‘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.
Dave Armstrong poked his head round Liz’s office door minutes after she had read the message from Martin. ‘Just the man I want to see,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard from the French. They’ve been to see Amir Khan again.’
‘Any luck?’
‘No breakthrough yet, though there may be a chink of hope. But there was something that’s got me thinking. He was needled into saying that one of his group in the mosque has a bit of a thing for his sister, Tahira.’
‘Not very pious, that.’
‘Hmm. She’s a beautiful girl. And it’s somehow comforting to know that even an extremist has human feelings.’
‘Do you know which one it is?’
‘Yes. It’s Malik, that guy who attacked me.’
Dave took this in for a moment. ‘Is that all they got out of Khan?’
‘Yes, for the moment. But it could help us a lot. Depending on Tahira, of course.’
He nodded. ‘Yes. I know what you mean.’ He thought for a minute. ‘A4 have a good sense of her routine now, so I’m sure I could set up another meeting with her pretty easily.’
‘Okay,’ Liz said without enthusiasm.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘You said she’d offered to help – and that was before this landed in our lap. If Malik is going to Pakistan, maybe she can chat him up and find out when… maybe find out more about this mysterious Westerner in London. This is just the kind of break we need.’
‘I suppose it is.’ But Liz’s voice still lacked enthusiasm. ‘It’s just that asking Tahira to sidle up to Malik is like asking Daniel to enter the lions’ den.’
‘That turned out Okay.’
Liz smiled. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘Of course I do. But we’ve got to take the risk.’
‘Even if it means putting Tahira in harm’s way? Look what happened to Boatman.’
‘Yes, I know. But from what I’ve seen of Tahira, I think she’s a whole lot brighter than Boatman.’ Dave was emphatic. ‘There will be many more people in danger than Tahira if we don’t do this.’
‘Yes. But we’re asking a lot of someone who’s got no experience in our line of things. It’s not as if Tahira’s an extremist we’ve managed to turn. She’s just a nice Muslim girl who works in her father’s shop, for goodness’ sake.’
Dave sat down on the other side of Liz’s desk. She looked at him and sighed. She said, ‘I know what you’re going to say. But it used to be a lot easier: there were people on one side trying to blow things up, and there was us on the other side, trying to prevent them. We didn’t use anyone to help us who wasn’t part of the fight – and who didn’t really understand the danger of helping us. In fact, we made jolly certain that they did understand.
