, Francis,’ interjected Atkinson, ‘that the Security Service – Dame Isobel in particular – understands this Prime Minister has a stiffer backbone than his predecessor.’

‘And Six?’ asked Morahan, repressing a rush of revulsion.

‘Sir Malcolm,’ replied Sandford, ‘assures me of the Secret Intelligence Service’s full co-operation. He is always keen to point out that SIS’s involvement is restricted to its activities with regard to these people while they were, or are, out of the country.’

‘You mean Five and Six are still…’ Morahan hesitated, ‘defecating on each other?’

‘Not at all,’ said Sir Kevin Long. ‘Communications, I am delighted to report, are better than ever.’ It was the Cabinet Secretary’s first contribution; his beam spread broader than ever as he made it. ‘The Cs meet once a week in my presence to iron out any turf issues. All most amicable.’

Morahan imagined the politely expressed arguments and precedents the Cabinet Secretary must have used to dissuade his headlong Prime Minister from unnecessarily opening potential cans of worms – and the gracefulness with which the civil servant would have accepted his defeat. Surrounded by these powerful figures and, despite himself, moved by Sandford’s plea, he sensed the noose tightening.

‘I can understand why you’ve come to me. I’m a senior judge. We sometimes have our uses, even for politicians. And, however briefly, I was once an MP and Cabinet member, so have an element of political understanding.’

‘Precisely,’ said Sandford. ‘You are uniquely well-qualified.’

‘There is the issue of my resignation.’

‘I see no issue,’ said Long.

‘Nor me,’ added Atkinson.

‘Really, Geoff?’ Morahan sighed.

‘As I recall,’ said Atkinson, ‘Frank Morahan, as you were then generally known, resigned as Attorney General in the summer of 2002 to resume a highly successful career at the Bar and spend more time with his family.’

‘Yes, that’s what I said,’ agreed Morahan. ‘You may recall the timing. Six weeks after President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed in Crawford, Texas to go to war with Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein. Come what may. As the government’s senior law officer, I would be the one who would have to approve its legality. My view was that any such war would be illegal.’

‘That’s not what you said at the time,’ said Atkinson. ‘Not even in Cabinet.’

‘It was less than a year after 9/11. I had no wish to be disruptive. I also believed the then Prime Minister to be an honourable man.’

‘As we all did,’ said Atkinson. ‘As we all did.’

‘I’ve never sought to justify myself publicly,’ continued Morahan, ignoring the lie, ‘but, as has been speculated, this was the real reason for my resignation. I also view that war as a prime cause of the very tragedy unfolding in our country which you are now asking me to investigate. I am therefore parti-pris.’ Morahan stopped abruptly, stared down at his crossed hands. No one spoke. He raised his head in anguish at the three men around him.

‘Hey,’ said Sandford with youthful vigour, ‘slow down. We’re sixteen years on. That’s hardly a partisan view, we all recognise it. All it means is that you got there first. We as a nation reaped the whirlwind you saw gathering.’

‘Prime Minister,’ said Morahan, ‘sixteen years ago I left the world of politics to return to the law. I would prefer to stay there.’

‘If you accept this role,’ said Sandford, ‘so you will. It may be enabled by government but it is a judicial inquiry. I’m asking you to both help me and perform a duty for your country.’ With that, Sandford rose to his feet. The meeting was over.

Heavy-legged, Morahan pulled himself up, shook the three proffered hands and, exchanging parting courtesies, headed for the door. The cherubic assistant private secretary magically appeared and escorted him out.

As the door clicked shut, Sandford turned to Atkinson. ‘You knew him then. Will he do it?’

‘He’ll fall in line,’ replied Atkinson roughly. ‘Always a supine streak to him in my view.’ Sir Kevin Long raised a discreet eyebrow.

‘He had the guts to resign,’ said Sandford.

‘You’re wrong. He didn’t have the guts to see it through.’

‘Will he see this through? I want it done properly.’ He paused. ‘Let’s be clear, our secret friends need a bloody good kicking.’

‘Your message was clear. We’ll make sure he doesn’t forget it.’

Sandford gave a conspiratorial smile. ‘There’s the politics of it too, isn’t there?’

‘What do you mean?’ Atkinson’s voice betrayed anxiety at missing a trick.

‘We have four more years in power. During that time, there’s bound to be a big one. Maybe several.’

‘Yes, bound to be.’

‘So when it happens, people’ll never be able to say we didn’t do everything to anticipate it – to think the unthinkable. That we didn’t just leave it to the police and MI5. We shone a public light on them, we pulled together the wisest heads in the land to scrutinise them. No stone was left unturned.’

‘That’s good, Robbie.’ Atkinson’s admiration was genuine. ‘Very good.’

‘Thanks, Geoff. I’m surprised you hadn’t seen it yourself.’ Simultaneously they turned to the Cabinet Secretary but Sir Kevin Long was saying nothing.

‘Well, let’s hope that’s all settled,’ said Sandford, rubbing his hands. ‘Kevin, perhaps I might have a minute with the Home Secretary.’

‘Of course, Prime Minister.’ The Cabinet Secretary eased gracefully from the room.

‘What are you going to surprise me with now?’ asked Atkinson.

‘Think about it, Geoff. On whose watch did the terror return?’

‘The last Prime Minister, of course.’

‘And who was Home Secretary during the years the terror was being planned?’

Atkinson chuckled. ‘The last Prime Minister.’

‘Precisely,’ said Sandford, triumph in his eye. ‘Chilcot did for Blair. Morahan can do for her.’

‘So…’ concluded Morahan that evening, after explaining the Prime Minister’s invitation to his wife, Lady Iona, at their Chelsea home. Like him, she was a public figure; née Chesterfield – which she’d kept as her professional name – she had risen to be Head Mistress of a prestigious London girls’ school and one of the country’s most formidable educationalists.

‘So indeed,’ she replied, looking beyond him.

He inspected the fine bone structure of her high-cheeked face, the still creamy glaze of her skin, the dark brown hair expensively laced with auburn tints – and, as so often, found it hard to interpret what was going on within. Was she even thinking about what he had told her? She might just as easily be hatching some new scheme in the compartmentalised lives they had become accustomed to living.

‘Do you have a view?’ he asked.

Her eyes shifted to engage his. ‘The obvious one. If you scrutinise the security services, it may – probably will – bring their scrutiny onto you.’

‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘That has been the main focus of my thoughts.’ He stood and walked over to the drawing room triple window, resting against its ledge. ‘Perhaps I’ve reached that stage of life when one can no longer be cowed.’

‘In that case…’

‘Put it this way,’ he interrupted. ‘I agree with the Prime Minister. It should be done. The intelligence services failed us in 2003—’

‘Isn’t that harsh?’

‘They should have stood up to Blair instead of kowtowing. The blame was theirs too.’

‘Some might say we’ve moved on from then,’ she said softly.

Was she offering him, if at heart he needed it, a way out, an escape from the trap door? It steeled him. ‘Sandford’s right. We need to see inside them.’

‘If they let you.’ The softness had gone.

The next morning, Sir Francis Morahan wrote to the Prime Minister that it would be an honour to chair the Inquiry. A few weeks later he agreed its terms of reference with the Home Secretary:

1. To inquire, after twelve years countering of the terrorist threat, into the reasons for security failures and the lessons to be learnt in preventing future terror attacks in the UK.

2. To inquire into present security policy and strategy towards British Islamist extremists returned and returning from conflict zones.

Over the coming months premises were leased, a Secretary to the Inquiry appointed and supporting secretariat hired, a Government Legal Department solicitor seconded, a panel of independent experts assembled. Morahan gave a media conference at which he asked for submissions from interested parties. His secretariat found itself deluged by a torrent of paper, particularly from government departments apparently able to locate an unending supply of data and research with only limited relevance to his terms of reference, all of which had to be logged in, read and summarised for the panel of experts. Once this work was completed a senior QC and junior counsel would join the Inquiry to initiate its interrogative phase.

Occasionally, Morahan smelt the whiff of an unholy alliance between the likes of the Cabinet Secretary and the civil and intelligence services, to appear to be doing a naïve Prime Minister’s will but all the while finding ways to thwart him.

‘And then,’ Morahan said, ‘something happened.’

The Common had burst into tea-time life with the noise of mothers, toddlers just out of school, and bawling babies in prams. The café was filling up with ice-cream and sweet-hunters, the background noise forcing Morahan and Sara ever closer together.

Glancing around, he narrowed his gaze. ‘You see, just as my envelope has dropped into your Chambers, a few weeks ago a similar envelope dropped through the front door of my house.’ He peered from the café towards the green open spaces of the Common. ‘It’s become rather noisy here. Shall we take a walk?’

3

Three weeks earlier

As usual on weekdays except Thursdays, Sir Francis Morahan drew into Chelsea Park Upper promptly at 6 p.m. to allow time to change for whatever engagement his wife or his bar obligations had committed him to. He stowed his bicycle in the side passage hut and entered through the front door. An A4-size brown envelope lay on the mat – on it was stuck an address slip, typed only with his name.

A reading light was on in Iona’s study ahead; if she was at home and had not picked the envelope up to leave it on the hall shelf – she disliked clutter – it must have been recently delivered. He wondered if the deliverer’s timing was deliberate to ensure that it would go straight into his hands rather than hers.

He nudged open her study door. She raised her head and peered through light-blue titanium varifocals. ‘Good, you’re back.’

He hesitated. ‘You didn’t hear anyone at the front door just now, did you?’

‘No.’ She frowned. ‘Should I have?’

‘Nothing. Just wondering.’

‘How strange you are sometimes.’ She raised herself. ‘Grosvenor House Hotel, 7 p.m., car booked for 6.30. Minnie Townsend’s refugee charity do.’

She brushed past him and went upstairs. A dinner jacket was so much part of evening life that he could do the change in ten minutes. He retreated to his own study; he couldn’t leave the letter until they returned – the label begged too many questions. He sat down, switched on his desk lamp, opened it with a paper knife and read. There was no letter heading and no date.

Dear Sir Francis

I write to you as a result of my involvement with a secret arm of government relevant to your Inquiry. Therefore I must remain anonymous.

It is within your remit to investigate certain activities by the state whose exposure will have devastating consequences. I can supply you with information, so far withheld from you, which will enable you to launch such an investigation.

I will deal only with you personally. Please understand that any communication by you via phone, email or any other electronic means may be being noted.

Neither my contact with you, nor my communications with you, nor any material I give you is to be logged into the Inquiry’s database. They are for your eyes only. If you do log the material, I will know and contact will cease.

If you wish to proceed, please leave me a message saying simply Yes or No using the methodology in the accompanying note.

Please know me simply as ‘Sayyid’.

It felt like a punch in the ribs; Francis Morahan had never received a communication that so startled him. He sat, eyes fixed, rereading it for a second and third time. He checked his watch; at the same time a cry came from above. ‘Francis! It’s twenty past six.’

He opened the middle right drawer of his desk, restored the letter to the envelope, placed it beneath a pile of other papers, stood to find a key concealed behind a particular book in a shelf above and locked the drawer with it. Beads of sweat formed on his cheeks – locking drawers was an unfamiliar act since he had left politics.

Upstairs in his dressing room, his cufflinks seemed to slide into their eyes less smoothly than usual; his hands tying the black bow were jittery. He sensed his wife watching through the door.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, fine.’ He completed the struggle with the tie. ‘Don’t know what’s the matter with the bloody thing tonight.’

‘I’ll go down and tell the driver to wait.’

Their car turned onto the Embankment from Beaufort Street, the reddening sun casting shadows from the pillars of Battersea, then Albert Bridge. Morahan watched joggers evenly, rhythmically striding beside the river and fought for air against the seatbelt entrapping him. The accompanying note insisted that the ‘simple yes or no’ should be given by midnight. He tried to work out why ‘Sayyid’ was granting so little time. Did he know that Morahan would be occupied this evening in chit-chat with whatever members of the do-gooding plutocracy his wife had lined up at their table? That he would have no time to consult or discuss – even if he could have found anyone with whom to share? He flicked a look at Iona. They survived – and, in their ways, prospered – because they had decided at the crossroads in their lives that there would be no secrets in the alliance they would forge. But not tonight. Too soon. Too – how could he put it? – too baffling; too improbable that he, of all people, was entering into a secret world of ‘dead letter boxes’ and heaven knows what else.

‘Sayyid’ was asking him to act alone, to operate outside the system. The request flew in the face of the orderly due process by which, rightly in his view, he conducted his business. Yet, there was something about the letter which made him believe it was important. It felt not just cowardly but wrong to reject it – whether by logging it (he was sure Sayyid meant what he said and somehow had the means to know) or by failing to follow its instructions.

He considered the name ‘Sayyid’. He’d had no time to check its meaning – perhaps it was just to indicate inside knowledge of the world he was entering. He would look it up later.

They were home by 11 p.m. He escorted his wife from car to front door and unlocked it to usher her in. Instead of following her upstairs, he headed towards the kitchen.

‘Just remembered I’ve a letter to post,’ he shouted up.

‘Can’t it wait till morning?’

‘I rather need some air.’

‘Well, try not to squeak that floorboard.’

He tore a strip off a cellophane roll, retreated along the passage to his study, found a sheet of paper and wrote ‘Yes’ on it. He folded it into an envelope and wrapped the cellophane around it. Back in the hall, he removed the bow tie and black jacket and put on an overcoat and his homburg, tucking the covered envelope in the inside coat pocket. The church was a brisk eight-minute walk away. He’d be there, leave the envelope and be back home within twenty minutes.

The roads seemed darker than usual, the traffic lighter. He found himself checking parked cars – for what? Men in sharp suits and trilbies smoking Camel cigarettes? He told himself to sharpen up. The gate to the churchyard was, as promised, unlocked – he hadn’t been sure as he’d never had reason to enter it at this hour. As instructed, he took the path that led around the south transept, rows of graves standing grey in the half-moon light. He made for the right angle where the exterior of the transept joined the chancel. Counting out ten yard-long paces at forty-five degrees from that corner, he found the headstone.

GEORGE MANN

BORN 12 DECEMBER 1859

DIED 21 MARCH 1895

‘PROUD OF HIS NATION, A NATION PROUD OF HIM’

He allowed himself a short smile and felt an unexpected surge of bravado. Seeing the gap between the head of the grave lid and bottom of the headstone, he slid the envelope between them.

Before heading upstairs, he googled ‘Sayyid’. A leader, a master. A man who demands respect. Although, he reflected, it could just as easily be a cover – there was no reason to suppose it was either a man or a Muslim. The one thing he did know was that, for the moment, he must play by Sayyid’s rules.

Forty-eight hours later, Morahan retraced his steps to the same gravestone. In place of the white envelope he’d left was a plastic sleeve containing a smaller brown one. He hurried home, shaking with anticipation, and slit it open. Inside was a curt message saying no more than ‘Agreed’, followed by an instruction to return to a different grave in a further forty-eight hours. He felt both wound-up and deflated.

Two nights later, as the hall clock chimed the three-quarter hour of 10.45 p.m., he called up that he was popping out again for a stroll. This time Iona emerged to glare down from the landing railings. ‘It’s becoming rather a habit.’

‘Yes, I will explain soon enough. Nothing to worry about.’

The lid on the second gravestone was, as promised, unattached. It was also heavy – much heavier than he had anticipated. With his fingertips he could loosen but not lift it or ease it sideways. He had wondered whether Sayyid was a man or woman; now, a strong man seemed more likely. He himself was in his late sixties; while his legs adequately propelled his bicycle, his arms were used to no more than lifting legal submissions.

He looked at his watch. 11.05 p.m. Iona would be agitating. He needed a crow bar or something similar; he couldn’t afford to delay and risk the morning light.

He stalked home, went upstairs and looked into her bedroom.

‘I have to go out again.’

‘It’s all right, Francis.’

‘No, truly.’ His dry voice was urgent. ‘There’s a task I need to complete. I’ll explain everything tomorrow morning.’ He paused. ‘Unless you have other plans.’

She eyed him quizzically and resumed her reading.

Out in the garden he scrambled among the clutter in the shed, opening his old wooden tool box for the first time, it seemed, in years; his days of DIY were long over. Perhaps the claw of the rubber-handled hammer might do it; he shoved it into a pocket. He had a better idea, but it meant re-entering the house yet again to fetch the car key. He had to tell her tomorrow. Edging open the front door and stepping on tiptoes he took the key from the hall shelf. The light was still on upstairs; he heard the pulling of a lavatory chain and padding of feet. He exited, opened the car boot, pulled away the bottom flap and saw that he’d remembered correctly; the wheel nut spanner had a lever on the end of the handle.

Weighed down, he set out again for the churchyard. He wondered how he would explain himself to a policeman. Caught in the act with an ‘offensive weapon’ – he imagined the headline, ’69-year-old Government Inquiry Chair is Secret Grave Robber.’ There seemed something fantastical about what he was doing. Yet he knew from the law courts just how easily chance, coincidence, or sheer misadventure could at a stroke change lives – and, sometimes, arbitrarily cut them short.

He managed to insert the hammer claw into the gap below one side of the lid and the lever on the car spanner beneath its head. Kneeling, he pressed down on both with the palms of his hand. He felt upward movement and with his knee eased the lid an inch to the right. One more shove and he should be able to slip his fingers beneath. He was sweating; he stood up and breathed deeply. How could this be necessary? Was his resolve being tested? He bent down again and repeated the process. The gap was now sufficient to show the edge of a slim brown plastic package, again A4 size. He forced his hand through, scraping the knuckles against the stone’s sharp edge, far enough to grab the package between his second and third fingers. He stood up with it, back aching, heart thumping from the exertion, and concealed it in his coat.

On the walk home, he saw a dark-coloured Mercedes saloon parked ahead. Someone was in the driver’s seat. He paused. Who? Why? Should he turn round, try to bypass it? No, stop being paranoid – too old for that. As he passed, he could make out the shape of a capped man, face burrowed down into a thick collar, sitting in the front, listening to the radio – Magic or Kiss or one of those other all-night stations churning out trans-generational beats. He glanced back at the rear window. It showed the round green disc of a licensed taxi. He relaxed.

At home, Iona’s bedroom light was off. He sat down at his desk and gazed blankly for a few seconds at the package, lifted it and turned it through 360 degrees. No words, no markings on the brown beneath the plastic. He slid the envelope out and opened it with the paper knife. He extracted the small pile of contents. They were headed by a note in the same font.

Dear Sir Francis,

Thank you for your response.

This initial package contains personal files on five young British Muslims.

I have made two redactions.

The first is the KV2 serial number. This is information you do not need and would present an extra danger both to you and me.

The second is the name of the operation this was part of. Later I may give you this name, though not in writing. Knowledge of it is the most highly classified secret of British intelligence both now and since its inception. It is confined to very few.

Nothing else is blacked out (unlike the intelligence files your Inquiry has so far received where redactions render them effectively useless).

Of these five persons some are, or have been, combatants, others not. Some have disappeared. If you wish to fulfil your remit, you must attempt to trace these individuals or their families and take evidence. You must not use police or intelligence services to carry out this investigation. Those channels are compromised.

Knowing the potential consequences, I need your confirmation that you wish to continue. I will then advise you on obtaining the help you need.

These few files that I have been able to give you are the tip of a large iceberg. They are also its inception. From them a decade-long pattern follows.

A final warning. Once you knock on the first door, you must move fast.

Sayyid

Morahan lay the note aside, absorbed the accompanying instructions and began to leaf through the files. They contained print-outs of photographs; phone call intercepts; logs of suspects’ movements. They were each headed by a brief biography containing a name, present suspected whereabouts, and previous addresses.

Who was this secret informant? Sayyid. Was he, or she, to be trusted? What position was he in to have access to raw classified files? If the operation he claimed to know of had really existed, how and why was he one of the few who knew of it? Were his warnings genuine or for effect?

Were the files themselves genuine? As a judge he was accustomed to recent police files, but his own experience of intelligence files on suspected terrorists went back to his brief time as Attorney General, mainly in the wake of 9/11, when the net was being cast far and wide. He tried to remember what these looked like; then realised it would be remarkable if the means of recording information in the digital age had not moved on. Did these print-outs have the ring of truth? Of authenticity? He stared at them again, working his way slowly through them, seeking out flaws or artificialities. If they were there, he could not see them.

If he could trust Sayyid it meant he must find an unusual kind of investigator. The memory of the Watergate ‘Deep Throat’, the prime cause of President Richard Nixon’s downfall in 1974, flashed before him. ‘Deep Throat’ had passed his secrets to journalist investigators – the celebrity duo of Woodward and Bernstein. He could hardly imagine himself entrusting anything to the modern breed of British journalist. To maintain control, he must recruit an investigator to work within his team. Sayyid had already said he could not trust any part of the security or police services but indicated he might offer further pointers.

It was late. He could not do this alone. He needed to find someone he could trust with the know-how to track down and win the confidence of the men in this file – men who might be both frightened and frightening.

Over breakfast, Francis and Iona sat opposite each other in their usual seats, he with The Times, she with the Guardian. She lowered her paper and folded it with a crack; he followed suit.

‘So…’ she began in her customary way.

He told her a great deal; the first approach, the methodology – he needed to explain the late-night strolls – and the nature of the printed-out files Sayyid had given him.

The telling prompted him to reflect on the rigmarole of Sayyid’s procedures. Surely there were simpler ways of doing this. It suddenly crossed his mind that Sayyid could be in some way playing him; deliberately conjuring him through a twisting chain of hoops. But why? To impress him? To whet his appetite? Even to compromise him? The idea that someone was setting a trap was monstrous; if he began to think that way, he was lost. He, part of an untouchable judiciary, was the independent chair of a government inquiry trying to seek out truth. What mattered was the information, not how it arrived.

‘And that’s it?’ Iona said.

‘So far.’ He did not mention the grave tone or the warnings contained in the accompanying letters from Sayyid, not wishing to alarm her further. ‘There will be more.’

‘How much more?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How are you going to proceed?’

‘I’m trying…’ he began.

‘You’ve not always been the strongest of men, Francis.’

‘I know. You have been the strength in our… in our partnership.’

She sighed. ‘The most important thing now is that you and I maintain the trust we’ve built. It hasn’t been easy.’

‘You know how much I appreciate it. And how much I rely on you and your judgement.’

‘Thank you. It’s not often said.’

‘I hope I never give you reason to doubt it.’

‘No.’ She stared at him grimly. ‘Are you truly set on pursuing this trail?’

‘Yes, I think so.’ He sensed the inner steel flexing. ‘Yes,’ he repeated curtly.

‘I warned you that taking on this Inquiry might have consequences we couldn’t anticipate.’

‘I can face them. Now.’ Saying the words, he forced himself to believe them.

‘Yes, it’s time. After what those bastards tried with you.’ Her vehemence shook him, another punch in the ribs; his wife was a woman who hardly ever swore.

‘That pretty much,’ said Morahan to Sara, withholding just the final reference to his own past, ‘is what has led us to being here today. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to explain.’

Their circuit on the Common was drawing them back to the café, now becalmed in the lull between the afternoon mothers and children and the early evening mob of skateboarding teenagers.

‘It’s fine. Best for me to know everything,’ Sara said. Morahan averted his gaze. Her instant trust reminded him of what he could not yet tell her.

‘To put it bluntly, I need your help.’

‘Why me in particular? I can see you need someone trusted by young Muslims to be your foot soldier. I can certainly give you suggestions.’

She was sharp. He had prepared his response. ‘That’s not enough. This person – or people – must be able to take affidavits. To unlock witnesses.’

‘There are lots of Muslim solicitors. And it’s the solicitor’s job to provide evidence, counsel’s job to interrogate it.’

‘I realise that is the usual practice.’

‘My career at the Bar has taken a new direction.’

‘Yes.’

‘This feels like a return to old territory.’

‘For me, taking on the Inquiry feels like a return to a treacherous world of politics that I escaped fifteen years ago. But there’s a tug of duty.’

‘Duty?’

‘It’s an odd word these days, isn’t it?’ He paused and edged closer to her. She saw something different in his eyes; excitement, recklessness even. ‘This is not just legal niceties. It’s about the nature and the behaviour of the state – our nation. I need someone special. Trust me, I’ve looked around and, in discreet ways, asked around. There is no one better suited to the task than you. I am pleading with you to take on the role of junior counsel to my Inquiry.’

‘And to be your investigator too. Your own private eye.’

‘Yes, if you put it like that.’

‘Snooping into my own community.’ She paused. ‘So some might say.’

He turned on her. ‘Surely your intelligence would not allow you to say, or think, such a thing.’

For the first time she saw a force within – and a calculating mind intent on dissolving her objections. Even so, there was a desperation in his request. She remembered her father’s words: ‘Perhaps he’s in trouble, he needs help.’ None of that diminished the immensity of what he was asking her; to step aside from her career path and take a risk both personal and professional.

‘Effectively, you’re inviting me to go rogue.’

‘Some might say that. But I am entitled to define my own legitimacy.’ He sat back on the bench, disengaging eyes, peering blankly into the distance, trying to keep his shoulders straight. She saw a man battling to overcome his fears, confronting something he had never been faced with before, no more bolts to shoot.

He swivelled away from her towards the evening gloom. ‘I could have turned him down, you know.’

‘Who?’ She was bemused; the remark seemed so out of context.

‘Sayyid. The informant. Whoever it really is. He – she perhaps – gave me the option. I didn’t have to. I could have let it go by. Perhaps I should have.’ He suddenly seemed grieving over some loss or error; a fork in the road. This was something more than fear. Vulnerability – that’s what it was. A man, once wounded, who might be wounded again.

‘But you didn’t turn him down,’ she said softly.

‘No. No, I didn’t. You know why? I feel affronted. Personally affronted. It’s not just their country to protect. It’s my country too. All of ours.’

She wanted to do something alien to her – to place an arm around his shoulder, to comfort him. She leant towards him, then stopped herself. ‘Are you afraid?’

He stirred. ‘I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t believe our intelligence services shoot people in the head or drop them out of helicopters, or out of boats with lead in their boots. Or “disappear” them into cement mixers and car crushers or stuff them into suitcases or any of the other crude rubbish so beloved by the fantasists.’ He paused; the late breeze rustled leaves and stroked the pond. ‘My fear is different. It’s not for me, I’m getting on. It’s what there may be to find out. Not what may be about to happen, but what has happened. That there was some kind of more sophisticated… more invisible… evil.’

She had an overwhelming, even oppressive, sense that this was the most important conversation of both their lives.

‘There was one other thing Sayyid indicated,’ he said. ‘If I move on what he’s given me, it must be fast. In his words, I – we – have to stay ahead of them. It’s immediate or not at all.’

He stood up, plea made, apparently no more to say. He made to leave, then halted, looking down on her.

‘I know there’s risk. Perhaps danger too. Terrorists and those who fight to contain them occupy another place. Albeit on opposing sides, they breathe the same air. The rest of us get occasional sightings – most of us through the distorting filter of the screens we watch and the newspapers we read. But I promise you, even if you and I must now breathe that air, I will look after you. Judges are a protected species.’ A gentle smile softened him. ‘My protection extends to you. I will always be there.’ He turned and strode briskly away, allowing no reply.

Morahan was uncertain whether he had done enough for Sara Shah to bite. He couldn’t remember the last time he had pushed so hard for something, surprising himself with the passion of his parting words. She was clearly perfect for the job. As she herself had said, there were other such young men, and women too, though very few, he suspected, to match her. But that was not the point.

That evening, returning briefly to the Inquiry office, he unlocked the desk drawer containing the Sayyid material and took out not one, but two folders. He had told Sara an incomplete story, one that deliberately missed its next chapter. Three days after the first delivery, a further note from Sayyid had dropped through his front door, instructing him to collect a second delivery from a different graveyard.

Morahan retrieved it without incident. This time the folder was thin, containing a single envelope. He’d wondered why Sayyid could not simply have dropped the envelope through his door. Perhaps, he reflected, it was because he was somewhere out there watching, making sure that he personally collected it.

Inside the envelope was a folded A4 print-out of a photograph and profile of a newly recruited barrister at Knightly Court chambers. Morahan vaguely recognised the face and name – perhaps he had seen her in court or at a conference. Stapled to it was a brief note.

This is the person you must recruit as your investigator. She has special knowledge and a connection which I will make clear to you when I know that you have recruited her. At that time, I will also give you a final folder of material.

Please trust me when I say that this investigation is vital for preserving this nation as a law-abiding accountable democracy. Sayyid

Sayyid’s tone and his assertion of some poison at the heart of the state chilled Morahan. Even more chillingly, he was now being asked to embroil a young woman into a project with unknown consequences and dangers without, he felt, being able to give her the reason why. It was one thing to tell her that he had been approached by an apparent whistleblower calling himself ‘Sayyid’; quite another to say that Sayyid had specifically pinpointed her as the route to whatever wrongdoing he wanted to expose.

Yet, however much he disliked himself for it, however much he had found Sara Shah a sympathetic, intelligent woman, he must resist the urge to come clean and tell her everything. For now anyway.

‘What are you going to do, Sara?’ her father finally asked, as he sipped his coffee and she her peppermint tea in the kitchen.

She’d explained the job offer but not the events described by Morahan that had led to it. She wished now that she had paraphrased his initial letter for her father, rather than allowed him to read it fully. If he ever knew the full circumstances, he would try to stop her.

‘What would you do in my shoes?’

‘How could I ever be in your shoes?’ he spluttered. ‘OK, let me ask this. Might it put you in danger?’

‘No, Dad,’ she smiled. It was her chance to row back. ‘He was being alarmist.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. So will it be good for your career? That’s the main thing.’

She rose, walked round the table behind him, and gave the top of his shiny bald head a gentle kiss. ‘I love you, Dad. Time to think.’

Two evenings later, mulling for the umpteenth time over the conversation on the Common, Sara sat at her desk staring out over the rooftops, sensing a door closing behind her. The question she’d raised at the very beginning lurked. Why her? Or rather, why only her? Yes, she did not underrate herself; yes, she could see how well-suited to it she must appear. But she was not the only one; to think that would not only be arrogant but untrue. Why was he so insistent?

Over those forty-eight hours memories dogged her with an uncontrollable viciousness. Was it to remind her that she’d once before had her chance to intervene, to save innocent lives? That time she’d failed. Was this her second chance? If she opted out or delayed for a second time now, would those memories ever fade away? Would she be consumed by guilt for the rest of her life?

She began to write the letter. Once it dropped through Morahan’s front door, there would be no turning back. As the thought sank in, she felt a first tinge of fear.

She gathered herself and went downstairs.

‘Dad, would you mind driving round with a second letter? Same address.’

He silenced the TV. ‘What did you decide?’

‘As you said, might be good for the career. So why not?’

What mattered was that he should never fully know what she was stepping into, nor Morahan’s fear of where it might lead.

4

Within an hour of her arrival at Knightly Court the next morning, another envelope addressed to Sara Shah and marked ‘Private and Confidential’ was hand-delivered. This one contained a typed letter on Inquiry notepaper, signed by Sir Francis Morahan himself, offering an initial three-month engagement as junior counsel; a contract from the Government Legal Department would arrive within twenty-four hours, proposing a start on the upcoming Monday. All Sara now had to do was make her confession to Ludovic Temple. Fortunately, or not, he was in chambers, not court. She knocked on his door.

‘Come!’

She entered. He rose with a giant grin. ‘Sara, you don’t need to knock, you know that.’ She looked down at the letter in her hand and then her feet. He followed her eyes. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘You remember that letter, Ludo?’

His face sagged like a collapsed soufflé. ‘Hell, someone’s made you a better offer. I bloody knew it.’

She looked up, the colour restored to her cheeks. ‘It’s not as bad as that.’

She gave him a broad brush picture of Morahan’s initial letter and her unorthodox dealings with him since, though she did not speak of his secret information, nor its source.

‘Curious man, Francis Morahan,’ said Temple. ‘Something inscrutable, almost odd, about him. Never thought his resignation was what it seemed. Clever though. And affable enough. I wouldn’t have imagined him as a doer. Not in the way you’re now describing.’

‘He seems determined.’

‘Good for him. Give those rascals a kick up the posterior.’ He frowned. ‘But why you? Must be others he could get?’

‘I’ve asked myself – and him – that. He’s insistent.’

Temple sighed. ‘Well, dammit, he’s right. You’re the best. But do you have to?’

She worried about sounding pretentious. ‘I feel it’s my duty. He needs a specific job done. I said I’d give him three months, no more.’

‘Duty. Hmmm…’ He affected to examine her. She silently held his eye. ‘You mean it, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I think I do.’

He spoke with an unusual tenderness. ‘Then you must do it. But stick to your guns and don’t get bogged down. These inquiries go on for ever. Do the job he wants and then come back.’

‘That’s a deal.’ She stuck her hand out and he formally shook it, both now at ease. ‘I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch, Ludo.’

‘It’s fine. Next week’s prep and I’m not back in court till the week after. I’ll grab Sheila instead.’

‘Not literally, I hope.’

‘Ha! Funny girl.’ He screwed up his eyes. ‘Just as well you’re the joker. We’re not allowed to laugh at that sort of thing any more, are we?’

As instructed, Sara arrived the next Monday at the Inquiry offices at 9.15 a.m., having hung around to avoid being early. The tube journey, Tooting Broadway to Vauxhall via Stockwell, was a breeze after the twists and turns to the Temple. She was met at reception by the PA to the Secretary, a squat, bespectacled young man with straggly black hair who announced himself as Clovis Hobbs-Fanshawe and managed nervously to stretch out a hand to shake while forgetting the accompanying smile.

Morahan, in a surprising and warm phone call over the weekend, had told Sara he’d chosen Pamela Bailly as the Inquiry Secretary – effectively its chief executive. She was a Treasury high-flier and therefore, he explained, not from a Department he might be investigating. He also said she was extraordinarily efficient. Sara wondered if Clovis had been terrorised by her. No doubt a bulging Oxbridge brain lurked behind his jumping eyes.

As she was ushered by Clovis into the Secretary’s capacious office, Pamela Bailly sprang up and strode round her desk to offer a firm handshake. Brisk with an edge of brusqueness, tallish, trim, precise, a smart cut of auburn hair shaped to the neckline, she projected a force field of compressed energy. Sara suspected some of it was a cloak, though there was no obvious sign of brittleness on the sculpted red fingernails.

‘Welcome, Ms Shah, delighted to meet you.’

‘Do call me Sara.’

‘I will. Pamela.’ She paused. ‘Not Pam. So… you’re here to chivvy us along.’

Sara smiled, determined to forge some form of bond. ‘I can see that no chivvying is needed.’

‘In some ways not. A great deal of information, research and expertise has been gathered but we’re still some way from formal hearings. Indeed, we’ve only just started the search for counsel. Now his Lordship appears to have pre-empted it.’

‘I think it’s more because he has some specific tasks in mind.’

‘That would appear to be between you and him.’ Was there an edge in her tone? As if her own special access to her Chairman was being disarranged? She seemed a woman for whom control was important. ‘At any rate,’ continued Pamela, ‘he seems to me a reinvigorated man and that is all to the good. We will all do everything we can to help you.’

Sara chided herself for the suspicion. ‘I appreciate that.’

‘Shall we do the tour?’

She led Sara out of her office, past Clovis’s gate-keeping desk and into an open-plan space. From six desks, six heads peered noiselessly up. Four further desks were empty. ‘This is the Secretariat,’ said Pamela nodding briefly to the upturned faces without introducing them. ‘Our junior counsel, Sara Shah.’ The murmur of hellos was almost inaudible. Sara noticed that, despite the nature of the Inquiry, only one face was Asian – a woman, probably in her late twenties, wearing a knee-length skirt and long-sleeved blouse, head uncovered. ‘The spare desks are for our distinguished panel members should they ever care to look in.’

A corridor led off the open-plan area; Pamela led Sara through the first door on the right. An older woman, full bosomed with long, steel-grey hair tied in an imprecise bun, looked up.

‘Sylvia Labone, our archivist,’ said Pamela. ‘Meet Sara Shah, our new junior counsel.’

Sylvia rose with a cough – ex-smoker, Sara immediately assumed. Maybe still – there was a yellowness on her fingers. ‘Good morning, Ms Shah.’ Her voice was throaty, confirming first impressions.

‘Sara, please.’ She looked around at long shelves of files on rails. ‘You’re the keeper of the secrets.’

Sylvia scowled before degenerating into a further cough. ‘If only.’

‘We don’t have a prayer room per se,’ said Pamela, ‘but there might be an appropriate corner here in the library. I mentioned it to Sylvia.’

You really are organised, thought Sara.

‘Of course,’ said Sylvia, ‘whenever you wish. Never mind me, I’ve seen and heard it all.’

Sara followed Pamela along the corridor to an end door that revealed a large office with a broad walnut desk, leather chairs behind and in front, windows to left and right, and a long sofa running along the inside wall. To one side, the view was dominated by the four-square-mass of the American Embassy; to the other, across Nine Elms Road, stretches of the Thames were visible between designer riverside apartment blocks.

‘Sir Francis’s office,’ said Pamela. ‘It was his decision to base us here rather than Whitehall or anywhere near the Law courts. I think he felt across the river was more…’ she searched for the word, ‘appropriate for some of our potential witnesses.’ She inspected the sofa and puffed up its row of cushions. ‘He apologises. He’d wanted to be here in person for your arrival but the Home Secretary asked for a catch-up at the last minute.’

‘Geoff Atkinson,’ said Sara.

‘Yes.’ Her tone hinted at contempt. ‘You’ll find that Sir Francis has his own working pattern. He tends to stay late on Thursday evenings to catch up with the week. I believe he likes the undisturbed peace of a deserted office. I understand his wife shapes her social diary around that. As for everyone else, we’re a nine to six operation and that’s the way I prefer it. If you need to work late, we’ll give you your own key and code.’

‘I’d like that option.’

‘As you will.’

Pamela guided her back along the corridor to a side door they had passed. ‘Finally you. Legal.’ She knocked and entered an office of similar size to Morahan’s but with four desks, smaller windows and walls lined with book shelves. One desk was occupied.

‘Morning, Pamela.’

‘May I introduce Patrick Duke, Government Legal Department. In my view an inelegant change in terminology from Treasury Solicitors,’ said Pamela, again with that edge. ‘Patrick, this is Sara Shah. Sara, I’ll leave you in his hands.’ She bestowed a quick smile on them, turned on her heel and closed the door behind her.

Patrick grinned and shook Sara’s hand. ‘She’s a piece of work.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Sara.

‘Welcome.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Coffee?’

‘Tea would be lovely if you have it.’

‘I’m prepared. Builder’s, Earl Grey, peppermint, chamomile.’

‘Builder’s is good.’ His grin broadened and he strolled to a corner containing a kettle, cups and a mini-fridge. Though she was annoyed with herself for it, Sara couldn’t help her surprise. He was tall and thin. And black. Unequivocally black. She followed him to the mini-kitchen corner.

‘People tend to call me Paddy – rather a feeble joke from my days of incarceration at one of England’s great schools, which I’m afraid has stuck.’ He was well-spoken with a deep-voiced singer’s projection. ‘You know. A black paddy. Ha ha. You get a hit on two races in one. All terribly good-natured of course, old boy.’ With only a small stretch of his own accent he escalated to an exaggerated upper-class honk.

‘I think I’ll unstick it and call you Patrick if that’s all right.’

‘Suits me. Sugar and milk?’

‘Just as, please.’

He wandered over to a window. The view was dominated by one corner of the American Embassy which she had seen more fully from Morahan’s window. ‘Good to know our cousins watch over us,’ said Patrick.

‘What are those conical steel things hanging off the walls?’ asked Sara.

‘Secret anti-aircraft whizzbangs,’ said Patrick. ‘That’s why it’s such a monstrous mass of a building, not a nice slender spire. Packed full of rockets and helmeted men in black special forces suits ready to scale down the walls and occupy the streets shouting Delta and Zulu.’

Sara laughed. They sat down at neighbouring desks.

‘Well…’ he began. She tilted her head to the side, encouraging him. ‘Our Chairman says he wants you to get out and about. Talk to people. He feels he’s lacking actual, unmediated accounts from young Muslims themselves.’

‘Yes.’

‘Rather unusual? For counsel, I mean.’

‘Not really, I did on-the-ground work for Rainbow.’

‘But that’s a campaigning chambers.’

‘And we shouldn’t be here?’

‘There’s no should or shouldn’t. It’s whatever Sir Francis wants. With one condition.’

‘Oh?’

‘I accompany you.’

She looked down at her hands. ‘That might be awkward. It may be hard to win their confidence.’

‘That’s fine. You see them alone. Initially anyway. But you may need me to witness. Or for affidavits.’

‘If I get any.’

‘I’m sure you will.’ He switched off the grin. ‘And some of these characters won’t be friendly. I’ll stay out of the way but you can’t be alone.’

‘So you’re to be my chaperone?’

‘No, Sara, I’m just to be there. Even if all I am is your driver with a leather jacket, a Nigerian accent and a lucky zebra dangling from the rear-view mirror.’ She couldn’t help smiling and the grin reappeared.

Shortly before lunch, Morahan arrived and poked his head around the Legal department door. ‘Sara. Welcome. Come and chat.’ After the earlier conversation, she felt guilty about leaving Patrick; he gave her a friendly nod of the head.

Morahan guided her to one end of his brown leather office sofa while he sat down at the other. ‘Coffee? Tea?’

‘I’m fine, thanks. Patrick’s been the perfect host.’

‘Good. Decent chap.’

She hesitated. ‘I hadn’t realised he would be accompanying me on research trips.’

‘Yes, I should have told you first thing. Would have but for our friend Atkinson’s summons.’

‘Oh, how was that?’

‘He just wants it over. I suspect the appearance of enthusiasm in front of the Prime Minister was purely for show.’ He gave a clipped chuckle, then frowned with what seemed to her embarrassment. ‘Patrick persuaded me that you shouldn’t be on your own. He is after all the instructing solicitor who would normally be running evidence gathering.’

‘As long as he doesn’t get in the way.’

‘He won’t.’

She hesitated. ‘There’s an issue.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Racism is not just white and black. It grieves me to say it, but there is often strong prejudice in my community against Africans and West Indians.’

‘Yes, I know. It was one reason Patrick couldn’t do the task I need you to do. Nor is he in your league.’

‘I’m sure he—’

‘No, he’s not, Sara. You are an outstanding young lawyer with the right credentials, both as a professional and as a human being.’

Sara saw him smiling at her with an almost paternal fondness and tried not to show her pleasure.

‘I’ve no doubt you’ll get on with him,’ he continued.

‘Oh yes,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘And there won’t be any complications,’ she added, immediately wishing she hadn’t. She made to rise but he held up a hand to halt her and went to his desk. He opened the middle drawer, extracted a key and unlocked the bottom left pedestal drawer. He pulled out an unmarked white A4 envelope.

‘This contains photocopies I’ve made from Sayyid’s folder.’ He handed the envelope to her. ‘For Patrick, and anyone else, the story is that you are working initially from cases you came across at Rainbow which you hope will lead to others. It would appear that your first trip will be to the North.’

‘Wherever it leads.’

They stood up together. ‘Three people know about Sayyid. You and me. And my wife, Iona. I’ve put her in the picture and she understands the meaning of the word “secret”. She also knows about you.’ He ushered her to the door, then stopped. ‘Of course there’s a fourth person who knows too. Sayyid him- or herself. But once you start ringing doorbells, other ears and eyes may be alerted. For good or bad, we are a surveilled society.’

Sara returned to the Legal office. Patrick peered up, noticing the envelope under her arm. ‘Secrets from the Chairman?’ he asked teasingly.

Sara kicked herself for the carelessness and hoped she betrayed none of the thuds with which her heart had just rattled her ribcage. ‘Chairman’s induction,’ she replied. ‘He strikes me as a man who likes things done in a certain way.’ She put it in her case. ‘I honestly don’t think I’ve the energy right now for house rules and regs. Might make my mark with Sylvia instead.’

‘Good luck.’ Patrick pulled a child-like grimace and returned to his screen.

Deliberately leaving the case by her desk to suggest nothing unusual, she went next door to the library.

Sylvia Labone looked up fiercely. ‘You’re back.’

‘I thought I’d give you a rough idea of prayer times – though they keep changing, of course.’

‘Would you like me to vacate?’

‘Not at all, you won’t be disrupted.’

She looked Sara up and down. ‘Do you smoke?’

‘No.’

‘Of course not. Right, let me show you around.’

She walked Sara up and down the shelves, describing her colour coding for submissions, authors, reports and originally commissioned research. ‘Of course, this material is all digitally stored too but our distinguished panel members often prefer to read hard copies. When they read anything at all.’

‘It’s impressive,’ said Sara, trying to soothe a woman whom life seemed to have made congenitally angry. ‘What about police and intelligence files?’

‘Coming to that,’ replied Sylvia irritably. ‘Their research reports and general assessments are handled in the same way. However, since Snowden, anything classified, shall we say, is, frankly, fog and mist, subject to endless redactions. Most of them look like a sea of black waves.’

‘Surely we can get more,’ asked Sara brightly.

‘You’d better get to work on our chairman,’ she replied. ‘Names. Names, places, times, addresses. It’s all scrubbing brush without those, isn’t it?’

At 5 p.m., Sara tapped on Morahan’s half-open door.

‘Come in, Sara, come in,’ he beamed. His informality continued to surprise her.

‘I’ve looked at those files,’ she said. ‘There’s no guarantee of finding any of those five names or of them talking if we do.’

‘Let’s see. I trust your ingenuity.’

‘And I’ve no idea anyway what story they have to tell.’ She cast him a trenchant look. ‘Do you?’

‘No. Nor do I know whether Sayyid does or if he’s leaving us to find out. And we have only his word that they lead to significant wrongdoing relevant to this Inquiry’s remit.’ He gave an encouraging smile. ‘But at least there seems the one link, doesn’t there?’

‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘As you say, let’s see.’

She hesitated, wondering whether or not to raise her nagging question. He read her. ‘Is there something you want to ask?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Try me.’

‘It’s just – I know I’ve asked it before – why me? You’ve been so emphatic that it could be no one else.’ She took the plunge. ‘Is there anything you’re not telling me?’

He rubbed his eyes and looked straight into hers. ‘I promise you there is no one more suitable for this task. Every word I’ve exchanged with you since has confirmed that view.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘Yes, that’s it. We’ll be a good team. You look after yourself. And have faith in me.’ It seemed a strange choice of words from a senior figure more than thirty years older than her and with such greater experience. He was a likeable man but there remained something impenetrable about him. The niggle would not go away.

As she shut the door behind her, Morahan felt unease. The urge to confess the true reason for her recruitment had been almost irresistible. He tried to comfort himself; she would at least have Patrick’s protection and he was thereby honouring his commitment to her – though he still didn’t understand why the government solicitor had been so insistent on accompanying her. Sara agreed arrangements with Patrick for an early train in the morning and he’d left for the day. Alone, she tried to work out why the Inquiry’s office seemed somehow so unfamiliar, discomforting even. The only sound was the near inaudible hum of internal ventilation, breathing air into sealed units with sound-proofed windows and newly laid carpets. Not even the occasional click of shoe heels broke through. Nor voices.

That was it – the hush. In Knightly Court, there were interruptions of chatter, meetings along the corridors, the odd joke told in reception, a wheezing splutter from Ludo, the creaking of badly fitting doors. Here, in the open-plan office, there was silence; eyes glued to screens, only occasional murmured questions, overseen by the headmistressy figure of Pamela Bailly. Patrick, now she thought about it, bantered in their own office, not outside it; Sylvia, she suspected, gave up banter a while ago. Morahan himself, however forthcoming with her, was hardly gregarious. In this silence she detected not calmness, but tension.

Her phone sounded – a text. She clicked to view.

A colleague may not be what they seem.

Thought you should know. Take care.

Her heart racing, she checked the number. Not from her contacts. Not familiar. Her fingers burning, she hit reply and typed a single word.

Hello.

She awaited the ping, somehow sure of the worst.

Message sending failed.

5

Heading north out of King’s Cross, they exchanged idle chitchat before burying themselves behind laptops. Sara forced herself to act naturally with Patrick; the anonymous text preyed on her every waking moment, distorting the lens through which she grabbed occasional glances at him, in touching distance across the table, peering down at his screen.

She tried to convince herself there could be another explanation. It was more than a decade since that last text, sent in precisely the same form of language from an unknown number, had cast its shadow over her life. But people texted all the time, she told herself, without bothering with names. Except, as she well knew, the receiver would know the name from the number – or at least have a number that responded when they checked.

She’d repeatedly gone over the core words: ‘… A colleague may not be what they seem…’ They were too vague to be meaningful. A nothing. Anyone could have made that up.

She needed to stop kidding herself – this was not a random coincidence. Either it was the same sender or someone who knew about, or once had some contact with that sender, and knew their modus operandi. But for what? To scare her? To help her? To undermine her?

She grabbed another look at Patrick, then found herself seeing those other faces in the Inquiry office floating by.

If only she could discuss it with someone. But she understood all too well the logic of her position. The text was a dagger only to her because of the message that July morning fourteen years ago. Unless she owned up to that, anyone looking at this message would simply tell her to ignore it. Some joker trying to wind her up, they’d say. Or the detritus of office politics and rivalries.

Perhaps, when she next saw Morahan, she might ask him whether he had reason to suspect that anyone on his staff was operating to a different agenda. He’d probably look at her with mystification. If he did, she could just about imagine herself showing him the text. She could already hear his reaction – don’t worry, some idiot…

She was going round in circles. She could never, and would never, tell a single soul about the 2005 text. She had set that in concrete when the Met detective called on her a few weeks after 7/7. He knew only that she, like many others, had attended meetings where people now of interest to the police might have been present. She said she couldn’t help him; she recognised none of the names he raised. He had no reason to doubt her.

The questions the text raised, the guilt it ignited were impossible, unthinkable to admit to anyone but herself. At that crucial moment, however much she could be forgiven for not instantly interpreting it, she had, as it turned out, failed in the most devastating possible way – a failure she’d carried like a death row prisoner’s shackles ever since. The texts, past and present, were a weight she must bear alone. The only means of sidelining them was to focus single-mindedly on the task ahead.

Trying not to catch Patrick’s eye she retrieved from her bag the Sayyid folder Morahan had given her. Wherever they now were – if they were even still alive – the five individuals named in the files all hailed from the town of Blackburn in East Lancashire. The files shared the same template, headings running vertically down the left column. The left heading was TOP SECRET, right side OPERATION with the following word blacked out. The next line began KV2 followed by a further redaction. The headings below ran: PICTURE; NAME; DOB; LOCATION; PHONE; HOME ADDRESS; FAMILY ADDRESS; FIRST CONTACT; CURRENT STATUS; NOTES; HUMINT; COMINT; LAST CONTACT; FILE STATUS.

One name was Samir Mohammed. His photograph showed a young Asian, probably taken in his late teens. Date of birth was 12 October 1987; home and family addresses the same number and street in Blackburn; current status ‘inactive’; file status ‘Closed 31 December 2006’. One entry withstood clear interpretation. Humint read ‘Contacts not pursued after closure.’

Assuming he was alive – and had not since been involved in anything of interest to the police or intelligence services – Sara judged that he might be the easiest to approach. Whether or not he still lived in Blackburn was unknown. There was no hint of what story he, or any of the other four, might have to tell.

Announcing herself as a lawyer working for a government inquiry would guarantee doors slammed in her face. Tempting though it was – and even though she suspected it was the easiest way to get a foot in the door – she decided against presenting herself as an ambulance-chasing lawyer on the lookout for Muslim clients seeking financial redress against the police (a role she was all too familiar with). Instead she would introduce herself as a market researcher working on a project seeking to learn lessons on the past twenty years of governmental relationships with the young Muslim community.

She told Patrick her protocol. Despite that moment when he’d seen her returning with the folder from Morahan’s office, she stuck to the line that she was following up cases from Rainbow.

‘Maybe when you arrive in the street of one of the addresses, you should knock on every tenth door,’ suggested Patrick. ‘Then if someone answers and is willing, do the survey with them. Just for show. It might protect not just you but your target.’ He paused. ‘Whoever they are.’ He was grinning; there was no edge, just a hint of playfulness.

She smiled back. ‘That’s a great idea, thanks.’ She’d already planned something similar but his helpfulness pleased her and she didn’t want to discourage him. She’d been worried that their professional relationship, even without the anonymous text, would be uneasy after her show of resistance to him accompanying her. She had a further card up her sleeve but, for the moment, kept it to herself. She might not need to play it.

In the time left on the train, she checked websites on Blackburn and its environs, accumulating small details of local knowledge. At Preston, they picked up a hire car, Patrick easing into his promised role as driver.

‘Do you sit in the back or the front?’ he asked with the customary grin.

As they headed south out of Preston, she found herself glancing at him. Assuming, as she told herself she must, that things were as they seemed, she wondered what he was thinking about his role as bit-part player. She also noted his perfectly angled jaw-line and broad but straight nose. The edges of his black hair were touched with a few flecks of grey; otherwise there were no signs of age or sag and, even seated in the driving position, no bulge at the waist.

‘You’re inspecting me,’ he said abruptly.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I do it to everyone.’ She paused. ‘Including Morahan. I can give you a precise facial description if you want.’

‘I can manage without.’ The grin returned.

‘I know it’s not easy, this,’ she said.

‘It’s fine.’

‘You’re not a fool. You must want me to share.’

‘It’s OK. You’ll tell me what you want when you want. Though I’d like you to know this: you can trust me. If you speak to me in confidence, it remains between you and me.’ They turned off the motorway to a sign marked ‘City Centre’. ‘But there’s one thing you do have to tell me right now. Where are we going?’

‘Straight to the hotel, please. And if it’s a dump, take me home.’ Patrick set the SatNav for the out of town ‘Savoy Inn’ into which Clovis, with a blind loyalty to the name, had booked them. It turned out to border an industrial estate filled with garages and self-storage units. Ten minutes after checking in, Patrick opened the passenger door to a Sara dressed in a long broad black skirt which gathered by her ankles, dark brown jacket and marginally lighter brown hijab replacing the usual blue scarf. He cast a fleeting look of amusement and was reprimanded by a silent raise of her eyebrows.

Even if the Asian and white population split was similar, Blackburn seemed a different world from her part of south London. Though the people were the same, here there was just a distinct lack of bustle. She imagined the place in its Victorian prime; a boom town of the industrial revolution. Then it had been the weaving capital of the world; dotted with textile mills, over a hundred and forty of them according to her recent research, driving a massive churn of activity within the green fold of the hills where they lay. Granted, there had been little joy there for the sweating workers, lungs saturated by fine clouds of cotton dust, particularly the hand weavers who would eventually be overtaken by mechanisation. But there must have been a surge of energy. Now, except for civic relics like the museum, and one half of the town hall incongruously attached to its modern glass and steel extension, the great Victorian buildings had largely gone – except for the foul-smelling brewery – and the streets appeared lifeless, tinged with sadness. Shops and pubs were boarded up. People seemed to move more slowly, with less purpose.

The demarcation between the neighbourhoods housing the South Asian Muslims, and the two-thirds of the population who were white English, was stark and discomforting. Patrick, a black Briton, was out of place. He would have to maintain a low profile.

Samir Mohammed’s home address in the twelve-year-old file was given as 59 Gent Street. Patrick dropped her at the low number end of the street and assured her that his watch would be discreet. She made her way up, knocking or ringing on numbers 9, 19, 29, 39, 49. Only one, number 29, answered. Her market research questionnaire was devised to last no more than ten minutes and she was soon sounding the bell of No. 59. A single chime responded, followed by a late middle-aged Asian woman still in the process of covering her head with a black scarf.

‘Yes?’

Before Sara had time to answer, there was a shout from a male voice above. ‘What is it, Mum?’

The woman looked at Sara with her clipboard and retreated to the bottom of the stairs. ‘You come down, it’s a lady wanting something.’ Sara felt the excited flutter of the hunter closing on its potential prey.

She heard footsteps, then trainers and jeans appeared down the stairs followed by a tracksuit top and the face of a tall man a year or two either side of thirty. The age fitted.

‘Yes?’ His expression was sullen.

‘Hello, my name’s Sara Shah and I’m doing a survey of young Muslims’ views of different government agencies–’

‘Don’t have time for that,’ he interrupted.

She tried to engage him, her eyes enlarged with pleading. ‘I know, I understand,’ she said, ‘but I’ve been walking up and down these streets all morning. There’s no one who’s in or will give me the time of day. If I don’t do my numbers, I don’t get paid.’

‘You won’t get paid?’ He looked at her more closely, seeing the attractive face within the cotton surround.

‘Yes, it’s piecework.’ She held up the questionnaires. ‘No completed forms, no money.’

‘Can’t you make it up?’

‘They’ll find out. I’ll be sacked.’ He looked her up and down, his shoulders slumping, face peering up and down the street. Her chest tightened, cramped by his wavering. ‘Please, I’m getting desperate. Won’t take long.’

He hesitated. ‘Nah, don’t fancy it, to be honest.’ She thought she had him but he wasn’t shifting. He made to close the door. She had to play her last card.

‘Wait a minute,’ she said, keeping one foot over the threshold. ‘There’s a budget I’m allowed to use.’

Suspicion and interest competed in his eyes. He looked up and down the street. ‘A budget?’

‘Yes, I can offer you something. To help me reach my target.’

‘What something?’

She took a purse out of her bag. ‘A hundred. It’ll only be a few minutes.’ He was wavering; she crossed the fingers of her other hand.

‘Nah. Not worth it.’

‘Hundred and fifty?’

He eyed her closely. Until now, she hadn’t decided how far she’d go. ‘Nah.’

She couldn’t lose him now. One final throw. ‘I’m not really allowed to do this. Two hundred.’

His frown slowly turned to a smirk of victory. ‘Go on then, come in.’

Sara made a mental note. There was something venal about Samir Mohammed.

He signalled to the front room. ‘You wanna sit in there?’ He disappeared into the kitchen. She overheard him telling his mother that it was something about a survey and his mother asking if the lady wanted a cup of tea. ‘Yeah, she looks like she needs it.’

He came back with a tray holding a teapot, two china cups on saucers, and some biscuits. ‘Mum likes it done proper,’ he said.

‘It’s kind of her,’ she said. He poured. ‘As I said, it won’t take long.’

‘I’m not in a hurry,’ he said. ‘Not now anyway.’

‘That’s great. First up, I should ask you your name,’ she smiled.

He hesitated, frowning. She held both smile and silence. ‘Samir. That enough?’ She said nothing. ‘Most people call me Sami.’

‘That’s lovely, Sami, thank you. What’s your line of work? Don’t worry, nothing to do with this,’ she said, glancing down at her clipboard, ‘I’d just be interested.’

‘Security. Down at the Rovers. Mainly evenings and nights. Match days too. That’s why I’m home now.’

‘Blackburn Rovers?’

His face spread into a broad, innocent smile. ‘How d’you know that?’

‘Well, they’re a big team, aren’t they?’ Sara blessed the width of her research.

‘Yeah, once.’

‘The Championship’s not a bad place to be.’

‘Maybe we’ll get back into the Premiership sometime.’

‘Do you play?’

‘Used to. Not much now. Tend to keep myself to myself.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah, easier, know what I mean?’

‘Yes,’ she said with soft sympathy, ‘I know exactly what you mean, Sami.’

She sipped her cup of tea and looked happily at him, waiting. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘What’s this all about?’

‘Just want to ask you a few questions for the survey,’ she said.

‘Survey?’

‘Yes. Governments do them all the time. All anonymous. Just trying to find out what people think of their lives, what can be done to improve them, what their experiences have been.’

‘Sounds all right.’

‘Shall I start?’ Sara laid the clipboard on her lap and began a list of questions with multiple choice answers. She’d designed it to be innocuous without sounding pointless – ranges of satisfaction or dissatisfaction over dealings with employers, council officials, education service and the like. Ten minutes or so in, she came to the final question. Omitting it would appear odd – it might also provide clues.

‘OK, Sami, last one. The police.’

‘Police?’

‘Yes. Can’t leave them out, can we?’ Was there an anxious flicker of the eye or did she imagine it? If there was, it lasted just a millisecond. He was either sufficiently settled not to bridle further or cool enough not to react.

She went through the choices. Number of dealings over the past five years: 0, 1–5, 6–10…

‘Can’t say I’ve really had any,’ he said shortly.

‘OK. In that case, that’s it,’ she said.

‘You mean we’re done.’

‘Yes.’ She began to rise.

‘No hurry. Have another cup of tea.’

She sank back and sighed. ‘Are you sure? Your mum won’t mind?’

‘Nah.’

Sami disappeared with the tray into the kitchen. Sara wasn’t sure whether he was lonely or looking for female company. Maybe, now that he appeared to trust her, she was a break from boredom. What, in any case, was she hoping to find? The trail that had led her to his door stemmed from something in his past twelve years ago. Without knowing what it was, she couldn’t tell whether what had attracted the surveillance had even been noteworthy to Samir himself. He might simply have been an innocent link in a chain.

He swaggered in with a refilled teapot and, this time, cake.

‘Mum insisted. She’s always baking cakes. Watching too much Nadiya, I reckon.’

‘I won’t be able to move!’

‘You’ll need stamina.’ He poured tea and looked at her awkwardly. ‘You do this all the time?’

‘No, just part-time,’ she said. ‘But it can be interesting. You get to know people. Sometimes they have stories to tell you wouldn’t believe. You know, like, in this one we’re looking at how Muslims are treated here and everything that’s happened. ’Course, I treat everything in confidence but sometimes I can really help people.’

‘Is that right? What sort of things?’

Sara looked at him as if she were in deep thought – buying time to calculate how far to push it. ‘I can’t say details of what people told me privately. But… you know… bad things happened. Sometimes there’s a need to tell someone…’

He stared down at his hands, slowly rubbing them together. ‘Yeah, suppose they did.’ Maybe her prior knowledge was influencing her but she sensed a memory floating by him. She held the silence, hoping he would fill it. He looked up. ‘Yeah well, stuff happens, don’t it?’ Then no more. Closure. Any further pushing could clam him up completely. She mustn’t show disappointment. She quickly drained her cup of tea.

‘That was lovely, Sami, thanks so much. And so nice to meet you.’

‘You going?’ She detected disappointment.

‘Yes, better get back to it.’ He rose too. ‘I’ll be here for another couple of days if you fancy another tea. My treat this time.’

‘Dunno what I’m doing.’

Sara pulled a card from one of two sets in her handbag. It read, ‘Sara Shah. Market researcher.’ And a mobile number.

He read it quickly. ‘Yeah, OK.’

‘Give me a ring if you’d like to meet up.’ She gave him the most intense look she dared. ‘Be good to see you again.’ Quickly she pulled back and smiled. ‘Will you thank your mum for me?’

‘Yeah.’ He came to the door as she walked back onto the pavement. So great was the combination of expectation and frustration that she only remembered just in time that she was a market researcher knocking on every tenth number of Gent Street. He was still watching as she pressed the bell of No. 69. Reaching the end of the street, she chanced a final look-back. No sign of him. Or anyone else.

The car drew alongside as she turned the corner.

‘Well?’

‘Hang on a minute.’ She settled herself in her seat, fastened the belt, and foraged in her bag for her make-up mirror as he moved off down the street. She removed it and checked her face, applying tiny pats of powder. Buying time again.

This was going to be impossible unless, to some extent at least, she levelled with him, whatever the wariness now infecting her. What was there to lose anyway? He could see that she had case histories – it would be perverse not to share. To test trust, maybe you had to give it.

‘OK. Morahan gave me some files.’

‘That was pretty obvious, Sara.’

‘Was it that bad?’ She remembered his expression. ‘Did you have a peek in the folder when I was with Sylvia?’

He slapped his foot on the brake and pulled in to the roadside. ‘For f— Sorry, I’ll start that again. What do you take me for?’

She was consumed by embarrassment, wanting to tell him about the text so that he’d understand. She mustn’t. Not till she really knew him – if she ever did. And still that horrible, sinking feeling – what if he was the one she had to look out for?

‘I’m sorry, Patrick.’

He softened. ‘It’s OK. Go on.’

‘I don’t know where they came from, MI5, Special Branch, your guess is as good as mine.’ The half-truth was weak; she needed to be better at this. ‘They relate to five young Muslims with family addresses in Blackburn. Two appear to have been closed by the end of 2006.’

‘2006? Long time ago.’

‘Yes. But the other three remained open.’

‘And one of the five lived, or lives, in Gent Street.’

‘I found him. He was at home. Still lives with his mum. I could hardly believe it. I finally got inside…’

‘Well done.’

‘I had to use a last resort.’

‘Oh?’

‘Used fivers.’

Patrick frowned. ‘How many?’

‘Actually, more like twenties. Ten of them.’ Though he said nothing, Patrick’s eyebrows shot up. ‘He’s smart,’ she continued. ‘Greedy too. He’d never have done it for nothing.’

He was silent for a few seconds. ‘Good call,’ he finally said. ‘I’ll find a way of putting it through the books.’

She felt her shoulders sag with relief. ‘I didn’t feel especially proud of myself. Anyway, he warmed up, Mum was friendly, tea on saucers, he did the survey. I could see he liked the look of me.’

‘Of course.’

She lowered her eyes. ‘Didn’t want me to go. We chatted more. Then I truly thought he might just be about to cough something.’

‘But he didn’t.’

‘No. Don’t know why he baulked. Or what I did.’

‘Stop beating yourself. You did well to get that far.’

She winced. ‘I left him my number. But I think he’s slipped the hook. So onto the next.’

He was circling streets with no particular aim, listening. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a bite. These neighbourhoods are chatty. You carry on walking their streets and word will get around about you and your survey. Not bad words, just words. Give it twenty-four hours. Stay out of sight and mind.’

‘Won’t it be time wasted?’

‘I’ve a better idea. Fancy climbing a hill?’ Without awaiting her reply, he put his foot on the accelerator and sped without exceeding the limit too blatantly in the direction of the Savoy Inn.

She wondered why he hadn’t asked to see the actual files – it was such an obvious request. The good manners to wait until she offered? Or a man who knew how to bide his time?

Sami Mohammed, concealed inside the porch, watched until she turned the corner. She reached the end of the street quickly. Either there really was no one in at the further ten doors she’d approached or she hadn’t bothered to ring any bells.

Who was she? Why had she seemed so desperate to get into his house? The old terror was creeping back. Was she part of them, testing him out? Or part of something else, wanting to rake over the coals? Perhaps embers still flickered and, even now, the fire hadn’t gone out. He went inside, closed the door, and shot upstairs to his bedroom, bypassing the inquisitive stare of his mother.

He retrieved from its hiding place in his chest the card they’d left with him. Time froze as he stared at it – plain, three by two inches, now yellowed at the corners with a crease down the middle like the depression in an old man’s back. On it a number, nothing more. The threat that came with it didn’t need to be written down – he’d never forget it. ‘If anyone ever starts asking questions, anyone at all, anytime at all, even years ahead, phone this. You don’t, you’re dead.’

He tried to work out the risks. If she’d been sent by them – what the reason might be this many years later he couldn’t begin to fathom – he could end up dead meat if he didn’t at least try to phone it. If she’d come from someone trying to go after them, he could still end up dead if he didn’t warn them.

Or, if she was what she said she was, he’d do better to let things lie. Reflecting on it, he became ever more sure that she wasn’t. It was as if she’d wanted him to suspect – know even – that she was more than she first seemed.

She’d wanted him to spill something.

Even thinking of those times – the times leading up to when he’d been given that little card and the lifetime warning – made his guts churn and his pulse quicken.

He picked up his phone.

He didn’t expect the call to be answered so fast.

6

2006

Wherever they were headed, it wasn’t Paradise.

5.30 a.m. He’d done morning prayers and lay in bed dozing. From his bedroom at the back of the house he heard a low whistle – his friend, Asif. He drew back the curtain and saw a familiar gesture of arms bidding him to the front. Asif up to some trick or other. Or in trouble, more likely. He had to go – couldn’t let him down.

He sprayed deodorant all over, threw on jeans, T-shirt and a long-sleeved black sweater, put a comb through black hair and fledgling beard, salve on cracked lips, sports socks inside black trainers. He checked his watch. He stood up to his full six feet two inches, inspected himself in the mirror, clenched his mouth to examine uneven teeth, grabbed a brush to use later, felt wallet and small change in the left trouser pocket, stuffed brush and comb into the right, puffed out his chest.

He eased the bedroom door open, flicking a glance across the landing, and silently closed it. He tiptoed around the squeaky floorboard and, at the top of the stairs, heard the familiar rhythm of his father wheezing. He inched down, lifted his black leather coat from its peg in the hallway and touched his phone and house keys. Everything present and correct for whatever Asif had in store. Ready to go.

He slotted a key into the front door lock and turned it. A squeak from the floor above; he froze. No footsteps – perhaps it was a groan from the depths of sleep. It made him hesitate – ask himself why Asif needed him at this hour. In all the years they’d known each other, he’d never called this early. He’d have liked to turn round, to climb back to the warmth of his bed, to sleep and dream. He jettisoned the thought; it was a friend in need. He prised the door ajar and there was the grinning face, the arms outstretched.

‘Hey, man,’ he whispered, ‘what’s it about this time?’

‘It’s a summons,’ his friend whispered back. They crept through the open front gate onto the pavement, the night still dark, a street lamp casting misty light on a whining milk cart further down the street.

‘What you mean, a summons?’ He looked at Asif; there was something not right, a glint of fear in his eyes.

Before there was time for an answer, his friend pulled away. Two figures in dark hoodies ranged alongside, clamping his arms and forcing him across the road.

‘Hey, what the—’

‘Shut it, brother, I’m just the escort,’ snarled one, gagging his mouth with a black leather glove.

Sami turned his head and glimpsed Asif watching, the fear now tinged with regret. Did he hear his voice? ‘Sorry, man.’ Or did he just imagine it as his friend disappeared into the dawn gloom?

He was alone, outnumbered, unarmed, not even a knife. He thought of screaming. They saw it; the black-gloved fist slapped into his mouth. They pushed him into the windowless back of a small van; one leapt inside with him, the other locked the door. Imprisoned. Even if he overpowered his ‘escort’, there was no way out.

‘What’s this about, brother? I ain’t done nothing,’ he mumbled.

He heard the second man’s footsteps circle the van, a door slam, the engine fire up, a jerk of acceleration pitching him against the carcass of steel.

The escort – his jailer, more like – pointed to his pocket and beckoned with a finger to hand over what was in it.

‘What you want?’

The escort, staying silent, beckoned again. Sami feigned puzzlement. The response was a kick in the shin. Understanding, he handed over his mobile. He was allowed to keep his watch.

One hour gone.

It seemed unreal, a sick fantasy happening in a parallel universe. The silence became his oppressor, the unreality lifting like the misty dawn he imagined outside. He thought, rethought, re-rethought. What could they know about him? Sure, he’d talked stuff with the group – Ali, Farooq, Shay the glamour boy, Asif himself. They’d dreamed and schemed but it was never more than bravado. At least not from him. An ugly idea hit him – were any of them serious? Had they really meant it? Had he seemed to commit?

That night with the girl? There was some messing, sure… she was a bit young – but none of them actually did it with her. Nothing like some of the rumours he’d heard going around. After the foster mother complained, the police had them in but didn’t even caution them. He’d wanted to apologise to her but the others told him to leave it. Surely it couldn’t be that. If not, what else?

Three or so hours steady speed on flat roads – motorway, he assumed – then endless bends, falling and climbing, now the rattle of rutted lanes. Seated on the wheel-arch, he felt only the soreness in his behind and scraping in his bones. For the thousandth time he lifted an eye to the escort sitting opposite. For the thousandth time, there was no response.

He tried one gambit. ‘I need to piss, brother.’ Another. ‘I can’t say my prayers like this, brother.’ A curl of the lip from the bleak figure facing him. A third. ‘Which way’s east?’ The figure shook his head. ‘Don’t you speak, man?’ A scowl.

The van juddered to a stop, swiftly followed by the crunch of boots on gravel and the shock of blinding daylight as the back doors were flung open. His escort shoved him out of the van and he managed not to stumble. They were on a rutted single-track road through the forest. There was no view, no contours in the land – no sense of height or terrain. He knew these men had been here before. One produced a bottle of water, filled a small basin, and gestured at him to wash and say his prayers. His heart raced as he wondered if they were to be his last. They watched and, when he’d finished, retrieved the basin.

‘I need a piss, brothers.’ They pointed to a bush and carried on watching. As he emptied his aching bladder, he stole a look to left and right but each direction led only to a canopy of forest. ‘Where are we?’

‘You’re in the back of there, brother,’ said the driver, opening the doors again.

‘Hey, you speak.’ Sami turned from driver to escort. ‘He don’t.’

The blow in the solar plexus doubled him up, arrows of agony tearing into his gut. ‘Fuck!’ was all he could say. They shoved him inside with a kick in the back of a knee. He looked down at the escort’s hob-nailed boots and excruciating pain speared into his thigh. The grinding and spluttering of an abused engine drove them ever higher. He tried to imagine sky, sun, cloud, rain. Nothing came – just the implacable expression of the man opposite.

‘You know what day it is, brother?’ The escort’s voice struck like a cymbal clash. He’d spoken. This time he’d be the one to say nothing.

‘I asked you a question, brother. Do you know what day it is today?’

‘What you mean, what day?’

‘September the eleventh. Eleven nine. Nine eleven. Remember?’ His voice leeched sarcasm. ‘Fifth anniversary.’

‘Yeah, fuck, sorry, brother.’ Sami tried to stop the cowering in his mind from showing in his face. Nor the confusion, because he didn’t know what he was supposed to say.

‘And you call yourself a brother.’

‘Fuck’s sake, I’m confused. Wouldn’t you be? Five years, yeah?’

‘That’s right. Never forget. Five years.’

The van slowed and snagged left, then immediately right. More footsteps, the tuneless squeal of a rusting gate, a door slam, then bouncing along… along what? The van stopped, turned and reversed, the doors opened. He emerged with head bowed; all he saw was a dark concrete passage, the van doors at right angles blocking right and left. He wondered what lay beyond and listened. A rustling, nothing more.

They dragged him along a ribbed concrete floor, a smell of hay and dung. Petrol fumes overtaken by shit. Stables, cows, horses? He’d hardly ever been outside the town or seen an animal beyond the halal butcher. They stopped, pushed open a door and hurled him through it. He heard the click of key in lock – his new prison. The floor was tiny squares of concrete, a bed of hay in one corner, a trough of water in another, a single tap and a bucket below. Soap and a roll of toilet paper. High up a small window, an inch or two ajar, too high and too small to escape through. Though he didn’t know what he’d be escaping from. At least it offered some sense of light and time. Were they watching his observance? He should exaggerate to make sure, make a show of it. The stink of shit was overwhelming – he felt it seeping into his clothes and pores.

‘Watch!’ A voice from outside. The door half-opened, a hand stretched towards him. ‘Gimme your watch.’

He tried to count the minutes and hours, washed and prayed according to his best guesses until, finally, the light through the window began to fade. The door opened; a new face appeared with a slice of bread and bowl of thin soup.

‘Thank you, brother.’

The reply was a punch below the midriff. He recoiled. He looked at the food and tepid liquid and a tear trickled down his cheek. Angrily he brushed it away and began hungrily to eat and drink the meagre ration. When he finished, there remained an emptiness in the pit of his stomach.

Darkness. The sound of a dripping tap on the other side of the wall. He counted the gap – every three seconds without break. It stopped. He breathed deeply, forced himself to relax, closed his eyes and laid his head on the hay. Fatigue seized him and he waited for sleep to end the waking nightmare. As his eyes closed and peace descended, the drip restarted – a loud, metallic ping. He sat up with a jolt, nerves crushing him. Was the timing deliberate? Yet there was no noise, no sounds of other humans, no breathing beyond his now hurried exhalations. He looked up and around for cameras, both overt and concealed. Nothing. Some kind of lamp outside the window cast a shaft of light on the opposite wall. He tried to close his eyes to darken the reflection. Another drip. Then he woke up, cold and cramped.

After daybreak, more bread and a mug of black tea. He said nothing and it was delivered without violence. He was given a brush to clean his teeth and managed a small defecation in the bucket. When the plate and bowl were collected, the bucket was replaced. He didn’t dare to speak words of gratitude.

On the third morning, after two more breaking, corroding days and nights, a different man looked in, less roughly dressed.

‘Come.’ Sami nodded, not opening his mouth. ‘It’s all right, brother, you may speak now.’

He felt exhausted, cramped, his legs like jelly. He forced his voice into action despite the dread of allowing the wrong words to escape. ‘Thank you, brother,’ he murmured.

‘It is time for you to meet the Adviser.’

‘It’s everything I imagined,’ said Patrick, turning the corner that brought the unique form of Pendle Hill into view. It was late afternoon – they had a couple of hours to get up and down before darkness would turn the great delineated mass visible in daylight into a brooding nocturnal shadow. ‘You see photographs and don’t think it could be like that. But it is. A blue whale. An enormous blue whale.’

‘A whale?’ Sara exclaimed with exaggerated alarm.

‘Yes, don’t you see the tail rising up from the valley and that smooth long back leading to the broad mouth feeding off the valley below?’

She turned to him. ‘I think I see a man with an unexpected imagination.’

As the village of Barlow receded and they gained altitude, he in boots, jeans and anorak, she in trainers, jeans and hoodie, the north-west wind began to flap their jackets and flick their faces. The stony path on peat bog compressed by thousands of summer tramplings was dry and they skipped easily up it. Sara felt the tensions of the encounter with Sami ebb as her breaths deepened. Nearing the final crest, the wind strengthened and, once they were over it, was transformed into a roar, an invisible compression of sounds and waves ripping into their cheeks and rib cages. The summit plateau, Patrick’s enormous whale-back, stretched into the distance.

‘Let’s get to the very top,’ he yelled. In a few hundred yards they were standing by the cairn and trig point that marked the summit, the wind at its fiercest.

‘I always wanted,’ said Patrick, betraying for the first time a slight breathlessness, ‘to see if it’s possible to lean against wind.’ He spread his arms and legs out. ‘But until now I’ve never been in a wind strong enough to try it.’ He slowly leant forward into its teeth until, finally, he was forced to put forward a leg to steady himself. ‘Fantastic. It works. Try it!’

There was an edge in Patrick’s challenge. Sara frowned at him, then grinned. ‘OK.’ She likewise spread her arms and legs. He was right; there was an invisible wall keeping her from falling. She leant further, and then, without warning, the wind relented a fraction and she went, the grass rushing towards her. She felt arms round her chest, pulling her back up and enfolding her, then releasing her.

‘You went too far,’ he said. ‘Lucky I was here.’

‘Yes, too far.’ She felt suddenly embarrassed, foolish even, messing around on an isolated hilltop with a man she might instinctively trust but still hardly knew. ‘Enough of the entertainment,’ she said waspishly. ‘Let’s head down.’

As they reached the plateau’s edge she paused before beginning the descent. The Ribble valley was alight in the late sun, arrows of reddening yellow bouncing off the Black Moss reservoirs below, a few farmhouses and cottages adrift like small boats in a calm sea of green. Remembering the modest streets of Muslim Blackburn, she was mesmerised by the peaceful spectacle below in the dying of the day. ‘You can see why people might want to come to these parts,’ she said, poise recovered. ‘You’d have to travel hours out of London to see anything like this.’

‘You can see why it spooked people too,’ he said.

‘Yes, the Witches of Pendle. I mugged up on them on the train. 1612. Twelve tried and executed. A land of superstition and fraudulence.’

‘Nothing like now, then,’ he said. There was no grin.

That night Sara went over the five files again. First contacts varied between the second half of 2005 and early 2006. There was wider variation in their outcomes.

1) Asif Hassan, closed in 2006.

2) Farooq Siddiqi, first contact 2003, ‘exited 2007’, file then closed.

3) Shayan al-Rehman, ‘contact lost’, file open.

4) Iqbal Jamal Wahab, ‘returned 2014’, file closed 2015.

5) Samir Mohammed, ‘closed 2006’.

And there was the link. The one thing common to them all. Should she have bounced it on Sami? No. It would have been a huge risk, a shock tactic that could have deterred him irredeemably. No specific day was given but in June 2006 under ‘Contacts’ there was an entry in all five files. ‘Interviewed by Blackburn CID. Released without charge.’ It gave no hint of the content of the interview. It may not have been proof positive but it gave every sign of a connection.

If only Sami would get back to her, she might have gained enough trust to lure him into giving her the link; but she knew that bird might have flown. She would next try Asif Hassan’s family address; as his file was also closed at the end of 2006, he, like Samir, might just have stayed in Blackburn. Or remained in touch with his family.

Who else was alive? Who, if any, was dead? And how?

What were the files designed to lead her to?

She washed, prayed and allowed herself a slow bath. Even if the Savoy Inn’s sanitary ware was peeling at the edges, the water was hot and she could stretch out her legs. She thought of Patrick’s arms retrieving her. ‘You went too far.’ She tried to remember his expression at that moment; it wouldn’t come.

A coded warning? ‘Don’t go too far again.’

7

2006

‘Move faster! You don’t wanna keep the Adviser waiting.’

The end of the darkened passage emerged into a small courtyard. The sky was a clear blue, the sun hiding behind a slate roof to the east; below, greyish bricks and mullioned windows, a fanlight over a charcoal front door. As before, he could see no further – the courtyard walls were the screen now. He imagined hills and green fields, valleys and crystal streams, but there was no evidence of them, nor of where he might be. No people with accents or different-coloured skins, no road signs, no markings. No lights in the house.

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