‘I hope you know the way,’ said Liz to Kanaan Shah as they emerged from Birmingham New Street station. ‘I’ve never been to this place.’
‘Yeah, I know it well. Our best bet is to get a bus.’
The MI5 office in Birmingham was a comparatively new development, set up after the invasion of Iraq had generated a burst of extremist activity in the area. Rather than send teams of people up from London, only to have to feed and water them and provide them with accommodation, it had been decided to open a regional office and post staff there or recruit them locally.
The bus stopped outside a rundown-looking Odeon cinema in an otherwise well-kept street in an inner suburb of the city. The building appeared to be undergoing restoration; its 1920s exterior was covered with scaffolding, and razor wire topped the two solid metal gates securing the site. Little more of the building could be seen through the security gates.
The entrance to the building itself was through a side door, which had obviously once been one of the exits from the cinema. Kanaan tapped a number into a pad on the wall beside the left-hand gate, and a small door clicked open. Liz followed Shah and they walked together into an extensive car park where a variety of cars and vans were parked.
In spite of its scruffy exterior, the inside of the building was clean and brightly painted. A number of small offices had been made out of what was once the entrance concourse of the cinema. Most of the doors were open but only a few of the rooms were occupied. As they walked past one door, a familiar, cheerful-sounding voice shouted out, ‘Hello, stranger.’
Liz stopped, took a few steps back and saw Dave Armstrong, her long-time colleague and friend, getting up from behind a desk. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in surprise. ‘I hadn’t heard you’d left Northern Ireland.’
‘Your spies have let you down again,’ said Dave with a huge grin. ‘They moved me after I came out of hospital. I can’t say I was sorry to leave beautiful Belfast.’
‘I don’t expect you were.’
Liz and Dave had last worked together on an investigation into a renegade group of Republican terrorists who were trying to kill police and intelligence officers in Northern Ireland. They had had some hair-raising experiences during the operation, and Dave had ended up badly hurt.
He looked at his watch. ‘I’m coming to the briefing for your meet,’ he said, following Liz out into the corridor and nodding at Kanaan Shah, who was waiting for her.
The briefing room had once been the auditorium of the cinema and not a great deal had changed. A few of the rows of red plush seats had been removed, but most were still in place. Now they were occupied by twenty or so casually dressed men and women, some white, some Asian, some young, some middle-aged. Most of them were new faces to Liz, but she recognised a few from Thames House and gave them a wave before sitting down at the end of a row near the back with Dave and Kanaan Shah.
The briefing was for the A4 surveillance operation that was going to cover their meeting that evening with Kanaan Shah’s agent, Boatman. Liz wanted to meet Boatman herself; it was crucial to find out if he knew anything about Amir Shah and how he came to be involved in hijacking an UCSO ship off Somalia.
The room fell silent as the A4 controller, Larry Lincoln, climbed on to the stage. Behind him was the screen on which the faces of Errol Flynn and Clark Gable had once appeared, to the delight of Birmingham audiences. Now it showed a collage of photographs of a young, thin, lightly bearded Asian man. In some he was wearing skullcap and robes, in others a suit or jeans. Liz looked with interest at the images of Boatman.
Lincoln, known to his teams as ‘Lamb’, began by welcoming Liz, then he turned to the A4 teams. ‘Tonight it’s the usual routine for Boatman meetings. The only difference is that Liz Carlyle will be with us. The meeting will be held in “Pie Crust”.’ A picture of a red-brick Victorian villa came up on the screen. It had a green-painted wooden gate that led to a small overgrown garden; the villa’s front door was obscured by a tall, unkempt privet hedge.
‘Most of you know that there’s a primary school along the road from Pie Crust and it gets very parked up from fifteen hundred. Then when the Mums leave, the commuters start coming back into the area. So we need to get all cars in place considerably before then. That includes comms and photographers. Comms will be tested as soon as teams are in situ. After receiving the all clear by bleep, Liz Carlyle and K will each go, but separately, to Pie Crust. K to enter at sixteen hundred; Liz at sixteen thirty.
‘Two foot teams with drivers in cars will be in Boatman’s street from seventeen hundred to carry out anti-surveillance. Foot teams will follow Boatman when he leaves his house at seventeen-thirty. Can you confirm, K, that Boatman knows what to do?’
Kanaan nodded. Lincoln went on: ‘Boatman will walk with anti-surveillance cover, by the route he’s been given -’ he cocked an eye at Shah, who nodded again ‘- to Pie Crust, where he’ll knock and enter at about eighteen hundred hours. We’ll give a heads up to you in Pie Crust when he’s a couple of minutes away. If any surveillance is detected, he’ll be approached by an officer standing outside the primary school and asked the time. He will then abort the meeting. All OK with you, K?’
‘Yes. He has his instructions.’
‘While the meeting takes place any untoward activity in the surrounding streets will be assessed in the Control Room by Dave Armstrong, who will decide on any further action. OK Dave?’ A nod from Dave Armstrong.
‘When the meeting is over, Liz or K will ring to alert Control who will check round and confirm all clear. Anti-surveillance will follow him home. All A4 please stay behind now to get your positions. Any questions from anybody?’
A few hands shot up and some details were thrashed out, then Liz, Dave and Kanaan Shah left the auditorium.
‘That’s pretty thorough,’ Liz said to Dave. ‘I see Birmingham is now hostile territory.’
‘Hostile enough,’ he replied. ‘I wouldn’t give a lot for Boatman’s chances if his pals at the New Springfield Mosque knew he was talking to MI5.’
At 4.30 that afternoon Liz rang the doorbell at Pie Crust; it was opened straight away by Kanaan, who must have been standing behind the door waiting for her.
Liz had been in many safe houses in her career. This one was larger than normal – a detached house unlike most of them, particularly those in London, which were usually flats of various kinds. But in every other way it was familiar. Off the square hall was a sitting room containing two well-used sofas covered in a familiar flowery fabric which Liz had seen before. It made its appearance in many MI5 safe houses and was known to the agent runners who used these places as ‘Ministry of Works chintz’. A couple of chairs with wooden arms, dating from the eighties, and a coffee table of light veneer, marked by white rings where hot mugs had rested, completed the furnishing of the sitting room. Poking her head round the door of the dining room next door, Liz found it similarly spartan. Safe houses were one of civilisation’s dead ends. Strictly utilitarian, they were kept stocked with essentials for making coffee and tea, but there was never any food in their kitchen fridges, which contained nothing but milk.
Liz had once had to live in a safe house for almost a week in order to keep up a cover story. They had been some of the gloomiest, most uncomfortable days of her life.
On the dining-room table, K had put a small pile of photographs; there was also a new notebook in the sitting room, and a bottle of mineral water and three glasses stood on the coffee table. ‘Boatman will only take water,’ he said, seeing Liz looking at his preparations. ‘He doesn’t drink tea or coffee.’
Liz spent some time looking through the photographs in the dining room before going to join Kanaan in the sitting room. He was sitting on one of the flowery sofas, scanning the Guardian. She sat down opposite him on the other sofa and they made desultory conversation. But as the time for the meeting drew nearer, they fell silent. Even after years doing this sort of work, Liz still felt a tension in her stomach, a quickened beating of the heart, as she waited for the phone to ring. Kanaan must be much more nervous, she thought, though to do him credit he didn’t show any sign of it.
The phone rang, breaking the silence; one ring and then nothing. Kanaan went to the front door and looked through the peephole; then, just as Boatman walked up the path, he opened the door and closed it again as soon as the young man was inside.
Liz heard them in the hall exchanging greetings. ‘ Salaam alaikum,’ Boatman said to Kanaan.
‘ Wa Alaikum as-Salaam,’ Kanaan replied. ‘I have brought someone to meet you like I told you,’ he said, as they walked into the sitting room. ‘This is Jane. I work with her. She can be trusted.’
Boatman peered at Liz, then nodded. She smiled and nodded in reply. The young Asian was wearing a white embroidered skullcap and the traditional white shalwar kameez; his feet were in sandals. His face was young but his expression very serious. He looked, Liz thought, as though he had considered the follies most young men opt for and rejected them. If the weight of the world was not yet on his shoulders, his expression seemed to say, it was only a matter of time. Liz was used to agents being scared, even sometimes cracking jokes to allay their nerves. But Boatman seemed entirely composed and serious – almost forbiddingly so. There was a rather chilly air of religious probity about him.
Kanaan said brightly, ‘How is married life treating you?’
‘Very well, thank you,’ Boatman answered gravely, like a potentate accepting a subject’s best wishes.
‘How long have you been married?’ Liz asked, though she knew from her briefing that his wedding was four months ago.
‘Not long,’ he said, then his voice brightened. ‘But I find I like my wife more and more each day. She is very kind, and more intelligent than I expected.’
Liz was startled, then realised that it would have been an arranged marriage. It was not a practice she approved of, but at least Boatman seemed pleased to have discovered unexpected virtues in his bride.
‘How are things at the mosque?’ asked Kanaan, getting down to business.
Boatman shrugged. ‘They have stopped pressing me to go to Pakistan – they accept that with a new bride, I don’t wish to go away. Especially…’ he said, and Liz understood at once – especially since he might then never see his wife again.
Boatman went on, ‘The others are going. We still meet together once a week, but there are meetings to which I am not invited.’
‘At the mosque?’ asked Liz.
‘Yes, but elsewhere also. Malik says they have been to London.’
‘Did he say where?’ asked Kanaan.
‘Only that it was in North London. They went for a briefing about what they should expect when they arrive in Pakistan.’
‘And what was that?’ asked Liz.
‘He didn’t say, and I didn’t feel I could press him.’
‘No, that’s quite right. Let him tell you what he wants to. You mustn’t push him too hard for information.’
‘He did say something about the meeting though. He said they were addressed at one point by a Westerner. Not an Asian.’
Kanaan interjected, sounding excited. ‘Wasn’t Malik surprised?’
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.