Good as Dead

THIRTEEN

The address that Holland and Kitson had been given for Scott Clarkson – one of the other two boys alleged to have attacked Amin Akhtar on the night of Lee Slater’s death – turned out to be a fifthfloor flat in a block behind Highbury and Islington station. The lift was predictably out of action and, after the climb up five flights of stone stairs that apparently doubled as a communal toilet and rubbish dump, there was no reply when Holland and Kitson knocked.

‘We should get some cards printed up,’ Holland said. ‘“We called while you were out. To ask if you, or any other waste of DNA you know, had anything to do with a death that may or may not have been a suicide. Please contact us on the number below if you can help.” That kind of thing.’

‘Or we could just move on to the next one,’ Kitson said.

‘Can we grab some lunch first? I’m bloody starving.’

Kitson turned and began walking back towards the stairs. ‘We’ll get a sandwich or something on the way.’ She peered over the wall and was pleased to see the car was where she’d left it. That it still had the requisite number of wheels. ‘I don’t think taking the full hour would go down too well under the circumstances, do you?’

‘Probably not.’

Holland followed, stayed a few steps behind her as they trudged back down the stairs. ‘Where’s Armstrong live?’

‘Luckily we’ve got a work address for this one, so I suggest we try that first.’ Kitson dug into her bag for a piece of paper. ‘Might be hopelessly optimistic of course.’

‘Theme for the day,’ Holland said, quietly.

Kitson looked at her notes and smiled. ‘Well that’s a bit of luck. He works in a takeaway on Essex Road, so we can kill two birds with one stone and pick you up a burger or something at the same time.’

‘Not unless I want extra spit in it,’ Holland said. ‘Or worse.’

‘Well if you’re going to get picky.’

Holland caught her up on the next flight. ‘Seriously though, Yvonne-’

‘I know, but let’s just get on with it, shall we?’ Kitson’s tone was suddenly a little less matey. A simple reminder that she was a rank above him. ‘Yes, we’ll almost certainly turn up jack shit, but it’s not like Thorne’s got a lot of choice, and it’s the least we can do for that poor cow with the gun at her head, don’t you reckon?’

Holland appeared to have got the message, said he supposed it was.

‘Besides, it’s nice to have a day away from the office,’ Kitson said. They emerged from the stairwell on to the scrubby patch of grass in front of the block. There were two newly painted benches, and an old bike leaning against a yellowing fridge-freezer. ‘Get out and about, see a few of the sights.’

They both turned at the noise of a car backfiring and saw two figures fifty yards away to their left, huddled in the shadows of a concrete overhang. They watched something change hands that almost certainly wasn’t a set of Pokemon cards, before one of the figures looked in their direction, suddenly aware that they were being observed. Each shoved their hands into their pockets, but neither showed any inclination to move away.

‘Such a shame we’re in a hurry,’ Kitson said, then turned and began walking quickly towards the car. ‘See, Dave?’ she said. ‘If we weren’t so up against it, and we actually gave a monkey’s, we might have had that nonsense to deal with. So, every cloud… ’

They both knew very well that, busy or not, the chances of them choosing to intervene in a petty drug deal were slim to non-existent. But Holland was happy to play along for the sake of the joke.

‘I didn’t see a thing,’ he said, a step or two behind.

Thorne followed Mir Hamid Shakir and his friends in a slow, ten-minute procession to the other end of the wing. At each set of heavy metal gates they waited patiently for a prison officer to let them through, until eventually, after descending to the ground floor, they turned into a narrow corridor and arrived at a plain wooden door.

A sign outside said Faith Suite.

The imam unlocked the door and invited Thorne across the threshold, leaving his followers to wait outside. The room was the largest Thorne had been in since he’d arrived, white and windowless. There were half a dozen wooden benches against the walls, a wide-screen TV on a stand and a scattering of plastic chairs across a thin blue carpet. At the far end, a simple altar draped in purple sat beneath a large metal cross.

Shakir sat on one of the benches and Thorne took a chair a few feet away.

‘Yes, it is rather strange,’ Shakir said, watching Thorne take in his surroundings. ‘At the moment this is the only place of worship we have, so we are forced to share it.’ The imam was somewhere in his mid-fifties with a wispy grey beard. He was slight, birdlike, and the eyes that shone behind rimless glasses were almost as bright as the perfect teeth that flashed when he smiled. ‘There is rather more work for us than for my fellow priests as we have a little more… paraphernalia than they do to remove when it is our turn.’ He fluttered a hand towards the altar. ‘We need nothing but our prayer mats.’

‘Nice and easy,’ Thorne said.

‘And of course, we pray rather more often.’ He smiled at Thorne. ‘I am hoping that we will have our own place of worship very soon. It would be more convenient for everyone.’

‘You wanted to talk about Amin Akhtar.’

Shakir nodded and lowered his head. Muttered, ‘Yes, yes… ’

Thorne waited a few seconds. ‘Is there something you can tell me about his death?’

Shakir looked up. ‘Why he did it, perhaps?’

‘That would certainly be helpful.’

Another fifteen seconds passed. Thorne glanced at his watch, hoping that the imam might catch it.

‘Most of the young men who come to this place are looking for something,’ Shakir said. ‘The fact that they have not found it might explain why they have turned to violence or drugs to fill the holes in their lives. In here, those options are of course denied them, so they search for something else. There are gangs of course, even inside these walls, but those who wish to change their lives will seek out something they can belong to that nourishes them and shows them a different path. I believe passionately that Islam offers them that. I have no idea if you are a man of faith at all, it does not matter, but does what I’m saying make sense to you?’

Up to a point, Thorne thought. He just nodded.

‘You only have to look at the numbers. In an hour’s time I will have twenty or more boys in this room. Black, white, whatever, all praying and reading from the Qu’ran. I can assure you that is many more than the Catholic priest might expect. Or the… vicar.’ He enunciated the word very precisely, smiling as though he found it amusing. ‘Muslims are less than three per cent of the population outside,’ he said, holding up fingers to make his point. ‘ Four times that number in here, and at other institutions such as this one. Many finding their faith, you see?’

Thorne tried to look impressed, but in truth he was not surprised.

He had read about the increase in the Muslim population in UK prisons, which to a large extent was due to the numbers of those converting to Islam while behind bars. There were those who were every bit as concerned at these figures as Shakir was delighted; pointing to what they saw as a troubling degree of radicalisation going on at the same time. They held up the example of Richard Reid – the so-called ‘shoe bomber’ – who had become radicalised at Feltham YOI, and of Muktar Said Ibrahim – one of the leaders of the failed 21/7 attacks in London – who had spent two and a half years in Huntercombe YOI. Numerous reports now openly declared that those the imam believed to be searching for something were finding it in the more extreme elements of the Islamic faith.

Fuel to the fire, sadly, for those with an ultra-right-wing agenda, and to the simply ignorant who imagined plots being hatched beneath every minaret.

Worrying reading, nonetheless.

Shakir clearly saw the way Thorne’s mind was working and nodded. ‘Of course, I know how this… blossoming is being interpreted in certain quarters. I am familiar with all the predictable scaremongering. “Breeding grounds for Jihad.” “Universities of terror.”’ He shook his head. ‘It is a shame that boys who have been called gangsters and jail-birds are now called terrorists, when all they are doing is sitting peacefully and reading, and I don’t need to remind you that none of those studying the Bible seem to be labelled in the same way.’

‘Was Amin one of those boys?’

‘Amin was… lost,’ Shakir said. ‘That was very obvious.’

Thorne thought about how the governor had described Amin. Studious and quiet, with a small group of friends. ‘That’s not the impression I’ve been given,’ he said.

‘Whatever your impression, he had that same emptiness inside him that so many others in this place have. I reached out to him, but sadly I could do nothing to help.’

Thorne remembered a boy who, though raised as a Muslim, had shown no inclination whatsoever towards profound religious belief.

He said as much to Shakir.

‘I am aware of that, but what better opportunity could he have had to rediscover the faith he had lost? A guiding force which would offer hope and comfort. And believe me, such things are in short supply around here.’

‘So, when you say you “reached out”… ’

‘Approaches were made to him by several boys whose lives have already been changed.’

Thorne pictured the posse of Shakir’s acolytes waiting just outside the door. He could not help but ask himself how gentle these ‘approaches’ had been and if one or two of the boys in grey skullcaps would be altogether welcome when they came knocking on a cell door. He wondered if one of them might even have been responsible for the attack that had put Amin Akhtar in hospital.

Had his rejection of the faith been taken too personally?

Once again, Shakir appeared to have seen something in Thorne’s face. ‘I also spoke to him myself,’ he said. ‘Several times, in fact. But as I have already said, I could not get through to him. I could see that he was lost and, if I am honest, I was not surprised at what eventually happened.’ He raised a hand and laid it against his narrow chest. ‘I must accept that my failure was at least partially to blame for… what he did.’

The distaste had been plain enough in the imam’s reedy voice. ‘You don’t like the fact that he killed himself?’

‘Of all the bounties bestowed on human beings by Allah, the most precious gift is life.’ Shakir leaned towards Thorne. ‘It has been granted to us, but it is not our possession and is not ours to throw away. The Qu’ran makes it perfectly plain, I’m afraid. To take one’s life is as sinful as taking any other.’

Thorne asked himself what Mohammad Sidique Khan or any of the other 7/7 suicide bombers would have thought about that, but he said nothing.

‘Most other faiths believe this too, I think you’ll find. Suicide was illegal in this country, once upon a time.’

‘Right,’ Thorne said. ‘And in theory you can still be banged up for not practising archery twice a week.’

Shakir smiled, a few less teeth on display. ‘You used to bury their bodies at a crossroads,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’

‘Those who had taken their own lives. At night, with a stake through the heart.’

‘I didn’t know that.’ Thorne smiled back. ‘You think we should have done that with Amin’s body?’ He gathered up the files that he had set down next to the chair. ‘Maybe asked his mother and father to do it?’

The imam chuckled and stood up slowly. Said, ‘You are being rather facetious now, I think, but that is fine, and I can tell that you are keen to get on.’

Thorne thanked Shakir for his time, though even as they shook hands he remained unsure as to exactly why the imam had thought their conversation would be of any use. He felt rather as though he had just seen muscle being flexed. He opened the door and, with no more than the odd brush of shoulders, eased his way through the devoted gathering outside, which had now grown to more than a dozen.

As he walked away, he was aware of Shakir beckoning them into the chapel. Without a word, they trooped inside. Thorne guessed that afternoon prayers were imminent and there was unwelcome paraphernalia to be cleared away.