Free The Disappeared by M.R. Hall Page B

laughter and cast an
apprehensive glance at two colleagues who had seated themselves at a nearby
table.
    Jenny
lowered her voice, attempting to bring him into her confidence. 'I'll be
straight with you. I doubt there's much you could contribute to an inquest; I
probably won't even have to call you as a witness -' the muscles in his
forehead relaxed, smoothing the creases from his brow - 'but I do need more
than this.' She paused, fixing him with a look, trying to reach the man
underneath. 'Can I assume that it wasn't just the police who interviewed you
and others here at the time?'
    'It
would be a logical assumption.'
    'In
which case, you were doubtless told to keep the content of your discussions
secret.'
    'Believe
me, Mrs Cooper, there really isn't much to tell.'
    'I'm
not asking you to breach a confidence, but if you could just tell me whether
Nazim Jamal was believed to be a member of an extremist group - Hizb ut-Tahrir,
for example?'
    'It
may have been mentioned.'
    'This
one may be harder for you: were any other students, apart from Rafi Hassan,
also suspected of being members?'
    Brightman
hurriedly shook his head. 'No one said anything to me.'
    'Did
you make a formal statement at the time?'
    'No.
There was nothing like that. Just a few "chats".'
    She
studied him closely for a moment, wondering what reason a professor of physics
might have for withholding information. She reasoned that the university would
have been the subject of close attention by the Security Services for a
considerable period, that members of staff would have been issued with
directives to report any students they suspected of having extremist leanings
to a senior manager, that effectively all tutors were recruited as spies. And
once a spy, always a spy. Professor Brightman probably still had a number in
his address book that he was tempted to call periodically, if only to cover his
own back. To reveal all of this to Jenny would be compromising to say the
least. His MI5 contact would have stressed the vital importance of discretion:
to identify radicals the university would necessarily have to tolerate a
certain amount of their activity. If it was known that all staff were potential
informers, the extremists would be driven underground.
    She
said, 'I appreciate the delicacy of your position, but perhaps you could help
me make contact with some of Jamal's contemporaries. You never know, someone
might remember something that didn't seem relevant at the time.'
    'I
can certainly put you in touch with the university offices,' he said. 'They'd
have a record of that year group. Actually, one of our junior staff here was
one of them, but I'm afraid she's at a conference in Germany for the next
couple of days - her team discovered a new particle.' He smiled, relieved at
the prospect of their interview drawing to an end.
    'Great.
What's her name?'
    'Sarah
Levin, or Dr Levin should I say. One of our rising stars.'
    The
name was familiar. 'Didn't she give a statement to the police at the time?'
    'Quite
possibly. I'm sure she would have done whatever she could to help.'
     
    Professor
Brightman called through to the university offices to arrange for Jenny to meet
one of the administrators, who printed a list of alumni and their contact
details from Nazim and Rafi's year. Jenny took a hard copy and had the file
emailed through to her office so Alison could start making phone calls straight
away.
    She
walked back across the campus, taking the opportunity to observe the students
and absorb the atmosphere. The first group she passed were dressed in stylish
casual clothes, carried laptops and had cellphones pressed to their ears. Young
men and women seemed to mix easily with one another and the political meetings
advertised on the student noticeboards were far outweighed by announcements for
parties and happy hours at local bars. Hedonism, not idealism, was the order
of the day. She couldn't pretend that things had been that different during her
time at Birmingham.