Dead Line

TWENTY-FOUR

Sami Veshara was frightened. Not for his safety – since the attempted hijacking of his car, he’d surrounded himself with bodyguards – but for his liberty. He had an appointment that morning at Paddington Green police station, and he was pretty sure he knew what it was about.

When Chaloub hadn’t rung at midnight as scheduled, Sami hadn’t been particularly perturbed: sometimes the trip from Holland took longer than expected; once Hanoush had got the tides wrong and the trawler had been forced to wait four hours before disembarking its passengers.

But when Sami had still not heard from them by breakfast, he knew something was up. He began to make inquiries, and by suppertime he’d learned that Chaloub and Hanoush were both in custody. The ‘cargo’ too had been impounded, and he’d had an angry call from the owner of a Manchester massage parlour demanding to know where his new employees were.

It had still been a shock to be asked to come in for ‘a chat’ the following morning. Why Paddington Green? Wasn’t that where terrorists were questioned? A big solid block of a place under the flyover of the A40 as it tipped down to Marylebone Road – Sami passed it every day on his way home – which seemed to feature on the television each time the Prevention of Terrorism Act was pressed into service.

He left home in plenty of time, wearing one of his smartest Milan suits and a Hermès tie. One could not be intimidated, he decided. He was driven by his new chauffeur, Pashwar, the son of an Afghan refugee who owed him a favour. Behind them another car followed closely, a Mercedes sedan with two of his cousin Mahfuz’s heavies. They were probably armed, but Sami made it a point not to know.

As he got out of the car at the police station, he scanned the pavement nervously, before realising that this was probably the one place in London where he was unlikely to be attacked. Above him, cars thundered along Westway.

Inside, he gave his name to the receptionist, and immediately a uniformed policewoman led him down two flights of stairs, along a corridor bleakly lit by overhead bulbs, to a small, windowless room containing a table, two chairs, and nothing else. She closed the door behind her as she left.

Claustrophobic at the best of times, Sami had a moment of panic, wondering if he would ever breathe fresh air and see grass again. This modern-day dungeon seemed designed to play on his fears. Pull yourself together, he told himself sternly; this is England, not Saudi Arabia. I can always ask to see my lawyer.

He waited twenty minutes, sitting on one of the hard chairs, growing more anxious every minute. The door opened and a man came in. Middle-aged, conservative suit, his face businesslike but not unfriendly. He was carrying a folder. Sami relaxed just a touch.

‘Mr Veshara, my name is Walshaw. Thank you for coming in.’ The man sat down on the other side of the table and looked at Sami, his eyes fixed and expressionless. Sami shifted uncomfortably. Perhaps he was not so friendly after all.

‘I am happy to help in any way I can,’ said Sami. He tried to make a joke – ‘You know, to assist the police in your inquiries.’

The man gave a fleeting smile but said, ‘I’m not a policeman, Mr Veshara. They’ll be along in a little while to speak to you. I think you may know what it’s about.’

‘’No,’ Sami said theatrically, turning both hands, palms up, in a gesture of innocence. ‘I have no idea.’

‘I see,’ said Walshaw. He fixed Sami with a stare of such intensity that the Lebanese felt unnerved. The man’s eyes seemed to look right through him like an X-ray.

Then Walshaw shrugged. ‘It’s up to you, of course. From what I understand, the police think you have a good deal to answer for. The Dido has been seized, in case you didn’t know. There were seven women on board, entering the country illegally.’

He opened the file in front of him and looked briefly at the top page. ‘They were heading for Manchester, I understand, though the work they would have found there might not have been what they were expecting.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I understand several people are in custody. The crew of The Dido and a man in Manchester. Who knows what they will say?’

Sami’s heart began to beat faster and he could feel perspiration on his palms. He rubbed them on his immaculate trousers. Walshaw looked at him, this time thoughtfully. Suddenly, putting both his hands together, he leaned across the table, speaking softly but directly. ‘We haven’t got much time, Mr Veshara, so let me come to the point. In a few minutes you are going to be interviewed, and very probably charged. Like it or not, we take a dim view in this country of the kind of trade you’re involved in. Frankly, I’m not sure they’d think much of it in your country either. You need to make a decision.’

Sami gulped. The situation was running out of his control. Who was this man and what did he want? ‘What sort of decision?’

‘You can take your chances with the British justice system, or you can talk with me. I’m not in a position to offer you anything, but I am not… without influence. If you help me, it will be taken into account and it could prove useful to you.’

There was something lulling about this voice. Sami felt as if he were trapped in a pressure cooker and had suddenly been shown the safety valve, but without knowing how to turn it on. What did this man want?

‘What would my talk with you consist of?’

Walshaw took his time replying, picking up a pencil and tapping it lightly on the table. At last he said, ‘We already knew a bit about your business interests, and after the seizure of The Dido we know a lot more. But that’s not what interests me.’ He added lightly, ‘Neither does your personal life, for that matter.

‘What does matter to me is where you’ve travelled in the Middle East in the last few years. What you’ve seen there, and who you have been talking to about it. In Lebanon, of course. But in other countries as well. In fact, why don’t we start with Syria?’

Sami stared at this man Walshaw, whose eyes were unyielding now. It was tempting to start talking straight away, to calm his nerves, but if he told this man everything, the next time he set foot in the Middle East his life wouldn’t be worth a Lebanese piastre. He hesitated.

Walshaw said, ‘If we’re going to be able to help you, Mr Veshara, then you need to start talking. Otherwise, I’ll tell the inspector that you’re ready for him.’

It would be a great gamble. He would effectively be putting his life in this Englishman’s hands. But if he didn’t, he knew he faced arrest, trial, a prison sentence. Prison. The prospect was too ghastly to bear. He could live with the disgrace; he knew his wife would stand by him; conceivably his businesses might even survive his absence. What he couldn’t contemplate was the physical fact of incarceration. It was his worst nightmare.

He exhaled noisily, then sat back in his chair. ‘I hope you are not in a hurry, Mr Walshaw. It is a long story I have to tell.’

As Charles Wetherby listened, making the occasional note, Sami Veshara told him how, five years or so ago, two Israelis had come to his office in London. They had threatened that if he didn’t help them, they would report his people-trafficking business to the British authorities. It was at a time when he was cultivating some government ministers through a charity he had founded, and he was hoping to be recommended for a peerage.

The men were from Mossad. They knew about his regular visits to Lebanon and his contacts there. They knew he travelled around the country buying figs and other produce. They wanted him to go to Lebanon whenever they asked him to, to travel to the south and, using some equipment they would give him, to send signals which they told him would help them locate the positions of Hezbollah rocket launchers.

He had done what they wanted. He had not seen them again in London, but had met them in Tel Aviv from time to time. He described two men, one built like a squashed bowling ball, the other lean.

But to Charles’s enquiries about his contacts with Syrians, Sami gave a flat denial. He had no contact with Syrian intelligence people or with Government officials and had to the best of his knowledge never met any. He had no particular hostility or friendship towards them, he said, and Charles could not shake his story.