Her mind was full of questions. If Malik really had cared for Tahira, would he have wanted to murder her? It certainly looked as if he’d intended to. But did he actually believe he would see her again in Paradise? As far as Liz understood, the celestial rewards were reserved for martyrs – and though Malik might have considered himself a martyr, it was hard to see how his killing Tahira would have made her one as well.
No, he must just have seen her, like the Chick Peas and everyone else at the concert – men, women and children – as a sacrifice, to be killed in pursuit of his objective. And what was that objective anyway? Was it his personal desire to become a martyr, or did he really think of himself as a warrior in a justified war, defending his religion?
Yet he’d had more than half a chance to do what he’d set out to do. He could have exploded his suicide belt at any minute – he’d had plenty of time, even after he’d spotted the armed police coming towards him. The Chick Peas would have escaped – he hadn’t got close enough to the stage – but he could have killed dozens of ‘Infidels’, mainly silly teenage girls, having fun at a harmless entertainment that he disliked.
So why hadn’t he? Why didn’t he pull the cord as soon as he thought he would be captured or shot? If he was the loyal jihadi that he seemed to have been, why hadn’t he gone ahead and achieved his aim?
It didn’t make sense. All these contradictions – to kill but not to kill; to kill a friend but not to kill strangers. There’d never be an answer now. Not with Malik lying dead on a stretcher.
There was only one thing left to do – look after the living. Liz put her arm round Tahira’s shoulders again as Fontana arrived back at the car. This girl still had a life ahead of her.
‘Liz around?’
Peggy looked up to find Kanaan Shah standing in front of her desk. ‘No, she’s away for a few days. Holiday.’
‘Well deserved.’
‘I’ll say. How’s it going with you?’
‘Fine, thanks. I’ve just come from seeing Salim and Jamila. The Boatmans. They’re adjusting pretty well, all things considered. Jamila would love to see Liz sometime.’
‘Liz said she’d visit her as soon as she gets back.’
‘Good. I’ve got something here for you both to read. The last sentence is mind-boggling.’
He handed a ragged piece of newsprint to Peggy. It was a cutting from a recent edition of the Birmingham Asian News:
Local cleric Abdi Bakri has strenuously denied police allegations that he masterminded a plot to detonate an explosive device at a pop concert. A 27-year-old man identified as Malik Sukari, a native-born resident of Birmingham, was shot dead by Special Branch officers during the concert, featuring the all-girl Indian group, the Chick Peas.
Labelled a suicide bomber by police, Sukari was found to have been wearing a belt containing enough explosive, in the words of one officer, ‘to blow up half of Birmingham’.
Somalia-born Bakri, founder of the New Springfield Mosque, claimed he was the victim of a smear campaign designed to link him not only with Sukari but also with four British Pakistanis, all members of his Birmingham mosque, who were recently arrested during the attempted hijacking of an Athens-registered tanker off the Horn of Africa.
Speaking to the Asian News, Bakri said, ‘I had no knowledge that these young men were going to Somalia and did not assist them in any way. As for Sukari, he was acting entirely on his own, and I do not condone what he did – though when the Western powers are daily killing our Muslim brothers all over the world, actions like his must be expected.’
Bakri claimed to have been a victim of religious persecution as a young man in Somalia, and said he would resist any efforts by British authorities to deport him there.
Bakri also announced that he planned to ask for political asylum from the UK government.
In the UCSO Athens office, Anastasia was typing a letter for Claude Rameau when Falana walked across to her desk. It was Thursday afternoon, the usual time for the two girls to discuss which club to go to on Saturday night. But Anastasia could see something else was on Falana’s mind – her dark eyes were wide with excitement.
‘I’ve just seen Elena. She said a policeman’s been to see Mr Berger,’ she whispered.
Anastasia sighed. ‘It’ll just be about poor Maria Galanos again, I bet.’ The police had visited the office so many times that their visits had become routine.
‘Yes, but not in the way you think. They were asking about Mr Miandad.’
‘Mo?’ she asked, not being as deferential as Falana.
Her friend nodded. ‘Yes. They wanted to know where he was. Mr Berger said we hadn’t seen him here for weeks and they should ask the shipping agency, but the police said they already had. No one knows where he is.’
Anastasia scoffed. ‘He’s probably run off with yet another woman.’ They had heard about Katherine Ball’s arrest in London, and decided she must have been the blonde who had been spotted with Miandad in a sleazy hotel.
