fate we can only guess at.'
'Yes, I've heard those rumours.'
'Has anyone ever approached you, or anyone you know, in this way?'
Ali stalled long enough before answering no for Jenny not to believe him. And from the look Yusuf Khan gave him, she could tell he didn't believe him either.
Dani James was twenty-eight years old and now practised in a prosperous solicitor's firm in Bath which specialized in handling the estates of the seriously wealthy. She had an open, attractive face which inspired trust, and spoke with an endearing trace of a Manchester accent. Uncomplicated, was Jenny's first impression: straightforward. Dani had waited patiently all morning and didn't seem to begrudge her enforced absence from a busy professional life.
Jenny established that she had been a law student in the same year as Rafi and Nazim and had occupied a room on the first floor of Manor Hall. She hadn't had much to do with Rafi, she said, apart from attending the same seminars; he was a quiet student and kept mostly to himself. She had seen him talking with other Asians in the common room and had formed the impression that he liked to be among his own. Nazim, on the other hand, was more sociable. She remembered seeing him at a number of parties in the autumn term - he was a good dancer and always full of energy. What she saw of him, she liked.
In the spring term she hadn't recognized him when he passed her in the corridor wearing a beard and a prayer cap. She tried to say hello a few times, but didn't receive much of a response. She noticed that he and Rafi had taken to dressing the same way and had seemed to have withdrawn from student society. They didn't come to parties or hang out in the bar as they had in their first term, even to drink orange juice. She remembered thinking it was a shame, but it had happened to a number of Muslim students. They seemed to develop chips on their shoulders and form cliques. There was a girl on her course who had started out wearing mini-skirts and sleeping with a different man each weekend, who, by the end of the spring term, was teetotal, celibate and fully veiled. Each to his own, had been Dani's attitude. She didn't blame them for being defensive when everyone talked about Muslims as terrorists.
'You made a statement to the police on 8 July 2002,' Jenny said. 'What prompted that?'
'They were coming round the halls knocking on doors, asking everyone what they knew about Nazim and Rafi. What was the last time we saw them? Who were they with?'
'Were you able to help?'
'Not really. 1 just remember telling them that I'd seen someone strange coming out of Manor Hall on the Friday they were meant to have disappeared.'
'Friday, 28 June?'
'Yes. I'd been out late somewhere. It was about midnight. I was coming through the main door, not exactly sober, and this tall man, fortyish, came rushing down the stairs and shoved past me. He was in a real hurry and didn't seem to care he'd thrown me halfway across the room.'
'What did he look like?'
'Thinnish . . . kind of wiry. He had a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, so I couldn't see his face. He had a blue puffy anorak on, which seemed odd as it was the middle of summer. I think he had a rucksack over one shoulder.'
'In your statement you said 'large rucksack or holdall'.'
'I don't remember in detail, just that it seemed strange. I do remember thinking he had a real attitude shoving me like that.'
'Have you any idea what the police did with this information?'
'No. I made a statement, that was it.'
'Do you know if anyone else saw him?'
'Not that I know of. It was late.'
Jenny said, 'My office has made contact with a lot of students from your year, yet virtually none of them seems to have anything to say. Do you have any idea why that is?'
'Because they didn't know them, I guess.'
Jenny nodded. Her own brief excursion through the university precincts had been enough to convince her that Dani was probably right: devout, politicized Muslims would have occupied a world apart.
She was ready to hand the witness over for cross- examination by the lawyers when she remembered the statement that Sarah Levin - a witness not listed to appear until tomorrow - had given to the police a short while after Dani had spoken to them. She reached for a file and turned up the flagged page. It was brief, only two paragraphs, the first giving her personal details and stating that she was in the same year and faculty as Nazim, and the second detailing a conversation overheard some time in May 2002.
'Do you remember a student in your year called Sarah Levin?' Jenny said.
'Vaguely. I think she lived in a different hall.'
'That's right - Goldney. She gave a statement to the police on 10 July saying that in May 2002 she overheard Nazim talking to some other young Asian men in a canteen on the main campus.' She read aloud. ' 'I overheard him saying that some of the 'brothers' were volunteering to fight the Americans in Afghanistan. That's all I heard, just a snatch of their conversation, but I got the impression they were talking a lot about other young Muslims who were committed enough to fight for their beliefs. I remember the expression on Nazim's face - he seemed to be in awe of them.' Did you ever overhear any conversations like this?'
Dani gave an uncertain shake of her head.
'Are you sure?'
She glanced from Jenny to Mrs Jamal, then back to Jenny again. 'I don't find it surprising - he was quite macho, the way he held himself. . .' Another flick of the eyes to Mrs Jamal. 'But what his mother said about him changing . . .' She paused and swallowed, the colour leaving her face.
'Yes?'
Dani opened her mouth to continue, but stalled, startled, as the door opened at the back of the hall and a tall man dressed in a long coat entered. Jenny recognized McAvoy immediately. He picked her out with those still blue eyes and gave a lawyer's nod before finding standing room among the young men lining the back wall.
Jenny drew her gaze away from him. 'You were about to say, Miss James?'
'I think a lot of it might have been posing,' she said, her voice shaky. 'He wasn't as religious as all that . . . not in late June, anyway.'
'What makes you say that?'
Dani turned her face away from Mrs Jamal. 'It was on the night of 2.6 June, a Wednesday. Nazim came into the bar and we got talking. He wasn't drinking, obviously, but he was fun, more like his old self. . .' She paused, then lifted her eyes. 'We spent the night together.'
A whisper went around the room. The journalists crouched over their notebooks. Jenny noticed McAvoy give a bemused shake of his head. Mrs Jamal wiped away a bewildered tear. Jenny felt a burst of excitement. At last, a revelation.
'You slept with Nazim on the night of the 26th?'
'Yes, I did.' Dani seemed relieved to have made a public confession. 'There was no relationship or anything, it was just impulsive. Only the one night. He left my room early next morning and that was fine with both of us.'
'Did you talk?'
'Not really.'
'Did you get any insight into his state of mind?'
'He was laughing, cracking jokes . . . like someone who was demob happy. And I was quite far gone, to be honest. I don't think I put up too much resistance. It just sort of happened.'
'Did you see him again?'
'No. Never.'
'And you've no idea why he chose that night to approach you?'
'I was nineteen and partying. It didn't matter enough to ask.'
'Wait there, Miss James.'
Fraser Havilland and Martha Denton had their heads together in animated conversation. Seeming to reach an agreement, Havilland stood and addressed the witness.
