The following morning he went straight to the Santé prison. He was focused solely on the interrogation to come and didn’t allow any of last night’s thoughts and recollections to distract him. A colleague had already questioned Amir Khan but had got nothing out of him. Liz had been slightly more successful on her visit, but hadn’t managed to break through to the real story. Martin had listened carefully to her account of the interview, and of Amir’s reactions to her line of questioning. He was determined to get something new out of this prisoner and not allow him to spin long and certainly misleading stories about his travels. He had some ideas of how he might do it. He had the advantage that Amir had been incarcerated in a foreign prison for a good many weeks and must by now be feeling both homesick and disorientated.
The traffic in the Boulevard Arago was light on this warm weekday morning and there were few pedestrians – tourists were not much in evidence in the 14th arrondissement. Martin turned on to the Rue Messier and showed his ID at the little window in the high, forbidding exterior wall of the prison. Once inside, he was met by a warder, who led him past the exercise yard, into the high-security wing and downstairs to the interview room.
Martin’s questions about the condition of the prisoner met with a shrug from the warder. ‘He speaks very little. As requested, we have segregated him from the other Muslim prisoners. He can’t converse with the French cons when he exercises, since he hasn’t any French. He hasn’t asked for reading material. He mostly just sits and stares at the wall – or prays.’
‘And his health?’
The warder responded, ‘This is not a spa, M’sieur.’
Once within the high white walls of the interview room, Martin remained standing until Amir Khan was brought in. He watched as, closely escorted by a warder, the young prisoner shuffled to a chair on one side of the table and sat down heavily, resting his manacled hands on the metal table top. Martin thought he looked older than the scrawny youth he had seen in the photograph. He seemed to have put on several pounds, presumably from lack of exercise and the stodgy prison food, and had let his beard grow, which made his face seem fuller.
As the Frenchman sat down opposite him, Amir Khan slumped forward in his chair and stared down at the table, avoiding his gaze. He looked relaxed but his hands and legs were shaking, gently vibrating the light chain that connected them, setting up a faint metallic tinkling.
‘Well, Amir,’ Martin began, ‘I have good news.’ Khan lifted his eyes momentarily to look at him and then dropped them again.
‘Do you want to hear it?’
Khan responded with a slight nod.
‘It should be possible to arrange your transfer to the United Kingdom. This could happen in a matter of weeks, possibly even sooner, depending on our conversation today. I assume this is acceptable to you – you can of course fight the extradition if you like. A court will appoint a lawyer to act on your behalf if you do. Would you like that?’
There was no response.
‘You understand that if you are extradited you may be tried in a British court, and if found guilty, sent to prison there. On the other hand, there may not be enough evidence to convict you, and then you would be released. Where would you go then? Back to your family in Birmingham? If that happened, I would expect the British security authorities to be keeping a very sharp eye on you and your contacts there – and on your family, of course. Perhaps that would not make you very popular in your part of Birmingham. What do you think?’
Still the prisoner did not look up or speak. The only sounds in the room came from the tinkling of his chains and the armed guard’s shuffling feet.
‘You have been away from Birmingham a long time,’ continued Martin. ‘Firstly with your trip to Pakistan to visit your relatives and then with all the other exciting journeys that you described in such detail to my British colleague when she visited you. You must miss your family. I understand they have not been to see you. Perhaps they don’t approve of your activities.’
Khan moved uneasily in his chair, then slumped forward again and said nothing.
‘I don’t suppose you care whether your parents approve or not. Who doesn’t want to rebel against their parents at your age? And I understand from the British that your father is fiercely traditional, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he disapproved of you. But what about Tahira, your sister? What does she think, do you imagine?’
At the mention of his sister’s name, Khan looked up and stared at Martin, his eyelids flickering with surprise. Martin pressed on. ‘I would have thought you would be worried about her. Though of course she is a woman, and I suppose that means she doesn’t matter to you.’
He paused and watched an expression of resentment spreading over Khan’s face.
‘I’ve noticed that your group of friends was all male. It’s almost as if you don’t like women very much…’ He let the implication hang in the air for a moment, then added with the trace of a sneer, ‘Though I gather your sister’s nothing special.’
Khan suddenly sat up straight in his chair, exclaiming in protest, ‘You know nothing about my sister, or me, or my friends!’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Amir. I know a great deal about you and your family and your sister and your friends. And as I say, you and your mates don’t seem to like women very much.’
‘That’s not true,’ Khan suddenly shouted. ‘Ask Malik. He thinks my sister’s -’
Then, realising he had lost control, he shut his mouth like a trap.
‘What’s that? He fancies your sister, does he?’
Khan’s face was full of fury, and he tried to stand up. The guard moved quickly towards him but the prisoner was forced back into his chair, yanked by the chain; the prison officer went back to his post beside the door. The silence in the room was broken only by Amir Khan’s sniffing as he wept quietly.
Martin let the silence hang for a time and then he said, ‘Look, Amir, I think your sister needs you. I think she may be in some danger from these people you call your friends. From what I’ve heard, they may not be quite such good friends as you think. But there’s not much you can do to help her, sitting here in this prison. Why don’t you try being a bit more frank? You may be able to do her a lot of good if you talk a bit more truthfully about what happened to you. If you don’t, you could be here for a long time – doing no one any good.
‘There are lots of ways in which I can help you and your sister – but that means you’ve got to stop telling lies, and we all know you have been. I know, the British know, and you know. Just think about it – and if you want to talk to me again, tell the warders and I’ll come straight away.’
And with that, he stood up and nodded to the guard, who opened the heavy metal door. A warder, standing outside in the passage, came in and led Amir Khan shuffling away.
Martin left the Santé feeling reasonably satisfied. He had certainly shaken up young Amir Khan and was hopeful of hearing from him before too long. He had got one name out of him at least – Malik. He would send his report over to Thames House that afternoon and hope that the name would mean something to Liz and her colleagues.