She fell silent and held a Kleenex to her eyes.
'It's no disgrace, really it isn't. It's what young people do.'
'Not my people.'
'Mrs Jamal, I can't conduct an inquest without all the information . . . You do have a legal duty to assist me.'
'You've come here to threaten me?'
'Of course not.'
Mrs Jamal blew her nose loudly. 'All these questions. What's the point? You don't know who's lying. None of us can.' She lifted her gaze to a portrait photo of Nazim aged sixteen or thereabouts: a boy posing as a man. He had wide, soulful eyes and smooth, dark, unblemished skin. He was almost seraphic.
'I'd have fallen for him, so other girls must have,' Jenny said.
She waited for Mrs Jamal to recover herself.
There was a long, unbroken stretch of silence before Mrs Jamal said, 'I don't know what she was to Nazim. It was near the end of his first term. He'd left his phone here. A girl called and asked for him.'
'Did she say her name?'
'No.'
'What did she sound like?'
'About his age. Well spoken. White.'
'You could tell she was white?'
'Of course.'
'How do you know she wasn't just a friend?'
'When she heard my voice, she sounded guilty, as if I'd caught her out. She ended the call very quickly.'
'Did you ever mention this to Nazim?'
Mrs Jamal shook her head. Jenny saw in her face something almost bleaker than grief - the thought of her son loving another woman more than her.
'I'm going to need to find out more about Nazim's life at that time. Do you think Rafi Hassan might have told his family anything?'
'They won't help you. They blame Nazim. I know they do. The looks his mother gave me, she might as well have spat in my face.'
'I think I'll go there this afternoon. I'll let you know if they have anything to say.'
Mrs Jamal shrugged.
Jenny sensed that the meeting had reached an end. The air was growing thicker with emotion with every passing second. But there was one more question, ridiculous as it seemed, that she felt obliged to ask. 'When you gave evidence, you claim to have been followed in the street—'
'You don't believe me?'
'Tell me what happened.' Jenny gave a comforting smile. 'Please.'
'It started about two months ago when I filed the case with the County Court to get Nazim declared dead. A car would come and sit across the road. There were two men inside it, sometimes just one. Young men, in suits. I could see their faces from there.' She pointed over her shoulder to the French window that opened onto a small balcony at the side of the building. 'They were there when I left the house. Sometimes they'd follow in their car, sometimes on foot.'
Keeping her scepticism hidden, Jenny said, 'What did they look like?'
'Twenty-five to thirty. White. Both tall and with short hair, shaved at the sides - like the army.'
'Could you tell them apart?'
'Not really.'
'Have you seen them recently?'
Mrs Jamal shook her head. 'Not this week. But I still have phone calls in the night. It rings four, five times, then goes off. If I answer, there's no one there . . . Who do you think they are, Mrs Cooper?'
Imaginary demons, Jenny thought: white devils that look like soldiers.
Instead of the usual battle with rising, claustrophobic anxiety she fought when driving along a motorway, she felt at once removed from herself. Detached. It wasn't just the chemical veil of her medication still lying heavily across her halfway through the day; it was a sense of building unreality. There were so many unanswered questions, so many bizarre and alarming possibilities, that she couldn't make sufficient sense of things to find her way through them. Why would Nazim have been sleeping with a white girl at the height of his religious enthusiasm? Who was the man with the ponytail? Did he even exist? Was Mrs Jamal a fantasist? Was McAvoy? And why did he cast such a long shadow over her, his face hovering constantly at the back of her mind?
What was he
She didn't have answers to any of it. It was as if she had stepped onto a moving walkway from which there was no exit, only a destination that remained an indistinct pinprick in the far distance. The spirit was moving her, as McAvoy might have said, and she had no choice in the matter.
Hassan's Grocery and Off-Licence had grown into a small supermarket specializing in Asian and West Indian foods. It was housed in what had once been a filling station, the forecourt now a customer car park. The dowdy area of Kings Heath, a sprawl of identical, faintly grubby Victorian terraces, was showing signs of going up-market. Jenny parked next to a shiny Mercedes, out of which climbed an Asian couple in matching his and hers leather jackets. Their infant daughter wore a pink one in the same style.
Jenny approached a teenage employee carting cases of cheap beer and asked him where she could find Mr Hassan. Only once she'd convinced him that she wasn't a tax inspector did he go in search of his boss. He reappeared shortly afterwards with the unconvincing explanation that Mr Hassan had gone out to a meeting and wasn't expected back until much later. Jenny glanced along the aisle to an office at the back, which was shielded from the shoppers by a pane of one-way glass, and told the assistant fine, but insisted he leave her card on Mr Hassan's desk with instructions to call her as soon as he returned. In the meantime she'd see if she couldn't speak to Mrs Hassan at home.
The young man's expression sharpened. 'What's this about exactly?'
'Something that happened eight years ago - his son went missing.'
'You mean Rafi?'
'Did you know him?'
'I'll give Mr Hassan the message,' he said, quickly adding, 'when he gets back.'
She hadn't yet turned the key in the ignition when her phone rang. She waited for several seconds before answering, letting him sweat.
'Hello, Jenny Cooper.'
'Imran Hassan. What can I do for you?'
'Would you rather not talk in front of your staff? If possible, I'd like to speak to your wife, too.'
The Hassans had made money. Their home was a large detached property in the affluent suburb of Solihull with a tarmac drive and electric gates flanked by a pair of stone lions. Mr Hassan, a man in his mid-sixties, drove a Jaguar. Quiet, well spoken and faultlessly polite, he led her inside to meet his wife, a still handsome woman dressed in an elegant black and gold embroidered salwar kameez. After formal introductions they sat in a warm conservatory surrounded by half an acre of formal garden, in the middle of which stood an ornate fountain fringed with palms: a golden carp spewed water into a pool lit with coloured lights.
Mrs Hassan said, 'We've been expecting this, Mrs Cooper, but we have nothing of any use to tell you. We have long ago resigned ourselves to never knowing what became of our son.'
Her husband nodded in uncertain agreement.
'I've no wish to stir up painful memories without good cause,' Jenny said, 'and I appreciate it's not your son's disappearance I'm investigating, but I'd be grateful if you would tolerate a few questions.'
'Certainly,' Mr Hassan said before his wife could protest.
Mrs Hassan glowered. 'The police said Rafi went abroad. I'm happy to take their word. But it was not his idea. He was a good student and a loyal son.'
