Babel

14

T hrough circumstances that nobody designed, but nobody resisted, both the memorial service for Max Springer and the interment of Abu Khadra were arranged for the same day, the first Thursday in February. By then Brock had been away from London for a week, and Kathy drove down to Battle to collect him and to act as his driver for the day. She found that he had dispensed with most of his visible dressings by this time, and substituted a walking stick for the crutch. She felt that the air of an old warhorse that he projected as he rejected offers of helping arms and stomped to the open car door, wounded but unbowed, was entirely right for the occasion. They waved goodbye to Suzanne and the children, and headed north. It was a bright cold winter’s day, freezing and sunny, the most appropriate of weather to face the reality of death.

Aware of how marginalised Professor Springer had become within his university, the two detectives wondered how many people would turn up for his service. But as they found a parking space in the back streets some distance from the university entrance they became aware of a host of black-coated figures all moving in the same direction as themselves, towards the university gates and the entry concourse beyond. Uniformed security staff stood at intervals to direct them towards the venue in lecture theatre U3, which meant that each sombre visitor followed the route of Springer’s last moments, the stations of Springer’s cross, passing beneath the security camera which had recorded his last moments, and up the great flight of steps on which he died, to the upper concourse where they inevitably stopped to gaze back at the view across the river towards the Millennium Dome, before continuing on to the entrance doors of the auditorium in which he had planned to give his final lecture.

Brock waved aside Kathy’s suggestion that they take the handicapped persons’ lift to the upper concourse, and, grey-bearded chin thrust forward, he grunted his way up all fifty-two of the broad steps with the help of the handrail and his stick. When they reached the lecture theatre they discovered that Springer had attracted many more people in death than in life. Looking at the size of the large hall, Kathy could see how pathetic the twenty or thirty audience for his lecture would have appeared, and how impressive the present turnout was, both in numbers and range of the university hierarchy. Even Richard Haygill, the subject of Springer’s venom, was there, accompanied by a rather glamorous looking blonde several inches taller than himself.

A small, elegantly printed leaflet on each seat explained that this would be a secular celebration of Professor Max Springer’s life and achievements, in accord with his creedless philosophy. Despite this, the service began with the stirring opening of the Faure Requiem, the haunting lines of the Kyrie reverberating through the auditorium, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

After the notes had faded away, the University President, Professor Roderick Young, moved to the simple lectern in the centre of the stage and delivered an eloquent eulogy on what he described as his ‘most highly esteemed colleague’. He spoke in a commanding, sonorous voice of the irremediable loss to the international community of scholars and to the ‘UCLE family’. After several minutes of this, Brock began to stir and make noises of either discomfort or disgust, Kathy couldn’t be sure.

Young was followed by an elderly man introduced as Springer’s cousin, speaking on behalf of the family. He seemed rather overwhelmed by the occasion, and spoke in a wavering Midlands accent, mainly of his recollections of their shared childhood in Solihull during the War. Kathy got the impression that there hadn’t been so much contact in more recent years, and she imagined that Max had probably had little in common with the English family into which, an intellectual cuckoo, he had been introduced in 1937.

Other speakers followed. An American academic and a leading member of the London literary scene both spoke powerfully about the values Springer stood for, to the accompaniment of much flash activity and note-taking from the press contingent which occupied the rear third of the raked seating. Perhaps the most surprising contribution, and for Kathy the most moving, came from a reasonably sober and clean looking Desmond Pettifer, who took the lectern and announced that he would recite his friend Max Springer’s favourite poem, which henceforth, he believed, would carry redoubled meaning for all present. With an accent becoming more pronouncedly Welsh with every syllable, he then spoke the lines of Dylan Thomas’ ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and began to appear around the hall too, as he intoned the final words with a fierce passion, ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light’.

The contrast with the interment of Abu Khadra that afternoon could hardly have been greater. After a light pub lunch, Kathy drove them to a large public cemetery near Tooting in South London. The morning sun was now hidden by a sullen grey cloud mass, and as they turned in through the gates and slowly wound their way through endless silent lanes of death the prospect became more and more grim, and, it seemed to Kathy, Dylan Thomas’ defiance more and more forlorn.

In a bleak corner most distant from the entrance, a small area had been set aside for those of the Shia Muslim faith. They were early, and reversed the car and parked at the roadside on the fringe of the area, with a view towards the newly excavated hole visible at the end of a desolate row of stones and markers inscribed with Arabic characters, a few freshly delineated in gold, the majority old and faded. As she stared out through the misting window at the scene, it occurred to Kathy that this was an appropriately terminal backdrop to the final moments of what looked to be her last case.

To avoid any possibility of fresh disturbances, there had been a strict news blackout on Abu’s burial. Only the imam of the Nur al-Islam mosque had been consulted over the arrangements, and he had been entrusted with inviting only the closest intimates of the dead man, in strictest confidence. Shortly before 3:00 p.m. a black hearse approached, followed by a single car, a battered red Toyota. They stopped just beyond the grave, steam coiling from their exhausts. Two men got out of the front of the Toyota, and Brock pointed out the heavy bulk of Qasim Ali, proprietor of the Horria Cafe, as he eased himself with difficulty out of the driver’s seat. He didn’t know the other man. Both wore overcoats and were holding black Homburgs which they arranged carefully on their heads before moving forward to the hearse, where two attendants in black suits were opening the rear door. Together the four men slid a plain casket out of the vehicle and gripped its side handles. Another man got out of the front of the hearse, wearing the black robe and headdress of a cleric, and led the way towards the grave.

Now the back doors of the Toyota swung open and three women emerged. All had covered heads, two wrapped from head to foot in loose black chadors, the other in a quilted coat and black headscarf. The last hesitated and stared curiously at Kathy’s car before following the men.

‘That’s Briony Kidd, isn’t it?’ Kathy pointed at her. ‘I was looking out for her at Springer’s service.’

‘You’re right. What about the other two?’

Kathy shook her head, unable to recognise them. They walked together, comforting each other, heads bowed, handkerchiefs held to their eyes. ‘They look like Arabs, don’t they? Maybe Abu’s relatives?’ It was impossible to tell their ages.

As the group gathered around the grave and began the rites of interment, Brock nodded towards the far end of the road along which they had travelled, where it emerged through a cluster of extravagant Victorian sarcophagi. Another car had appeared there, dark blue or purple, and had come to a halt in a position where it could observe the proceedings, though without switching off its engine. A light drizzle had begun, and its wipers began to beat very slowly across its windscreen.

‘The next funeral?’ Kathy suggested, but they had seen no other freshly dug graves at this end of the field. As she spoke the dark car began to creep forward, as if trying to maintain its view in the diminishing visibility.

‘Probably Russell’s boys,’ Brock said. ‘I thought they’d be here. Like us, unsure whether to show their faces or not.’

The other car had moved forward into a dip, its windshield visible, but not its grille and numberplate, like a half submerged crocodile, watching.

For a while nothing moved, the rain becoming heavier. Then the graveside party began to stir. The officiate spoke to each in turn, then the whole group began walking back to the cars, flanked by the two men in suits, now carrying umbrellas.

There was movement on the road ahead, too, the windscreen glinting as the dark purple car slid up out of the dip and came forward, steadily putting on speed. Puzzled at first, and then alarmed, Brock and Kathy watched as it accelerated towards the back of the Toyota. The funeral party was unaware of it at first, then Ali and the other man jerked up their heads and suddenly began shouting. With a squeal of brakes and skidding rubber the dark car juddered to a violent stop inches short of the Toyota, boxing it in against the back of the hearse. Its doors flew open and three men jumped out, waving clubs as they dived for the women.

‘Bloody hell!’ Kathy and Brock swore in unison, then Kathy ducked forward to the glove compartment, groping inside for the Asp extendable baton that she kept there. She hurled her door open, flicking the baton out as she jumped.

As she ran forward Kathy saw that Ali and his companion had closed with the attackers, the big cafe owner giving a great roar as he pitched himself on top of one of them. Another one turned, raising his club to strike Ali, but was pulled down too with a flying rugby tackle from Ali’s mate. The third attacker didn’t pause, charging on, his attention fixed on the two cloaked Arab women. He ripped the headdress off one, then thrust her aside and turned on the other, grabbing her round the neck, club arm raised, just as Kathy reached him. She lashed at his upper arm with her baton and felt it connect with his elbow with a crunch, then heard his wild shriek echo across the rain-soaked cemetery as he released the woman and stumbled backwards.

She yelled at the men struggling on the ground, ‘Police! Don’t move! Stop fighting!’ but they took no notice whatever of her. They were punching furiously, arms and legs flailing.

Briony Kidd ran to Kathy and grabbed her sleeve. ‘Do something! They want to kill her!’ she screamed. ‘They’re crazy! Save her! Get her away!’

Kathy looked quickly around. The hearse was on the move, bouncing across the burial area as it turned in a wide arc and back onto the road heading in the direction of the exit. The three women, wide eyed and terrified, were clustering around her. The man she’d struck was bent over, cursing as he nursed his arm, and his companions seemed to be getting the better of the fight on the ground.

She said, ‘Come on, quickly,’ and started ushering the three women towards her car. As she hurried them along she looked back and saw the man she had disarmed pointing at her with his good arm. He was yelling something in a language she didn’t know, and his two companions were struggling to their feet, disengaging themselves from Ali and his friend who lay on the ground.

Kathy bundled the women into the back of her car and jumped in behind the wheel, tossing the Asp to Brock. The blood was pounding in her ears. She felt elated and thought, I did OK, I didn’t blow it. But no sooner had she formed this thought than it was overwhelmed by a wave of nausea that flooded through her. She gripped the wheel tight, fighting to hold it down. Her skin felt icy and she began to shake.

‘Let’s go, shall we?’ She heard Brock’s voice, incredibly calm, at her shoulder, and half turned to see his eyes on her white knuckles. She nodded stiffly and dragged one hand off the wheel to ram the gear stick home. As the car jumped forward the three attackers stumbled to a halt, gasping for breath, then the injured one screamed something and they turned and began running for their car. As she passed them Kathy was startled to recognise the man she had struck as Sanjeev Manzoor, proprietor of the Manzoor Saree Centre on Shadwell Road. And at the same moment he clearly recognised her, for he let out a great cry of fury and began shaking his good fist at her.

Kathy drove as fast as she dared along the cemetery road, watching her mirror for any sign of the purple car behind.

‘Are any of you hurt?’ Brock was asking, stretching back over his seat at the three women in the back as he pulled out his phone. The most distraught was the shrouded figure in the middle, sobbing steadily while the other two tried to comfort her. ‘Is she hurt?’ Brock repeated.

‘She’s pregnant,’ Briony said, glaring at him as if it were his fault.

‘How much?’

‘I don’t know.’ She looked questioning at the other woman wearing the chador. ‘Fran?’

‘Six or seven months,’ Fran offered, looking worried.

Brock turned back to Kathy. ‘We’d better get her to a hospital. I’ll call for assistance.’

‘No!’

The cry from the back was so loud and firm that Brock swung back with surprise and saw the weeping woman in the middle staring at him.

‘I don’t need the hospital! I’m all right. And anyway, he’ll find me there.’

‘We’re police officers,’ he said reassuringly. ‘We’ll protect you.’

But this information only seemed to distress the woman more. She looked pleadingly at Brock and sobbed, ‘No, no. No police, please. No hospital.’ She turned to the women on each side of her and began whispering frantically. As he watched them, Brock’s uncertainty grew. Although the pregnant woman had the dark eyes and brown complexion of an Arab or Asian, she had spoken with a broad London accent, and, looking more closely at her, she seemed very young, no more than a girl. The other woman wearing the chador, Fran, had the same white complexion as Briony Kidd, who looked the oldest of the three, and also the most decisive.

‘Look,’ she said to Brock after some whispered conversation, ‘all we need is for you to get us away from here and drop us somewhere. A tube station or somewhere. We can look after ourselves after that. We don’t want to press charges against those men or anything.’

Brock was about to reply when Kathy muttered ‘Damn!’ and brought the car skidding to a halt. They had reached an older part of the cemetery and the roadway was narrow and meandering, hemmed in on each side with stone obelisks and angels and dripping yew trees. Ahead the road crossed an ornamental stone bridge, now blocked by a funeral procession coming sedately towards them. Kathy was forced to pull hard over to let them through. The leading hearse slowly passed, then one by one the long cortege of following cars came rolling over the bridge.

Kathy was still watching her mirror. After a while she murmured to Brock, ‘Company.’

He looked back through the rear window and saw the purple car approaching in the distance. It slowed as it saw them and the other procession, but didn’t stop, creeping steadily forward.

Briony caught the expression on Brock’s face and looked back over her shoulder to see what he was looking at. When she turned back she was frowning with doubt, biting her bottom lip.

‘Briony, back there you told me they wanted to kill your friend,’ Kathy said. ‘Was that a lie or the truth?’

‘It could be true,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I don’t think you’ve got any choice but to let us help you.’

She said nothing. The other two had seen the purple car now and were whispering together in agitation.

Brock said, ‘Let’s do a deal, Briony. We’ll get you somewhere safe and listen with an open mind until you’ve explained to us exactly what this is all about. Otherwise we’re heading straight for Tooting police station and I’m going to charge the lot of you with affray.’

The three women looked at each other, then the pregnant girl wiped her eyes and said in a whisper, but with firmness, ‘Yes,’ then added, ‘please.’

Brock nodded and turned away and started pressing buttons on his phone. The last car of the cortege finally cleared the little bridge and Kathy drove off just as the purple car came up behind. Together they accelerated away, driving fast enough to attract disapproving looks from mourners leaving the chapel near the cemetery entrance. At the gates Brock told her to go right and they turned into the general traffic, their tail sticking close behind for over a mile until first one, then a second police patrol car joined their progress and pulled the other car over. The women watched through the back window until they were out of sight.

‘What’ll happen to them?’ Briony demanded.

‘We’ll start with carrying an offensive weapon in a public place, and see where we go after that. It rather depends on you, and your other two friends.’

‘Yes, what about George!’ Fran cried. ‘What about George and Qasim!’

‘Qasim has a mobile phone,’ the pregnant girl said, and reeled off a number.

Brock made her repeat it, dialling as she spoke. After several rings a hoarse voice said, ‘Hello?’

‘Is this Qasim Ali?’ Brock asked.

‘Who wants to know?’ This seemed to be Qasim’s habitual greeting.

Brock offered the phone to the women in the back and Fran grabbed it. ‘Qasim? It’s Fran. Are you all right? Is George all right?’

She listened anxiously for a moment, then said, ‘No, no, we’re safe. They were the police. We’re with them. We have to talk with them. We’re all fine. You’re sure about George?’

Brock took back the phone and spoke to the cafe owner. It seemed that Qasim and George were only bruised from their fight, and were currently driving aimlessly through the South London streets trying to find the missing women. Brock told them to go home and wait for him to ring again, then turned and spoke quietly to Kathy. ‘Well, now, we’re almost in Dulwich. Where’s close, private and comfortable, where we can sit down with a nice cup of tea?’

Kathy glanced over at him, eyebrow raised. ‘You’re not thinking. .. Warren Lane?’

‘It did cross my mind.’

‘Is that wise?’

Brock shrugged and checked his watch. ‘I’m sure it isn’t. But time may be short. And I very much want to hear what all this has to do with the deaths of Abu and Springer.’

Kathy said nothing, but turned the car in the direction of Matcham High Street. Within ten minutes they were in the courtyard at Warren Lane. She parked under the horse chestnut tree near Brock’s house.

Brock led the way to his front door, limping on his stick, and led the women inside.

‘Is this what they call a “safe house”?’ Briony asked. She seemed fascinated, scrutinising everything, the pile of mail waiting inside the front door, the titles on the spines of the books lining the upstairs landing, the computer in the living room.

‘Something like that,’ Brock grunted, lighting the gas fire and getting them seated in the armchairs around it.

‘Pretty classy,’ Briony said, studying the little Schwitters collage hanging in one corner. Her eyes were still red and puffy from the tears she had shed at the funeral, and her interest now seemed like a front.

‘Come and sit down, Briony,’ Brock told her. ‘You can make us some toast on the fire, OK?’

He assembled food and tools, Kathy brought in a tray with the tea and they settled themselves, awkward at first, then gradually more relaxed and calm.

‘Well, let’s begin with your names,’ Brock suggested. ‘I know Briony. What about you two?’

‘I’m Fran Said, George is my husband.’

‘George Said,’ Brock said. ‘And he’s a friend of Qasim Ali’s, is he?’

‘They’re cousins. We live with them, in Chandler’s Yard. We’re all part of the same family, see?’ She took a bite of the slice of toast and honey that Briony handed her. She seemed hungry after all the drama.

‘I see.’ Brock frowned, tentative. ‘Forgive me for sounding personal, Fran, but you don’t look… well… Yemeni.’

‘My mum’s from Middlesex, and she says my dad was Irish, but I couldn’t say for sure.’ She said this with a note of defiance, then took another mouthful of toast.

Brock didn’t pursue this, but turned to the pregnant girl. ‘And are you part of the Ali family too?’ he suggested gently, but from the way he said it Kathy guessed he already knew the answer.

The girl lowered her eyes, and for a moment there was silence and her two friends paused in their chewing. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘My name is Nargis Manzoor.’

‘Ah yes. The missing daughter of the man who has the shop in Shadwell Road.’

The girl nodded.

Kathy said, ‘That was him, at the cemetery…’ but everyone else seemed perfectly aware of that.

‘How old are you, Nargis?’ Brock asked.

‘Seventeen,’ she whispered.

‘I’ve heard a little of your story, but I’d like to hear it properly, from you.’

Nargis took a deep breath, the oval of her face all that was visible of her in the black habit.

‘My dad is very old-fashioned,’ she began. ‘It’s not his fault. It’s just the way he is. He grew up in a place called Mirpur, in Kashmir, which is big on dust and religion and not much else. He followed his uncle out here in the seventies, and after a few years he went back and brought my mum out. She’s been here for twenty years, but she doesn’t speak any English. She doesn’t need to, ’cos she never goes outside. Dad takes care of everything. She might as well still be in Mirpur. What dad values more than anything is respect, from his family, and from the people he goes to mosque with and does business with.

‘At school I was good at maths, and at first dad was pleased, ’cos I could help him doing the books in the shop. I got good O levels, and I told him I wanted to become an accountant, or something like that in business. Maybe, if I was good enough at the maths, even an actuary. He didn’t like that. He told me that just wasn’t possible. I was a woman, so my future was to be someone’s wife. That above everything else. Meanwhile I was sixteen, and I wanted the same as all the other girls at school, a boyfriend and clothes and some fun. I was friends with one of the Ali girls from Chandler’s Yard, even though my dad said they were Shia rubbish, which I thought was stupid. Through her I met Qasim and their family, who I liked because they were Muslim but relaxed about it, and then George and Fran, who were at the university, and then Abu.

‘Abu and I became friends because of his computers and my maths. He helped me with my homework, and told me about what he did. He was very gentle and shy and I liked him a lot, although I knew he was too old for me-he was twenty-five then. Despite that, we fell in love. I was very innocent and knew nothing about sex really, and my ideas of love were very romantic and unrealistic.’

Brock guessed she was repeating a phrase her father had used.

‘On my seventeenth birthday my dad told me he had something important to tell me. He said that someone had asked for my hand in marriage. I was surprised, but also thrilled. I thought Abu must have spoken to my father, and although the age difference might worry him, Abu was a devout Muslim boy, and I began to prepare what I would say to persuade him, like how we would wait until I was a bit older or something.

‘Only it wasn’t that at all. Apparently my dad was talking about one of my cousins in Mirpur, who I’d never heard of. He said that he was sending me and mum over there for a few months to meet our family there, and to prepare for my wedding. I tried to argue with him, but he wouldn’t listen. I asked him at least to delay the trip until I’d done my A levels, but he got angry then and told me I wouldn’t be doing any more exams, because there wasn’t any point.’

Nargis paused to take a sip of tea. Although the youngest, it now seemed to Kathy that in some ways she appeared to be the most composed and perhaps the strongest of the three women. Briony had stopped toasting the bread slices in front of the hissing gas fire, their appetites gone as Nargis told her story.

‘So mum and I went to Kashmir. It was like going to the moon, honestly. After two months I was told to prepare myself for my wedding. I was given a present from my future husband, who I’d still not seen. This was a shalwar khameez and scarf embroidered with gold. It was very beautiful, but heavy and it scraped my skin. The wedding ceremony lasted all day, and throughout I had to keep my eyes on the floor and wasn’t allowed to look at my husband who sat beside me, and the heavy veil and jewellery stopped me when I tried. In the evening I was taken to my husband’s house, and when the last of the guests left the other women led me into the bedroom, where I put on pyjamas and sat and waited. Eventually this man came into the room. He had grey hair…’ she glanced apologetically at Brock, ‘… and was quite fat and old. He told me that he was my husband. When I said that I didn’t want to sleep with him he beat me up and forced himself on me.’

Briony had folded her arms tight round her chest and sat forward, hunched, frowning angrily. Fran was expressionless.

‘Later, I told my mother, and she said that it was for a husband and wife to work out how they would live. She said that dad would often take his hand to her, and she accepted his punishment as just.

‘My husband now began to make preparations for us to return to the UK, which for him and my father was the main point of our marriage, and about three months after the wedding we travelled to Islamabad for him to get papers and travel documents. There we discovered a problem with my British passport, which had expired, and me and mum had to fly home immediately, before my husband had got clearance. He saw us off at the airport like a devoted husband, promising me a wonderful married life in London with no more beatings. He emphasised that it was essential that my father immediately take charge of the documents that he gave my mother, so that dad could finalise my husband’s British passport application. On the flight home, when my mother fell asleep, I stole the documents from the envelope he had entrusted to her and replaced them with the in-flight magazine. I was sorry to do this, because I knew my father would be very angry with her. He met us at Heathrow with a great welcome and drove us back to Shadwell Road, and that night I escaped from the house and ran down to Chandler’s Lane and begged Qasim and George and their family to take me in. They gave me a room next to Fran and George’s flat and I’ve been hiding there ever since.’

All this time, Kathy thought, just fifty yards away from her father. Nargis lapsed into silence, head bowed. Eventually Brock prompted, ‘How long ago was it that you returned to London?’

Kathy had been wanting to ask the same question, calculating the time when she must have become pregnant.

‘Last September,’ she said.

‘And your father has been searching for you ever since?’

She nodded. ‘He was very angry of course. I had disgraced him in the eyes of the world and his family, and he felt humiliated. He searched for me everywhere, him and my uncles, and he went to the police. He even offered a reward for anyone who would betray me to him. Two thousand quid.’

‘And your husband,’ Brock asked, ‘is he over here now?’

‘I don’t think so. I think things went wrong for him because I had the papers he needed. But I think he’ll get a second chance. I’ve heard that my father has announced that he is engaged to my sister Yasmin, who is fourteen.’

‘Do they know about your baby?’

Nargis shook her head, folding her arms across her tummy. ‘You want to know about Abu?’

‘Yes.’

‘It wasn’t long before I met him again in Chandler’s Yard. He would often come to the Horria to eat, and he was almost like part of their family. At first it felt very awkward seeing him again after what had happened, and me being pregnant, but he didn’t seem to mind. After I’d been there a little while I decided to try to finish my A levels and he encouraged me. I started a correspondence course, and he became sort of my tutor.’

Kathy remembered the unlived-in atmosphere of Abu’s spartan room at the university, and her feeling that he had really lived somewhere else.

Brock said, ‘I understand that your father told the police that you had been abducted by a man.’

‘Yes. He had to say that so the magistrate would issue a warrant.’

‘But did he believe it himself?’

‘Yes, he did. People told him that I had had a boyfriend before I went to Mirpur, an older man, and he became convinced that this man must have helped me to run away and stay hidden. He and my uncle asked questions everywhere about this man, but nobody outside of Chandler’s Yard knew about me and Abu.’

‘Then how did he know to come to Abu’s funeral today?’

Nargis shook her head in despair. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I just don’t know.’

‘Someone must have told him,’ Brock insisted. ‘Someone must have decided that they’d collect the two thousand.’

Nargis bowed her head and began to weep. Brock looked in turn at the other women, but each seemed lost in her own thoughts. He glanced at Kathy, then got to his feet with a grunt and limped over to the long bench that ran along one wall of the room and reached to a row of reference books on a shelf above. Kathy gathered the plates onto the tray and carried it out to the kitchen.

After a few minutes she heard someone pad in behind her. Fran had brought in the jar of honey and packet of sliced bread. She was the enigmatic one, Kathy thought, and was pleased that it was her.

‘Thanks.’ Kathy wiped off some plates in the sink. ‘Poor Nargis. She’s very lucky to have friends like you. It makes all the difference.’

‘They’re not all like her dad,’ Fran said defensively. ‘Muslims I mean.’

‘No, of course not…’

‘He’s just very traditional, from a place where life is hard. He can’t help it.’

‘So you married a Muslim too, Fran?’

She didn’t reply and Kathy thought she’d been too direct. Then the woman said, ‘Yeah. I suppose I’ve done the opposite of Nargis, and we’ve both ended up in the same place. Funny, init?’

Fran got a drying cloth and began to take the plates Kathy was stacking on the draining board. Leaving home and coming to UCLE had been traumatic for her, she explained. An eldest daughter, like Nargis, she had helped her mother, a single parent, raise her three brothers. At university she couldn’t identify with the other girls who just wanted to party and have a good time with boys, and the boys who were only interested in getting pissed and screwing the girls. She became friends with a Muslim girl from the East End and their family, and began to go to classes in the Qur’an. Before the end of her first year she went home and told her mother that she wanted to convert to Islam. Her mum was horrified, and threw her out when she insisted on wearing the chador to go out to the shops. When she returned to London her Muslim girlfriend said that her family would like Fran to meet her cousin George. She realised that they were arranging a marriage, but she didn’t mind. George turned out to be a very nice young man, very hard working and serious. Fran felt very secure in her marriage, because she knew George was devout and wouldn’t drink alcohol or gamble or look at another woman.

‘I suppose,’ she added, still defensive, ‘you’d say I was just reacting to the way I was brought up, with a new “uncle” in the house every six months, and Mum getting pissed and slapped around.’

Kathy thought about that, then said, ‘It sounds to me as if George and his family are good people, Fran. I think it sounds as if both you and Nargis have been lucky to find them.’

Fran nodded. ‘Yeah. And I reckon it would have worked out for Nargis and Abu too, even with the baby, if people had left them alone. I still can’t believe that Abu hurt anybody. He just wasn’t like that. Qasim used to say he was too gentle for his own good. If he really did do it, then someone else must have made him.’

‘How could they do that? And who would want to?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he was conned. Maybe they told him the gun was loaded with blanks.’

In the living room, Brock was thumbing through an old, well-used copy of Butterworth’s Police Law when Briony sidled up alongside, scanning his reference shelf.

‘I don’t know about you,’ he muttered, ‘but without offence to our Muslim friends, I always took it to be an absolute tradition to have at least one stiff drink after a funeral, and today I’ve been to two. Where do you stand on that?’

‘I wouldn’t mind a drink,’ she said.

‘Fine.’ He reached under the bench, producing a couple of glasses and a bottle of whisky. ‘I noticed that Professor Springer favoured Scotch. With water?’

‘He drank it neat, but I like mine with water.’

‘I’ll get some.’

He heard Kathy deep in conversation with Fran in the kitchen and went instead to the bathroom, returning with a small jug of water that he splashed into each glass. ‘Cheers.’

She gulped, giving no reply, then pointed at one of the books on the shelf. It was one of Springer’s books that Kathy had got for him.

‘You’re reading Max?’

‘Trying to. Haven’t got to that one yet. I’m afraid I’m finding them tough going.’

‘Try it,’ she said peremptorily, jutting her chin at the book.

‘ A Man in Dark Times,’ Brock read the title. ‘That one’s easier, is it?’

‘Probably. It’s his autobiography, written just after his wife died, so it’s a bit gloomy in parts. But moving too. His experiences in the camps for instance.’

Brock frowned, puzzled. ‘I thought it was his parents who were in the camps…’

‘Not in Germany-in Lebanon. He understood, you see? He experienced it. It gave him the right to talk about it.’

‘About what?’

‘About the struggle between truth and freedom.’

Brock sipped his drink, none the wiser. ‘You haven’t told us how you fit into all this, Briony. How come you know these people?’

‘I met George at uni, and through him I met Fran and Nargis and Abu.’

‘That puts you in a rather special position, doesn’t it? You must be one of the few people who knew both Max and his killer.’

She flinched at the word and glared at him. ‘I still don’t accept that Abu did it,’ she hissed fiercely, keeping her voice low so that Nargis wouldn’t hear.

‘I’m afraid the forensic evidence is pretty overwhelming. Both his gloves and his coat were impregnated with the same gunshot residue that was on Max’s clothes.’

She stared at him in disbelief, as if genuinely unable to reconcile this with something else in her mind.

‘Why do you doubt it so strongly?’ Brock pressed her.

‘Because… because I knew Abu. He wasn’t a mad fanatic. And he didn’t hate Max.’

‘How do you know that? Did he know Max?’

Her eyes shifted away. She sipped her drink. ‘We discussed Max, as my tutor, and because he’d attacked Abu’s boss, Haygill. Abu thought it was rather silly, that’s all. I couldn’t even get him to have a decent argument about it, you know, the ethics of what they’re trying to do and all that.’

‘Sometimes people are very good at not showing what they really think, Briony. Especially if they’ve had painful experiences in the past. Did you know he was detained by the Israelis for a time when he was a teenager? Did he ever talk about that?’

Briony shook her head, the same frown of bafflement on her face.

‘And Max was Jewish, wasn’t he?’

‘But not practising. He didn’t even support a lot of what the Israelis have done. That’s what I’m saying. You should read the book.’

Brock said, ‘OK,’ and reached up for Springer’s book. ‘And how’s your work going now?’

‘Nowhere.’ She turned away. ‘It’s impossible without him.’

‘But wouldn’t he want you to finish it? Surely that would be the best thing you could do to honour his memory?’

‘It doesn’t work like that. It has no meaning now, like empty labour. I just feel sick when I think about it. Each day I go in there and sit at the table and hope that he’ll tell me what I should do.’ She pushed the glass aside and walked away.