Babel

7

B rock walked alone to the steps which led up to the front door. It was unlocked, and he stepped inside without pulling on the iron bell handle. When he closed the heavy door behind him the noises of the street abruptly ceased. Inside was silence.

Immediately in front of him, laid out on the cheap blue vinyl floor covering, were several pairs of shoes. He bent and removed his own, placed them alongside, and padded forward in his stockinged feet. The place smelled musty, as if years of irretrievable dust had settled in the cracks around the old skirtings and wooden floor boards whose irregularities his feet could feel through the vinyl. A stair with a heavy wooden banister rose steeply against the wall to his left, while ahead lay a corridor running to the head of another flight, leading downwards. He went that way, picking up the sound of dripping water as he approached the stairs and descended.

He came to a white-tiled ablutions room, with taps and duckboards running along each flank and on both sides of a low central dividing wall, three or four dozen wash places in all. He was taking this in when a cough behind him made him turn. A man was watching him suspiciously from the stairs.

‘Good afternoon,’ Brock said. ‘I would like to speak to the imam. Can you tell me where I might find him?’

The man considered him without speaking for a moment, then said, ‘Follow me,’ and turned on his stockinged heel. Brock went after him, back up to the entrance, then up the long flight of stairs to the first floor, where the man told him to wait while he went through a door in a partition nearby. He was standing in the corner of a hall, surprisingly large, with timber-fronted balconies cantilevered around three sides, and half a dozen elaborate chandeliers suspended from the high ceiling. It was bare of all furniture, as if it might be used for dancing, except that the whole floor was carpeted. The pattern on the deep green carpet was a repeated motif of the yellow outline of a shape like a small pointed archway, or an artillery shell, and the disconcerting thing was that, instead of pointing towards one of the walls, in line with the geometry of the room, the carpet had been laid with the motifs all pointed at a skew angle, as if some great hidden magnet had swung them all off course.

After a few minutes the man returned to the doorway and waved Brock through. In a small office, amid filing cabinets and the clutter of stationery, a small black-bearded man in a white skullcap and black gown looked up from the desk where he was writing.

‘Mohammed Hashimi,’ he said cautiously, unsmiling through his spectacles. ‘I am the imam. How may I help you?’

Brock thanked him for seeing him, and asked if he might speak with him in private.

The imam frowned, then nodded to the other man who had remained waiting at the door. He left, closing the door behind him, and Brock then explained who he was.

Imam Hashimi invited him to sit, and said, ‘Our relations with the local police are excellent. What kind of help do you want from me?’

‘I’m working on a serious case. You may have read about it. The murder of a Professor Springer, at the university near here.’

A tremor of alarm crossed the imam’s face, and he slowly bent to a side drawer in his desk and drew out a copy of that morning’s Herald, as if he were producing something dangerous or dirty that he hadn’t wanted to leave out in public view.

His fingers touched the headline. Brock nodded confirmation.

‘But surely, we can’t help?’ The man’s Pakistani accent was modified by a soft nasal Yorkshire twang.

‘We’re trying to eliminate people from our inquiries. And we want to do it without barging into a community and causing unnecessary alarm. I believe you may be able to help us with some local people we’d like to speak to.’

‘You’ve got lists of people in our community?’

‘Not lists, no, no. Nothing like that.’ Brock tried to sound reassuring. ‘Just three lads who’ve been expressing some rather extreme views, I understand. I dare say that’s all it is, youthful exuberance, but I’d like to speak to them anyway. These are their names.’ He handed the imam a piece of paper.

‘Oh, Islamic Action,’ he murmured wearily.

‘Sharif has been in a bit of trouble in the past, hasn’t he, expressing his views in a fairly violent way?’

The imam sighed. ‘A very stupid incident. Ahmed gets carried away by ideas and expresses the impatience that all young people feel from time to time, but in a most intemperate way. It’s good to see a young man taking a passionate interest in his religion, of course, but there was always something excessive about his piety. It would distress me very much if he’s done anything really bad. He is a bright, impressionable boy. The other two follow him for their own reasons.’

‘Where does Ahmed get his ideas from?’

‘Ideas are everywhere, Chief Inspector. He reads books, watches satellite TV programmes from the Middle East, and follows the web sites.’

‘I was thinking more in terms of human contacts. Is he in personal touch with any groups, here or overseas?’

‘If so I’m not aware of it. He probably wouldn’t tell me anyway. He’s always respectful to me, but I think he believes I’m too ready to accommodate and compromise. He is what the people back in Pakistan call a BBCD, a “British Born Confused Desi”. BBCDs have a problem with their cultural tradition, basically. They either reject it totally and try to become more English than the English, or they go to the other extreme and embrace it with a fanaticism that is embarrassing to those back home who still actually live in it.’

‘What about his family?’

‘Ah, yes. He lives with his mother who is a good, mildnatured woman who cannot control him. His father was white, and left them years ago. You can make what you want of that. Ahmed took his mother’s family name when he was a teenager and refused to answer to his father’s, whatever it was, I forget.’

‘What about this man Springer? Would Ahmed have known of him do you think?’

‘I can’t imagine how. I’ve never heard of him. As far as I know I’ve never heard his name mentioned. That’s what seemed so improbable when I read this story in the paper. I said to myself, a fatwa against whom? Surely this is nonsense. But dangerous nonsense.’

‘Exactly. Now, Imam Hashimi, can you tell me where we can find Ahmed and his friends?’

The imam sighed. ‘I suppose I can. It wouldn’t be hard to find out, anyway.’ He referred to a thick office notebook filled with names and addresses in alphabetic order, and wrote three down for Brock.

On the way out they stopped for a moment in the main hall of the mosque, where Brock asked about the carpet pattern. ‘It points to Mecca?’

‘That’s right.’ Imam Hashimi handed Brock a small publication about the history of the building. ‘In the nineteenth century it was used as a Methodist Hall for sailors and dock workers, then it became a synagogue, and now it’s a mosque. But the joke is that it was originally built as a brewery.’ His eyes twinkled behind the glasses and he lowered his voice. ‘That’s been left out of the official history. I dare say Ahmed would be offended.’ Then his face became serious again. ‘The trouble is that people don’t take care with words. It’s so dangerous. This word “fatwa”, for example. A fatwa is simply a ruling on some question or in a dispute, issued by a specialist in Islamic law, a mufti. In a Muslim state, for example, the judge in a court of law would be assisted by such a mufti who would issue fatwas for his guidance in a case. But now, you see, in the newspapers a fatwa means the insane death-lust of fiendish Islamic fundamentalists- another dangerous word. It’s all so dangerous. That is why I will do what I can to help you, Chief Inspector. To restore calm and good sense.’

They shook hands, and Brock padded down the stairs to retrieve his shoes.

If Ahmed Sharif still had dreadlocks, as PC Talbot had described, they were now hidden beneath a grubby-looking strip of material wound round his head in the style of a Taliban guerrilla, a look reinforced by his unkempt wispy beard, his pinched, underfed build, and his large unblinking eyes.

‘Again, what’s your real surname, sunshine?’ Bren asked. ‘Nathaniel what?’

Ahmed’s eyes grew marginally larger and wilder.

‘Nathaniel being your correct Christian name, right?’

Brock wondered whether Bren intended being quite so offensively crass. It wasn’t his real nature, but he was doing it very convincingly. He decided to stop him. Apart from anything else, it seemed to be counter-productive, since the boy had said nothing since Bren had started on him, and had progressed from rigid to trembling.

‘Em…’ Brock interposed gently. ‘I’m sure Inspector Gurney didn’t mean that quite the way it sounded, Ahmed. We know you’re a devout Muslim. And I’m sure Ahmed Sharif will do very well for the record just now, Bren. You are a regular at mosque, aren’t you, Ahmed?’

The lad looked at Brock suspiciously, but still said nothing.

‘Only, if you don’t want the services of a solicitor at present, I wondered if you’d feel more comfortable if we had someone here from the mosque while we interview you? Imam Hashimi, perhaps? Or someone else?’

‘I object to that, sir,’ Bren said, in his best imitation of recalcitrant constabulary.

‘Overruled, Inspector,’ Brock said firmly. ‘What do you say, son?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Only I may be called away soon, and I may have to leave you and Inspector Gurney to battle on without me.’

Ahmed blinked, the first time for some while, and then spoke. ‘How long’s this going to take then?’

‘Up to you, son. As long as necessary, I suppose.’ Brock glanced at his watch again. At least the lad had spoken. The thought of being left alone with Bren clearly didn’t appeal.

‘Yeah, all right. Imam Hashimi.’

‘Fine, fine. In point of fact, we may not even need to trouble the Imam, who I imagine is a very busy man, with a big flock to tend to. If you’d just answer the inspector’s questions, we could get this over very quickly, eh?’

He nodded at Bren who said, ‘Where were you on the afternoon of last Thursday the twentieth of January, between four o’clock and six?’

Ahmed gave this some thought, then answered suspiciously, ‘With two of my friends, at my place.’

‘Did your mum see you there?’

‘No, she was at work.’

‘Anyone else see you there?’

‘No. Where am I supposed to have been? And who am I supposed to have threatened, anyway?’ He turned to Brock angrily. Now the silence had been broken, the words were coming out fast and angry. ‘He said I was under suspicion of issuing a threat. Well, who did I threaten? This is crap, this is. This is your kafir justice, this is. You’re just trying to stitch me up, ’cos I’m not white, ’cos I’m a Muslim!’

Brock raised a calming hand. ‘No, no, Ahmed. We’re not trying to do that. Tell me, do you know anyone down at the new university in the docklands, UCLE?’

There was a slight but definite reaction, Brock thought, but then Ahmed might well have been following the Springer case. ‘You do?’

‘No, I don’t know anyone there. I wouldn’t want to.’

‘Why not? You’re a bright lad. You’d get on with the students, I should think. In fact I’m surprised you didn’t go there yourself.’

‘They’re stuck-up kafir trash!’ Ahmed burst out. ‘They just learn error and lies in that place.’

‘Do they?’ Brock said softly, beginning to feel close to something at last.

‘And they wouldn’t let the likes of me in anyway, on account of their prejudice and discrimination.’

‘But I thought they had quite a lot of Islamic students there, from many countries…’

‘Oh, yeah! Paying fees! Of course they take them if they pay! The greed of Satan knows no bounds!’

‘No, no,’ Brock shook his head sceptically. ‘I’m sure that’s not true. They wouldn’t be allowed to have a discriminatory policy, surely?’

‘It’s true! They speak lies and favour their own. I know. They turned me away.’

‘Really? When was that, Ahmed?’ Brock was aware of Bren sitting very still.

‘Four years ago! Before I took my A levels. I went for an interview, but they wouldn’t offer me a place, because I was a Muslim.’

Brock shook his head, looking shocked. ‘That’s hard to believe, these days. What subjects were you interested in, as a matter of fact? What did you apply for?’

‘PPE. But they wouldn’t have me, a Muslim from the East End.’

Brock sat back and nodded at Bren. ‘PPE. That’s philosophy, politics and economics, isn’t it? You’d have been one of Professor Springer’s students, only they closed down his undergraduate course. Was he the one who interviewed you?’

A look of confusion slowly filled Ahmed’s face, as if something had just surfaced in his mind. ‘I’m not going to say any more. Not until Imam Hashimi gets here.’

‘Actually, I’ve changed my mind about that,’ Brock said. ‘I really would advise you to accept a solicitor. As I said, it won’t cost you anything.’

‘I don’t want a Christian lawyer speaking for me.’

‘Well, we can see if a Muslim one is available. But you really do need the advice of someone who understands the law. Shall I arrange that? And while we’re waiting for that to happen, can we just confirm one little matter…’ He reached across to open the file lying on the table in front of him. Inside, in a plastic bag, was the green leaflet from Springer’s study. ‘This is one of yours, isn’t it, Ahmed?’

The young man looked carefully at it, then nodded defiantly. ‘Yeah, that’s ours.’

‘And you sent it to Professor Springer, didn’t you?’

‘Eh?’ Again the look of confusion, turning into alarm. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who is this Professor Springer?’

Brock smiled. ‘If you don’t know, Ahmed, you must be just about the last one left in the country who doesn’t. You sent him this as a death threat, didn’t you?’

Ahmed’s mouth snapped shut, his eyes startled and wide.

‘One of the interesting things about making a death threat, Ahmed, is that you’re guilty of a crime even if you don’t actually intend to carry out your threat, so long as the victim believes you do, and we know that Professor Springer believed the threat was a genuine one, because he told us about it. But then, you did intend to carry out your threat, didn’t you? You weren’t playing games.’