Rip Tide

Boatmen put a hand on his chin contemplatively, stroking his wispy beard. ‘I didn’t get the feeling he disapproved. I think if anything he was proud that a convert to Islam was helping him and the others.’

‘Did he describe this Westerner?’ asked Liz.

Boatman shook his head. ‘No. But I am seeing Malik tomorrow.’

‘Ask him then,’ said Kanaan.

‘Steady on,’ said Liz a little sharply. ‘Go carefully.’ She looked at Boatman, but was dismayed to see that all his attention was focused on Kanaan. He clearly saw the male figure as naturally in charge, and looked to his handler to tell him what he should do. It wasn’t surprising, and Kanaan was his controller, but she was alarmed that her youthful colleague’s enthusiasm was getting the better of his judgement. She said to Boatman firmly, ‘Find out what you can, but don’t press Malik too hard. If he wants to talk, encourage him. But I don’t want you to give out any signal that you’re any more than casually curious – particularly about this Westerner.’

She couldn’t tell if Boatman was listening to her, as he was still looking at Kanaan, but short of grabbing him by the ears and shouting, there wasn’t much more she could say. And the last thing she wanted to do was to undermine Kanaan in front of his agent.

Kanaan stood up. ‘I’ve got some photographs for you to look at, Salim. They’re in the other room. I’ll just get them.’

In the brief time they were alone together Boatman did not look at Liz. He poured himself a glass of water and drank it slowly, without asking her if she would like one too.

Kanaan came back and put the pile of photographs on the coffee table. ‘Would you have a look through these to see if you recognise anyone?’

For the next few minutes Boatman leafed through the pictures. They were mainly of young Asian men in a variety of Western and traditional clothes, with a few older men and even fewer young women. He took the task seriously, examining each photograph with care, only to shake his head. In the middle of the pile he paused and looked hard at a photograph of a young man in traditional costume. ‘I have seen this man before. I don’t know his name but he used to go to the mosque. I have not seen him for a long time, though, and he certainly doesn’t go to the mosque now.’

He pushed the photograph across the table and Liz picked it up. No, he certainly doesn’t, she thought. It was a picture of Amir Khan, at present in the Santé prison. ‘Can you remember when you last saw him?’ she asked.

Boatman screwed up his eyes in thought. ‘It must be well over a year ago. I have been going to this mosque for just over two years now and I saw him only at the beginning.’

‘Do you know anything about his friends?’

‘No. I never knew him. I don’t even know his name. I just recognise his face.’

He went on looking through the photographs. Then, as he neared the bottom of the stack, he suddenly did a double take. ‘That is Malik.’

He pushed the photo across the table, and Liz reached out and turned it around. It had been taken from across a street and showed a young man coming out of a newsagent’s. He wore jeans and a T-shirt and was short and stocky, with a stolid slab-like face.

Boatman pursed his lips, and for the first time seemed agitated. ‘He is not a bad fellow, I believe, not deep in his heart. I would say he is simply misguided. He has never advocated violence to me.’

‘Oh, really?’ asked Liz mildly, and if there was scepticism in her voice, Boatman didn’t seem to notice. But she remembered the stubby hand which had gripped her wrist so hard, twisting her arm behind her back. It had belonged to the man pictured in the photograph. So one of her attackers had been Malik.

Chapter 26

In another Birmingham suburb Peggy Kinsolving parked her car outside a very different kind of house. A black wrought-iron gate opened on to a neat front garden; a York stone path led through low shrubs to a solid oak front door with two stained glass panels.

Arts and Crafts, Peggy said to herself. She and her boyfriend Tim had recently been on an evening course on English domestic architecture, and she was glad some of it had stuck.

A pretty middle-aged woman answered the door. She smiled at Peggy and said, ‘You must be Miss Donovan, come to see my husband. I’m Felicity Luckhurst.’

Mrs Luckhurst led Peggy into a square entrance hall with a colourful tiled floor. Peggy was interested to see the shoulder-high oak panelling on the walls of the hall. It was just as it should be, she thought. She followed Mrs Luckhurst through a modern, spick-and-span kitchen and into a conservatory, from which she could see a freshly mown lawn, neatly edged beds of shrubs, pots of flowers and a little pond with a fountain. At the bottom of the garden there seemed to be a greenhouse under construction.